Family issues: My dad

When I told my dad I had Asperger's Syndrome, I was terrified.  I had no idea how he'd respond to this news.  It was entirely conceivable that he'd dismiss it as something he didn't understand, which would segue into something he had a hostile reaction to.  This would segue into a hostile reaction to my own perceived gullibility for accepting the diagnosis and could have dissolved into a long, drawn out monologue which would only occasionally touch on the relevant issues, but would still contain the implicit opinion that I was gullible.  Or an idiot.  Or maybe even something else entirely.

Instead, he asked how it was going to be cured.  I told him it wasn't.  And this was accepted and filed away and never referred to again.  Months later, he and I were watching something on TV - a news article about a man who was some sort of piano prodigy.  The man sat at his piano and his studio audience called out suggestions for bits of music to play on the piano and he took their suggestions and played them.  Between suggestions, he sort of rocked a bit in his chair.

Suddenly, my dad said he thought the guy had autism.  We had both missed the beginning of the news item, so didn't know anything about this man.  We had no idea of the context of this story.  But I was surprised by his insight.  I knew nothing about the man on the TV, but had to immediately admit that some of the traits the man displayed were autistic traits.  Whether he had autism or Asperger's Syndrome or anything like that was pretty irrelevant, though.  What mattered to me in that moment, was that my dad had actually taken some steps towards finding out what I had meant when I had told him I had Asperger's.

It didn't matter how he'd taken those steps.  What's most likely is that he paid attention when someone at work discussed the condition.  It didn't even matter whether what he'd "learned" as a result of taking the steps was accurate or not.  It only mattered - to me - that he'd taken the steps at all.

My dad had an accident, when he worked in the forestry commission.  A tree fell on him.  It damaged his liver and this makes it hard for him to metabolise alcohol, which means he gets drunk very quickly.  And he's not a good drunk.  In fact, it would be more accurate to say that he can be a pretty mean drunk.  And since he can be pretty mean when he's sober, that's saying something.

About two hours ago, he had a can of Stella.  Since then, he's had two more cans and some brandy.  Now, I tend to watch what he's drinking and - if I'm joining him in a drink - take steps to make sure that I'm not left alone with him when he crosses the line between relatively sober and relatively drunk.

The thing is, there's different types of drunk and he can fit in every single one of them in a very short space of time.  Which means that I have to be aware of the kind that he's currently inhabiting at all stages of the process.  And if I see him edging into any of the "bad" areas, I have to start thinking about how to facilitate my departure.

I've had the same amount of alcohol as him, tonight.  Not because I absolutely had to, but because he took steps that made my refusal a bit awkward, so it was easier to just accept the drinks he offered.  And I feel stone cold sober.  He, on the other hand, has been slurring for the past hour.  I managed to escape to my room eventually, but only through the use of some very careful diplomacy and only at the risk of creating a "scene".   And diplomacy doesn't come naturally to me, so I've had to judge every step with the utmost care.

Tonight, we've spent a good while in the "chatty-but-bordering-on-aggressive-and-(if-I'm-extremely-unlucky)-downright-hostile" personality zone.  One of my least favourites and a particularly common one.

The danger areas kicked in before this, but a convenient starting point would be the news item about the asylum seekers in the boat that was destroyed just off Christmas Island.  He started ranting about "fucking refugees" and I let him rant for a while, because that was safest.  Occasionally, however, his rants would be punctuated by a characteristic stutter that I've come to despise in the last few months.

There will be an exceptionally bigoted statement, followed by a brief pause and then the word "Eh?"  Now, I don't know if this crosses the cultural barrier or not, so I'll explain - that staccato outburst is intended to invite some feedback.  And the only feedback that he desires is approval of his most recent statement.

When that happens, there are limited choices.  I can agree with whatever he said.  Or I can dispute it.  If I choose the latter option, I either have to back up my opinion (according to whatever rules he might arbitrarily impose) or I become trapped into an endless monologue on the subject where he backs up his own opinion.  For hours.  Aggressively.  With frequent changes of direction so that after about thirty minutes, I'm no longer even sure what his current stance is.

I can only make vaguely agreeable and non-confrontational noises before I encounter one of two potential outcomes.  One is that I become too disgusted with my weak stance and feel the need to defend my own opinion and the other is that he recognises my weak stance for exactly what it is.  A patronising and cowardly aversion to arguing with him.  And that can make him aggressive.

So I hit the point where I had to stand my ground.  I went to the toilet and when I came back, he actually rewound the TV to the point where the item started off.  He made comments about how terrible it was, but these comments were intercut with vaguely defined bits of bigotry that made it hard to tell exactly where his sympathies truly lay.  This is a very clever ploy, because it means that however I approach the subject, he can adjust his own stance and move into a contradictory approach automatically.  It would be convenient to say that this is a deliberate and calculated stance, but to be honest, it isn't.  It just means that his comments are ill-informed, ill-defined and based on sheer ignorance - they're shifting with every second.

