Stephen O'Connor

I THINK I’M HAPPIER
(Originally published in Threepenny Review, Fall 2008)

I think I’m happier than I used to be, my father said.
O, Christ, Dad!
Why shouldn’t I be happier? Haven’t I got the right?
For Godsakes! I said.
He was silent the rest of the way home.

He can’t come in, said the ticket taker.
Why not?
Because he’s disgusting. He’ll drive away the other customers.
Come on. There’s nothing he can do about it. Anyhow, isn’t his ticket as good as anybody else’s?
Just tell them at the booth. They’ll refund your money.
My father touched my elbow. That’s okay.
No, I said. This is a matter of principle.
I slipped the ticket taker a fifty, and he said, Sit all the way in the back on the right side. And leave before the credits start.

When he was alive, my father had been a rock. This square presence at the head of the dinner table. This dark silence. This sharp eye. Swift judgment and swifter punishment.
The main reason I didn’t recognize him when he first came back was his manner. I was on the bus, coming home from work and he sat down beside me. The first thing I noticed was the smell, and I was about to get up and move to another seat when he said my name.
How you doing? he said.
Excuse me? I said.
It’s me.
Oh my God! said my wife when he followed me into the house.
I don’t know what to do with him, I said. He doesn’t seem to have any place else to stay.
Her eyes widened, then narrowed.
Well, you know, I said. It’s not like he can move back into his old place.
He can’t stay here! Absolutely not!
What about the basement?

As usual, my father cried all the way through the movie. That was beautiful, he said, as we hurried out of the still dark theater. That part, he said. You know. When the girl found the rose in the bathtub—
My father couldn’t finish because he had started to blubber.

I am happier, my father insisted.
Great, I said.
Why does that bother you? he asked.
It doesn’t bother me.
He just looked at me with his one eye.
It’s just that you’re always talking about it.
I’m sorry, my father said.
Forget it.
It’s just that, before, I didn’t realize how unlikely everything is. I never understood the extent of coincidence. You know? Absolutely nothing has to be this way. There is no reason any of this has to happen. And yet, here it is! It’s a sort of miracle.

My father had been the great engine driving our lives. We had all been afraid of him, and yet we depended on him for everything. I’m not just talking about money. I’m talking the known universe. I’m talking dead certainty. When my father got that look in his eye. When he said, You park your bicycle behind my car, I’ll run it over. When he said, You worthless scumbag. When he said, You hear me? You hear me? Or do I get the belt? Well, then everything was simple. Choice equaled zero. And when he came down out of the bleachers after the game, that slit of a smile, that brick hand on your neck, that, Way to go! Well, then, the whole world had been recreated and you along with it. There you were: Driving the Oldsmobile. There you were: King of the dinner table.

I always thought I’d come back as a dog, my father said.
Hunh?
A dog. You know: A dog. Woof. Woof.
You always hated dogs.
No I didn’t.
Servile scavengers, you always said. Born to be whipped. You said that.
It was night. The streetlights were buzzing. Trees loomed over the illuminated interiors of the houses like mute giants. There was the sound of a trickle echoing in a culvert. There was the sound of our footsteps. And there was that clicking. That click-click, clickity-click.
My father said, I always thought when I came back my life would just be. You know. A big romp in the park with my tongue hanging out. All that stupid barking in the night for no reason. Sniffing the assholes of my buddies.
You’re not making any sense, Dad.
Running squirrels up a tree. Charging into a crowd of pigeons. Waiting for you to throw that stick with my big, snaggle-tooth smile and my eager, dimwit eyes.
Click-clickity-click. That’s how it always was when I went for walks with my father. Click-click-clickity-click, click-clickity. There were always at least two or three dogs following behind us, sometimes whole packs. All of them: heads lowered, ears back, fangs bared. No barking. Maybe a rumbling growl deep in a furry throat. Every now and then one of them would lunge at him, sometimes getting a piece. That’s why I always carried the stick. I had to beat them away. I would swing at them as hard as I could. I really hated those beasts. I wanted to kill them. Seriously. I wanted to crack their skulls.
I never thought it would be like this, my father said.

It was the first time my father met my wife. We were at his place. I went to the bathroom. When I got back she gave me this stare. In the car on the way home she said, Don’t you ever leave me alone with him again.
What do you mean? I said. I had thought the evening had gone fairly well, all things considered.
When you were in the bathroom he said to me, You look like you have a tight cunt.
Are you kidding!
That’s what he said. I couldn’t believe he was saying it at first. Then he said, It’s nothing to be ashamed of. A tight cunt is good. I’ve always been partial to tight cunts.
Jesus Christ!
Don’t you ever leave me alone with him again.

