My Father Needs a Urine Sample — By Chris Girman

artwork by Daniel Finaldi

‍My father’s eighty-year-old hands have betrayed him. Collegiate football injuries taunt the vertebrae of his lower neck. Degenerated discs lean against ligaments no longer loose. The nerves in his neck pinch like a Mint Milano—his favorite cookie—in a child’s fingers. His hands are red and swollen, the back of his hand like the padding of a hockey glove from his Midwest Catholic high school.

“Open it,” he says, handing me a small plastic cup with a red lid. We’re in a private bathroom stall at a clinical lab, his blood newly drawn, a urine sample waiting to be taken. A new infection has shaded his hands and forearms a maroon color with blotches of deep purple, the skin dry and flaking. I squat behind him, close enough to reach around and lower his shorts over his broad stomach. His Florida Gators shirt hangs over the top half of sagging butt cheeks. I’m flying home later today, so this is our only chance.

“I can’t piss,” he says.

“Just wait,” I remind him.

He’s barely balanced, the plastic cup wedged between his left hand and the bathroom sink. I assume he’s holding his penis with the other hand. He drops the cup, which I retrieve. His hands shake. I squat lower, consider how I might position it to catch his urine inside. I could lie and say this makes me feel more attached to him.

My father and I have never been close. As a boy we showered together like fathers and young sons often do. His body impressed me, the heft and weight of his thighs, the muscularity and hardness of his torso. His penis was surrounded by deep black thickets of hair that frightened me. He’d scramble soap up the contour of his chest and back down towards his dark penis, which would eventually get bigger and take up more space. In my teenage years, I’d get excited by that dick—or at least the thought of it. One night I tapped my fingers over his tidy-whitey underwear as he lay drunk and passed out on the living room floor, his strong and stable body practically inviting my suppressed longing. After that, I left for college and aged.

For years I’ve held onto that memory of my sleeping father so I might have something sensual in which to remember him. He is not the type of man who accepts assistance. He’s quiet. He has nothing to say about my love for other men. His love is best expressed by omission. He needs no help; he’ll be no burden. Perhaps we’re similar like that. I’ve given him no grandchildren, and not much of anything else. I ask for so little. Perhaps that’s why I want to remember his body in a certain way—not like this.

“I’m ready,” he finally announces. “Come on.”

“What?”

“Where’s the cup?”

“Dad,” I say quickly. “I don’t think you—”

“Fine. Put it underneath.”

I still can’t see his penis, so I wrap my body more fully around his left side. I’m crouched at eye level with his still-hirsute private parts, his shaking left hand a giant fist over a speck of dark and flaccid dick, the small head like that of a boy. I should hold his penis, but I don’t know if I can—don’t know if he’ll let me.

I feel the piss first on my wrist and then dripping over the back of my hand. I’m on the tiled floor beneath my father, not sure what to do. I reposition my body and raise the cup as if I’m genuflecting before the priest on Sunday morning. His yellow spurts become steadier, and I clasp my hand over his hand, guiding it above the plastic collection container, where some of his urine lands inside.

It’s all done quickly, and a part of me wonders if I’ve just lost the father I’ve tried so hard to contain, the fantasy father of a (gay) teenaged boy. It’s all I had. I tighten the lid and balance the cup on the edge of the sink. My father makes a motion for me to pull up his shorts. This new version of my father does not interest me. There shall be no restoration—and there is little to resurrect.

Together, we look at the cup—it is nearly full. That incites a lopsided smile from him, which for a moment makes me do the same.

Chris Girman is an American author, academic, and immigration attorney. He is the author of several books, and his recent creative work has appeared in Hobart, Eclectica Magazine, Bull, Jet Fuel Review, and other venues. He is an associate professor of English at Point Park University, which includes his role as director of the university’s summer young adult creative writing camp. He is currently raising his nephew and his two cats. chrisgirman.com