To Daddy, Who I Never Loved

This story is based on the author’s life. Otherwise, this is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are fictitious. The resemblance of characters to any person, living or dead, is coincidental.

Published in the United States by BookBaby. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law. www.GaryRobertPinnell.com

Copyright 2020 by Gary Robert Pinnell

Print ISBN: 978-1-09830-173-6

eBook ISBN: 978- 1-09830-174-3

To Mom

You insisted that I return to high school, earn a master’s degree, and remain in journalism.

You gave this gift of writing, so this novel is for you.

A GOOD coming-of-age story . . . The author evokes the turbulent era of the latter Twentieth Century, during which a generation struggled to become adults. The story rings with a truth many readers of a certain age can relate to, and provides an emotional road map for younger generations.

– SUZANNA MYATT HARVILL, author of the Shadow Bayou series and the Maybelline Mysteries

***

A heart-capturing story of a young man’s search for recognition and acceptance from an absent and distant father . . . A good read.

– DOTTIE REXFORD, author of Cora Pooler

***

LIKE THE Catcher in the Rye, this debut novel is a literary-historical smashup, a child-in-jeopardy story narrated by a voice readers can’t stop thinking about.

***

IF ALL this sounds dark and edgy, it’s also seriously funny.

***

TO DADDY, Who I Never Loved won a Royal Palms Literary Award for historical novels from Florida Writers Association.

WARNING: Themes include sex, drugs, rock and roll, racism, suicide, bullying, molestation, and self-harm, and therefore may upset or offend some readers.

Contents

BOOK 1

Something Stupid

Nine Months Ago

If Dumb Was Manure

Spring Semester

Plastic Father

No Respect without a Motor

Bittersweet Chocolate Love

Escape from Bizarro World

That Doublemint Smile

Epic Fight

Out of the Blue

Stood Up

Careless People

What if a Marine Trained You?

Two Kinds of People

Blue Chunks

For Sale

The Devil and Curtis Pye

My Face in His Mirror

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Book 2

From This Valley

Gil LeBeouf

Down to the Seas Again

Baldy’s Game

In California

The Father Myth

We Could’ve Had This

The Scene

1953 VW Deluxe Microbus

The Summer of Love

The Wayward Wind

I Want Out

Caught

This Clay Must Be Your Bed

The Filthiest Boy

Needle in a Needlestack

The Attitude of a Civil Servant

The Gang’s All Here

Commune in a Cafeteria

Brother Love

Free Will

Social Compost

My Full Circle

Alias Daddy

Daddy’s Got a Girlfriend

One Heroic Son of a Bitch

What Now?

The Chessmaster

Why Am I Still Here?

What Harry Harlow Found

BOOK 3

Reverse Course

Ginger Peachy

The Road Home

Daddy’s Not Coming Home

What We Have Become

All Who Wander Are Not Lost

The Lifetime of Lillies

BOOK 1

The only thing new in this world is the history you don’t know.

Harry S. Truman

Chapter 1

Something Stupid

As a boy, I believed in good. A mother’s love was unconditional. Fatherhood was an undying pledge. Brother and sisters were ultimate protectors. Schoolmates were a gift. Life was a promise of success.

I did good things. I made friends with a black girl and a Down’s boy. I worked hard in school and earned good grades. I delivered four paper routes. I bought my own bicycle and motorcycle. I did not fight.

I confess, I wasn’t always good. I stole from Mother’s purse. I detested my stepfather, but he wasn’t really my stepfather. I loathed my brother, but Biggy picked on me all my life. I hated the Andersen boys, but they ganged up on me behind the high school. The meanest thing one human can do is to take away his self-respect, and that’s what Biggy and the Andersens did. That’s why I tried to commit suicide. That’s why I sneaked away from home.

My story is mostly true. I’ve changed the names to protect the most despicable bastards, so I guess that makes me an unreliable narrator. I’ve made up a few details and I’ve hid ugly secrets, the way people do over fifty years. That’s how long it’s been since I came out second in two fights, got scared, screwed up suicide, stuck out my thumb, and hitched to California.

