2005-01-31 || 2:51 p.m.
|| the old man retires. ||
it's my dad's last day as an employee, ever. i just called his number because i have known its rhythm (3029732, a very nice number to chant when walking from a class room to the nurse's office, or when hopping on one foot to the phone after a stealthy piece of beer bottle glass has sliced through the bottom of a saddle shoe at the park across the street, or when trying to keep it together after having gotten into one's very first car accident, not wanting to cry because this sort of thing happens to adults, nevermind the howling need for a dad right then, my dear wonderful amazing hero dad, to make it a bit better) all my life and wanted to say goodbye at that extension i guess.
(oh dear. presently very emotional at thought of dad's phone number? trying not to cry for the benefit of the work study student across from me, who will undoubtedly turn to ask a question and find me all blubbery over a phone number.)
i wish i had all the drawings of dad as a worker i've done over the years. blue striped tie and briefcase. the wingtips i learned to tie bows on in the early mornings before he left for work. bald head and beard. wetsuit and scuba tank. fishing pole and nemo the boat. thirty years at the same cubicle when not at sea or underwater. thirty years of files and pictures of daughters (the last time i saw his cubicle, somewhere around 1995, there were several photographs of us; the most recent were taken somewhere around 1986.). desiccated fish. taxidermied shorebirds. tide tables and constellations and a clipped comic strip from 1981.
i ran ouside to greet him when he got home every weekday of my life from ages 3 to 11.
ladies and gentlemen, my dad! imagine stars and unicorns and barricuda drawn in around him.
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