I can’t remember the change, but the dollar amount was $15,863.00.

It was my 18th birthday present from my dad – a bill for $15,863 and change for raising me from the age of 15 on.  He woke me up that morning, and I thought, like a jackass, that he was going to wish me happy birthday and give me a little talk about “being a man now.”  Instead, he threw an envelope at me and said, “Have this in my account by noon” and walked out.

Inside the envelope was an itemization for what it cost to raise a fucked-up teenager from the day his mom commits suicide until the night before he turns 18.  My father had kept a complete accounting of every penny he’d spent on me over three years – dental appointments, food, rent (mom’s death had left him debt-free), gas money, clothes, school stuff – everything (I had already paid for my mother’s funeral when I was 15, which my grandparents were very surprised to learn a few years ago, since they had also helped my dad pay for that service).  It was all written in his psychotically neat hand on notebook paper in blue ink and totaled at the bottom.

$15,863.__ [sic]

My 18th birthday was also the day I received access to my trust fund – the life insurance my mother had left in my name, which was a slight I don’t think my father ever got over – and he expected me to pay him back for raising the boy who, at that time, was his only son.

I did.  When I went to the bank to get my money, I made sure that my dad got what he wanted.  In retrospect, had I been a stronger person, or had I been the man I am today, I would have written on the bill, “Please file suit for collection of this amount, you gargantuan, alcoholic asshole.  P.S. – Go fuck yourself with a flagpole.”

But, I was 18, and he was my dad.  At that point, I could never imagine a time that my dad and I would be estranged, much less that he and I would go nearly 20 years without speaking, so I paid the bill.  He’s probably glad we didn’t enter into a payment plan, since I was flat-ass broke less than a year later.

At least I can say I don’t owe my dad a goddamn thing for raising me.

I know I wasn’t an easy kid to raise, and I realize that I was always a major embarrassment to my father while I was growing up (let’s face it, y’all, I came out of the womb with jazz hands, one holding a Marlboro and the other a tony cocktail), and there was that time we got into a fist-a-cuffs when I was 17 and I broke a few of his ribs (he had it coming), so I really shouldn’t be bitter.

But I was. And I am.

When I flunked out of college, Dad quickly informed me that I couldn’t move back into my childhood home with him, his new wife and his newly adopted son (I wasn’t invited to the wedding).  We pretty much stopped speaking after that.

But, again, he was my dad, and I still wanted him to be proud of me, and I wanted him to love me.  I have never, ever admitted this to myself or, obviously, anyone else before, but I joined the Air Force solely because I thought it might finally make my dad, as well as my grandparents, proud of me.  It had nothing to do with being a patriot (even though I am) or serving my country (still proud to have done so).  My motivation was simply to be loved and to hear from my family that they were proud of me.

And it worked, at least for a little while.  My father and I briefly reconciled toward the end of my tour, but after I came home, we got into a fight about (what else?) money, and that was it.  From the time I was 22 until my 37th birthday this year, I didn’t hear from him – no birthday or Christmas cards, no phone calls, no fuck-you-very-much, nothing.

Then, my grandmother ran into him at a restaurant one night, and he apparently went on and on about how he didn’t know why I’d cut him out of my life, what he’d done wrong, didn’t know anything about my life and would “really like to see me one last time.”  I heard similar stories from other people in Caruthersville (it’s a short grapevine, but it’s really thick).

Cue guilt trip, stage right.  My grandmother Marcelle (with whom I’ve only in the past couple of years begun to get along with) started guilting the living shit out of me to see my dad.  She brought it up every single time we spoke on the phone, which was at least once a week.  The woman wore me down like a No. 2 pencil.

Then my grandfather had a heart attack and I chose to spend my 38th birthday in Caruthersville so that I could see him.  My grandmother also convinced me to call my dad and see him while I was there.

I tried to set up a meeting with him at the casino in town – you know, somewhere public with lots of exits – instead, he showed up at my grandmother’s house where my maternal family was gathering for an impromptu dinner.  I answered the door and he walked in and said, “Hey, is @^*(&$ [my former name] here?”

“Hi, I’m Max,” I responded, as I shook his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Max. Is @^*(&$ here?” he asked again.

“That’s me, Dad.  I’m Max.”

He looked at me like I was a Democrat at an NRA convention.  His wife, Clemmie, finally leaned over to him and said, “That’s your son, Paul.”

“Oh. I didn’t recognize you.”

“Yeah, I’ve lost some weight.”

“And you’re old.”

“I hear that happens.”

He was bombed.  Absolutely fucking smashed.  I don’t know how in the hell he was standing upright.  He said he and Clemmie were on their way out for dinner to celebrate their anniversary, and they thought they’d stop by to say hello on their way out.

