My Dad's Razor

"Swish, swish."

My whole childhood I remember my father saying that as he walked into the basement to shave. It was a weird ritual he kept up religiously, trimming every single morning. Sometimes I didn't even see any hair on his face, but he would go down nonetheless. My mother always told me that everyone had a sort of a habit, or quirky thing they did, some were just more noticeable than others. That was before she died. I always wanted to know what my own habit would be, and every day I'd go up and ask her to tell me, so I could know I was different from all the other kids. She'd always ruffle my hair, smile, and say, "Time will tell, Danny. You just have to wait for it." I really wanted to have something special like that, so I could be more like my dad. I ended up seeing him less and less, especially after Mom passed.


Things were really tough then, I was busy with high school, dad was working crazy shifts at the office, and my older sister barely had any time to do anything with anybody between work and college. Stuff started to get worse after she moved out. For one, meals were always on the fly, warm up half a pack of macaroni for supper, a note saying there was left-over take out in the fridge, sometimes no meals at all. I saw dad on Sundays, in the morning we'd eat eggs and toast together(the one meal each week that was scheduled), he'd read the paper, I'd play little games on my phone or maybe do some school work, then came his inevitable time to shave. He always seemed so happy, and even though I was sixteen he'd still say his cheesy little line "Swish, swish," and scamper off to the basement. All other days and times he was in a perpetual gloom, depression, never even awake enough to be angry at anything, just sad and quiet. I was glad he could find something to be happy about, even though it was a little weird.


High school was going well, I was getting good grades, not that my father cared. I had a couple of friends, which was great for me, since home no longer had any feeling of comfort. Things seemed to be looking up in my life, but it was just the deceptive calm before the storm. Dad lost his job. The house was mortgaged. I had to get a job just so we could eat. We sold furniture, mom's old jewelry, the TV, games, books, anything we had of value that we could pawn off. It didn't seem like Dad was even trying to get a job. I think he still got some sort of unemployment check, but he never shared that with me. He'd sit on the couch, staring at where the TV used to be, in complete silence.


Dad lost weight. He started shaving more. I could tell he was getting worse, mentally, physically, both. I started to think he was getting some sort of disease with the way he moved himself, Aspergers, Alzheimers, dementia, I don't know much about those types of things, but he was becoming more detached and unresponsive. Every day cuts showed up on his face after he came up from shaving. I had grown my facial hair out to some sort of a beard, if the skimpy hairs on my chin could be called a beard. He stopped sitting on the couch, and just stood around waiting for his designated times to shave. I didn't have much time to spend worrying about him, I had steadily dropping grades, two part-time jobs that were constantly conflicting with each other, and a car that broke down regularly, the one thing of some sort of value that we hadn't sold.


One day I came home from work late at night, Wednesday, I can't remember the exact time, after midnight probably. Dad was humming downstairs, shaving. I hadn't seen him at all that week, with the crazy schedule that I had. I sighed, thinking about confronting him about our money problem, to try and prompt him to help out. I hesitated to go talk to him, what if he really was
having age-induced mental issues? No, he was dad, he can't just "get" a disease like that, it's not a common cold, right?

Deciding that I really did need to ask him for help, I began mustering the courage to go down to talk to him, but I heard his humming halt abruptly. He paused, maybe a minute, no more. Then I heard him begin to walk. His feet dragged, they were slow and heavy as he
labored up the stairs. The door opened up, with light shining into the hallway. Another pause, he shut off the basement light, then came up, in darkness. I figured now was as good a time as any, so I started on the little speech I had prepared in my head. "Hey Dad, I was wondering-" he interrupted by holding up a finger into the light, motioning for silence. I smelled beer on him.


"Hush, hush. Danny," he walked forward, the light going slowly up from his toes, now up his legs. "Tell me, Danny," up his torso now, he stood stalk still with the line of light ending at his neck, a few feet away from me. "When was the last time you gave yourself a good," he began to move forward "old-fashioned," the light reached his chin, "shave?" He was now fully in the light, his face
a mass of blood from cuts of his razor, dripping down his neck, staining his shirt, covering his red hand, wielding his prized straight edge razor. "Remember Danny?" He motioned his hand in some sort of liquid motion, reminiscent of the old days when he used to-"Swish, swish, Danny. It's time for you to get cleaned up."


He lurched forward with a speed and jerking motion only a drunkard could master, the blade missing my face by a hair's breadth. "Danny, don't fight your father." He became faster, swinging his arm, stabbing, screaming now "Danny! Danny stop!" I tried to back out of the house but I collided with the fridge, losing my stance I fell to the floor, my legs knocking his out from under him. His arm came down with his body, he screeched as it sunk into my shoulder. I screamed and kicked him off, he lost hold of his razor, leaving it in my shoulder, bleeding down my chest. I ripped it out, freeing the blood to flow more forcefully out of the gushing wound. Distracted, I didn't see him hurtling himself back to me, wrenching the razor from my hand and scoring my cheek with it,
ripping a layer of flesh off of my face.


Both of us were screeching at the top of our lungs as I was wrestling him off and he trying to kill me. My arms on his, he used his weight to push the blade on my forehead, I wrenched his arm to
the side as the blade dragged across my skin in a bloody line. Once again I tensed my legs up and kicked him off, the blade going with him. Somehow, after I kicked him off of me, he managed to
flip himself around onto his blade, so when he fell back down, his razor went right into his chest. His death was instant, straight through his heart.


Years have passed. I'm twenty now, I needed plastic surgery from the damage I received by my father's hand. Each day I wake up, go to work, spend a day with my co-workers, the only "friends" I seem to have, and come home by myself. Most nights I stared blankly at my television, just as he had done, aimlessly staring at my own reflection. Each day is a struggle just to wake up and convince myself that I deserve to live after that day, or sometimes I wonder if I did the world a favor. I can never think the latter without punishing myself, from starving myself, to depriving myself of sleep, often times just self-flagellation.


I can never know if he had just snapped, and launched onto the first person he saw, or if he was planning it. I will never know if he really hated me as a son, or if he just wanted some way other than a simple suicide to be with his wife again. I have to live with my father's blood on my hands, which haunts me every night, but even worse than his soul's weight are his words, those words that haunt me every time I look in a mirror.

"Swish, swish."