The Men Of Millville: the calamitous attempts at boyfriends by my mother.

Acrylics on wood panel by R. Kilroy

The Men Of Millville

 By Richard Kilroy

My mother had a terrible instinct for knowing exactly who was
wrong for her and once determining with certainty who that
person was, she’d make her move toward them. This pattern of
seeking the calamitous was, strangely, in honor of the image she
held of her perfect father. His portrait finely sketched in
indelible rapidograph ink. A banknote engraving or one of those
stippled portraits in the Wall Street Journal. Her father’s
suicide didn’t coincide with her portrait of him and so, she went
about the repairing of catastrophized men from there forward.
Dovetailing with this was Mom’s great hurt that a father who
would rather die than stay with his children created a sense of
doom, a misery in the place of self-esteem. Seeking out ravaged
men in her life was another way of saying that she didn’t
deserve much better.

After the second suicide in Mom’s life, the self-inflicted 38 short
colt bullet to the abdomen by her second husband, Big Larry --
Mom fell into a series of misadventures characterized by
sadness, madness and an ordinate quantity of cold duck.
Mom was 44 and even after having given birth to 7 children, she
managed to keep her Atlantic City beauty contest figure. Skirts
got shorter after Big Larry’s death. Heels got higher after Big
Larry’s death. Scarves had more color. New hair styles were
auditioned before her children to see which look was most
effective before a night out at the Friendly tavern.

“Whatdya think kiddo?“ she’d ask me after an hour of curlers,
blow drying, teasing and a great cumulous cloud of Aquanette.
“You look like a movie star.” I’d tell her hoping it was the right
thing to say to make her smile. And then she would smile.
“Movie star. I’d like that.” She’d say before she misted herself
and the room with one of her Avon perfumes. She’d notice a
frayed strap to her high heel, exhale softly and say to herself,
“ah, whatda gonna do?” and head out into the evening.

We were living in a small town outside of a small town in
Millville, New Jersey and finding a single man who didn’t own a
gun collection was not as easy as it sounds – even for a woman
who once won that beauty contest on the boardwalks of Atlantic
City.

Of Mom’s list of boyfriends following the death of Big Larry –
first there was Danny Becker. He was twelve years younger
than Mom and needed two teeth in the front but that’s not to say
he wasn’t handsome, just a man with no dental plan. Mom fell
hard for Danny Becker and went about buying him those
missing teeth, telling us after doing so,
“See? Right as rain, it’s amazing what filling some gaps can do.”

Danny Becker and Mom lasted only a few summer months
before he decided to head back to West Virginia, now that he had
fixed his smile. He aimed to make up with the wife Mom never
knew he had. She drove Danny Becker in her peach colored
Rambler to the Grey Hound station on High Street one early
morning in late July and paid for his bus ticket home. She even
wore his favorite Avon perfume, ‘Wishful’. The brass colored
bottle was shaped like a Genie’s lamp. I always thought it a
shame to have wasted such a wish on such a man.

My real father was out of the story long ago. Mom, while
pregnant with me, picked up and left Dad in the middle of the
night, their six children herded away – momma duck and her
ducklings risk the freeway crossing. Later, she wouldn’t talk
about Dad much except when scolding me. “You are acting just
like Jimmy!’ she warned. It made me feel good when she lobbed
accusations of behaving just like my father. Somehow he and I
were connected then, even if he never wrote or called.
Connections don’t need greeting cards and stamps or postmarks
I figured – they go deeper, more interior than that.

Mom stayed in most nights in the autumn months after Danny
Becker took that bus ride back to his wife. But Helen, Mom’s
girlfriend from the clubs, telephoned, wanting to hit the taverns
for the holidays. Helen and Mom were the widows of west
Millville and used to laugh over bourbons and the dried leaf piles
they had made of their lives. Helen was a good ten years older
than Mom and had a number of surgeries in hopes of keeping
the years off her face. “I need to lighten the load” Helen would
say before heading off to Philly for another touch up. Helen had
been under the knife so many times that her face long ago lost
any semblance of reliable fact and had become a work of fiction.
Mom loved Helen though, like an older sister that never judged,
no matter the misstep.

Mom’s next boyfriend was ‘Beer-belly-Bill’, a ruddy-faced man
with dollop of sandy hair, a huge handle-bar mustache and, well,
that beer belly. His eyes were perilously close together and he
spoke in a mumble as if too embarrassed to be understood.
Naturally, no one knew what Beer Belly Bill was mumbling
about but we would nod and smile just the same. Mom thought
all of this was terribly endearing.

