Story: Like Father, Like Son

“I know it might seem a little daunting now,” Dad said, resting a hand on my shoulder. Up on this roof, the traffic below seemed muffled, distant. “But it’ll be worth it. Trust me, son.” 

I glanced up at him, at his square shoulders and square jaw, at how just the way he stood made him look confident and capable and like he owned the whole world. I wondered if maybe I could learn to stand like that, if I spent enough time with him.

“I do,” I said.

He smiled, then walked over to the corner of the rooftop. I followed. His brown hair looked almost bronze in the sunlight, like mine did. I wondered if that was his natural hair, too, or if he’d changed it.

“There she is,” he said, pointing to the sprawling marble building across the street. “You remember the layout?”

I nodded. I’d taken enough field trips to the place over the years.

“So you’re ready?”

I might’ve hesitated a little this time, but that was just instinct. I nodded again.

“Good,” he said, gripping my shoulder again. “Make me proud, son.”

That was the plan.

I headed down to the corner, ducked down an alley, and buried my face in my winter coat. My skin started to prickle and then burn, face aching like the worst sinus infection in the world, but I focused hard on a set of features. Pretended I was a sculptor, shaping my own looks, my own future.

Something distinctive to start with. After that, nondescript, painfully average—but for now, distinctive. A face they’d remember.

When I was done, I lifted my head from the lining of my coat and sucked in a cold lungful of air.

Then I squared my shoulders and walked across the street.

*** 

It had sucked, growing up without a dad.

Sure, it would’ve been nice to have him around for the day-to-day stuff. Someone to teach me about cars, barbecue with, who’d watch something other than freaking Real Housewives on TV every once in a while.

But the worst part was everything besides the day-to-day. It was having to team up with the Scout leader on the Father and Son camping trip, while everybody else put up tents and made fires with their dads. It was football games and nobody there to watch them, because Mom couldn’t make it and Dad wasn’t in the picture.

It was sending out letters to my dad’s last known address every year, and every year, getting each one of those letters back unopened.

But then Dad had sent me his own letter last month, and we’d met up for a burger or a ballgame a couple times a week ever since, and it felt like finally, everything was going to change.

First, though, I had a job to do.

*** 

For such a huge building, the museum entrance was pretty cramped. A counter ran along the left wall, where a sausage-fingered old geezer was taking people’s money. Further along, a bald man was taking people’s bags, handing them to a partner who stowed them in a huge storage closet.

When I caught my reflection in the mirror behind the counter, I almost jumped.

My face had come out almost perfect—mid-thirties, heavy-lidded eyes, dark eyebrows. The only thing that hadn’t changed much was my nose, but I’d always had trouble with those.

Dad had given me pointers over the past weeks, excited that I was like him and he had someone to teach. He sucked at noses, too, but I didn’t care.

After, when he’d closed his eyes and let his features shift back to his natural face, he’d looked like an older version of me.

It’d felt like he was finally claiming me.

*** 

When the bald man had me lift my arms so he could check my coat pockets, I did.

And then, rocking forward, I belted him.

He barely reacted, but it was enough for me to shove past and sprint out into the main lobby. Storage Room Guy raced after me. But it was a Saturday, full of tourists, and I ditched my coat behind one display and my face behind another.

I molded my new mask into something so average-joe, you’d swear you’d seen him a million times before, but so forgettable you’d swear you’d never seen him before in your life.

Security didn’t even look twice.

*** 

I wasn’t sure what Dad was stealing, just that he would look like an old man in a suit and that my part of the job was over. Still, I wandered around all afternoon, waiting for him.

At closing time, I went home and waited for him to call, but he never did.

And then, on the evening news, footage of a long-haired man making off with thousands of the museum’s dollars. He wasn’t old or wearing a suit, but his nose looked just like mine.

I hung around by the phone all weekend, waiting for him to call, explain. But he never did.

Monday morning, I stopped by his motel before school and asked for him at the front desk.

He’d checked out Friday night. He’d come back to town for the museum, and he’d just used me as a free accomplice.

And then he’d left me.

Again.

*** 

Going through photos for a family tree assignment, my best friend, Valdez, waved a Polaroid at me. “Is this your dad?”

The picture was old: I couldn’t remember taking it, and I looked maybe three or four. A man had an arm around my mom’s waist, a hand on my shoulder. His hair was black and curly.

Probably it always had been. Probably he’d just copied mine when he came back, trying to earn my trust faster.

He did have my nose, though. Like that was the only real, true part about him. About me.

I shook my head. “Must’ve been a boyfriend. I don’t know the guy.”

I’d never seen him before in my life.

Author's Note: For this piece, I got my inspiration from "Phaethon and the Sun," a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses. In it, a kid, Phaethon, is desperate to prove to his peers that his mom hasn't been lying to him all these years, and that dad really is the great Apollo. When he goes to Apollo and asks for proof, Apollo swears to grant him anything he asks for. The tale kind of goes downhill for Phaethon from there: he asks to drive Apollo's chariot for a day, even though Apollo tries to warn him that it's too dangerous. I interpreted my version pretty loosely, mainly keeping to the core element of a son desperate to have and prove himself to his dad, blinded by that need to be claimed. But I wanted my story to end with the son refusing to claim his father, and it's also worth noting that Apollo was a much nicer dad than my character's.

Bibliography: "Phaethon and the Sun," Ovid's Metamorphoses. Translated by Tony Kline. Source: Mythology and Folklore UN-Textbook.

Image Credit: "Old photos in the wooden box." Source: Pexels.