Eventually, my tolerance ran out and - fuelled by the information that some of the asylum seekers came from Iran - I told him about a book I'd read called Persepolis.  I withheld certain details, because they would have automatically invited derision and dismissal - like the fact that the book was a graphic novel.  Instead, I concentrated on what was relevant.  That the woman who wrote the book (Marjane Satropi) had written about her own life in Iran.  That she was of a similar age to me.  That when I compared my experiences to hers at various points in the narrative, I could barely even conceive of what she'd gone through.  I told him she'd gone to Europe, encountered bigotry and hardship, lived for a while on the streets, returned to the stifling and restrictive lifestyle back in Iran and finally left Iran once more.  I told him about how her mother had made her promise to never return home.  I wanted to make that point clear to him.  Marjane's mother had solicited a promise from her daughter that she would never return.  To her home.

I followed that up with a statement that the people on that boat would never have put themselves in such a position unless they had something they were escaping from that was worth the risks and the hardship.

This is where it gets really frustrating.  This is where his stance starts to shift and change.  This is where he can adjust his perspective in the middle of a sentence.

He agreed with me.  He seemed to be briefly stirred by what I'd said about Marjane Satropi and he started to respond with a story he had heard from a friend of his.

The story kicked off with something vague about a plucky refugee who had fallen on hard times and gradually coalesced into a story about how his friend had encountered a woman sobbing.  His friend (called Alex Salmond, for some reason - he couldn't even make a name up) asked the woman what was wrong.  It turned out she was an asylum seeker and she was locked out of her flat.  If she couldn't get in, she would be deported on the spot.  Alex took her into his place and gave her somewhere to stay.

Now, at this point, the woman was still a plucky refugee and Alex, by default, had become "a nice guy".  This was the kind of tale that fitted the narrative he was currently weaving.  But it was round about then that he started to remember his actual stance about refugees and so the narrative had to change to accommodate this.  Which meant that the woman had to be redefined.

And so it turned out that Alex Salmond (Alex fucking Salmond - even then, I couldn't understand why there wasn't a sober part of his brain that recognised the name and cut in to stop him using it every five minutes) was repaid for his generosity by being brutally betrayed.  One day, someone turned up on his doorstep claiming to be the girl's brother.  Apparently, word had got out that his place was a "safe house" and that any refugee could turn up there and get shelter.  Also, the girl had found one of Alex Salmond's credit cards and used it to run up £30,000 of debt.

Now, in a rational conversation with anyone else, I could have picked a hundred holes in the story.

Where did this credit card come from?  How could so much debt be suddenly charged to it before anyone noticed anything wrong?  Was Alex Salmond definitely responsible for it, or could credit card fraud be proved?  Why would this woman put out his address as a "safe house" simply because she got offered some hospitality?  What did "safe house" even mean?  Who would be stupid or desperate enough to claim refuge at a place based on such flimsy evidence as the fact that a man had offered a safe place for a woman?

The problem is that every one of those holes could be filled by someone who is skilled enough at bluster.  Throw in a few half truths and enough confidence and the argument is overturned.  And don't forget that you're up against someone who will simply override any objection you might have with a fresh wave of bluster and a whole new story (complete with a fresh set of holes) to back up this change of direction.  And over the top of it all, there's this attitude - never fully stated, but always implied - that you're an arsehole for questioning him at all.

Seriously... about a year ago, I had the temerity to say something about electric cars and the conversation that resulted from that lasted for three hours and almost reduced me to tears of frustration.  I mean that literally, by the way.  And I know what "literally" genuinely means.

All I could do was wait out his monologue (and it was a monologue by this point) to run its course and then hope that I'd laid enough groundwork to help me retreat.  I'd become trapped by a full can of beer and a full glass of brandy.  The can had been opened and the brandy had been poured and both would have to be drunk before I could conceivably escape with the absolute minimum of debate.  So I listened to his stories and made it known (with a great deal of subtlety) that it was going to be bedtime for me, pretty soon.

And then, suddenly, he picked up the bottle of Hennessy that he hadn't opened yet.  He offered me a glass.  I turned it down.  He insisted.  I said I was tired and it was bedtime.  He pointed out that it was a freshly opened bottle.  I acknowledged that.  Did I really not want to try this freshly opened bottle?  And by the time we'd finished this bit of verbal sparring, I'd been manoeuvred to the point where continuing to turn it down would have made it apparent that I was deliberately rejecting his hospitality and generosity.  So I had my glass refreshed and was trapped for that bit longer.

I've been a real prick, though.  In that rant, I've spent a long time describing how much difficult it is living with my dad.  And it is difficult; I'm not going to withdraw any of that.  Everything I've said here is true.  But it's not fair to leave it at that.

