Genuinely missing

Hey,

Talked to dad the other day about the camping trip. You know the infamous one? When me and Dad (Dad and I?) went up and down the coast for five or maybe it was six weeks? You wouldn't remember this. Mainly I have these vague memories of winding along the foggy coastline, the sun breaking through occasionally. We saw this tree stump. It had inner rings that dated this particular tree back hundreds of years ago. Pontius Pilot, Thomas Edison, JFK....this tree had outlived them all. Well, until some guy with an axe came along.

I had a little tape recorder, do you remember it? That little Sanyo model that I used to think was the shit? I recorded dad and myself, sitting around, talking about this or that. You can hear bird life in the background sometimes. Or in the car, driving along, dad explaining where we were or talking about something we were seeing. The running joke was that we spoke like we were reporters, saying things like "This is Richard and Todd reporting live from the scene".

Camping for a week or two is fun. Any longer than that, it starts to wear on you. After awhile those campgrounds began to blur together. It was always the same thing: we would pay at the reception and then driving in to find our spot. Then we would have to set everything up from scratch, including the tent. We had our whole life in the back of that station wagon.

You started to recognise the same faces at each new campground. The same people travelling up and down the coast, moving in the same direction. There was one hippie chick in a denim bikini. She was driving a VW camper van. She collected and polished jade stones to make into jewellery and belt buckles. Sold them at festivals.  I say 'hippie' not because she looked like one but because she had one of those hippie names, sunflower or some such bullshit. Anyway, you couldn't very well ignore her because she was always sunbathing topless. I think most of the men in the campground were a little distracted by her presence.

The next campground we showed up at, there she was again. And the next one after that. The same topless hippie sunbather. Now I understand that we were following her around from place to place. She was really friendly to me and dad was always helping her out and offering her food. He grew a beard and started playing Bob Dylan a little bit louder on our car stereo. I hated Dylan back then. That voice, Christ, it sounded like a depressing counter-culture fart. (I do like him now that I'm older). It was the hypocrisy that got to me. Being around people like my parents, listening to this cynical, overthrow-the-government type music, as the sound track to our fairly typical middle-class existence. I just didn't get it. Why were they listening to these angry songs and not doing anything about it?

This camping trip extended past the school starting date. I was only really aware of this when adults started coming up to me and saying, why aren't you at school, son? I'd shrug and reply, I don't know. Dad would say, tell them that you are taking a little extra time off to hang out with your old dad. Nothing wrong with that. Do you think that will answer everyone's fucking questions? I'd never heard him swear before.  Not the 'f' word. And he seemed sort of tense about the whole thing so I avoided the subject. At night he would go off for a walk but I knew he was going. I saw him early one morning coming out of the hippie girl's camper van. We didn't talk about that either.

So yeah, at first it was great. Every day was another adventure in the great outdoors. But then the camping started to get a bit boring. It became a routine. Dad was a bit of perfectionist when it came to storing everything neatly back in the car. And always being outdoors, in the elements, it starts to tire you out. You have no privacy. You start to crave normality. Going into the third week I was starting to miss mum and my life back at home. I'm ashamed to say it but most of all I missed television. Anyway, I was definitely getting sick of canned food and sleeping on a thin foam mattress.

When I said this to dad he laughed in that kind of pissed off, nasty way he does sometimes. Or maybe it was the disappointment? I'm not sure. I need you to stop complaining all the time, he said. Can you stop doing that? Can you stop whining and pissing and just try to enjoy this? That shocked me and made me hate him a little bit more. I wasn't the one who kept on extending the camping trip. I didn't talk to him for awhile. His way of apologising was to drive us into town, grab some pizza and see the latest James Bond movie. So I was pretty happy after that.

The thing with the hippy girl concluded when her real boyfriend and his friends turned up one afternoon. They were shaggy, borderline homeless dudes. They were fun at first because they had a kind of wild energy. They had beer as well. And some dope. I remember the smell. Later on, I remember sitting around the campfire and there was a lot of tension between dad and the boyfriend. They were provoking each other. You know what dad can be like when he's challenged. Anyway, this tension built until they were both about to fight. I'd never seen dad that worked up. Luckily,  it dissipated but still, I could see the boyfriend was enjoying antagonising him. I was worried about dad. When it came down to it, these people were younger and seemed to have less to lose that we did. I didn't want to see day beat in a fight. I consider us luckily nothing happened that night.

