Max Kruger-Dull
As children, my big sister and I joked that Dad was ahead of his time, meaning that he was depressed. We thought our joke was so complex because, to understand what we meant, you needed to know that Dad had long been depressed, that no one else seemed depressed to us until we were in high school, and that depression could be funny. Twenty years ago, we found Dad, our sad sack, crying on a park bench, building piles of mulch on his knees and then blowing them down. My sister stood behind him and said, “You’re ahead of your time, Daddio.” I stood behind him too, an overlord. “I’m ahead of my time?” he said. My sister explained the joke right into his ear. I helped. “Well, that’s not very funny,” he said. But Rachel and I disagreed.
Now I live down the street from Dad—same street, different house. The street is winding, which makes me feel too far from him.
I go to Dad’s house, my boyhood house, around lunchtime today. He waves me in and tells a joke. I don’t get the joke; it’s about planes; Dad explains it to me with a smile he can’t keep up for long.
I kiss Dad on his forehead. As children we called it his ‘mopey’ forehead. Dad says, “Well…Well…” and picks up his book and waits for me to go to the other room.
I am here to paint walls, so I go to the other room. We used to lose Dad in the corners of rooms. At family gatherings, I’d look for him and find Mom first along with her new partner. And then I’d see Dad pressed up against the wall, observing us from the room’s corner, trying to take a backward step every minute or so but finding no space behind him. He acted like there was no space in front of him either. At those functions, I sometimes walked over to him and we hugged. But sometimes Rachel and I ran over and dragged him toward his least favorite relative.
I paint the room light pink. I should’ve painted the room years ago. By now, all the rooms here should be bright and finished and I should be having lunches, dinners, strolls with Dad.
Dad calls from his chair: “Is it the pink we talked about?”
I don’t know why he’s asking this. He didn’t choose the pink, I did. He doesn’t think about colors. He only has practice thinking inside of himself. So I say, “Of course it’s that pink.” I may sound irritated.
“I really do like the shade,” Dad says.
“You’re welcome.” I may sound guilty.
In middle school, Rachel and I decided to be nicer to Dad. On the bus where this decision was made, we spat on each other’s hands and shook on being ‘nicer’ because Rachel thought it’d be too difficult to be ‘nice.’ That night, I wished Rachel gone. I wished her away to Mom’s with no access to us. There was a world without Rachel, I dreamt, where I never would’ve thought to be mean in the first place.
Dad comes to paint with me. “Have you seen your sister lately?” he asks.
I give him the roller I was using and pick up another. “I have,” I say. “I helped her prep for a job interview. Just an HR type job.”
“Oh wonderful,” he says. “That’s good. She knows how to make a good impression.”
“No, she doesn’t,” I say.
“Really?” he says. “Well, I think she does. Tell her I’d love to see her.”
“She doesn’t really want to see anybody,” I say. In my adulthood, I try not to lie to Dad but Rachel just has no interest in him. She lacks interest in anyone she once teased or bullied. She is a person who can’t face sorrys.
Dad is openly depressed today. He paints the wall so slowly. He moves the roller along a narrow plane as if his eyes would fall out should they have to look in too many directions.
“You feeling sad?” I ask.
“Oh, you know…” he says.
I put down my roller and hang my head over the back of Dad’s shoulder and say, “I love you.” We stand awkwardly. I’ve never looked at Dad from this angle: the clean swoop of his jaw, the corner of his eyes where emotions aren’t seen. He doesn’t look like Dad to me now but rather like dads more generally. And I wish I were draped over the shoulder of some other dad, one on whom I could practice intimacy before bringing it back to this house, one at whom I’d never laughed for staying in bed all day, unshowered, unfed.
There were five years or so when Dad’s depression shrunk into a non-noticeable. I would even say it left him. I was 17 to 22, Rachel 19 to 24, and when we first took note of Dad’s rise in spirit, Rachel patted him and said, “New meds,” and then said, “Sorry.” “Same meds,” he said. When I turned 20, Dad took me to a hibachi restaurant that used to disturb us because the chefs all seemed so unhappy with their jobs. I remember thinking that the place still should’ve bothered us, but we ignored their temperaments and focused on our own. Dad and I cozied up to the burnt stove. As we ate, I said, “Rachel and I were mean kids.” He watched a chef’s onion trick and said, “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart.” “I kind of feel bad,” I said; “we were awful.” “I don’t believe much in holding kids accountable,” he said. “I did always love you,” I said. He said, “It’s okay if you didn’t.” The whole meal, I wished us closer, and by the end, we did feel closer, at least for the night. That night, I forgot I’d ever been a nasty son.
Dad takes a brush and paints near the floor and says, “I guess I’ll just read tonight. I guess…You doing anything fun later?”
“I’ll do something with you,” I say.
“Oh…” he says. “Maybe… Like what?”
I watch him paint. He looks like he’s never used his hand before. He pushes the brush into the wall so weakly, making splotchy marks, annoying marks, and he’s painting a section that could’ve be done by roller, or done by me more quickly.
“Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop,” I say. I have an urge to step on his hand. “Put the brush down. Now. Put it down.” He drops the brush. “I said put it down. I didn’t say drop it. You have to learn to be more with it. It’s bad. We have to teach you to be less of a loser.” I stop.
Dad looks away to the room’s corner.
And soon I’m apologizing, crying. I drop the roller and my foot is streaked pink. My name isn’t Rachel, I think. I’m not Rachel. I’m not Rachel. I look to the same corner of the room like it’s a place outside of history and nastiness. I want to hold his hand there.
Dad leaves for his chair. I finish painting. And then he makes me lunch, perhaps so we can say our time ended well. As we stare at the table, half-eating, I hope for a moment to clarify that my mind is mostly happy, mostly kind, mostly filled with sweet thoughts of Dad and worried thoughts for myself.
After lunch, Dad says, “Well…” and I know it’s time to go.
At the door, I lean into his shoulder and say, “Bad habit of mine, bad habit.”
I walk home and feel too far from Dad. Rachel and I used to walk down this street after school. I’d let her have the slim sidewalk and stroll down the edge of the road—a martyr. On those walks, we’d give each other compliments. I liked that her teeth didn’t need braces. She liked my big boy jaw. Always, we took our time, considering ourselves too good for home.
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Max Kruger-Dull holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI, Litro Magazine, Roanoke Review, Quarterly West, The MacGuffin, Hunger Mountain Review, and others. He lives in New York with his boyfriend and two dogs. For more, please visit maxkrugerdull.com.