Why I'm Uncomfortable with Independence Day

For those hoping for some righteous indignation about the current political situation and some sort of treatise on the particular breed of hypocrisy and violence embedded in the American State nowadays... Sorry. This post isn't really going to be political*. It's going to be personal (and not in the "the personal is political" way, but the legit "this is my heart" kind of way).

In a previous post, before talking about getting rid of an abusive ex, I talked about my dad. He died two Septembers ago. He took his own life. And in that post, I explained how Christmas had been tainted for me, that when I was little, it was the stuff a Norman Rockwell painting- joy and togetherness and warmth. But when I got older, too much life happened, and as Dad's decline grew steeper and steeper, Christmas became more and more miserable. 

What I didn't bring up is Independence Day. On the Fourth, Dad would somehow manage to get himself out of bed (or off the couch- after a certain point, he stopped sleeping in the bedroom), make a nice breakfast for everyone (I think Dad liked making breakfast more than grilling, to be honest- as things got worse, he stopped grilling way before he stopped making pancakes), and start getting The Meat ready for the grill by late afternoon. He would at least pretend to be happy, and turn back into the Dad of the Year Edition of himself. If there was a video game for us to play, we'd sit around and he'd take turns with me and my two sisters (or just me and my younger sis- my older sister stopped coming home pretty early on in everything) in shooting whatever zombies or solving whatever puzzles there were with the same enthusiasm as before he fell apart. There wasn't fighting. There wasn't anger. There wasn't malice. He was funny, charming, warm. He was sober.

It was like time had shifted, or he alone had, like his old self would inhabit his current body for the day. A part of me knew he was acting, but it just made me love him more- because he was doing it for everyone else. I've only grown to understand that more, having grappled with my own mental illness and had to put on a face for people, too. Masks aren't for you, they're for the ones you love.

And I clung to that. Even if every other day, we barely spoke, or he was never sober enough to remember what we talked about by the time I was twenty-two, there, there was the proof he still cared, in how alive he was on the Fourth. The real act was when he made it seem like he didn't care. And I know that was for me, too- pushing me away out of his shame, his disgust with his own self. I know he didn't think he deserved any of us. He blamed himself for everything that happened to our family- from diagnoses to finances. I even have wondered if he blames himself for me being raped in grad school- I remember him mumbling something about how he "should have taught me to be safer" or something like that during the trip home where I told him and Mom; at the time, I took it more as a victim-blaming thing, but I really don't believe that anymore. Because while it was kind of funny and eye-roll-worthy as a kid, his tendency to take responsibility, to be a martyr, was what drove his depression so far.

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Fireworks.

Man, Dad loved fireworks. And the big ones, too. Not the little dinky ones the Boy Scouts sell. Nono, we're talking rockets and explosives, the illegal kind you have to drive to a Reservation to get. Fireworks were Dad's Thing, I would say even more so than the grill (or breakfast) (in the sense that he took so much pleasure in fireworks). And he was smart about it- he would start making trips to the Rez in like February, so that by the time Spring was over and cops started randomly searching trunks for contraband (i.e. in anticipation of people smuggling fireworks into town), he was done and wouldn't have to worry. Even if we couldn't afford steaks, we always, always had a great fireworks display on the Fourth. 

I like to describe the fireworks on our block the way Christmas decorations get shown on TV/in movies sometimes. You know what I'm talking about, how it's a sign of status or awesomeness to have a huge Christmas display on the lawn, and competition between neighbors is sometimes a subplot (if not the main plot) of Christmas movies/shows. Well, by our third summer in our house (I would have just finished seventh grade), our neighbors were actively trying to best him with their own fireworks displays. But every year, he'd still have the very best fireworks of the block. It got to the point where our neighbors would kind of crowd nearish to our house to watch ours- they'd set up their lawn chairs and wait for Dad to finish before going back in front of their own houses to do whatever they had. 

One of my last Summers in Vegas, one of the last before the divorce, our next door neighbor knocked on the door an hour or so before sunset. He had a huge sack in one hand and a six-pack of Coors in the other. He asked to talk to Dad, so Dad politely stepped out onto the porch with him and shut the door- Dad was always good at reading people, and he could tell our neighbor had something big to talk to him about. When Dad came back inside, our neighbor was gone, and Dad was holding the bag and beer. 

