"My father, aged 20, and me, on a blue bouncy ball, with the handles. Dressed in hippy clothing. Happy. It doesn’t matter if I remember. I have the feeling. Love. I ran through it. The bull is coming. The bull is coming, they said. Watch the nets. Where are we. My biological left letters. My mum did not show me. She wanted me to grew up new, without the burdens. Years later, I got them. A small pile. A few letters. He wanted to know me."
"My step father grew up in Warrington, he joined the British Army. A way out. Northern Ireland. He married my mother. In Bletchley, we went to the swimming pool. Hot chocolate, in the plastic cup, from the machine. I’ll give you a pound if you go down the slide he said. In London, in the homeless hostel, a sip from his beer. Play Your Cards Right on the telly. Twisting his moustache and flexing his biceps, playing Mormon hypnotism, on Mondays, in Milton Keynes. In America, wilderness survival. Black powder rifles and shotguns. Then, snowed in. In the sleeping bag, hypothermia. Awkward bonding. I do not know how to hammer. When I worked construction, I could not find the stud. I am not a man. I am not a woman. Yet here we are. Father and son. The many failures and expectations. Unconditional. The confusions. My step father, on top of me, a few punches, his heart on my heart, beating too fast. I didn’t want him to die."
From The Autobiography of Don Whiskers. My novel in progress. This except, "On Fathers," published at European Review of Poetry, Books, and Culture.
You can read it over here:
http://www.versopolis.com/column/609/on-fathers
Labels: autofiction, European Review of Poetry Books and Culture, fathers, immigrant novels, Karl Ove Knausgård, marcus slease, nomadic travel writing, NORTHERN IRELAND, The Autobiography of Don Whiskers, Versopolis
