RIAH'S PLAYGROUND
Holidays in my family were looked forward to as times of unfettered rejoicing, and thus were usually in a fair way to turn into major disappointments. This was true even if everything went smoothly, which it didn't. My brother and I would pre-empt the long awaited mother's day hike with a healthy bout of hurling after the windy road to get there. Or the supposedly whimsical installment of the Christmas tree would turn into a hard hat affair as several family members narrowly avoided impalement by evergreen. On these occasions, my dad (Pop) could always be counted on to come in and say, with ironic gusto, "Merrrrry Christmas." Or, in this case, "ha-appy birthday."
Pop just had himself a birthday, and so I have given him the last present he would ever want, and wrote some stories about him. So, Pop, here you go. Haaaappy Birthday!
Heath Bar Cake
I have a pattern of sporadically making very elaborate gifts for people I love. In the early days of my gift-giving tenure, I made all manner of cards and crowns and artworks. But after experimenting with such rudimentary mediums, I quickly decided I was ready for the next level up. See, my gifts were fine and all, but they didn’t quite have the “umph” I was looking for. I was ready to make something useful.
My first attempt at making this dream come true was to make a pair of shoes. Nothing could be more utilitarian! Of course, I knew shoes wouldn’t be easy. But I figured it would be worth the two or three attempts it took me to perfect my technique. Then, once I really got a corner on the shoe market, gifts would be a breeze for life.
So I picked up my cardboard and I set about making a pair of shoes. I was very precise. For my mom, the lucky recipient of this first (and, spoiler alert, only) pair, I went so far as to measure her foot. I used a pencil with an eraser and made little markings on the cardboard and felt myself on the exciting precipice of true professionalism. I decided my first shoe creation would be a pair of slides, because they would be the easiest to start with. I was very realistic that way. I didn’t want to bite off more than I could chew.
I retreated to the workshop of my room, bustling about while Cat Stevens cheered me on from my ipod. I spent some of the time thinking about shoe design and most of it thinking about how people would look back on this one day as the humble, storied beginning to the famous shoemaker’s great career.
I was very proud when I presented them. My mom was very diligent in trying to act excited when she received them.
You should know that my mom is no stranger to acting. She was the star of her high school musical. (It’s important to note, here, that I am not referring to High School Musical, the Musical, but actually “Hello, Dolly,”, a musical put on by her high school). Even my mom, though, could not fake enthusiasm at the prospect of a homemade pair of cardboard slides. Perhaps this is why she never made it onto Broadway.
Praise was always lavished on my gifts, and I was happy to assume this praise was a natural effusion of genuine delight. But this was the gateway gift to the end of my innocence. I watched my Mom attempt to squeeze all ten toes under the bent archway of what used to be a cereal box. It was demoralizing. I watched her try to walk as the carefully cut-out packaging of a Home depot fan flopped under her foot. It was painful. A tiny little piece of packaging tape was still attached. It kept getting stuck on the floor.
The shoes were a healthy reality check. My gifts were always displayed on refrigerators or affixed to walls, or bodies. But I began to perceive that this pattern might spring from an attempt to humor me rather than genuine glee in the gifts themselves.
After the shoe debacle, I decided to switch up my tactics. Perhaps I needed to abandon the notion of “useful” for a while and set my sights on something slightly more attainable. I would shoot for desirable. Pop’s birthday was the next to roll around, and it was the perfect time to put my new strategy into action.
My father has made three mistakes in his life. He once let it slip that he likes the color purple. (It’s important to note, here, that I am not referring to the book “the Color Purple,” or even the movie, but in fact the literal color that is purple.) On another occasion, revealed that he likes heath bars. And last, he rented our family a cabin without air conditioning during the biggest heat wave to hit Canada in recorded history.
This last one is irrelevant to the story. But it was a mistake.
