(no subject)
this is what i'm looking to enter for the short story competition.. comments would be awesome.
it's just a beginning, and i have a little bit more saved, but that needs more work as of right now.
oh- and yes my dad is a stone mason, but the girl and dad in this story aren't either of us.
“Graduation”
My father had the hands of a man who had worked, and worked hard, every single day of his life. He held his soul in those hands, amidst calluses and bruised palms. His fingers seemed to begin at his elbows, and like fence irons they’d twist and turn to the tips of his broken and dirty fingernails. The sinews of his forearm jutted out, screaming underneath capillaries that would collapse and bleed from beneath his tanned flesh with any miscalculation as to how to best hold a given stone. His palms were cracked and dry, as though they were made from the cement he mixed daily in an old, rusty wheelbarrow. More of my father’s identity could be found within those cracks than any fingerprint. He would come home after dark, exhausted and broken from a day of laying stone for some rich person’s walkway or fireplace. He’d remove his filthy Yankees baseball cap from his bare, defeated head. It wasn’t difficult to picture my father as a kind of hero; a hero gallantly fighting in some far off war everyday for his five daughters and aging wife, only to come home dragging both his body and his white flag. His job always got the best of him.
Perhaps, that is why I grew up despising my dad’s job. It was embarrassing to admit to my friends at school that my dad did little more than lay bricks for a living. Their parents were doctors, teachers and accountants. Their parents had gone to college and gotten a MA or a BA or even PhDs. My dad never even finished high school. When he had just began his freshman year the large quantities of cheap whiskey and wine my Grandpa Ed drank on a nightly basis had finally caught up with him; his liver and kidneys had begun to fail. My father had to leave high school the week before he turned eighteen.
I hated stone masonry. I hated the beautiful fireplace in our house, and the work he added to the sides that my parents’ friends always admired. I hated that he would come home, after exerting himself all day, and do nothing but sit in front of the television, trying to get his body to heal enough for the next day’s work. No one ever appreciated just how hard he worked for us. He would shuffle into the house and my sisters and I would just pretend he wasn’t there, as though the house itself was haunted by a dirty secret in ripped flannel.
I was the first person on my dad’s side of the family to apply to college and it was all my father ever talked about. I was too embarrassed by his dirty, dusty jeans and dark brown arms from working outside to even notice how proud he was.
“She’s thinking about going to Vassar, but we’re hoping she’ll settle for a SUNY.”
I must have heard him say that between a hundred and a thousand times the spring before graduation. When I eventually did settle for the SUNY University at Albany, my dad patted me on the back. With each solid placement of the heel of his hand, I felt him pin his dreams onto the back of my sweater; dreams of my success, which he himself had worked so hard for.
“You’ll do well there, Sally”, which was his nickname for me.
Despite my father’s overwhelming support and excitement for my upcoming high school graduation, and despite his almost daily proclamations about how proud he was of me, I didn’t want my parents to come to the graduation ceremony. I didn’t want people to see my dad wearing his dirty baseball cap and work boots. My palms would sweat and my chest ache every time I thought about how my friends might notice my dad’s shirt cuffs that rarely came all the way to his wrists, leaving them naked. I worried that he might wear his old dress pants, a faded pair of khakis with frayed seams that seemed to tragically change him from a working man, to a poor man. He never spent money on himself except for the occasional obscure classic rock album; buying new dress shirts and pants were almost out of the question. I would have even preferred his dirty jeans with holes in the knees, reminiscent of hours kneeling in dirt and sawdust- those at least carried some dignity.
But it wasn’t the way he dressed that bothered me the most; it was his hands, the hands that had sacrificed so much, built walls and chimneys that would endure longer than human lives. His legacy was his stone, it would be a constant reminder to all those who knew him, and his work. But those hands embarrassed me more than I could ever describe.
They were rough hands. They hurt when you shook them. The skin peeling off on the edges of his callused fingers would prick the gentle, smooth palms of an accountant or doctor. I didn’t want to see his stupid hands waving at me as I went to get my diploma. I didn’t want to hear them clapping together with enthusiasm as I shook my principal’s hand. I definitely, definitely didn’t want people to see them around my shoulders as he hugged me after the ceremony.
