Jody M Keene
How to Take Your Dad to Rehab (the Springsteen Version)
The August you start middle school, your mom gets a new job at the chicken-feed plant two towns over—six am to six pm four days a week. They tell you after burgers one night as you’re rinsing plates for the dishwasher. “So that means Dad’ll be taking you to and from school now,” your mom says. Her voice is cheerful, like it’s your birthday or Christmas morning instead of a random Thursday. She smiles, a flash of teeth, and her eyes never leave your dad’s face.
“What do you think about that, my little Cass? My little Cassi-dee-dee?” He snaps a towel at your knee, and you squeal. You love your dad. But (and you would never say this out loud) his truck is Frankensteined together with different-colored panels, rust holding them all together. There’s a hole in the floorboard that makes the cab blazing or frigid depending on the season, and if it’s raining, dirty water churned up by the tires gets all over your shoes. Beer cans rattle in the bed and roll out from under the seat and through the hole in the floorboard. Even Amber thinks his truck is social suicide, and she rides a hot-pink Huffy with a banana seat and wicker basket to school.
But (and you would never say this out loud) you’ve heard the low voices of your mom and dad before you get up, before you go to bed, all weekend. Your mom needs this job. Your family needs this job. So you lob a loose waffle fry into the trash and say “cool,” and go back to scraping ketchup off the plates.
You settle into a rhythm, a routine. Mom sneaks in and plants a kiss on your hairline before she leaves, then you have frozen waffles or cereal out of a bag for breakfast in the near dark; the Hot Ones 97.4 morning show blasts on the boom box in your room while you get ready. You’re pretty sure Dave, the morning DJ, is a good kisser. Anyone with a voice like his must be. Amber says her aunt dated him when they were in high school and he was too handsy. You picture an octopus with a boy’s head and full lips. “Got a new Pearl Jam track coming up soon,” he says, “but first, over to Damon for the weather report.”
At seven-fifteen on the dot your dad knocks and says, “Ready to go, my little Cass? My little Casserole? My little Cassette Tape?” He grins and tries to mess up the bangs you spent the last thirty minutes fixing. In the truck, he puts a tape into the tape deck, and you listen to side A the whole way to school, side B on the way home. That first year he played Bruce Springsteen a lot. “He’s only the best goddamn artist to ever live,” he says every time, his eyes glassy, “and you can quote me as long as you don’t say the swear.”
One afternoon in November he throws the truck into park in the middle of county road 475. He opens his door and pulls you across the bench seat since the passenger door doesn’t open anymore. “What are you doing?” you sputter. There are no other cars in sight, but still—you’re in the middle of the road.
“Come on, dance with your old man, my little Cassidy.” The next song starts, Bruce singing about his father’s house. You dance in the middle of the road, half embarrassed, half thrilled to be swaying like this in the open, your dad spinning you out and bringing you back again, his hands rough and his breath sweet. You laugh, and he laughs, and Bruce sings about shining beacons, hard and bright. You dance until the song ends then climb back into the truck.
Twenty years later, you pull into the parking lot of a Chinese buffet outside Austin. Your Jeep Grand Cherokee is only a few years old but new to you—leather seats, heated steering wheel, the works. Amber’s husband gave you a great deal on it. “Kick the tires and light the fires! You’re going places in this one,” he hooted. He kicked the tires there on the lot. You’d already written the check for the down payment.
Your dad pecks at his phone in the passenger seat trying to find the Oklahoma Sooners football score. You close your eyes to keep from rolling them at his hunt-and-peck routine. “How’s Chinese?” you say, and he nods, already pulling his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket as he opens the door. You sit behind the wheel and watch him light up, one hand blocking the cheap gas station lighter from the wind. He closes his eyes on the inhale, and you suck in a long breath with him. You shoot a quick text to your husband—“Made it to Austin, getting food”—and check the maps app again. When you look up, he grinds the rest of the cigarette under his shoe.
You have been here before. Not this parking lot, not this Chinese restaurant, but (and you would never say this out loud) this place of optimism cut with resignation; the place where you sit with the knowledge he won’t stay, won’t change, won’t admit it’s long past due—all of it warring with the simple hope that this time he means it.
Inside, you hand him a plate from the end of the buffet. He takes it in both hands and looks down at it. “Your mom used to dish me up. I don’t know what I like.”
This time you can’t help it. You roll your eyes. Your mother has been dead for nearly two years now, enough time for grass to sprout over the mound of dirt she’s under, and more than enough time for your father to learn how to make his own damn plate. You love your dad, of course you do, but some days you wonder why your mother put up with him for so long. “You’ll be fine. Look, there’s the sweet and sour chicken. And fried rice.”
At the table he rubs his hand up and down his thigh, callused palm rasping on the denim, his foot in constant motion. He eats with quick bites and drains glass after glass of unsweet tea. While he waits for you to finish, his hand flickers up to the pack of cigarettes in his pocket and back down, a bird startled into flight. Finally, you say, “Go smoke. I’ll pay and be right there.”
You’re about to turn out of the parking lot when the song on the radio ends. “It’s Drivetime Johnny, kids,” the DJ says, “with a deep cut from the living legend himself, Bruce Springsteen.” The opening chords spin out from the dash, and your hand drops from the wheel. Drivetime Johnny. An octopus with a boy’s head. A truck with holes in the floorboard. Your mother’s lips as she whispers a kiss on your forehead. You put the Cherokee in park and look over at him.
You crank up the volume. “Dance with your kid?” you ask, and his face transforms, twenty years of hard drinking, hard living gone for a second.
“With my little Cassi-dee-dee?” You leave the Cherokee running where it stands and meet him at the front bumper. He takes your outstretched hand, puts a hand on your waist. Cars shoot down the access road; cars turn in and out of the parking lot; people go in the restaurant and come out; you don’t care. He spins you out and brings you back as Bruce sings about loss and regret, and you sway together in the parking lot until the song ends. His hands are brittle now, his breath bitter. You laugh, and he laughs, and (you would never say this out loud), maybe there’s a chance after all, for both of you. Maybe this time it’ll work. Maybe this time will be the time that matters.
Jody M Keene is a writer with a healthy stack of rejections living in Arkansas with her family. She previously worked as managing editor for scissors & spackle literary magazine, and her work has been published in or is forthcoming from Flash Fiction Magazine, JMWW, Emerge Literary Journal, Cleaver Magazine, and Peatsmoke Journal. She is a Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions nominee and can be found on her website, jodymkeene.webador.com.
