“You can leave that on, if you want,” my dad said.
He was sitting in the passenger seat of my beat-up surprisingly-still-running late 90’s Honda Accord. He looked his full 86 years old; his neck held solidly by a body brace that was required to keep his spine in place so that the metal rods fused by surgery into his vertebrae a few weeks previously could heal correctly.
“Oh?” I asked. I had reflexively paused the music that had started playing as soon as my iPhone had connected to the head unit that was the one upgrade I’d added to this old car. Automatically playing Apple Music is one of the most frustrating “features” Apple has added. What if I’d been listening to podcasts earlier? Doesn’t matter. Automatically play Apple Music.
He’d needed the surgery to repair the damage that he’d taken falling down the stairs into the basement of my sister’s house, where he had his own living space for the past couple of years. Prior to that accident he had been pretty mobile and self-sufficient, driving for Uber for bar money when he wanted to. But now, after breaking ribs and parts of his spine, and getting him into the hospital and the surgery and then the complications after the surgery. Some of those complications are the ones that arise when an old man who wants to embody the American myth of self-sufficiency doesn’t want to cause any trouble or report any pain or discomfort or ask for any help at all.
“That was The Cure,” I said. “You liked that?”
“Yeah!” he laughed. “I kinda did.”
We were getting him to a follow-up for his surgery. I was scared and sad seeing him so humbled, but grateful that he was still kicking and that the doctors and surgeons were able to piece him back together for a little bit longer.
When mom passed away twenty years ago, I did not have the best relationship with this man. In fact, one of the last things I said to mom in her final days was “Don’t leave me with him,” but the situation had changed over the past decades. I was mad at him for things that mom had long forgiven him for, actions that she saw as helpful to their relationship. “If he’s going to be with someone when I’m gone,” she’d said, “who better than my sister?” My family would have made good guests on the Jerry Springer Show.
I unpaused the music and the melodic synths started again. Robert Smith’s quavery voice unusually hopeful and earnest. “This song is called ‘Friday I’m In Love’ dad.”
The Cure has been around for decades. I was lost in the thought that my dad had somehow missed them. But they weren’t really in his demographic, were they? Dad was never very punk, never very rock and roll. He was working class. Dirt under his fingerprints. Calloused hands from handling tools for work and play.
I laughed. “It’s one of their happier songs.”
And dad smiled and listened to noted weirdo Robert Smith pining for his love. I put the car into gear and we headed out to his appointment.