My Father Ferguson Analysis

THINGS ARE HARD after that.

And by that, Ferguson means his dad. It’s easier to reduce the man to demonstrative pronouns than to think of him in bulk, as one unpackaged entity crawling the streets. And that’s another thing – not that that, the other that.

Ferguson scrubs at his scalp and blinks confusedly. He isn’t making any sense.

Back to the crawling.

A long time ago, when Ferguson was still a smooth-faced, preciously new thing in this world, he would pretend his enemies were super villains. Maybe there was always ink in his blood or maybe it was just a child’s coping mechanism metamorphosing into something big and ugly.

(And by enemies, he means all those who opposed him. At one point, that was his father).

The liquor-smelling monster who would burst through the house at early hours in the morning. Because, see, everyone has

Ferguson couldn’t hate the world for something it had no part in. He couldn’t even hate his dad, not always. In certain moments, hatred is impossible. In certain moments, it recedes. Moments when the man would break down on their corduroy couch and tell Ferguson he was sorry for who he’d become.

It’s much easier to hate someone when you look at them in ink. In theory. In comics, even. That was where The Walker came from. It was supposed to be an ironic joke – Carlton Walker in breadth becomes The Walker in ink, a slimy mutant.

The first comic Ferguson ever created told the story of a little-boy-turned-superhero who fought to rid the world of its scum, the first being The Walker. The series was entirely too autobiographical and didn’t make it past issue three.

But anyway ­– anyway, people are easier to hate in ink. Mikayla was easy to hate as Blaire Knight. Easy to torture, with fictional cat deaths and unrequited love. And Carlton Walker was easy to hate as The Walker, metastasized into something huge and evil.

Maybe Ferguson’s a monster. Maybe he’s