It started out early. I was explaining to the boy what the “AC/DC” on his t-shirt meant; fret-shredding, ass-shaking, head-banging riff-rocking of the first order. I put on a CD, “Back in Black,” and after the tolling of (Hell’s) bells he turns and looks at me like I’m an idiot. He points to the TV and says, “TV.”
Happy to comply, I run out into the garage and grab my copy of “Family Jewels,” AC/DC’s comprehensive video collection, and swap the CD out for a DVD. Cut to a few minutes later: I walk into the living room and find the boy doing pelvic thrusts into the couch in time to “You Shook Me All Night Long” while drinking apple juice from a sippy cup. The Missus admitted it was a funny scene, but was probably less delighted about it than I was.
(We threw on Cash’s “100 Highways” after, kind of like a spiritual palette cleanser – we had to return the balance to our universe, and musically, Johnny Cash is our north star.)
Later that morning, one of the boy’s fellow day-carees was having a birthday party in the park. The Missus had a get-together in one of the big, self-important cities down the road to attend, so I solo-parented the boy to the party. The Missus tasked me with an additional assignment – I was to make one new friend of my own at this thing, preferably among the daddies. As a rule, I don’t do “social,” but I’d walk the line through a ring of fire for my boy – forcing someone to be my friend would be no problem.
Except that our town is located on the surface of the sun, and the cluster of picnic tables that contained the birthday-partying elements were in a wide-open clearing, surrounded by a semi-circle of shaded grass where the adults gathered.
Now, the boy can be social when he wants to, too, but like me is not a natural on the meet-n-greet circuit. He really has to be feeling it because he won’t even bother to fake it.
He was not feeling it today:
My finger got a workout, as did my newly-arthritic shoulder. About an hour in he turned to me and said, “Want to go home.” But we did no such thing. We stuck it out till after lunch and cake were served (the assignment I had given myself); moreover, I found a fellow dad, my age, also parent of a single child (everyone else we know is BY GOD having two kids, but me and my new friend agreed that were too old to go through that first year again if we could help it). He’s on his first pair of eyeglasses, I’m on my second. We both did local community theater before our respective kids came along and made continuing to do so impossible. I even coerced him into taking my business card and extracted one of his from him, then made his wife take a picture of us as evidence for The Missus as if we were old friends (inset).
Finally, full of hamburger and cupcakes and with my new friend’s image committed to my puny 3.something-megapixel camera, I collected the boy where he was wilting in the sun and got us the hell out of Dodge. The boy was asleep by the time his head hit the pillow when we got home.
Not me, though. I work weekends, and had a newspaper to produce. Got that out of the way and even managed to squeeze in an episode of the third season of “Homicide” before going in to wake up my son. Three hours is plenty long enough for a nap, especially if I want him to get any sleep after the sun goes down.
Prior to going out to water the back yard with Obi (a household ritual), the boy pointed to a photo of Woody on the mantel and said, “I miss Woody.” I got down on one knee and collected him in my arms, and assured him, “I miss Woody too.” We went over and took the photo down and he pointed to it. “I miss Woody” he repeated. “Yes,” I said, “He was a very good dog. I miss him, too.” I’m glad he still remembers him. I hope he always does because Woody really was a very, very good dog.
Before things could get too maudlin we put the photo back and I convinced the boy it was okay to go out into the grass of the back yard without his shoes on. He’s cautious, he is. Had a great time watering the plants, then watching the boy water the dog. The dog is a fuck-up, but he does play real nice with the boy and doesn’t mind getting wet one bit.
Made the boy an indefensible dinner of animal crackers, popcorn, an ice cream cone (just the cone, no ice cream) and milk, lots of milk, then raced him into the bath to wash off all that awful sun-block I had been forced to slather on him for the party on the surface of the sun earlier in the day. We were actually in the bathroom when The Missus got home and Obi took a non-friendly bite out of one of her friends – I was grateful not to be any part of that, except that if I had been, I would have made sure Obi had been in his muzzle before meeting new people. Woulda, coulda, shoulda…
After that her friends vamoosed pretty quick-like, and she cut the boy up a melon extravaganza, which he eschewed in favor of eating sun-block. After snatching away the sun block there was a period of disgruntled tumult accompanied by much piteous wailing and gnashing of teeth, but the day ended on a happy note with The Missus putting him to bed without the usual hour-and-a-half of him putting her through her paces. “He’s never gone down that easy for me at night before, not since we got him his new bed.” I shrugged knowingly, as if I had some secret mojo I was not letting her in on.
In the end, it was a great day. Made a new friend from whom I shall probably never hear again (the best kind!), forced both my son and myself past our boundaries to try to pass for social creatures, ate somebody else’s food for lunch and made sure no harm came to the boy on my watch. Best of all, I escaped all direct responsibility for Obi’s latest anti-social activity, in addition to laying down some (admittedly draconian) new Obi-related protocols where guests were concerned.
I’d do it all again tomorrow if I had the strength to and didn’t have to work for a living.
