Letter to the Editor: A Road Trip With My Father, by Stephen Capa

April 18, 2054

For a guy in his eighties my dad is a pretty spry old man.  Even though he and my mom moved to a smaller home a few years after my brother and I left for school he still works in his garden often, and cares for their home, and they still walk their dogs together every day.  He naps a lot and his eyesight isn’t great but he has his wits about him and as a picture of what retirement might look like for myself one day there’s little to be desired.  Except perhaps the stamina for long trips on his own.

A three hour drive to a retirement community in Kingston is too much for him to manage, so when he mentioned over dinner a few weeks ago that he wanted to visit some old friends I offered to drive.  He and mom have often spoken of his buddies from some sort of proto guild he was involved with back when “computer games” were still separate things from movies and books and still played on machines that looked like an ancient television attached to an even older typewriter.  I’ve met a few of them, and some like my uncle Wade are practically family.  For all the stories I’ve heard about Akira though I would have sworn he was dead, and I’ve heard at least three different explanations for why Phro had to change his name and leave the country.  It turns out both of them are alive and kicking at Shady Acres Care Home so last weekend dad and I drove up to see them.

I didn’t really know what to expect but my dad was fidgeting with excitement like a little kid as we reached the city.  Approaching the reception area a young woman spotted us and said “You must be Jon Capa and son? They’ve been expecting you.” She directed us to take a lift to a common room of some kind on the second floor, and I’ll never forget the scene that unfolded as I stepped off the elevator.

There was a bored looking nurse sitting in a corner reading, completely unphased by the two nearly naked men who were arguing near the elevator.  The bald one (I learned later was Phro) was on his hands and knees where nothing but a pair of bright yellow Pikachu socks.  He was yelling near the crotch of Akira who was standing in front of him with a house robe flung wide open.  “It doesn’t MATTER if you have an erection or not!”, he said, “It’ll be funny as long as I’m sucking your dick!”

“But it can’t look like I’m bored or something or it won’t make any sense!”, Akira was telling him just as they both looked up and noticed dad and I watching.  Phro quickly took Akira’s flaccid penis into his mouth and began fellating while Akira sputtered, “Oh shit!  Look … no … just, okay just go back in the elevator and come out again it’ll be funnier that way!”

Here I had thought we’d somehow walked into the wrong room and intruded on a married couple and it turns out these two were simulating the whole thing as some sort of joke for my father, they weren’t even homosexual!  I thought for sure he’d be as confused as I was but this was were I realized how little I understand my dad’s generation. 

He laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen!  He actually ushered me back into the elevator, screeching with laughter the whole time, went back down to the lobby and then up again to find them both still at it.  This time Akira’s face was turned upward, and he was biting his lip and holding Phro by his bald head pumping him with limp member, barely controlling his laughter and Phro hardly managing to contain his own in between tiny gags on retired dick.

All three of them laughed till they were hoarse and I thought the nurse would put them on oxygen or something, it was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever witnessed.

The rest of the visit was deceptively average.  They told stories about their glory days, talked about people and things I’d never heard of, and laughed a whole lot more about things that didn’t seem remotely funny to me.  Akira did take his penis out once more as we were leaving, I thought he was going to pee or something but he just started swinging it against my dad’s thigh and they both burst into laughter again.

Shady Acres Care Home

I tried to get my father to explain what was so funny on the drive home but all he would say was that the turn of the century was “A different time” and that I was “too young to understand”.  I mean, everyone knows someone who lived through the years when gays were mistreated but I’ve never heard about homosexuality being a joke, can anyone explain this?

One thing he did say before napping most of the way home was that “It only looks gay son, but what you saw in there was man love”.  I don’t understand the difference, maybe I never well, but I’m glad my dad has friends who will go to such great lengths to make him laugh.  If I’ve got friends like that when I’m his age I’ll be a happy man indeed.