On Sawdust and Brownie Songs

... and the first man I ever loved.

My dad’s been gone for more than twenty years. I wrote this before he died (I added the ending later) and it was published in an anthology titled When We Were Young. It was his favorite thing I ever wrote—go figure. I hope you enjoy it. And even though I’m not a fan of “Hallmark holidays,” happy Father’s Day, y’all.

My dad, the OG badass.

He’s not even six feet tall, but she tells her friends he’s ‘six-two.’ She’s not lying necessarily; she believes this to be true. Maybe it’s his booming voice or the muscled arms straining the sleeves of his tight white T-shirt that make him seem so much bigger than other men she knows. For sure his thick, salt-and-pepper hair adds a few illusory inches to his height.

He’s old, too. (Actually, he’s just a kid, but she can’t possibly know that.) He must be because he has a million stories and tells jokes that she doesn’t understand and he doesn’t explain. People laugh a lot when they’re around him though, so she knows he’s really funny.

Always, the white t-shirt.

“Want to go look at some houses?” he asks sheepishly, knowing what her answer will be. He builds houses—big ones, with a hundred bedrooms each and fancy circular driveways and huge pools out back with fountains and slides and imported Italian tile. He builds them with his bare hands, which are relentlessly callused and raw for it. She’s fascinated by his hands, loves to look at and touch the hard, cracked skin, the impossibly tough patches at the tips where fingernails must have once grown. She thinks they’re incredible, strong and purposeful, so she doesn’t understand when he tries to hide them from their waiter or the guy at the counter in Sears.

She wants to build houses when she grows up, too. She loves surveying the land before the ground is broken and having him explain where the front door will be and helping him tie ribbons around the trees that get to stay. When the foundation is poured, he lets her press her hands into the gummy cement. He’ll use a stick to carve her name and the date next to her handprint and she is nearly overwhelmed by the thought that it will dry like that and be there forever.

Your parents could dress you like this in the seventies and nobody even called CPS.

Her favorite part is the framing, mostly because of the sawdust. It smells exactly like her dad. It’s a scent she will never tire of, one that twenty or forty years from now will transport her so quickly to this time and this place that her heart will ache and tears will fill her eyes.

Eventually, every trace of sawdust is swept away as plastered, pristine walls replace the splintery two-by-fours. It is at this point that she assumes the role of decorator, suggesting colors for the carpets (always pink) and offering her opinion on how high the diving board should be (very).

Could little Jenna BE any happier?

She snuggles next to him on the enormous, bench-like front seat of the battered Ford, a truck that may or may not have seatbelts—no one’s ever bothered to look. She can’t see over the dashboard but since she doesn’t have any idea where she’s going or what she’s missing, she doesn’t mind this. It’s hot and the Ford doesn’t have air-conditioning, and even though her tiny thigh sticks to his muscled one she doesn’t move away. Every so often he plunges his head out the window and howls like a coyote and she thinks he’s the funniest man in the world.

She teaches him Brownie songs and he teases her about her friends, her clothes, her half-painted fingernails. They make up names for her cat’s new kittens. He croons old commercial jingles to her in a funny, deep voice that makes her laugh. When she starts laughing he does, too, until his ears turn so red they’re almost purple and his eyes water and he tells her she has to stop right now or he’ll wreck this truck. He tells her about when he was young, about all the crazy stunts he pulled and the trouble he got into. His face clouds over when he describes how his dad would get so mad at him afterward, scary-mad. She can’t stand the thought of him as a frightened little boy with a terrible, mean dad yelling at him and grounding him—or worse. She’s glad when he changes the subject.

During the tragic popularity of the Dorothy Hamill.

They stop for ice cream, even though it’s not even lunchtime yet. He doesn’t tell her what kind she should get or that she can only have a single scoop or ask her if she’s going to finish the whole thing. He gets a small root beer float and she orders a large vanilla shake with pieces of a million different kinds of candy bars blended into it, and they eat right in the car. He doesn’t take a pile of napkins or tell her to be careful, and when she drips some on the seat he just laughs and wipes it off with his hand and tousles her hair with his sticky fingers.

“Want to go look at some houses?” her husband asks now—needlessly—knowing what her answer will be. He builds houses, too. They don’t sing Brownie songs or stop for ice cream and the Ford—of course, it’s a Ford—has icy air conditioning, but she loves it just the same.

She can’t help it; she’ll always be a sucker for the sweet scent of sawdust.

Oh, how I miss the guy in the middle.

Tell me what you love (or miss) most about your dad in the comments.