The next day we got up and the VW van was gone. The old man was moody for a long time after that. Really moody. It's funny as a kid because you are taking everything in, absorbing information, and really all you've got to go on is instinct. You don't have prior experiences to inform your judgements. And so, when the adult world does something totally unexpected, when the rug gets pulled out from under your feet, this is the moment when you learn about self-assurance. These lessons tell you what you're going to be like in the future as an adult. Will you believe in yourself? or will you spend the next 30 years harbouring doubt?

Dad was kind of dismissive about the whole thing. When I asked him about the hippie girl, he'd always give me some bullshit answer. I guess during that time, maybe going into the fourth week, I started to feel a lot of anxiety at everything that was going on. A growing lack of stability. And after the hippy girl had taken off, dad seemed to lose interest in the entire venture. Thinking back on it, he was behaving like a heartbroken teenager. It was pathetic. By the end of the fourth week, everything became encrusted in dirt. There was a rip in the tent and we had to patch it up with a piece of tape. It started to feel like everything was coming apart at the seams.

The thing about extending our camping trip into the school year was that there were no kids around. Everyone was back at school. Apart from older couples and tourists, most of the places we stopped were half empty. Only two weeks before there every space had been taken up with RV's and tents. You'd see people throwing frisbees and cooking on the communal barbeques.  Now it seemed like you only ran into the nomadic, year-rounders. And it was getting colder.

I got up early one morning and walked along this path which followed a freshwater estuary out to the beach. The headland was barely visible in the fog and the waves were pounding on the shore. I was freezing. I noticed something down by the water. A grey object on the sand. It was a juvenile great white shark that had washed ashore. Its mouth was open and I could see all those rows of triangular teeth going down into its throat. It had black eyes about the size of golf balls. You couldn't tell if it was dead or alive. I mean it was dead but a part of me was still thinking, are you sure? Part of me, that impulsive little voice which I suppose is there help make rational decisions, said, go ahead...put your hand in its mouth. See what happens. Don't be a pussy. Do it. Anyway, it's skin felt like cold sandpaper. I kicked it in the head, more than once. Nothing happened. After waiting awhile, I put my hand into it's mouth. Not too deep at first. My heart was beating in my chest. I had to do it. I kept imagining one last twitch of the nervous system. A bite of food that wouldn't even make it down to the shark's stomach. One last defiant little reminder of who was at the top of the food chain. Nothing happened but I was glad to get my hand clear. I was thinking about bashing a few of its teeth out with a rock. I wanted a trophy. I didn't do it in the end. Not because this thing was some noble creature that deserved to be left alone. It was ugly and terrible. The flies were already at it. I just couldn't find a rock.

In my mind, that was the same morning the police found us but it could have been the following day. Or the day after that. Anyway five hours after the police cruiser rolled into the campground, I was back with you and mum. Back in our house. And then, the following Monday, I was back at school, sitting in my classroom like nothing had happened. I could tell the teacher, Mrs Bryant, was going easy on me compared to the other kids. If you have any problems or questions, she said, just come and see me after class.

After all the legal stuff with dad had concluded, after dad went through counselling, things got back on track. Or put more accurately, they got on two different tracks, when mum and dad finally stopped messing around and got properly divorced. And you know the rest.

Speaking to dad last week threw some light on what had happened between him and mum. How he'd taken off without telling anyone. How he'd 'snapped'. How frantic mum had been. I was a genuine missing person and I didn't even know it. Anyway, as far as dad goes, it's funny how with age comes honesty. Honesty and transparency. After all those years of concealing things. Of keeping up appearances, finally they are able to just say "fuck it. You what the truth? Okay fine, I'll give you the truth".

You really should go visit him. He still has that tape. And an old cassette player in the garage. We listened to the tape when I came around. It's a trip hearing me and dad reporting back from 1981. Anyway...

Speak to you later,