Life Through the Door

When I was a child, my father worked for the Houston Police Department, first as a patrolman and later in the computer fraud department.  Unfortunately, police pay wasn’t the best, and he found it difficult at times to be the sole bread winner tasked to support a family of four.  So, he took on a lot of extra jobs to supplement his pay; working the prisoner intake desk, security detail, and event protection.  While this significantly increased his income, it meant that my brother and I didn’t see him much throughout our childhood.

When he did come home, he would grab the newspaper, head straight to the bathroom, change clothes, and then shut himself in there for hours until dinner was ready.  He claimed that it was his decompression time, where he finally got to relax and de-stress from the day.  My brother and I were told to leave him alone while he was in there, which we obediently complied with…for 5-10 minutes.  Then, one of us would sneak up to the bathroom door and tap on it.  We were greeted with a sigh and a resigned, “Yes?”  Taking this as an invitation, we would excitedly launch into whatever it was that we wanted to share with our father.

Sometimes, it was as simple as wanting to show him our latest report card or artwork.  Sometimes, especially as we got older, it was wanting to ask for the sports page out of the newspaper.  It was not uncommon for the conversation to be initiated simply by sliding something under the door to him.  We’d push it halfway and wait.  If we saw it disappear, then we knew we had our opening.

Other times, we wanted to ask for his opinion on something or to relate a story about our day.  He would never open the door, so we’re not for certain that he was actually listening to us.  He could have just been reading the newspaper the whole time.  But that didn’t matter to us.  We would prattle on happily in our ignorance.

When I think back, almost all of my entire childhood interactions with my father were through a door.  I don’t remember having much time with him in person.  I have scattered memories here and there.  But I remember our interactions through the bathroom door.  It’s a strange way to grow up, and I guess psychologically speaking, we were looking for more of a relationship with our father.  We craved his attention and time, which was sparse and not freely given.  So, children being resilient like they are, we improvised and interjected ourselves into his life wherever and however we could.