As I was gearing up for my twelfth trip around the sun, my dad had long since decided, without my knowledge, that he needed to know how I measured up. For some reason he needed to see if his namesake was ready for manhood, at least his version of it. Quite a few things occurred that summer, such as having my first sip of booze with him and his buddies. I drank that frosty adult beverage with aplomb. I suspect my mom had told her husband how well I drove her car, too. Since my behavior was passing the ol’ eye test for my dad, things were beginning to take shape. Between the less-than-ceremonial beer drinking session, to having my parents other party-going friends provide my folks with glowing reviews of my behavior, Tommie Dean was beginning to act as if he might actually like me.
I’ve thought a lot about how to describe my relationship with my dad. To say it was complicated would be a non sequitur. It was anything but complicated. His house, his rules - not much to debate. I respected that my dad had earned the right to do things his way in his own home. He was born in a dingy two-bedroom farmhouse in rural Spartanburg. As soon as his little sister came along he was relegated to sleeping on their living room couch. Before he was even a teenager he began working to be able to buy his own clothes. By the time he was a high school senior he had to drop out because it was too hard. He then served in the military where he was shipped off to patrol the Korean Demilitarized Zone. He came home to find his wife pregnant with their first child, me. He worked hard and provided for his family the only way he knew how, with his hands. Say what you want to about Tommie Dean but I never went hungry and I got to sleep in my own bed every night.
My dad also had an imposing physique, which is something I don't think I’ve ever possessed even though he and I are the same height. I wasn’t about to challenge him on anything, and I sure as hell didn’t see anyone else going toe-to-toe with my dad back then. His nickname was Bull for chrissake. Many years later, when I was adulting with a real job, I had reasons to visit Michelin’s truck tire plant in Spartanburg. That’s where my dad was employed until he retired. He worked in their maintenance department as a mechanic from the early eighties until his last day in 2007. On those visits, if I ran into someone who was around when my ol’ man was, I’d ask if they remembered Bull. They always did and I told them he was my dad, which surprised a few since we didn’t resemble one another at all. Most of them, I found, didn’t even know his real name. To them he was just Bull.
One of the things my dad did during that time of our lives was make an occasional afternoon drive to an area known as Little Chicago, which was on the other side of Lyman Lake. While that area now has its own spot on the map, back then it was known as a roughneck section of the Spartanburg countryside where the OGs made decent corn liquor. Since this time of my life was rife with my dad dragging me off to places he normally went to alone, I saw some things most kids don’t ever get to see. Like I said, it was all a test.
On those occasions when he was going to Little Chicago that summer, he’d say “Phillip, get in the car.” I always did too, no questions asked. The first few times we made the drive by Apalache Mill towards Lyman Lake, not a word was spoken. When we got to the place we were headed, my dad always turned off his Impala and told me to wait in the car. I affirmed his order with a nod of my head and sat there. My dad would disappear inside and always walked back out a bit later with a crumpled paper bag, which he always placed in the trunk before climbing back into his car. We’d drive straight home and my dad would put the bag away for safekeeping. On one of those trips out to Little Chicago that summer I got up the nerve to ask my dad what we were getting. He didn’t answer at first and I thought I might’ve overstepped my bounds by asking him a direct question. Come what may, I was also curious and wanted to stick my toe a little deeper in the cesspool I was wading. He never looked at me, keeping his gaze straight ahead and said “Party supplies” and that was it.
I now know what was in those incriminating paper bags because my mom eventually told me, but back then I really didn’t even know what party supplies were exactly. I just knew it must be an essential component in keeping things lively during those Saturday evenings whenever my parent's basement filled with glassy-eyed partygoers and that peculiar smelling smoke.
Things changed right around my twelfth birthday. On a ride out to Little Chicago, my dad spoke without me asking him a question first. You’ve got to understand this about Tommie Dean, he almost never initiated a conversation other than to give me an order. So for him to start talking to me, explaining something, made me rapt with attention.
To provide some additional perspective on my dad, I can tell you about a recent conversation I had with a bunch of my buddies, all of whom are about my age. Interestingly, the subject of ‘fatherly advice’ came up. One by one, each of my friends retold a story or two and regaled us with some of the more stellar nuggets of wisdom their fathers had laid on them over the years. One guy even proclaimed, rather boldly, that every father does this for their sons. I didn't say a word. Eventually, I got asked about it. I calmly told them I couldn’t recall a single time in my entire life when my dad sat me down to explain something to me to help me navigate life more easily. Not one single time. Hell, he didn’t even tell me how tools worked, or how to start a lawn mower, or how to hit a baseball. Nothing. I later remembered that there had been one time when I got some advice from my dad. When the opportunity came for him to have “the talk” with me, at my mother’s insistence since I was starting to develop body hair, he kept it brief. I was in the bathroom, toweling off after taking a shower and he walked in. He looked down at me and said “You need to keep that thing clean.” That was it and he walked out. I still keep it clean, too. To be fair, it was really good advice.
As for that August afternoon in ‘74 when we were headed out to the country to pick up more contraband, the chat with my dad was a doozy. It really wasn’t much of a conversation though because I didn’t say anything other than “Yes sir.” The one-way discussion began with my dad reaching across the Impala's console to the glove box, right in front of me. He pressed the chrome button on the red metal door and it fell open. Right on top was his silver snub-nosed revolver with the pearl handles. He didn’t even look at me when he said “It’s loaded, know how to use it?” I affirmed for him I did and he reached over and shut the glove box. When we got to the same place in Little Chicago where we always went on those afternoons, he got out and shut the door. Through the open window he looked back at me, nodded towards the glove box and said “Don’t be afraid to use that thing.” Then he turned and marched off to have a talk with someone inside. I could tell he was pissed as I sat there, dumbfounded. After a moment I pressed the same chrome button and let the glove box door fall open again. I leaned forward to take a better look. I could see rounds in the cylinder of the pistol. It was definitely loaded. I didn’t touch it, but I did leave the glove box open, just in case.
Not much later I saw the front door open and my dad walked out. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry, much to my relief, so I shut the glove box. As he walked across their front yard towards his car I also noticed two things. First, he didn’t have a paper bag. He was also counting some money, a big wad of which he stuffed into his pocket before getting back in the car. We drove home and neither of us said a word.
That was our last trip together to Little Chicago.
© 2023 Joseph Phillip Lister Sr.
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