Another bullshit night in suck city

One of my favourite reads over the last 5 years has been Nick Flynn's "Another bullshit night in suck city".
Its a personal memoir of Flynn's relationship with his alcoholic, itinerant and very absent and errant father.

Flynn worked in a hostel for the homeless for a number of years in Boston, USA and the book is about his meeting his father at work one day (his dad was a customer), and his subsequent reflections and recollections of his upbringing as he tries to unravel how this situation came to pass.
Flynn writes beautifully and you can feel the ache and yearning in his heart for a father who always manages to remain a puzzle, always belligerent and at odds with the world.

The book rang a bell for me in a very empathic and emotional way.
My father suffered from depression and various other psychological problems from as early as I can remember. My mother divorced him when I was eight and my sister was seven - this was in '74.

He was an alcoholic for a number of years both during and after the marriage and my mother did a good job in depicting him as some kind of satanic figure who would bring nothing but pain into our lives if we had any contact with him.

He used to try and see us and phone occasionally after the breakup, but my mother would just go ballistic and threaten to dump us on the street if we even dared to utter the word 'dad'...we had to call him by his christian name only - as if he was an impersonal acquaintance or friend of the family.

I never remember my father being cruel or even disciplining us, he was always affectionate when he wasn't strangely distracted, lost in his own world or out drinking with his father. The distractedness and lostness I later understood to be classic signs of depression.

We lost contact altogether for about 10 years and then he turned up on my mum's doorstep one day when I was about 18. Stinking of booze, croaky voice, unshaven, disheveled and speaking my name. He'd known the address for years, but apparently had never got the bottle up to get on a train and make the twenty mile journey to our home.

My mum let him in out of shock I think, more than out of any sense of compassion.
I remember feeling quite numb - knowing it was 'dad' but somehow feeling disconnected and embarrassed. He didn't make much sense, he was rambling about being sorry for the past, staying in hostels, being punched in the face by some Rasta etc, etc.

My mum made him a cuppa and a sandwich and we just made weird small talk, him asking me about my job, how old I was, 'are you courting?' and so on. We talked about my sister (who was out) and various other family members.
Anyway he asked the time after about an hour and said he's better go and catch his train.

There was an awkward goodbye and then he disappeared. My mum just moaned about it being typical, stinking of drink, turning up on the doorstep and all that, I left her whingeing and I remember going in my bedroom feeling shattered and somehow unreal.

It was like meeting my own personal Lazarus.
I suddenly remembered that the local village railway 'station' could be overlooked from my bedroom window, and I thought no, he's not catching the train back from there is he? I assumed somehow that he'd got a bus from the station in town, but when I thought about it, the place he came from was on the direct line through the village.

I gently and very nervously peered through the window...and sure enough there he was!
A tiny, scruffy, strange little figure, all alone, pacing around, looking up and down the tracks, stepping in and out of the shelter muttering to himself.
A thought flashed into my mind, what if he's gonna top himself!
I was transfixed and anxious, but somehow fascinated - like an impartial observer who's watching a good movie.

So I watched and watched, this part of me, my blood and kin, enacting his eccentric performance. After about twenty minutes, I heard the rumble of the train and felt my heart leap. The train slid into view, obscuring him and the platform. I looked in the windows to see if I could spot him, but I was just greeted by the bored looks of afternoon commuters.
The train shooshed slowly away and the platform and tracks were bare,no blood, mangled bodies and screaming travellers.
Did he really exist? Did he actually come to my home? Who or what was that experience?

I felt an overwhelming sadness and disembodiment, I felt like I had suddenly died and become a ghost myself. I totally understood at that moment what loneliness and rejection must feel like for so many people in this big dark world.

I'll write the second part of this story soon.
It is the reason why I have embraced the philosophy of the outsider and the artist, it is these experiences I had with my father I now realise that make me who I am. His brief ghostly apparitions and eccentric mutterings were the truest and most powerful influence on my development and identification with the underdog.

Thanks Nick Flynn for helping me identify the most important and interesting part of myself.