LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON
BY
EVERETT D. EDE
It's two A.M. on a Sunday morning. The state of the world is of no concern to me because I am sleeping soundly in my very comfortable bed.
"Ring. Ring. Ring!" I roll over and instinctively turn off the alarm. "Ring! Ring!" Its the telephone. I sit up on the bed and reach the distance across the night stand for the receiver. Lifting it to my ear; "This better be good!" I say into the receiver.
"Uh, Dad?" A meek voice on the other end sounding vaguely familiar.
"There are two possibilities of that being a correct statement. Either one of them will spell disaster for the person on the other end of this line." I say angrily
"I know I'm in trouble, but I need a ride home."
"Home? But, Ethan you are home. You're in your bed right now."
"Come on dad, I'm having enough trouble without dealing with your sarcasm. Will you come and get me?" The stress in his voice relieves my anger and replaces it with concern.
"Where Are you?"
"I'm at the intersection of 148th and Stark."
"Okay". I say with just a little disgust. "I'll be right there."
"I don't know what I'm going to do with that kid. First he skips a grade because he is so bright and now that he is a senior in high school he seems to have turned into a moron. From a 4.0 GPA to a 2.0 in one year." I am mumbling to myself since there is no one else here to listen to me. "A single parent raising a teenage son should get combat pay." I say with a little disgust.
"My son went into combat when he was a teenager."
The voice startles me. I turn on the light and am ready to defend my household to this intruder, but.... There isn't anyone in the room. I must have been dreaming.
"You're not going to listen to me now either are you?" the disembodied voice says.
"What in the hell is going on here? Who's there?" I wonder if I am talking to myself.
"You know, Everett it's actually kind of fun watching you deal with the problems that Ethan is having. It's kind of like deja vu, but not quite because, I'm dead so the term doesn't fit."
Now I see the image of my father sitting on my bed, his right hand stroking his van dyke beard and the light shining off of his bald head. He is thin but not as thin as the last time I saw him in the hospital. He was dying of cancer and had no substance to his body at all then.
"Did you miss me?" He asks in his normal satirical manner.
"Uh, This isn't happening."
"Well actually it is, but you won't acknowledge it now or later. But let’s cut the bull shit and get down to the problem. My grandson sneaked out of the house and took your spitfire for a joy ride."
"Is he all right?" What am I saying? This isn't real so how would he know if Ethan is all right.
"He's just fine", he says. "Are you going to get dressed so that we can go get him or are you going to go like that?"
"Well since I am naked I guess it would be a good idea to get dressed."
My father has been dead for six years and I'm talking to him in the middle of the night, I think that I've finally gone off the deep end. I continue to look at the bed as I get dressed hoping that I won't see anything, but he is still sitting there looking just like I remember him. He has even retained the ornery gleam in his eye.
"Okay let's go." I say to him and then wonder why I am talking to him at all. Maybe it's the stress that Ethan has just put on me. It must have done something to my psyche.
In the car now and driving toward the appointed intersection.
"What are you going to do to him?" He says.
"Well he is going to be grounded for the rest of the year and I am going to take his drivers license away from him."
"Ooh, that's original. Do you think it will work?"
"It better work or he'll be sorry."
"Did it work when I did it to you?"
"What?"
"I said did it work when I did the same thing to you for doing exactly the same thing to me?"
"This isn't a dream is it?"
"Answer my question first."
"No it didn't." I say remembering now of the time that I sneaked out of the house when I was a junior in high school and took my fathers car out for a joy ride. "Is this something that Ethan is going to have to deal with when his son is in high school?"
"Maybe not the same incident, but yes he will. You see son Ethan has reached an age where it has become important for him to become a man, and since he isn't allowed to be a man yet he has to sneak out to do the things that men do."
"But I am letting him grow up." I say sincerely.
"No your not, you only think that you are."
"Are you telling me that I am treating him in just the same way that I was treated when I was his age?"
"For the most part you are. You do some things different due to conscious thought and others because you didn't think that I was right in what I did."
"Well then what do you think that I should do about this incident?" As long as he's here I might as well get some advice.
"I think that you should talk to him, without yelling at him and let him know that you know that he is becoming a man that he needs to be more responsible in order to get some of the privileges that he wants to have as a man."
"You mean just like you used to talk to me?"
"God! I don't know where you got that sarcastic tongue." He reacts to my jab.
"Then it must have been from mom right." My mother is the most passive and gentle person on the face of the earth and he knows it.
"No doubt," He says, trying to skirt the subtle attack.
"Okay I'll talk to him and I won't yell at him. Say since you knew that Ethan was in trouble you probably know other things too. Right?"
"Yes I can see the future. Why?"
"Who's going to win the super bowl?"
"Good bye son."
"Don't want to tell me huh? Well that’s okay I'll think of something else. Dad? Dad?" He's gone. Right out of the car. What am I talking about he was never here. I was just imagining everything.
I turn the corner from Stark street onto 148th and see my spitfire in the closed service station parked next to the gas pumps as though waiting for gasoline and the hood is up indicating engine trouble. Ethan is sitting in it, arms folded across his chest and his head down as if in prayer. His hair is messed and his jacket is beside him on the seat as though he has been having a rough time with the car. He doesn't move even as I get out of the car and walk over to him.
"Nice night?" I say with just a touch of sharpness in my voice.
He looks up at me without saying a word and then gets out of the car.
"What happened?" I ask.
"I don't know! It just quit." His defenses are up as high as he can get them.
"You have to put gas in these things to get them to run."
"I know that. Do you think that I'm stupid?"
"No Ethan I don't think that you are stupid. I think that you are extremely intelligent and that's why I find this incident as well as some other recent problems that we have had so puzzling."
"What do you mean?"
"I know that you are growing up and I know that you want to get out of high school and on with your life but logic should tell you that you can't avoid the rest of your teenage years just because you want to."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I went thought exactly the same things that you are going through. I survived them and so did my dad. You will get through it and so will I and then you can do the same thing with your son. And through all of the arguments and disagreements we can all still love each other."
"You mean that you're not mad at me?"
"I am madder than hell at you. But I still love you."
"Am I grounded?"
"No. but you have to come back here in the morning, get my car, get it home and then you have to fix it."
"Yeah. Okay". He says excitedly. And then... "Are you all right dad?"
"Yes Ethan I am just fine. Let's go home. I'm tired."
As we get in the car to leave I notice a man standing at the bus stop, which seems strange since the buses quit running about two hours ago. I glance over at him as we drive past and I see my father smiling at me. I look at Ethan and when he looks back at me I pass the smile along.
