Invisibility Michael J. Czuchnicki February 7, 2005 1018 words

My father had a super-power.  Yes, he did.  He had, for real, something possessed only by the greatest of the comic book heroes.    We were Mickey Mantle wannabes; GI Joe’s with plastic guns; and bright, four-eyed book-worms, afraid to talk in class.  Small, weak, and helpless – we would have traded for a magic power in a heartbeat.   How then, could we not know that Dad had one, and was trying to give it to us?

Through the prism of our eyes so many things were wrongly important: to be the strongest man in the world, the fastest, or the tallest.   We each idolized our fathers, and desperately wanted to win those battles where we compared them.  The rivalry was tough and the tactics were brutal; but the prize was so important.   The winner became a somebody.  

We were young and blind.  It was only when I had children of my own that could I see and know my father’s gift.    He now rests eternally – but sometimes is present, as real as when he watched over me when chickenpox invaded our home.   Dad is seen in my reflection; heard in certain phrases that pass my lips; and is in my sons. 

But it is not Dad’s presence, but his absence, that earns him the ultimate victory in the verbal joust, “My Father is…”   You see, his special power was that he could become invisible.    This really happened.    I’ve watched him vanish – poof – suddenly he was no longer.    It could happen many times in the same day, or not for weeks.  But, lucky me, he never left my eyes, not once, not ever. 

His club conducts a fund drive for retarded citizens every spring.      The men work hard collecting outside stores, at the train station, and by all the major intersections.   They carry signs, wear funny hats, and display an open humor for all to enjoy.  Our town always responds generously.  Contributions are made by many and collected only by a few.   When you hear “good job”, it’s a sincere compliment, not a mean joke.  

Dad would walk down the line of cars stopped at the light and catch tossed coins with his plastic pail.  Some cars spouted money while in motion; Dad’s bucket tracked their drivers’ moving hands in a masculine pas-de-deux.   Their laughing “Yes!”   amplified the coins’ jingle.   Rare was the rustle of bills; though increasingly often as the years passed and the erosion of monies’ value measured the decline in his strength.

Our family does not possess a monopoly on the power.  Anyone can become invisible.  Their sex, age, or color does not matter.    Spotting those with the gift is easy – once they are pointed out.   This lesson was engrained into me young, and is being passed on.

There is, for every son, a special time when his father stands tall, a white knight astride a charger, the conqueror on the field of battle, victor of a game of tug-of-war on a sun-warmed beach – ever golden in memory.  We had gone into New York City to see the Circus perform in Madison Square Garden.     The arena sits on the site of the old Pennsylvania Railroad Building, once one of the great buildings in the world.  

The tracks still remain, with century old tunnels now going nowhere.  Its echoing passages have become dwellings for the downtrodden – alcoholics, drug-addicts, and the mentally challenged – those who have few options as to where to live.  They line the hard walls; use rags as pillows, and cardboard as protection from the cold.  Experience has taught that noise attracts attention; and pity, money.   There are croaked songs, drumsticks’ tap, and tuneless guitar.  Scrawled signs tell sad stories.  Foul-smelling and mouthed; or mute with catatonic hands outstretched – in the midst of a crowd they are alone.  Businessmen, travelers, and working-people usually just pass them by.  Sometimes, in their hurry, they step over the dirty, motionless legs.  

The troglodytes of Penn Central are invisible to many.   Like Dad and his club-members, they intrude into other’s lives.   The difference, of course, is that instead of asking aid for others – the miserable of Penn Central only ask help for themselves.   It was that day, for the first time, that I understood his lesson.

We were not rich.  Dad worked hard, appreciated value, and would not throw money away.  But his strong, square hand – scarred from a life-time of work – always dove into his pocket when asked for help.  A couple of dollars wouldn’t impoverish us, he explained, but mattered greatly to those in extremis.  He doubted that any of the homeless lived so simply to scam.   Always, though, he gave of himself.   

Most acts of vanishing go unseen, but sometimes they are predictable.  It happens to the many Santa’s who endure the cold; wherever stained Styrofoam cup is held by dirty hand; and when cheery “hello” and bucket extended by square hand is greeted by cars speeding past or stopping far away.

Cell phones have become modern wands, making the near, far and the distant, present.     They make avoiding easier, but do nothing when invisibility is desired but denied.   Embarrassment does not kill; it just makes the recipient want to die.   Worse than accidents however, is the unseeing by habit, whether child’s tear, the need of the ill, or of the elderly.   

Our house was known in the neighborhood as one to come to when you needed help.    And he made it easy.  Was there a flood in the basement?   Forget about borrowing.  Dad would bring a mop and pail “to exercise”.   Need to sell some chocolate for the basketball team?   He would explain that the 14th commandment was to eat chocolate.   Did he hear of disease or death?   He would sit quietly with you all evening – just because he was tired – and would thank you for giving him the opportunity to rest.  He lived by the rule of helping, without counting any remembrance rebounding in our hour of need.

A white knight on a charger – yes, that’s my father.  It’s official, too.  He’s a Knight of Columbus.  And, by the way, his horse became invisible too.