I have so much pain locked up in my chest that I could burn down the world. The fire feeds on me, as I stay holed up in my house. I can’t bear it any longer. I go into my father’s study and tell him bluntly, “Dad, it’s enough. I understand. Shit! It’s enough already!”
He looks at me without saying anything. He stays silent. I’ve provoked him, I said a bad word, and he doesn’t answer. What kind of a way to react to provocation is that, anyway?
I slam the door and go back to my room. I turn up the music until the windows are shaking so that everyone can hear me but no one can speak to me. I want to close myself in a house of noise, because today, this one I am living in is not my house. Terminator starts howling like he always does in these situations. He always howls when he hears the music of Linkin Park at full blast, and when my mother is cooking chicken with bell peppers. It seems that some primitive instincts or bad memories from puppyhood are being awakened. Terminator really is a strange dog. If I have to be reincarnated, I hope my destiny is not to become Terminator. Who knows who Terminator was in a past life. …
I turn up the music even more, and the words from “Numb” are about to shatter the windowpanes into fragments so that everyone can hear me. Suddenly Mom shrieks, “Leo, turn it down, I can’t even talk on the telephone!”
Just what I want, but don’t you realize it, and you actually think that I like to listen to this damn music at full blast? Do you really think I give a shit? I only want to fill this world full of noise with plugs in my ears.
Then my father walks in the room. He doesn’t say anything. I lower the volume.
“Let’s go for a walk. … ”
He’s heard me. My father has heard me. He has heard what I was truly saying.
We didn’t speak about anything in particular. But with Dad near me, I am almost calm, my doubts about everything and everyone are quieting down. My wounds burn less. Dad, father. How does someone become a father? You have to read a ton of books, have at least one son, and have strength similar to God.
I will never be capable of that.