So here I go. Once upon a time in Oklahoma . . .

***

It was six A.M. when I stepped onto U.S. 81. Hell Creek was a mile behind me, and Palo Alto was seventeen hundred miles down the road.

Uh oh. I don’t know how to hitchhike. Which way? California is west, same as Lawton? I need a better sense of direction. A car passed. Of course. The driver won’t stop if he can’t see my face.

I had to figure out how to walk backwards and face traffic at the same time. I turned sideways, but that felt ungainly. I backed down the highway and glanced behind every few feet so I wouldn’t fall into a storm drain.

Still no sign of the sun. Good. Mother wouldn’t be up for a couple of hours. By the time the cops caught up with me, I’d be with Daddy. He’d teach me how to fight. He’d train me like a Marine. My body would harden. I’d come back looking like a warrior, surprise Scooter and Spit and Pickle behind the high school, karate chop their necks, and leave them wiggling on the sidewalk. Biggy too. His eyes would X like a cartoon. Everyone would respect me. Then I’d take Murph with me to California.

A Mustang passed and a Neil Diamond song leaked from the passenger window. Was that the ’64 and a half? It looked a little different from Big Guy’s ’65.

Bingo. A car stopped, a fire-engine red, 1967 Plymouth Barracuda fastback playing the same radio station. Thank the Lord for my very first ride. I could make out the driver’s haircut from the yellowish highway lamps. Flat top. Whitewalls on the sides. Starched olive drab uniform. My defenses lowered. Dogface. A lot older than me, maybe twenty-five. But at fifteen, everyone seemed older.

The soldier leaned toward the passenger window. Where you headin’?

Oh shi– Stop cussing. You’ve started a new life. Don’t sound coarse. Use euphemisms. Feces sounds funnier.

What if Mother woke up early, read my note, and had the cops put out an APB for me? This doggie was probably stationed at Fort Sill. Lawton was just forty miles away, so dogfaces hung around Hell Creek in packs. What if the cops tracked him down and the doggie told them where I was going? Uhh. West.

West? You’ll have to let loose of a little more info if you’re hitchhiking, Joe.

California. Joe. I slid into the Naugahyde bucket seat.

I can get you as far as Fort Sill. So, dude, how you doing?

I don’t think people actually want to hear about my problems. Ginger peachy.

He smiled. That’s original.

And that was easy. I might be out of Oklahoma in a few hours. I was glad he was only taking me to Lawton, though. It was only May, but the weather had already turned hot and sticky, and this brand-spanking new ‘Cuda didn’t have an air conditioner. I cracked the window.

He hung a left at the Lawton-Hell Creek Y. Don’t see many hitchhikers around here.

I jumped.

Sorry. Were you a thousand miles away?

About six, according to the road sign. My vision adjusted to the green gloom from the ‘Cuda’s dashboard.

You go to Hell Creek High? Wife teaches there. His face turned. It’d been pounded like cheap steak. Three stripes on the doggie’s collar insignia.

Oh feces. I think I know who you are, Sarge.

Gotta song for you. See that box of eight-tracks in the back seat? Sarge asked. Grab the third one. They’re in alphabetical order.

I reached behind the slick plastic seat and grabbed a green rectangle. A square of broken window glass dropped into my hand. That settles it. You’re O’Murphy’s doggie.

His eyes shifted to me. Stick it in the tape player.

Nice ride.

Thanks. I’ve only had it a few weeks.

Yeah? Already had an accident?

Something like that.

His car passed a corner streetlamp. I could make out his nose and cheek; both roared yellow and purple and blue. I guess we both came out second in a fight with a high-school thug. I like the sound of the engine.

The doggie smiled. That’s not the 273. It’s the 383-cube four-barrel.

I love muscle cars too. The tape interrupted KOMA and played I’m a Rambler, I’m a Gambler.

So. You like Joan?

Baez? The sergeant crunched a smile. Mythic voice. Wife and I saw her two years ago when I was stationed near London. She toured with Bob Dylan, but he wasn’t with her. They had broken up. We also watched the concert later on the BBC. This was her first hit, ‘There but for Fortune . . . ’

Go you or I.