Mom and I both kind of charged him, talking over each other but asking similar questions, and Dad shut us up by setting the beer down and opening the sack- it was filled with a LOT of expensive, fancy Rez fireworks, the same sort Dad liked. He explained that there was a health emergency in our neighbor's family- nothing super life-threatening, but our neighbor needed to go to the hospital right away. He didn't want the fireworks to go to waste, and he "couldn't think of a better place to put them than in the hands of The King." Yes, my Dad was "The King of Fireworks" amongst our neighbors, apparently, and the six-pack was a "tribute." The guy had also said he "was sorry he wasn't going to see what The King was gonna do this year," too. 

Dad was so damn proud. 

[I'm having trouble reading my typing, here, because of how much the whole memory means to me, but especially this moment. The big grin on his face, the way he kind of puffed up his chest to be funny, but how there was a significant part of him that so meant it. ]

I remember us all calling him, "Your Majesty," the rest of the night- once we got outside, my little brother even gestured with a wave of his arm and a bow to Dad's chair for viewing once each firework was lit and said, "Yoah fwoan, Yoah Majesty!"  

It was... perfect.

And most telling, he didn't open that pack of beer until he had put the last firework in the water bucket. I told him I was proud of that as we were going inside, and he mumbled something and turned away- but not before I saw his eyes water. 

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So, Fourth of July. It hurts.

Because I miss him, so fucking much. 

I still regret not reconciling with him. 

I still smile remembering the one time he accidentally dropped a smoke bomb or something, and it kind of popped and he squealed like a little kid as he ran. 

I still remember the last time I saw him, and my chest tightens.

I still giggle when I think of all the times he snuck me over to his closet when Mom was busy to whisper conspiratorily and show me his latest haul from the Rez once his personal buying season started. Like Mom didn't know what he was up to. Hah.

But the moment I start thinking of "doing something" for the Fourth, I just want to cry. I feel hollow again, like I did when Mom told me what happened. The more I think about it, the farther I move from "want to cry" to "actually crying." If I think long enough, I start sobbing.

I don't know when I'll be able to genuinely enjoy a Fourth of July without putting on a mask, or at least pushing something down deep. Maybe never. Dad is gone, and fireworks will never be the same for me. And honestly? I'm not sure if I want them to.


*Although yeah, if you know me or this blog, you know I could totally write the shit out of a post about that.

All I Can Think About

::NOTE- I WILL write about that movie y'all are prolly expecting. I want to see it one more time, first.::

It's the Fourth of July! 

This post is decidedly not about that.

Sometimes, stuff gets stuck in your head.  And I'm not just talking about songs. 

Maybe you just saw a really cool movie and bits of a super cool and pivotal scene keep flashing through your mind's eye. 

Maybe you went on a really good first date, and your thoughts keep drifting back to that person, to their voice, their smile, how their hand felt, interlocked with yours. (Or, alternatively, it could have been a really awful date, in which case, you're reliving the angst of it all.)

Maybe you're in the service industry, and you had to deal with the Worst Customer  Ever, and the condescending, disrespectful, and/or threatening way they spoke to you just won't get out of your ears. 

Maybe you have a big presentation to prep for, but you're at family dinner,  listening to Uncle Earl tell you about the inevitable zombiepocalypse, 'cuz guv'ment, for the umpteenth time this year. 

Maybe you're worried about the direction the country is going, and you can't shake the feeling something  terrible is going to happen, and you're coming up with a plan to move yourself and your family to Canada, where it's safer. 

Maybe you're damn hungry.

I had something on my mind today. Or, no, I had the curiosity of someone on my mind today.

It being the Fourth and all, there was an unspeakably small amount of traffic on the roads- I got an extra hour of sleep, even! But I noticed that some electric signs that can be changed (usually to indicate variant speeds) said the two left lanes were closed. I merged into an  appropriate lane, and eventually saw what was obviously some sort of crash site. I couldn't see any damaged cars, though, just lots of law enforcement vehicles. The scene was on a curve, a left one, at that, so as I got far enough up to see around the last car, I saw yellow tarp.

