John Bottoms

I look at my Dad in these Pictures.
I knew my Dad, I mean yeh! he was my Dad.
Of course I knew him. As a child , I knew him.
Perhaps I have always looked at my Dad thru my
child'e eye?!
He was the one that came home late that night,
when I cut my nose wide open.
Mom was drawing a bath for me and my brother and the lofts
were being built in our new Westbeth Apartment.D802.
Ellen Stewart from La MaMa hooked Dad up with.
You had to be an artist in order to get in there.
I had taken a nice block of wood , wanted to float it in the
bath, It was going to make the perfect boat!
I was testing it out in the sink as the bath water was collecting,
I went to rest my elbow on the side of the sink
and as I slipped , I must have sliced the part of my nose
where the upper lip and nostril meet.
Blood everywhere. Mom placed me over the toilet,
as I watched the beautiful droplets of blood hit the water and explode
into a collage of an expanding cloud, my mom rushed my brother to the neighbors.

Grabbed me up, and ran me all the way to Saint Vincent;s Hospital.
I remember her waiting for the light to turn at Seventh Avenue.
And she was telling me to stay calm.
They tied me down an placed a sheet with one small circle for my eye and
one circle for my nose, As I could see this enormous needle come at my face.
I freaked out.
It was horrible.
I got stitches.
The best part of that night was when my Dad came home and
just sat with me in his lap, quietly, in the shadows from the lights that illuminated the hallways
across the way into our apartment.
Quietly sitting there in his arms, I felt safe.
I wondered about the suite & tie
 and the briefcase ~ Must have been important where he was this night.
Because he NEVER wore a suit let alone carried a briefcase.
He asked me all about what had happened. He listened too,
he listened.

These early memories of my Father being around, are bittersweet~
shortly thereafter he packed his bags and left us.
But see he didn't "leave" us..... he left our apartment
but he was ever so present.

Today , I do the math. I figured , every other weekend from friday to sunday
with acouple extra days for christmas plus the months of August.

So 12 months in a year.
Four weekends in a month..... four days to visit in each month
4x12=48days plus acouple xtra days for xmas is like 50 days
plus the thirty days
so that makes like 80 days.... out of 365 days..... huh.

DID I KNOW MY DAD?

Funny how doubt can play a Lead roll in a child that felt abandonment.
I KNEW MY DAD>!

My brother and I had his attention in a sacred way.
He was our father, one whom bathed himself in us.
Perhaps the "limited" visitation
gave him reverence for us in a way
a stay at home father might take "TIME" for granted.!?

It wasn;t an over absorbed : helicopter type of situation
either. We got on his nerves something fierce.
His quiet reading~ ACtoR ways were boring to two
vivacious village kids. The black and white TV
only got channels 5,11 and 13.
Which meant Baseball or Animals, Muppets & Sesame Street.
The time we threw pebbles from the roof of dads loft
down at the dudes working, parking cars ....
AH hello.... a Parking Lot and flying pebbles ~
$500.00 later it never occurred to us we might break a window?!!! REALLY.
But for Dad , forgiveness came quick. There was no time to waste.
Our time was quality time.

Battery Park City became our living room in the summertime. Dad could
find peace in his readings. As Chris an I learned how to climb the tiny
cherry Trees or play Hide & Seek Tag around the fort there.
Then there was Village Skate or Waverly Skate....
Dad would just chill ALL daY long while me an chris would
skate our little hearts out.
That put us into super chill mode, Dad was smart.
He would feed our soul with things to do and then take us
to delicious places to eat , like the Thai joint on Bayard st.
Cheap and delicious. He would always order the Full fish,
head an all.
We would settle in to watch Hitchcock or National Geo.
He would have us learning Chess or
School us on all the pressure points in our feet....
and then the next day ~ it was our turn to show him where
they were. He had the most beautiful toes an feet.

I virtually learned the neighborhood because we would walk
everywhere.
It was rough keeping up with those those super longlegs of his.
My friends would always say my Dad was the tallest Dad they
ever saw.
Six foot 3". That;s right and super Skinny.

Dad was working at the Public Theatre. Those enormous Banners flowing
in the air as we would approach the side entrance in.  The Landmark for me
was that crazy Super giant Black cube that resided in the
middle of the road.....

Or the orange red brick of the 49thStreet Train Station ..where we would always hit
the Howard Johnson's prior to a performance or after a rehearsal.
Chris and I would hang out in the tiny little box seats off to the side
of the stage. He with his MatchBox Cars and Me with my Barbies.
The box seats with red velvet curtains was our little playpen.
I wonder sometimes how Dad got away with bringing us with him to
 his broadway rehearsals. I think it was Joel Zwick that came back there once
and told us to keep it down. I was mortified. It;s a way to learn how to be mindful.
This I learned well growing up around the theatre. I respect all the ups and downs
that my father;s journey brought to my journey.

We were trusted to sit tight, in the audience,
so young.... awaiting the dimming of the lights. It took everything in me not to
tell everyone seated around me ~ how mY DAD WAS PERFORMING>
I knew every song, every line....
I spent my life....well........  eighty some odd days of it A year~
observing, listening, and learning how my father morphed into a new
person for each and every play he ever did before he moved to Minneapolis.
And at that point I was older and following my own path ~ as most college students
do.


Dad ,just living his life, was a pure installation.