Hill - I am my fathers son: a memoir of love and forgiveness

DAN HILL
I Am My Fathers Son

A MEMOIR OF LOVE AND FORGIVENESS

To my father, Daniel Grafton Hill III,
and my mother, Donna Mae Hill.

N ot that this is anything to brag about, but I may well have been the only teenager in the history of the Western world punished for not masturbating. As the sound of Dads oversized feet clomped their way up the stairs and lumbered purposefully towards my bedroom, I braced myself for another of our confrontations. Still, I was in no way prepared for the perverse twist this, our third major argument in as many days, would take. Trust me, if Id possessed advance knowledge of the screwball Q&A Dad was going to put me through I would have handily escaped out my bedroom window, always left open just in case. After all, any self-respecting teenager would have eagerly risked breaking an ankle over one of my dads inquisitions.

Thwackkk! The door flew open, smashing against my bedroom wall and bouncing right back at Dad. He flicked out the big, broad palm of his hand with the speed and deftness of a seasoned boxer, steadying the door and then closing it behind him as if to say, Whatevers about to go down between us stays in this room.

Then he said, in his patented Dad snarl, Where is it, boy?

Wheres what?

You know what Im talking about.

Sorry, Dad, I dont.

For once I wasnt lying. The kind of stuff I concealed from my old man wasnt really the sort of thing that could be found stashed away in my room, like, say, a skin magazine (Dad had been buying me Playboys since Id turned eight), or his coveted World War II pistol, or a twenty-dollar bill hed left sitting on his bedroom dresser. My secrets, my sweet little acts of rebellion and betrayal, were way cooler than that.

Look up at me when Im talking to you. And stop slouching over that daggum guitar of yours.

I tilted my head ever so slightly in his direction, careful to make sure his face was still out of my line of vision.

Thats better. Now, Im talking about that sample of yours. The one you promised Dr. Peters youd produce and have on his secretarys desk last week.

Oh, that. I mumbled, straining to keep the Oh God, here we go out of my voice. This was going to get ugly. Beyond ugly. And Dad was just getting started.

Stop your stalling, boy, and tell me, right this instant, where that sample is.

I lost it.

Youre lying through your teeth, boy.

Something about the way my dad leaned on the word boy, the way he used it as a kind of punctuation to cap off one of his insulting harangues, always pissed me off more than the harangue itself. Boy was what white officers called lowly Negro privates like Dad in the U.S. Army during World War II. And now, a quarter-century later, boy was what Dad called me to remind me that I was, and would always be, his subordinate. Still, boy or no boy, it occurred to me that I might just be able to take him. I was fifteen, on the high school wrestling and cross-country teams. Dad was forty-five, overweight, overworked and diabetic. But then I thought about how quickly hed intercepted the bounce-back of my bedroom door. I knew from experience that his hands were big and fast, and Id been on the receiving end of his out-of-nowhere slaps enough times to know better than to knuckle it out with him.

There you go, daydreaming again. Get that moony look out of your eyes and start listening, carefully. Dad paused here, just to make sure his words were having the intended effect. They were.

Danny, we both know that Dr. Peters gave you that deposit cup two weeks ago. I want your sperm sample in that cup and in his office by the end of the week. No ifs, ands or buts.

Just hearing that dreaded word, sperm, made me shout out in protest: No way Im doing that. You cant make me. I dont care if Im sterile. I dont wanna have kids anyway.

Saying that would wind Dad up even more, but I sure as hell wasnt going to tell him the real reason why Dr. Peters wasnt going to get his precious little sample out of me: I hadnt masturbated. And the closest Id come to being sexually active was sneak-reading Dads paperback copy of Candy, memorizing the juicy parts and reciting them to my thunderstruck classmates over the phone. Although, truth be told, even if I had been more, well, experienced, I would have put off delivering what my doctor had so breezily ordered. To see Dad go apoplectic at the thought of his first son possibly being sterile was high entertainment for me. I was, after all, Daniel Grafton Hill the Fourth, the eldest of three kidsthe extension of the Hill family legacy rested on my shoulders, or, to be blunt, on my so far unproven ability to coax a sperm sample out of my reluctant body. Talk about pressure. Especially since, according to Dad, the Hill family was a superior species. Hills were born to be extraordinary, hed trumpet around the house with that mad grin sweeping across his face. After all, his PhD-toting father, Daniel Hill Jr., in his capacity as dean of the Howard University School of Religion, had moved in the highest circles of the Negro elite, arranging in the early sixties for such luminaries as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to speak at his school. (Continued success in the noble work that you are doing, the great human rights leader had written Granddad in a thank-you letter that kicked off a correspondence between them.)

Well. What Dad, currently the first director of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, was demanding of me could hardly be considered noble. What about my human rights? I thought, as Dad, inching closer to me, clenching and unclenching his hands, hissed, Im warning you, boy, youre in no position to tell me what you will or wont do, so dont get sassy with me or Ill slap you sideways.

If this was meant to intimidate me, it had the opposite effect, as Dads blows were never preceded by a warning. With him, violence and surprise came in the same package.

Im not trying to be sassy, Dad. Im just saying that theres not a chance Im gonna deliver a sperm sample for that perverted Dr. Peters.

Dad removed his glasses and slid them into his shirt pocket. Id inadvertently issued him a challenge. Big mistake. He took a few seconds to mull over his response. Then he smiled. Not a good sign.

Im not wasting any more time on this foolishness. Youve spent the whole daggum summer flat on your back with that crazy virus of yours.

Its called orchitis, Dad.

Call it whatever you want, your testicles were swollen up to the size of grapefruits. Your mother and I were worried sick about you. I dont know what you were doing at that summer camp up north, but it sure as hell wasnt pitching tents. This is not about you or your precious privacy. As your father, its my right to know whether or not youre sterile.

Jesus, Dad, Im fifteen years old.

That means youre old enough to picture what Im about to say. If you dont have that sperm sample ready by the end of the week, youre gonna be bundled up in a straitjacket and dragged into Dr. Peters office. Then youre gonna be strapped face down onto a cold, metal table with your legs forced wide apart, while the doctor gives you a prostate massage.