I remember a picture of me taken when I was about four. Dark pants, white, button down shirt, I’m standing at the edge of a creek holding a fish. It was small, probably a brook trout. It’s the only picture I know of, with me and a fish. I’m not proud, just standing there holding it. I don’t know the event, only the photo, and the photo is gone. But I carry its likeness—a memory of a photo—me and a fish. I figure my father took it; I can almost feel him behind the camera, proud of his son and his first brook trout. My father had great hopes.

When I was in my teens, he used to take me fishing with his buddies and I would always get sick. I used to think it was motion sickness but I never got motion sickness anywhere but on the boat. Lying on the bench to avoid throwing up—when my line would get a bite my father would get me to reel it in. I always dreaded those trips; I couldn’t figure their purpose but I went out of obligation. In retrospect I realize this was a typical father/son fishing trip, a bonding time, a time among men in an effort to relieve me from a household of women. But he spent most of his time with his buddies, paying little attention to me, drinking and talking, talking about work, about sports, talking about who knows what. And I would just sit there with no way out, like a sea trout with a swallowed hook, too deep for easy removal.

I learned early on that being sick, however real or imagined, could allow me the space to excuse or skirt responsibility or obligation. And I got sick a lot. My parents worried for my health and put me through a series of medical tests: upper GI’s, lower GI’s, kidney tests, the best that money could buy. They were hoping to find something wrong, something they could fix. Maybe medicine could extract the problem, like my father’s fishing tool for removing hooks. He’d shove that thin red probe down hard into the fish’s gut— struggling, blood spurting, my father cursing; it always worked.

Sitting in the waiting room a boy ten years old, unclothed except a medical gown, mostly white, with a powder blue pattern, loosely tied in the back, my pasty buttocks frigid against the plastic coated bench. I never felt so alone. Nurses walking by, so sweet in their concern. Where was my father? Was there something about sickness, something improper? Chalky mint flavored barium shakes, barium enemas pumped through my sphincter. Large metal and plastic clad machines, x-rays and film, illuminating my insides. “Hold it, hold it, just a little bit longer.” White, everything was white: white men, white women, white gowns, a sterile white room. But I couldn’t hold it and exploded white liquid and little bits of feces over everything. Fear, embarrassment, pain—I did better the second time.

When I was born, my father tells me, he was so happy he drove his car swerving the roads singing “Flamingo”—a popular song of the time. My parents already had two girls but they wanted a boy so they tried again. My father wanted someone to teach, to pass on his knowledge, his years of experience; he needed someone to carry his name, he needed a boy.

My father was good around the house, he could fix just about anything: a washing machine, a TV, a lawn mower, a toaster. And he always had me there to help. I held the flashlight. He’d tell me what he was doing but never let me do anything myself. He taught me his two cardinal rules: “there’s a right tool for every job,” and “never force anything.” Two tenets I carry with me into every aspect of my life. My father was very confident; there was a proper way to do anything and he could always figure it out. Once he gave me the motor of his old lawn mower to take apart. He let me use his tools, told me it would be a good experience. He wished his father had given him such an opportunity. I took it apart, piece by piece, but soon I lost interest and it sat in a pool of oil in the basement for years. He gave me a clock once and challenged me to fix it, said he’d never been able to fix one himself. He challenged me to be more competent.

The doctors never found anything wrong with me; they couldn’t figure it out. The body seemed in good working order, it seemed there was nothing to fix. Our family doctor said I was sensitive, perhaps my father was being too hard on me, perhaps a little less pressure was in order (never force anything). My father’s interpretation was to let me grow my hair, but not too long. I started going to my mom’s beauty parlor instead of Tony’s, my father’s barber. Every time I came home from a hair cut, it was never enough. He would turn red, mad as hell, like I had insulted him deep to his core. I remember him yelling at the top of his lungs, yelling at mom—not at me—“Send him back! That’s not a hair cut, he looks like a girl!”

There was a photograph my mother took of me in a dress, long wig, pocket book, high heels and I think I was wearing stockings. My sisters had dressed me, made me a girl. My mom said “how sweet” as she snapped the picture, and it made me feel good. I was part of the family, one of the girls—not separate, not the boy. And it offered me a way out from under my father’s tyranny, the pressures of being the only male heir. And besides, I liked it, I thought I made a good-looking girl. I was proud of that photo and I used to look at it in private, imagining a new life. I kept it hidden from my father, and it became my little secret. One day when he was in my room, my father saw its corner jutting out from under a book. He picked it up, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to, I knew it was wrong. That’s why I’d hidden it. I became embarrassed—ashamed. And when he left the room I ripped it into tiny pieces. I wanted no evidence the feelings I’d had.

Ken Marchionno

© 1995

“Fish Photo,” Grand Larceny, Irvine, California, 1995