Sometimes Beer-belly-Bill would rumble out a low frequency
sentence and then erupt in to a fit of laughter. I was never quite
sure if he was expecting us to laugh along or if he had just
ridiculed us.

Then there was ‘Gigolo Jerry’ who would zip up to our home,
slueing into our drive on a lemon colored scooter, the engine of
which sounded like electric clippers from the barbershop.
Gigolo Jerry fashioned himself as some sort of James Bond
villain although I believe in reality, he managed a fluorescent
lighting business. Dashing in butterscotch hued faux leather
jackets, stretch-turtleneck sweaters and orange hair that was
whipped and molded like meringue. Gigolo Jerry also had an
accent that was suppose to come from Austria but he had
trouble keeping it consistent, like a remiss parent keeping little
track of their child who was running wild in the aisles of Sears.
Mom was smitten with that sometimes accent and whipped hair
and lavished all of her Avon cologne samples on him. She also
bought him dinners at Sizzler’s and would sing ‘Edelweiss’ to
him as they sipped cold duck from Dixie cups. When Gigolo
Jerry found out that mom didn’t own any property outside of
our modest home, he stopped coming by. Mom smiled at the
thought of this, promptly giving him the ‘Gigolo’ moniker and
said, “Ah, whadya gonna do?”

One day Mom brought home Dominic Cantiello Jr. – or as he
preferred, just ‘Junior’. Junior was an Irish/Italian bus driver
with strongly etched features and dark glittering eyes that
never seemed to blink. Junior claimed to have been a
professional boxer – that is until his ankles gave out. Junior
had pet phrases like, ‘That’s life in the big city’ or ‘don’t put nice
things away in a box if you like looking at those nice things’. I’m
pretty sure that second phrase was a Junior original.

Junior was also a sometimes-songwriter. His career-high was called, ‘Hello Operator’ and placed third in talent contest in a tavern somewhere near Wildwood.  He sang the ballad, an ode to his lost mother,with the conviction of a choir boy in a quivering tenor while strumming his banjo-ukulele. “Hello operator – can you get me through – to a place called Heaven, it’s just around the moon.” Junior, sitting just a throw pillow away from Mom on our plaid sofa, wooed her with love songs. Mom’s eyes filled with effort, hoping to take meaning in each line of lyric. It wasn’t long before Junior composed a ballad especially for her: “ Eileen – Eileen/ prettiest girl I’ve ever seen/ and by the way, her name is Eileen”.

After hearing this lyric Mom confided to me, “I think he’s the
one kiddo.”

When Junior would visit he would bring his younger brother
Tommy. It was whispered that Tommy was ‘slow’ and also
Tommy ‘couldn’t’ take an interest in girls. Tommy was pinned
to his brother like a note on a bulletin board, a reminder that
family came first.

Tommy also had a fondness for washing pots. While Mom and
Junior sang love songs on her cross-hatched couch, Tommy
busied himself in our kitchen washing mom’s pots. I’d watch
Tommy – a stub of cigarette dangling from his thick lips as he
methodically scoured and rinsed Mom’s fryers and doubleboilers.

Tommy would hum along to his brother’s music in a
tuneless rasp.
Junior said that Tommy only had one job in his life – about
fifteen years ago when he was a dishwasher in a nice hotel on
the Ocean City boardwalk. Washing Mom’s pots while his older
brother was on his date made him feel employed again.
I remember tugging on Tommy’s apron and asking him if he
wanted to do some of our glasses too. Tommy sneered at me and
never answered. He was not interested in glasses, only pots.
Eventually Junior and his brother stopped coming by – maybe
because the chemistry wasn’t right anymore with Mom or
maybe because Tommy had nothing left to clean, not wanting to
do glasses and all.

As much as I was uncomfortable with the various characters
Mom called her boyfriend – it made me sad when she eventually
stopped trying to date. She was always like that church steeple
jutting from the waters of a flooded town – something stoic and
determined remained no matter how ruined it was at its base –
and it pained me to see the waters finally overtake the spire.

Years later we talked about her men of Millville and she
laughed, likening them to the cantina characters in Star Wars.

“Did I really fall for that Eileen song?” “Yes ya did Mom.” And
she laughed even harder. Then she stopped herself and
thought on those years for a moment and exhaled softly.

We were quiet for some time.

“Ah, whatya gonna do?” I said to her.

And she looked at me with serious eyes. For the first time in her
life someone understood.

I painted a prophet to talk to my father.

