My father was by today, before my four-hour nap. We didn't really feel like going out for lunch so I just made us some instant grits. We sat for a long time as I played different songs for him: Gil Scott-Heron's "Whitey on the Moon"; The Accused, Beck, Public Enemy. He said when I played Gil Scott-Heron's "Who'll Pay Reparations on my Soul?" "We should give him some cheese. It goes with his whine." I kept swatting at flies with a piece of rolled-up newspaper, and he said to me, "You're doing it wrong--I bet I can get him in one try." "Bet you a dollar," I said, and he took the bet. He waited till the fly landed on my little cabinet where I keep my videos & manuscripts, and slowly crept up on it--then whack! I thought the fly got away, but we found the dead fly on the floor a few minutes later. Then he started to give me advice on how to kill flies like an expert--he was very proud for having won the bet. "First of all, you want to have a wide roll of newspaper," he said; "and you want to draw it back slowly, so it's ready to spring straight down, instead of bringing it back and down in one motion." "I know how to kill flies," I said, grabbing the newspaper--"I can kill flies, I can kill fucking flies!" and I began to whack the wall hard again and again with the roll of paper. It was all torn up when I was done. There hadn't been any flies around. When I was done I looked at my father's eyes and saw it: he was afraid of me. What have I become, that my own father is afraid of me? He left right after that--in his very next sentence he said he had to leave. I felt like saying, "It's all right--I'm not going to hurt anyone," but he hadn't said I was, so I had to leave everything unspoken between us.