Bananapants: A Bonkers Romantic Comedy
Bananapants: Chapter 15

“Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little?”

― Sylvia Plath, The Journals of Sylvia Plath

My father stood in front of his desk. He wore dark gray suit pants, a light blue suit shirt, a dark blue tie, and no jacket. His shirtsleeves had been rolled up to his elbows. I decided I would take note of everything blue in this office while we spoke. Hopefully, it would keep me grounded, no matter what happened.

“Desmond,” he said. His tone and features were inscrutable, as always, but the hard edge I’d been expecting seemed absent. A surprise.

I nodded in greeting and walked to the center of the large space. We would not shake hands and we wouldn’t sit. My dad rarely sat when he met with people, which meant they didn’t either. I knew this because I used to study him when I was little. He’d let me entertain myself in his office while he worked. Between meetings, he’d get down on the floor with me to play or let me sit on his lap and we’d draw. Or read. Or talk.

The carpet had specks of blue in it. And the sky outside the window was also blue.

“How are you?” he asked, not sounding curious. If he’d sounded curious, I would’ve been concerned.

“Fine. You?” His eyes were blue. Everyone said they were the same color as mine.

He gave his head a subtle nod, his gaze never leaving me. “Pretty good. Why are you here?”

“I need a favor.”

His eyes narrowed. “What is it?”

“It’s about your microarray wireless system for large compounds. I have a friend⁠—”

“No.” He leaned back on his desk and crossed his arms, his features seeming to fall without moving at all.

“No?” I asked, even though I’d heard him fine. His tie was three different shades of blue, a paisley pattern. Probably something my sister bought him. She had good taste. In fact, I suspected she’d gifted me that exact same tie.

“No. I’m not helping you,” he said, looking disappointed. In me.

I didn’t smile at the unsurprising development. But I did sigh silently. Staring at my father, his frosty hostility, I wasn’t disappointed. He’d done exactly what I thought he would.

Regardless—for Hareem and for Ava and for myself—I tried again. “Please, listen for a second.”

He shook his head before I’d finished speaking. “Desmond. I’m always going to love you. You’re my son.”

Wait. What?

I stiffened, surprised. That was something new. It was so surprising, I forgot to replace something blue in his office. I felt my lips part as we swapped stares. Eventually, my gaze turned inward as I tried to decode these words. Why would he say that? Didn’t he⁠—

Oh. I get it.

I slid my hands into my pants pockets. “Mom told you to say that, didn’t she?” He had a blue paperweight on his desk made of glass. Cobalt blue.

My father didn’t respond, just glared at me, the muscle at his jaw jumping. His silence made me think I was right.

Huffing a tired laugh, I shook my head. Those were the words I wanted him to say, and they weren’t even his own. “Fine. Thanks for saying it, even if you don’t mean it. But listen to me, okay?”

“I do mean⁠—”

I spoke over him, I didn’t want to talk about whether or not he loved me. “I have a friend. His name is Hareem. He has a patent, but he signed⁠—”

He stood abruptly and lifted his voice over mine. “Are you asking me about the microarray wireless so you can break the law, yes or no?”

I gritted my teeth and searched the office for something else blue. The spine of a book on the shelf to the left of his desk. “Dad. Please. Listen.”

“Yes or no?”

I smiled in frustration. “Yes.”

He turned away, releasing a short laugh. He also sounded frustrated. “I wish you would learn from my mistakes. I wish⁠—”

“I have.”

“Have you? Because you remind me so much of myself when I was twenty. But you’re twenty-five, kid. It’s time to grow up.”

My chest burned. Three blue book spines on the shelf and a vitamin bottle with a blue label.

Temper in check, and with all outward appearance of calm, I said, “You’re judging me based on your own history, and you’re not listening. I have a good reason to⁠—”

“Despite what Seamus O’Malley or your aunt Jem might have convinced you, there’s never a good reason for you to break the law, Des. Never.” He faced me again. I could see he was working to control his temper as well. He couldn’t talk about Seamus O’Malley or Aunt Jem without murder in his eyes.

There was a long history there, one I didn’t know fully, but I did know some. Seamus—Uncle Dan’s older brother and my cousin Cillian’s biological father—was a real dirtbag, but he was also the first person who saw me as someone with potential and promise instead of someone to manage, coddle, and pity. My first job had been for Seamus. Ironically, according to Seamus, my father’s first job had also been for Seamus.

Both jobs had been various shades of illegal. Or more precisely, technically legal but potentially illegal.

