The Stranger Who Raised Me

As the only child of a man from a broken home, my father, one of the city's kindest and most generous men, lavished me with attention. He was the light of my life for as much as I was his reason for living. We loved each other, and no matter what he was doing, I held priority. He was my rock, and I was his devotee, but I never guessed a cheap plastic curtain was the only thing holding our lives together.

My mother died in childbirth, but my childhood was still happy because my father was a combination superhero and genie. Nothing ever went wrong when he was around and he denied me nothing. We rarely had to leave our home, but every time we did, it was in a convoy of at least three cars. Being my only exposure to the real world, it seemed perfectly normal. My earliest outing was the first time we left our house in the four years since he brought me home from the hospital. I vaguely remember the looks on people’s faces confusing me, but I thought nothing of it, wrapped up in the wonders outside our walls. The only thing that mattered was my father’s love for me, and I felt it because he said it as much as he showed it.

Growing up, I thought everyone had a home like mine. All my neighbors did. Mansions overlooking the city and harbor with brick walls fifteen feet high, guard towers, watchdogs, farms or fields dedicated to eccentric pursuits, and more. I grew up thinking these things were basic home necessities. One neighbor raised lions, another built full-sized pirate ships on a small lake while connecting her property to a diverted estuary, but they weren’t the only ones. My father raised pigs and gave the manure to our agricultural neighbors. I never met them, but my father spoke well of everyone, saying they were a community of hobbyists. As a child, that was the only explanation I needed. It wasn’t until my first week of school that I realized things were different for other kids.

Surrounded by my peers, I instinctually invited people over. My father always did it, so it made sense. He picked me up from school every day until I asked him to stop as a teen. He treated everyone around me like they were my friends and made our home welcome. They just had to ride in our convoy. Promising to take them home afterwards, the invitation was an easy sell, but I quickly learned to be careful of who I had around. No matter who or how many were with me, everyone’s neck craned when we entered my subdivision. The awe and disbelief made me tremendously uncomfortable, a new sensation in my life. I confirmed my life’s abnormality when I visited my friends' homes, houses like the ones on TV and movies. 

This was when I finally asked my father what he did for work. He said he owned a shipping company, and I only had a loose grasp on what he told me, but it made sense. My father was a hard worker who reaped the benefits of his labor, one of which was wealth that set us apart. Plus, unlike greedy Underworld affiliates or even greedier politicians, my father was genuinely kind. Who could hate that? 

Regardless of his presence, black-suited men loitered on the grounds, usually near the house but sometimes near the pig farm. I tried to ask around, but it was always the same answer, ‘they work with your father.’ An obvious answer, considering they were always escorting multitudes of people to my father. Asking why shipping company employees worked at their boss’s home never occurred to me. Despite nothing of what they did involving shipping, all correctness flowed from my father, so everything else was wrong by default. Even when my friends pointed out the oddity of my life, I blew them off, assuming it would all make sense one day. I had no idea how right I was.

Eventually, I learned all the suited men were from the city's roughest district. My father rarely spoke about his upbringing, but he mentioned being born there, and that was when it clicked. They were charity cases, the benefactors of a foundation my father owned or helped. Determined to keep them off the streets, he hired those people and stashed them in his home to justify their pay. It fit with who I knew my father to be. When I was twelve, my friends gave me a perspective I would’ve conceived. 

‘What if your dad is a fixer?’

We all started laughing. My father was a white-haired old man with a back bent from decades of leaning over a desk. The idea of him covering the misdeeds of high-profile people was hilarious. My father was a hard worker who got promotions until he was the man running the company, not someone who rubbed shoulders with Underworld affiliates. He was a weirdo, always making hit-or-miss dad jokes, proudest of the ones that made me groan. He threw philanthropic parties and raised pigs as a hobby. What kind of criminal raises pigs for fun? The idea of my father even associating with the Underworld was ludicrous. He was a man who gave blessings, not curses, and it was easiest to see during his parties.

My father was most himself during these exclusive affairs that pulled people from all walks of life. I never paid attention to the stratified nature of the parties, but even after I noticed, I understood why. He invited the entire city to his parties. There were many important people who attended, so the VIPs were on the upper floors. The VVIPs held court near the study, and my father’s generosity was brightest here. I remember seeing pristine white rectangles flickering from pocket to pocket, more than I could ever count. The unacknowledged pouches were always thick, the paper taut with whatever stuffed it. The recipients were all people I saw on the news, like the Mayor, the Police Commissioner, the head of the City Council, and others. Everyone near the study received an envelope and winked as they walked away with huge grins. No one discussed or even acknowledged them, but one year, my curiosity brought me to one of my most distinct memories. 

