The End of Shame Part 3 – Bad Dead Dad

Most of the people who know me have no idea that my father died last November. The reason they don’t know is because I don’t mention it, and the reason I don’t mention it is that I expect my reaction will disappoint them. The strongest emotion I felt in the days following his death was relief. No remorse. No sadness. No joy - just this gently dawning sense of peace within myself. As I told Dan, I was just so glad to know that I really didn’t have to see him again.

As I have mentioned before, my father was a mean, paranoid, misogynistic, drunk gambler. He was cruel and at times violent toward his children. I know this description fits a lot of dads – I’m not trying to say that mine was the worst. I’m just saying that he was a dick of a person. Especially as he aged and allowed his body to be eaten up by various addictions, poor diet, lethargy and depression, he really had no charms, other than an impressively acidic sarcasm that I seem to have inherited to some degree. That quality on its own isn’t too endearing. And, seeing as he had never shown me any tenderness or affection or concern for my well-being, I eventually decided that I didn’t owe him any daughterly loyalty.

Several years ago, I secretly encouraged my mother to leave my father and the last time I saw him was the day I helped her move out of the house where I was raised. He and I didn’t speak much that day. He made a few attempts to contact me over the next two years, including once when he showed up at my workplace unannounced (thankfully, I wasn’t there). These half-hearted attempts to reconcile an empty relationship really pissed me off. I was also pissed at the rest of my family for pretending to see some secret, redeeming greatness in him, just like the proverbial emperor’s new clothes. So, I stopped talking to the lot of them for a while.

After the surprise visit at my job, I didn’t hear anything from or about my father for well over a year. Then, about three years ago, a flurry of in-family group emails informed me that he had disappeared from his apartment in Nevada. He was missing for several days before my mother tracked him down in a Vegas hospital. He had suffered brain damage when he drunkenly fell and hit his head at a casino. After a couple of decades of steadily deteriorating health, including a stroke, two heart attacks, and quadruple bypass surgery, he had finally drunk himself into a nursing home.

That time he went missing was a turning point for me. I happened to be really unhappy then and had been drinking a ton all summer. Hearing about my father’s disappearance made me slow down and sober up. His reappearance as a vegetable was an even bigger eye-opener. But the unexpected happy part was that I also had the relief of knowing he was physically incapable of popping up in my world. And that was about the time I stopped hating my father so much.

A lot of people don’t understand that’s the best part of estranging yourself from someone you despise – you don’t have to hate them anymore. I don’t enjoy hating anyone, walking around with that shit in my soul. I’d rather let it go. Turns out, letting go is a lot easier when your foe is gone.

When my father’s life ended, he left behind a pretty meager version of himself. Even I can admit that he once cast a much brighter light – never from his heart, but definitely from his brain. I can’t see that his death was so bad for anyone, even himself. Given that, and my void of love for the man, I find myself occasionally referring to his death quite nonchalantly. And you know what? People can’t handle that shit. I have had the following interaction twice this summer: someone asks me, “Hey Tara, where does your father live?” and I casually respond, “He’s dead”. Then that person says, “What? Huh?” so I repeat, a bit louder, “He’s dead”. But then, that person continues to pretend they can’t hear me until I say, in a soft tone, “He passed away” and they say, “Oh, I’m so sorry!” and I say, “Thank you” or “It’s okay” or some other thing that will make them feel more comfortable about my bad dad’s death. I guess that, because I’m generally a pretty nice person, they don’t want to think of me as being so callous. What they don’t know is that the day I decided I wanted my father out of my life was the day I started to really live.

Ode to Freddy

Freddy, please come back. I need you to cut my hair.

I met my favorite hairdresser in March of 2002. I'll call him Freddy. He was the guy who happened to catch me when I walked into the salon on Main Street in Ann Arbor. I don't know if I had ever been to a salon before. After years of scoring free cuts from ambitious friends with varying levels of skill, and a few trips to some very confused barbers, I was ready for a real lady's coif. This was because I was going to a party that evening where I was sure to run into a much-mourned and recent ex. My desire to look fabulous actually trumped both my frugality and fear of feminine grooming combined.

You see, I never learned how to do hair or makeup, beyond the basic application of lipstick to mouth or elastic band to ponytail. For the most part, I never really cared to learn. I think I had always feared the salon because I anticipated that my life would temporarily become a montage makeover scene from a 1980's teen comedy flick and then I would be responsible for blow-drying, styling, spraying or rubbing mousse into some unwanted monster on top of my head. I wanted to look good, but not at the price of having to do a lot of extra stuff in front of a mirror. I told Freddy right off the bat, "I don't do anything with my hair, ever" and asked for a no-maintenance bob. He simply nodded and got to work.

I think the first thing that struck me about Freddy was that he didn't seem to be gay. It didn't matter, but it was curious. I mean, he was definitely excited about hair, particularly his own rockabilly pompadour. But aside from that, I didn't get much of a gay vibe from him. When he started telling me about his fiancée (who had a woman's name), my suspicion was confirmed. Half a second later, he said, "Yeah, I know. I'm a hairdresser and I'm not gay. How weird is that?" After mocking himself, he moved on to me. "I think I'm going to give you one of those really severe bobs, the kind where it's super short and buzzed in the back and really long up front. You can be like one of those chicks in high school who listened to The Smiths a little too much". I'm sure he had already figured out that I was that chick in high school (minus the severe bob).

