I started looking for him in coffee shops and sidewalk cafes, expecting him to be sitting with his twisted leg, sipping daintily and eyeing the “normals” who moved freely about him, laughing, talking, walking up and down steps, running, jumping, skipping, as he thought about returning to his volcanic fortress, more comfortable with the fire, the metal, all of which bends at his will, bends with his strong arms. I want to take him out of where he is comfortable.
My creative writing professor said, after reading my poem, “My Father, Hephaestus,” “It is dangerous to equate one’s parents with gods.” I agree.
We used to go camping in the Northern woods of Michigan every weekend, where he worked on and raced his motorcycle with other fathers, others with day-jobs, just to have some fun. We’d sell motorcycle parts out of the back of our trailer/camper. I remember the big plexiglass window with logos, symbols and slogans from Yamaha, Suzuki, Ossa and other motorcyle manufacturers. At night, the families—husbands, wives, children, usually without exception—would gather around various campfires and eat, drink and talk, while the kids would continue to play together. I drank my first beer at age seven here, walking around and finishing the half-empty cans on the rocks where the adults sat. My brother, age four, would also drink from these discarded cans. It was also here that I attempted a mammoth bicycle descent down a sandy hill near the campsite with Joey Stinson. My tire got caught in the thick sand, I crashed, and when I came to, I saw all the kids and some adults standing over me. I liked the feeling of just waking up. An unintentional dream.
I usually rode the trails with my Dad, me sitting on the gas tank of his motorcycle, sometimes on the back seat. It was supposed to be non-competitive, though he wasn’t. After asking him to stop so I could change positions on his seat during the previous day’s ride, he left the next day without waiting for me. Too much time lost. Too much time to make up. That was the day it happened.
Years later, he, my brother and I started making wheelchair athletic components, including sports wheelchairs for kids, in our garage in a middle-class suburb of Detroit. My Dad learned how to weld, I learned metal fabrication, lathe, saw, drill, sand, and we spent hours in the hot, claustrophobic garage, door closed because we were violating several building codes, his face lit from beneath through the black mask by the sparking, pale blue light of the welder, twisted into a look of disgust or determination. It was sometimes difficult to tell them apart. He would throw things and yell at us, partly because he couldn’t walk, couldn’t reach the shelves he wanted, perform the task he wanted, partly because we could.
I’ve been searching for Hephaestus ever since. The smithy god, his own leg permanently injured in a fall from Mt. Olympus, he became adept at fashioning weapons for others, constructing marvelous inventions, though none that could un-twist his mangled leg. I’ve checked search engines, department stores, newspaper headlines, all with no luck. The Gods of today must wander surreptitiously down alleys and empty summer streets, sit nonchalantly in the corners of smoky bars, or insert themselves covertly into the poems and stories of unsuspecting writers. I have not found my place, either.
I sometimes find myself wandering in the woods of Northern Michigan, dusty from the trails, or in a canyon in Northern Arizona. There is a danger in searching too hard, I know. I may never find him, or may wander to a place in my dreams and stand there, spinning, falling, lost.
All original material Copyright © 2002 Kurt Lindemann