This one's for John Larry Brantley:
Chapter Thirty-Five
Thanks, Dad. For real.
Since we’re nearing the end of my twisted tale
(TV nerd alert: the third episode of Wishbone
to ever air was titled “Twisted Tail,” our take on Oliver Twist), I suppose it’s only fitting that I give props to
another family member, who I have painted in these pages in a less than flattering
light. In fact, earlier in this book I called my dead father an asshole. I
stand by that statement. Some folks miss their shot at redemption, either
because they never see their chance when it comes, or they check out of this
life too soon. I don’t think my father put a bullet in his mouth solely to fuck
the rest of my mom’s life (though, based on his last words to her, that clearly
was a part of it). The simple truth is that John Larry Brantley was
psychologically unhinged at the end of his short and tragic life. He suffered
from a severe mental illness at a time (1980) and in a place (small-town Texas)
where that kind of shit never even got mentioned,
let alone talked about in the open. The legacy he left my sister and me was one
of sadness, anger and confusion. But I do have to give him credit for one good
thing.
My dad was a reader of the voracious variety. He was the kind of man who
never went anywhere without a book, usually a very dog-eared paperback,
sticking out of his back pocket. If dad was in the bathroom longer than five
minutes, it was a good bet that he’d long since finished his business, and was
simply trying finish a chapter. There were literally stacks of books piled up
in his bedroom, his bathroom (which he referred to as “The Library”),
underneath the end tables next to the sofa. Oddly enough, I can’t remember any
house or apartment we ever lived in having actual bookshelves. The books I
remember the most were these serialized action novels by author Don Pendleton,
about a character named Mack Bolan, aka The
Executioner. Mack Bolan made John Rambo look like a mincing little pussy.
Bolan fought the entire Mafia, and kicked its ass. Then he took on global
terrorists, and kicked their asses.
He hand picked two counter-terrorist teams (which each got their own spinoff
series), Able Team and Phoenix Force, and all those guys did
was fly around the world and punch evil dudes in the nuts, before utterly
destroying them with their superior military tactics and firepower.
They were pulp novels, to be sure, mostly devoid of anything approaching
literary merit. The point is, I saw my dad reading a lot. When you’re a little kid, no matter how many times you’ve
been emotionally scarred by your old man, you still look up to him. You tend to
believe that whatever he is doing, is a good thing for you to do, also. If I’d
seen my old man smoking cigarettes, I likely would have swiped a few when he
wasn’t looking, and given it a shot. If I’d seen him shooting craps or throwing
back Scotch, I probably would have given those things a try years earlier than
I actually did. Dad does it; it must be a
good thing to do. But what I saw my dad do most of the time – when he
wasn’t watching television, or going off for long walks by himself – was read.
Everywhere.
So I started reading Dad’s books. And I started looking for books on my
own. I read the Encyclopedia Brown series,
the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three
Investigators series, and everything by Arthur Conan Doyle. Then I stumbled
on a book called The Hobbit, and that
changed everything. Tolkien fired my imagination as nobody else had before, not
even Stan Lee and his universe of Marvel Comics superheroes. In fact, there
comes to my mind, finally, here near the end, one good memory between my dad
and me. I think I was nine or ten when I first started reading The Hobbit. It was during the summer, I
remember because I would spend hours and hours with my nose buried in those
pages of Middle Earth. My dad must have seen something in that obsessive
reading that he recognized in himself, because one evening, as we were eating
dinner in front of the television, I was reading instead of watching The Carol Burnett Show – and everybody
in the house knew that I adored Carol
Burnett. (Red headed women that can make me laugh are still sexy as hell to
me.)
“Whatcha readin’, Bub?” I can
still remember him asking.
“A book called The Hobbit,” I answered.
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about a place called Middle Earth,
and this guy named Bilbo, well, he’s not really a guy, he’s a hobbit, like a
midget, but he’s friends with a wizard, and he has to travel to a place called
Lonely Mountain and steal something from a dragon.”
“Is it any good?”
“Yeah. It’s really good.”
“Hmm. Maybe I’ll read it when you’re
finished,” he said.
And he did. And then he burned straight through the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, and then – so help me God – he even read The Silmarillion, which even a lot of
hardcore Tolkien fans are afraid to tackle, because it’s basically the
Scriptures of Middle Earth. It was the first – and last – time in my life that
my father tried something because I said that I liked it. For one all-too-brief moment we shared a connection –
even if it only existed in a mythical land created by the mind of a brilliant
English author. But it’s also why I’m a Tolkien fan to this day.
The one habit that has contributed to my imagination more than any other
– the fuel that has fired my Making Shit Up Engine – has been a lifelong love of
reading. And I owe that to John Larry Brantley. So I say, without irony, or
cynicism, or any other kind of –ism: Thanks, Dad.
John Larry Brantley.
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