That was the best thing about Freddy. He was hilarious. I think he sensed that I was uncomfortable with the feminine grooming ritual, so he distracted me with a lot of funny stories and smart-ass observations about pop culture. Or maybe he just liked that I cracked up at all of his jokes. Anyway, I actually enjoyed my visits to him because he entertained me. He had good taste in music and movies and would ask me what was happening at the theater where I worked. He liked to talk about how fucked up his family was and we would compare notes on dysfunctional upbringings. It was so much fun. Getting an awesome haircut at the end of the half hour seemed like a special and unrelated bonus.

And the haircuts were awesome, exactly what I wanted. I didn't need to do a thing to make it look good and they always grew out really nicely. That last part was the key, since I am incredibly lazy about getting my hair cut. Sometimes I would run into him on the street and I could tell from his curt greeting that he thought I was cheating on him with some other hairdresser, simply because he hadn't seen me in ages. Then he would catch a glimpse of my split ends, roll his eyes and say "I'll see you soon". He was very proud of his work.

One time I ran into him when I was on a date with a guy I'll call Lucas. Lucas was an ex-Marine who was really into being masculine. I think he expected to frighten me with his motorcycle and his cigars and his tattooed buddies, but I just thought of him as a maven of manly pastimes, which is just a fancy way of saying that he was a big nerd. Anyway, Lucas took me to the home of one of his muscleman pals for a televised boxing match. It was a sausage fest. There was a lot of smoking and cursing and one dude showed up with his bull dog. Needless to say, I was the only girl, that is, until Freddy arrived with his fiancée (Freddy's best friend happened to be our host). His initial shock in seeing me there was surpassed only by his bitterness in not having seen me in his chair for at least nine months. I kept saying, "I know, I know, it looks terrible!" He groaned and said, "Come on, let me see it". I pulled out my hair band and let my shaggy mane fall to my shoulders. He inspected my locks, grinning smugly and saying, "Actually, it still looks pretty awesome". Lucas stood by, looking very confused. I think I successfully upturned his grand show of pugilism and pit bulls.

When I found myself in Freddy's chair a week later, he grumbled, "How do you know that guy Lucas, anyway?" I didn't need for Freddy to point out that Lucas wasn't the right guy for me, as I had already sensed it myself. But, I was sort of touched by his subtle concern (the funny thing is that I think he and Lucas later became good friends). In fact, I feel like Freddy often, inadvertently shined a light on the worst aspect of whatever dumb relationship I was in at the time. About a year later, I was telling him about another dude I was dating, who I'll call Jeff Howard. He merely joked, "Oh, he's one of those 'last name is a first name' guys". I picked up his lead and started joking about the number of serial killers who have first name last names, and then said, "Yeah, for all I know, he is a serial killer! I hardly ever see him!" I suddenly realized, while Freddy was rinsing my hair, that although I had been dating Jeff for months, I really didn't know anything about him. I broke up with him shortly thereafter.

My next visit with Freddy would be my last. I was about to move to Detroit and wanted one last cut before I left town. I remember sitting in that salon on State Street (by that time, he had moved to the younger hipster salon by the UM campus) assuring him that I would be faithful to his service even though I was moving. Actually, I didn’t get my hair cut once while I was living in Detroit. Poverty and laziness conspired with the sense of security that comes from looking like a shaggy weirdo in the gritty city (I liked to think of my dressed-down style as “crackhead repellant”). But when I got a job in Ann Arbor, and moved to Ypsi, and was ready to return to a better groomed version of myself, I gleefully galloped down to State Street to make an appointment on an early autumn day.

The hipster receptionist’s eyes were heavy with the suggestion of juicy gossip when she drawled, “Freddy doesn’t work here anymore,” but she wasn’t willing to give me the full story behind his departure. She merely implied that a bridge had been burned. “I don’t know… I mean, I really don’t know where he is,” she paused for the final blow. “I don’t even have his cell phone number”.

And just like that, I lost my hairdresser. I made an appointment with another stylist and then cancelled it. I tried to find Freddy, in vain. A couple months later, I gave up and scored a free haircut from a friend. And in the sticky heat of last week, I finally booked an appointment at the salon on Main Street, hoping that I might strike gold twice. There, I met a boisterous chatterbox who I’ll call Trudy. Trudy was clearly appalled by my lack of maintenance. Again, I began by saying, “I really don’t do anything with my hair,” but before I could tell her exactly how I wanted my bangs cut, she was off and running with her scheme. “Sideswept bangs!... they’re all the rage!... after all, who wants short bangs right away?.. you can always cut more later, but you can’t put back what’s gone… and don’t worry, I’ll show you exactly what you need to do at home to make it look AMAZING!!!”

Well, my 1980’s teen movie montage nightmare came to life, but it wasn’t that bad. Learning is a lot more interesting to me than it used to be. It was kind of nice to finally get a lesson in hair care. The 25 year old me would have been mortified by the experience, especially when Trudy cooed, “Oh my god! It’s going to be so fun for you to have an actual hairstyle instead of just long hair hanging!!”

Before I went to that appointment, I told Dan that I felt like a despondent parent who had finally given up on recovering their kidnapped child. I thought that going to Trudy would make me feel better, and it did in the sense that I got a really nice hair cut. She did a great job, but I won’t be going back. It wasn’t her pushiness that deterred me as much as the fact that she didn’t listen to a thing I said, and worse than that, she didn’t make me laugh even once. The experience made me miss old Freddy even more. I walked away from the salon with a lighter head, but my heart was a bit sunken with melancholy – not unlike a high school girl who listens to The Smiths a bit too much.