Once he was gone it was like the three of us let go of a collectively held breath. We could now begin the switch over to “RoycE GonE,” the three-pronged family unit that operated under completely different rules. McDonald’s was a given for the first meal, and all that heat and salt and sugar sat in my stomach like a benediction made even better by the fact that we could eat in the car, or at a park—anywhere so that we didn’t have to arrange ourselves around an empty seat at the kitchen table. The first few Dad-less days were like a long slumber party with Mom, and I bathed in the floodlight of her attention and took advantage of the relaxed rules of the parent/kid hierarchy. I campaigned to stay up late and watch Dallas or Moonlighting with her, to take tiny sips of her beer, and to lean my shower-wet head back against her knees after she combed the tangles out. I told myself I was more like a companion now, a good friend she could rely upon to help out around the house and to keep Doug, though only a year younger than me, in check, since he was still a kid and couldn’t be expected to be reasonable or mature.
Mom pep-talked us through errands and chores and minor emergencies in this first stage with assurances that “this will be an adventure we can tell Dad about.” A phone call from him when he was gone was rare and a big deal, and since phone time was limited, the pressure to come up with a pithy and compact report on my days since we’d last spoken was a challenge to which I responded by living each moment with an eye toward editing and retelling the experience to my dad, deciding whether whole days made the cut or not. On longer hauls, I remember sending him elaborate drawings and a long, rather forced poem about my doomed attempt at pitching on my softball team.
Early into one of Dad’s absences, our collective mood was cheerful, a can-do attitude in the face of an expected hardship that would just require a little ingenuity and creativity. Cautiously optimistic, I kept up my own interior monologue during this period, telling myself, “With a little planning, this can be way better than last time,” and “Just pay attention and don’t screw up.” What’s remarkable about being a kid is that, through force of will, your faith in illusions can last far longer than it should. I told myself these things every time, and every time I believed them as we moved right into the next inevitable stage of “RoycE GonE,” the Total Meltdown.
I could feel a Total Meltdown coming the way I imagine some people claim they feel storms coming by a pain in an old knee injury. It was a kind of low emotional barometric pressure that I could sense just in the slack way Mom would put down a breakfast plate or the way she would rake one hand through her curls to push them out of her eyes. At times like this, her eyes would elude me when I tried to catch her attention with a funny face or tell her a joke that went on a little too long because I was already getting nervous and forgetting the ending. All my energy went into strategies of distraction for her, and I kept up a constant scan of the house to catch things that might piss her off—a messy pile of clothes I could kick into my closet, dishes in the sink, a microwave popcorn bag left out by the TV. Doug must have sensed something too, because it was always these times when he pushed back at the rules or he broke something with what seemed to me like obvious intent. I harried him and picked at him and threatened him, convinced that he was the errant spark that would start the blaze. And then somehow it always happened. One little thing—a spilled mug of hot chocolate is one I remember clearly, but it seems like spills of any kind always did this to us—would suddenly become a very big thing, and all three of us would be sucked into a fast spiral.
“God damn it!” Mom’s opening volley.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Whichever kid is at fault.
“Get a towel!” An increase in volume, panic circuits lighting up all around.
“Don’t yell!” Yelled, of course.
“Shit! It’s getting everywhere!” Time is now a factor, messes are spreading, and the towel is inadequate.
“I’m sorry!” Default response, also inadequate, tick-tock, tick-tock.
“Hurry up!” Whichever kid is not at fault joining the game.
“Quit YELLING!” Screamed, this time.
“SHUT UP! YOU QUIT!” The other kid, in a desperate, failed bid to curry favor with Mom or else short-circuit the reaction.
“Fuck you!” Both kids facing off against each other, easier opponents and more familiar rivals in these meltdown moments.
“Watch your mouths!” Mom reasserting herself, now with both a mess and a fight to contain.
“Fuck you!” The other kid, not to be outdone, gets out the big gun in the sibling standoff. Complete anarchy ensues, physical combat between the kids if they’re within each other’s reach; otherwise, engagement of projectiles. An ultimate explosion is needed.
“Fuck all of this! I’m so sick of this! I want out of this marriage!” Mom delivers the cannon shot that scatters all combatants, and like some triggered land mine we would all go flying apart in a roar of profanity and tears and slamming doors, a sad, half-cleaned mess the only marker of the conflict left behind.