What a pair we made. Someone might’ve thought we were related.

He dipped his chin. “Like you, I thought what I did wouldn’t hurt anyone, and it ended up getting my brother killed.” My father paused here, breathing through the rare display of vulnerability. He never talked about his brother, who’d also been named Desmond. But when he did, I could see he still blamed himself for my namesake’s death.

Eventually, composure recovered, he continued. “I know what I’m talking about. I’m not helping you with this.”

“You don’t even know what this is. You won’t let me explain.”

“I don’t need to hear it. The answer is no.”

“Has it occurred to you that I’m not nearly as worthless as you think I am? That I might have a good reason⁠—”

“No. And you aren’t worthless. But you are so much better than this life you’ve chosen. If you would’ve put half as much energy into living honestly as you did circumventing the law, you could’ve done anything you set your mind to. You simply needed to try.”

He was so fucking patronizing, and I couldn’t stop the words from spilling out. “And what other life was available to me, Dad? I spent years trying to be better. I had a GED that I worked my ass off for. I went to community college in Boston for three weeks before I had a manic episode, crashed Grandma’s car into a liquor store, and got shot by the owner. This was followed by a major depressive episode while I was in the hospital undergoing electroshock therapy for four months. I have no memory of that time, by the way. Like the whole year didn’t happen.”

My father dropped his eyes to the carpet.

Why I kept talking, I had no idea. All I knew was that it felt impossible to stop. “I went back to school, forcing it, believing that if I simply tried hard enough I could be better, and I had a psychotic break. They kicked me out, said I was a danger to the other students. I couldn’t keep a regular job, not at the manufacturing plant, not with the sanitation department, not even the one Nana arranged faraway from Boston, at the Newark Airport, not even that. I tried and I was fired each time for missing work due to hospital stays. What did you want me to do? Sit at home in Grandma’s basement and play video games all day? What?”

“Des—”

“You’re the one who is delusional here if you think there was a place for me in society back then doing honest work. I couldn’t integrate into your society. There was no room for someone like me. You all wanted me to do honest work, but the only honest work I was fit for, the only work I was trusted with, was mind-numbingly boring for me and could be done better by robots. I ask you, where is the value in that? Why can’t you understand, I needed to feel pride in at least one part of my life in order to crawl out of the hole I’d been pushed into by my own brain. I needed to stop feeling so fucking helpless all the time!”

I’d wanted to do something I was good at, something challenging and interesting, something that didn’t make me feel like a loser and a failure, and what the hell was so wrong with that? Because society didn’t like me stealing from rich assholes for other rich assholes? Didn’t like me being their courier for hire?

Well, society had told me to go fuck myself repeatedly from a very young age, so—as far as I was concerned—society could go do the same.

“Don’t use your disorder as an excuse,” he seethed, eyes flashing. “You sound like your aunt Jem⁠—”

“Oh, fuck off with that! I am nothing like Aunt Jem⁠—”

“I know. I know you’re not your aunt Jem. But your aunt Shelly did the same thing with her OCD until your mom and I put our foot down. Not everyone with a mental health disorder is a criminal or a liar. Hell, the vast majority of people with bipolar live healthy, productive lives, integrated into society. You would never know they even have it!”

“And we all know how much you would love life if no one knew I had bipolar. Maybe I could dress up as a hedge fund manager for Halloween. Or a doctor. Or a lawyer, maybe? Maybe I could wear the mask all the time!” It was a moment of déjà vu. We were shouting over each other. Exactly like last time.

“—I’ve read the statistics. I’ve read so many books on this subject. Own it, Desmond. Stop making excuses for making a choice! No one forced you to work for Seamus.”

“It’s not an excuse. It’s a fact. Seamus is a dirtbag, I completely agree. But he was the first person who looked at me and saw potential and not a tragedy. Do you know how critical that was? How much I needed that? I was eighteen and⁠—”

“You could’ve chosen better, if you’d wanted. But you were too—” He cut himself off, bringing his fist to his mouth, his eyes closing.

I stiffened, my stomach dropping, and I rocked back on my feet as the blow landed. Damn.

I forced myself to breathe through it. In. Out. Repeat. Counting to ten. Even so, my eyes stung. Why did this still hurt so much?

Swallowing twice, I had to clear my throat before speaking. “Because I was lazy. Right? Prideful and lazy and defiant.”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t—we shouldn’t talk about this.”

