Lying for Bruce
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 10: Family Politics
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Oren Siedler
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Someone is hammering on the door with hard knuckles. Or maybe a fist. The back door slams and I hear footsteps hitting the gravel fast. I sit up quickly in my bed to look out the window and catch the back of my father as he disappears into the vacant block behind our house.
The hammering on the door becomes louder. Two policemen enter the house. They grill me as they search my father's bedroom. Once again I am left to lie for my father. I look the police in the eyes and tell them with steely calm that my father has gone on a holiday and I don't know when he will be back. They are rummaging through his underwear drawer. "What's his name?" one of them barks at me. My mind goes blank. I panic and feel the blood pump loudly in my ears. I have been coached by my father to recite his various aliases. I look away and mumble a name, hoping like mad I have chosen the right one. I hold my breath while I wait for their response. They say nothing to me, leaving the door open as they leave. My hands are shaking. I realise that my father will not be going to jail, and I will not be left alone, 15,000 kilometres from my mother. Not this time.
It is 1979 and I am eleven years old. I am living in California with Bruce, my father. I never called him "Dad"; the term just didn't fit him. I would try it occasionally but it felt uncomfortable, like shoes that were too tight. He taught me to call him by his name and as my mother also referred to him as Bruce, I never questioned it. My friends would ask, "Why don't you call your father ‘Dad'?" and I would reply without much thought, "He's just not like other dads."
BRUCE HAS TRAVELLED CONSTANTLY THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE, crisscrossing the United States in his old car – a restless man driven by a deep longing, always on the move. But I have never been sure what he is looking for or running from.
He travels the world, too, stopping to visit old friends throughout Europe. They greet him with accepting bemusement and wry smiles, and their looks say: "Here's Bruce again, passing through like the wind. Here today, gone tomorrow. No responsibilities, no job, no wife ..." And they wonder, "Is he happy?"
He camps out in their backyards in his old tent, not wanting to disturb the flow of the house during his brief visits. Known as an eccentric yet helpful guest, Bruce leaves his hosts with gifts procured with his phoney credit cards or he fixes their cars or buys gifts for their kids. And he's gone in the morning without a trace.
Bruce has a brilliant mind. His mother expected he would become a scientist, an engineer or a professor. "He could have done anything with that mind," she would say. "Instead, he just wasted it." Bruce devours literature, science, history, words, numbers, facts, ideas, formulas, often reciting a verse or a piece of obscure information during a conversation involving a seemingly unrelated topic.
While road tripping, Bruce carries a tattered and well-used Beethoven piano concerto music book in his car. He entertains his hosts – and potential lovers – with dark, intense concertos, surprising his appreciative audience with his unexpected talent. Like his demeanour, he plays unflinchingly, with technical proficiency and little emotion.
Bruce's attraction to scamming began at a very young age. He remembers his father changing the date on his monthly rail pass in order to extend its validity period. This impressed him and planted the first criminal seed in his young mind. The memory stayed with Bruce throughout his childhood and adolescence. Although modest in comparison to what would follow, Bruce's scamming began in college. He discovered that by turning the dormitory Coke machines upside down, money spat out like a Las Vegas slot machine. Another favourite scam involved eliminating all traces of university ownership from borrowed library books, then selling them to the unsuspecting local second-hand bookstore. Bruce's scams were soon discovered and he was kicked out of college. His mother cried for days.
It was 1965 and Bruce was 23 years old. He was smart and rebellious, ready for the alternative movement that was rapidly exploding across America. He began experimenting with LSD and that was the beginning of a new outlook on life.
BRUCE WENT TO JAIL FOR 60 DAYS WHEN I WAS FOUR YEARS OLD. It was the first of many arrests which were to follow. He was charged with possession of marijuana after a surprise bust during a party in our house in Vermont. But Bruce used his jail time constructively and he devised a method to steal cars from car yards (or car dealerships). Once he was released, he was eager to put his plan into action.
I remember the first Volkswagen that arrived at our house. It was shiny and green and I liked the smooth, round fenders and the little round lights that looked like bug eyes.
My mother came to the front door when she heard the car pulling up. I ran out to meet him and scrambled onto his lap in the front seat and grasped the steering wheel with my small hands.. It smelled like plastic. I liked the little buttons and dials on the dashboard.
"Bruce, are you going to tell your daughter that her father's a thief?" My mother yelled from the doorway. She disappeared back into the house, slamming the door behind her.
"What's a thief?" I asked Bruce.
"It's someone who takes something that's not theirs."
"So ... whose car is this?"
"Well, it's ours now. But I took it from a big company that has lots and lots of these cars, and tonnes of money. So it doesn't really matter if I take one of their cars."
WHEN I WAS SEVEN YEARS OLD MY MOTHER AND STEPFATHER TOOK ME TO AUSTRALIA. They wanted to get as far away from Bruce, the "crazed criminal" as they could. Moving to another hemisphere seemed like a good solution. When Bruce eventually found out where we were living he wrote to my mother reminding her of their divorce agreement – joint custody of me.
"Who's the letter from, Mum?" I asked.
"Your sociopath criminal father," she replied. She sighed as she stuffed the letter back into the envelope. "He wants to see you."
I was not excited. I was nine years old and I had not spent much time with my father. My memory of him was vague. I knew from Mum that he was a "bad" man and that he stole things.
My mother and her new husband wanted to shake Bruce from their lives completely. Unfortunately for them, having me meant that they were irrevocably tied to him. It was decided that I would fly to the United States to visit him, the first of many trips to follow. My mother was concerned about the influence he would have on me and the kind of living environment he would provide. But, despite her concern, she decided she did not want to deprive me of a relationship with my father. Her mother had robbed her of a relationship with her father and she did not want to repeat the painful family legacy.
A packet arrived in the mail several weeks later: inside was an airline ticket with my name on it. I scanned the confusing numbers; I was leaving in two weeks. When we drove to Sydney Airport I had a small suitcase and a carry-on bag packed with colouring books, pencils, fruit and a sweater. I sat in the back seat and cried.
"Oren, don't worry, it will be fine. You'll make lots of new friends. You'll do fun things with your father. He'll take you shopping and you'll get lots of nice things that he'll buy on his credit cards." My mother shot my stepfather, Ajanta, a look and I saw his eyes roll.
"I don't want to go!" I whined.
"Don't be silly, it'll be fun. You get to go on a big jumbo jet. They'll bring you nice food and take care of you. And in a few hours Bruce will be waiting for you at the airport."
I sat in silence for the rest of the journey. My mother and Ajanta chatted together in the front seat and I wondered if they cared that I was leaving. I suspected that they were happy to see me go.
A laminated card that read "Unaccompanied minor" was placed around my neck at the United Airlines check-in counter. My mother gave me a hug and then handed me over to an airline representative who took my hand and led me through the customs hall to the front of the line. She took me to my seat on the plane and left me there to cry alone. I watched the passengers filing past, one by one, hoping to see a familiar face. No one looked back at me. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I began to hiccup as I tried to suppress whiny moans. I wiped my sleeve across my face and turned my head towards the window so no one would see me cry.