Perfectly Broken, Chapter 5

Sex and Dads and Rock & Roll

Hello dear subscribers,

Chapter 5 of my novel Perfectly Broken is posted below. (A little late, my apologies.)

A quick reminder, probably unnecessary, but here you go: this is fiction. I write that because when Perfectly Broken was published, some folks thought, some even insisted, it was memoir. It is not. I did draw from my life, and there are similarities, but the vast majority I made up.

Depending on my mood, the notion that I couldn’t have created something so seemingly real can strike me as either compliment or insult. Mainly, I’m just glad my work moves people, regardless of their conclusions.

I hope it will move you, too.

When I was on my book tour, Laura Relyea Adams put it well in ArtsAtl: “To quote Papa Hemingway: ‘From all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive.’ Warren has adopted this philosophy wholeheartedly. Though the circumstances of his own, real life are not so different than those of [Perfectly Broken], he has used what is familiar to him as framework to construct a vibrant, dramatic story...”

Amazon reviews here. Goodreads reviews here.

For new subscribers, here’s the deal: with the serialized Perfectly Broken, paid subscribers get the full chapter, unpaid subscribers get an enticing preview. Want to get caught up? Chapters 1 , 2, 3 , and 4 are live. Each is about a “10-minute read.”

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, you can be one for at as little as 5.00 a month. In addition to my serialized novel delivered to your inbox weekly, you’ll get more Premium Content, and of course my deep gratitude.

Thanks so much for reading, subscribing, sharing.

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Chapter 5: This Old Man

Once again I wake in the early morning dark, hyper-alert, heart pounding from another dream of my father. When meds were strong in my blood, these dreams were infrequent, usually seasonal. But now, as I’m tapering off, two nights in a row—our first night in Shulz house, and now our second.

I throw back the covers and sit at the mattress edge, bed warmth eking from my skin. A bittersweet ache I define as my father’s presence shimmers inside me.

The dream is always the same: the old man is smiling, whisper-close, shape-shifting, yet definitely my father. He fluctuates from cipher to an elder version of himself, an alternate-universe dad, one who sobered up and survived, living on in another reality; wispy white hair swept back from his broad, lined forehead, gunmetal gray eyes gazing from deep sockets, cheeks russet with health, thin upper lip, fat lower, square jaw, hands crosshatched with pulsing veins, and big feet in beaten Weejuns. No socks.

In the border between dream and wakefulness, I am flush with the wildest of implausibilities: the old man’s death has been a misunderstanding, an elaborate joke. Joy bubbles up, accompanied by a summery forgiveness, a weightlessness, freedom from the ballast of past events. This fragile state never lasts long; with each breath, my personal timeline clicks in, my mind recalibrating to consciousness, drawing me back, sandbagging me with memory.

A heavy, long sigh escapes my parched lips. I inhale the cool, mold-stung air like a man surfacing from a great depth, and I am back.

I opt not to wake Beth, curled now like a mama squirrel around our son. Over the years, my wife and I have expended a lot of energy hashing over how my dad’s suicide shaped and damaged me, especially as I was the one who found him. We rake over notions of my problems springing from that dark event, as if it is the root of some clinging vine I’ll always need to manage but never be free of. A great story, that. But I’d just as soon not hasten the return of my vindictiveness, encroaching now from the horizons of my thoughts like rot at the edges of a leaf.

I pull on my sweatpants and robe and head downstairs, where I turn up the furnace, ignite all the eyes on the stove for additional warmth, and busy myself with coffee, trying to hold onto the decaying echoes of my father’s presence. I shun the light switches, trying to remain in his shadow.

The sky is paling, mountains distinguishing themselves against the blue as the oncoming morning pushes against the window. Coffee scent rises. Warmth from my steaming mug courses from the ceramic into my palms and up my forearms. Finally, I surrender, sitting at the nook as recollections unspool like a movie into my forebrain.

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It’s July 2, 1973, the summer of my ninth year. My folks, who separated several times, have reconciled again. But my journalist dad cannot quite get his shit together. After numerous missed deadlines, the Charlotte Observer has fired him. My mom is transitioning from edgy flower child to Mary Tyler Moore hip, working in administration at Mercy Hospital. Daddy’s home, typing away with manic focus on his electric Smith Corona, cigarette burn on the SHIFT key. He’s writing letters, making carbons, swigging PBR from a can, sort of keeping an eye on me, but not really.

I’m leaving for the neighborhood pool. Daddy is distant, but my observation that his typing sounds like tap dancing elves reels him in. He laughs from the corner of his mouth and advises me to stay out of the deep end. It is my last memory of him alive. The laugh, and the advice. Stay out of the deep end.