jennings rampage

Can we go ahead and doff we now our gay apparel?

All my teasing and taunting about doing absolutely nothing for Christmas bought me a load of karmic retribution in the form of being tricked into going to Charleston with Jeff for the holiday and actually doing things.

I actually didn’t do much — I ended up parked at Joyce’s condo, which is where our dad lives these days. Joyce is an old friend of our father’s, an old Italian lady who might be 4′11″ in three-inch heels, who has taken pity on him and has let him live with her on and off (mostly on) for the past fifteen years or so. They’re pretty amusing in their codependency; our dad needs someone to take care of him and facilitate his I’m-a-great-big-failure lifestyle (he recently was awarded disabilty benefits, which officially makes him a lardo on disability), and Joyce needs someone to simultaneously walk on and take care of as a mitzvah for her own complex guilt. (I only pretend to understand.) But as one might imagine, I’m not exactly champing at the bit to cruise down there for the show.

But I did cruise down, mainly because I love Joyce and she’s a fantastic cook and I knew at the very least I’d eat well and probably end up with a little holiday cash in my wallet. (Two for two.) Jeff and I like to tell Joyce that she’s been like a father to us; everything that our dad did for us was either financed or prodded or both by Joyce, and that’s been obvious to us since around age twelve or so. She’s a marvelous lady, if clearly too generous for her own well-being; she asks us to feel bad for her on account of her fate to care for our father, but she’s the one who brought all that upon herself. She thinks she’s helping him, but they’ve basically destroyed each other’s lives.

But at least we have a grand old time being absolutely vicious to our father while we visit — Joyce appreciates the backup and the pair of sharp minds that seem to reflexively cannibalize their own father. I mean, yes, Jeff and I are both world-class assholes, but I think you’d still be shocked if you could see the level to which we take our subversion of his battered ego. Joyce gets all of our Fifth Commandment respect.

I can’t apologize for it: our father is, by any measure, a horrible person who has failed at life and serves as a constant reminder of How Not To Be. He is not a man; only a person who does not lie to his wife and children, does not steal from them, fulfills his basic responsiblities to his family, and has not given up on contributing to his family’s life (and indeed, to society at large) may call himself a man. Unfortunately, a full indictment of my father’s character can not fit into this margin, so I shall move on.

So yes, the three of us are real assholes to him. It accomplishes nothing; he’s beyond hope, no amount of shame will change him, and nothing can undo the damage he did to our family and our childhoods. Yet it continues to be instinctive for us, as if we’re making sure that he knows that he has not been forgiven — a Jennings family annual holiday tradition. Before we left today, he sat us down and apologized for being a bad father, but even that felt hollow and insincere; he chose to be a bad father, and it’s all-too-clear that he doesn’t regret those choices. So Jeff and I let the apology sit on the table and drove back to Norfolk. We’ll probably see them next year.

I’m right good at giving speeches about why I don’t particularly care for Christmas, what with all the commercialism and consumerism and the notion of a cultural indulgence for our sins of the past year, but if you just don’t want to be around your surviving parent, the holiday may not have much meaning for you, either.