Daniel on wood in acrylics (based on Michelangelo) by R. Kilroy

Meeting Dad and Other Calamities
by Richard Kilroy

For years my father was off limits. He was damaged, presumably by my mother who,
while pregnant with me, picked up and left Dad in the middle of the night, their five
children in tow. Besides, he didn’t need an unseen son from another lifetime bothering
him. Dad was troubled enough I was told. “You don’t want that Jimmy in your life.” Mom
would warn if I even hinted at contacting him. But I missed him no matter that we had
never met. And it took me until I was in my mid-twenties to even consider trying to reach
him. I suppose I was troubled enough too by that age and thought, well, at least he and I
have one thing in common.

I wrote to my father – a very kind and hesitant letter saying that I know what it must be
like to know of a son but not be ready to acknowledge him. How I knew the feelings of this
man – or rather, how I thought I knew of these feelings falls in to the realm of what I call
my superself, the gift of knowing what others are feeling at all times and knowing exactly
how to handle every situation because of this rare yet burdensome gift.

I wrote on for a few paragraphs – careful not to frighten Dad with expectation of result.
All of it sculpted, manicured, to reach the quietness. The quietness of the damaged man.
Inside this quietness I will reach him. I won’t use too many verbs. Verbs can be
confrontational. I’ll use whispered words and they will settle – snowflakes to a drift –
gently creating a larger slope. He won’t be offended or frightened because I will acclimate
him– he will see that my superself has found his silent self and I am offering him a chance
to step out of his cellar for just a moment. I can see this without even knowing him
because I can find thoughts inside the mind of the sufferer. I have these super powers and
have cleverly hidden them from the world so as not to be exploited by the government or
to be tested on news programs from lesser channels.

The letter will be brilliant and he will finally, finally respond. I’ll hear his words – know
the style of his handwriting (or would he type his reply?). We will have made contact.
Alien craft – fathership to send greetings to the earthson. I also enclosed a small color
copy of one of my paintings – the prophet Daniel. My father has never seen any of my
artwork and I figure this will certainly prompt a response. A prophet sent to do a
forgotten son’s bidding.

Weeks and months passed and he never replied. Too much expectation on him. I overplayed
my hand, my downfall. My superself always forgets my superweakness: I try too
hard. Instead of being patient and subtle, I create a flourish. Why paint landscapes when
you can paint Michelangelo?? Light the candle with a blow-torch. He won’t want to see me
now. He’ll believe I’m like Mom’s side of the family, boisterous, piercing. I’ll laugh an openmouthed
laugh and slam my hand on his knee when doing it. I’ll be too much. As he now
must see it, I’m probably hoping to be, God help me, an entertainer – that would really
send him fleeing.

But something happened months later. I get a call from someone I've never spoken to in
my life, Aunt Pat. She says, “Jimmy wants to meet you.” Kaboom.
I hear almost nothing after those words – my head is inside the liberty bell and someone
just clanged it. Aunt Pat is distant like a voice yelling in a storm.
“Are you still there?” I hear. But I’m not the one saying it, she is.

“I’m here. Just a little …”

“I know. I’m as surprised as you are.”

“When?”

“Let’s make it on the weekend of Christmas– that way your cousins will be there too. You
can meet all of us at one time” she says.

Good idea I think. Dad won’t be the focus; there will be other family for me to meet.
Decorations. Egg nog. It won’t be so freakish and Jerry Springer-like. I won’t cry when
Dad emerges from the side curtain, stage right – passing bodyguards with their hands
clasped behind their backs. It will be subtle and classy. Like polished rose cedar. The
meeting of family in the living room of Aunt Pat’s at Christmas. I like this a lot.

I was began wondering what it would all be like. What will it sound like? Will there be a
stereo playing or will Aunt Pat hire a chamber group? Maybe they’ll play Vivaldi when I
finally meet my father – ‘The Four Seasons” – clichéd?, yes – but damned effective.

I felt buoyant. 28 years of wondering what he would look like – sound like. Does he have a
deep voice? Would he be proud of me? Will he think I look like a Kilroy or fret that I look
too much like Mom’s side? Does he wear cologne? If so, does he wear too much of the
wrong cologne like my math teacher in fifth grade – the one who always smelled like
burnt rubber bands? Does he dress well or will he be one of those men who wear his pants
up above his navel like Fred Mertz? Oh! The questions I have! Will he bother to shave
when he meets me? Will I shake his hand or do we embrace? The first moment has to be
perfect! We waited 28 years for this and I’m not going to have it fall flat with a fumbled
hug. Vivaldi for certain, I can bring a CD.

Maybe our meeting will turn his life around – and mine too. We’ll both find that missing
staircase in the house. The upstairs is ours. I’ll meet my father and will suddenly know
how to throw a baseball in the correct manner, knuckles slightly bent I'm guessing. Father
will meet me and soon after - seek employment with Lockheed, his ambitions fulfilled
after knowing he has a son with superself powers and the ability to paint prophets.