Three songs played before the eight-track skipped to the middle of She’s a Troublemaker. The tape fluttered, fluttered, fluttered, then jammed.

Eject! Eject! he ordered.

I was startled, but I pushed the button and the cassette popped out. The tape snagged.

Halt! Sarge barked, then softened. He pulled down his sunvisor and withdrew a ballpoint pen. Slip this inside that little door and–real careful–lift up the heads.

I unspooled a yard of Hershey-brown film.

Good. The tape isn’t broke. Got a knife? he asked.

I pulled Grand’s Barlow from my left pocket.

Pry off the cover. It’s a Möbius strip–a continuous O. That’s how an eight-track works. He talked me through respooling and threading the tape through the cassette guides.

I slipped it back into the deck. " . . . a hundred miles, a hundred . . . "

‘500 Miles,’ the doggie mused. That’ll be your song now.

Right you are, Sgt. Dogface.

Whatever possessed Dylan to give her up?

Whatever possessed you to cheat on your wife? Why would you take a chance on losing Mrs. Lane? Okay, her bod is crammed into a short waist, but she isn’t overweight. And she isn’t half-gorgeous like O’Murphy, but she enlarged my world. Sarge, your wife may be the grooviest chick on this planet.

Sarge stopped the ‘Cuda at Gore Boulevard. Got a map?

I shook my head.

Then I wonder where you’re gonna wind up, because it may not be where you want. The doggie introduced himself with a departing handshake. Pepper Lane.

My hand felt limp, even to me. If you want to be treated like a man, shake hands like a man. Curtis. Pye. I said it like Bond. James Bond.

Yeah. I thought it was you. My wife talks about Cutie Pye all the time.

Oh, feces. Does everyone know my stupid nickname?

Says you’re ‘hyperliterate.’ Is that the term? Read every book in the high school library? Brighter than the teachers? But you’re not going back to school?

I shook my head. Got kicked out. She hasn’t told you?

Don’t worry. I won’t have a chance to say anything till I get home tonight.

Thanks. And it’s more like a quarter of the books, but I want to read every one.

He pointed west. Cache Road is U.S. 62, Curtis. Stay on it as far as it goes. And first chance you get, buy a map. Know how to read one?

***

Thumb out, I backed down Cache Road. I should’ve written to Daddy before I left. My plan–I didn’t really have one–was to sit by his post office box in Palo Alto until he found me.

I wondered who Daddy really was. Maybe some of what people had told me was true, and some was a protective blanket of lies that grandfathers and mothers and sisters spread over kids who didn’t know their parents. I had few memories of Daddy, and those were from the last times I’d seen him.

Is it possible to forget a father? I’d been nine the last time he’d seen me. Would he know the fifteen-year-old me? I wouldn’t know Daddy if he passed me on the street.

Before I left Oklahoma, I’d wanted to take Murph to a movie, hold her hand, and trace those long, delicate fingers. I’d wanted her to snuggle against me and fall asleep. I’d wanted to stroke that hollow spot at the base of her throat.

But I’d given up; now my life would be a highway. No matter how much I’d wanted life, life hadn’t wanted me. I’d been the most invisible kid in high school. And when you’re the most invisible kid, it’s hard to believe you matter. In the past two days, I had realized that life had been better when I was invisible, that mistakes had the greatest consequences, and that sometimes we risked everything on bad choices because the other choices were worse. I had desperately wanted to leave Hell Creek. What I hadn’t understood was that Hell Creek would never leave me. Maybe it would’ve been easier to die.

Chapter 2

Nine Months Ago

In the fall semester of 1966, Scooter Andersen had been the first sophomore at Hell Creek High to own a motor. He made that clear the first day of school, blasting around campus on that junker without a muffler. He rounded the traffic circle, skidded his Yamaha sideways, and booted down the kickstand in one smooth move.

I watched O’Murphy watch Scooter.

He unfolded like a switchblade, gazed insolently into her eyes, and smirked in a way that invited her to . . .

She was seduced already. It was like The Wild One, where the good girl asks, What are you rebelling against, Johnny? And Brando sneers, Whaddya you got?