I’d grown up being told I was lazy, mostly by teachers, tutors, and coaches. My father had bought into this because it made sense to him when no other explanation did. He could understand lazy. And teachers, tutors, and coaches had been the experts after all. Why, if I was so damn smart, didn’t my grades reflect my intelligence? If I was so good at sports, why didn’t my performance measure up?

Because he’s lazy.

No word existed that I despised more than lazy. I wasn’t lazy. I’d never been lazy.

Meanwhile, my mom didn’t believe them, and this had caused stress between her and my dad. Legit shouting matches, with him always apologizing after the fact but never understanding her perspective or why she didn’t trust the experts. He used to say, “You’re too soft on him. He needs more discipline. He’s exactly like me when I was his age. Trust me.”

She didn’t buy that either. She’d pushed and pushed until I’d been diagnosed with ADHD. Unlike most boys, I had the inattentive type, not the hyperactive type, which was why it had taken so long for me to be diagnosed. Interesting fact, girls are also diagnosed later than boys and less often because girls usually have inattentive type rather than hyperactive.

Hyperactive type is an inconvenience for everyone, thus everyone is motivated to “fix” it. Inattentive type is only an inconvenience for the person suffering from it, so it often gets written off as laziness, or ditziness, or flakiness. Good times.

But once I’d been diagnosed and had been put on meds, I got straight As and scored all the goals in soccer. This lasted three years. And you know what? Never, not once during that time, did he admit he was wrong. He’d never apologized for calling me lazy.

You’re twenty-five fucking years old, Des. So what, your dad didn’t apologize. Buy a pogo stick and get over it.

I did need to get over it. And I would. It was part of that mountain I was still climbing.

But what I didn’t think I would ever get over was when I had my first panic attack followed by three weeks of psychotic episodes every night between 5:00 and 9:00 p.m., like fucking clockwork, and my mom was at her wit’s end. Do you know what he did?

He asked Aunt Sandra if there was any chance I was lying, faking, punching walls, and breaking my own fingers for attention.

For attention.

Meanwhile, I’d been terrified. Legitimately scared out of my fucking mind. I’d woken up every day dreading every night when my brain took over and my body no longer belonged to me. No wonder so many people confuse bipolar 1 for demonic possession and call the Catholic Church about an exorcism.

But the thing was, I didn’t hate my dad. I’d never hated him. I knew he was a good person. He cared deeply about my mom, my sister, and me. In his own way.

His own way.

His way.

He also carried the guilt of his brother’s death with him, which he blamed himself for, an albatross around his neck, the filter through which he judged the world. He had no tolerance for criminals. Like his former self. Like me.

How could I get through to him? Did he think anyone would sign up for electroshock therapy and lithium if they didn’t have to? Didn’t he think I’d wanted to go to high school and college with everyone my age and have fun and get a job and a house and a family and kids and a dog and not have his secretary look at me like she expected me to pull out a knife or an aluminum foil hat?

Maybe we would never get along. I’m sure, deep down, he still questioned whether or not the psychotic episodes, the mania, the depression had all been attention-seeking behavior. Nothing had changed. Whenever we talked, it was like we were speaking two different languages. I was so fucking frustrated.

Nevertheless, I had to try. At least one more time, I had to try. It had been seven years. I didn’t want to spend the next seven years kicking myself for not trying hard enough.

Rubbing my forehead, I counted ten breaths, in and out, thinking. Thinking, How do I get through to him?

Lowering my hand, I lifted my eyes. His were on me, but they felt bracing. He had his guard up, waiting for another attack.

“What if I told you this was my last job?” There was a chance it would be.

If Ava and I got together, I’d definitely do something else. Sue kept threatening to retire and it was honestly way past time. I knew she’d already be living it up in Hawaii if I left the business.

My juvenile record of petty theft had been expunged when I’d turned eighteen. Against my father’s wishes, my mom and grandparents had successfully buried the aftermath of my psychotic break and mania in Boston. My father wanted me to call the police and take responsibility. My mom had grown hysterical and threatened divorce. He’d apologized to her and backed off.

Thus, I had no criminal record. According to the paperwork—which, let’s be honest, is all that really matters to society—I was a day trader with a spotless past, who dabbled in app design, and paid his sizable tax bill on time. I’d even been audited. Passed with flying colors.

