My father

While walking around The City with my son, I had a vague recollection of doing the same with my father about a half century ago. I remembered the brown suit, the fedora and the thin red mustache on his ruddy skin. What I couldn't conjure up was his face.
-
He left our household before I have any real memory of his being there. I have a memory of his things being there, large photographs of people in tuxedos sitting around huge tables; gathered in cavernous halls. I remember the oddly frozen faces all staring up expectantly, waiting for the flash. I remember trying to find my father's face in the crowd, almost always failing.
-
I remember his sailor hat from the The War.
-
A photo I have of him was taken before I was born. He is standing next to my mother, both seemingly dressed for a fancy dress ball with a '40s theme. She's smiling and he has the same expression I've always seen on photos of Dashiell Hammett.

-
He was thin, too thin. The suit hung on him, like it was cut for a bigger man. On his lapel is the ruptured duck worn by veterans of the war. I have a feeling the photo was taken very soon after his return from the Pacific theatre.
-
The only other photo of him we have was taken on Rye Beach sometime in the early '50s. It is of him, in slacks and a shirt, the shade from the fedora hiding the facial features. He is standing behind my brothers and I.
-
We're dressed in bathing suits. I barely come up to his knee. He has one hand on my shoulder. I don't think it was a touch of affection. More likely to keep me in place long enough for the Kodak Brownie to snap.
-
He either left soon after this was taken, or it was a rare weekend we all spent with him after he left.
-
He died in 1985 while I was living in San Francisco. I had returned from a visit to New York the day before he died. It didn't even cross my mind to see him while I was there.
-
His girlfriend called me asking me to tell him to go to the doctor. When he got on the phone, I asked him to act like I was telling him to go to the doctor, but that I knew he would do as he damned well pleased. He thanked be for being so understanding and hung up.
-
So, to me, my father's last words were to thank me for being so understanding.
-
It was his wish to be cremated; his ashes spread over the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
-
The ashes are still in a cardboard box, wrapped in brown paper. It sits on top of the hot water heater in our oldest brother's garage in south Jersey.
-
That's fine with the four of us.
=30=