I was fucking mortified.  I’ve been as drunk as he was several times in my life, but never without the involvement of tequila.

I said it was nice to see them and that I’d see him at the boat the next day.

Once they left, I apologized to my family.  “Sorry about that.”

“About what?” My grandmother Marcelle asked.

“About him showing up over here so drunk.”

“What do you mean?  He’s always like that.”

Oh, Christ, I thought.

The next day, my dad called and asked if I could just come by his house instead of meeting him at the casino.  I begrudgingly agreed – I really had no desire to see the house where I’d grown up, full of memories of my mother and bad memories of my teen years.

I stopped at the liquor store on my way there to get him some beer and myself a pint of rum, and we sat in his workshop and talked for a couple of hours.

My dad spent the time covering the following topics:

1. How proud he is of Andrew, his adopted son.
2. God, I sure was a fuck-up growing up.
3. The liberals are destroying the world.
4. He’s really proud of Andrew, and putting him through college, paying his rent and bought him a car.
5. Do I remember what I fuck-up I was?
6. Goddamn liberals.
7. Andrew may be the second coming of Christ.
8. I may have been the gay Anti-Christ.
9. Speaking of gay, let’s bond by allowing him to tell me every time he beat up a faggot.  No, really, Max, you’ll get a kick out of all these stories.  There are a lot of ‘em.
10. Sure is a good thing Andrew didn’t turn out like you.

I kept adding more rum to my Coke, until there wasn’t any Coke.  Or ice.  I should have just been slamming from the pint.

Dad never asked me about my life.  He never asked how I’d met my partner of (at the time) 11 years, how I fed and clothed myself, if I was healthy, wealthy or wise.

He didn’t give a shit.

Eventually, my ego – or the rum – got the better of me, and I covered the following topics:

1. I told him that I really didn’t care to hear any more fag bashing stories and that if he and his buddies had run into me and my fag posse (Gradon, Clint and Clarie), we would have kicked the living shit out of them and left a Louboutin sticking out of his fucking forehead for good fucking measure.
2. It must be embarrassing to know that your fucked up faggot son now makes more money in two months than you make all fucking year, and yes, my Rolex is real.
3. It must also fry your beer-battered brain to know that your queer kid did every goddamn bit of it without any help from you.  He got himself educated, found a life partner, lives in a gorgeous goddamn house with an art collection that rivals the MoMA and has a life filled with love and laughter.
4. You’ve sat in this house, rotting for the last 20 years, but I’ve fucking lived!  I’ve had adventures that would curl your hair and straighten your toes.  I’ve been places you can’t imagine and seen things you can’t even read about.
5. It’s a real fucking shame you’ve missed all that, and it’s an even bigger shame that now that I’m an adult and really coming into myself and my best years, you’re going to miss that, too.
6. I’m glad Andrew didn’t turn out like me, too.  That would have meant you were a total asshole, instead of just an asshole to me.

I don’t think he heard a word I said.  When I told him I had to go, he only wanted to see my car.  He said it was nice, and I left.

Thankfully, my surrogate sister Courtney got me really, really drunk that night, but that meeting with my father opened flood gates for nightmares that continue to this day.  At least once a week, I dream about high school and how bad it was, how bad he was and how bad I was.

I’ve spent the last 20 years running from the boy I was, going so far as to change my entire name and doing my damnedest to become a different person.  In many ways, I’ve succeeded, and in others I’ve failed miserably.  I’ve learned that what happens to you when you’re a kid shapes you for the rest of your life, no matter what.

I don’t think I’ll ever talk to my dad again, at least I hope I won’t.  I’d really like to close that chapter of my life for good – it’s what this posting has been about – I’ve been writing it and re-writing it in my head for months.

I’ve also decided that Gradon and I are going to revise our estate documents next month.  I want to make absolutely sure that if I get hit by a MARTA bus, Gradon gets everything and that my father gets absolutely nothing.  Nada.  Zero.  Michael Jackson and I agree on at least this much.

*****

I don’t know what happened to that bill for $15,863.  I’d kill for it, though.  I would trade my entire art and memorabilia collection – the painting by Grace Slick, the Rinards, the James Dean painting, the autographed Janis Joplin album, my Prince tambourine, the Icart, the albums signed by Annie Lennox, the Cadmus, hell, I’d probably cash in my Berkshire Hathaway and Apple stock – everything – just to have that bill framed and hanging above my mantel.

I spent so many years trying to forget who I was and where I came from, and now it is so very important to me that I remember everything.

Otherwise, how will I ever become the man I need to be?