There was no fight, no big blow up between us. In fact, I’m not entirely sure why we’re not speaking. I believe we’re in the middle of some bizarre Mexican stand off, neither one of us willing to blink or show weakness. My silence comes from patience, and an ability to shut down emotionally and wait a situation out to its finish. I will not attempt to second-guess my father’s intentions or distance; speculation usually leads to incorrect assessments, and I hope to avoid that. I will simply stick to what I was witness to or told first-hand. Beyond that, all is left to the imagination.
Before I begin, I should point out two important parts to my father’s character: he is both generous, and pragmatic. For the wedding, his checkbook opened immediately, and his endowment was the largest Lydia and I received. That’s saying a lot, as every parent went above and beyond the call of charitable for our wedding expenses. Another example if his giving nature is: a few winters ago, he called out of the blue and told me to go pick out a snow thrower, his treat. Lydia and I had just purchased our first house, and with me being on the road all the time, he didn’t want her stuck shoveling a snowed-in driveway alone. Price was no matter; he wanted us to pick something big and powerful. Regarding my father’s no-nonsense side, I remember the first time I got drunk. The next day I was hung-over beyond decent description; my head was throbbing, my body ached, and my tongue weighed more than an Olson twin. My mother marched me downstairs to face a father’s wrath, expecting him to tear into me for my behavior. Instead, he took one look at me and asked, “So, how do you feel right now?” I’m not sure what answer I was able to muster up, but my dad nodded, said, “Well, that’s what drinking does to you,” and let it go. I didn’t drink again for years.
Those positives on the record, my wedding day unfolded as follows... actually, to be accurate, I should start before the wedding, to give a little back-story. Lydia was a trooper when it came to planning; she took the lion’s share of all responsibilities, and where possible, went homemade over mass-produced in order to save money. Lydia created the wedding-day program, which was the first inkling there could be friction ahead. When trying to decide who to list on the cover—typically the parents—Lydia asked me if I wanted just my biologicals listed, or my parents and their new spouses/girlfriends. Hoping to keep closed that can of worms, I responded, “Just my parents. Keep it simple.” Lydia thought it would hurt my fake dad, Joe, to be left out. Instead of listening to my advice, she called my mother for input. Joe wasn’t home, but my mom agreed: not listing Joe would make him a sad panda.
“Bullshit,” I countered. “Joe is a man, men don’t give a shit about that sort of thing.”
Lydia was un-swayed, and now in a tough position. If we honor Joe, did we list Alice, my dad’s girlfriend? Is there a fine line between listing a spouse vs. a partner, just because one wears a ring? She thought it best to call my dad and ask for his wishes; would he like to see Alice included on the program? My dad appreciated the call, and got bizarrely cryptic.
“If certain people,” he emphasized, meaning his ex-wife and my mother, “are uncomfortable seeing Alice’s name there, you can leave it off. I appreciate the call, because it means a lot to me you’re looking into such things, but I also understand if you have to cater to the emotions of certain people.”
My father’s ability to accentuate the absurd is an interesting one. In his mind, his ex-wife, a woman who rarely spoke of him unless pressed, was somehow going to be offended that: fifteen years after the divorce she had asked for and ten years after her remarriage, seeing my father’s girlfriend’s name on my wedding program would be offensive.
Naturally, my mother hadn’t given any thought to Alice, my dad, or anything else on the program; such worries were all my father’s invention.
Naturally, within moments of that frustrating conversation, my mother called with an update: Joe had gotten home, voiced his opinion, and he didn’t care one way or another if he was listed. Just as I predicted, he had a penis, and therefore shrugged away nonsense.
In Lydia’s mind a quandary now existed, a self-invented mess. The program looked cluttered with the multitude of names on it, but after all the phone calls, she felt obligated to include them all. Ever the caring fiancée, I washed my hands of it and walked away shrugging. Up front I had said to keep it simple, but such advice was unheeded. Neener.
Either way, that laid the foundation of my father’s mindset. He seemed preoccupied with his ex, where she had moved on.
The day before the wedding, my dad told me he was opting out of that evening’s rehearsal ceremony. I was fine with it; the full scope of his duties involved walking down the aisle and sitting in the front row with family, then walking directly to the reception line after all vows had been exchanged. Pretty simple stuff. He met up with everyone at the rehearsal dinner, and from everything I saw all was well there, but then again I was drunk and apparently missed his insulting the Matron of Honor for not being politically aware of her own state’s legislators.
