Daddy's Little Girl

He told me I could write about when he got arrested. He said he figured everyone knew about it anyway, so what difference did it make? He's said before that he wants me to write his story but I'm not sure it would turn out the way he wants.

The relationship with my father is...interesting. Complicated. Wonderful and devastating. I honestly am not sure where to begin.

So maybe at the beginning?

The first thing I remember about my dad was that he wasn't there.

Every summer he would leave to go fishing in Alaska and in the fall when he returned, he'd work at the docks. I'd see him in the evening, usually while we ate at TV trays and guessed at the puzzles on Wheel of Fortune. He'd sit in his bathrobe, smoking and growling at Pat Sajak. Sometimes he'd read the newspaper and smoke. Or mend nets during Jeopardy and smoke. It's rare to see him without a Camel pinched between his fingers.  I'd watch his hands weave in and out of the fishing nets, the odd shaped needles clicking against the rope. He would be right in front of me, a formidable presence and still not be there.

When I was old enough to understand, it was explained to me that what daddy did was very dangerous. It was never a secret that he might die. I grew up anticipating he would die while fishing the Alaskan waters at the same time he would assure me nothing bad was ever going to happen to him.

That just wasn't true.

I was about 3 when I remember waking to the familiar sound of his voice murmuring with my mom's. I was in the hallway when he ran passed me to the bathroom, "Where's the damn mouthwash?" He drank half the bottle before there was a knock on the door. I watched police take him away. Later I found out he'd hit someone with his car while driving drunk. The person was fine, in fact, Dad had tried to go back to apologize but the police started following him. He panicked, came home, and drank the mouthwash in a fruitless attempt to mask the smell of booze on his breath. Later, in court, the pedestrian walked by my father and spit on him. He wasn't in jail very long. To me it was just like he was away fishing anyway.

The next time he was in jail, I knew before he told me.

Mom had been dead for about a year and dad and I were working on being ok with ourselves and with each other. He and I weren't exactly friends for several years but it's amazing what shared grief can do. We had decided to visit his mother together in Alaska. I'd never been and it was a second home for him. It was the first time we'd ever gone anywhere together just the two of us.

The night before our flight, I called to confirm what time we were meeting in the morning. He didn't answer. I called the bar he was always in. They knew him, they knew me. The bartender that answered was cold when he was usually friendly. "No, he ain't here." I hung up mildly concerned. It wasn't usually hard to get a hold of him. We'd been even better at staying connected since Mom died and he always called me back right away if he missed my call. Some time went by and I tried again. Straight to voicemail. A cold feeling crawled across my skin. Something wasn't right. He's in jail.

I have no idea how I knew, I just did. I got on the internet and marveled at how easy it was to see if someone was in jail. Within moments I was looking at my own last name in a list of people arrested within the last 24 hours. Being right doesn't always feel good.

I called his brother that lived in Alaska and told him. He told me to call their mom, tell her we weren't going to be on tomorrow's flight, but not tell her why. So I did. I lied to my grandmother. And then I went and visited my dad in jail.

On the way I called and cancelled the plane tickets-non refundable. I sat next to a very good friend in her car, watching the county jail get closer as we traveled into the city and felt my insides swirl with anxiety, anger and fear.

The jail smelled. It was big and cold, gray. I immediately hated it. There were women in the waiting room that looked like the women from bad crime TV shows.  I waited with them, alternating between picking my cuticles and twirling my hair. They called my name, told me I could go in to see him and I got up, looked back at my friend. Her eyes held sympathy.

It wasn't like a bad crime show passed the doors. There were windows divided with thin partitions. A small space for each prisoner. No privacy. There was no one else there. A guard told me where to sit and I did. I waited.

When he came out in the jumpsuit, he looked small. He looked up at me and I saw surprise, shame and...pride flash across his face. He sat down on the other side of the glass and picked up the phone. I picked up mine. "Are you ok?"

He told me he was. I told him I cancelled the flight. He told me he didn't call because they took his phone and he didn't have my number memorized. I told him I called his mother but that I didn't tell him why we weren't coming. He told me he called a lawyer. I told him I talked to his brother.

And then, "What happened Dad?"

It took a little while for him to tell me.

Over several conversations through phone calls and visits, I learned that he'd been selling cocaine for a long time. And to a lot of people. He told me he'd crossed state lines and that there were people bigger than him that the cops wanted to know about, that he refused to snitch. He told me it was to pay bills. He told me it was to help me. He told me how he got caught.

A 'friend' was looking to score. She was an informant and when she found out dad and I were planning a trip, she tipped off the DEA. They swarmed the bar he was always in and arrested him with guns drawn and S.W.A.T on standby. They took him away in the back of a car, his life forever changed. The informant was never revealed.

I went to court only one time. The first time. I sat on an uncomfortable bench, surrounded by uncomfortable people, waiting to hear uncomfortable things. I tried to read, waiting for my father's name to be called but it was no use. My mind was reeling.

When he came out in his gray suit, he looked small. He didn't look at me, instead he looked at the judge. I listened to him tell his side of things, repeating the story I'd heard. I couldn't stop staring at the back of his head. His hair was thinning. I hadn't seen him without his trademark fisherman's cap in so long...I hadn't known. His voice caught and my attention was refreshed.

"My daughter is in the audience Judge. I ain't proud of what I did," he paused. "I'm just glad my wife isn't around to see this."

That was when I started crying. The tears fell silently at first but I had to step outside for a moment to breathe again. For as long as I live, I will remember that moment.

He was in jail for a few months and then he was on house arrest. He lost his right to vote, own a gun, and was banned from the bar he'd been arrested in. He was mandated to attend AA meetings regularly but only went to a few before deciding he didn't need 'that shit'. A friend signed his name for him so he was still on record. After the ankle bracelet was removed he found another bar. They know him, they know me. He stopped selling drugs. He ran out of money. Eventually I paid for us to visit my grandmother in Alaska.  To my knowledge she never knew why the original trip had been postponed.

Our relationship changed again. I realized he was fallible. He and I talked a lot, got to know each other as adults instead of father and daughter. We never talked about the arrest until I asked him if I could write about it years later.

"I don't care. I figure everyone knows about it anyway so what difference would it make?"