I take a walk after the phone call to ease the crowding in my head. It’s getting dark early
now – it’s not even five and Christmas lights wink in the windows of homes along my way.
I look for the perfectly timed image of a young father lifting his little boy onto his
shoulders in one of the dining room windows. That would be really effective right now. It
doesn't happen. It occurs to me while passing under a canopy of knotty branches: Do I
want this? Really want this? What if my imagination filled in a better image of Dad than
the reality? Will I be so disappointed that I may spiral? I’ve never tested my ability to
deal with actually knowing my father – I’ve only known the unknown.

And it got worse: what if I lose my sadness that I’ve come to cherish? Why cherish
sadness? My God, I am like Mom's side, so dramatic. Who wants to hold on to their
suffering? It makes for a good story, that's why - just like me never having any art
lessons, such a story. How amazing! How sad! Poor Richard! He paints and the poor
wretch never had one lesson! Isn’t that awful! He was so destitute that he made paints
from mud! Mud I tell you! He painted on the paper bags he found in the laundry mat
dumpster. Just look at him go! A ghetto Goya!

Tell someone: 'I never met my father' -- and you get a hug. If not physically – you get one
with their softened eyes. Tell them – well, I did meet him once … and then what? Who
cares to hear the rest of that tale? But what about those first 28 years? I still suffered
without a father, right? Doesn’t that still matter? No. You ruin the story if you meet him.
You destroy the mythology. Tell your father, ‘thanks Dad but I pass.’ That’ll show him. It’s
my great sad story and he’s not about to fuck it up.

I fly to Portland on an airplane with an image of some Eskimo wincing on the tail wing. I
hate flying.

When I arrive at PDX Uncle Jim stands waiting - no one else in the entire building it
seems. This is the quietest airport I’ve ever been to. It feels like zombies have taken over
the city and no one bothered to tell me. Maybe it’s a trap. I notice that Uncle Jim looks
like that actor – the one in ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’. Jason Robards Jr. He has
kind, bright blue eyes and I’m feeling a bit better - not because he’s one of the family I’ve
never known but because he looks like an actor from I film I once liked.

The drive to Aunt Pat’s home is quiet. I’m still nervous. Worried I wore the wrong shirt.
I’m wearing a button up, it’s blue. I’m Dad's boy so I wore blue. That’s pushy I now
thought. Why am I hitting my father with symbolism when I should just relax? Maybe I
can change shirts in the bathroom before Dad arrives. He’s due for dinner at 8. It’s only a
little after six and I’ll have time to change shirts.

Before Dad arrives … I can’t believe I formed that sentence …

Uncle Jim knows the weight of this night but talks about gardening or his church or
something. Maybe he talked about a church garden. I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m meeting
my father in less than two hours. Wholly Good God.

I just now remember that my sister Terri was with me. How did I forget that? – oh yes,
she was on the flight with me and she sits in the front seat of Jim’s car. I’m in the
backseat. She was so quiet and respectful that I’m only now remembering her being there.
Terri fills in the silences that I can not. I’m too distracted, too inside my head.

We pull up in the drive of an upper middle class house. Neatly shingled with white
shutters. Flagstone walk to the door. They live directly across the river from Mt. St.
Helens. I try not to find the symbolism in that as I take to the walk.

When we enter the Patton’s home there are cousins and other familyish people there. A lit
Christmas tree at a bay window. I don’t know anyone. I’ve never met my father’s side of
the family until this night. I don’t even know my Grandmother. Her name is Rose. She’s
beaming. A little woman, no taller than a garden statue – and she’s dressed in pink pants
and a wool sweater. She smiles among other smiling family. A rose in a rose garden. She
has a pumpkin broach. She’s hugging me. I don’t know what to do. I hug back trying not to
crush her small bones.

I’m stared at like a specimen, not unfriendly stares at all. They won’t dissect me – they
just want to know what world I rocketed in from and do I like their customs? They are
kind to me. The whole of them know this meeting was in the works since my birth. They
know I’ve never said one word to my father. They know how odd my father is. (but he
really only became odd after my mother left him I’m told)

I’m offered a drink. I thought it was alcoholic but it turns out to be Canada Dry. I’m
wishing it was hard liquor. Southern Comfort would do nicely. Of course it’s soda – Uncle
Jim is a pastor! Pat’s a pastor’s wife! My Grandmother has a pumpkin broach – these
people don’t drink, that’s your mother’s side. Remember your setting Richard.

Soda is fine, I don’t wish to dull my senses anyway. I want to be clear eyed and present for
every minute of this night. Tonight I’m a celebrity. They have no idea what I’d look like.
Mom was never the kind to send relatives our school photos.