The next phase of alienation took place directly before the wedding. Lydia and I wanted our guests to have as much fun as possible, so we planned a back-to-back wedding/reception; there would be no fucking around for several hours in between the events, where people had to kill time in a small, unknown to them, town. This meant we had to take all our pictures beforehand, and, like the rehearsal, this was something my father was uninterested in. He said he didn’t want to be a part of those proceedings, and would go straight to the ceremony. I’m sure had I pressed him, he would have begrudgingly participated, but if he didn’t want to be in the pictures, I wasn’t going to make an issue of it. Pictures were important to Lydia, not me. Thus, if you look through my wedding album, you will find one picture of my father. It is not a photo of him standing next to or with arms around his son and/or new daughter-in-law, nor is it a posed capture. In the photo, my father is in the background of a candid group-shot; his jaw is square, his eyes are stern. He is watching a slideshow of my childhood play across a screen, and he is apparently unhappy.
All our pictures taken, as the ceremony grew near and everyone made way to their seats, Dad decided against sitting in the front row with the families. When I walked down to take my position at the altar, I saw him sitting half way back, several rows deep among the guests, not up front as one or both ushers had requested he do. Lydia and I didn’t have preordained sides, bride and groom; people were free to sit where they wished. Because of this, Lydia’s therapist happened to end up directly behind my father. At their next session, she mentioned it to Lydia.
“When the couple sat down in front of me, the man said to his girlfriend, ‘I know they want me to sit up front, but I’m not going to play that game.’ I was shocked later when I found out it was Nathan’s dad!”
My father’s comment is important, given an altercation later in the evening.
As the ceremony progressed, there was a point where our minister (powered by the state of Iowa and the Internet, but not Jebus
or any other religious icon) began an introduction to the rose ceremony. Unlike those seen on The Bachelor, our moment was designed to honor our families; we were going to present a rose to those who raised us. Sadly, as the minister waxed philosophic on the meaning of the flower, Lydia looked at me in wide-eyed fear and whispered, “Ohmygod... we left the roses up in the refrigerator!” I did not find this to be that big a deal, and when the words, “And now, Nathan and Lydia will hand out the roses” were spoken, I turned to everyone gathered and shouted, “We forgot ‘em!”
Many people started giggling, until a voice rose above the din; “Maybe you’ll get it right at your next wedding!” My father let his wit get in front of his senses and shouted it over the titters.
I feel I should explain something here. While many people gasped in horror, I rolled my eyes. My father comes to all my comedy shows, and quite often heckles me. I bust his chops, and the audience gets off on our back and forth harassment of one another. So when he volleyed at the wedding, I returned, “Maybe I learned from your fuckups and won’t get divorced!” Everyone laughed again, but most people still seemed a bit uneasy.
The ceremony ended; the wedding party walked down the aisle and up to the reception hall to participate in the receiving line. Everyone save for my father, that is. He never discussed opting out of the receiving line, but at this point it was to be expected. In such a situation you can either make the decision to be angry, or let it go and enjoy your day. Lydia and I let it go. Too many generous friends and family members had made the trek to Iowa for us to be bothered by little things. I was meeting new people, and more importantly, saying hi to friends I didn’t and don’t get to see often enough.
Moving inside for the dinner, all was well. Dad found a table to sit at away from my mother, and I didn’t hear much about him until much later in the evening when the socializing began. At one point, the photographer said she was ready to leave, so Lydia and I made one last-ditch effort to corner my father for a picture, but he ran away in search of leftover pizza for our security guard. I told the photographer not to worry about it and to take off.
As the night wore on, I started hearing little stories about my dad, coming first from an aunt on my mother’s side.
“Your father just said ‘hi’ to me,” she began, laughingly. “He said, ‘Well, I know you’ve been ignoring me since the divorce, so I thought I’d be the bigger person and come over here and say hello.’ I said ‘hi’ back, but in my head couldn’t stop laughing, thinking, ‘Well of course I’ve been ignoring you! You’re not married to my sister anymore, I don’t have to talk to you!’”
I laughed, knowing full well my aunt could take care of herself.
Unfortunately, my dad didn’t limit this approach to those he knew. Lydia’s father, John, got the same speech. John was standing around, enjoying the evening, watching his daughter smile and enjoy what is labeled one of the most important days of a woman’s life, when a stranger walked up to him.
“Hello,” the man started. “I know you’ve been ignoring me, so I wanted to be the bigger person and come over and introduce myself: I’m Nathan’s father.”
John didn’t know what to say, stammered out an introduction, and like a ghost, my father was gone, leaving John stunned by the interaction.
My friend Keith, a professional videographer and editor who was putting together a tape as our wedding present, then pulled me aside.
“What’s up with your dad?” he asked, somewhat irritated.
I laughed, “You have to be more specific. So far today, he’s just been acting normal for him.”
Turns out Keith had been going around and asking people to tape little confessionals for Lydia and I. People were allowed to speak from either their heart, or funny bone, whichever they chose; touching, lighthearted, anything to express how they felt about the day. When approached, my dad met Keith’s query with a terse response and quick departure. I told him not to worry about it, and my uncle Tod stepped in as the father figure wishing the new couple well.
