Some Months After My Father’s Death

I am watching the movie Twelve Angry Men because there is a character in it who reminds me of him. He is the one who wants to go to the baseball game instead of decide on a man’s life, he is the weak one, the one afraid to reveal what he really feels, the one for whom everything is a joke. He is not Henry Fonda, the tight-lipped moral one. The man is despicable, his weaknesses obvious to all, as obvious as Henry Fonda’s goodness. I watch the movie again and again, loving the black and white of it, soothed by the sound of my father’s voice, the careless pronunciation, the easy shrugging of the shoulders at every crucial question. I sink lower into the dark arms of the sofa. Strange how comfortable the familiar is, how we can even prefer it, however terrifying.