Sons and Fathers
My son is nine weeks into his Hydra experience, working beside me in the chrome shop, plating components which will eventually become hydraulic cylinders used on an array of dump trucks, garbage trucks, cranes, and tractors. Nine weeks without missing a day of work, without so much as a single instance of tardiness. Those who are not so easily impressed with the miraculous might be quick to point out that his exemplary attendance record could be attributed to a certain dumb Polack leaving twenty minutes early every morning to pick his ass up.
This is true. But I can say with complete and utter surprise, not once have I had to kick him off his crack house mattress from a dead sleep and inspire him to show up to work through a litany of hair pulling and shrieking blood oaths.
I anticipated a comedy of errors, a steady stream of goofy shit that would provide fodder for at least the next month of columns. This possibility appealed to me because I wasn’t sure what the fuck else I could write about. My lifetime of heroics, my quick and certain actions in the face of inconveniences that would have bummed out lesser men, indeed my incredible sexual prowess, had all already been well-documented and accepted as bedrock fact by the Polish Hammer faithful. Could I conceivably write about situations that did not apply to me? I didn’t want to find out…
But a funny thing happened. When given the opportunity, my son applied himself to becoming a productive cog within the horrifically mismanaged Hydra machine. He showed flashes of intuitive thinking, diligence and patience. He excelled at the mundane factory work. He didn’t complain about the long hours. He never belly-ached about the heavy lifting. Of course, when asked by coworkers or members of management how he liked the job, he invariably replied “it fucking sucks,” but that’s only because the job did indeed fucking suck. I’d been screaming that shit off the roof top for twenty years.
Most everyone let me know real quick there was no denying him. Aside from my obvious lack of hair and his temporary abundance of hair, we do share similar features and absolutely bare the identical expressions of dismay whenever anybody asks us to do anything that requires more than the minimum amount of work needed to get through a twelve-hour shift.
When the ladies commented on his resemblance to me, I demanded he ask if that was a good thing or not.
“I’m not asking that, Dad. Why would I even?”
“Cause I gots to know.”
“She’s the lady who just had the hip replacement surgery. She walks with a cane.”
“Oh, I thought it might have been the other one.”
“The one who threatened you with harassment charges? She don’t really talk to me, Dad.”
“Ah, it’s just as well. She hates being called Sweet Cheeks, I can tell you that…”
My father and I looked nothing alike. He was short and stocky. I’m built like a Greek fucking God. His hair remained thick most of his life, receding into what was then known as the Koweski “M” which was later replaced by what my brothers and I came to know as the Koweski “O.” No one would have mistaken my father and I as kin which was just the way I liked it, though when my father would take me to the bars with him during my early childhood, I had to hang off his belt loop for fear of being mistaken for a random neighborhood kid slipping into the bar hoping to take advantage of the fifty cent Old Style draft happy hour.
My father was unknowable to me, as I remained a mystery to him as my own boy continues to be a complete cypher to me. My father was thirty-eight when I was born and I was two months shy of my sixteenth birthday when he passed. He liked to fish, I remember, and had amassed a small arsenal of rods, reels, and lures, though I can only remember a handful of times he actually took me fishing, likely due to my compulsion to launch rocks into the water cause I liked seeing the swirl of iridescent toxins switch directions. We both loved the Cubbies. One of us got to see the Cubbies win the World Series, the other did not. We both share an affinity for type two diabetes. He lost a few toes thanks to a touch of the gout. I still have all ten of my toes as I write this, but I’m prone to fly into fits of rage if someone opens a bag of sour patch kids in my vicinity… and declines to share.
My father didn’t get to know me beyond being a spastic kid who couldn’t throw a baseball without breaking a window. I didn’t get to know him beyond the navy-blue clad authority figure who seemed angry all the time.
Working together with my son at Hydra is forcing us to learn all kinds of things about each other. For instance, I’ve learned that a large part of the boy’s charm lies in his utter inability to pick up after himself, whether it be empty whiskey bottles, Dr. Pepper cans, donut boxes, and his latest bank statement laid out for anyone to see.
Which brings me, I suppose, to the crux of this column. How can a twenty-two year old man who has actually shown extended periods of competence, who seems to understand that Hydra Hydraulics as we know it must soon collapse beneath the awesome weight of gross mismanagement, how can he go on to spend five hundred dollars on Roblox Bux in less than a month?
He worked hard for the money, for sure. He suffered for it. It’s his money, there’s no denying that, but how can he turn around and drop what amounts to a Harry Crews first edition Feast of Snakes for imaginary clothing and armor for his little Roblox avatar?
My father would have tied the both of us to a radiator and whipped us across the eyes, ears, and shoulders with a leather strop if he had lived long enough to understand the intricacies of Roblox capitalism.
And maybe that’s the difference between sons and fathers. I can pretend well enough that I never saw my son’s bank statement in regards to spending real money on pretend shit.
So after work, when we pull into the McDonald’s drive thru for his daily dose of the chicken nuggies and fries, he asks, “you want me to get this, or do you got it, daddio?”
I say, “fuck, no, idiot. You can spend the cost of an original Clive Barker ink drawing on a super laser sword for your Dragonbaiter6969 Roblox man, you can buy your pops a couple fucking McChicken sammiches.”
Karl Koweski is a displaced Region Rat now living in rural Alabama. He writes when his pen allows it. He’s a husband to a lovely wife and father to some fantastic kids. He collects pop culture ephemera. On most days he prefers Flash Gordon to Luke Skywalker and Neil Diamond to Elvis Presley.
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER is a weekly column, posted each Tuesday morning.
