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by redsox907 » 17 Dec 2025, 19:42
Chapter One: The Spaceship
On April 10th, 1992, the whirlwind relationship between my Mom, Tara Briggs, and father, Arturo Leon, culminated at Three Crosses Regional Hospital where a healthy baby boy was born at precisely 4:13PM. That boy was me, Armando James Leon. I would love to say that I came into the world quiet and stoic, a reflection of the man I would one day become. But that would be disingenuous. The real story, or so I’ve been told, was that I came out screaming. Not for any particular reason, I was perfectly healthy and delivered without any complications. But nonetheless, I screamed until they put me in Mom’s arms. As quickly as the screaming had started, from the moment I took my first breath, it stopped. So long as I was in the safe, comforting arms of Mom, all was right with the world as far as I was concerned.
From then on, we were inseparable. I became her anchor she would later tell me, a safe space in the swirling ocean of the unknown that was her new life. Not only was she a new mother, but she was alone in the adventure, left to figure it out on her own with a family that had disowned her and a husband that was rarely there.
All I knew growing up about Mom’s family was they didn’t agree with her leaving home to pursue a nursing career and that they were strictly religious. Not Catholic like my father insisted, but Latter-Day Saints and because of that when she left home they shut her out. As far as I knew, they didn’t even know I existed, let alone that she had married a Mexican citizen in America on a work visa.
My father, you see, was a traveling salesman and logistics liaison for The Safran Group, a French-based aerospace manufacturer, based out of Chihuahua, Mexico. Not only was his central job location in Mexico, but as a traveling salesman he was always on the move. When he wasn’t visiting us in America, or back home in Mexico, he could be anywhere from South America to Europe.
Because of his constant travel, he wasn’t even there when I was born. He was away in Venezuela on business. I’d once asked my Mom why we didn’t move to Mexico, if that was where Dad lived for work. All she told me was that some very evil men lived in Mexico, men who would try to harm us simply for not being from there, and that with my father traveling anyway we would be safer in America.
That dynamic led to an often complicated relationship with my mother growing up, one that as I grew older and understood the enormous burden she carried on a daily basis I came to deeply regret. With my father constantly traveling, often gone for weeks or even months at a time, it fell to my mother to be both the disciplinarian and the nurturer. She was the one who comforted me the first time I wrecked my dirt bike, but also the one who disciplined me for sneaking out to the track before my homework was done. When I got a black eye trying to tackle Kaiden Reynolds, a kid three years older and easily 50 pounds heavier than me, she held the frozen bag of peas to my eye until I stopped crying, then grounded me to my room for playing tackle football after being explicitly told not to.
My father on the other hand, got to be the “cool parent.” In the same way you typically hear “deadbeat” fathers described, you know the ones. They’re the ones who left their family for the young, hot girlfriend and thought that showing up once a month with gifts and promises could somehow make up for the nights when a kid just needed their Dad. Those days happened, more than I would like to admit, because as great as my Mom was, sometimes a boy just needed their dad. And those gifts and promises worked just the same, as they have for many a father before mine and will continue to work for many after.
How could an eight-year-old stay mad at his father for missing his first soccer goal, when he showed up a week later with a brand new Playstation 2 that had yet to be released in America? When I say I was the coolest kid at Loretto Catholic School, it wasn’t because of my charisma, charm, or social skills. It was because I always had the newest gaming system, the biggest TV, the best toys, more playground equipment in my backyard than one kid could need. We weren’t the most well-off family in Las Cruces, but we certainly lived an upscale lifestyle. Mom drove a considerably nicer vehicle than most of my friend’s parents, our house was in a safe neighborhood, I went to an upscale private Catholic school. On the outside, it looked like we had it all.
But despite all of the toys, the games, the presents, I could tell that something was off. I met my two best friends, Jose Banuelos and Bobby Thorton, while in kindergarten at Loretto and had spent many a night at their houses, usually taking my newest gaming system over so we could stay up later than my Mom’s strict 10PM bedtime. And every time I spent the night with them, the thing that always stuck out to me was the warmth in their house. Not a physical warmth, but an emotional one. Their parents loved each other, loved their children, and it radiated throughout their home. That’s not to say my Mom didn’t love me, or my father, but it was different in their families. It was constant. It clung to the way they talked to each other, the way they helped each other. You could see it in their family photos. Even when their parents disciplined us, it was in the background. A gentle reminder that hey, no matter what, we’ve got each other.
