Daddy Dearest

I was sixteen years old when I killed my father for the first time. I was sitting on my bed with my notepad trying to work out a tune when he stumbled through the door reeking of smoke and booze. Learn to knock, I said. He grimaced through whatever haze consumed him and mumbled, you’re mine. It was a cold January night and I was wearing my leather jacket with all the drawings and pins. He fell on top of me and fumbled with the zipper, cursing when his finger got caught. I always hated that zipper. That night it was my lucky charm. I kneed him in the balls and he squealed, letting go. He grabbed my hair and slammed my face against my desk. I bit my tongue and tasted metal as my vision blurred. I run my palms across the floor as he dragged me down and sat on top of me, heaving. Something sharp was on the tip of my finger and I frantically closed my fists. His hands were on my throat just as I jammed the pencil in his ear. He mewled and pissed himself while I pushed my way up. He was on the ground, face first. Next thing I knew I was stomping on his exposed neck with a heavy thud and a crack. Those old combat boots were good for something after all. He lay there soggy and limp and I screamed at him, get up, get the fuck up.

When the cops came calling I was curled up downstairs smoking the last of his pack. I spent a few months in juvie while being paraded in court until our history and his record worked in my favour. There was no wailing mother to comfort or condemn me. She had skipped town a long time ago – who can blame her? - and they didn’t manage to track her down. I’d been stuck at home with him for years. He must have known I was getting ready to fly the nest too. A requiem for a runaway. He’d never tried to touch me before, though he didn’t do much else than drink either. At school there were always the same stories going round: the time dad went on a rampage during New Year’s Eve wrapped in Christmas lights and little else; the time he chased a priest around the block for “looking at him like he was God’s own dumpster fire”; the time he was discovered lovingly cradling a tire iron in his sleep at our school yard. There was no place for me in class anymore and I ended up spending most of my time partying and singing in my boyfriend’s band. That boyfriend was outlived by what became my own band and that band was eclipsed by the pleasures of the poison. I was following in my dad’s glorious footsteps.

Self-defence was the ruling of the day and I was deemed troubled but potentially salvageable. In an effort to block my descent into delinquency I was sent to a foster home with a perfectly nice and gentle couple who treated me like a ticking time bomb at all times. I felt more broken than ever but I didn’t shriek and shatter as everyone thought I would. I just left as soon as I turned eighteen and I didn’t look back. I worked as a waitress for longer than I should but I never stopped writing songs and yelling at a microphone until more people were mad enough to pay to see me unravel on stage with my adopted family of the baddest bitches in the land.

As I reinvented myself, so did he. He was there for me time and time again.

He was there in that bar when I celebrated six months of making a living as a bona fide tortured artist by drinking more rum than my body could handle and puking my guts out on a muddy toilet floor. The lights were flickering and the walls were coated with grime. As I lay kneeling I heard his shuffling gait. He was right behind me and his ragged breath made my skin crawl. I turned and instantly recognised him though his face was teeming with maggots. His hands were on my throat again but his grasp was more feeble than I remembered. Do it, I thought. This is my bed and I’ll lie in it. He found his strength and I couldn’t breathe. My next thoughts were: not here; not like this. I can’t die smelling of puke and shame. I put my thumbs into his eyes and dug deep for all I was worth. He left a rattling cry like a drill running out of steam and crumbled all around me. I blindly crawled out of that place and took long, cold lung-fulls of air until I sounded human again. I went back the next day and there was no trace of him.

He was in the crowd at my first gig as a headliner. Our band was called Die Daddy Die. Too obvious? Well, fuck you. While everyone was flailing and thrashing he stood still in quiet menace. I shone bright in the stage light and I didn’t stop singing even though all I could see was his half-chewed face looking up at me. He looked wary somehow, like he didn’t fully want to be there but something was driving him on. During my crowd-surfing big finale he put his cold hands on my shoulders and tried to keep me for himself away from the rest of them. They didn’t let him. He was pushed out of my sight and the lights went out. In the darkness he found me once more and put his frozen mouth on top of mine. I flipped open the switchblade that I had learned to carry everywhere and stabbed him until I lost count. Yet again he fell apart and I felt the familiar short-lived triumph. The lights were on and I was pulled to my feet by smiling strangers. If there was any blood on me, no one said a thing.

He was there the night I spent on Frank’s yacht. Frank ended up being majorly disappointed when I wouldn’t fuck him despite his promises of fame and fortune with his record company. I still had some dregs of dignity left and by then I’d embraced the fact that I was way more into women anyway. I was gazing at the water while he sulked below deck when dad climbed on board. He was bloated with barnacles and radiating rage. An eel slid out of his gaping mouth and his skin was the colour of the ocean. He lunged at me but I was way ahead; I tackled and threw him over the railing where he disappeared with barely a splash. I waited for him to break the surface and climb back up but the sea remained calm until daybreak.

He was there soon after I first met Angie. She had been hired as a photographer for one of my tours and our relationship remained professional for about half a day. I felt strangely at ease with her early on and that scared the shit out of me. I tried to put some distance between us but she saw through my bullshit. She wasn’t going anywhere and I couldn’t be more thrilled. The morning after we slept together for the first time he was waiting for me in the bathroom with a razor in each hand. He was predictably slow and I took hold of both blades and plunged them in his throat. As he chocked on his own blood Angie knocked on the door and asked, is everything ok in there? All’s well, I answered. Just thinking about my dad.

He was there when I found mom’s address and paid her a visit only to discover she had died of a respectable heart attack a few years back surrounded by her distressed and loving family. When I went to visit her grave I found him bent over in fits of dry laughter at the foot of her tombstone. He was trying to dig her up and although I owed her nothing I had to put an end to that. I brought back half a can of gasoline from the trunk of my car and doused him in it. He made a grab at my ankles and in response I threw my favourite lighter at him. Worth it. He roared and tried to climb outside but the flame was faster and it didn’t take long until he smouldered in a heap of crackling flesh and blackened bones. So much for a tearful reunion with my mother.

There were plenty more scuffles along the way but I forget the details. Once you’ve dispatched your stubbornly reanimated father’s corpse for the tenth time it all starts to blend together, you know? He’s been a steady presence all along and I’ve never let him get his way. Never, that is, until today. Today he is dragging his feet next to the hospital bed while I listen to the monitor’s steady beeps with my eyes closed. The poison finally corroded my insides beyond repair but I got some laughs along the way. Can anyone ask for anything better? I can hear him pacing across the room, which reeks of rot and damp earth. I know that he’s waiting for me to acknowledge him and there’s no one else here now. A few of my oldest friends – the ones that made it so far – stood by my side until nightfall but I sent them home to rest when I felt him close. As for a family, I’d never wanted children and Angie went and died before me. I wanted to be first but she wouldn’t let me win in this either. I picture her sitting on some heavenly bar stool and laughing her ass off. What are you still doing down there, she shouts. Get over here and get trashed with me.

Don’t worry. I’m not far behind. There’s one last thing I have to do. All I was ever really good for is punk and patricide and here’s my last chance. I open my eyes. He creeps into bed and wraps his rotting arms around me. I hold him close. His eyes are the absence of warmth and colour and his touch is light. I hold him tight. Tighter, ever tighter as my muscles ache and tears are rolling down my face. He disintegrates for the last time with a parting rattle that becomes my own. Where I go, I’m not coming back. Where I go, he will not follow.