That’d been precisely what the good girl had wanted to hear. Maybe O’Murphy Scott went so Pavlovian because of Scooter’s antisocial cockiness. Or maybe she was attracted to the leader of the pack. Or maybe it was secondary-school Darwinism: girls got curves; Scooter Andersen got arms veined with licorice ropes.

Hell Creek had been my tale of two schools: in the summer 1966–the best of times–we departed junior high on bicycles. Then high school rocked our sophomore year and led to the winter of our discontent.

***

Your name, Miss? Mrs. Macintosh asked.

The second time I saw her, I fell hopelessly, despairingly, hormonally infatuated with the wrong girl. She strolled into homeroom five minutes late. The new girl was five feet nothing–a little short for a goddess. She wore white go-go boots and a powder-blue Twiggy shirt skirt. She smelled like lilacs in bloom.

O’Murphy Scott? Her answer sounded unsure, but I was certain she had been born to be adored. Her toe-in-front-of-toe sashay jiggled her left hip, then her right. O’Murphy had the number-one, blue-ribbon, girl walk ever.

But you knew that, didn’t you, O’Murphy? Because anything that sexy must be put on, at least a little. Even if they’re also smart or good, Pretty Girls know they’re not seen as Smart Girls or Good Girls, because every head–male and female–turns when they walk into a room.

I confess, I watch girl butts. Do girls watch guy butts? Because I don’t have one. Daddy called me No Butt, so mine must have fallen off when I was a little kid. Everyone else has a butt, so if I ever win the Irish sweepstakes, I’m going to a plastic surgeon. I’m going to buy a butt.

The desk beside me was vacant. Please. Please. Please, please, please. But O’Murphy scatted by me and curled her legs onto the seat between Pickle Andersen and Marybeth Cannellini. And then she smiled at That Bastard. Scooter Andersen.

If a car is traveling fifty-three miles per hour, how far will it go in fifteen minutes?

My chance to impress. Twenty-six something . . .

Who agrees with Mr. Pye? Mrs. Macintosh didn’t humiliate me; she wasn’t that kind of teacher. She just clued everyone that my answer to her story problem was wrong.

She’s right. My hand jumped: twenty-six times four is wrong. That’s 104 miles an hour. I should’ve . . . I multiplied. I should’ve divided fifty-two in half, then divided it again, so . . . thirteen-and-a-quarter miles?

Our sophomore Algebra I teacher was as flexible as a thumbtack. Like Sidney Poitier in To Sir with Love, she called everyone mister or miss, something most teachers had quit doing in the informal Sixties. You have the right answer this time, Mr. Pye, but why didn’t you set it up as an algebra problem?

Because I can’t. I don’t get new math.

O’Murphy’s No. 2 pencil rolled from her slanted desktop and onto the linoleum.

I dove at the same moment she slid off her seat, so that put her shirt-skirt hem at my eye level. That morning-sky chambray–which I will always call O’Murphy Blue–had come into fashion that year. The tails stopped a fraction above her knees, barely legal by high school rules. She knelt, and I discovered white scars about six inches higher: tiny, jagged, but regularly spaced.

What caused those cuts? Book pages? That doesn’t seem right.

She grinned with tiny Tinker Bell teeth when she saw my hand going for her pencil.

And there I was: dumb as a bump on a pickle. Fourteen years old, and I’d never spoken to a chick.

She smiled up at Scooter as if to say, Is this guy for real? He’s petrified.

Scoot didn’t look at her, though; he stared right into my eyes.

***

Third period. Mrs. Lane wrote her name on the blackboard, then guided a hi-fi needle onto the LP. O’Murphy wafted past like a blossom on the wind and sat behind me again, between MBe and Pickle Andersen. My nose caught another whiff of lilacs.

She must’ve gone to pep-squad tryouts during second period. She had an all-conference chest, so she looked how every girl wanted to look in a letter sweater. A pleated scarlet-and-cream Hell Creek Demonette skirt made her legs seem long for such a petite girl. Now I understood the word voluptuous: her ankles and calves were elegant, upturned bottles; her curves were ripe, tart cherries.

