Today, I am focused on one particular quantum split. When I was a kid, my dad maintained the family vechiles himself: mechanical issues, body work, paint touch-up. He welded, airbrushed, bondo-ed and sanded everything we had that needed it.
More than a few times, I was invited to help him in the garage. Until the invitations stopped and I just cut the grass or spent the weekends off in my mind somewhere. You see, I was always odd, at least a little bit queer. And my dad put forth effort, at least for awhile, but his temper was short and when I couldn’t just hand him a half-inch ratchet because I had no idea what that meant, he would rage a bit, scatter the wrong tool I had handed him and climb out from under the car to get the proper one. He wasn’t as good a teacher as he was a mechanic.
I don’t remember if I was ever dismissed or simply ran inside the house on my own, but there were typically tears on my face by the time I made it to my room.
Today, I spent my Sunday morning thinking about that moment and wondering if there was a splinter point where that little queer boy found the inspiration to bike to the library branch and teach himself tool names and functions. To build a sturdy bridge to his dad’s world, at least for productive visits, if not to build a life there.
I mean, the idea isn’t too remote or outlandish; I currently operate a million dollar piece of equipment and run, diagnose, maintain, and repair it better than my peers. You see, this quantum me ended up there anyway, out of necessity when my big gay job vanished. I just didn’t get there early enough for my dad to have not lost patience in father/son projects.
Back to mechanic-me… I know someone that I would hope he was like: unapologetically queer, a master mechanic, a solid dependable guy, and a hot beer-guzzling biker. More than a little bit, I enjoy the wandering thoughts of being serviced by a suit while servicing his precious baby on the lift in my shop, while his wife spends a day at the spa.
I digress, because this is about my childhood relationship with my dad. Recently, I had need for a photo of my dad and myself, and I immediately knew the one I wanted. There is a poloroid of my dad napping in a hammock on the patio of my parents’ first house. I was an infant, no more than four or five months, balancing on his belly, taking a nap of my own. Such a perfect snapshot of a dreamy memory.
Of course, reality is a harsh contrast. I spoke with my mom yesterday, and that photo is nowhere to be found, missing from its album in a failed effort to archive our family history digitally.
The follow-up from my mom? “There aren’t any other photos of you and your dad, except maybe a family shot you could crop down.”
In the infinite everything, there must be at least one quantum-me that knew as a child what a half-inch ratchet was. At least one that could engage in an exchange with his dad and build a mechanical aptitude alongside his burgeoning queerness.
At least one me that has more than just one lost photo with his father…
quantum man 