Father and son

My father was not a bad man. He was intelligent, charming and funny, but there seems to have been a deep undercurrent that prevented him from committing wholly to others and from bonding deeply with his children, especially with Lalo.

            What I remember of him is relatively scarce. My parents separated when I was about seven or eight years old and after that he wasn’t very much in the picture. If I were to give him a “geographical” presence from the moment I was born, he was there all through the time we lived on Louisiana Street and for a couple of years after we moved to Taxco Street. By the time we moved out of there, he had pretty much become an itinerant reality in our lives. Before that, he seemed to be a “typical” father, a man of his times. He would be at work during the week and home on the week-ends. We would all have dinner together and talk and laugh and play board games. He liked being with us all and didn’t ignore us like I saw many other fathers do. He also joked around a lot. He was sometimes exceedingly nice and I remember his being extremely affectionate to me when I was very little. I remember a time I woke up in the middle of the night and heard him in the kitchen. When I went over there, he made me a sandwich and we both sat together, talking, in the quiet. He was a good provider and always made sure we not only had what we needed, but what we wanted as well. He worked hard and made his way up the corporate ladder, like most of the men in his age group and social class tried to do. But there were also the rest of the now stereotypical aspects of a man’s life in the fifties and sixties. He drank too much, he played around, and he seemed to think life owed him more than what he could get from his wife and family.

            It would be tempting to go over my father’s earlier life and make some deep, complicated psychological analysis of his motives, but the fact was that his relationship with Lalo was difficult from the first. It bothered him that “the baby” needed special consideration. On one occasion, when my mother asked him to turn down the stereo because she had finally managed to put the baby to sleep, my father answered, “This is my house and if he wants to live here, he’ll have to get used to it”, or something to that effect. He was frequently cruel in his dealings with Lalo and put him down. He sometimes hit him, apparently harder and more violently when my mother wasn’t around to see. He acted intolerantly, made little of his accomplishments and, as Lalo grew to adolescence, became more and more domineering towards him.

            I suppose it was a relief for Lalo when my father left the house. He must have felt liberated to some extent. By then he was already into drugs so it wasn’t like things were peachy after that, but at least the fights died down to a minimum. After that, I really have no idea of what their relationship was like, but it seemed more cordial in general terms. I do know Lalo looked for my father’s approval and loved him dearly.

            So, what role did my father play in the making of Lalo? Was he mainly a negative force against which Lalo rebelled? I don’t think so, at least not entirely. Lalo seemed to have “inherited” my father’s capacity for making friends everywhere and anywhere. My father was proud of Lalo’s musical accomplishments and, apparently, became a regular of the place where my brother and his jazz ensemble played every week-end. When he died in 1998, I remember thinking what a shame it was he couldn’t be around for the new century’s celebrations. He would have loved to be there!

            But all of these are memories tinged by time and my own expectations of how he should have been. I think he loved Lalo, and the rest of us, as much as he was able to. I think, perhaps, he didn’t really know how to love or, at least, how to express that love. Maybe, someday, on the other side, I’ll be able to ask him.

Susana Olivares Bari