Ironically, I’d already made a good chunk of change at my first solo show at Charboneau Gallery selling realistic art. I was living the dream my dad had hoped to live from the day he’d picked up a paintbrush. And here I was, drinking because things weren’t going perfectly.

The last thing I wanted to do was walk into my dad’s house and say to him, “Hey, Dad, I’m doing what you always dreamed of doing, but I can’t hack it because that fuck Stanford Wentworth said my paintings didn’t have any heart, and he was right. So instead of manning up and fighting through the pain, I’m crumbling like a sand castle in a slight breeze.”

Yeah, like I wanted to tell my dad I was pussing out on an opportunity he would’ve killed for twenty five years ago.

Hence, all my drinking of late and my reluctance to face my dad today.

I wheeled the Camaro onto a paved private road and drove until we came to the gates and stopped. The iron gate had a circle set in the center. The circle held a fancy polished gold letter M. I could never decide if it was cheesy or awesome. Mainly, I didn’t really care. My dad could spend his money on whatever he wanted. He’d paid for it the hard way when his drinking had chased off my mom. After she left, he’d painted like crazy and raked money in by the truckload, trying to fill the void. No matter how much he made, all the cash in the world couldn’t replace my mom. Not for me or my dad. Eventually, the drinking took over so bad, my dad stopped painting altogether and just drank.

I grimaced while punching a code into the little box bolted to a pole coming out of the ground in front of the gates.

A second later, the gates swung slowly open.

I’d only been here a few times in the last four years.

Why did these gates make me think I was about to get swallowed? Maybe because the last time I’d been in my dad’s house, it had been a dark dungeon. You could feel the sadness seeping out of the walls in every room. All the curtains were closed, bottles of alcohol were scattered around on every flat surface in the place. Any sign that my dad was a painter was nonexistent. No art hung on the walls. There was no studio space set aside. As far as I knew, all of his painting supplies were stashed in a storage locker in Encinitas. That was thanks to Franco Viviano, the owner of Spada Gallery in L.A. Viviano was the guy who sold my dad’s work and had helped make my dad rich. My grandad had told me the whole story.

Apparently, when my dad had gotten the idea in his head to burn all his paintings and his art supplies in a drunken stupor a year ago, he called Franco and told him he was quitting. That was kind of funny because my dad didn’t work for anybody. Franco just represented him. But my dad told Franco he was quitting and burning all his art and supplies.

According to my grandad, Franco had jumped in a car and driven down from Beverly Hills the second he’d gotten off the phone with my dad. Franco had called my grandad while he was driving south and the two of them met up at my dad’s house. They didn’t want Dad doing something stupid. In the end, after calming my dad down, Franco had hired some guys to remove everything and put it safely in a storage unit in case my dad ever decided to paint again.

Sadly, before my dad had started going downhill, his house had been a painter’s paradise. Now it was a drunkard’s tomb. I hated it.

I pulled my Camaro to a stop in front of the house. It was still nice on the outside. It was only about eight years old. Give it another decade, and it would show signs of wear if he didn’t do any maintenance, which he probably wouldn’t. He couldn’t even keep himself showered and shaved, let alone take care of a huge mansion. Eventually the outside would catch up with the inside.

“Oh my gosh,” Samantha gasped, “is this your dad’s house? It’s huge.”

“Yeah.” Should I warn Samantha what awaited us inside? Or let it hit her like a hammer? I didn’t think it mattered.

“How long has it been since you were here?” she asked.

I squinted into the sunshine, “At least a year?”

“Are you nervous?”

“That’s an understatement,” I said sarcastically.

We walked up to the cut glass front doors. I rang the doorbell. It played a Bach piano sonata or some shit. The things people did with too much money.

I could see the silhouette of someone walking up to the front door.

Moment of truth.

The door opened smoothly and silently. None of that horror movie creaky hinges shit. Yet. Give it time for the rust to set in.

“Paidí mou!” my dad beamed, all smiles “So good to see you!” He attacked me with a bear hug and slapped my back. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been here! I’m so glad you’ve come.”

I hugged him back, but after a second, I said, “All right, Dad. I think you’re going to break something.” He seemed even stronger than when he’d hugged me in court at my trial. And he looked even healthier.

He released me, “Are you getting soft on me?”

