He hated me. I would wear my rainbow shirt to the dinner table and he would sit, working on his sixth beer, staring in judgment as he chewed on some innocent slaughtered animal. I was always too skinny, too weak to be a man.
One night he ran out of beer too early—or a little too late. He left, grabbing his car keys. We heard the tires squeal and then the crash.
“Mom,” I said, “does Dad have life insurance?”
“All we could afford,” she replied, plainly.
I never cried at his funeral. I think he would have liked that.
Very poignant with lots of questions raised.
Love it. They should like it.
Sad
There’s a lot of subtlety here. It’s poignant and sad.
Well-layered and subtle description of masculinity. Nice!
Satirical karma at is finest.
Like the irony. But don’t get the title. Why is it “impossible to eat”?
I borrowed the idea of it being “impossible to eat” from a movie with Michael Douglas in it, titled, “Falling Down.” In the movie, Michael Douglas played a man who lost his job as an engineer and was divorced from his wife who also wouldn’t let him see his child. He was forced to live with his mother in his 40s. His mother told a detective that came to ask what had happened to her son (he had gone on a rampage) that one of the things he would do that was extremely disturbing to her was stare at her with hatred in his eyes at the supper table and she would sit, unable to eat (I think she said, “swallow”) any of her food.
Thanks for explaining it. Now I get it — in a state where the boy was unable to eat, feeling uncomfortable when having a critical dad. Meanwhile, I feel it could be understood as a two-way discomfort. His father started it, making the hatred to develop, which was revealed in a self-inflicted destruction.
It is very hard to let go.
Love this. Really powerful ending too.
The tension builds to the point, “Does Dad have life insurance? No illusions left to ponder.
Rat!!
Brat, I meant…
So much conveyed in that last sentence. Great piece of work.