Dad Was an Actor by Kelle Schillaci Clarke

Dad was a commercial actor, the most handsome dad on the block. The rest were character actors, all a bit shorter, less symmetrical, more comfortable in their extra pounds and ounces. Not Dad, with his taut but not taunting abs, shirtless during daytime soap breaks, upright on a portable stationary bike that could be easily folded and stored conveniently beneath a bed, a towel slung across his broad shoulders, a sheen of fake sweat beaded on his handsome, pore-less forehead. 

Dad could really lay it on thick. 

Dad did his best acting at home, with us kids. With his in-laws. With the strangers at the door selling pest control services, magazine subscriptions, three dollar candy bars. They’d leave thinking he’d done them a favor by not buying what they were selling. 

Dad’s mom liked to say Dad could sell ice to Eskimos. Our mom said it’s too bad he’s paid in Wrigley gum and cases of Head & Shoulders instead of Jim Beam and Marlboro Reds. That Marlboro Man’s got nothing on my handsome son, Grandma would say, missing Mom’s point as Dad climbed out of our neighbor’s swimming pool, his perfectly distributed chest hair shimmering in the southern California sun. 

Dad could run a six-minute mile and not break a sweat. His hair made of moldable wax, he could sport a middle-aged curl or a twenty-something spike with equal ease; could roll up on a motorcycle for Geico, or in the driver’s seat of an Astrovan, driving kids to Little League with no fear of a flare-up of his chronic diarrhea, thanks to one-dose Multi-Symptom Imodium. 

Dad was the life of every party, manning his friends’ poolside built-in grills while he smoked their Cuban cigars. His friends played middle-aged cops on prime-time dramas, overweight husbands on long-lived sitcoms, recurring extras on ensemble teen dramas. Their shooting schedules slowed down enough in the summer for those dads to work on their tans, their poolside cocktail recipes and barbecue pork rubs, their marriages and families. We’d go to their houses for barbecues, but never stay long. 

“I’ve got so many work offers this summer,” one of Dad’s friends once boasted—a balding mob-boss type in an off-network crime drama—”that I gotta turn ‘em down so I can work on my tan!” He’d laughed, clutching his ample white belly, while Dad manned his grill and drank his bourbon. 

“Maybe you could pass one of those roles my way,” Dad said to this friend, who was eating a hot dog, his young daughter curled into his lap, still wet from the pool, dripping caramel Drumstick on his almost hairless chest. Dad spun the giant, round ice-cube in his drink, flashed his white suburban smile, and took another sizable gulp. “Spread the goddamn wealth,” he said, plunging an oversized fork into one of the burgers so it bled and sizzled in the flame.

“Honey,” Mom said. 

“Don’t,” Dad said, pressing his finger to his lips, his baby blues narrowing, revealing the tiniest wrinkles in their corners. Our sign to leave. My sister and I quickly toweled off, left our hot dogs half-eaten, politely said no when Dad’s friend’s wife offered us Drumsticks to go, even though we wanted them more than anything. 

  I wanted my sister to hate him like I did. 

After lights out, I’d go into her room, whisper in her ear: Dad’s acting. You can’t believe anything he says. He’s got another family. Another son, another daughter. Just like us, across town. He’s going there right now. She’d nod, and I’d feel kind of bad for lying, but maybe it was true. I was also becoming a pretty good liar. 

Dad, with his perfect face and his sad eyes. Dad, who could wear baggy cargos or a slick tux or one of those floppy fishing hats like Henry Fonda wore in On Golden Pond, which he made us watch twice a year, so he could practice crying phony tears. Dad, who could be anyone, but only for a short while. 

“It’s not you and your sister I can’t stand,” he’d tell me, whiskey-drunk after another failed audition. “It’s your mom. She’s the one holding me back. I could be big. You know that, right?”  

Dad, who refused to let himself go, always handsome, always fit, always chasing the next script; Dad, who refused to let us go, when Mom finally had enough of his acting; Dad, who refused to let her go, when she made her way toward the door with a pile of our stuff crammed in a duffel, who grabbed her by the arm, yanked her until she screamed but never broke; Dad, who gave the very best performance of his life in that moment, afraid to death he was losing the only recurring role he’d ever had.  

Kelle Schillaci Clarke is a Seattle-based writer with deep L.A. roots. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Superstition Review, Pidgeonholes, Barren Magazine, Bending Genres, Gone Lawn, Flash Frog, Cease,Cows, and other journals. She can be found on Twitter @kelle224.

10 September 2021