Dad’s Last Drive: Part 2

Posted on April 13, 2009

By Scott Tejerian

In 2004 I met a guy who called himself the Certified Health Nut. He was a former Versace model who had lived in Milan, Miami, Tokyo, and any other place in the world that funded the glorious life of being beautiful and getting paid. Only for him it was a self-indulgent, drug and alcohol-addicted vortex which left him on the brink of madness, though with a desire to want something more fulfilling and sanctifying in his life. After failing many twelve-step programs, he created something all his own, turning himself into the best looking, healthiest, youngest 37-year old I had ever seen. His magic bullet, attacked with the same tenacious aggression previously fueling his debauchery, were herbs, juicing, Maori Healers, yoga, daily meditation; anything pure, natural and uncontaminated by the greed of mankind.

This was music to my drug and alcohol-addicted ears. I was twenty-eight years old and had never felt worse in my life. I had created a world where salsa and pizza sauce were my vegetables and most food I ate only grew in boxes on the grocery shelf. Espresso kept me alive in the morning, and strung out through the afternoon. Every meal I ate felt like it needed to be followed by a nap. I could drink six cocktails without a buzz and with a little help I could go twelve deep. On Sundays I could barely leave the couch, and Mondays and Tuesdays were often a haze, and by Wednesday I would start to feel better and the madness would start all over again. I was malfunctioning while dad was functioning with cancer. We both needed help, so I decided to be our lab rat. By getting myself healthy, maybe I could save both of our lives. Maybe I could find dad’s cure.I bought a juicer. Did colon and liver cleanses. I changed my diet, learned about meditation, even did yoga a few times. Then with the gentle force of a hurricane I suggested dad follow suit. There was no time to waste. The challenge was changing ideas and views developed over a lifetime. This is not the kind of stuff that happens over night.

“Dad, you need to do a cleanse,” I told him. We were at home and it was breakfast. The meal was delicious, a traditional All American breakfast of pancakes and bacon, coffee with cream and a glass of OJ—but all I could see were hormones and antibiotics, pesticides and saturated fats; things that would get stuck in your colon.

“A what?” dad laughed off.

“Do you ever take your car to get an oil change?”

“Sure,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because if you don’t, the engine will break down.”

“Exactly, so clean your colon, so your engine doesn’t break down.”

Dad smirked, the way he did when I knew he wasn’t taking me seriously, “I don’t eat badly.”

“That isn’t enough for someone who’s missing an eye.”

For me it was easy to understand. I was young, angry with the world, willing and eager to find fault and create drastic change. I juiced raw carrots, kale and garlic on a regular basis. So much so one could smell the garlic still seeping from my pores the next day. That was the power of raw, organic food. That was the massive force that could destroy any malignant cell with ease. I felt vibrant, like I did when I was sixteen, before the booze and the blow. I could turn back the clock, shave off the years, and if it worked, then dad could live forever! The only thing was taking a radical plan to a practical, logical man. Dad never smoked, and drank only the occasional glass of wine, so in his mind he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Since his cancer had gone into remission, he had left it in God’s hands. He was getting his annual PET scan, but not much more. One time, after leaving an eye appointment where the doctor had said his prognosis looked good, dad pumped his fist in the parking lot and said, “Thank you Jesus!” But I didn’t believe that faith was enough. I wanted him to be proactive beyond conventional medical wisdom. I wanted him to listen but instead he smiled and tilted his head.

“Son, are you a doctor?”

“Doctors get rich when you get sick,” I said. “They benefit from your ailments!”

But dad wasn’t buying it. Not from a waiter who showed up on his doorstep in Fresno seasonally for complementary room and board, then took off with his buddies to the Elbow Room until three in the morning.

“Son, what does enucleate mean?”

I bristled, “Just because you understand the medical terms doesn’t mean you have a better understanding of health!”

“Leave the doctoring to the doctors,” dad told me.

It never seemed to matter how hard I pushed or how gently I nudged: Father Knew Best. But I was also determined. I bought him nutrient rich, organic vitamins and the purest herbs and tonics from the Amazon. When dad refused to try them, I used everything myself. Yet this only caused me to change my tactics. Rather than make idle suggestions, I would proudly point out all of my health conscious decisions as a clever way of taunting him.

“I did yoga last week and it was amazing!” I said, one night at dinner.

“Yeah, just be careful,” Dad said curtly. Then with deep gravity, he explained how yoga could influence good Christians toward a pagan Buddhist mindset.

“What does yoga have to do with religion?” I laughed.

And then, as we inevitably did, dad and I erupted into a philosophically painful bout, to the point where mom and sis had to pull us apart like pit bulls with jaws locked. Later after dinner, as dad angrily stormed across the parking lot, they begged me to leave him alone. Or at least make suggestions in a more civil manner, though this was beyond my capabilities.I needed dad to listen. He was the one with cancer. My inability to convince him was turning me into a frustrated mess.

