Childhood Memories of Model Cars

My earliest memory of my father involved a model car. To be specific, it was a funny car called the Yankee Clipper - molded in white with chrome-plated wheels and pipes. I think if my dad had ever gotten the chance to put it together, it would have been beautiful. He was probably less than twenty-five at the time. I would have been around four. He and my mother couldn't have been divorced for very long, because the woman hadn't had the chance to work her wiles on me yet.

But that one memory is there. My dad, early twenties, living with my grandparents, still had to work weekends at a clothing store downtown. Friday or Saturday night, before we went to bed, he showed me the box that held what was to be the Yankee Clipper. Then he showed me how to do push-ups (I'm sure I didn't do nearly as well as he led me to believe) and then climbed into bed, each of us in crisp white briefs and T-shirts.

I know we lay there in the dark, talking for a while, but I honestly don't remember what we talked about.

By the time I got up the next morning, he had already left for work. I don't remember much about my time with my grandparents that day, but I do remember sitting in that room, on the floor, and sliding that box out from under the bed. The picture of that funny car was the coolest thing I had ever seen.

I opened it.

There wasn't any plastic wrapping - I'm sure my dad had opened it long before he had picked me up for the weekend - so it was a matter of simply removing the lid. I decided that I should help my dad assemble that car and played with all the little parts, trying to figure out how they went together.

I have no idea if I lost any parts that first day or if it happened in subsequent visits. The only thing I know for sure is that the Yankee Clipper stayed under that bed for several years, unassembled. I don't know if Dad had discovered my trespass and decided I had messed things up too badly to fix or if he left it there for me to play with. I only know that it never got built.

This is one of the things that I, as a writer, have kept in my heart and pondered my whole life. And it occurred to me that that box tells a powerful story about my life and, more importantly, about my relationship with my father.

My dad left my mom when I was about two. Looking back, I can't say I blamed him; he was miserable. Mom made sure of that. And after the divorce, the conniving shrew did everything possible to keep him that way. The most convenient weapon at her disposal? Me.

That weekend - my earliest memory of my dad - I knew I was there to spend time with my dad. It was his right to see me every other weekend. But every second weekend after that, I remember Mom saying "C'mon, Jason, let's get you ready to go see your Me-Maw and Paw-Paw," or "Your daddy's going to be here soon to take you to Me-Maw and Paw-Paw's house."

It wasn't long before I believed - at least on some unconscious level - that Dad's only purpose was to take me to my grandparents' house for the weekend.

A few pieces disappeared from that box.

Just a few years after that, we moved out of town. Dad never missed a child support payment, but Mom did manage to cost him a weekend or two. Enough pieces were gone now that the car - my relationship with my dad - would never be complete.

Then we left the state. Dad went six months without seeing me. But the child support was always on time. We moved back, of course, but the damage was done; more pieces gone.

When I was eight I started having some medical problems. I had several operations, which, in the long run, corrected the problem, but unbeknownst to me at the time, my mother was suing my father for more child support. She was also asking him to take on my health insurance at a time that I was virtually uninsurable. Dad was in the process of adopting a baby with his current wife - my stepmother. The last thing they needed was legal problems or additional expenses. Oh yes, Mom knew what she was doing.

My father did the only thing he could do. He gave up his parental rights and allowed my stepfather to adopt me.

The box was empty. The Yankee Clipper was gone.

I honestly don't remember seeing that box again. I was twelve when my step-dad adopted me. I spent many weekends with my grandparents after that and even spent some time with my real dad. But I never saw that model car again. And, as poetic as it sounds, my relationship with my dad was all but gone.

But it didn't end there. I was growing up and reminding my mother more and more of my father everyday. She didn't like that at all. And as I grew, we became more and more distant. I started smoking, just like my dad, she complained constantly about it. When we argued, if I got too close to getting the upper hand, she would call me "Bo" and tell me, with a look of disgust, that I was acting like my father.

I've since cut all ties with that side of my family. I changed my name back to my birth name and haven't talked to my mother in almost fifteen years. I sometimes wonder if she even understands why. My father is like a good friend I see from time to time. We both still work on models (I'm sure I do a better job than I did back then). But the damage was done years ago; we aren't father and son. We never will be. The Yankee Clipper is just a fond memory.

A memory of my father. Perhaps the only real memory of a real father I'll ever have.