Dad wasn’t entirely negative, though. Towards the end of the night, he showed his amazing ability to sacrifice for the team. He asked if the rental company was going to collect the two hundred chairs from the wedding, or if they needed to be stacked and organized. Sadly, they needed to be stacked and organized, so without hesitation my dad went off to take care of it. I couldn’t allow that to happen alone, so I went with, and my sister’s boyfriend (now fiancée) joined us. In a miserable August heat, the hottest day of the summer, we pulled and stacked chairs until entirely drenched in sweat, as if we had just jumped into water
with our clothes on.
As we began piling up chairs, Dad explained that his comment during the wedding was supposed to be a joke, and that he meant we’d get it right when Lydia and I renewed our vows as a happily married couple. I told him the quip didn’t bother me, and it didn’t for two reasons: (1) it had only made him look bad, and (2) I was used to our exchanges. Unfortunately, after that initial salvo the conversation turned to lecture, and he used the time not to talk of the wedding or any positive aspect of it, but instead used the alone time to inform me of the many different ways my mother was being controlling. He described how she was exuding her power over Lydia, meddling in the wedding just like the Scooby Gang would at the scene of a murder. Considering I knew for a fact Lydia had planned the wedding almost entirely on her own, and actually stood her ground against my mother when my mother heard some of the ideas I was offering—pizza for the meal, saying “fuck” in my welcoming toast—I knew what my father was saying to be entirely untrue.
Yet he persisted.
In his mind, my mother was in control of the invitations, she was allocating money for things that were supposed to be outside her realm of control, like the rehearsal dinner, and many other accusations long gone from my memory. What could have been a nice moment became just another time to hear my dad rail against his ex. Being used to such speeches, I shrugged and stacked the chairs. Just another day with dad was all.
Our reception took place in a large central room, with a kitchen with a wide-open front in the back. When the dancing began, all the lights in the hall went down. This left the kitchen a bright eyesore, as the lights remained on there so the caterers could clean up. At some point several hours into our celebration, I looked up to see my father and fake dad, Joe, in said kitchen. Joe looked alternately exasperated, bored, frustrated, or a combination of all three. My father was rigid; his body posture suggested anger, and he had one arm out with a finger pointed at Joe, as if lecturing.
I rolled my eyes. At my sister’s wedding, I was present when my dad cornered my mom and demanded an apology from her for their marriage and divorce. It was a silly moment, and to my eyes looked like it was being repeated, only now with the “new” man in her life. Something had to be done, and I knew exactly what.
My whole life, I’ve searched out original, interesting people to befriend. Somewhere along my journey, a pudgy fella named Baxter and I bonded. Describing Baxter is difficult, so I'll do my best with one example: Baxter once stunned a physician by being the only person to answer honestly one question during the doctor’s fifteen year career. When asked on the intake form, “Have you ever been with a prostitute,” the doctor checked “no” as Baxter was answering “yes.” The doctor paused.
“Excuse me?” He asked.
“Yes, I’ve been with a prostitute,” Baxter shrugged.
The doctor was dumbfounded. He had to change the intake sheet, having already marred it by incorrectly pre-guessing the patient’s answer.
“Doc,” Baxter continued, “I have more tattoos on my body than women in my past.”
Baxter was an usher at my wedding, and as long as I’ve known him he has never worn pants. Even in the coldest Wisconsin January, Baxter would wear shorts. He even turned down a job offer once, as the position would require him to wear slacks. So when it came time to dress formal for the special occasion, he asked, “Can I wear a kilt?” I didn’t care, and said “sure.”
“It’s a dress kilt,” Baxter assured me.
Under that kilt, on that very day, Baxter declined to wear underwear. As any a man can tell you, a little oxygen up and under the taint feels good in summer, and that’s the path Bax wanted to walk. But he also wanted to go one step further. To make matters interesting, Baxter bought food dye, and before the blessed event took a sponge and gently dyed his penis and ball sac a dark green. This, he explained, would allow him to lift his kilt and say “HULK SMASH” when he was sufficiently drunk.
So, as my dad lectured Joe in the only illuminated area in the whole building, making the event not private but in fact the exact opposite, I decided action had to be taken. The word went out: Find Baxter.
Once he was located, my sister’s boyfriend, a man carrying a very expensive camera, was rustled up and given instructions.
The situation was explained to Bax, who then shook his head at the stupidity of anyone creating drama at a wedding, and set off
to put an end to it.
Baxter walked over to the kitchen, and when the two men didn’t halt their discussion, he shouted, “Hey guys!”
Heads turned, the kilt went up, and a picture was snapped.
Joe started laughing immediately, because how anyone can remain tense when a fat, kilted man is showing you his green penis is beyond me, but somehow my father managed to maintain his composure. Dad gave Baxter a quick “thumbs-up,” then turned right back to Joe and continued his speech.