Anyone who makes a habit of receiving gifts, as I do, knows that my father’s were terrible tactics. You can make public knowledge either a litany of your preferences or none at all. My strategy, of course, is the former, but I still have great respect for the latter. The one thing you cannot do is make, let’s say, exactly two of your preferences known. Should you commit such an error, you would be guaranteed to receive only those 2 things for every birthday and Christmas for the rest of your life. God forbid you ever become a father, or the annual occasions for enduring gifts will swell to three.
Which brings me back to Pop’s birthday.
I had two options. There were heath bars, or there was purple. Purple was out of the question. I had recently stumbled upon a whole stash of Pop’s purple ghosts from Christmas past. A litany of socks and ties and belts piled in the corner of his closet. Technically, they hadn’t been abandoned, just repurposed. They were now a habitat for a mouse.
Much as I am in favor of the old Reduce, Reuse, Recycle mindset, I could not stomach the thought of my own lovingly made creations meeting the same fate.
This left Heath Bars. No one had yet exhausted the possibilities here. Of course, heath bars themselves had been done. Many times. Pop would say too many. But no one had yet thought outside the bar. I planned to change that. I would make a heath bar cake.
I was very excited about the idea, and hurried to pitch it to my mother, who would naturally be bankrolling the project. Mom was slightly more skeptical as she listened to the Proposal. (It is important to note, here, that I do not refer to the movie the Proposal but in fact to the literal proposition I had made before my mother).
Her barely restrained eye roll could not dampen my enthusiasm. You see, I had it all planned out. There was going to be one giant, rounded, heath bar cookie. This in itself would be a marvel, but we would not stop there. Certainly not. Atop the cookie would be a layer of icing with heath bits sprinkled all throughout. And then another cookie, and more icing, and on and on straight up into the sky. A brain-bending pile of decadence.
Mom always made a point to always encourage my creativity. I, in turn, make a point to continually punish her for this sacrifice.
In the end, what could she do but sigh and succumb?
The cake, when all was said and done, was a marvel. Pop looked at the towering temple of sugar, and there was only one thing to say. “In the great words of Cal from Taledega Nights, ‘you nailed that like a split hog.’”
Pop didn’t actually say this. Pop said something like “Wow.”But the fact remains that there was only one thing to say. And that was it.
Now, if this were a piece of cinema, we would pan across the finished cake, very slowly, from top to bottom. You would see, as the camera climbed, that it was nearly a foot tall. As the camera crested the rim of the cake, you would get a close-up of a great slathering of icing. It would remind you of an oil spill. You would read, in sloppy handwriting, “Happy Birthday, Pop!” Around the whole thing, you would see broken bits of heath bar, arranged into something you would later be informed was a heart.
Watch the film through the eyes of a child. You will see a wonderland. The kind of delight usually confined to the imagination, broken loose and sprung into the real world. Now scratch the record, and look through the eyes of my father. You see a gaudy, teetering pile of sugar on sugar. You see a coat, thicker even than a parka, of slathered vanilla icing. You are thinking about your liver. You are thinking about the grocery bill from the hefty list of ingredients required to make this atrocity. You are thinking about your daughter’s bright eyes, barely visible behind the skyscraper of a cake, blinking up at you while she asks eagerly “do you like it?”
You are saying yes.
My father, like any good parent, knows that actions speak louder than words. So he did not stop at saying yes. He actually went so far as to cut himself a slice. (This in itself was no mean feat. It was a tall cake.)
Then he ate it.
His slice was not so big, nor so well-enjoyed, as my own. But still. The man ate it. And, I, having yet to learn the nuances surrounding the golden rule, watched giddily, positive we were having an equally rewarding gustatory experience.
One slice was enough for the poor man. The rest was “saved for later.” This was a kind, albeit obfuscating, way to put it. Rather like telling a kid that their most beloved pet is now “on the other side of the rainbow.”
My cake, not unlike many a rainbow-dwelling pet, ended up in a corner of the basement freezer. I was told that we would continue to take it out to eat it. I was told we could all hardly wait for our next slice.
This is what I was told.
