Daddy
A little girl in Pocahontas pajamas. Christmas in Florida, so the raccoon-embroidered top is short-sleeved. Red-rimmed eyes. Grasping onto the silver police badge. Don’t leave. He carries her and her legs rest on his tactical belt. After a late night, he leaves his gun on the coffee table. She knows not to touch it, but sometimes, when he lifts her up or hugs her too tight, it presses into her.
Four Christmases later, she’s wearing a red nightie, dancing to “Like a Virgin” on the bed without knowing what any of it means, floral Thursday panties flashing with every hop. The news is on in the living room. When she walks out, her mom jumps, turns, changes the channel. Go to your room. She does, and turns on her own TV, little and boxy encased in pink plastic. Police shooting flashes across the screen. Her dad isn’t home. She changes the channel.
He was a bad guy, they tell her. He took Daddy’s gun, pointed it at Daddy. It was Daddy or the bad guy. Drug dealer. Attacked Daddy with the strength of a man numb with rock. Coke. Snow. Didn’t feel fear like Daddy. Gun shots to the chest killed him before he could feel pain. She clutches his arm, fiddles with his badge out of habit. Her head comes up to his baton now. With guns and tasers, she doesn’t know why he still carries a stick around. It feels old, like it belongs in a black-and-white photo, instead of on her father’s hip.
She’s fourteen. Daddy gives her a book and a can of pepper spray. The book is a horror novel. It fits on Daddy’s bookshelf, the monsters and monster-like humans all weaving together to show her what is wrong in the world. The can of mace is pink. Daddy teaches her how to protect herself. Just in case. It doesn’t make her feel safe. It makes her look around every corner. When she grows up, she’ll be afraid to run alone at night, her own shadows from the streetlights chasing her.
She and Daddy go to San Francisco, but she calls him Dad now. Somewhere between a shared strawberry milkshake and a walk along the pier, they make a wrong turn. The streets are quieter. She leans in closer to Dad. Feels his gun on his hip, feels safe. They wait for a bus. No trolleys trundle through here. Across the street, she sees a woman being dragged into a laundromat by a group of men. No washers are tumbling clothes. A single light is on inside, a bulb hanging in the entryway. Enough to see. She knows the look of a man with a loaded gun. She knows the look of fear on the woman’s face. The bus arrives; they step on. Daddy doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t know if he sees it or doesn’t want to see it. She never asks.