Things You Never Knew About Me and You

I remember him dressed in his greens as though it were yesterday. He wore a navy blue beret with a thin lining of black leather, tipped neatly to one side, squarish, steel-rimmed glasses that tinted in the sun, stripes on his shoulders and badges on his chest. The belt he wore was also navy blue with a big steel buckle and two pinstripes of bright red that ran all around the length of it. His black shoes were shined to perfection, as always, and the tattoo on his arm showed boldly just below the end of his rolled up sleeve. What made it perfect, absolutely perfect, was my small brown hand in his big white one as he walked regimentally around the base at Linton Camp.
         They saluted him. Many of them did. And it made me so proud that he was my father. We would pass soldiers dressed in green fatigues or camouflaged pants and they would touch two fingers to their green berets and mumble “Sir,” as we walked past. At first I thought they did that because they liked him. Maybe they were his friends. How was I to know? I was young. I asked my mother about it. What she said made me even prouder to have him as my father.
         ”They salute because they have to,” she told me as we sat in our kitchen.
         ”Why?” I had questioned further, not understanding the purpose.
         ”Your father is a Lieutenant and they’re a bit lower in rank,” she answered patiently.
         ”Does that mean that Dad is more important than them?” I pushed.
         A wry smile had come over her face as she pondered this. “Yeah, you could say that,” she’d said slowly.

I don’t remember a lot before Linton. Flashes of eating lime popsicles on a blanket on the back lawn of a house long forgotten with baby Aaron. Yes, I have a dim remembrance of our house in Clyde Crescent. What do I remember? Being pushed in a pushchair to kindergarten. I hated that damn rainguard that Mum used to put over the chair in wet weather. Even though I wasn’t old enough to express myself at that time, I vividly recall the feeling of separation that always overcame me once that plastic cover fell into place.
         I fear that I don’t recall my father at all in my first three years. Wait, no, I do. We must have had a swimming pool because I remember sitting in it, feeling safe as he drifted me with him wherever he went. It might as well have been a lake to me, it was that huge. I remember that old Jack lived next door and there was a part-Maori family on the other side of us. The reason I assume that they were part-Maori, if not completely Maori, was that they had a young girl called “Missy,” a nickname typical of young Maori children.
         My father’s name is Kevin Anthony Joyce. It is the name he was born with. The name he will die with is Captain Kevin Anthony Joyce Retired Justice of the Peace, which is a bit of a mouthful but basically it means he’s The Man. The most trustworthy, loyal and reliable man in my life is my father. He always has been. I have yet to meet a man with this level of faithfulness and dependability. You might even say that I’ve given up looking, hence the single status. No man measures up to my father. No man.
         I know people who have been abused by their fathers. Physically, sexually, emotionally or psychologically. Not me.
Some of my friends had fathers who were alcoholics. Not me. Children at school whose fathers had long since left their families. Not me. Friends whose fathers were unemployed. Not mine. As I grew up and looked at society around me, watched movies about the worst fathers in the world and read newspaper stories about broken families, I came to realise that, not only was my father consistent and steadfast – he was a perfect example of what every man should strive to be.
         Linton was the coolest place to live. Our phone number in Linton was 618. That’s an idea of the population there at that time. Linton is an army base and my father was stationed there a lot of the time. We lived there during 1984. I remember going to the mess hall where Dad would be drinking with his friends. He prefers to eat than to drink and he always gave me some of whatever he was eating or money to go and play a video game. His friends were always nice to my brothers and I, and often hoisted us up onto their shoulders or gave us piggy-back rides around the barracks.
         Mum and Dad chose Buffy to be our new dog in Linton. Pebbles, our cat, died in Linton. Douglas, the other cat, didn’t notice. Movies were fifty cents. They were older, already screened movies, but that didn’t matter. On Saturday nights, Mum would give us fifty-cents to go to the cinema and see a movie. I remember watching Superman, the one where Lois’ car gets buried under the ground. I couldn’t sleep for weeks after that, always dreaming that the walls were closing in on my bed. 1984 was the year I began to suspect that Father Christmas wasn’t real when I saw my mother hobbling down the hallway late at night with some presents.
         Brett Place was where I came into a sense of who I wanted to be. After six more years in the army, Dad retired in 1990 as a Captain. By then, it wasn’t just SOME soldiers who were saluting him, it was practically EVERYBODY. He had moved up through the non-commissioned ranks as a soldier: Private Lance-Corporal Corporal Sergeant Staff-Sergeant Warrant Officer 1  Warrant Officer 2 and had become a commissioned Officer: Second Lieutenant Lieutenant Captain where he had decided to retire. Of course, back then it had all been lost on me. I knew nothing of ranks and spent most of my time wondering why Dad never bought a bazooka home so that I could show my friends.
         Some time after my Mum died, a few years in fact, he did bring home a bazooka. Her name was Carla and she was so absolutely different from my mother, it was difficult for my brothers and I to see what connection she could have possibly had with our Dad. Turns out that the connection was not ours to see. She was bubbly, bright, outgoing, easy-going, unbelievably cheerful and friendly…and we didn’t like it one bit. Apparently that didn’t change the long-term plan because later, Dad married her and we’ve spent the last ten or so years getting closer.
         Carla was everything we never knew Dad needed. Someone to pick him up again, get his feet on the ground, take him out to have a good time, re-socialize him, give him a sense of what a family really was and she continued to keep our family together as best as she could.
         We got into trouble, she helped us out. We hurt Dad, she gave us the dirty truth about our characters. We wanted to have fun, she was down with whatever we wanted to do. We broke the law, she decided if it was justifiable or not. Our family made it through the hard times because Carla became the glue holding us together.

