Tin

Father kept the shed to himself. This was the one constant I could ascribe to him. Between bouts of yelling, of love, through threats and kindness, there stood the shed. My earliest memory is of the ground he laid me on as he hurried into its cloven red walls. Cracked and beaten, the essence strangled me. Earth brushed against my ears, beckoning close to the wonders of nature, yet I only saw cut wood through a child’s outstretched hand. 

Do you know what it is like to be rooted down to sodden dirt, incapable of voice and reason? The feeling engendered there would go on to suffocate me with each passing moment. I asked for nothing but acknowledgment–of existence–yet it proved too valuable to him to grant it. Too late. Within he disappeared, a momentary abandon that would soon stretch itself over the course of years. 

I learned quickly of gluttonous time. It gorged itself freely on every morsel afforded it; seconds gave to minutes gave to years, until finally I found myself estranged from a life I used to know how to live. What solitary comfort there is in leaving. Mother did what she could; even then the words she gurgled took root in me: he is different,

special,

misunderstood.

Prattled words, but her genius was not lost upon me. She left far before I did. Even then I wondered if our absence could truly be felt, a simple question that persisted until the unlikely reunion.

Strange how an open coffin can return such vivid throes. Stranger still was the stranger I found my father to be. There we stood alone, together, but once again I felt the creeping isolation come from his coldness. It was a certain coldness, I suppose, one far too exacting to be described as anything other than clarity. I decided I must go within the shed.

There is much to be said of the terror of paternity. Even cast out from time and place, his existence bore down upon me as I stood before the symbol of his obsession. Furtive eyes cast about, scanning and checking, as though he would spring upon me within an instant. I reached for the decayed handle. I hated how there was no lock.

Raspy breath. Furrowed brow. A veneer of viscous sweat. All things coalesced into this moment, a creaking door that seemed to shrug off the weight I carried so precariously upon my back. I do not know what I expected, but it was certainly not this.

Metal rods coiled; flesh indented and veins boiled, what lay strung from the ceiling could only be afforded as a facsimile of life. A tin can with arms and legs. Yet it bristled gently in the breeze, beginning to bob with awareness. I could feel bile rise in my throat, disgusted and lurching, hands clawing for support as I teetered. I found it within a thin slip of twine, and learned it could not support us both. So it fell to the ground, a clanging reverberation amidst the small shed. It turned to me. He turned to me, and in that moment I understood what he was. He was me.

A yearning to be loved. To be held. To be seen beyond the confines of these meek walls. He attempted to reach for me, yet instinct took me further away. Was this how he felt? A necessary separation? No, there could be no rationale for this mocking toy. I could not find the words to justify its existence. All I could speak to was the rage I felt in that moment. 

Of the lost love I endured and how it carried each blow. Of the mislaid years that led to violence. Thus I became dented, malformed, bursting with dark substance that cascaded like rivulets on decrepit ground. A quick pop to signal that final exultant emission. At tale’s end, both abandoned. The cruelty was not lost on me, and in that moment I became acutely aware:

I am my father’s son.

Enrico Gilberti studied English Literature at the University of New Haven before moving abroad to teach ESL. He now finds himself back in his hometown of Stamford, CT pursuing writing full-time.

A Song for Enrico