FATHER IN THE NIGHT

FATHER IN THE NIGHT

By Charles E. Kraus

 

Before he left the house for good, which is perhaps a strange way to describe his departure, my
father left the house for extended periods.  A month, two months at a time -- no signs of dad.  Also, no calls, cards or communications of any kind.  These parental gaps were billed as vacations.

In retrospect, my father’s vaguely explained absences, remixed to include the woman he later married, make a more complete picture.  He was not, as reported, always out on remote lakes or in forests exploring, prospecting for gold or conducting geological reconnaissance.  There were assignations. 

He did go west once without Else.  When I was about ten, he drop me off for the first day of school, offered an extended hand shake signaling, see you in a few months, then meandered down the road to meet his buddy, Eddie.   The two drove from New York to Utah to search for uranium. 

They left town in an ancient panel truck with bad brakes, my collapsible Air Force paratrooper’s bike stowed away for emergencies, a geiger counter and a scintillometer - uranium detectors, on board.  They planned to use these to find the pot of radioactivity at the end of the rainbow.  About three months later, my father returned.  No bike, no truck, no Eddie.  Eddie had decided to remain in the west, sans his wife and kids, who resided in New Jersey. He was keeping my bike.

There are other grievances, but its Father’s Day, so I want to switch gears (my fold-up bike could do that).  Whenever I have doubts about my father’s love, or my love for him, I think about the following events:

I was six-years-old, and for some reason we were taking the cross-town subway.  It departed every five minutes or so.  Dad and I entered and sat down.   After what felt like a few seconds, he said, ‘ok, time to change trains.’  The doors hadn’t closed and we hadn’t gone anywhere.  But out of the car we raced, reentering from another door.  We returned to the same seats we had just vacated, but only for a moment, before we rushed out again.  This got repeated a few more times, “time to change trains!” and soon the more sedate passengers got into the spirit.  Seemed as if everyone enjoyed my father’s antics.  That was the first time I realized he had the ability to be joyful.

I think about my father taking me along to his chess games where I got to meet his ‘down-town’ friends.  No one else in our family knew them.  They were part of his other world. 

The bird-people, a husband and wife whose parrot and vast number of parakeets, had out-of-cage privileges all over their living room, were my favorite.

The fellow with books everywhere, an entire apartment of floor to ceiling shelves, walls obscured, free standing cabinets claiming any remaining floor space, an accumulation of printed matter dominating every vista.  The chess board sat on a stack of encyclopedias.

And, I recall walking down 8^th Avenue with my father when a guy coming from the opposite direction spotted him and said, “Hi Sparks.”

“Sparks?”

Dad had been a shipboard radio operator during WWII, a Morse coder.  The nickname for these communicators was “Sparks.”  This was explained to me after he spent a few minutes exchanging pleasantries with his old shipmate. 

The thought of my father having a nickname was revolutionary. 

Contrary to his cross-town train performance, dad was an extremely shy man, reluctant to place himself into situations requiring contact with strangers.  Somehow he had been manipulated into becoming Treasure of my Cub Scout Pack, an assignment that surely intimated him.  It was to a Pack board meeting that the baby sitter called to report my particularly insidious migraine headache.  Sensing an opportunity to get away from the gathering, dad left my mother and came home to comfort me. 

You have to understand.  My father did not hug, ever.  I have no memories of him kissing anyone, ever.  I have no memories of him proclaiming his love of anything or anyone other than by bestowing intellectual praise.   And so, when he arrived in the night, placing his arm around me, pulling me close and rubbing my throbbing head, he provided a kind of unprecedented relief that has lasted to this day. 

He opened the window and suggested I take a few deep breaths of the cool evening air.  My headache subsided and he returned to the meeting.  I think about that night.