The Shower Scene
It was a familiar weekend trip with my dad in the big brown Dodge van he'd had ever since I could remember. The four hour drives from Boston where I was growing up to Westchester County in New York to visit my grandmother and aunts and uncles were always well-equipped with coloring books and Barbies for me and Billy Eckstine and Duke Ellington tapes for my dad, plus the occasional discarded wrapper from MacDonald's quarter pounders.
One Friday we'd arrived in New York late at night so my dad took us to a nearby hotel to spend the night. In the morning I was awakened by my dad getting up early to take a shower. He went in to the bathroom and shut the door. The sun had barely come up. I sat on the big bed of our musty maroon colored motel room and watched Saturday morning cartoons with Disco Barbie propped up beside me on the pillow. The sound of running water echoed through the bathroom door at the other end of the hotel room. I was soon startled by three loud bangs over the animated sounds of "SuperFriends". It sounded like the thundering rumble that the pipes often made in our bathroom at home whenever I ran the tub water too hot. Then I heard the ear-popping sound of shattering glass and I thought the hotel was about to explode. I gripped the sheet beside me in my small fist and stared open-mouthed and wide-eyed at the closed bathroom door. I called out to my dad but I heard nothing. I called to him again feeling my heart thumping hard underneath my pink flannel nightgown. Too many silent seconds passed before I heard his muffled voice answer back, "I'm okay," he said. "It's okay." The television was still on but my ears were deaf to any other sound. The bathroom door swung open and white steam came pouring into the room. My dad was naked and holding a washcloth to his stomach.
He walked towards me, visibly shaken, his dark skin glistening with shower water. The towel he was holding to him was bloodsoaked. "It's okay, Blaise," he said calmly. I hadn't moved an inch. I stared in shock over the realization that I'd thought my dad was dead behind the bathroom door and I was stranded by myself in a hotel in the middle of nowhere at the age of five. I hardly believed he was standing right in front of me. Naked, no less. He pointed to the rotary phone on the nightstand table. "Call Uncle Teddy for me, okay? I'm going to give you the number." I said nothing, but did what I was told. I had to let go of the sheet I'd been gripping first. When my uncle answered the phone I cried into it and then held the receiver up to my dad's ear.
The next thing I remember our hotel room was filled with my aunt and uncle and my two little cousins. As my uncle helped my dad cover his wounds with the bandages he'd brought, my little cousin asked me if I was scared but I was too bewildered and distracted to answer. My dad was telling his brother and sister that while he was in the shower, the cold water turned scalding hot, the knobs were stuck and the shower door was jammed shut. He had to break the glass to get out and was covered with bloody cuts and bubbling burns. I remember the hotel manager coming up to the room and having not much to say about the incident but wondering out loud who was going to pay for the all the damage to his bathroom. I remember being at the hospital and having to sit at a reception desk while my dad filled out forms and answered questions. I remember everyone being angry that he was wincing with pain while being made to go through this interview process before he could even see a doctor. I remember my dad having to drive us back to Boston at weekend's end in the big brown van and watching him sucking in his breath every time he had to push down hard on the pedals or shift gears. I remember wishing I could help him drive, but I still to this day have never learned.
I remember my little cousin who had yet to learn the concept of time asking me, "Remember yesterday when your dad got burned?" even though it was several months later. I remember all the bandages on my dad's body and the limp he walked with for weeks afterward. I remember seeing the ash colored scars forming in accidental, uneven shapes and spots over his dark chocolate brown skin. I remember knowing that the scars were healing but that they were permanent marks. I remember sitting in a lawyer's office and watching in silence as he drew pictures of my dad's worst burn scars on a yellow legal pad. I remember that the biggest scar, which was on the side of my dad's belly, looked like this:
When my dad would lie down to take a nap on weekend afternoons as he often did, I would sometimes look in on him just to see if he was breathing partly out of boredom and curiosity. I would tiptoe quietly into his room. At first I would stand in perfect silence in the doorway and if I couldn't hear him snoring I would squint my eyes trying to catch glimpses of his chest moving up and down at the other side of the bedroom. Often unsuccessful at this, I would move ever so quietly closer until I was sure I could see him breathing. I'd stand there for a few minutes until my over-worried mind and active imagination was convinced of what my eyes were seeing. Then I'd go back to my room across the hall and watch TV.
