Training Wheels

I can’t get it out of my head. I can’t.

****

Christmas. I got a Monkey Wards Hawthorne spider bike. It was a golden metallic color. It had the raised chopper handlebars but no sissy bar for the banana seat. That’s not how it’s supposed to go. But I didn’t care; the tricycle days were long gone, and I felt like a big guy.

Of course, it had training wheels because it was my first two-wheeler. I didn’t know how to keep those things from hitting the ground, but I still rode every day there wasn’t any foul weather.

Finally, on a cloudy, cool spring day, I had been riding with the training wheels off the ground. They were raised just enough so that if I got off-balance, I could lean on one. I wasn’t doing that anymore and, being very brave considering how beaten down I was, I went up the driveway and inside the house to my father’s office. I was terrified of the man. He’d terrified me for years, as far back as I could remember. That goes to age two or three, which I still have memories of to this day. He would have me sit on his lap, but I would cry for mommy.

It was never just his belt. It was also his yelling, which often preceded the belt. Yes, fathers do beat their toddlers with belts. It leaves lash marks, too. Of course it does.

I was brave to voluntarily walk into his downstairs office and ask, “Daddy, I can ride, would you please take my training wheels off?”

He didn’t seem annoyed. He was building a trucking company up from scratch, and so busy that we kids knew to give him a wide berth when he was in the office. His temper was as short as it could be.

But he got some wrenches and came outside, trying to hurry up and get back to work. The training wheels off, he guided me by holding the rear of the seat, down the driveway to the street. He pushed me along to gather speed, then at some point he let go. I didn’t know exactly when I left him behind or how far he went. I rode a short way and turned around, expecting him to be watching and smiling. Or something.

He was already gone.

Nowhere in sight.

Back inside.

My gut fell. My heart fell. For a few minutes, he really was “daddy,” and I loved him despite everything he was, everything he had done. But he did not stay. He did not share my joy that I could ride. Didn’t show pride. No boy ever wants anything as much as a father’s pride in him.

He never said anything.

A friend later took a ride on the bike and broke the seat clean off. It wasn’t his fault the sissy bar was missing. That’s half of the support of a banana seat. My father was enraged. He hated my friend. My bike sat in a corner of the car port for a couple of years.

By then my older half brother Joe was staying there, along with Ed, the oldest of the half-siblings. Joe washed the bike, took steel wool to the rust spots on the chrome wheels, and put a new and better seat and a sissy bar on it. My brothers, from then on, were more like fathers to me than my real father. They became like dads.

There are little things in a child’s life that matter so much more than grownups think. I wish more fathers could be daddies. I wish their moments as daddies weren’t measured in minutes, and if you have or had one of those full time daddies, be grateful. Remember the good, remember the lessons he taught you, harsh though they felt at the time. Those lessons helped make you the unique, special person that you are. Thank God for having him.

I did go on to learn many things from my father, harsh lessons with very damaging consequences. Not only for myself, but every person I have encountered since, especially those I loved but wasn’t good enough to be close to. Being socially involved is difficult when everything you’ve learned adds up to the hardest and saddest truth of all:  I trusted no one and made damn sure to prove myself not to be trustworthy. That’s complicated and sick. It’s heartbreaking. And it’s a life sentence.

I’ve struggled with that ever since. Push people away so they can’t hurt you. Hurt them first because you love them and it scares the devil out of you. Arm’s length. This far, no farther.

Someone says “Hi, Mike,” one day in high school. My response: “Fuck off.”

I don’t wonder why my girlfriends broke up with me.

I wonder how they ever got close and how they put up with me as long as they did.

All this is not because my dad turned back into a demonic father so quickly and wasn’t there to smile or say something positive the first time I rode without training wheels. It’s not that.

But it is a memory that I can’t get out of my head. I don’t cry; not for that.

I cry because the man who gave me a push my first time riding without training wheels was himself a casualty. He must have been very hurt and badly damaged to have done those terrible things. I weep for the kindness he was capable of, not the cruelty and abuse, and the passing of his life, and for the lonely ending he had.

Forgiveness is not about another person changing their ways. Most can’t do that. Forgiveness is about taking anything and everything good in you and, even if you still remember and are still haunted and hurt, letting go of your hatred and anger. It is about you. Not someone else. It has to come from your heart.

And maybe one day, hopefully before I die, I can forgive myself for being someone who had no fault in being hurt. I hold myself guilty of everything. It’s wrong. How do I manage that?

Training wheels. Do kids use those anymore?

I wonder.

Do kids even want or get bikes?

If you think being haunted like this is easy to get rid of, or that I want to be like this, then today might be a good day to look in the mirror. Don’t look at me, I’m just an asshole. Look at yourself. Your life. And then give thanks to God for all of the blessings you’ve had. And have. They’re there, you just have to look for them.

May God bless you and forgive you on this Easter weekend, and may you forgive yourself for the things you aren’t responsible for.

Be well my friends.