A Goodbye to my Da

I have some sad news to report about my dad, Frank.

This past winter, we learned that his corporeal body has long been the host of an immortal demon named Cathaxas. Since there is no way to exorcise the fiend under his veteran’s benefits, we made the agonizing choice to seal Frank away eternally. Last March, we imprisoned him deep in the caverns of the Abyss, where he will remain for all time.

Since we said goodbye, I’ve missed him dearly.

It wasn’t his fault Cathaxas invaded my grandma’s womb, implanting his baleful soul within the cell cluster that became my da! And how could you blame him (a military brat with coke-bottle glasses who was always getting dragged around this country of ours) for growing attached to the ancient evil residing within him. Who else did he have to turn to?

Like most military kids, my dad found it difficult to establish meaningful relationships as a youth. After years of failure, he resorted to giving pet names to ragtag insects and other invertebrates, rather than trying to make friends with other children. His closest companions rarely had anything even approaching a closed circulatory system, and sometimes operated with a loose nerve net instead of a true brain.

In some places, the other brats were merciless. Frank became a target for ridicule and mean spirited pranks. His peers would do rude things to him, like pee into graduated cylinders and pour the urine onto his scalp ten milliliters at a time. The worst was Burv. A brute of a child with an enormous, debilitating gut that needed to be supported by a telescoping steel brace connected to a greased wheel, Burv would call Frank “fart breath” and “quarter pounder with chest-hair” (my father was scrawny but had a tuft of coarse red hair in the shape of a hamburger on his chest).

My dad was a peaceful, meek child, but Cathaxas convinced him to take revenge on the bully. When gut-boy Burv next approached, before he could utter his first harmful word, my da kicked out the wheel and sent Burv’s belly support sliding across the mess-hall tile.

Frank had to dive out of the way as a metric ton of flab crashed down like a lard meteor, sending Burv’s feet catapulting toward the ceiling with such force, his leg bones came right out the bottom of his heels, leaving blue and white Converse All Stars dangling like two sad, limp flags. That wasn’t the worst of it, either. Burv hit the ground with such force, he began to vomit.

When he heaved, nine whole apples rolled out, unchewed and including the sticker, followed by a half inflated children’s pool, sloshing with Tang and marshmallow Peeps. Horrified onlookers hoped it was over when a final wretch sent Burv’s own infirm mother skidding across the floor, inside a clear plastic immunodeficiency bubble.

She was nude within the plastic, masturbating furiously and cursing up a storm.

Burv was mortified. He stuck his head neck deep into his own belly button and sobbed and sobbed. My father felt awful, and fell into a deep depression. His chest-hair fell out, and for months he was plagued by guilt so intense it left purple and chartreuse bruises over his heart.

For a time, my dad shunned Cathaxas and eschewed all human contact, opting to spend his time with new “friend” Woland, a taciturn strip of sticky bacon he’d stolen from the George Air-Force Base mess hall.

Six-year-old Frank carried Woland in his underwear for weeks, despite the fact that the bacon strip was not pleasant to be around whatsoever. His personality was putrid. Woland alternated between aggressive and petulant to glum and cruel, and caused a painful rash to fester between little Frank’s thighs. The stink was noticeable from up to twelve feet, depending on the wind.

Instead of improving, my young dad’s depression got worse. Woland was leading my father down a dark path, and an unlikely voice helped bring him back to the light.

Cathaxas.

It was at this time the demon’s voice became more clear.

My father resisted, but ultimately had to agree when Cathaxas spoke about Woland’s negative influence. My pop never told me what Cathaxas sounded like, nor any of the words he used, but I assume his voice sounded like the dissonant chord of a church organ played by a shrieking old woman wearing a coat of live rattlesnake tails. And I’ll assume he said something like, “Woland is a prick. He’s weak-willed and rotting, and you deserve better. Bring him to the Devoll Rubber Plant and lay him to rest in the carbon black.”

And so my da did. He was seven years old, and he snuck out of his bunk, broke into the rubber plant, and flung Woland in with the black.

Would it surprise you to learn that the bacon strip Woland was part of the left tail wheel of John McCain’s A-4E Skyhawk that went down over Hanoi? It would me. Personally I would be shocked if that were true.

Despite him being just awful, losing Woland was difficult for my father. Sometimes we love those that have abused us is the sad truth of it. And only Cathaxas was there for him–so who could blame my father for what happened over the next five decades.

It wasn’t my father’s fault that he beat me for throwing out the caps to the milk, orange and apple juice containers in our refrigerator, and stuffing bananas into the containers to act as corks. Dad was well within his rights to flog me unmercifully. And it wasn’t his fault that he strangled that municipal worker at the dump, wrapping his lifeless corpse in a tarp and dumping it in the rusting bed of a totaled Ford Ranger. The worked was a vocal men’s rights activist and had a narrow, irritating chin.

My father could hardly be blamed for poisoning the city water supply with raw sewage diverted from a treatment plant. He had a demon inside of him egging him on! Dad should not be held accountable, even though he and Cathaxas saw eye-to-eye like 99% of the time. They were best friends.

It’s crazy how well they got along. They were like Bert and Ernie, only if Ernie was completely obsessed with the idea of seeing the skins of all the peoples of the world melted off their bones in a white-hot blazing inferno, and so was Bert. You try having a near-omnipotent being hell-bent on destruction inside of you and not liking it.

Actually, I am proud to say that I am proud to be proud of my father. I take a lot of pride in the pride that I have.

Frank was somehow able to marry my mother, a normal woman, and have two children, whom he helped raise. My da was a great da to have. He was naked a ton around the house, but he had a great body that my friends wished their dads had. It probably helped having a demon inside him–as we all know, most demons are shredded, unless they’re one of those bulbous ones that eat feces and whatnot.

We never knew about Cathaxas, my brother and I. My dad kept him away from us, and I didn’t see him until the moment I slammed the iron gates shut at the mouth of the cave, sealing my father away. My father hissed from the other side of the bars, and I saw hellfire glow in what looked like great pyres of millions of burning bodies in his otherwise black eyes.

The temperature in the area went from the low forties to well over 200 degrees instantly, and I watched as my father’s Fleet Enema hat burned in front of my eyes.

It was only momentary. My da regained control, and my brother Brine and I were able to say our goodbyes. The words we spoke to each other are just for us. I won’t share them here.

But I know many other people grew to love my da, so it is important for all of us to keep his memory alive. Please view the images and video of happier days with my da below, captured by my brother, Brine. Thank you.