No matter. I accomplished what I had set out to do, for my present did not end up collecting dust in the back corner of a closet somewhere. No. Its fate was far better. It ended up collecting mold in the back corner of the freezer.
Chinese Acrobats
I first discovered Chinese Acrobats when my family took a trip to Disney World. To make such a trip was already a great sacrifice for my father, but I do not think he knew, going in, just how long the sacrifice would last.
I loved Disney World. There were lots of things to smell and stuffed animals to covet and expensive tchotskies to ask my parents to buy me. There were also snacks. Of course, Mom made us carry the snacks around in fanny packs, which almost completely ruined their appeal. But even fanny packs could not ruin propel.
Propel was usually not allowed in my house, because it is made of fake things that are bad for you. At Disney everything is fake and bad for you, so I suppose my parents gave up. And I got to fuel myself almost exclusively with grape-flavored sucralose.
I also loved the Hidden Mickeys. I remember hotel towels folded into Mickey Mouse shapes and wallpaper featuring patterned Mickey content. They were only hidden by virtue of the fact that there was no sign pointing towards them proclaiming “this is Mickey Mouse.” It really did not take a detective to discover them. Nevertheless, as a kid I was very susceptible to the ego boost of completing easy tasks advertised as challenges. (As an adult, little has changed). Pop and I ran around the place pointing hidden Mickeys out to each other everywhere we went, and I felt very special and very smart. For several weeks after, in fact, I half waited on a call from Steven Spielburg, who was the only director I knew of, to call me up and offer me a starring role in a Blockbuster Detective Movie.
I’m still waiting.
And I still don’t know of any other movie Directors.
Between the Hidden Mickeys and the Propel, there was some stiff competition for my favorite part of the Disney World experience. Until I saw the Chinese Acrobats, at which point the Hidden Mickeys and the Propel were promptly forgotten.
The acrobats were incredible. I remember a tower of bodies in red outfits. Mind-boggling displays of strength as the acrobats used each other like playground equipment, turning and leaping and twisting in hypnotic circles. It had not occurred to me that such marvels could be made from the raw material of the human body. They were miracle-workers and I, their slack-jawed, wide-eyed witness.
From them on, I cherished a burning desire to become a Chinese Acrobat. Though my chances of becoming Chinese were arguably prohibitive in themselves, my chances of mastering any acrobatics were comparatively low.
My form would best be described as gruesome.
This was a bummer. I did not have a lot of tolerance for being bad at things. I generally preferred to be good at things and stay good at them. But Chinese Acrobats was an exception.
It was unfortunate that the only activity in which I mastered a growth mentality was one that required parental sacrifice to practice. Perfecting my acrobatic form naturally necessitated a partner in crime. Preferably about twenty, but one would do. So I decided on Pop, because he had the most stamina in acting as my own personal jungle gym. Pop, for his part, decided we should confine our practicing to pools, because he had a fully developed frontal lobe.
So it became a game. Every time we came within sight of water, I would unleash screams of “Chinese Acrobats! Chinese Acrobats!” and my Dad would heed the call. Chinese Acrobats, the Newfont edition, involved Pop pulling numerous muscles while I clambered gaily upon him and attempted to stand. It was bliss. For one of us.
The Chinese Acrobats had over a hundred elaborate, polished, gracefully evolving poses. Pop and I had two. There was knees or shoulders. Knees was easiest. Pop bent, I got on and then he straightened and I rose from the water. I would lift my arms, chin and chest, triumphant and radiant. The primary merit of this pose was its exit strategy. When it came time to abort, which it generally came time for quite early on, I could simply jump. I would soar, legs flopping like a fish out of water, entering the surface with an almighty splash. I would only occasionally kick my father in the face. I would resurface rubbing my eyes and looking back for Pop, my grin spreading like pancake batter across my face. Even the Queen of England, I was certain, could not be so graceful as me.
The other pose was Shoulders. Pop would duck down underwater. I would grab his hands and try to place one foot on either shoulder. Then he would attempt to rise.
It is only now occurring to me what an almighty squat workout this must have been for him.
