Stroke

In fifth grade my English teacher said that writing was a form of art, and that any good writer should be able to "paint a picture with words." I think that phrase stood out to me because I had thought of art as no more than literally painting a picture, with literal paint and literal paintbrushes and everything else.

What I’m trying to say is that I want to be vivid when I describe my father.

It’s been forty years since fifth grade and the art of writing still eludes me. That’s okay. There’s an old photo of him on this desk so I don’t have to rely on memories to paint his picture. In the frame he has thick black hair and thick black glasses. The camera angle hides most of his too-large nose. His hand rests on his chin like he’s thinking, like the statue whose name I forget but should probably be able to remember. He looks happy.

The photo was taken when he was a senior at UCLA. I don’t know a lot about his life after he graduated, except that he worked for a newspaper. He met my mother there. I don’t have many pictures of her, and even less memories. She died when I was six.

Anyway. The day that Ms. Nicholson talked about painting pictures with words was an exhausting one. My father was away for something involving work and as a result I had to walk to and from school. The moment I got home I strolled casually into my room and locked the door, even though nobody else was there, and took off my clothes. Puberty had slowly crept up on me, I guess. I started masturbating for what was probably the second or third time in my life.

It felt wonderful in a way I had no words to describe. My eyes were shut. My mouth hung open. The telephone rang.

My father had taught me to always answer the phone. I continued for a few moments on the slim chance that I could finish and still reach it, but that proved to be impossible. I ran naked to the kitchen and grabbed it from the receiver.

I said, "Hello?"

"Hey, Sam." It was him and that was okay, that was worth the interruption. My father never called unless it was urgent.

He said, "I just wanted to talk. How was your day?"

His voice wasn’t strained or stressed. If it was I would say so and this story would be different. I realize now that my father was not particularly happy and that my actions didn’t necessarily cause his. I don’t know what would have happened if I had done something else.

I was angry that he had interrupted me over something so trivial. I sighed loudly, so he could hear it from his end, and hung up.

I continued to masturbate. I got farther. In the middle of my orgasm I heard the phone ring again but I didn’t really care. Eventually it stopped ringing, and several hours later the police came to my house to tell me that my father had shot himself.