My portfolio was substantial enough, I didn’t need to work for the rest of my life if I didn’t wish to. But I wasn’t built that way. I needed to be active, physically and mentally. I needed a challenge. Maybe I’d open that aikido studio I always threatened Sue with. Something like that, where I could make my own hours and run a business without answering to a boss for how I spent my time. It wouldn’t be the end of the world to cancel classes once in a blue moon if I had a bad day.

After a long moment, during which I felt like a specimen under a microscope, my father finally responded. “I wasn’t going to say lazy. I know you’re not lazy. But if you told me this was your last job, I wouldn’t believe you.” He sounded tired, but no longer angry. “Words don’t count for much with me, not when there’s been years of actions contradicting them.”

“What if it was more than words? What if⁠—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice granite. “I’m not helping you break the law.”

“And you’re not willing to hear me out?”

“Not if it’s about your job.”

“Okay.” I nodded, finally accepting his answer. Fine. It was fine. I’d leave here knowing I did everything possible. I was done.

Wait. Almost done.

“One more thing. Don’t worry, it’s not illegal. You’ll be getting a direct call from Henri Wickford. He needs a new private security firm. If you could put him off and not give him an answer one way or the other for a few weeks, that would be great.”

“Wickford? We don’t offer private security outside of family—but—” He seemed to be searching his memory. “Wait, the Wickfords? Oil and gas? Alleged AI drone and arms dealing?”

“Yes. Those Wickfords.”

He made no attempt to hide his disappointment or disgust. “You’re tangled up with that family? They’re worse than Seamus. A whole other level.”

“Well, at least we agree on one thing. If Henri or someone representing him calls, just⁠—”

“Desmond,” he ground out, evidently close to losing his temper again. “I’m not doing you any favors related to your work. I don’t care what it is, don’t ask me for anything again. Please, don’t.”

Well. That was that. I wasn’t going to push him on this or ask him for any other favors. I was done.

“Okay. Fine. Message received. Thanks for your time.” Giving him a nod, I turned and walked back to the door.

There was a potted plant near the door. The ceramic holding the plant was blue. It looked like something my mom might’ve made in one of her pottery classes, and that would make sense. My father had arranged things in his office when we were kids so he could look at the stuff he liked best from his desk. My drawings used to be all over the back of his office door. They weren’t there now.

I’d placed my hand on the doorknob when he called out. “Desmond.”

Taking a deep, bracing breath, I faced him. “Yeah?”

“How long are you in town?”

I shrugged, spotting the blue drapes bracketing the large window, surprised I hadn’t noticed them before now. Maybe because the sky was blue. “I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you—” He also seemed to take a deep, bracing breath. “Why don’t you come over for dinner? I’m working this weekend, but your sister is in town and I know your mom would like to see you.”

“I see Mom,” I said without emotion. The time for emotional investment was now over. I had none left. “I took her out to lunch three days ago. We already have plans for tomorrow.”

He blinked, frowning, visibly confused. “You do?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you guys doing tomorrow?”

“We’re going to a play. A matinee. Then dinner after.”

If I wasn’t mistaken, hurt passed behind his expression. His eyes lost focus and he slowly leaned back on the desk. This, also, was surprising.

Wait. Did my mom not tell him? Shit.

“I see.” He swallowed. He nodded. “How often do the three of you—uh—get together?” Without me. The unspoken words were implied.

I stared at him for a time, then shrugged, not wanting to answer, not wanting to hurt him even more with the truth. My mom wanted to see me. My sister wanted to see me. They’d made space for me in their lives.

Seven years ago, my dad told me he didn’t want to see me again, not until I “got my life together.” It had taken me five years of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to accept that this was his decision and out of my control. And the hurt he felt now, that was all his doing.

He was a line-in-the-sand kind of guy. My sand had no lines. They kept getting washed away by waves, and I’d accepted long ago there was no such thing as controlling the ocean.

Not wanting to watch him process hurt and having nothing else to say, I turned to the door, opened it, and stepped out. I felt Patricia’s gaze on me as soon as I closed the door. She’d probably heard everything we’d shouted and nothing we didn’t.

Great. I fought an aggravated laugh. Just fucking great.

I was angry and dejected, but I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop from laughing. Or shouting. Like a crazy person. But you know what? You have to have a sense of humor about people assuming you’re crazy. Otherwise, it’s demoralizing.

So, because why not, I grinned widely and winked as I walked past. “I like those pearls on you, Patricia,” I said, leaving her round-eyed and gawking as she lifted her fingers to clutch her necklace.

I couldn’t help but think as I left, Betty would never gawk, she has more dignity than that.