I see you, I do, and I feel you too. I know, I know. But I’ll tell you, it’s not like I’m driving, I haven’t in years. But I’ll tell you what else, the road scares me tonight, especially because I’m not driving. Look man, I know the bouncer’s hovering, I can feel his eyeball. But one more can’t hurt, can it? For the road, all that good shit. You take care of me I’ll take care of you, then I’ll up and walk with no drama. You can do that, can’t you?
Listen to this shit, I know you hear this kind of thing all the time, but soon enough you won’t be hearing it from me. So you can hear me this little while, can’t you? Anyway, my oldest boy, Blake, thinks he’s too pretty. Yeah, he still thinks he’s a rock star or some shit. I’m glad to see him when I do, but he still has that uppity, independent attitude of his. He swings by once a year, for a few days; a little smug that he’s in his late thirties, hasn’t gotten fat yet, still has a full head of dark hair and not one of them’s grey yet. Yeah, and he can grow it as long as wants, cut it however he wants, prance around in girl pants and ratty t-shirts and there’s nothing I can say about it now. He’s a little cocky that he’s stayed so boyish, despite never having had to pay a mortgage or feed, clothe and shelter three kids like him.
He was just here. In town, I mean. Helped himself to whatever was in the fridge or the pantry- some baked beans, some cole slaw, about half a Tombstone sausage pizza, of course a few pb and js (welcome to it, really. I’m not really eating right now), drank beer and watched TV with me and his brothers, Gus and Leo. His mom buys a case of Boulevard for his visits, and the three of them plow through it within an hour. Sometimes, if their mom’s not around, Blake’ll grab me one, though I’m not supposed to drink at all. I prefer the Bully Porter, which is made with chocolate hops and is dark and sweet. It’s just one beer, it really is, and it’s late in the game anyway. I’ve already conceded my defeats and celebrated my victories. Plus, it’s a Boulevard, a Bully Porter. I forget how good those are, you know?
I can bounce soon without too much drama, I think. Blake’s already gone back to his life in Madison, whatever that entails. I really don’t know. He’s been a cook and a bike messenger, a student on and off, drifted from town to town, Portland to Austin to New Orleans to Madison, and that’s the extent of what I’ve been told. Gus and Leo still live in town, and so hang out here and help out a lot more. But even them, when they’re not here, I don’t know. Gus lets his paunch grow a little bit. He has some crazy girlfriend with tattoos and a permanent sneer who tells him what to do all the time, pretty sure she fucks around on him, while he spends whole paychecks from his job building garage doors to entertain her consumer whims. Leo starts school and then drops out mid-semester, has a parade of sluts in and out of his life, bounces around mall retail jobs. This is all speculation based on scant evidence, really.
See, I don’t really know them, I just made them. I just fed, clothed and sheltered, blah, blah blah…I know. Of course it used to piss me off. Now I’m too tired to be angry anymore, and being too tired means I understand things a little better now. You bring life into the world, and it has a mind of its own, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about that, no matter how much you yell, scream threaten and shove.
Maybe that’s kind of like God or something, you know? Not that I’m like God, I’m not trying to say that, but I think God just sort of sets us here and lets us go. Yeah, I think about God lately. Can you blame me?
I try not to look in the mirror these days. Granted, I was never as pretty as Blake, or Gus and Leo for that matter, but my reflection now is too much to take in. I look like a wax statue that’s been set next to a furnace for too long, except everything’s pooling in the middle. I stopped trying to fight with my gut in my thirties, but now it looks like a pink whale swallowing up the rest of me. I guess that’s what happens, right?
I know. I’m taking my time with this last one, nursing it, pussy sipping it. It tastes good, you know, and it feels good going down. Now, before you ring that last call bell, and before your bouncers start pushing and bellowing, open up that rolodex of deeds and let the record show I did what I was supposed to, as far as I understood it. Worked, got my BS in PoliSci, married a pretty teacher with bobbed brown hair and sweet and hopeful brown eyes on a freckled face, bought a yellow house with white trim, got what people think is a real job, a job with a suit and a desk and a pecking order. I made a family, three kids, and didn’t up and leave them all those times I thought about it, all those times when I’d thought they hated me anyway. That’s called being an adult, being a man, making and taking care of you and yours, right?
Know what else a man is supposed to do? Secretly, or not so secretly, know there’s more to life than that shit. Know there’s a world outside of that bullshit job, where you make just enough to spoil your fucking wife and ungrateful brats- buy them Gameboys and bicycles and fucking Disneyworld- but not be able to do anything about it without looking like a complete asshole. Even if your wife and kids think you’re an asshole anyway, you can’t drop it. You have to hang around, take the hate, dish a little of it back out.
