By Pete Weber
My first therapy session was when I was 13 or so; I cannot really remember. What I do remember is the feeling of sitting in a doctor’s office waiting to be called. The office had a synthetic homeliness to it, making it truly disgusting. My mother was anxious and maybe my stepfather as well. It was hard to tell why we were necessarily there. Apparently, I had problems; I was too much like my father.
A man I knew and loved instinctually, but in reality, I knew nothing about. He would pick me up every other weekend and every Tuesday. Tuesdays became the worst day some weeks. I would go to school and then to daycare and then home, my mother’s house. Eventually, I would wait and wait for my dad because he worked a lot, and when he finally showed, we would drive almost an hour across the other side of town to get to his townhouse in the city.
Once there, I would try my best to be familiar with recent history, but some days I was too tired or lacked interest. Every Tuesday visit felt the same after a time. I would work on homework mostly to avoid my stepfather’s and mother’s speeches, which went something like this:
“You shouldn’t even go over there; you never get anything done. You always have to stay up late when you get back to finish your homework, and you miss the bus the next morning because of it. I wish you didn’t go to your dad’s.”
If I had no homework or lied about it, I would watch T.V. with my step sister until it was time to eat dinner. Throughout the whole affair, I saw my dad for 45 minutes to an hour. He would be working or trying his best not to fall asleep on the couch, and I never stayed too long before making the hour ride back to Mom’s.
“You smell like smoke,” my mother would snarl every time I entered her house in the suburbs. It was true, though; my dad could smoke like a chimney. I would shower right away because I had to get the smoke out of my hair. After the shower, for an hour or so, I could watch what I wanted or play a video game or more likely than not, I would get to listen to my stepfather talk about my future and how I could be great if I ever applied myself. Regardless of my actions and whether I completed my homework, I would stay up for a couple of hours listening to how I could be better. Tuesdays were long and tiring.
I eventually began complaining and protesting like my mother about going to my dad’s on Tuesdays. I got my wish and, along with it, a newly created rift. Every other weekend alone was hard. Maybe that is why we were in the office for therapy. I remember being called into the doctor’s personal office and getting asked why I was there. Before I had the chance to answer, my stepfather began speaking. I could not remember what was said in honest truth, but I remember having the sensation of laughing. You could see it in my mother’s eyes as well: “Here we go, Jesus Christ Superstar.” That is how she refers to him in his moments of righteousness.
The therapist’s face was priceless because when you listen to a speech by my stepfather, you get lost. He is coherent and well educated, but he just goes on and on, and it gets hard to place where you started from. The therapist looked at me again and asked me, a 13-year-old, “Why are you here?”
I just dumbly shrugged my shoulders, muttering some things like, “I don’t know, my grades.” Grades were a big thing. One year, when I was in 5th grade, I was handed a brochure for military boot camp with my stepfather saying that if I got a C that is where he was thinking of sending me.
My mother chirped in, “We want to talk about his father.” Her voice was flat and to the point. It seemed my mother was already exhausted from the process.
Instantly, the therapist realized how my eyes swelled, and my jaw clenched. She began to pull out her notes and ask about my Dad. “Fuck” was all I could think; I hated talking about my Dad, especially in front of my mom and stepfather.
My full name is Peter John Weber II, a name my father proudly gave me. (If you had known my father, that is all you might really need to know about me). I remember being so proud of my name that once I boldly pronounced my name in its entirety, Peter John Weber THE II, to company my mother had over for dinner. The name Pete or Peter was like poison, the worst type of curse. Unknowingly saying my full name revealed that we were not a “perfect” family. I got yelled at once the company left and was told not to embarrass anyone.
“His nickname is P.J. We like it better.” That was the extent of my mother’s input, and she never truly appreciated that even with my stepfather’s ramblings, they were the most hurtful words.
“P.J.,” the therapist began, using her new knowledge of my nickname and hoping to form a bond with me, then called on me again to answer another question. “Want to talk about your father?”
I remember hating that woman from that moment forward. Our therapy helped my mom and stepfather come up with more nicknames, like “Bio Dad,” or reinforced old ones like “Dad-Pete” because we did not want me to confuse who my “real” dad was. Therapy was also filled with guided one-way conversations and medication.
Thankfully, my mom stepped in and realized that therapy was not helping. I became a zombie and often felt sick after taking my prescribed meds. She has always been a kind and warmhearted woman, but it’s well-documented that she hesitates to do the right thing, especially at the start of a conflict. A lot of voices chirped in her ear, berating her every decision. In the beginning, she would freeze under pressure and let people control her thinking.
My young childhood was filled with moments such as these. Brief periods of time that highlighted the lunacy in my life. They also caused me to lose touch with my father. For a couple of years, I would barely see him, if at all, and talk to him only when I saw him.
So, it came as a huge surprise when my mother dropped me off at the front door like I was a baby being dropped off at a firehouse. My brother had cried himself to sleep during the ride, asking, “Am I ever going to see P.J. again?”
I was so incredibly enraged that I ripped chunks of hair out of my scalp when I took a shower later at my dad’s. My dad was confused, but he was a little happy when I look back and think about everything. My stepmother, not so much.
“I don’t want him here. He hasn’t been a part of this family, and we shouldn’t have to take care of him.” These were words that she never directly expressed to me but that I overheard between phone calls with members of the family, including my dad.
I stayed there for almost three weeks before my grandparents (mother’s side) stepped in to share responsibility so that I could stay in the same high school. Those three weeks were shitty. I was sleeping on the couch, there were (honest truth) about 30 cats in the house, and my clothes were in plastic bins in the bathroom next to the cat litter. The cats pissed on everything, adding to the heavy dankness that my presence presented. It provoked heated words, and eventually, the process of my dad and me losing touch repeated, leading to my full-time residency with my grandparents.