In March of 2007, my bitterness reached its apex while visiting family in Peru. In the weeks leading up to the trip, I was certain the plane was going to crash. I saw it in my dreams and it wracked me with anxiety. I was sure we all were going to die, until my therapist dutifully pointed out my visions might have more to do with spending two weeks with my family. From the moment they arrived, I was tense. The only way I muddled through was to ridicule dad’s fanny pack. Mom sensed trouble and threatened to leave me behind if I couldn’t be polite. So I went the opposite route and said as little as possible for the 4,000 mile journey. Only when we landed, and I popped a beer on my cousin’s balcony, did I finally take a breath. But it didn’t last long. The next day we journeyed to a remote beach near Chincha, two hours south of Lima. We found ourselves at the edge of nowhere with nothing around us but a few bamboo huts, sand and the sound of waves breaking off the Pacific. For a minute, I was almost happy, and convinced myself that now was the right time to talk with my father.

“Dad, I love you.”

“I love you too, son.”

I started talking about the past, but he didn’t seem to hear me. The words I so desperately needed to hear were lost to a chaotic moment in paradise. Kids screaming and tides crashing shrouded my words in a haze of white noise. Here we were standing man to man, but I felt the power of intimidation he was once able to hold over me. My first memories of love came from dad’s affection. But when his anger would betray my trust, it spun me out of balance. I’d been wild and obnoxious as a kid, yet it never validated how dad reacted. The belt, the switch, and the intense force of his voice had left its mark upon my soul, and I needed this absolved. I had once imagined I would have a lifetime to right the ship, but when the cancer arrived, pressure intensified to be honest with dad while there was time. I had poured out my heart, but all dad said was my cousins were cute playing in the sand, and I went off for another beer in hopes that I could drink myself into believing all was good between us.

For the next many days, I was on the war path. We drove two hours from Chincha back to Lima and stayed up all night to make an early morning flight to Cusco. The ground snuck up during our landing and our short decent made our arrival feel abrupt. Everything seemed to wear on my nerves, and I focused all my ire on things that bothered me about my father. At that moment, his umbrella, safari hat and fanny-pack.

“There he is! Tour Guide Tom!” I taunted him through the airport terminal.

At the hotel the staff kindly greeted us with Coca tea so we could acclimate to the higher altitude, though when I finally got to my room, I felt like the walls were closing in. The setting was beautiful, if I could enjoy it. Here we were more than ten-thousand feet up in a place where it never snowed. The roads were narrow and made of stone and pebble. The locals, of Incan descent, looked alien, and I wanted to stare at all of their faces, but felt ignorant for my curiosity. And then, in the midst of it, was our one-eyed “tour guide-in-training” with fanny pack and safari hat. We’d been told not to look like foreigners, as unrealistic as that seemed, for fear of being pick-pocketed. But dad wouldn’t listen. When the locals approached, he would stop and try conversing, though he barely knew a word of Spanish. In churches, he marveled at the massive gold and silver alters, oblivious to how they’d been erected with the blood and treasure of his new friends’ ancestors. Secretly, I decided that I was an Inca, while my father was an ignorant Spaniard.But a burden like this was hard to carry. At Machu Picchu the next day, I wanted to decompress. The sun was strong, though the clouds cooled my skin. I climbed up the side of the mountain and pondered my thoughts in an old stone room that must have been somebody’s home long ago. The view of the river below, and the rainforest just beyond were inspiring. But my soaring heart came crashing down once we returned to the town below. We were sitting outside at a small café, eating Peruvian pizza, when it began to rain. The rain was especially hard for dad, who only had one eye to work with, and he’d asked me to keep both of mine on his fanny pack.

“Why?”

“Because I can’t see it. It’s on the wrong side of my good eye.”

I didn’t say anything, just shrugged, and moved the fanny-pack from on top of his suitcase to the top of mine between my legs. A much safer place, I thought, but Dad didn’t agree. He poked my leg with his umbrella.“Put it back, son.”

“I thought you wanted me to watch it.”

“Put it back.”

“It’s right here between my legs! Relax!”

Again, he poked me with the umbrella. “How many times do I have to tell you before it sinks into that thick skull of yours?” Maybe not those words exactly, but that’s how it felt. My mother and sister, sensing the tension, tried to intervene. “Scott,” they said. “just put it back.”

“No, because that’s stupid. If you want me to watch something because you’re afraid it’s going to get stolen, don’t leave it sitting on the outside of the table where anyone walking by can grab it!”

“God darn it, son!” dad with power, like a champagne cork ready to blow. “Put the fanny-pack back or so help me God!”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m five! You don’t scare me!”I swear he was ready to throw the table right on top of me, but mom and sis continued to beg and I finally relented. The six-hour train back to Cusco made me sick. I hated myself for fighting with him. I wanted so desperately to connect, but there was so much else to overcome—and I didn’t know if I could do it. To entertain us on the long ride back, the stewards put on a show with costumes and music, dancing up and down the aisles. Bizarre for the setting, but it lightened the mood. They followed the performance with a full fashion show, and here I found an opening. Dad had grown up in the family’s clothing store and he appreciated fine threads. I was mad as hell, but I bought him a red Alpaca sweater, then through tensed lips and frozen heart, I told him that I loved him.

“Thanks, son,” he said warmly, and I could tell he appreciated the gift. Yet I was only stalling the inevitable. Nothing could bridge our vast divide, not sickness nor neutral territory. We were running out of time, and my shallow peace offering was just that. Peace with dad meant shedding all of our empty gestures. I’d cloaked my anger long enough, and once and for all, even if I didn’t know how I would do it, I needed to own up to our struggles and make clear the truth of my pain.

Next: “Dad’s Last Drive” Conclusion

Scott Tejerian is a Los Angeles writer and contributor to Walkabout Jones.

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