A Game of Tears

When I was about 17, my Dad and I decided to go see a movie. The last time we had been to a movie together was about 4 years earlier when he had chaperoned me and my first girlfriend to two movies in a three-week period, Beetlejuice and Moonstruck. The former was my choice — I convinced him to take us because I had heard there was a great dinner scene starring some enormous shrimp and since he loved shrimp cocktail…

…while the latter was his suggestion — he persuaded us by singing That’s Amore at the top of his lungs at the theater entrance and refusing to stop until we acquiesced. Needless to say, that was the last time we saw a movie together for quite some time.

I can’t remember precisely why we decided to go to a movie together on that day. Perhaps, I was girl-friendless at the time. Perhaps, the phase of the moon reduced my teen-angst for a few hours so I could actually be in the same room with my dad. Perhaps, he just offered to pay.

But for whatever reason, we climbed into his ridiculous gold Grand Marquis, rolled down the windows, and jammed to the high-falsetto of She Drives Me Crazy by the Fine Young Cannibals as it blasted from the stereo.

Everyone had been talking about this movie. Part thriller, part love story, we had heard that this tale, opening with an IRA kidnapping, would shock you with a twist unimaginable and reaffirm the true power of love. At the time, anything with a shocking plot bend and the IRA would captivate me. For my dad, I think he heard love story and Ireland and immediately thought of redheads.

He always had a thing for redheads.

In any case, for maybe the third time during my teenage years, we agreed on something and decided to go see this movie together. Early in the movie Jody, played powerfully by Forrest Whitaker, tells Fergus (played by Stephen Rea) the story of the Scorpion and the Frog and persuades Fergus to seek out his girlfriend if he died. We were both riveted during the scene and found ourselves lost in the movie.

I imagine my dad was slightly disappointed to learn that the girlfriend, Dil, was not a redhead. But she was a singer, so I think, all things being equal, he was ok with that. As the movie progressed, we both felt the tension and love grow. That they would sleep together became inevitable, and despite that, I did not feel terribly uncomfortable  sitting next to my dad.

And then it happened.

The twist.

Just as they were about to make love.

Popcorn flew into the air as my dad jerked spastically in horror, shouting at the top of his lungs.

”Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

It was primal and uncontrolled and mirrored Fergus’ reaction on screen exactly. The entire theater turned to us and stared.

My dad was shaking with feeling. Repulsion maybe. Love lost perhaps. But raw unfiltered feeling.

And in that moment, I realized I would never be embarrassed by him again.

For he knew how to feel. To truly feel. And he didn’t care who knew or who saw. His feelings were free. His most important parts were always open to the world, whether it was his joy, his anger, his shock.

Unlike me, he could feel deeply. He could cry. He could hate. He could love.

Even during the Crying Game.