Thanks to anyone who read it.
it's just a beginning, and i have a little bit more saved, but that needs more work as of right now.
oh- and yes my dad is a stone mason, but the girl and dad in this story aren't either of us.
“Graduation”
My father had the hands of a man who had worked, and worked hard, every single day of his life. He held his soul in those hands, amidst calluses and bruised palms. His fingers seemed to begin at his elbows, and like fence irons they’d twist and turn to the tips of his broken and dirty fingernails. The sinews of his forearm jutted out, screaming underneath capillaries that would collapse and bleed from beneath his tanned flesh with any miscalculation as to how to best hold a given stone. His palms were cracked and dry, as though they were made from the cement he mixed daily in an old, rusty wheelbarrow. More of my father’s identity could be found within those cracks than any fingerprint. He would come home after dark, exhausted and broken from a day of laying stone for some rich person’s walkway or fireplace. He’d remove his filthy Yankees baseball cap from his bare, defeated head. It wasn’t difficult to picture my father as a kind of hero; a hero gallantly fighting in some far off war everyday for his five daughters and aging wife, only to come home dragging both his body and his white flag. His job always got the best of him.
Perhaps, that is why I grew up despising my dad’s job. It was embarrassing to admit to my friends at school that my dad did little more than lay bricks for a living. Their parents were doctors, teachers and accountants. Their parents had gone to college and gotten a MA or a BA or even PhDs. My dad never even finished high school. When he had just began his freshman year the large quantities of cheap whiskey and wine my Grandpa Ed drank on a nightly basis had finally caught up with him; his liver and kidneys had begun to fail. My father had to leave high school the week before he turned eighteen.
I hated stone masonry. I hated the beautiful fireplace in our house, and the work he added to the sides that my parents’ friends always admired. I hated that he would come home, after exerting himself all day, and do nothing but sit in front of the television, trying to get his body to heal enough for the next day’s work. No one ever appreciated just how hard he worked for us. He would shuffle into the house and my sisters and I would just pretend he wasn’t there, as though the house itself was haunted by a dirty secret in ripped flannel.
I was the first person on my dad’s side of the family to apply to college and it was all my father ever talked about. I was too embarrassed by his dirty, dusty jeans and dark brown arms from working outside to even notice how proud he was.
“She’s thinking about going to Vassar, but we’re hoping she’ll settle for a SUNY.”
I must have heard him say that between a hundred and a thousand times the spring before graduation. When I eventually did settle for the SUNY University at Albany, my dad patted me on the back. With each solid placement of the heel of his hand, I felt him pin his dreams onto the back of my sweater; dreams of my success, which he himself had worked so hard for.
“You’ll do well there, Sally”, which was his nickname for me.
Despite my father’s overwhelming support and excitement for my upcoming high school graduation, and despite his almost daily proclamations about how proud he was of me, I didn’t want my parents to come to the graduation ceremony. I didn’t want people to see my dad wearing his dirty baseball cap and work boots. My palms would sweat and my chest ache every time I thought about how my friends might notice my dad’s shirt cuffs that rarely came all the way to his wrists, leaving them naked. I worried that he might wear his old dress pants, a faded pair of khakis with frayed seams that seemed to tragically change him from a working man, to a poor man. He never spent money on himself except for the occasional obscure classic rock album; buying new dress shirts and pants were almost out of the question. I would have even preferred his dirty jeans with holes in the knees, reminiscent of hours kneeling in dirt and sawdust- those at least carried some dignity.
But it wasn’t the way he dressed that bothered me the most; it was his hands, the hands that had sacrificed so much, built walls and chimneys that would endure longer than human lives. His legacy was his stone, it would be a constant reminder to all those who knew him, and his work. But those hands embarrassed me more than I could ever describe.
They were rough hands. They hurt when you shook them. The skin peeling off on the edges of his callused fingers would prick the gentle, smooth palms of an accountant or doctor. I didn’t want to see his stupid hands waving at me as I went to get my diploma. I didn’t want to hear them clapping together with enthusiasm as I shook my principal’s hand. I definitely, definitely didn’t want people to see them around my shoulders as he hugged me after the ceremony.
Thanks to anyone who read it.