Brittany Stark Watson
“You can’t carry a tune in a bucket,” he says to me while driving with the window cracked. A cool stream of thick white smoke glides from the tip of his cigarette and meets the fresh air outside. My father taught me so many things in this lifetime and some of them are useful. I meet a challenge when considering what might be the most important thing I learned from him.
It was the skill of changing the tires on wheels. Hours were spent in the driveway with tools in my hand manipulating the rubber, directed by the drunken bearded man sitting on the tailgate. I would always change the oil, too. When he points, he does not use his finger, rather a beer-can-gripped hand. He gracefully moves without a tumble, the contents only ever carefully deposited between his mustache caged lips.
Now that I think of it, it may have been when he taught me how to drive. There’s no telling how long it would’ve taken me to get the hang of reverse if I hadn’t been screamed at while performing the task. “Get the hell out of the car, my family can all drive well, get it together.” It also could’ve possibly been the most important lesson of all when he taught me to drive in the rain. What started as a drive to buy a case of Keystone turned into a thunder and lightning cruise down the highway out of town. Rain hit the windshield and my hands were shaky. I couldn’t see a thing between the downpour and constant blinding lights of the cars meeting our path. A can cracks open when he voices, “Always keep your eyes on the white shoulder line, helps keep you on the road when they’re coming at you.” I still use that one today.
“Fat girls don’t win beauty pageants.” You can imagine why this stuck with me. “Girls from our town don’t win pageants in that town.” Two gems of wisdom imparted on me in the same year that a girl my size won fair queen…and a girl from our town won in that town.
I always learned about medication and doctors. Doctors who “fired” my dad as a client would come around once a year or so. “They don’t know what they’re talking about. They all just want me to lose weight. Nobody is helping me.” I also learned that sometimes doctors tell you to ingest pain medications through your nose, “because the doctor said my stomach is used to them and it doesn’t help me unless I take them like this.”
He taught me to play chess, and he taught me to do laundry. He explained as he built engines, piece by piece. He had to do nothing alone. I was there, watching and listening. Clinging onto every life lesson.
“I want to join the Spanish club at school.” Responding in a foreign language I giggled and asked what that meant. “Cold beer, please. It’s the only Spanish you’ll ever need to know.” This was even funnier to me because it reminded me of the time I wanted to join the Sign language club. Directing an obscene gesture my way, his remark was identical. “This here is the only sign you’ll ever need to know.”
Of course, when it comes to planning your future, parents are highly involved. I wanted to do so many things growing up. I watched a movie about air traffic controllers with him and started researching those jobs and schools. He loved the weather channel, and the movie Twister, so I wanted to be a storm chaser. He said that lawyers make good money, so I looked into it. He told me I should be a pharmacist so I can write him “scripts,” so I considered it.
“You should never take the bypass through big cities. It’s a distraction and just as clogged. Going straight through is best.” This was great advice that I used in addition to the GPS he gave me when I went to visit. Not many 18-year-olds get to drive four states away to see their father. Every road trip was an adventure. Hell, after he moved away even phone calls were a treat.
Not many dads move out of their house, leaving a 17-year-old junior in high school to manage the thermostat. However, not many would leave twenty dollars on the countertop for groceries, either. They call, though. Dads are supposed to call.
I always call. I called when I got accepted to university. “Isn’t that school, like, a given if you apply?” His flat tone on the receiver caused the air to go out of my lungs. I called when I found out I was pregnant. “Are you going to name it after me?” I called when I was getting married. “I can’t come.”
For years I waited as a little girl begging for his attention, and one day I got everything I needed. “If you hadn’t been such a little shit, then maybe I wouldn’t have had to slap you around so much.”
Surprisingly, this led me to discover the greatest lesson he would ever demonstrate to me. You can only chase someone for so long. At the end of the day, even my greatest relationship had to be evaluated unequivocally. I was putting in effort, for all those years. More so than him. Effort that drained me and left me unable to care for myself in the most basic manner. Effort that stole my education, my health, and almost my life.
Never again. Never will I allow myself to participate in any endeavor which does not fill my soul in the way it pours out. Never will I miss out on the opportunity to learn a new language, grow in a skill, or love myself. I won’t question my life’s purpose, and I won’t bleed out for attention. I will sing my heart out.
These are things my father taught me.