A Sensitive Man

"Curt, I'm selling the car. We have to. We aren't the kind of people that drive cars like that."

I'm almost too angry to respond. "Huh?" I manage. I'm not sure that I've ever even been angry before, certainly not like this.

It is a 1968 Plymouth Barracuda, blue like the picture. I am 17 years old. My grandpa bought it for me, with the condition that I pay him back. He is very sick now. I have worked hard, and have almost paid it off. Dad isn't working, and hasn't been. I am going to school all day and helping at the farm after school and on weekends.

Dad says I can drive his Corolla whenever I need it.

When the man comes to buy the car, I watch Dad talking to him through my bedroom window. "650 seems reasonable," he says. 650 is unreasonable. I have done things to this car. I have transformed this car into something beautiful. I could sell this car for 1000.

"I don't know...," Dad says. He is a sensitive man, one who cannot stomach even an ounce of something that could be interpreted as dishonesty. He is still the same way. I tried so hard not to be like him. I failed. He points out a fresh scratch on the passenger side door. It is almost nothing. "There's this," he says, "and you're going to need new tires soon. Let's do an even 500." Dad has negotiated down the price of my beautiful Barracuda. He has given it away.

This is when the rebellion starts. The anger that leads to the drug use. To detachment from the world. To unhealthy convictions. "I will be strong, where Dad is always weak," young Curt tells himself. "I will decide what I want, and I will go and I will take it."

Three years later, young Curt stands before the judge. He feels his father's presence in the courtroom. He is almost happy to think of how it must pain his father to think of having helped bring such a monster into the world.

It makes old Curt sad to think back on all this now. He doesn't blame Dad for any of it, not like he used to. He regrets that all that turned out the way it did. Old Curt is sorry, Dad.