Dirty Dave

The breeze is warm with a hint of salt. The waves crash against the hull of the boat, cutting through the chop like a Japanese chef’s knife. It’s a rhythmic song as we bounce over the waves. The sun is beating down; you can feel your skin browning under the heat. To the right, Hollywood Beach. To the left, nothing but open ocean. The water is a perfect, crystal turquoise. You can look over the side and see clear to the bottom, even in thirty feet of water.

I was seven or eight years old when my father bought our first boat. Almost immediately, my mother became "allergic" to the sun. She’d break out in hives something fierce, but that didn't stop him. Between my sister and I, he was going boating, sometimes even by himself.

Most Sundays, we’d head from North Miami Beach up to Port Everglades inlet, then south to Dockside Deli. It was lunch on the water that drove him. Vicky and Denise were our servers. We’d dock the boat and dive into grilled Mahi Mahi sandwiches, conch fritters, and New England clam chowder. Sometimes we’d split peel-and-eat shrimp.

Other times, we made it north to "Fort Liquordale" to the Southport Raw Bar. Carmine owned it and Buddy was the manager. My buddy James was a cook there back then. They had it all, stuffed clams, fried clams, steamers, conch chowder, conch fritters. The list went on and on.

I loved boating, and I hated it.

The "hate" was the end, the taking it back into port. The cleaning of the fucking thing. The maintenance. Drying it down. Huge forklifts would pluck the boat out of the water and set it on racks so I could dry the hull. That was when my father showed his true colors. If I didn’t do it the right way, the name-calling started. He’d berate me right in front of the workers. I began dreading Sundays. It wasn't an escape; it was a chore day where I could never relax.

March 25, 2026. You would have been 85 today.

I’ll never forget the phone call from my mother. It was December 4, 2017. I was in Georgia hunting deer, perched in a tree stand overlooking a drop. I could hear movement all around me. My phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Call... R... F... r..." The signal was ghosting.

"Let me call you back," I said.

I climbed down, fast. I walked to the dirt road until I saw the bars on my screen and called her back.

"Call your father!" she answered.

"I have nothing to say to him!"

"Jeffrey... he wants to apologize. He wants to ask you for..."

You’ve been gone from this earth for nine years now. I remember your therapist coming into the ICU saying, "Your father should not be here, there is nothing physically wrong with him." On December 30, 2017, you took your last breath anyway.

I tell people my father wasn't a man of sage advice. He didn't have stellar quotes. But one day, I was complaining to him about owing taxes. He looked me in the eyes and said, "I really don’t mind paying taxes, it means I’m making money." There’s so much irony in that. Before he took his life, he had what he called "nothing."

He never taught me how to ride a bike. Never taught me to throw a football or hit a baseball. My father was "good" at other things.

When my daughter was born, I thought things might be different. My mother had beaten stage four cancer, and I hoped for a shift. I was wrong. Our relationship hit new lows, to the point where I stopped talking to him for six months before the end.

My daughter was four then. She doesn't remember her grandfather. I had hoped she would have memories of you like I had of your father, he was my safety net. With him, I was almost guaranteed no abuse.

I wish you were here, not for me, but for your granddaughter. She has turned into someone I could have never imagined. She is brave. Intelligent. Supportive. Kind. Fiercely loyal. She is an advocate and a protector. I truly could not ask for a better child. I tell her stories about you. She knows some things, but not all. She, and the world, will never know all of them.

I used to tell people you never taught me anything. I was wrong.

You taught me forgiveness. You taught me that I can accept an apology from someone who hurt me, who abused me. You taught me how to be a loving father to her by showing me everything I never wanted to be. I taught myself I would never treat my daughter the way you treated me.

So, I thank you for that, Dad. Thank you for teaching me to accept your apology. For letting me truly forgive you so you could take your last breath knowing I meant it. You taught me to be the best version of myself. To embrace my faults and turn them into strengths. I am, and forever will be, resilient.

Funny thing. I feel more like that boat now.

Dirty Dave. Cutting through the waves of emotion.

Happy heavenly birthday, Dad.

Note from Jeffrey:

This series isn't about trauma for the sake of it. It’s about the heat that forges us. "The Soul Behind the Flame" is a look at what happens when life burns you, and you choose to cook anyway. We all carry scars; I’m just choosing to show mine so that maybe someone else realizes they don’t have to be defined by the person who burned them.