David Senra

I was not my father's favorite citizen.

When my dad looked at me, he didn't see what he needed to see.

I don't remember if it was in this book or if it was in this interview that I saw Bruce give, but he said that during his entire childhood, his dad said less than a thousand words to him.

And when he did speak to him, it was like this.

Unfortunately, my dad's desire to engage with me almost always came after the nightly religious ritual of the sacred six pack.

So his dad had a job he hated, had a life that he hated, would come home, sit at the kitchen table, smoke cigarette after cigarette, and drink beer after beer.

He had hostility and raw anger towards his son.

He couldn't stand me.

He also saw too much of his real self in me.

Beyond his rage, he harbored a gentleness, timidity, shyness, and a dreamy insecurity.

These were all the things I were on the outside, and the reflection of those qualities in his boy repelled him.

It made him angry.

It was soft, and he hated soft.

Now, remember, he's writing this as almost a 70-year-old man.

He's thinking about his childhood through that experience.

He wasn't a child anymore.

He is now a father.

He actually has his own children.

And so he's contrasting.

He's like, why did my dad feel this way about me?