When I was a kid, I measured strength by how many of those forty-pound boxes of frozen fries you could stack on top of the dolly without it falling over. I saw my dad stack ten of those things, and he could control that dolly smoother than any of us in the warehouse.
He was strong. And as I’ve grown up I’ve come to find out the true weight of the things he carried. There were so many things that we couldn’t see, covered up by this veil of stubbornness and pride that bit back at us anytime we wanted to get emotional.
Reading his name on the headstone at the cemetery now brings me back to when I learned how to deal with all of this. Right now, as I read his name carved in stone, I’m not crying, and I don’t feel the need to. I was alone, staring at the grave in mid-November just to feel his presence.
When my brother Michael and I were kids, Dad called us weak for crying, and we were scorned for laughing,- we just didn’t know his anger was from the things he carried.
And we never saw it- until I did just days after my brother died.
As I stand over my father’s grave I reflect on the first time I’d seen him, not as my father, but as a man.
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The march of time after my brother died became a loop. I was stuck reliving a few moments while, for everyone else, time kept marching on. The world didn’t stop, and neither could I, so in a matter of a few days, I was back in the warehouse. It was a gloomy Wednesday afternoon, and I was spending my last summer before college working with my father in the hopes of making enough money to finally get away from him. I didn’t give him any protest, as his quotes, “The bills won’t pay themselves” and “You’re either gonna cry and feel sorry for yourself or you’re gonna cry and make money while you do it,” were motivation enough to crawl back into the warehouse this morning.
Days like this would’ve been easier with Mikey helping out, even though he probably wouldn’t shut up about the Bulls game later, or how the cashier at the corner store eyed him for a second longer than usual, which in his mind meant that she was totally into him. She had to be at least six or seven years older than us, but that didn’t help when I tried to convince him that she wasn’t into him.
The cloud of exhaustion enveloped me over my safety vest as I operated the forklift. It was almost relieving that the people at work had no idea how to act empathetic towards me or my father. I would rather sit comfortably in my cloud than to have to explain, “I don’t want to talk about it,” over and over again. Operating the forklift at work had never been a problem for me, but today, there was nothing harder than the simplest of tasks. Finding my focus would prove to be impossible. Stacking pallets, searching for items I should know the location of, putting up with the undesirable voice from my manager—all amounted to an unbearable weight on me, stopping me from finding my strength or fortitude. Even with this difficulty, I would’ve been able to make it through the day if it weren’t for the dreadful mistake awaiting me at rush hour.
Orders were flying, clients were in and out of the warehouse, and the pressure of the world was crushing me. Suddenly I made a wrong turn with the forklift at speeds I should not have been going. I smashed the pallet of sodas I currently had into one of the metal crates holding food, resulting in hundreds of liters of soda and the food I ran into exploding onto the floor. At that moment, I felt wide awake. Up until that moment, the day had been blurred together, trudging along slow as honey dripping out of a mason jar, but after that moment, everything became more vivid than it ever had been.
A dreadful amount of curse words were flying, and I was able to hear every single one. About 40 pairs of eyes were staring at me, and I felt…Every. Single. One.
Each one a laser, contributing to the heat rising on my skin. For a second I was frozen, still hoping that my cloud would come back and reality would become a slow honey drip again, but it didn’t. This was real, and it had just happened. I stepped out of the forklift calmly. Showing any emotion in this workplace, other than anger or frustration, was outlawed, and I could feel the tears in the back of my throat ready to burst.
So I ran.
I ran out the back entrance of the warehouse where there would be no clients. The clouds were still covering the sun, foreshadowing a storm on the horizon. I thought about running away at that moment, but my legs disagreed, so I sat down and let the tears flow.
I don’t know how long it was before I heard the door open and shut behind me. I didn’t bother to look up until I felt a thick hand on my shoulder. It was my dad. Instantly, like muscle memory, the tears stopped, my posture became upright, and my face straightened up in my best attempt to hide my weakness from him because I just knew I was about to get berated for it. I also had to prepare for the dreadful shouting in my face for the mistake I had just made.
All of this split-second preparation didn’t matter. I looked up and saw an expression on him I had never seen in my life. Is that… worry? Sorrow? I had never seen his expression this soft in my entire life. I’m sure he saw the confusion on my face, as he sat down on the curb next to me with his hand still on my shoulder.
People would always point out our resemblance. The goatee and bushy eyebrows that we share, the curly hair, and also our height. He towered over me at 6 foot 4 inches, although I was only 3 inches shorter than he was.
As I stand over my father’s grave I reflect on the first time I seen him, not as my father, but as a man.
I was waiting for him to yell, smack the concrete with his bare hands in frustration, or throw his gloves across the lot, but he sat there next to me now staring at the ground with his hand still on my shoulder. He took a deep breath and looked back up at me. “I know I’m not a great role model,” he said.
I felt a shock in my chest, almost like a warmth that would spread to my whole body.
“I know I’ve been…uhh…” He looked back down at the ground. “…difficult.”
This did not feel real. The warmth in my body grew exponentially.
“I’m sorry.” he says after a moment.
I was still too stunned to speak.
“I know you want nothing more than to get away from all this.” He jerks his head up in the direction of the lot in front of us.
The sky was a sorrowful gray that made the smoke from the factories across the lot blend into them. The ground in the lot was torn and weathered from negligence, and there wasn’t a park or person in sight. Just industrial emptiness.
“Jaylen, son…” His hand moved to my other shoulder, enveloping me into his one arm as he looked straight into my eyes with a look I had never received from him as long as I’ve been alive: sincerity. “There’s nothing wrong with that, to want to get away. But the thing is, those pallets in there aren’t going to pick themselves up.”
My eyes squinted as I looked up in confusion.
My dad shifted his weight away from me, as he continued to stare ahead at the pollution cloud covering the horizon. I watched him blink as a conflict arose on his face.
“Take it from me,” he said, his eyes still scanning the cloud. “The more you run away, even with the faster you get, it’ll always catch up with you.” He looked back down at me, with that serene expression.
“Other men, they’ll drop those pallets and start blaming everyone else. You’ve seen it.”
I felt a lump rise in my throat again. I was confused, but his comfort eased me. Especially since it was coming from him.
“These guys in there…” He pointed his thumb back at the warehouse behind us. “They don’t know what being men really means. They come to work, and they just get angry. I know I’m no different.” He sighed, his tone dejected.
My eyes widened in shock. Suddenly he wasn’t my stubborn, prideful dad anymore. He was a man.
He clenched his jaw and took his arm off my shoulder. “It’s your choice.” My dad stood up, ready to go back inside. “I’ll be back in the warehouse. You can go home if you want…or stay. It’s up to you.”
As the years went by, and the cycle of grief loosened, stretching into weeks and months in between, I realized what he meant. If Michael were here with me right now, staring at dad’s grave- he too, would get it. And I’m glad I did. Because if it weren’t for that, and I had just left the warehouse and went home, I’d still be running to this day.
But I ended up going back in and cleaning up my mess.
Velocity 
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