Nowhere Man played.

John Lemon, said the girl beside me.

Lennon, I corrected, but a smile let me in on her joke.

Oh, Lordy. I’ve sat beside a Negro, I whispered hugely.

Afro-American. Her smile widened.

Holy feces! She gets my humor.

I’m Sammie Davis.

Even at fourteen, I was already a little hard of hearing, so I cupped my ear.

She pointed to herself, repeated the words, and smiled a third time. Sammie. Davis. He don’t own the name, you know. What’s yours, man?

I’d never spoken to a Negro before. Before Sammie, the only student in school darker than me had a Coppertone tan, and she’d moved back to Corpus Christi. Curtis. Pye. Mother said Frederick Douglass High had closed last summer, that Negroes would be bused to the white high school, but I’d never thought desegregation would affect me.

Mrs. Lane handed sheaves of papers to Sammie and me. Pass these back, please.

I love the scent of mimeograph paper–lanolin and solvent with a hint of castor oil. I gave my pile to O’Murphy, who smiled. At me. I’d swim Red River for a girl who looks at me that way.

Today, we’ll study the lyrics of the Beatles. Anyone, what’s ‘Nowhere Man’ all about? In that moment, Mrs. Lane became our most far-out teacher. Most of us were sixteen, and Mrs. Lane wasn’t much older–maybe twenty-two or twenty-three.

A light snapped on in Sammie’s eyes. She knew the answer.

But it was Marybeth who raised her hand. It’s a folk song.

Mrs. Lane nodded. And that is significant because?

Because the Beatles ain’t folk singers? O’Murphy put in. Her last word finished on an upbeat, turning her answer into a question.

Aren’t, Mrs. Lane corrected. This is sophomore English, so I know all of you can speak it correctly by now. But yes. They were bubble-gummers. Switched to folk and rock. Why else is this song significant?

It’s the first Beatles tune that ain . . . isn’t about love? O’Murphy ventured again.

What’s your name?

O’Murphy Scott? Murph?

Good. And what’s your name?

Marybeth Cannellini. MBe.

O’Murphy, how does this song make you feel?

It’s sad?

It is melancholy, Mrs. Lane affirmed. Anything else?

It’s existential, MBe offered.

Mrs. Lane hadn’t expected that. How is it existential?

It says life is meaningless and absurd. Nothing is worthwhile.

Hmm. Is MBe is the female version of me? I hadn’t met either O’Murphy or MBe before high school. We’d all come from different elementary schools.

Mrs. Lane beamed. Where does the song say that?

The last refrain, MBe said. Making nowhere plans. For nobody.

O’Murphy whistled through the diastema between her two front teeth. MBe is smaaart!

A thought struck me. Why are we learning what songs mean?

My, aren’t y’all insightful! Mrs. Lane pointed a wry smile at me. Name?

Curtis Pye.

Cortez, in Español. Your name also appears on my Spanish roll.

I nodded. Bueno. Mucho better than Cutie. I glanced back at O’Murphy.

She winked. At me.

You’re right, Cortez, it is my little trick. After this, we’ll study Bob Dylan. By analyzing ‘Just Like a Woman’ and ‘Rainy Day Women,’ all y’all will learn to dig Dylan Thomas.

I thought for a moment about pronoun usage, but Mrs. Lane had said it correctly. In Okie speak, y’all is singular; all y’all is plural.

By the way, Bob Dylan is a pen name. What’s his real name? Mrs. Lane asked.

Robert Zimmerman. Heads turned toward me and whispered.

O’Murphy punched her congratulations on my shoulder. How did you knooow?

It was my second chance to speak to her, but I half smiled instead.

He always knows the answers, MBe muttered.

"And from which poet did Dylan borrow his nom de plume?" Mrs. Lane looked at me through round granny glasses.

Not this time.

Come on, Mrs. Lane encouraged. I’ve already given you the answer.

Dylan Thomas? O’Murphy ventured.

Art Fleming, O’Murphy would be a natural for Jeopardy. All her answers were in the form of a question. And thank