I should point out that my dad is the hardest working man I've ever known.  That's not hyperbole - it's the literal, honest truth.  He's always been around, he's always grafted, he's always got up at 6AM and headed out to work on farms or on the roads, or do whatever had been necessary to bring in a wage and support his family.  I think it's how he defines himself.  "I work - that's what I do."  Something like that.  He is not a complicated man - but he has a complicated son.  And that's where the difficulties rise.

He doesn't understand me.  I confuse him.  And that's always been the case.  For most of my life, I've been scared of him and tried to take steps to make sure my time with him has been kept to an absolute minimum.  And he's recognised that and set out to counter it.  So if he wanted to do some work on a car, I had to help him.  It didn't matter that I had a sister who was more mechanically minded than me and more motivated to help him - that was my job and it was the mould that he felt I should fit.  And he tried to shape me to it.  And I responded to his efforts with fear and reluctance.

The thing is, I would withdraw.  I'd become sullen, resentful and... well, imagine most negative teenage characteristics and I probably embodied those from a very early age.  His response would be a simple one and based on his own childhood experiences - these negative characteristics needed to be knocked out of me.  In this case, I'm  not imposing any judgement on him; I'm simply acknowledging that there was a process of action and reaction going on that was very damaging all round.  In short - we damaged each other almost constantly, and it's only in the last year or so that I've started to recognise that.

And this instalment has become overwhelmingly negative.  And I don't like that.  It's really bothering me, in fact.  I can't delete it, because that's not right - to do so would be to deny things that really shouldn't be denied.  And to do so would make this narrative incomplete.  There would be a major hole that really defines my life in a very big way.  Nobody, after all, has had a bigger impact on me than my dad.  So how do I proceed with it?

The good thing is that the last year has provided an advancement in my relationship with him.  I hate to use the term "bonded", but there's been a very definite element of that going on.  In the last year, following the car accident, I've had to move back in with my parents and I've had to deal with the same things that I had so much trouble with when I was younger.  The difference has been my attitude and my way of responding to the personality conflicts.

My dad is not a complicated man - I mentioned that before.  So when adversity would make me withdraw, he would interpret my response as sulking.  This was a "bad attitude".  Therefore punishable.  Ironically, however, I now have a more complicated range of responses to draw on and I've managed to identify the ones that are most likely to defuse a dangerous situation.  I have jokes, quips and responses available.  OK, so there have been times when these responses have made a bad situation even worse (that's always the risk) but there have been a lot of times when they've disarmed him.  I've actually seen the look on his face where he has had to decide whether to see the funny side or not - and chosen to do so, because the alternative is simply too difficult.  It's not that I don't confuse him any more.  It's the fact that now he can avoid the confusion because the sarcasm gives him an alternative response.

We've also discovered some common ground.  Sadly, that ground is alcoholic in nature, and this means that I've become concerned about my own intake in recent months, but it's still cool to be able to share something.  Independently of each other, we have both discovered Leffe - a Belgian beer that is the best stuff you can possibly drink.  It's expensive, though - so not a common drink.  So when the occasional bottle comes out, it's met with extreme approval all round.  The Leffe glasses are produced, the beer is poured very carefully and it's a taste that we very definitely share.  Years from now - decades from now - Leffe is going to be connected with the most positive memories of my dad.

I have to write this next bit with some degree of surprise.  I have somehow - in that last paragraph - invested a fair degree of emotion and sentimentality in that drink.  I suddenly realised, in one moment, just how accurate the last line is and for a moment, I actually had to cope with a powerful emotional response.

Apart from Leffe, our taste in lagers and beers only vaguely coincide, and that's largely because I'm not too fussy about them.  So the next area where we really connect is with brandies and whiskies.  And that generally means the more expensive the better.  In this last year, there's been a huge amount of occasions where he's produced some bottle or another and poured me a glass.  It pleases him when I taste a good one and react with approval and then we'll "share a moment" and talk about how smooth it is.  And it amuses him when he produces a cheap one and he sees the reaction to that instead.

Incidentally, even he's aware of the Jekyll and Hyde response he can have to whisky - that's the worst of the lot with him - so although we touch on that occasionally, it tends to be brandy that we share.  And one year, about seven years back, I was in a shop just a couple of days before his birthday, trying to decide between two bottles of brandy that I wanted to buy for him.

I was very low on cash.  I could have opted for the one which would have left me with a little bit of pocket money, or I could have gone for the more expensive option.  My girlfriend at the time - Jenn - suggested that perhaps there wasn't that much difference in the quality, but I just didn't know.  I couldn't help thinking that there was a reason for the £10 price difference.  And in the end, I spent every penny on the better option.  When I gave it to him, he opened it right away and poured two glasses.  And it was smooth.  And I knew I'd made a good choice.

Nearly a year later, the following Hogmanay, I bought a bottle of the other stuff, tasted it and knew - without a doubt - that I'd made the right decision.  Fucking paintstripper.