Covering something.

And when I got enough around the curve to see the tarp close enough, I saw a head. And a hand. The tarp was covering a body, a man's body.

Now, my commute isn't exactly short, even when there's a dearth of traffic. So I spent the next twenty minutes gripping the steering wheel to keep myself in control, gripping so tightly, my  hands still hurt a little now, more than twelve hours later. 

That whole car ride, so many things were spinning through my brain, things I couldn't get rid of, no matter how I tried to distract myself with music, with doing things like reading licence plates out loud to myself.*

Who was he? Where was he going? Did he have plans for today, it being a big ol' holiday and all? 

Do his loved ones know? Did they know he was going to be on the road so early on a holiday morning? When was the last time he saw them? Kids, did he have kids? A spouse? Siblings? 

What happened that made him end up sprawled on the ground like that? Where was his vehicle?

I went to work and did the best I could, but my head wasn't in the game. It kept going back to this man, this man that I saw on the ground, cold, under a tarp, a yellow tarp that, under different circumstances, would have warranted a "big banana" joke (it was yellow). Instead,thinking of it made me feel sick. It still does,  a little.

I kept forgetting things, all day. I'd trail off and forget to finish sentences. 

There were a few times when I was able to throw myself into work with helping customers (bra fittings are magnificent distractions from the macabre). But it's the Fourth of July. We weren't very busy. I was having trouble finishing any of the tasks I assigned myself to (gobacks, markdowns, etc.). I was trying so hard not to think about what I had seen, I made it nigh impossible to think about much anything else- it was either him or nothing at all. 

Then I had to get back in the car. 

The same thoughts flooded back into my mind, breaking the dam I had forced up. 

And then I got home and couldn't stop myself- I looked for information about the crash. I found this** first. 

His name was Richard A. McKelvey, and he was twenty-nine years old.

A motorcycle accident, that explains the lack of car. But I had seen his hair, what about a helmet?

Oh... 

A new image bored itself in my brain, a man  flying off  a motorcycle, heading straight for a big car, his body colliding so hard and so fast, his helmet flies off. 

I finally cried, like really cried, not just the watery eyes I had had off and on all day (yeah, that's me, I'm a cryer). 

And I couldn't help but think of the terror he must have felt. Did he know this was It? Was he able to think of his family in that last second? Did he pray? Did he curse? Was he at peace? What was the last thing he saw? Maybe his mind went to a good memory?

I have no right to presume to know anything, but my imagination won't leave well alone. Not that it's really "well," but, y'know.

Weirdly enough, I was reminded of my ex (the one I wrote about a while back). He loves motorcycles, and had one for a while during our time together. Now, as some context, he used to drag race, for money, way before we met; that should give you an idea of his driving style, and also how he rides. I saw him ride, he was indeed reckless. Sure, he wore a helmet, but still- he had nearly died in two different accidents before we met, who was to say he'd be lucky again? I would worry about him all the time, and he didn't care (that should have meant more to me then- I'm realizing literally right now that he probably somehow enjoyed making me worry, since it was a form of control). I had started hyperventilating on my way to his place once because I passed a motorcycle accident and saw the rider on the ground, surrounded by cops, but moving. That could be him. It gave me nightmares. 

So I wonder if Richard had any loved ones that worried about him the way I had worried about my ex. And my heart aches for and goes out to them, if they did. Their worst fear, come to pass. 

Maybe it's presumptuous to use his first name. 

I feel... trapped. His was the first body I saw that didn't belong to someone I knew***, and while this is a terrible "first" to have, it's still a first, nonetheless. And I don't know how long this is going to stay with me so... forcefully. 

I don't have a funny line or gif with which to end this. All I can say is, be safe, please. You never know what's going to happen.



*I talk to myself sometimes, okay?

**I submitted the correction about the side the closed lanes were on, as when I first saw the piece (and as of this writing), it said the two right lanes were closed. But really, that's such a small thing, in comparison to everything else. 

***That I remember. My mom tells me there were other opportunities to see scenes such as this, or worse, when I was little, but she shielded me from it. I love my mom so damn much.