Baxter waddled off, his best efforts defeated.
After it all ended, I asked Joe what had happened, and in good spirits he shook his head and said he was being lectured on “inappropriate behavior.” This included sitting among the family (Joe wasn’t my father, and shouldn’t have been in the front row), donating money to the cause (same reason), giving a toast at my sister’s wedding (same reason—he’s not her father), and other such silly things. Joe said he mostly let my dad vent, but did take one moment to turn things around. Joe asked my dad how he thought it made Lydia and I feel when they looked up at the ceremony, and he wasn’t sitting with the rest of the family. My dad’s response was, “No one told me I was supposed to sit there.” Sadly, given both ushers told me they tried to steer my dad to the front, combined with the comment Lydia’s therapist had overheard, this was a lie.
Fortunately, Joe has an easy-going attitude and didn’t let the moment ruin his day. Unfortunately, my sister is not always so casual and was tired of our father’s behavior. I was not witness to what happened, but a little while later Dad told me, “Well, your sister just said she hates me, you hate me, everyone hates me, and that she never wants to speak to me again.”
I laughed and shrugged. It was my wedding day, and I was having too good a time to get involved. In fact, of everything I’ve listed so far, not a single event bothered me. I’ve known my dad my whole life, and knew what to anticipate going in. Or so I thought.
One of my groomsmen, Barrett, found me for some alone time while others were dancing. He and my dad are friendly with one another, and Barrett said they had just shared a moment. My dad expressed a bit of sorrow to Barrett, information he was passing on to me to do with what I pleased. The slideshow of my childhood had wounded Dad. He told Barrett that he had many photos of me, and it would have been nice to have been asked to contribute.
I nodded my head, a bit upset with myself. Given his belief my mother was in control of the wedding, including him would have been the appropriate thing to do. I thanked Barrett, and continued celebrating.
The evening eventually ended. We had to be out of the rental space by midnight, so at 11:45 the lights went up and a few close friends and family set about straightening up, that we might avoid a huge cleaning fee. I cannot remember if my dad was there or not; no matter how hard I search my mind I cannot recall when he left, or if goodbyes were made.
Baxter, now nicely drunk, stood on a table and incoherently slurred his “Hulk Smash,” lifting the kilt and disgusting any women left present. A bar was chosen, and a precious few friends and family made their way over to it to finish out the night.
At bar time, Lydia and I waved farewell to our friends and hopped in my car to away to our hotel. As we drove, I told Lydia about my conversation with Barrett, and how even though my dad had acted pretty much as I figured he would, we still should have included him in the picture choosing process.
Lydia grew immediately livid.
“Goddammit!” she yelled. “I emailed him several times asking for pictures, I emailed Alice, and even talked to him once about it! When I asked him, he said we could talk about it later, and then he never responded to any of my emails or messages!”
I wasn’t angry like Lydia was, but I was disappointed in myself. It had been years since I let my dad get to or trick me, yet he had been able to do so that night.
Fortunately, a few minutes later, when we arrived at the hotel, we discovered a wonderful surprise. Lydia and I had Pricelined our room, and had paid $60 for a normally $150 a night stay. At the desk, we were given our key, then took the elevator up to discover we were staying in The Presidential Suite. A tenant at our rental property worked at the hotel, and when she saw our name on the register switched us to the un-reserved room. We entered to find wine, candy, roses, and hearts. It was a damn fine finish to a goddamn decent day.
And it really was a great day. I know it’s a horrible cliché to say so, but it was one of the best days of my life, easily. Having so many friends come out to visit with me was amazing. Old friends, current friends, Internet folk, and people I’ve met doing comedy; it was profoundly touching and great fun. I’ve had people tell me they felt they should have paid admission to attend, and I credit their fun to Lydia. Though a wedding is supposed to be about the bride, she turned that concept on its head and tried to make it about the guests. From having a short ceremony, to throwing the reception immediately following our vows and whatever else you can think of, she buckled down and pretty much planned it all. I could not have asked for a better, more beautiful bride, nor could I have asked for a better partner in the year since.
It’s odd how one day can be a juxtaposition of celebration and stupidity, how two diametrically opposed paths can be created from one event: towards one person, away from another. I didn’t end that day with the thought in my head to stop talking to my father, and we have exchanged a couple emails since then. It’s been maybe five at the most, all small talk with nothing relevant ever being written. He sent me a birthday card; Lydia and I invited he and Alice to our house for Christmas and didn’t hear back, so we sent gifts before the end of December. I think that’s when I finally noticed the fade, when our invitation was put on the back burner and no response to our gifts was given. I realized we hadn’t actually spoken, and somewhere in my mind I thought, “Well, let’s see how far this goes.”
And so it goes.
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