Hello, I am the son of a Black schizophrenic Vietnam Veteran.
By: Joel Leon.
Tags: Vietnam War, Veterans Day, Short Stories

I look more and more like my father every day, more so than I’d like to admit at times.

Mirrors don’t lie. And I don’t know if that makes me feel whole, or makes me want to jump off a building. I get it from all sides. I dress and wear my hats like him. I walk and talk like him. I do the Hail Mary cross during performances and my mother tells me he used to do that all of the time. He loved to walk, to read. He would highlight parts of passages from encyclopedias. I did the same thing with dictionaries. The more I run from him, the more he finds me where I hide, always.

I think the closest thing to being God is the relationship one has with their offspring.

This person who is dependent on your love and nourishment and safety and protection; their well-being, delicately placed in your hands. What does it say about you when you relinquish that power? What does it say about your God? My father was never a God to me.

I wasn’t scared of God. I was scared of my father. Daily. My father, my father who would know when to come home, after 11pm, after my mother left for work, after we double-locked the door, after everyone else in the building and block would be too asleep to see him climb the fire escape with a brown paper bag in his hand, his breath, the Philly cigar and Budweiser variety. He would wait and then he would knock on the window, after he tried the doorbell, and he’d wait. Because his son was scared, but love conquers all, even fear. And he’d come home, if this was even his home still (you were never sure), but he’d come in and find his favorite station and he’d blast the music and smoke and drink in the living room and you’d be tucked in your bed and knock your head back and forth to hide from the sounds and the loud coming out of the speakers and wait for D or a siren or something, anything.

I heard stories.

Your father ran naked in the streets once. Your father used to shout army chants in the early hours of the morning. He burnt down a house because he thought it was bunker. He burnt ya’ moms and brother out of that apartment. D lost his mini-Spiderman record player and Rod Stewart record. You told your third grade class your father died one day when Samantha wouldn’t let you play with her Magna Doodle. You didn’t care so much about him then.

There are other stories: Charlie got Skee his first bike. Charlie would pick flowers for your mother off the street. Charlie had nightmares because he never knew if he killed children in Vietnam. Charlie quit his job because he wasn’t in the south anymore and he was grown and was nobody’s boy. Charlie was super smart, with a big heart.

He told you he was going to get a blowjob once.

I thought that meant he worked for a company that made fans. D laughed when he said that. He gave me one of those wet kisses on my forehead that stayed at least an hour after I wiped it off. D told me he Skyped with him and the first thing he asked about was me. D thinks I was his favorite. I visited him in the psych ward and I remember that feeling of watching him in that nightgown, belly as big as always, nails long and angular and yellowish, walking in slippers, and me watching people put quarters in payphones, and bang their heads against walls, and us talking, but not really. I brought him a Hershey’s bar with no almonds I think, and a Cherry Coke. He’s bald. So am I, so thanks. I reference you in the third person because you still always feel like you’re not really alive to me.

You hitchhiked once from Florida to New York. Mama D had to report you missing. I would hope you wouldn’t pick me up from school. You’re a ward of the state now. You have early onset Alzheimer’s, and glaucoma. Mom is older, but looks younger. You have been so hard on yourself. I was so hard on your shadow. But Lilah is here and I think who you are and wanted to be makes sense.

I think the pressure of being God is too much.

Too much for anybody, but really a lot for someone whose father died early too. I think out of all Mama D’s boys, you were the strongest. I’m also biased. Whatever. I think you loved me as best as you could. The psychotropics made you not you. They dulled you. Your eyes are almond and alive but you have lost so much. You haven’t met Justin, D’s first. I made an album and dedicated it to you. It was kind of like my apology for not trying hard enough. I never really felt like I needed you. Because I had D. Not every little Black boy under the roof of a beautifully brilliant West Indian single mother has a big brother superhero like D. Skee wanted to be that too, but his father dipped and fast cars called.

I thought I didn’t miss you, but when I would see a man with aged hands on the street I’d wonder if you were still dating that crack head girl you had me meet, or if you still drank sugar water. You would call Mom and tell her you missed her. I think she was the high you could never get right. I get it now. Lilah is making me see that. You can’t replace or placate that kinda love with women or poems or anything, but whatever is in you is already in there waiting to be received. That’s the real kind of love I think you needed that alcohol and your nightmares and deejaying couldn’t fix. Yup. Deejaying. I still have your vinyls. And I think ladybug will have them too, after my ashes fly.

Nobody taught you this. The government certainly didn't. They taught you how to shoot.

There's an old Polaroid I fumble with sometimes. You're staring in the distance, and I see a thousand souls in you, looking for redemption and release. I think I get the people pleasing thing from you. I think that's where D and Justin get it from — make everybody like you, make everybody love you. That want for everyone to be loved and to be loved by you. Be God. But God ain't bulletproof.

I remember I was so hyped for the SSI check you told me you'd get and you got it and I got fifty dollars from it all and thought I was only worth fifty dollars. I'm worth more than that, though. I think I learned that from you, too. Over chicken nuggets Mom warmed for me, you came into the room while I played Bases Loaded on the Nintendo and you told me the CIA was after you. And I cried. I cried a lot in those days. I don’t cry as much, but when I do I still feel like I’m six, punching walls and throwing video game controllers and TV remotes, whatever was in my peripheral to make the angry go. I tried to stab myself with knives a lot. Everything felt like the end, and so I treated it as such.

Schizophrenia. Schizoaffective Disorder. Bipolar Disorder. Remeron. Risperdal. Clonopin.

You were never on Thorazine I don't think. They had Thelonius Monk on that. That shit could ruin your life. Zeek said the mental health shit started way early on our father's side. I didn't know that. I always wanna write you, but don't know where to start. Maybe that's why I'm such an advocate for treatment, and care for veterans, and the homeless. Because I remember the nights you'd pick up cans to be able to buy some beers, and Mom would cry and cry. I learned how to soothe her early on. I'm still trying to soothe her now. She won't say it directly directly, but you were her last great love. I think you changed love for her forever. I think about how many hearts I've hurt, or the crazy that comes to me at night after an argument and pray Lilah doesn't have that in her; that she'll struggle but not like you did, or I did. She might be born on Veteran's Day. How crazy would that be?

The United States owes you reparations.

Benefits ain't enough. You shouldn't be living like this. This ain't living. But maybe her birth and life and story will be retribution for the both of us. How ill would that be, huh? Eerie how genetics catch us, stay in our blood and mind and carry us. But, we can change our history. We already have, Pops. Because I know better and she'll be better and be all the things I never could be because I will not be a God to her. Her dad is human and flawed and has hurt people and has tried to hurt himself but he's here and loves, just like his father before him. And I think, in the large scheme of things, I'm better because of you, and she'll be better because of me. And that's all you wanted, I think. I think I know you now. You don't have to try to be God. I'ma tell you that when I see you. Soon.