October 23, 2018:
Oh god. I'd forgotten that convo. Man-to-man with the dour old cowboy, on a dirt road next to a barbedwire fence.
I don't remember what he said. Some bullshit she asked him to impart. I remember thinking even at the time, What a fucking clown show. Not in those words, of course.
They were all about their gender roles. That hillbilly family. Women's work and men's work, where after dinner the men smoke and curse outside while the women sew and gossip around the fireplace. I asked about that work thing. "It's because women are more delicate than men and shouldn't be exposed to the rough stuff," was the official response. "Yah?" I said. "Who cleans the toilets, then?" Dead silence.
I don't remember exactly what he said but it was some kind of You're the man of the house silliness which even then I knew to immediately dismiss. Delivered in his portentous, sourass, grim monotone.
Fuck you Man of the House. You abandoned your daughter to a childhood of abuse and rape and death, because instead of manning up you obeyed your heartless father's starched-collar interdict. Don't present yourself as the male role-model I should emulate.