Father's Hand

Father’s Hand

         To talk of Felix Maldonado is to talk of his son, Tyler Lucio, for to talk of posterity is also to talk of history. This history together usually went bittersweet: Tyler would get a flurry of Spanish curses from his father when the mood struck him, and he would get the prince’s treatment when another came. If you asked anyone about these two when Tyler was little, none would have words of reprimand against his father. Every time Felix had money, he would treat Tyler out to dinner on the weekdays and breakfast on the weekends. They went to different restaurants and frequented a flea market that would sell ice cream—and not the cheap kind. Felix had a job at the post office; and as an employee of the government, he received great compensation. Every now and again, though, he would have liked to move away to some place nonspecific. He thought it unfair that he was anchored to a life he did not choose directly (and this I will explain later). Felix became dreadfully angry during these notions; and these spouts of incense projected upon Tyler like a canvas in the hands of a consciously impotent artist. What more is there to expect from a child other than helplessness?
         There always existed a drastic polarity in their relationship. If Tyler really thought about what kept him from leaving now that he’s grown, he would shrug his shoulders over the matter.
         Originally, what kept Tyler was how the death of his mother had affected his father during his junior year of high school; and this piece of history stirred the two men into madness. Tyler’s mother, absent for a considerable amount of his childhood, worked two jobs while supporting the three of them, Tyler and his father. This she took as penance, for before Tyler was conceived, Felix and her came upon a split of differences and fought to the point of violence. During this period, Tyler’s mother would seek comfort from another man… Of course, she felt guilt for having to do such a thing and to come back to Felix; however, things would have it that Felix knew what kind of person the other man was, someone who took advantage wherever it showed itself.
         It was almost like the popping of a bubble when Felix had told Tyler that he wasn’t his biological son—and this was after the death of Tyler’s mother. At length, Tyler would regard his father with great abhorrence, though this dissolved on a foggy morning before he took off for school.
         “You know, it’s not like it matters now,” Felix said to his son as his son refused to make eye contact; “Your other father did not raise you to be this person.”
         “You could’ve told me years ago,” responded Tyler remaining cold to his father as his father looked to the side of his head. “I’m the person I am partly because of you; but don’t think that you’re a model parent.”
         “Yes, but who was there for you? Was it that other maricon or me?” Tyler rolled his eyes. “I was mad too when I found out that you didn’t come from my blood. But I got over it. I forgave your mother. It took me a while. But I did.”
         That was it. Tyler continued to live with his father through the remainder of high school.
         What happened a month before Tyler was to graduate came as untimely coincidence.
         As the idea of college grew from possibility to certainty, Tyler looked into Ivy League schools and others that had a great creative writing program. As he applied to more and more colleges, he grew excited at leaving the Rio Grande Valley and the history between him and his father. Attending a local college dropped from the realm of possibility a long while ago.
         It was during this time that Tyler’s father got terribly sick and admitted into the hospital. What started as a simple stomach flu turned into something worse. No one really knew what went wrong in Felix’s system, not his family, not Tyler, not himself, not even the doctor. Felix could not work anymore, which resulted in Tyler finding a job as a writer for the local newspaper. Soon, Tyler graduated. His father could not attend.
         One day—and this occurred during the autumn after Tyler graduated, and his father was discharged from the hospital—the two rode to church and made it just in time for morning mass. Going in, Tyler felt a guilty weight upon him, which took the form of his father’s hand on his shoulder. He turned to him and saw that the old man was winded and running on breaking energy. “Ayudame, mijo,” his father said; and just as he did, Tyler began to realize that this was to be their relationship from then on; and his initial reaction was to hate it. He knew that whatever waited on him outside in the world would fade as long as he remained idol because of something he could not help. He felt the reins of his life shift ownership.
         “Look, mijo,” his father said whilst reaching out to his shoulder on a case of steps outside the front of the church; “There are a lot of birds out today. There’s no doubting winter’s arrival.”
         The two men halted their trek to gaze at the morning sky, grey with the coming of a late summer rain. A minute thunder echoed like the faraway din of a losing battle.
         “Look at the way they fly, mijo. They look like crosses the way they glide.”
         It took a moment before Tyler could respond. “Sure, they look like crosses or as if they carried crosses; but I can’t imagine a bird ever having any burden.”
         With that, Tyler hurried his father along into the church.

         Months rolled by, and Tyler continued working for the local newspaper, meaning his father did not get along that well with his health. Tyler decided to stay with his father for the fall and up to the end of December; but come the following year when the students would return to college, he promised himself to apply for a school—any school outside of his father. With all the talk of his earlier plans of leaving after graduation, he had thought that many people would be disappointed, and some would have ugly thoughts that he would never have made it in the first place.
         Tyler desperately wanted out of the Valley, but he became weary of the effect it would have on him. On the one hand, he could get a quality education and see what the world was like outside of his normal setting. He believed that leaving opened one door that would lead to many other doors. On the other hand, the people who had become aware of his father’s sickened state would soon thereafter regard him with a silent repose; and for some reason, this scared him. He would feel like a prince exiled from his city. He would rather please everyone else than himself: he would rather support his father than take the road that led to the life that would make him happy.
         It became quite apparent to Felix what his situation did to his son, though he did not understand the full weight that fraught him. He would spend day after day peering out the window of their house on Pending Circle wondering why Tyler stayed. He could’ve gone already, Felix thought; he could’ve put me in a home or something and not have looked back—hell, I would. He has much potential. But who says that anything here isn’t as good as anything out there? He should stay—hell, I did. I didn’t get up and leave when his mother came to me with him. I could’ve…
         Winter would come, and so did the birds. In Tyler’s eyes, the birds that flew freely from place to place mocked him with their squawking. He did not have much of an appreciation for birds in the first place because they defecated where they pleased. The disassociation of nature made him regard them with an unreasonable anger.
         The winter also brought an omen.
         Tyler’s father only got worse with each passing week, and he would pay frequent visits with the emergency room after vomiting everything he ate anytime he ate. His future became bleak in his eyes, and he drew surrender with each dry heave his father would give. Believing that this would have no end, that is his father’s illness would cease its assailment, Tyler accustomed himself to thoughts of absurdity. Since all of his plans for the future came to naught, he began to see the uselessness of performing under this path made for him. He started to think of his life as a stream on its way to a river; and on that stream, many hands—and none of them his own—guided it, bent it all sorts of different directions, directions out of his control.
         Although Tyler faced a life in a light that saw no futility, one must think of the boy’s future as something forever alterable. When one must envision Tyler’s life further along its path, one must imagine him happy.