The experience with my grandparents was thrilling as it brought change. I was in college and adopted every excuse in order to get out and be with my friends. For the first time in my life, I had some freedom, and I blew it time after time. I got into small debacles here and there, like missing work because I got lost in the vast cornfields of New Jersey. GPS was not invented yet, so it took half a day to find the right roads that led to the highway. I came home to find my proud Italian grandfather quite disgruntled, and that was before I told him that the brake line broke because I hit so many ditches driving down backroads.
Needless to say, it was chaotic. My grandmother and I butted heads daily. She is a little high-strung and says the most ridiculous statements; I was a smart angsty teen full of hurt and disappointment. Sometimes the quarreling got so bad that my grandmother told me not to come back; I even managed to get thrown out of the will a couple of times. By dinner, I was back home, and we were watching Jeopardy or a new movie on STARZ.
I learned later that the field of psychology had libraries and thousands of studies with fancy words and research describing emotionally dysfunctional families like mine. In college, I bounced around from house to house, making and breaking up repeatedly with my family, reliving the same experiences. It was like a high school relationship but with my parents, all while my grandparents watched and helped where they could, secretly wishing everyone would grow up.
It took almost two decades, six of them with me in the Navy and with a divorce for each of my parents, for the healing to begin. Time matured us and helped us to reevaluate what was important in life. My parents removed some toxic elements from their lives and were more receptive, and I was humbled by my time at sea.
The Navy was the definition of stress. I was a nuclear electrician aboard an aircraft carrier, and there was constant pressure, someone always watching over you all the time. Some even hoping for a fuck up so they could burn you and demote you, setting an example for other sailors.
Leave was always a fantastic time, and what made coming home great was seeing my relationships evolve with my parents. I remembered the hurt in my dad’s eyes when I said goodbye and left for the Navy. He never actually thought I would leave. My mother came around later when she realized that six years was a long time. It awoke something in them, and they began taking the effort to appreciate the time we had.
“I am proud of you.” Words I never really heard growing up came so easily to them now. They had changed; both moved out on their own and chose to be happy with themselves rather than miserable and trapped in suffocating marriages. Each became much happier by doing so.
They also took notice of my personal efforts: driving countless hours, squeezing in visits every chance I could, and showing up to movies, baseball games, and family vacations. Once, after many drinks, my dad secretly crept into his room and took a hit of weed, embracing the excitement of the visit. When he emerged, he was a hacking and intelligible goon, laughing so much that I could not understand him.
I always knew my dad smoked pot, but I never witnessed him doing it so blatantly. It was a family taboo. Everyone knows that everyone else smokes, but we never talked about it. I had picked up the habit before I joined the Navy. I never drank or smoked before getting kicked out of my house, but when I was finally on my own and had the chance to let loose and feel something other than anger, I did. It became my favorite pastime, and I was proficient. My father himself seemed equally experienced, handling himself well, laughing at his own jokes before he could tell them.
“That haircut is awful. Makes you look bald.” Snickering, my dad knew my early baldness bothered me, and it was an easy way to distract me from sinking the eight ball. I lost every time.
After winning, he walked right by and slapped me on the shoulder, saying something about his victory. Then a seriousness overtook him, and he looked me dead in the eye and apologized. We talked for hours, our first man-to-man conversation. He apologized and told me he loved me more than I think any other person has, continually reaching out for a hug. The whole time he was in control, never over-emotional, confident and direct.
“I was his son, and he fucking loved me.”
It was a plain and simple message. The acknowledgment made all the stress and pain worth it. It was one of the happiest moments in my life. I was so inebriated that I asked to smoke with him, thinking it would be a great honor. My dad became even more serious than before, if possible: “I will never smoke with you.” We never did. We smoked in the same house, we smoked at the same parties, once we even smoked back-to-back, and after our respective hit was over, we resumed our conversation. We never shared a bowl or a joint; it was against his principles. If we smoked, we smoked, but we did not need it between us.
I left the Navy two years later and came home, much to the pleasure of both my parents. It was my father who called multiple times a week like a sporting agent, trying to get me home so we could play basketball every Sunday like when I was younger. It was a favorite pastime of ours, with a crazy amount of wonderful memories, and it was an opportunity to beat and shit talk my uncle; it was bonding.
Life after the Navy was a unique and special time. My mother and I were on good terms, and my dad and I began developing a special bond, and if I were to be cliché, I would say he was my best friend. As a young man, I understood my parents better and could empathize with their previous decisions, and they showed dynamic growth in rekindling our relationship.
But life is random, just like the strange man I met on the flight back to the U.S. from Manchester City. The gentleman turned around in his seat and asked if he could sit next to my friend and me. As a weary traveler, I said yes, unenthused and dryly (Never say yes to strangers). After telling me a gory near-death story, which included him seeing death along with a list of crazy shit you would hear from a crazy patient in an asylum, he remarked kindly, “sorry, I felt I needed to tell you that,” since he saw death’s presence around me.
Ten months later, my dad passed away. Tuesday, June 12th, 2017. From Stage 4 esophagus cancer. All I could think of was that I always hated Tuesdays, and I lit my bowl, hoping to spend a little more time with my dad.
Published in Klio 2021
Pete Weber is from Allentown, PA. He joined the Navy in 2011 and served as a nuclear electrician for six years. It was a great learning experience for Pete and gave him the opportunity to explore the world in a way he had never imagined. Now, Pete is a senior at Penn State University, earning his Bachelors’s degree in psychology with minors in neuroscience and biology. In the fall, Pete will be attending Mississippi State University for his Ph.D. in cognitive science. Beyond his studies, Pete enjoys writing fiction, especially in the horror/thriller genre. All of Pete’s writing is greatly influenced by his family, friends, and experiences around the world.