My father’s New Year celebration was always the largest of his parties and had the thickest envelopes. I was turning thirteen that year and decided it was time to solve this mystery. With these envelopes being my father’s gift and me being my father’s son, they practically came from me, too. So I found a charity worker I recognized and walked up to him with all the confidence of a child certain in their adulthood. We didn’t have a warm relationship, but I knew his name and he’d always been nice to me. He was smiling as I approached, but when I asked for an envelope, he froze. A shadow fell across his face, and my heart thumped under his hard glare. I didn’t back down, and even repeated my demand. When he didn’t move, I reached, but he snatched the bundle away, officially scandalizing me.

This memory is so distinct because it was one of the few times someone denied me in my home. I almost made a scene when Uncle Teddy, one of my father’s best friends, appeared and shoved me, gently but irresistibly, to my dad. Men that I vaguely recognized surrounded him like he held court. I whined on the verge of tears, telling him about the horror of refusal and the embarrassment of denial. Everyone laughed while my father hugged me, promising to fix it. Then he playfully scolded me, calling me greedy and saying, 

'People are devoted to their stomachs and whoever satisfies their appetite. The Divine has blessed our family with the means to offer them more.'

His words stuck with me because that was my father, a man so full of life he needed to give to others. Those parties were a drag, but also the closest I came to the truth. Like the night before the autumn celebration gala at the beginning of my rebellious teen years. Curiosity pushed me to see if my father had any secrets. I knew he’d be busy all night, so I ‘broke into’ his study, rummaging through anything that wasn’t locked. I hoped to find some alcohol or drugs, maybe even an explicit movie. Instead, I found a sword with an onyx guard hidden under his desk.

I was so shocked I just stood there holding it. After a little while, I pulled it out of the scabbard, and I gasped when I saw how the edge glinted like a chef’s knife. Enraptured by the weapon, I didn’t see my father until he snatched the weapon from my hands and re-sheathed the blade. As scared as I was, the sword fascinated me as my mind raced through the implications. My father was laughing, and I asked him why he needed it. He said it was ceremonial, but when I pointed out the sharpness, he just shrugged. I pushed, and he told me ceremonial didn’t mean useless.

I just turned fourteen, convinced of my maturity, but still incapable of envisioning my father working with the killers and criminals infesting the Underworld. My father was a businessman. Who could he need protection from? And why would he need personal protection with all these workers around? I asked him, and he got quiet. It was brief, but there was a look in his eyes, a distant stare centered on me but seeing something else entirely. 

‘The Mistress of Death has a low bar for acolytes.’ 

I never heard him use that grave tone, not even jokingly, and I felt my face drop, thinking we were about to die. My cheeks heated when he laughed and pinched my chin. He hooted as though nothing mattered except teasing me for being a dutiful son who loved his father. I furiously hugged him, squeezing him to disguise my trembling and expel my embarrassed rage. My anger evaporated in my relief, and his delight was infectious. Besides, enjoying the moment was easier than acknowledging his look of bone-crushing weariness. 

After graduating, I went to college and majored in law. As my knowledge grew, so did my distance from my father. Somewhere deep inside myself, I knew my father was a fixer, but even as a young adult, I couldn’t consciously accept it. He always complimented my selectivity with friends as the number dwindled. The one time I landed in detention, he lectured me for an hour. I couldn’t accept a man like him cavorting with murderers and criminals. My father was my guiding light, the man I based my masculinity on. He couldn’t be a fraud because I refused to question our love.

So, I took the easy way out and found things that required me to remain on campus during breaks. Extra classes, special tutoring, interning opportunities, and other random things. One time I had no excuse, but my nervousness made me so sick I couldn't travel. My father visited as often as possible, but he was an old man and couldn’t always make it during the holidays. I know the distance hurt him. It definitely hurt me, but it had to be this way. It was the only way I could protect my image of and love for my father.

After six long years away from home, he finally wore me down. He’d been begging me to come home for the winter break, promising hot chocolate and fireworks at his year-end extravaganza, a tradition I tearfully continued alone. My father missed his only child, and I ached to go home. His voicemails flared my homesickness, but I missed his voice. I knew it would eventually drive me home, but I wasn’t myself without him. I knew my home was gone as soon as I returned, but there wasn’t a place I felt safer. After two days of listening to his messages, my capitulation was as quick as it was inevitable. I was in denial, but in order to refute it, I had to go home and prove there wasn’t anything to deny. So I filed my graduation paperwork, picked up my degree, and returned home the following winter.

My first week back was the greatest tragedy of my life. Everything was just as I remembered it. The charity workers wandering the grounds, the guards roaming the estate, even the pig farm looked the same. I was sure something would snatch away my childhood, but to my complete and undiluted pleasure, I found no support for my suspicions. My father was delighted to see me, and we spent all our time together. As the year's last week came and went, I dispelled my apprehensions and felt guilty for doubting him. 

I couldn't sleep the night following the New Year celebration ball, so I watched television in the pre-sun morning. I was eating milk and cookies, flipping through channels for something to occupy my mind, when I passed a breaking news bulletin. Already two channels past, I realized I saw something weird. Something told me not to go back, but I did and nearly fainted. 