A man is supposed to fuck off at his desk, steal a few hours, get in touch with the bigger, better world through a few fingers of Scotch, maybe a little weed. A man’s supposed to berate his underlings at work, and cheat on his wife with a slightly overly made-up office girl, one with big tits and a gap between her two front teeth, who’s younger than the woman he married, though not really prettier, and will grow homelier as she approaches the age you and your wife are now.
What else? Let’s see. Oh yeah, a man is supposed to lay down the law in his house. If his eldest boy comes home with a goofy haircut- I mean shaved on the sides, with a tower of bleached locks jutting every which way on top, a sub-mediocre GPA and a ridiculous set of daydreams- a what, an artist? A bass player in a band that doesn’t really sound like music? A filmmaker?- you’ve gotta jump down his throat, smack him upside the head a little, drag him to Jimmy Shears to buzz the rest of his greasy mop off. You’ve got to tell him men don’t dream, men take care and do. Tell him in your house, nobody dreams. His brothers see that and know their boundaries, so you just have to come down on the one. Actually, by the time you’re done coming down on the one, you’re too tired to fight with the other two. I know it isn’t fair, but fuck fair.
That, actually, is what you have to tell your wife when she takes the kid’s side, starts giving you lip. You have to remind her you’re out there, busting your ass, hearing endless amounts of bullshit from the fat, bald prick who’d inherited his fucking company, having to yell at these limp, incompetent fucking nerds who aren’t holding up their end and then…you know what? Her lip just keeps coming. She’ll talk some more shit about how she’s a teacher, puts up with just as much or more than you do and, man, you just want to backhand the cunt, just like want to throttle the fucking weirdo you spawned, but you can’t. Granted, you’re already the bad guy, but you can’t make it worse. You can only tell them that you made this family and that it’s your property and…
…shit. Okay, look, I’m sorry, you’re right and I know. That’s what happens, though. Your hair turns white, your face turns red and your voice grows thin and raspy. The family that used to be afraid of you starts ignoring you, you can’t get your volume up anymore.
And that’s what happens. You make a family, and they hate you for it. Imagine making something that hates you. Imagine grilling a hamburger, and it’s not perfect, it’s a little dark and lumpy, maybe a little too pink on the inside but it’s pretty good (and that’s kind of how I like them anyway). You dress it up in ketchup, mustard and relish, maybe some A1, some lettuce and thickly sliced tomato, all between a maybe slightly misshapen but toasted white bread bun. Now, imagine that every time you try to take a bite out of your burger, this burger you made and labored over, it flies out of your hands. What are you gonna do? Chase the burger around the yard? The block? Maybe a smarter man would grill another burger, I don’t know, but you only get so much to make with anyway.
And sir, that’s what I’ve done. I’ve made with what I had to make with. I’m sure, on some level, the brats I raised, who I was so sure were sneering down on me, looked up to me on some level. I may not have been the rock star they’d have liked to have been raised by, but they still come to see me. That accounts for something, right? If nothing else, I grew into the cautionary tale that some fathers become. They look at me and know you can only pound Scotch, throw tantrums, smoke like the twin towers and shovel flying hamburgers down your gullet for so long before the body that carries you around- the body that carries all that anger and disappointment and resentment and guilt and all the other bullshit- up and says fuck you, Jack, I’m done and so are you.
Yeah, I think about God a bit lately. More than I used to, anyway. You don’t blame me do you? I never meant to piss him off, even when I was mad at him. I still think he more or less puts us here and lets us go. He’s kind of like a cool boss in that sense, you know. He’s like the idealistic, good looking younger guy, fresh out of college, eager to not piss of the vets, that’s been put in charge. You can do whatever you want.
Problem with a cool boss is that, though you can do what you want, you still have to do your job, and a cool boss will just kind of let shit happen and shrug. Except, now, I don’t think of God as the cool boss. I think God is more like a host now. Like the guy in the maroon silk smoking jacket making the rounds of his house and his affair. He’s kind of like a cross between, I don’t know man, Hugh Hefner and George Clooney or some shit. And when you’re born, you’re invited to his party. You may or may not have a good time, you may or may not mingle well with the other guests, you may or may not play Pictionary or Charades with some of the others, you may or may not like the refreshments or the drink selection, you may or may not even get a decent conversation out of the thing. Either way, sooner or later, you have to go, though the party goes on for everyone else. You have to go simply because you can’t stay. Maybe, like me, you’ve overserved yourself a bit, and you didn’t always play well with the other guests.
Still, I was invited and I came. I did what I was supposed to, right? And now I suppose we settle up, huh? You’ll have to tell me what I should tip you, though. I really don’t know, and I want to stay on good terms, you know? You know me, right? We’re cool, aren’t we? You took care of me, so I’ll take care of you.
I just want to do right on this. I just don’t want to fuck this one up.
I just don’t want anybody here to feel shortchanged.
