When I was twenty-two years old, my dad grabbed me by the throat, threw me over in a rocking chair and began to choke me to death—spittle showering my face, while he volleyed demonic and sweltering red-faced obscenities towards my shocked and gasping expression.
Meanwhile, my own mouth-gapped response, changed color to a ghostly white from a lack of oxygen.
I had, moments before, locked him outside the house, after he chose to walk outside that beautiful French Double Door that my parents had chosen together in a custom home on Sweet Street—to fist fight his own son.
What on Earth could I have done to warrant him trying to murder me in a moment of unbridled rage?
I had told him to “Stop talking to my mother that way. She is your equal,” at the dinner table.
Moments before that, he had told my mom, ”Shut the fuck up, woman.” That is not an exaggeration or a misquotation. That is the way my dad would speak in private to my Mother, and to us Children.
I would often hear from complete strangers, growing up, how lovely of a person he was.
My thoughts would wander back to watching him as a child, try to murder a VCR with a butter knife in rage because it wasn’t doing whatever it was that he thought it should be doing.
Sometimes, I would think back to the day he hit and slammed my older brother against a wall and physically assaulted him. I was a young child with no musculature to help my older brother. My dad also kicked him out of the house as a minor at the tender age of Seventeen.
I would thank back to me dad breaking a wooden cutting board in two using it to spank me, or the welts and cuts on my body from a cowboy belt buckle, in which the buckle and leather were striking and hissing against my skin from a similar form of punishment.
Him throwing a radio across a room and smashing it against a wall simply because his favorite baseball team lost.
Him calling me a stupid asshole, when I proudly purchased my first electric guitar and amplifier with money I earned through my own hard work on a paper route, beginning when I was twelve years old. Yes, I started working for money when I was twelve. I’ve had a job ever since; sometimes even two or three of them at a time.
Him once again calling me a stupid asshole when I proudly answered a question he asked me regarding what I was going to do now that I graduated from California State University Fullerton on my own dime. My parents didn’t pay for my education. I did.
Him spending twenty years of his life asking me when I was going to get a real job, in my pursuit of doing music professionally.
Him loaning my own car out to my younger brother for six months after rebuilding the engine, while I made the car payments and insurance payments. He chose this piece-of-shit-used car for me, before I went away to college, and then made me pay for it. I didn’t argue. I just did as I was told. I walked to work for six months in Fullerton and continued working my ass off at the Home Depot.
Him spending hours at a time by himself in a car watching a mobile television plugged into the cigarette lighter, running the car battery dry, while on family camping trips to Santa Cruz.
Endless arrays of memories like these…
My mind would stop wandering, and I would snap back to the present moment with this stranger: I would just politely try to pull my cheeks up towards something that resembled a smile, when faced with people who were telling me what my dad was.
This is my dad:
He often speaks from a place of complete ignorance, while simultaneously being completely unaware that he is doing it.
One of my Aunts calls him a “little stinker” on occasion as if he is an innocent little kid, because she knew him when he was an innocent little kid.
If she means asshole—yes, I would agree, that is what he is. He’s an asshole. I tight wad of sphincter, that spouts waste and shit, and punishes punitively with little thought, self-reflection, empathy, or even sympathy.
If all this seems harsh to you: my sincere apologies. This is my life. This is what honesty looks like. We could all use a bit more of that.
These are the stories of my life.
Why do I tell them? So that people may know that they are not alone in the way they feel.
None of this is meant to hurt my father. Frankly, I told him that I am doing this. I have told him this to his face. He knows that I am doing it. I told him before I did it.
No, I am not exercising demons either. I did that years ago. I am a well-adjusted human through hard work and determination and effort and education and therapy and reading.
I am also a storyteller. That is what I do for a living. It is what I was put on Earth to do.
So, I will return to the original story:
My family is gathered around the dinner table. My mom often cooked all the meals. That was her responsibility.
While we were eating, my dad asked me what I learned that day attending College of the Sequoias. I was taking a two-year music theory course from Dr. Timothy Lynch. We were studying composition, music theory, ear training, and dictation. Dr. Lynch had me able to dictate simple music from a piano, to standard music notation, by listening to what he was playing on a piano. Something I never thought or dreamt I would be capable of doing in my life.
I answered my dad, and told him that we were analyzing a composition by a particular composer.
My dad stopped me, and corrected me on who the composer was who wrote the piece that I was talking about.
My dad was incorrect. I know this because I was just studying the composition that day. I was literally answering his question, and then he corrected me on something that I just was working on.
Rather than argue with him… I paused. I thought for a second, and said the following:
“Dad, why am I in school? Didn’t you send me to school to learn?”
He didn’t answer.
I continued, “This is what I learned today.”
He replied, “Well, you’re wrong.”
I said, “No, I am not.”
He volleys, “Yes you are. Michael. You know, I used to play trumpet. I know a lot about music. That piece was written by Tchaikovsky.”
I replied, “No Dad. You are wrong. That is not even remotely close to the correct time period of music that we are discussing. I am talking about J.S. Bach. We are learning to compose in the style of Bach and the rules he used to compose music, such as no parallel fifths or octaves and using Augmented Sixths: Italian, French, and German Sixths. Please don’t argue with me about this dad. I’m just answering your question.”
My dad, replies “Well, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
At this point, my mom interjects: “Jim, please stop.”
My dad says: “Shut the fuck up, woman.”
Me: “ Don’t talk to my mom that way. She is your equal.”
My dad stands up and kicks his chair away from him: “ You wanna take this outside?”
My reply, “Yeah, let’s take this outside.”
He rushes with enthusiasm towards the backdoor. A beautiful French Door set, that is the entrance to a gorgeous backyard that my mom maintained and created with love.
He pulls the door open violently and takes his stance outside to beat the shit out of me.
I slowly close the door on him, and lock it, and shake my head at him.
He begins to violently beat on the door.
My mom starts begging me to open the door.
I refuse.
My dad’s anger and rage and hatred swells. He beats violently against that door and shouts like the animal he is.
My mom, pleas to me: “Michael, if you don’t open that door, he’s going to break it.”
I unlock the door and take a seat in the rocking chair to receive my punishment.
My dad thrusts open the door, grabs me by the throat, throws me to the ground, and begins to choke me to death.
That is a part of my dad that none of those strangers ever knew. That is a part of my dad that you didn’t know. Now you do.
I love him. I forgive him. He has made me who I am today, and I am grateful for that. I fall on my knees in gratitude to him for making me who I am.
I am proud of me.
This story is called My Dad. Thank you Dad. Thank you. Thank you.
WHO IS MIKE VITALE?
I am a storyteller, songwriter, singer, music producer, traveling musician, Jungian dream analyst, all-around curious fellow (Spiritual, Mathematical Historical, Scientific), Taoist, and much much more, based out of Los Angeles, California. I’m constantly releasing new music, in all sorts of different genres. You can listen to me below, on Spotify:
