grog joint. ‘In his younger days he was a hard man’, Dennis told me and Tom. ‘You could hate him one minute; you’d love him the next. He had that sort of charisma about him’.
Moving on Dennis wanted to remember the good times with ‘old Dadda’ but the anger and hurt about his childhood weighed on him. One day, not long before our first interview, he’d been overcome by it while driving his truck. ‘I felt this building up inside of me and Dadda come and I had to stop’. He’d pulled over and slammed his palms against the steering wheel. And I said to myself, You bastard! What you done to us, to us kids and just walked away (voice breaking). Never once did you inquire how we were and then not only that but to do it again! You’d think after the first you wouldn’t let it happen again. I thought, you bastard, you bastard I hate you for it! The next minute Dennis flipped, saying ‘I’m sorry, Dadda, I’m sorry’. As suddenly as the anger had taken hold it subsided; Dennis started the truck and went on his way. Dennis said his resentment surfaced a lot these days, while he was lying in bed or washing the dishes. He never raised it with Dadda
The photos of Kathleen, Dadda, and Jimmy that sit on Tom’s sideboard
51
