I settled into adolescence without assistance. Even if I didn't understand something, instead of instinctively asking for help, I would rather leave it blank. It wasn't pride, or that I thought I was weak. It just never occurred to me to require anyone else's expertise. It started with homework, 5th grade. My father would refuse to do my math for me, as I'd heard so many other kids brag that theirs' had. "Figure it out yourself, you're smart enough," he'd say, not looking up from the newspaper or occasional WWII memoir. I would trudge down from my prison of a room like one of the soldiers in those memoirs for the tenth, eleventh, twelfth time that day. "Is this right?" I'd ask, not making eye contact because I knew it wouldn't be. He peered at my scrawl of an answer: "Nope, try again." Christ, it was taunting. Even when I did ask for the problem to be explained, he poked at me over his glasses.
"Dad, I need help on this."
"On what, be specific."
"On this." Pointing, exasperated.
"I'm not a mind reader, ask me a question and I will do my best to help you."
He's always spoken like that. Canned, artificial, as if reading from a telemarketer script. He's always been frustratingly calm and rational. Sometimes I just wanted to provoke him into screaming profanities at me. Maybe his tight, woolen sweaters prevented any fresh air from getting to his lungs. Maybe one too many tobacco pipes had finally shriveled his brain-stem. Maybe raw feeling was raped away by periodical haircuts and old Clint Eastwood films. I had experimented once with a leftover cigar I had found in the garage. As I inhaled slowly, I could feel the flavor of 40 years' apathy slithering into my mouth. The feeling was familiar, not one I had already felt but one I would grow into. I wasn't fooling anyone, I was going to be just like him. A turtleneck.