Now my father is sick. There are so many things that I want to say to him, so many words that escape me right now and it is frustrating. I want him to know how proud I wanted to make him by becoming more than a MacDonalds worker or a Casino Dealer. I wanted to tell him not to be sorry for the mistakes that others made in my life. I want him to know that because of his influence, I have become a good person and I am only getting better.
         I have become an English teacher in Korea. This is because I never studied at University and the opportunities are limited for someone without a bachelor’s degree in New Zealand, short of applying for grants and loans for another course. Yes, I teach English and I’m pretty sure I’m DAMN good at it. I’ve adjusted to the culture and learnt the language. I’ve saved some money and learnt how to budget it. I’ve gained a partner and learnt how to love and take care of someone besides myself.
         I left my hometown because I needed to try to be independent. Now I am. Let me tell you a little more about myself.

I was always the second best at everything in primary school. Handwriting, Reading, Math, History…always second best. Always wanting to be first but never quite getting there. I was a drama queen as a child, with a dangerous imagination and therefore created elaborate stories for attention. I would later see a psychologist and a therapist to help me out with these problems. According to them, I was bored with a normal life and my brain needed stimulation.
         In primary school, my main interest was cricket. My batting skill was useless but I wasn’t a bad bowler and that became my strength. My father reminds me often that I used to stand on the field and dance around because I needed to go to the toilet. It happened at most of my games and I still don’t know why. I always needed to pee during the fielding time of the game.
         In intermediate, I got hooked into Maori culture and that kept me turning up to school, along with the choir group. Outside of school I was into Girl Guides and a Christian group called Rally.
         When I got to third form, my elaborate story-telling ability was put to the test and I was dared to go to a primary school masquerading as a student teacher from the local Teacher’s College. I told my Mum and Dad that I was doing work experience at the chosen primary school. I told my high-school teacher that I was sick and would be away for a while. I told the primary school that I was a student teacher from Teacher’s College and asked them if they’d have me for my class observation study. They agreed. This façade continued for almost two weeks. I sat in the appointed class with my notebook and took notes about the students. They were eight years old. Little did the school know that I was only thirteen, if that.
         It blew up when I became careless and my high-school called my parents to ask when I would be returning to school, and if I was okay. I remembered my heart almost exploding when the high-school counsellour had walked into my primary school classroom while I was reading a story. By then I knew the students well, and was so sorry that I had to leave without saying goodbye to them. Years later, as I graduated high-school, a third former approached me with an amazed look on her face. Yes, she had been one of the students in the primary school class, and she remembered me. It was an incredible conversation that we shared. The other bonus was the one hundred dollars my friends all had to pay me for having pulled it off. I made sure my parents never knew about that. Sorry Dad…

Not long after that, I changed high schools. The new school was a breeding ground for mischief, teenage revolutions and misbehaviour. I lasted there a year and a half before my father made the best decision of my life and put me into the local Girl’s High School. There, I started with a lot of problems. I was suspended for bringing a machete to school. I was suspended for swearing at a teacher. One more and it was expulsion for me. Then halfway through fifth form, I found music. And I was good at it. Not the actual class, but the extra-curricular stuff. The principal told me, in order to avoid another suspension, I would be required to join an extra-curricular group. So I joined the choir.
         Dissatisfied with the running of the 200girl choir, I started my own vocal group and it took off. Music became my life, and in my last year at high school I graduated as the music captain and was accepted to a school of performing arts. It would require me to move to another city nine hours away from home and deep inside I was terrified. My father didn’t want me to go but I think I recall Carla talking him around…

to be continued...
(Dad, I want you to know, before you go anywhere, who I've become and why. So stick around to read more of this after I've arrived in Korea. I didn't have time to decide how to write this, until now and it is a work in progress...)