Uncle Teddy was one of the most honorable men I knew, the kind of man who always had a piece of advice and a piece of peppermint. I wasn’t sure of his place in my father’s company, but I knew he’d been with my father for a long time and was one of his best friends. He was the one who took me to my father the night I demanded an envelope. His kids were like my cousins, and they weren’t terrible people. Yet, as I finally heard what was being said, I dropped my late-night medicine. 

Theodore ‘Teddy Three Times’ Ricardus escaped police custody late last night following his arrest last week. Charged with multiple felonies ranging from murder to fraud, Teddy Three Times was facing a sentence hundreds of years long and in transit to federal prison. Nine officers were dead, four more on life support, and another seven had less serious injuries. Their names were listed in a ticker along the bottom of the screen but I couldn’t take my eyes off Uncle Teddy’s mugshot. Even as the facade of home crashed around me.

I shut off the television, feeling like an idiot. I couldn’t deny it anymore. No shipping company south of the Andromeda Mountains had revenue that could justify my father’s wealth. How it is that I missed never getting a company name crystalized in that moment and I groaned, my heart thudding. My father pushed me to major in law and now I wondered if he did that to make me a fixer, or for legal counsel, or for some other nefarious purpose. Bribes were part of life touching politics, but the sheer number of guards was the key proof. I spent my entire life followed by my father’s men, even when I went to college. He moved like a head of state with no less than twenty men around him. Only the retribution of affiliates could explain why a geriatric fixer would keep a sword at his desk. I had to accept what I’d denied my entire life, but I would hear it from his lips.

After scouring the main house, I didn’t see him anywhere. I searched the grounds but still couldn’t find a trace. I asked a few passing charity workers, and everyone just shook their heads. It’d been years, but I remembered there was only one other place my father would be. When I neared the pig farm, I was happy to see two workers near the barn doors. When I approached, they put their hands on me, but I swiped them off, lightning in my eyes as I thundered inside. The interior smelled as awful as always, but I frowned when I saw two more workers. My father didn’t like people clogging his sanctuary. Only people working with the pigs were allowed inside, but I was too angry to register the oddities. They were as confused as the men at the door and remained inert as I stormed past them. I slowed as I approached the heart of my father’s sanctum, the championship pig pens. He had names like Gregory and Matthew for the behemoths back here. He loved telling them about his problems during feedings because he said they’re one of the few creatures who could understand him. An opaque plastic curtain obscured a group of figures shifting in the light. The pigs grunted as they squelched and crunched on whatever they ate and I felt the thrill of victory when I heard someone talking. Dashing forward, I opened the cheap plastic curtain and skidded to a stop.

Uncle Teddy’s cloudy green eyes stared at me atop a bloody table, jaw askew in a sanguine ‘harrumph.’ Standing over the remainder of his body, I saw my kind, quirky father in a butcher’s apron with red and purple bits sliding down rivulets of blood. As he aimed the bloody machete, his brown eyes were as sharp as ever, but there wasn’t any warmth in them. He hacked off Uncle Teddy’s forearm with one swing and tossed it into the pens, revealing the secret ingredient of his championship feeding routine. 

That’s when I realized he’d been talking to the charity workers surrounding him. All of them were listening with rapt attention, their eyes full of adoration. My father was calm, speaking in a casual, nonchalant manner, as though he wasn’t butchering one of the first adults he introduced to me. He was as patient and measured as he was when teaching me, but he swung the machete with a level of violence that could only come from anger. I listened as he eulogized Uncle Teddy’s virtues and downfalls, emphasizing the greatness of gravitas and renown, but reiterating the importance of loyalty and honor. He compared the moves a man must make with the cuts he was making to Uncle Teddy’s body, likening his late friend’s flesh to the strife of life. Between each statement, he reminded everyone that desperation turned this great man into an informant. One of the audience members saw me and gasped. The movement caught my father’s attention, and he turned.

‘Oh, dear.’

He was so sickeningly placid, reacting like he’d just spilled a cup of water. He stepped toward me, but I freaked out and ran. I didn’t make it far before the workers guarding the entrance tackled and pinned me to the ground. I wasn’t screaming, but I didn’t stop struggling until I felt my father’s hand on my back. He rubbed in small circles like when I threw tantrums as a child, gently shushing and cooing. I felt myself going limp, somehow thinking I didn’t see what I thought I did. My father clicked his tongue, and the workers freed me as he continued rubbing, but then I looked up.

Blood speckled his glasses.

Losing a beloved father is a trauma impossible to prepare for, especially when it’s sudden. The man who was my father still lives as the Underworld boss, once known as Cyrus the Black. I want to be angry, but that stranger looks and sounds like my dad. It was a torture I can’t make sense of deserving, but this is my life now. Even though he’s an imitation, I still love him. One day, I’ll get used to the snowball of his memory in the desert of my love.