When I moved my blog here, from LiveJournal, I deleted the website I’d built before. It was such a depressing little website filled with the things I wanted to say before I died, the things I needed to say instead of dying. This essay is one of those things. I’m posting it now, just for the sake of having it here, archived. I don’t want to go back to feeling that way, but I don’t want to lose this record either. That’s all.
TV Dads and Red Vines
He was the perfect father in the way that only TV dads get to be. He was Pa, tender enough to cry at his little girls’ heartaches and strong enough to battle hailstorms and dynamite. He was one of the good guys and I wanted so badly to be loved by an honest to goodness good guy.
Instead I was loved by one of the bad guys. He kept telling me it was love anyway. Years later when I told another girl, a neighborhood girl who knew who I was talking about, she looked at me eyes wide and said, “God Crystal, you were molested by Santa Claus.”
That was his public image. Not just grandfatherly, he was a grandfather. His wife was a retired teacher and he was a security guard on the set of that perfect family TV show. He was an upstanding pillar of a man, but kind enough to have candy for all the little girls, candy he’d sneak to us, even if our mothers didn’t allow us to have sweets. The candy was the first secret.
I hate myself for it, but I still love red licorice. It used to be my favorite. He’d buy it just for me. I was barely four, I couldn’t have imagined what those Red Vines would cost me. They were the flavor of so many painful Saturdays. That was the day his wife spent at the beauty parlor and my mother did shopping and housecleaning for an elderly relative. On Saturdays it was just me and Santa Claus. He and I were alone for hours. The candy hardly seemed worth it, but it was the only choice he gave me. I could always choose my candy.
What’s done is done so I tried to enjoy my reward. I would suck the sweetness out of those sticky, red, spiraled straws and try to forget why they were mine. I still do that with candy. I can close my eyes and for a moment nothing exists but sugar, melting, filling my mouth till it puckers. It always feels so good for that moment, but it’s never as easy to swallow. Going down it loses all sweetness, becomes syrupy, like glue. For a moment I can’t breathe. Then I open my eyes and it’s gone. All that’s left is guilt.
I hated being bought so cheaply, but there were no higher bids. As I got older I learned words for who I was and the sins I was participating in; adultery, promiscuity, prostitution. I held onto those words even after he’d lost his grip on me. Eventually, I started going with my mom on Saturdays. That’s when he tried to up the ante. He started offering to take me to the set with him. He knew it was my favorite show. He just didn’t know why.
My mother had never married the man who conceived me. The man she did marry worked on the road and was seldom home. He was well intentioned, but he wasn’t a hero. My Dad could never settle anything with his fists. Pa was a genuine good guy and good guys fight the bad guys and the bad guys lose. I loved that show because Pa was my one chance at having a champion of my own. Someone who could promise me that I was good, because they were good too and they knew. There was no maybe with Pa.
I always believed that Pa could save me. The problem was I would have to tell him first. I was too afraid of the car ride there. What if Santa Claus thought we were alone in the car? What if he did something? What if someone saw? Then they’d know that I was all of those awful words. If I knew for sure that I’d meet Pa, and that I’d tell him, then it would be worth it. I had my doubts though; what if he wasn’t there or if I was only allowed to see him from a distance? What if he just didn’t take the time to hear what I had to tell him? I never went.
Years later, when the actor who played Pa died, my heart broke. I knew he would never be there to defend my honor. I’d moved away from the neighborhood; Santa Claus was no longer a threat. It’s just that part of me needed to know that Pa would’ve taken my side, even against his friend. I needed him to show me I was worthy of that. I needed to be as precious as his little girls on the show. Pa is gone now. I’m left with the guilty comfort of my Red Vines.
