Tell A Lie to Keep A Promise

Retrouvailles

Jules left me with his bike while he volunteered his services on a kibbutz in Israel. I rode his bike from Canada back to Mass. I was to keep it until he came back whenever; that might be. I came to believe that the bike may have been a farewell gift. He had plenty of them; giving this one to me and knowing that he could retrieve it at any time upon arrival wasn't a policy he had to worry about. I made it home on Sunday at 3:00 p.m., eyes smeared with black mascara, hair dyed jet black, and that I-don't-give-a-fuck riot squad look.

While in the town of Banff I got my ears pierced a second hole. You knew you were something when you had a second hole as a girl-you've matured. During the time there at the hotel, I worked as a guide around the trails and I was paid for my services. I could buy myself whatever I wanted. I replaced my flats with some low cut brown boots.

I stepped off the bike, kicking the kickstand down, helmet in hand and the saddle bag across my shoulders; walking into the shop with pride and prejudice on my face. "So you were with that family?" my mother asked. I said "yes, and if you cared so much about me why didn't you voice your concerns over the phone? You think you're better than us because you got a taste of a life that was not "working-to-live". I worked and was paid for my services but it was an entry level position that fit my age bracket. Not working here at the shop with the rest of my legacy of females who got it passed down from their predecessors." " Well, you weren't missed, as usual, no one hardly knew you were gone." I wouldn't deny that statement I was already well informed by my father.

I got my hair washed by my aunt. Hair curled and split ends cut and a much needed manicure from across the street. Hopped back on my bike and road through the town with the spirit of that of Jules, "I do what the fuck I want" attitude on his Ducati. I visited my father at the mortuary as he is always there; I sincerely believed he loved dead people more than people who were his offspring or maybe more than my mother and her flock of sisters. She was a nag. As a whole I think this was his retreat from the constant bitchy attitudes and insolence from the female species.

"How was your trip," he asked. "It was good I really needed it. It reminded me of old-times when we would just jump in the car and take long drives." He looked at me as he said, "I was teaching you inadvertently migration routes and how to get around. One day you're going to have to run or walk or just get away and you can't let family or friends or your mother, this town or anything keep you from chasing your dreams or what you want or what your heart desires." "I know Dad." I loved my father. He was a genuine all around great guy. He was a little distant most of the time and more of an introvert than anything. He always gave either a quote from a song, a book, or from some philosopher to convey his point. He laughed only when it was something extremely funny and then you were confronted with all his pearly white 32's. Other than that he would just give a smirk or slight grin and carried on with what he was doing. My father wasn't the same from what I remembered. He was full of joy when I was a kid. Something had changed in him over the years. I would beg him to tell me but he would say that we are all harboring the truth and that a liar only lies because he or she is afraid of what others might say or think of them. Whatever that shit meant. I just wanted him to just throw it at me. No subliminals. Quit with the philosophy theories and quotes and shit. Just give me a piece of him that showed some type of emotion. I never saw him cry and after the age of eight he was just never the same joyous person.

The coroners brought in a body from the morgue to the mortuary. They placed it on one of the tray tables. My father took the necessary steps when receiving or picking up a dead body. It was usually refrigerated until it is washed thoroughly, then embalmed, then washed again, clothed and cosmetized, then placed in a casket. This body lay on the tray for sometime  while my dad and I talked about life and the future. We observed the strange look of the body as it lay there decaying. We should put it in the fridge but it was already sitting in the morgue at the hospital; we could afford to let it stay out just a little longer, while we marveled at life.

My mother happened to come in like she always does, snooping around looking for something to criticize. "Clean this room up, place this here, organize this." Sometimes I just wanted to tape her mouth with duct tape like for at least eight hours. She came over to the table and squinted her eyes at the corpse as if she knew the dead body. She looked up at my father, he looked at her, she turned her eyes, took the clip board and looked at the pronouncement of death form; ran to the table and fucking broke down crying. My mother obviously knew who he was and I got that feeling that from her crying for the last twenty minutes without moving, staring as if she had went back in time when she knew this man. That an overwhelming feeling of happiness on meeting him in the present again obviously after a very long time she wiped her tears and she carried this cynical smile of relief and joy at seeing him on the table. My father had gotten up from the table where the body was and stood by the sink. I saw his fist balled up resting on the counter. I could see his muscle in his jaw bone clinched. She went over to him and said, "no don't go." He said, "even in death you still love him." She said, "I'm sorry, just go I don't want you here anymore.

"I never thought I would tell my own husband to go but we haven't been the same in years. I love you but I'm not in love with you and you knew this for years but you stayed. You had a chance to make all your dreams come true. His death has released you. For he was the only man that I truly ever loved." My father replied, "well, what the fuck was I? and what am I here for?

This was getting good. I never saw my parents argue in my entire life. I mean, my mother, she bickered but my father just took it. It was like he swallowed all her bombs and let them implode inside of him defecating her bombs of insolence right out of his rectum when he was full. They needed this breakthrough and I had front row seats to this Dolby surround sound motion picture-and action.

"For the kids," she replied. So you have used up my love, my time, and my name for the sake of adorning yourself for a look. So you fucking just used me all these years. I see." "The only thing I used you for was for your offspring which didn't work because I never got pregnant. You weren't good for shit but a cover-up in this melodrama miniseries." It must have sunk in because my father paused, mouth dropped down, without hesitation in ultra shock as he pieced the puzzle together." "I told you long time ago to go. I don't love you," she sassed at the mouth. You are free and no longer my little slave and now I can stop holding onto this secret burden. That's right, pick your mouth up she ain't yours."

Everything went so fast I was trying to keep up with the NASCAR race of words going round and round from my father to my mother and back. I wondered who "she" was and why "she" wasn't his. Until, shit! it dawned on me, as the data raced around in my head, within this millisecond of a lap, it all came together and I narrowed in with tunnel vision that the man I was looking at and admired was not my father.