2006-02-08
spring cleaning
When Dad says, "Make yourself at home," I can't tell him that I'll never feel at home here. It's not my home.
I watch Dad drag a wheelbarrow around his patio. It contains some kind of Chinese lantern, chiseled from concrete--the sort that leaves white stuff on your hands. The neighbors keep turning a weed-whacker on and off.
"Kill my lobster," says Dad, tossing his mail at me.
This is what's written in the return address. Some film festival in California, land of the crazies. I stare at the preprinted script, his name misspelled as, "Da VidNash."
I pick up something plastic in the dirt. It's a half-buried parachuter, minus the parachute. So far, I've found a bunch of GI Joes, some sparkle-dusted rocks painted with glitter glue, a life-sized owl that emits a canned hoot when you step too close.
Dad drops him in an umbrella stand and says, "I know why the caged bird sings." He dusts off a ceramic deer with a paintbrush.
"Please," I tell him. "Get rid of that stupid deer."
"I like the deer," he says, hoisting it by its feeble-looking antlers. "It's been here a long time." As if that justifies its place on the lawn. Lots of things have been here a long time. Not including me.
Dad has been rebuilding the steps near the front door. The naked wood gleams wet and slippery like skin. Dad won't let me step near it. The nails are still settling.
"Yara will trip on it. I know because I tripped on it," he says.
I can only hope. I picture Dad's girlfriend tumbling, her perfect hair flattening as she falls.
"Guess what I found under the old deck?" he asks.
Visions of dead things (raccoons, crab parts, etc.) run through my mind. No doubt, we've found enough of them.
"A diaper," he says.
I think about a radio show I heard last night--about ancient civilizations not unlike our own. Maybe industrial civilizations have risen and fallen during the length of Earth's five billion years. And how do we know that it's been around five billion years? Why not five trillion? We could be walking where prehistoric skyscrapers loomed long before the indians built totem poles in their place.
Imagine a country road, the host said. Look how quickly nature takes over. Most of what we build is made of metal. Over time, they rust. The only things that stick around long are tiles. Even baby diapers will rot, if given enough time.
"You could tell the diaper was old," Dad says.
I don't ask how he knows this. Now he's shoveling handfuls of wet dirt and rotten leaves into a garbage can. I'm supposed to be raking, but instead, I'm sitting here, wondering what else is tucked under my Dad's new house.
f-i-n at 6:43 p.m.