That Time We Zoomed

It’s been a minute, I know. Busy with life, busy with work! I had a dream last night that I was with my aunt, her husband, and my step-father. My mother let her mask slip to my aunt - I can’t recall what she did but my aunt finally saw what I’d been talking about over the years. 

Anyway, that won't ever happen. Where were we?

March 5, 2023 - I got my father to do a zoom call instead of facebook. Back then we still had the free zoom accounts that limit you to 40 minutes per call, which I warned him about. He was cool with it, but recognized that our call would end and we’d have to start a new call. I don’t think he’d ever used zoom but we got it figured out. He told me more about his time working in the prison. He walked me around his front and back yards to show me all of his plants. 

At some point we got started talking about my half-sister. He said that she tried to teach his wife English when she first came to the US and the first two words my half-sister taught her were “fuck” and the n-word. Nice.

He said that she worked from 6 pm to 6 am and when he got off work he had to take my half-sister to school. She couldn’t get along with people on the bus, he said. I think by this point she was in some fancy private school. Anyway, he’d take her to school, then take his wife to her ESL classes. He’d sleep in the car until she got out, then take her to the store. By the time all this was done, it was time to pick up my half-sister from her private school. He said he’d sleep at home from 3:00 until 5:00, then go back to work again. I guess I’m glad he was a better parent to her than he was to me. 

It was during this conversation that he told me my half-sister had done a DNA test already. 

I didn’t write it in my notes at the time, but this conversation sticks out in my mind for several reasons. First, for what tidbits I picked up. But mostly because of the sheer volume of words. He talked the entire time. Nonstop. I don’t think he took a breath! I remember the little warning popping up on zoom telling me our call was going to end, watching the timer count down, hoping he’d swallow or take a breath so I could let him know the call was going to end automatically. I never got a chance and our call dropped. I created a new zoom link, sent it to him, and he picked right back up talking. Maybe he never stopped! Another 40 minutes went by - just his stream of consciousness and me listening. However many minutes went by and the timer popped up, and again he didn’t stop long enough for me to tell him the call would end. It did and I created another link. He talked for another 40 minutes but he must have had to go or something because that was our last zoom call. Not just for the day, but our last zoom call ever. 

I don’t think he asked me about myself, my kids, my current life, my past life… he just talked about himself, his wife, my half-sister, his yard work and gardening plans. I think this was when it might have started sinking in that he was not interested in me beyond the attention he was getting. 

We chatted later on facebook messenger and he sent me his genetic testing, that he said he did with his doctor or something, not Ancestry. It showed he was mostly German. 

(Wait. I went back and looked at his screenshots of his genetic testing and he’s 47.8% German. I have 0%, which isn’t making any sense to me. How can he be half German and I didn’t inherit any of that? He's also got a decent amount of French and Italian, which I also don't have in my results.)

Somehow the topic of the other baby came up… my writing has been so sporadic that I can remember if I’ve mentioned the 1978 baby. Recap: I found a baby book in my grandmother’s attic in the early 2000s for a baby born in 1978. The book was filled with my mother’s writing for this baby. Before my grandmother took it away, I remember seeing the 1978 birth year and that the baby was walking in 1979. I was born in 1980, supposedly. When I asked my grandmother about it, she told me my mother got the years wrong because she was on painkillers after the birth. I didn’t question it then, but who was on painkillers for at least a full year after birth? I let it drop and I never saw the book again.

Anyway, I asked my father about this baby. He said he couldn’t see how it was possible, though they “played fast and loose with dates and facts”. Understatement of a lifetime, I’d say. In about another month I will find out just how bad his memory was from that time. 

Of my mother, he said she “wasn’t evil. I’d call her self-centered, childish, and unremorseful for her actions. An unpolished narcissist. Borderline sociopath.” He said he wasn’t played by my mother, but was played by other members in my family. He called my grandfather a simp.  

Those were my recollections from my notes that day. Reading back on our facebook messages I see he gave me his email address after I asked about sending over some baby pictures. He said he was interested in everything I was willing to share, which is so contradictory to his actions. He said he wanted to get to know me, but he never asked me about myself or even gave me a chance to get a word in edgewise. I don’t know that he ever read those emails but I do know that he domineered the conversations we had on the phone, facebook video calls, and that afternoon of zoom calls. 

On March 5 he messaged me about an experience he had where he thought he had a stroke and felt like he lost memories during that. We talked about random stuff and the logistics of zoom from noon until 12:44 and the call lasted until 1:25. The call ended at 2:05 and we called again until 2:46.

We talked also about his genetic makeup and that he had around 5% Native American (I have 0%, despite having been told we were descended from Cherokee). I told him about my searching public records and that I had looked for the 1978 baby. 

He said he “didn’t want to die unmissed”. I wonder how he feels about living and being unmissed. 

He critiqued the food I talked about, then told me about nutraloaf, which is something they fed prisoners in segregation, he said. He gave me the recipe for Vermont-Style Nutraloaf. He talked about his prison being culpable for an inmate dying of dehydration.

The conversation moved on and he said “Maybe some things are better left buried.” Then “But remember that had that not happened then you wouldn't be where you are today. No husband. Different kids. No kids. I know that J (my half-sister)  and A (my half-brother) wouldn't have been. N (his second wife) would never have accepted me without you. I had no family support structure.

And “At least L (my mother) didn't sit you across a ditch in M’s (my grandmother) front yard to take a bus to Texas when you were 3 years old.” No, my father decided keeping his security guard job was more important than sticking up or around for me. And while there might not have been a ditch in my grandmother's yard, my mother abandoned me to get married, date, get remarried and date some more. No matter what he and my mother did to me, he will always be the bigger victim, never taking accountability. But it seems like abandoning kids kinda runs in that side of the family.

For whatever reason, he also seemed to enjoy quizzing me about my food. I’m vegan and so he’d ask me if I ate jello, if I knew where gelatin came from. It’s like he was trying to catch me out. But then he said he’d “make fun of the Muslims in the chow hall. They love it.” I guess he was talking about jello. Then something about how they’d brush their hair with pig bristle brushes. I tried to change the subject and then he told me about his wife making taffy with cow hooves and asked where bugs fell in my diet. He told me about a Mexican beetle that tastes like mint and how much he liked pickled pigs feet. I'd try to change the subject and he kept bringing it back to consuming animals or quizzing me. He said he wasn’t questioning my diet choices, but was questioning my motivation. 

Well, I’m bamboozled on the genetics thing now. How can my father be nearly half German and I don’t have any at all in my DNA results?