Untitled
by
K. Michael Williams
On Election Day, I usually ignore the news. I go vote. I go home and sometime that night or the next morning I learn who’s the victor. At no time during the day do I follow the updates or check the net to see what’s going on.
I was doing the same today.
Except something happened this morning. I recalled a phone conversation I had near eight years ago that I didn’t even realize until today that probably had a dramatic impact on the next phase of my political views.
My daughter was born in 1990. I already had a young son but — for reasons I can’t explain all these years later — I’d looked forward to having a little girl in my life. So, when the nurse told me I had a daughter I literally raced around the birthing room yelling with joy.
And, yeah, she was daddy’s little girl.
Georgette was a delight. But what else am I going to say?
Of course, as a little girl, she adored her father. And by her teenage years, I know she still loved me but thought I could be a real jerk. (Well, scratch “thought.” She was pretty much definitive in that area.) In hindsight, I don’t think her teenage years were happy. She was frustrated with school and her social life. I didn’t know. But there was behavior that today should’ve tipped me off. My wife kept a bottle of vodka in our bedroom for the rare taste. One day, she found the bottle half empty. Mommy immediately went after our oldest son, the partier and street guy. Imagine our surprise when we learned Georgette was sneaking sips. (She admitted it to save her brother.) I had a long talk with my minor about that.
Georgette was mischievous. She had a smart wicked sense of humor and was prone to pranks that endeared me to her. Here are just a handful:
Once I was watching an old Porky Pig cartoon. He was Cupid, wings and all. Porky was in the air looking for someone to hit with a love arrow. Georgette was all of three years old as she walked leisurely across the living room floor. She glanced at the tee-vee and, walking by, said, “Hey look they made pigs fly.”
Georgette once replaced her brother’s computer desktop with a picture of his computer desktop before hiding all his icons. She watched as he clicked his brains out and rebooted for 45 minutes. She watched as he waited an hour on hold for customer service.
We wouldn’t let the kids have cable in their rooms. This was back in videotape days. Georgette used the living room cable to videotape several hours of cable television. Waiting until her brother stepped into her bedroom, she pretended we gave her cable. She’d memorized the tape and used a remote to pretend to change the channels. My son came to me indignant that his sister had cable and why couldn’t he have it.
During one of her visits from Pennsylvania, Georgette sneaked in a batch of miniature toy pigs and left them all over the house. For years, we kept finding them.
We found a can of Catfish Eyeball Soup in our pantry. WTF. Turned out Georgette had printed the label and stuck it among the cans months earlier.
She was probably 15 when she started dating Sergio. They fell in love and he seemed to be a nice enough guy. But I always had my suspicions about him. I think she was 16 when the two of them sat me down and said they were thinking about getting a place of their own. I told them if they tried I’d rip Sergio’s heart out. She stayed put.
On her 17th, Georgette and Sergio went to the movies for her birthday. I watched her get in his car and noted he opened the car door for her and I smiled. I remembered seeing another boy do that and asked her about it. She told me I always held the door for her and Mommy. (One of those small moments that made me proud to be a dad.)
So off to the movies they go… right?
Wrong.
Hours later, Georgette called home. She was in Pennsylvania. Sergio’s hometown. They’d found a place and were going to live there. I can’t even tell you I remember how I felt. She was a legal adult. She’d graduated from high school. It was a choice I had to live with.
I talked to my baby all the time after she left home. Despite her chirper demeanor, I’d later learn life wasn’t good. She and Sergio fought. All the time. He’d put her out the house. (At least one night she slept on a park bench.) BUT I learned all this AFTER they broke up.
I believe there was physical abuse but she never said anything about it. I do remember telling her she was stupid. She had a home to come to. She should’ve picked up the phone and I would’ve come get her. There’s no doubt my son would’ve kicked the living shit out of Sergio. (Really! And Sergio knew that and was terrified any time he was around my boy.) I would’ve brought her home. And she knew that. It’s why she never told me…
But he was out of her life now. Already had a new girlfriend. And she was in a new apartment.
During a visit home, I caught Georgette with a flask and we had a serious talk. I’m not a drinker and I was concerned. I told her anyone who walks around with liquor probably has a problem. As I was her father, she of course dismissed my concerns. But I kept talking about the dangers of liquor any time we spoke.
I know I’m rambling but I thank you for coming this far with me.
In 2016, Georgette was very concerned about Trump running for POTUS. She apparently kept a closer eye on politics than I did and his candidacy troubled her more than it did me. After the election, we were having a phone conversation and she told me that she cried when Trump was announced the winner. She couldn’t believe he won. She just couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t known my baby to cry since she was a child. We talked about it and I kept telling her everything would be okay.
Georgette died five months later from pancreatitis.
I won’t go into the devastation that stifles me to this day. Even now when I talk about my kids I say I have three.
But — yes, I’m finally getting to the point — I realized this very morning, moments before I started to write these words that though I was always against the idea of Trump for president, despite my frustration with everything he’s done since to make me wish he’d just go away, despite the crimes and the lies and the corruption and the hatred he promotes, I had to wonder…
Somewhere deep inside, do I resent this man because he made my baby cry?
Georgette Ashley Williams: November 1990–April 2017