But despite those underlying feelings, I never connected them to my father. In fact, it may have made him more of a heroic figure in my eyes. He was the one standing between the storm of the unknown and us. He provided for his family, made sure we were well taken care of even when he was gone for months at a time, and allowed my Mom to stay home to account for his long absences. But more than that, he was just plain cool. He traveled the world and always had a story about his last trip. He always brought me home souvenirs, some from just across the border in Mexico, others from exotic destinations around the globe. You could feel the shift when he entered a room, like his presence alone commanded attention. People treated us different when we were out with my father, versus when it was just me and Mom. And it wasn’t because of his business dealings — Safran was not well represented in town outside of a few aerospace conferences. It was more his presence. He walked, talked, and acted like everyone around owed him respect, and they gave it.
Partly because of this idolization, partly seeking that feeling of warmth that I experienced at my friends’ houses, I became determined to impress my father. I competed in anything I could, from football, to basketball, soccer, even chess tournaments. Some I excelled at, mostly the athletic events, some I failed at. But every time my father returned home, I presented all of my accomplishments. He was proud, or at least he acted proud, but that feeling of warmth never presented itself. Never reached out and wrapped its gentle arms around me.
Finally, when I was 10, I thought I’d figured out the perfect way to finally earn that warmth. We were making pottery figures in my class and I’d decided I was going to make a spaceship to present to my father. Anytime we took a trip to the local Space Mural Museum, I told anyone who would listen about how my father’s company manufactured spaceships. Whenever we saw one taking off, I’d always point and say “That’s my father’s work!” Although he never built a spaceship, he sold them. And in my mind, that was close enough.
What was going to make this present different than all of the others I’d made before, which typically went to my mother since she was always home, was that I was going to date it as a “Welcome Home” present for my father. My father’s schedule was unpredictable, to say the least. Major holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries, he always made sure to make an appearance, but aside from that my mother never knew when he would return. Often, she would get a phone call a few days in advance letting her know he would be home soon. Occasionally, he would call from a neighboring town to inform her he would be driving home that day. But even when he did give us notice of his upcoming arrival, it was often delayed without warning. Because of this, my mother had stopped telling me when he would be arriving at all, simply telling me “It’s more of a surprise when you’re surprised.”
So, given the lack of information from Mom, I had begun tracking my father’s arrivals and departures myself. And I’d finally noticed a pattern. Anytime an Arizona-based pro-sports team traveled from the East Coast back to Arizona for a home game, my father arrived the same or following weekend. And with the Arizona Diamondbacks heading home from an East Coast swing, my father would be arriving just in time for the pottery gift. I had my surprise set, a spaceship with “Welcome Home” etched into the base dated August 2002.
I had to rush to finish the spaceship on time, skipping recess for two days straight to put the Mod Podge on, then to paint the spaceship. But it was ready just in time for my father to come home on August 10th, 2002, right after the Diamondbacks arrived home from a New York trip to play the Atlanta Braves earlier in the week.
My father arrived home just like I predicted, and when I presented him with the spaceship, I was greeted not with the warmth I had hoped for, but the same general appreciation he regarded me with when I tried to impress him. As I explained to him how I had to skip recess to make sure I had it done in time, he asked offhandedly, “You mean to get the project done in time for grading?”
“No,” I answered without thinking, “to make sure it was ready for you to arrive this weekend.”
The expression on my father’s face changed, just for a second, but it was a clear crack in the facade. The pause seemed to stretch for hours, although I’m sure it was no more than a minute. Finally, he asked how I knew he would be arriving, as he had only told my mother that morning he would be driving in from Nogales.
I began to proudly explain how I had tracked his schedule with those of local sports teams, but the more I explained the details I had put together on my own, the more his expression shifted from the cool, calm, and collected father figure into that of something colder. More hardened. I couldn’t see it, but Mom was behind me. She would tell me years later that this was the moment when she began to question the reality we’d lived for so long.
By the time I was done explaining, the pride was gone. I felt like I’d trespassed on someone’s property and was now caught red-handed. My father simply nodded before getting up, crossing over to his study, and promptly shutting the door. Conversations in Spanish spilled out from under the door for nearly an hour, before he emerged and promptly announced he had to leave on urgent business.
Mom didn’t blame me, didn’t scold me, didn’t even question the chain of events. Maybe that made it worse, because I certainly blamed myself. The spaceship sat on the kitchen counter, forgotten in the aftermath. I picked it up and turned it in my hand, remembering the hopes I’d placed on such a trivial piece of art.
“This is my fault. My punishment for not being content to be surprised.”
I didn’t just throw the spaceship in the trash, I took it out to the driveway and smashed it into as many pieces as possible. Now, I thought to myself, it matches my hopes of ever experiencing that unfamiliar warmth for myself.
Shattered.
Last edited by
redsox907 on 21 Dec 2025, 20:04, edited 1 time in total.
