My first memory of my father is in a grocery store. He was flipping through a magazine at the cash. Looking over his shoulder and then at me, he slid the magazine into his tartan trench-coat. He tipped his hat and whispered, “Our secret.”
I don’t know why I remember that, the inception of our league of sneakiness.
He always wore a hat. A bowler hat, a porkpie hat, a fedora, a cowboy hat. A toque that was too small in the winter months. Sometimes a balaclava for fun, to scare the neighbours. He covered his red hair like it was toxic, shameful. The only place I saw him without a hat was in bed. Once, in the middle of the night, he thought he heard a burglar. He ran upstairs, screaming that he would kill the sonofabitch. He hadn’t taken the time to put a stitch of clothing on, but he was wearing a fedora.
It was just me and a middle-school boyfriend sneaking in before dawn.
When I was a kid I liked his hats. They reminded me of Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill, Indiana Jones; men with purpose.
Eventually, I realized, much to my gloom, that you can’t just dress the part.
My next few memories are all identical, my father hurling his beliefs about politics, about God, about the expiry date of coupons on some unsuspecting victim, defending himself against some imagined slight.
“Don't piss in my ear and tell me it's raining!”
I’d stand in a corner, staring at my patent-leather shoes silently waiting until he finished. Afterwards he’d ask, do you want me to tell you why I did that? I would always say no, even if I did. Then he would answer, because it’s not your job to tell people what they want to hear. Once I asked, who’s job is it, then?
Apparently, I’d misunderstood him completely.
When I was twelve, his lies became so exquisite I wept myself to sleep each night.
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