“Yeah, as if,” I quipped. “But I think you’ve been hitting the weights again. Am I right?”

“I have,” he smiled.

Man, I don’t think I’d seen my dad this happy since before my mom left. But something told me this was all an act and the second we walked inside the dungeon, the truth would come out.

“Samantha!” my dad said. “So good to see you again!” My dad went in for a hug, but I think he saw that Samantha was a little overwhelmed, so he patted her gently on the shoulder. “Come inside, you two. Can I get you something to drink?”

I almost said, “Something without alcohol?” but I bit my tongue. Since I was old enough to know better, my dad’s drinking had driven me nuts. I’d always given him shit about it in the past. Who was the asshole now?

“Sure,” Samantha said. “I’m pretty thirsty.”

We walked into the huge entry hall with the big spiral staircase. The chandelier overhead was the size of the Eiffel Tower if it were made of crystal and hanging from my dad’s ceiling. Everything in the room was so damn bright and white.

What happened to the dungeon?

We walked down a marble hallway to the big kitchen. It was clean too. No booze bottles anywhere. My dad opened the Sub Zero. No bottles of vodka. Just bottled water, fruit juice, and milk.

“What can I get you two?” Dad asked.

“I’ll take a water,” Samantha smiled.

“What she’s having,” I said.

My dad uncapped the waters and poured them into clean glasses from the cupboard.

“Dad,” I asked, “what did you do, dip this place in a bottle of bleach?”

He chuckled as he poured the second water. “No, that much bleach would’ve burned a hole in the ozone layer,” he chuckled. “I’ve got a maid coming in five days a week. She’s got elbow grease to spare.”

“Five days a week?” Samantha marveled. “How much are you paying her?”

My dad frowned but smiled. “You really want to know?”

“Err, I mean,” Samantha stammered, “I need to find a job. I used to work at a convenience store but that didn’t work out.”

“A convenience store?” my dad gawked. “That sounds terrible.”

“It was,” Samantha groaned. “But maybe being a maid would be better. I wouldn’t have jerky customers coming in all day long. Anyway, I just wondered what a maid gets paid.”

“I pay the maid well. I hired her from an agency. I can give you their number and put in a good word for you. Maybe they can find you some work.”

“Really?”

“Sure. But I imagine most maids work during the day,” Dad said. “Don’t you have classes at SDU?”

“Yeah,” Samantha sighed.

“Well maybe the agency has some of those maids who clean office buildings at night. I’ll look into it.”

“Could you?” Samantha asked hopefully.

“Definitely,” he said. “Hey, I’ve got something I want you to see, son.”

“I’m all eyes,” I quipped.

My dad smirked at me and nodded. “Funny. You know, Samantha, this boy of mine is quite the character.”

“You’re telling me,” she smiled as we walked through the house.

He had so many rooms and hallways it was like walking through a museum. For the first time in years, there were paintings everywhere hanging from all the walls.

“Man,” I said, “there’s a shitload of paintings in here. It’s starting to look like the Sistine Chapel.”

“Is this all your art, Mr. Manos?” Samantha asked.

“Call me Nikolos,” Dad smiled. “Some of the paintings are mine, others are from fellow artists. I always like to trade paintings with artists I respect.”

Sam joked sarcastically, “Is that why I don’t see any of Christos’ paintings?”

“Whoa!” Dad laughed, “she has a tongue, doesn’t she!”

I sort of expected that to rub me the wrong way, but Samantha said it with such affection, it was obvious she didn’t mean it harshly. And my dad had no idea what I’d been going through lately. At least I hadn’t told him. Maybe my grandad had? It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to bring it up.

“So what did you want to show us?” I asked.

“In here,” Dad said as we entered a huge room at the back of the house.

Light poured in from outside. The room was walled in by glass. It was white and clean and inviting. Things were organized, unlike the constant mess he’d worked in back in the day when he was doing abstract, even before the drinking had started. In those days, the studio had been messy but exciting and flamboyant. The perfect setting for an “Artiste’s Studio.”

This studio was calm and thoughtful. No raucous bullshit. All the painting supplies were racked and organized. Canvases were lined up in neat rows. Any supplies not in use were neatly arranged or put away in drawers. Yet it had this inviting feeling, like I wanted to dive in and start painting right here myself. It was the perfect balance halfway between a disaster area and an antiseptic surgical theater.