Phillis would laugh and laugh.
My father would attach his finger to his nose and wiggle it. He would put his feet on the ends of his arms and his hands on the ends of his legs. He would stick his tongue out of his empty eye socket. Phillis would chortle and bang her plastic cup on the tray of her high chair.
More, Da-da! More!
He would twist his head around backwards and walk into walls. He would attach one leg to the end of the other, and his arm to the end of that leg, and his other arm to the end of the first, and then he would wriggle across the floor like a snake.
Phillis would laugh and laugh.
Great kid, he told me when she had been put to bed.

My wife would leave my father’s food at the top of the steps. Three times a day she would put a bowl or a plate and a glass or a cup on the topmost step and close the door. And every time she opened the door again the bowl or plate and the glass or cup would be gone. We would go to bed. And every morning when she got up, the sun would be shining through the kitchen window onto the dish drainer, where all my father’s plates, bowls, cups, and glasses from the previous day would gleam in splendid cleanness. But always there would be those mauve and yellow smears on the floor in front of the sink, and lingering traces of that smell.

When that girl picked up the rose, my father said, what made me so sad was that she didn’t love him. She thought she loved him, but she didn’t. And he didn’t really love her, although he didn’t know it. Deep down inside they were too practical, just looking out for themselves. But they didn’t know it and they wouldn’t have believed it if they had known it, and they wanted so much to be in love, but they weren’t. And that’s what made me so… so—
Hold on a second, my father said.
And when he had pulled himself together, he seized hold of my upper arm, and brought his teeth up next to my ear.
Practical and love, he said. They are exactly the same thing. And love is exactly the same as death. But the human mind is incapable of grasping these simple facts. The human mind, he said, is a wad of chewing gum on a bed knob.

My father told my boss that I had an inflatable woman in my briefcase. And you know that little business of yours with the captain of the cheerleading squad? my father said to my boss. Your wife knows all about it. My father opened up my boss’s desk drawer and started pulling out papers. Look at this, he said to me. He’s got a private Swiss bank account. And here are two tickets to Curacao.
You’re fired, my boss told me.
Why? I said.
You shouldn’t have brought him in here.
But he’s my father! I said. He follows me everywhere.
Doesn’t matter. You’ve shown very poor judgment.
Security arrived. They led me down the hall by my elbows. A little later they came out carrying my father in a wheelbarrow, and dumped him into the trash.
Well, at least that’s over with! my father said, flicking a piece of eggshell off his shoulder.
I was sitting on the curb, looking at a centipede in the gutter.
Aren’t you going to thank me? my father said.
The centipede was missing half a dozen legs on its left side.
What’s the matter? my father said.
Why did you do that, Dad? It was a good job and I was making good money.
My father’s face became cloudy with pity. He shook his head, then released a sigh that was like wind blowing over a treeless prairie.

Machines ticked and hummed beside his bed. Rain tapped at the window. My sister had just left the room, and I was all alone with my father. He hadn’t spoken in days. He had hardly moved. I was looking out the window, down at the rain-glossy street when I heard his voice: Are you deaf?
Dad?
Are you deaf? Speak to me!
Those were his last words. After that he was silent.

No, said my wife. Not with him staring at us.
He’s not staring at us.
Yes he is. I can feel his eyes.
I got out of bed. I turned on the lights.
Look, I said. He’s not anywhere in the room.
I opened the closets. I even pulled open the drawers.
Do you see him anywhere? I said. Look.
I turned the wastebasket upside down.
He’s not here, I said. See? We’re completely alone.
A used tissue drifted to the floor.
He’s right outside the window, my wife said. He can see us. Turn off the lights.

In the morning there was a note on the kitchen table: Phillis is with me. When he’s gone, you can give me a call, and then we’ll see.

Why are you still here?
What do you mean?
You can’t stay here.
What are you talking about?
This isn’t your time, Dad. Your time is over.
I know that.
So?
So, what?
Why are you here?
Don’t you understand?
Understand what?
I’m waiting for you.
I just looked at him.
That’s why I’m here, he said.
What are you talking about?
I’m waiting for you. That’s what this is all about. I thought you knew that.
Waiting for me?
I’m your father. What else do you expect me to do?
Waiting?
You’ll see. It’s a lot better than this. None of this matters. This is all a sort of mistake. You’ll see.
And then my father began to laugh. He laughed so hard he started to cough. And then to gag. And then his bones made a sort of wet clatter as he hit the floor. But he was still laughing. He couldn’t stop.