Again Terri saves me. She fills in the blank stares – answers the questions – speaks for me
even but I don’t care. I need this help tonight. I need to be relieved of one of my faculties. I
have to channel my energy, conserve it, focus it on being the normal son. The best son in
the entire world.

I can do this.

I’m being hit by all sides – information pouring over me about my father, things I never
thought I’d know – things I almost didn’t believe. I’m told that my father had the 3rd
highest I.Q. of any student tested during his fifth grade. 3rd highest in the country. I
never heard that before. Mom wasn’t the person to tell me such things. She admitted he
was intelligent but usually to illustrate her point that he was crafty and sneaky. 3rd
highest? That is something. Maybe my father is a genius! Maybe I’m one too! Father and
son geniuses! We could go on tour! The smarty-pants tour! Madonna could open for us.

It’s nearly 8. People are picking at celery and dill dip. Grandmother Rose is still beaming
at me. Everyone is dressed for church. I start to get the feeling this is a rite of some kind.
There should be an altar with candles burning. I’m in the center of this amazing mass.
People I don’t know are asking me how I feel. These people all sort of look like me too
which makes it that much more disconcerting – but I decide that I like this. I can get used
to this attention. Maybe I could fly up to Portland more often and we can all recreate this
amazing night on a yearly basis. But I'll bring hard liquor next time.

The phone rings. Aunt Pat answers. She looks over at me with a stare I can’t decipher.
I’ve known Aunt Pat all of two hours and I don’t know how to read her cues, her
expression. My superself powers utterly fail me.

I feel electricity. I’ve touched one of those tesla globes of lightning – the kind in Dr.
Frankenstein’s laboratory. My hair must be shooting out in all directions. I know it’s him
– it’s Dad. He’s on the other end of that line. He’s going to be late – prolong the agony. He’s
saying things to her with a voice she’s used to - but to me, I haven’t a clue what he must
sound like.

Aunt Pat motions for me to step over to the phone. The room goes quiet. My God, I
thought Mom's side of the family was a dramatic bunch.

Aunt Pat says to me in a voice like a whispered prayer, ‘it’s your father.’

Suddenly I know this has been all wrong. Too public.
I can’t take my very first phone call from my father. I can’t do this in front of 20 strangers
in tasteful sweaters. They're all watching. They know how weird all of this is and I can’t
believe it’s all on display. It feels staged. I feel like an actor. I feel I should be noble and
move slowly so everyone can absorb the impact and remember it always. I hate that I’m
in slow motion. I hate that I wanted Vivaldi.

I’m shaking. I can’t help myself. The receiver weighs 50 pounds. It’s now at my ear.
“hello?” I say in a voice that suggests I just regressed to four years old.

“It’s your father – look, I’m really sorry but I have a stomach cold and just can’t leave the
house. I’ll make it up to you.”

What? What? I think.

Is that my father’s voice? It sounds small and shaky. He sounds four years old. Stomach
cold? Who has a stomach cold? What is that like?

A reply flies out of my mouth: “No problem – Hope you feel better soon. Don’t worry about
it. We’ll try again real soon.”

I forgive him without question. My inner voice defends his stomach cold, his life of
mistakes and phobias without another thought.

The room is staring at me. Eyes widening as they spackle in what must have been told to
me on the other end. They know better than I that I’m being stood up. It’s not sinking in
for me but they know.

Too much information. Too much sensory information. I’m on the phone with my father –
I’m meeting rosy Grandma and her pink pants – aunts, uncles, cousins, Jason Robards Jr.
- volcanoes just across the river and now I’m hearing my father turn me down. It’s all
happening too fast.

I say goodbye to him, hang up and look at Terri. She’s crying. Great timing Terri. I rely on
her to be my pillar and in this moment of true need, she loses it. I see a lot of misty eyes –
a pall is cast over the room. Over this house. This city. The whole city is crying for me
right now. Even the Christmas tree looks forlorn.

I tell the room – no one in particular – his side of the story. I say I understand and I defend
him again. I say it was all too much of a public meeting and he got spooked off. I get it. I
should have known better but I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t planning. His family knows
Jimmy – wouldn’t they know this was all wrong?

A cousin spoke, she had Dorothy Hamill hair and a moss-green wool sweater with a
Charlie Brown zig-zag - ‘oh, this is so sad …’ she said.

We had dinner without him: ham with a brown sugar glaze. I poked at my food, no one was
offended by this. Dessert was pumpkin pie – Grandmother Rose served it on mustard
colored plates with green holly leaves painted on them.