The Explosion

The Explosion

 

The hateful heat attacked my father and I as we stepped from the car onto the singeing blacktop. We rounded our shoulders in a little, we squinted, and beads of sweat fell from our heads.  It was a bright, hot, oppressive Wednesday afternoon like so many others were during that summer.

          The only sounds we heard on that lonely, tired city side street were the distant bark of a dog and the wail of a siren. Besides that, the heat stifled our senses and oppressed us as we both stepped up onto the concrete sidewalk that surrounded our tiny church. Indeed, we wanted out.

          Me and my father were about to face yet another unfamiliar type of heat: the kind from within the heart. We were headed towards a case of lit dynamite that would teach us a lesson and affect our hearts for a long time afterward.
         

I was looking forward to getting inside and meeting my friends at Youth Group and my father wanted to talk to the pastor; both of us moved quickly. The sun’s whips are terrible things.

We strolled towards the front office doors. The front end of the small church was bathed in shade. We arrived in the shade and breathed slight sighs. We’d be free soon.
            If anyone were standing there that day, watching us, they would have seen a teenager and his father trying not only to escape the heat outside, but to escape their own burning emotions inside: frustration, anger, hatred, disappointment, sadness, anxiety.

Perhaps it was an insult at work that my father was trying to push from his mind. Perhaps it was an incident at school that I wished wouldn’t have happened.

But these things had happened, and now we were attempting to Shrug off the heat & frustration by ourselves.
           

 In 100 degree weather, my father tried the front door handle to find it locked.
           

A small rush of air escaped his lips: a warm burst of frustration, a leak of hot steam.
           

“Come on!” He said, acidly.
            “What? So it’s locked. Pastor is right inside. Let’s just wait for a few moments.”

            We waited. And waited. And waited some more.

My father is a man of great passion: always with something to say or someone to correct. Loudly.

Our pastor never came to the door.

“Why don’t they have the doors unlocked? They know people are coming to church!” He exclaimed.

“Let’s go to the side of the church. It is youth night, maybe they’re unlocked over there.” I suggested.

Out into the sun we went, re-exposing ourselves to the harsh, unforgiving afternoon sun.
            Whoever was standing and watching us would have seen, with each step, that we both became tenser. The sun beating on our skin and the physical irritation at being denied air conditioning only increased our anger and tension.

My father stepped up the 3 steps into the small entryway. I came up behind him.
Our bodies tensed with anticipation. My fists clenched as I squinted.

 He tried the door; once again, we found our path out of the intolerable heat blocked by a locked door. Once again, my father reacted first.

“D****t, what is pastor thinking?” He bellowed. Each statement; each outlet of frustration built up the pressure inside, like a volcano.

“We rang the doorbell at the front, dad. If Pastor sees there’s no one there, he’ll figure we came around to this side. It’ll be fine.” I said these things, but I didn’t feel as though they were true.

Another grunt of irritation from my father-Pressure built.

“He should already have it unlocked!- Pressure built.

“Why?” I ask-Pressure built.

“’Cause you’re a youth! You need to get in to go to church, Zak!”

            The failing rock of our civility would not hold back the flood of magma anymore. Lava spewed to the surface. Both of us became animals in that moment.
            “It’s not that big of a deal, dad!”  In a few moments our fuel was going to ignite a deadly engine.

“It is to me! You need to get inside!”

“No, it’s really not. I don’t mind waiting.”

“You shouldn’t have to wait!”
           
“It’s no one’s fault! Just leave it!”

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

“It’s not a big deal!”

“It is to me!”

              Like an explosion thousands of years in the making, my fist shot out and met my father’s forehead. Our positions suddenly and irrevocably switched: I was then the aggressive one.

 And Pompeii would never be the same ever again. Within the blink of an eye the world had changed and was covered now in the hot blood of two angry, tired, hopeless men who stood rotting in the sunshine and burning in the darkness.

            A millisecond of surprise charred both of us, then my father pushed me off of the three stairs and I fell, sizzling, to the crying ground. Smoldering pain shot through my arm as I braced my fall on the ground. The hot ground.

            Lava burst from his mouth, smoldering the air and the emotions forever,

            “You wanna fight, punk?” were his words to me.

            I stood, facing him as he approached me. He was on fire. Burning, burning. He pushed me again, and I lunged, wrapping my arm around his throat. He shoved me off of him, and I fell down again.

            I kicked him in the shin, and he stumbled…

 

            “You guys need to STOP!”

A cry. A voice that had felt more pain than both of us ever had flew at us from a long way off.

            From across the blistering blacktop behind us, a 19 year old man with blonde hair was yelling at us to stop. His name was Sean.

            At first, both me and my father watched in astonishment at this young man who was so brash as to interrupt our righteous fight over two locked doors.

            “Are you guys kidding me right now? Why are you fighting? What the hell do you even have to fight about?!” Sean yelled at us. He laughed sarcastically and angrily.

            My father stepped over me and went towards the man.

            “What?!” He said.

            “You guys are father and son!” He shouted as my father walked into the street. My father’s emotions were like a dying fire clinging to life. I was already crying as I sat on the ground.

            “You should never be fighting! Don’t you guys know how ridiculous you look?” Once again, a sarcastic laugh burst from Sean’s lips: as if he knew something we didn’t.

            My father stepped into Sean’s face, all righteous fire and brimstone.

            “You know what? This is between me and my son. You need to just walk away and stay out of it.” He was making a sincere effort to stay calm but his tone betrayed his frustration.

            “No, this isn’t just between you and your son. This is between all of us! You two are usually like, super close. Why the hell would you just start fighting?! When you fight, it affects all of us. So don’t tell me it’s between just you two ‘cause it’s not!”

            They were in deep in each other’s zones. Fiery zones.

            “You don’t know how it is. You don’t know what were arguing about, anyway.”

            “I don’t have to! I didn’t have a father!” Sean shouted, pointing at me.

“ You should be loving your son, not fighting with him! Appreciate what you have, don’t f*****g squander it. You know what? I’m done. Do whatever you want.” He spit these words out like a hot potato and walked away from my father.
            Sean, after accidentally coming to our rescue, was purposely walking away from us.

A moment of silence from the sound and fury.

Then the rains came softly down. How quickly a blaze burns through! How rapidly is it quenched!

            “You know what.” My father said, sounding like a human being again. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be fighting with my son.”

            Sean had gone a few feet, but turned around again and stared at my father in the face. I stood up.

            “You guys should probably go talk to pastor about this.” Sean stated, suddenly human like my father.
            “You’re right, we will.” My father said.
            “Sorry, dad…”

            “Let’s go talk to pastor. I’m sorry too…”

            In my pastor’s office, a place of rain, refreshing and wisdom, my father learned that I had hated leaving my childhood home. And I learned that he cared more for me than I ever thought possible.
            On that day, I gained a new understanding of both my father and I: we’re not whole people. We can’t hold the anger inside forever because we’re not strong enough. The soul’s fire is too hot: our emotions can overtake us.

Really, the only thing that keeps us going is each other, and if we lose that, we’re lost. I have a lot of respect for my father, and he now has a lot of respect for me in turn. We love one another.