But even then I thought there had to be some special kind of idiocy reserved for my dad that my friends weren't suffering from. My dad wasn't just a disciplinarian or embarrassing. His mind genuinely seemed to be in a more fragile state that what seemed healthy. I was the only one close enough to him to raise a red flag, and I was too scared of what drawing attention to him would mean. His state got progressively worse over time.
I was eager to move away for college. My dad maintained the house on his own. His day consisted mainly of going to work, the same cubicle data management position he'd had for most of my life, coming home, cooking dinner, and falling asleep in front of the television. I convinced myself I was a decent son by calling him almost every evening. I would talk about new friends I was making, how classes were going, and so on, and he would tell me how nothing had changed back home. I called him almost every evening. But I never visited home. And I wasn't planning on it until Thanksgiving.
One October evening, about a week before his birthday, I was a little bit late with my routine check-up. I was worried he may have already fallen asleep to some syndicated laugh-track sitcom. But he answered. He answered, but did not sound like himself. He was very distressed.
"Michael, I have to tell you something," he gasped without a 'hello.'
"Dad?"
"Someone was talking to me, today. Someone was talking to me at work."
"Well, Dad, I imagine it's difficult to fortify the cubicle."
He snapped at me. There was a growl in his response I had never heard before. It was like it was his voice, but it wasn't him talking. He barked that that's not what he had meant.
"The person that was talking to me... No one else could hear him."
I was silent for a moment, but I didn't want my dad to get angry again, so I tried to put some words together to form a thought. I asked what it sounded like. He said it was angry. Not like demon possessed angry (to which I breathed a sigh of relief), but certainly angry. I asked why no one else heard it, which re-triggered the distress.
"I don't know why know one else heard it. It's not like it was in my own head. It was coming form outside somewhere." His voice cracked. He was crying.
"What did it say, Dad?" I was speaking very delicately. Furthermore, I was stepping out of my dorm room lest my roommate come back in. I made myself to a stairwell, where, although service was not as strong, I was very likely to be alone. No one needed to hear me coach my dad through the voices only he could hear.
"I was in midsentence, explaining some figures that didn't add up. I wasn't angry or trying to condemn Marty. I just didn't know what numbers I was missing. And he just told me... he told me I was a worthless sack of shit and I needed to go back to my desk."
"Marty said that?!"
"Not Marty. The voice." Dad may have continued, but it became indiscernible. The crying had become sobbing.
"OK. It's okay, Dad. Why didn't you call me then. Or why didn't you talk to someone at the office?"
"I tried! I asked-" he gasped for air, "-I asked if Marty heard it and he didn't know what I was talking about. But I shrugged it off cuz he went away after that. The voice. Not Marty."
I did my best to reassure my father. Shrugging it off seemed to have been a good choice on his part. Everybody's had some kind of voice in their heads at some point. That doesn't make you crazy. I asked him why he was so upset now if this had happened hours ago.
"Because-" I had never heard my dad cry before. I have never seen him get upset over anything that seemed worth getting upset over, starting with Mom's passing. That was the incomplete brain function that had bothered my in high school. And yet here he was, four hours away, pouring his heart out like I never could have imagined. "Because he was talking to me right before you called."
"Are you sure you're alone in the house?" I asked with new urgency. "Someone's not just-"
"I looked everywhere, dammit," my dad screamed. "I looked everywhere. And the voice didn't get louder or quieter. He was always right next to me. I'm insane. I'm-"
Static.
"Dad? Dad! Dad! Are you there? Dad?"
"I'm here, son."
The crying had stopped as abruptly as the static had.
"Michael," he whispered. "Michael, do you hear me right now?"
"Yeah, Dad. I can-"
"Michael, he's talking to me right now."
My skin went cold. I wanted to swallow but there was no spit in my mouth. There was just this lump in my throat that wouldn't move. I think my right arm started trembling, as if the weight of the cell phone had become unbearable. I blinked and some sense of reality came back to me. I remembered I could move. I looked around. Behind me, just stairs. The same in front. I had to make sure I was alone in the stairwell.
"What is he saying, Dad?" This time my voice cracked. But it wasn't from crying.
"He's telling me to hang up the phone."
"Don't hang up the phone, Dad!"
"I'm not going to hang up the phone. I don't like him. I won't listen to him."
"Okay. Good. Good, Dad. I want you-"
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP NOW! ...Not you, son. Not you. He doesn't care if I don't like him. He doesn't like me either."
This is how I rationalized not going home: I had a test the next day. And I believed that to be a reasonable decision. I would lose scholarships if grades suffered, I decided. The voice my dad had been hearing subsided during our conversation. My dad's tone went back to normal. There was certainly a post-shock undertone, but pretty much normal. Still, I instructed my dad to find somebody from work that he could spend the night with.
I didn't sleep well that night. As a matter of fact, I think I would have been better off just not taking the test.
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