Back Pocket

The waterproof box was buried deep behind a pair of camel colored worn-out leather boots that her father never parted with despite being unwearable, covered in salt stains with holes in the soles and toes. She opened the box to reveal old bills, faded polaroids of her father with his father, both wearing rugby striped shirts with the same longish surfer-style tousled hairdo. Her father never had hair like this during her life. It was cut short and under a baseball cap or a grey felt fedora that he had made as a replica of his grandfather’s. Underneath the ticket stub commemorating a show with a band she couldn’t imagine her father ever being a fan of, she uncovered a series of notebooks of various size, color and weight. She opened the oxblood book on top and found a sketch of a figure; a 3/4 view of a woman’s back, faceless but for a line hinting at a profile. She thought perhaps it was a study of a volunteer model in art school or from memory or most likely, her mother one morning. This particular notebook housed sketch after sketch, each image in black pen highlighting her father’s skill with simple lines, form and pleasing likenesses to each subject. The orchid drawn on the middle page of the book looked more like the beautiful purple orchid that grew in her childhood kitchen than it did in her vivid memory. The sketch of the simple lines of his fruitless invention, improving upon the toaster oven, brought a small smile to her face. The afternoon he told her how his idea would better the mundane machine was a scorching summer day in the San Fernando Valley. The memory of it as glistening and hazy as the inferior mirage on the 101 she saw earlier that day on the drive to the now uninhabited mid-century modern home. She wanted to ask him everything. That was always true. Since she first saw his face moments after she was born and looked at him like a long lost friend, she wanted to know his mind, in a way to know herself. Their minds were the same and she liked verifying it. How would the internal heat coil operate, would there be a copper element? Usually she was so in awe of him she would freeze before she could share all of her thoughts and questions with him, fearful that she would say something uninteresting and she would see disappointment or boredom in his eyes. She wouldn’t dare ever take that chance and always thought there was time enough to ask later, when she was older. Maybe, she used to think, if they went on a road trip she would feel a new closeness with him or new fearlessness and be free and open.

How did he want to be buried? Did he even want to be? Knowing him he would want a hand-carved casket made of the finest redwood with mahogany inlay. If not the best, then he would want nothing. She had no way to pay for anything worthy of her father, so she found herself at an impasse regardless. She took every advantage she could to feel as guilty as possible since she had not made it to the hospital in time to say goodbye. One was not supposed to be so young as to lose both their parents before they could rightfully call themselves an adult. She continued to search through his papers for some clue as to his posthumous preferences. Maybe she could turn him into a diamond and she could carry him in her pocket. Why didn’t she think of this for her mother? If she were ever a mother would her daughter love her father more as well? Probably.

She opened a coverless notebook next. List after list after list. Tiny boxes stood at the margin ready to be announced with an x once the task had been completed. Types of chairs, how many of each. Names, places, crew names. Directors he would like to work with someday. More lists:

Towels blue and white

Soap ( 5 varieties)

Toothbrushes (ND)

Bathmat

Bath toys

Shower curtain

Plants?

Face creams

Toothbrush holder

Had this been a scene set in a bathroom or did her parents redecorate? List after list. All accomplished. On to the next one. This is what he was doing on the days she woke, had breakfast, brushed her teeth, school, tae kwon do, dinner, brushed her teeth, went to bed and didn’t breath the same air as her father for even a moment. She continued pouring over each page. She could see her father’s days, his life, in increments of things made, to be made, recreated, sourced. She loved seeing his days that were filled with fantasy:

Emerald necklace

18th century snuff box

Writing table

Crystal water glasses

And she loathed thinking of the days that were filled with banal existence:

Cafeteria tray

Plastic utensils

Apron

Yellow pencil

It was magic hour now and the shades of blue in the sky streamed in and washed over her and the remains of her father’s life that had yet to be packed up, sorted by type: throw away, give away, keep. A neighborhood dog barked at some innocuous threat. She closed the canvas book that commemorated his years of summer camp, in rural New York where he learned skills he used up until his last days. Feeling odd and like an intruder after having read his teenage love note to a crush, she sat back against the white bedroom wall. She felt full and starving simultaneously. Maybe it was better to keep these items but let her father have his dignity and shut them up never to be opened again. His memories could dance upon the pages with the covers closed and live their own lives. He could always be 16 and driving his first stick shift, always 20 living abroad and smoking his first hand rolled cigarette, always falling in love with her mother. But maybe only if she kept them shut. If she opened them, would the words dance out into the atmosphere and these moments gone with him? She looked down into the box as there was still one black leather notebook left that she had not noticed before. She held it, felt its weight and studied its scuff marks. This was not simply a notebook with musings, it was thick and held relics that were taped, stapled and otherwise fastened to adhere for eternity to these pages, a treasure box. The first page was a scribble drawing of her own from her childhood. She was a precocious talent with an eye for style and proportion. He had made his own scribble mark on the page opposite, an unending swirl, looping in on itself, a version of her work. It was an early collaboration of theirs. Chaos and stardust in crayon and ink that connected them, their ideas, their minds and hearts. She held her breath as her mind buzzed with a memory from a particular day which was the first of a hundred or more. Her father invented a kind of holiday for the two of them. In the mornings on these blessed days, she would happen upon tiny slips of paper strewn about the house, starting with a riddle and leading from one clue to the next and finally would culminate at a prize, usually a rare coin or perhaps a prop made to look like it derived from a centuries old pirate’s booty. They were all equally valuable to her. They came from her own kind pirate captain who disappeared on adventures only to return with loot for her that made his absence from home have a somewhat silver lining, a grey lining?

As she dug deeper, a new version of her father emerged, a ghost of sorts. The private lives of parents are eerie and usually unknowable until they have no say in the matter and their children rummage through their private thoughts, memories, trinkets and souvenirs. She felt like the parent now. Thinking of her poor father feeling unwell and progressively more unwell until at last his heart gave it’s final beat, “Ba dah”, like an unfunny joke. Her shoulders heaved up and down as she wanted to weep but her body would only let her give a tearless wail as days of crying had left her dehydrated. She succumbed as she would have been powerless to stop it and no one was watching anyway. One page of this book where the binding was most worn and broken, kept flopping open. It had a small envelope glued to it whose belly was full. She unlaced the thin red string that held it closed and pulled out its precious contents. A note.

“ Of course you found it. You always do. One more hunt for you and this one will be worth your while. There is only one clue and you shall find what I have saved for you. It’s important that you go look right now. This will guide you to my “ bank” of sorts. I hope this makes up for the days we missed together.

Clue: Remember where the hummingbirds fly and said hello while having your morning juice. Go there, look below, follow it down and know I have and will always love you. Dad”