Ah, he's probably dead by now
I once caught my father taking a dump in the snow, I was like, “busted, dad!” He was so embarrassed, pleaded with me never to tell mom. He said he had no business doing it outside like that - we lived right in the suburbs, it was around 10am on a Saturday morning, neighbors probably saw - and mom would consider it the last straw and divorce him. I didn’t know what to do, what do you say when you see your dad with his pants down, laying one right in front of block for the neighbors to see. Sure it was snowing (much more then it did this morning) but still. About 4 weeks prior, dad had poured baby powder all over the floor in the TV room (before we had the hardwoods) and peed his name in it. Mom caught him that time and was totally shocked. Dad had had an affair once, with a priest in the local church, mom found out and went nuts. It made for a pretty tough Christmas that year. And then, only about a year later I catch him shitting outside. I didn’t tell mom, only it didn’t matter because about 1 month or so later he flipped out and smashed the toilet bowl with a sledgehammer. We never figured out why he did it, he just quietly left the house about 3 or 4 days later and we never heard from him again. Rumor had it he spent most of his time in a hotel somewhere in Indianapolis, but we never knew for sure. He had some money, I think, but he never sent us any. Mom was pretty well off anyhow, I think she knew this was going to happen eventually because dad was getting pretty strange for a few years she said. I never saw most of it, except for the last few times when he was more open about it. But she said that he used to color her bras and underwear with crisco mixed with lard and blue food coloring. Bunch of shit like that. It was a while ago though - almost 30 years now. I was 14 or 15 at the time. But seeing the snow this morning just reminded me of dad somehow. I spoke to my grandmother (she’s still alive! She’s almost 96) a few weeks ago and she said she heard from him about 5 years ago but not since. He was pretty broken down by then. I wonder if the same thing will happen to me?