I would come out of the water bent down low over Pop’s head, as shaky as a first time surfer. Then, if we made it that far, which was rare, I would attempt to stand. I would hold Pop’s hands, cinching them tight under my slick fingers. My legs would shake like plucked guitar strings. Pop would grow ever more red in the face as I trampled his shoulders and compressed his ears between my calves.
I was usually clad in swim shorts and a stretched- out sunshirt. (I did not yet know I was queer, but everyone else did). I would be sopping wet, with oily white patches of unrubbed sunscreen on my arms and chlorine reddening my eyes.
And then I would stand, podiumed on the pectorals of my paternity. My wobbly legs finding a moment of balance as my dripping blond head shot towards the sky.
My body became an insufficient vessel for my delight. All of my limbs teeming with it, and still the meniscus of my joy quivered and spilled over.
I was pretty cool.
It had been one thing to see the Acrobats. I had been awed. It felt like a squirrel scampering in my tummy; incandescent and alive.
But the fact that it could flow through my body - my own little legs an instrument for the magic? This was a skin-splitting kind of rapture.
The rapture lasted about half a second. Then I would crash down, usually backwards, usually narrowly missing impact with my cousins doing some sort of handstand competition. “Again! Again!” I would shout as soon as I emerged back to the surface.
Pop would cite some moral responsibility to read his book, or check on Mom, or stop actively endangering every other person in the pool.
“Just one more time!” I would yell.
Pop, like limestone dissolved by rainwater, would cave.
Of course, I was an addict. And for addicts, just one more never means just one more.
So the cycle would continue ad infinitum, I feeling myself ever more resplendent while Pop merely grew more resigned.
Usually Pop’s suffering would continue until some benevolent third party decided to order us all lunch at the poolside deli. Then, an hour later, the lunch would finally be ready. And at last, Pop would really have to leave, his salvation taking the form of an overpriced, underwhelming Rueben.
Scorny
I used to have a gerbil. Her name was Scorny. I have a lot of respect for my younger self when I think about the fact that I once looked at a small rodent and dubbed her Scorny.
My Dad did not like Scorny. He was joined in this dislike by the entire extent of the gerbil’s acquaintance, with only the occasional exception of myself.
She was soft. She had that going for her. I was alone in the opinion that she was cute. But there was the matter of her smell; unpleasant. A barnyard combo of wood chips and tiny little poops. And then, while she couldn’t help it, nor could she be forgiven for the manner in which she obtained exercise. She had an exercise ball. Not a yoga ball. Do not get confused. She had a hollow, clear plastic ball about the size of a roast chicken. She was meant to be placed inside it and allowed to roam free throughout the house. Picture one of those self-cleaning vacuums, except whizzing around at ankle-endangering velocities and actively making the place dirtier. She very often collided with things. Couches. T.V.s. Toes.
I eventually put everyone out of their misery by forgetting to feed Scorny for 4 days on end, a bout of absentmindedness that proved perilous.
I have less respect for my younger self when I reflect on that part.
There was a funeral, all Newfonts in attendance. Stories were told. Tears were shed. Scorny, afterwards, was very soon forgotten.
But before that happy, black-clad day, there was a period in which Pop and Scorny got a lot of quality time. More, I have to think, than either of them could have wished. Mom and Des and I were romping about on vacation somewhere, and so for about a week, Pop was charged with the unfortunate duty of caretaking the rodent.
Since you now know that I myself murdered her, you can draw the conclusion that she did not die under Pop’s care. You might be surprised by this. That’s understandable. But it’s true. Both my father and my gerbil emerged from their week together alive.
I picture Pop sitting on the couch, eating cereal, the living room dark except for the light of the tv, and muttering “curses!” at thirty second intervals, every time Scorny rammed her ball into a cabinet. I, on the other hand, was probably at the beach or a in a pool somewhere, entirely unaware of the torture he was undergoing for me. I was busy feeling mildly ill-used at finding myself in a pool alone, without my father there to play Chinese Acrobats with me.