Walk a Little Straighter

Walk A Little Straighter

Billy Currington

I remember lookin' up to look up to him.

An' I remember, most the time he wasn't there.

I'd be waitin' at the door when he got home at night.

He'd pass me by to go pass out in his chair.

An' I'd say: "Walk a little straighter, Daddy,

You're swayin', side to side.

Your footsteps make me dizzy,

And no matter how I try,

I keep trippin' an' stumblin'.

If you'd look down here, you'd see:

Walk a little straighter, Daddy,

You're leading me."

He stumbled in the gym on graduation day.

An' I couldn't help but feel so ashamed.

An' I wasn't surprised a bit when he didn't stay,

He stumbled out before they called my name.

An' I thought: "Walk a little straighter, Daddy,

You're swayin', side to side.

It's not just me who's watching,

You've caught everybody's eye.

And you're trippin' an' stumblin',

And even though I've turned eighteen,

Walk a little straighter, Daddy,

You're still leading me."

The old man's still like he always was,

But I love him anyway.

If I've learned one thing from him,

It's my kids will never have to say:

"Walk a little straighter, Daddy,

You're swayin', side to side.

Your footsteps make me dizzy,

And no matter how I try,

I keep trippin' an' stumblin'.

If you'd look down here, you'd see:

Walk a little straighter, Daddy,

You're leading me."

"Yeah, walk a little straighter, Daddy,

You're leading me."

I still remember the first thought I ever had about my dad. I was about three or four years old and we had stopped on the side of the road because of a flat tire. He changed the tire with no problem at all. I tried to lift the flat tire and couldn’t get it to budge and I remember thinking that my dad must be really strong if he could lift that big heavy tire. The very next thought I had was how safe I had to be if such a strong man was there to keep me from harm. I knew my dad would always be there to protect me.

That was until the first time he hit me. For the first six years of my life I was convinced that my dad could do no wrong. Yeah, he would ignore me. He’d yell at me to keep it down. He never wanted to play with me. But he was still my dad and I was convinced that he loved me no matter what, and nothing he did could make me stop loving him. He was just tired from work, like my mom always said. Too tired to play. Too tired to help me with the model planes I wanted to build, even though I was way too young for them. My dad was just too tired.

And then when I was six years old and brought home my first report card and it wasn’t all that great, he smacked me. Told me I could do better. I remember feeling like I’d been betrayed. Here was this man that was supposed to love me and keep me safe and he had just hurt me. It was one smack that didn’t even leave a mark, but it hurt far more than any physical pain.

It only got worse from there. He went from the occasional slap, to full out hitting me. And he went from one smack to more than one each time. Eventually it turned to punching and kicking. He even bit me one time. I lost track of how many black eyes and other bruises I had to explain away. My dad even broke my nose twice. The only reason it’s straight is because the second time he broke it they were able to set it so that it would look normal, rather than be crooked like most people’s noses that have been broken.

I had a teacher that stopped believing the lies I told and tried to get me taken away from my abusive and neglectful parents. That teacher ended up getting fired for making false accusations because my parents lied to the cops and the cops believed my parents over the teacher. This happened three other times. Someone would try to interfere, my parents would lie, threaten me if I didn’t lie, then things would go back to the way they were. My grandparents even tried to adopt me, but my parents wouldn’t allow it.

But the strange thing is, I never really stopped loving my dad. I never gave up the hope that maybe deep down inside he really did love me. That he didn’t really feel like I was a mistake that never should have happened. I guess I was being naïve in thinking that, but it never stopped crossing my mind.

Even as the abuse built up walls of hate and cynicism and doubt, I never stopped loving my dad. If asked I’d deny it and say that he was a selfish, drunken asshole. I resented him for the longest time. Nothing I ever did was good enough for him. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t make him happy that I was born. I couldn’t make him glad that I hadn’t been aborted.

And then I got my “fancy job” as he called it. He actually looked proud of me when I told him about it. It was the first time that I ever remember him looking proud that I was his son. It felt fucking good too. To know that Jack Kinney was proud that I had a great job with a future. That he was actually happy that I wasn’t going to end up like him. He never forgot to give me his “don’t settle down” speech. Always throwing in that he never should have been a family man, but I ignored it because it always came on the heels of the proud smile when he’d ask me about my fancy job.

Never in my life have I ever hurt as much as I did when he looked me square in the eye and told me that I was the one that should have been dying instead of him. He never understood what it took for me to tell him that I’m gay. I was so exhausted after that. It took every ounce of my strength to tell him and every bit of my control to keep from hitting him. I just……I wanted him to understand. I wanted him to accept me anyway. I wanted to see that proud smile again. I honestly don’t know why I thought I’d see it.

And then when I saw him holding Gus. The way he looked at my son, like he was so happy to have a grandchild that wasn’t a spoiled, annoying brat like my sister’s kids. Like he was proud of the fact that his son had a son and the family would go on. And I thought for just a second that maybe he might actually love me after all. Maybe deep down under the alcohol and the bravado there might actually beat a heart. And even though Jack Kinney had never given me any reason to believe otherwise I couldn’t keep from thinking “Maybe he really does love you after all.” And I know that I loved him, even as hard as I tried not to. I mean, after all, he’s my dad.

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