Paternal Loathing

‘Hating a parent is like hating a part of yourself. It is the culmination of the most desperate form of loss and detachment that comes from a broken relation with what should be a loving, nurturing and secure relationship. Hatred eventually passes through the stages of self-doubt, self-blame, self-loathing and pity, and seeing in yourself all that you have come to hate in them.’

 

It’s hard to say if he truly hated his father.

He wasn’t sure if it were physically possible to hate someone who had given so selflessly, and asked for so little. He did know intimately, however, this feeling of festering rage and disgust that permeated every fibre of his being as incited by so many little things that he did. 

Things like the way his father’s rotund stomach hung so heavily over his waistband " the very personification of gluttony -, how he whinged in whiney child-like falsetto, the way he spoke to waiters, the way every meal was punctuated by his trips back for seconds, thirds, and then to the down-stairs freezer for dessert, his selfishness in so many aspects of his life, the way his mother babied him and fuelled his greed " as though the more she gave, the more she fed the not-so-metaphorical beast.

So much of his hatred towards this man could be measured on a scale. His father’s rampant obesity enraged him. But it left the question: why did this rage start and finish with one man? Why was he not overcome by revulsion at every person who could help themselves to 3 courses of beige, finished off with an enormous helping of ice-cream and a bottomless trough of ‘nibblies’? Worse still, it’s not like he had completely eradicated these things from his own diet. So what gave him the right to be repulsed?

In attempt to placate his biting temper and pacify the temptation to tut and sneer at this ever-growing belly of excuses, he tried to remind himself that it was impossible to force a person to change. All contempt would undoubtedly be in vain. Could you really hate an alcoholic for succumbing to a particularly juicy cocktail of genetic predisposition and a simple lack of self-control? The side-ways glances spiked with disgust during mealtimes were ineffective in stimulating change. This was obvious. It was like glaring at a baby for shitting its pants. Fruitless, tiring and ultimately ending in stalemate, as eventually, one of you would need a change.

His relationship with his father was, in a word, troubled. Whilst so many of his issues with the man did boil down to his insatiable appetite, this fury seemed to have leached out to corrupt other elements of his character as well. The way he spat offhanded misogynistic garble. His incredible and unwavering overestimation of his sporting ability despite doing absolutely none for over a decade. The way he drummed his fingers just slightly off tempo, always. His unhealthy affinity for cigarettes and bourbon.

Mostly it was the way his not-so-well-contained homophobia leaked out in the form of lacklustre jokes, drained of any honest attempt at humour. These distasteful jokes boasted the subtlety of poorly-camouflaged army tanks " clumsy and weaponised. The cruel slice of his tongue was salted by irony " in that his own son had been kissing other boys behind the shower blocks at camp and even under his roof since the seventh grade. True, this wasn’t exactly public knowledge. But surely he knew. Surely the man who had raised him from cradle to graduation stage could have made out the glittering rainbow flag that lay pinned to his chest underneath all of his clothes, tastefully bedazzled with technicolour rhinestones. It was unspoken, and apparently, unsuspected. And with each clunky slight it remained that way. With each firing of the canon, he retreated back into the trenches a little further, cloaked in a wardrobe of ill-fitting heterosexuality.

 

But with the bad came good. His father was generous; both with himself and others. He didn’t shout. He wasn’t violent. He sponsored a child in rural Indonesia and paid his taxes. He drove a hybrid and recycled with enthusiasm. He made his wife cups of tea without being asked and hung out the washing on the weekends. He was kind. He made an excellent lamb stew. He called his mother biweekly. He had a keep cup.

The boy concluded that he didn’t hate his dad.

It was true that rage, once spilled, was a stain that only worsened the more you tried to get it out. With this in mind, he had resigned himself to bottling it up tight, so as not to spill a single, damning drop. Once opened, the can of worms would only serve to wound and fester. And he couldn’t bear to hurt his father’s feelings. At least not so deliberately.

Perhaps it was better his mouth be stuffed with lasagne. Perhaps it was safer this way. One protected from unrelenting scrutiny by a layer a marshmallow blubber. The other by a warm, if poorly tailored, cloak still attached to the hanger.

 

Author's Note

the title is definitely a work in progress