Dear Dad, I was five years old. John was eleven. He looked to you to see what a man should be. We listened to your stories between sips of beer at the dinner table. Stories of what guy you beat up this week. Stories of the trouble you got into as a kid. We listened to your dirty jokes. We listened to your stories about the blacks at work. We watched you pound beer after beer and instill fear in everyone around you. He wanted to be a real man in your eyes. He was succeeding. He smoked. He drank. He fought. The more he became like you, the harder you beat him. He was crying and begging for you to stop like the child that he was. He was pleading for mercy. What he got from you was a closed fist. Because he should learn to take it like a man. He wasn't a man. He was a fucking child! I was in the top bunk listening to it all. Trying to to cry quietly enough so you wouldn't hear. I didn't want you to give me something to cry about. There is no place like home. No words could be more true to me. However, I didn't share the same intention. Home was the only place in the world I feared. The only place I never felt safe. You wanted him to be a man like you, and look what it got him. "You want to act like a man, I'm gonna treat you like a man." So you beat him like a man. I learned from that. I behaved myself. I didn't drink. I didn't smoke. I hid from you. I feared you. Eventually you saw that I wasn't like you. What did I get for that? Ignored. You beat John at night, and played basketball with him in the day. You slipped him a beer whrn mom wasn't looking, but when he got caught drinking behind the garage, you beat him mercilessly. You never laid a hand on me. I guess I wasn't man enough. I was a lost cause. I was my Mother's son. I was the Mama's boy. Because I was afraid to go near my Daddy because I was afraid he would kill me. You wrote me off. I would lay in my bed and watch you come in to the room, knowing what was coming. The bed would shake with each blow. "Stop crying you fucking sissy. I'm not even hitting you that hard." What did he do this time? Steal a dollar from you to buy candy? You beat him constantly and viciously. I would cry more, and you would become more disappointed in me. "I didn't even touch you, what the hell are you crying for?" Exactly. You didn't ever lay a hand on me at all. You gave up on me. But I never gave up on you. Time went on. You called John outside to work on the car. You played football with him. You joked and wrestled with him. The more you abused him, the more he became like you, the more you respeced him for being a man. I would rather be beaten than not exist at all. So I acted up. I dropped out of school. You told me you were disappointed, but you told me over a beer, like a man. You punched me in the arm and told me to not end up like my old man. I got arrested. You took me out for a drink to tell me you were disappointed, over a beer. "Do you want to end up like your brother?" Maybe I did. The worse I got, the more you saw me. We drank together. We smoked together. We walked into a bar, and people got out of our way. You introduced me to your frineds. As YOUR son. I feared no man in the world. But you. I was becoming like you. That scared the SHIT out of me. WHY? WHY the FUCK would I want to be the man that I feared and despised my whole life? Because you were a man. I couldn't do it. I couldn't be you. It just wasn't in me. I was still my mother's son. And for YEARS I thought that I was less of a man for it. I walked away from you and become my own person. Then I learned that I was the real man. I didn't work to make people fear me. I worked to earn their respect. Now I sit in the dark corner of the bar with you talking. The drinking and the drugs have taken their toll. You are a broken down sad old man. I don't fear you anymore. You drunk tears falling into your beer. Again. You are feeling sorry for yourself and apologizing for being such a bad father. Again. Why have I never heard these words when you are sober? Even NOW, you try to justify your actions. "I wasn't THAT bad to John." "He was a bad kid, and needed to be straightened out." Of course I have to hear that you treated my mother right. Again. "I never once hit her." I listen. Again. I think of all the things I want to say and do. "No, Dad, you never hit her." "You didn't HAVE to." "Were you too drunk to notice that every time she heard your voice she would cower?" "Didn't you see her flinch every time you walked by?" You tell me that you know you weren't the best father in the world, but you did the best you could. You did all that you knew how. You don't understand why neither of your daughters have called you in fifteen years. I want you to know how it feels to be on the recieving end of your tough love. I want to knock you off your bar stool flat on your ass. While you are lying on your back, I want to yell, "FUCK YOU! WHO IS THE REAL MAN NOW DAD?" "WHO IS THE SISSY CRYING ON THE FLOOR WITH A BLACK EYE AND A BLODDY NOSE?" "TAKE IT LIKE A MAN!" I want to leave you on the floor bleeding and crying and walk away. Ignore you. But I can't. I won't even give you this letter. You probably think that makes me weak. You are wrong. You have no idea how much strength it takes for me to not beat the living shit of you. But I can't do that. Not because I am sissy. Not because I am afraid of you. Because, Dad, I am a real man. I am not like you. You gave up on me twenty-five years ago. But I still haven't given up on you. So I saw what I always say. "Yeah, Dad, you did the best you could." And I walk away. Like a man.