Siren Suicides (Second Edition)

Chapter 14. Allen Bank

The worst part of hating your parent is looking in the mirror and seeing that parent in your face. In my case, my father's big blue eyes are the eyes I inherited, so are his pointed nose, angular cheekbones, and lanky limbs on a lithe body. I wish it didn't go farther than looks, but it does. I was raised by him; I soaked up his atmosphere, his way of living, his teachings, his mannerisms, his way of talking and walking and even thinking.His fears are my fears, his fury is my fury, and his memories are my memories. We are one, yet we are two, like the vast sky and endless ocean, separated by a horizon line. Therein lies our constant struggle to split apart. Yet we can't, forever bound as father and daughter.

"Stay where you are and don't move," my father says to me, lowering the sonic weapon to rest on his knees, its conical end pointing directly at my chest. His upper torso sways slightly to the movement of the waves.

I raise my arms to push myself deeper into the seat.

"I said, don't move!" He raises the gun again, his voice mechanical, his words minimal on purpose. I can tell he's covering up his unrest. The thought, nevertheless, gives me pleasure. And sadness.

I realize he's weaker than me, and it's me who must make the first step, to show him that it's possible to heal, possible to extract his pain no matter how encrusted with age. I feel like his equal, if not his superior, and I know that he senses it.

"You don't need to threaten me, Papa," I say, looking him directly in the eyes. "I won't hurt you, I promise." I want to add something else, but he jabs the muzzle of the gun in the air with renewed force. I don't flinch, knowing he won't shoot me.

"Don't you dare talk to me like that!" His breathing comes out in sharp wheezes, blotches of red blooming on his cheeks.

"Look what you did!" Here comes his usual attempt to make me feel guilty. "My trawler. It's gone now! Do you have any idea how much it costs? Do you—" He's visibly shaken. "You," he says, jabbing the sonic weapon at me. "You keep destroying my property. You..." At first, he searches for words, and then he proceeds to explain how much it really cost him to get it and have it all equipped, but I'm not listening anymore. What fascinates me is the fact that he's sharing this information, deeming me worthy of knowing it, which he has never done before.

"...over, you hear me? Your diddle-daddle outside of the house is over. Now, listen to me. Here is what will happen. We will go home and you..."

I tune in and out, taken by his eyes that seem to cast me into an acidic bog of misery and elation at once. He's talking to me, actually talking to me, for real, like an adult. Does this mean I have proven something that makes me worthy of his bother? His face grimaces, spelling out each word that I don't hear. He lost his jacket and his pink shirt sleeves are carefully rolled up and wet, forming two elaborate rolls around his bulging triceps, smeared with dark lines of machine oil or some other dirt. His fingers curl around the two guns, his knuckles white from strain.

I don't know if it's the rocking of the lifeboat, the soothing patter of the rain combined with the ocean grumble, or the fact that my adrenaline—if sirens have adrenaline—is retreating, but I enter the zone of aftershock. Whichever it is, it's causing me to imagine myself as a swaddled baby, in need of a change. The sticky, moist fisherman's suit adds to the illusion.

This is my lucid dream, my one minute of fantasy that's better than nothing, worth every second, paid for with suicide.

I'm in a crib, in a soothingly swaying crib. Papa is coming to change my clothes, to swaddle me up, to sing me to sleep with a private solo, for me alone.

He keeps talking and moving his arm about, forgetting to aim the weapon at me and pointing it at the boat controls instead. I imagine him lifting me and putting me on the changing table with a soft smile, stroking my face, telling me what a bad girl I am to wet myself from head to toe. The lifeboat bobs on a wave and I hit my head on the low overhang, but I think it's Papa throwing me into air so high that I brush the ceiling with the top of my head. He points with the gun at the buckle straps and then at me, explaining that, siren or not, I need to buckle up. I daydream that he's about to give me a warm bath, gently shampoo my hair, hug me in a towel, help me with my pajamas, and tuck me in to bed, kissing my forehead good night. Something my mother used to do, but something that he never did, not once, in his life.