Father’s Day

I don’t mean to intrude on family time, but I’ve got an Old Man too, and I couldn’t let him go without a chapter on his special day.

I know it’s a special day for half of you, and you want to spend it with your loved ones, and I’ll frankly admit that I’m trying to cash in on those good feelings to gain some sympathy for my hero, who isn’t all that different, statistically, from a lot of you dads.

Perhaps this is not an appropriate time to talk about a guy with two girls. But the Mormons have no trouble with Father’s Day, or Mother’s, for that matter, and that has to make you wonder.

Our men don’t have second wives. They have mistresses. If you’re the not-good-enough wife, the thought of a sleek, sensuous mistress with no stretch marks irks you like crazy. It’s not fair. What does the mistress know about him? All she knows is little notes, flowers, clandestine dinners in tiny country inns far from the eyes of inhibiting neighbors, co-workers, friends, relatives… all those people who put us in our place and tell us who we are. She’s got the freedom to be alluring, while you’re a slave with a tight budget of time and emotional energy.

Turn that mistress into a second wife; let her do the laundry and vacuum up after hubby and the kids, while you go off to your glamorous job. Come home to a home-made meal you didn’t make. Maybe she’ll do your nails after supper. After all, you have to look good. She might even sleep with him tonight, so you can curl up with a good movie.

Instead, in your role as “only wife”, you feel humiliated, then enraged, if a second appears on the scene. While you’ve been going on with your lovey-dovey, sweetie-weetie ways, all the world’s been laughing behind their hands at the good little wife who’s the last to know.

Or so they think. Back to you, Dads – usually the wife has known from day one; that’s what it means to be a wife, and that includes yours, in case you think you’re putting one over.

If you’re not even trying, your face burns when I mention two girls for one guy. It’s jealousy that burns like that. Why the hell should he have two and you have only one? Or maybe none. I’ll tell you why. Because he took the time, he took the effort, he took the thought, to please not only one, but two, because you can’t have the second unless you’ve secured the first. If you try, life will be pure hell. So count yourself lucky if you’re not indulging in more than your societal allotment. You’ve got peace of mind

But enough about you. Let’s talk about… I’ll call him the protagonist instead of the hero. There is no one hero in this story. Or, to put it another way, everyone in it is a hero for appearing here.

His name is Jason. This tells us a lot about him. Most men named Jason were almost named Justin, but at the last minute, the name giver had a change of mind. Why would this happen? Why would a woman, or a man, or a person who didn’t know which one to be, decide that Justin was not a fit name?

Guilt. No one’s particular guilt, the whole concept. Would you want to be responsible for bringing up the notion of “just” in a world where “unjust” is so much more often the case, and indeed, at times, so much more practical, convenient, efficient… all those workplace values we’re supposed to embrace?

More, would you want to lay on your child the inevitable having to live his life under the pressure of the entire English-speaking world’s expectation that he will play fair? Some people come to the conclusion that it would be good for the kid. They’re the ones who name their sons Justin. The more thoughtful, more fearful, or more guilty ones, name theirs Jason.

Jason grew up with everybody who’d been aware of the choice watching out to see if the rejection of the name Justin was not perhaps warranted. But if they hoped, they were disappointed. Jason had a lovely mother who made him happy and petted his ego, so the boy felt sympathetic toward most creatures, including women, because his mother was one, and he’d learned from love, to be kind to them.

As a child, he was always giving away his things, going home with other people, bringing them to his house… not necessarily other children, it could be the pigeon lady or the man who sold pencils in front of the bank. Theirs was a friendly town, but there was no one in it more friendly than Jason.

And so it continues to this day, although he is a grown man and ought to know better. When Jason spots someone he likes, he wades in. Were he to keep his mind and emotions in his own back yard, play with his own toys, everything would run smoothly. He does not.

Though he isn’t obvious heart-throb material, he’s an engaging, ageless boy, with somewhat wiry hair, a wiry body he keeps in decent shape, and a willingness to befriend. He is no more a sex maniac than any other man, but let’s not forget, when God gave man the primary instruction to go forth and multiply, he was not telling him to learn his times tables.

Jason is no slacker. He has two offspring. A girl and a boy. And here, as you might suspect, the Shapiros went biblical. Jason’s family, each side, had no choice but to embrace the Old Testament monikers. Brenda’s took them as a sign that their daughter had not forsaken religion, which, along with most of her generation, she had.

Bathsheba Shapiro may strike you as a laughable, linguistic mismatch, but Sheba Shapiro has a hushed charm about it. Ezekiel is cumbersome, but Zeke Shapiro sounds like no one to mess with, and Zeke is a short, whizzy syllable people love to pronounce. Hey Zeke, Hi Zeke could be heard all over town from the day he was first strolled in his pram.

Sheba is twelve years old. She would qualify as a nymphet but, many years more modern than Lolita, she already wears a 34B and has been enjoying her period since she was ten, no doubt due to hormone traces in the water and food supply. She’s a savvy little lady who brooks no nonsense. Not from her friends or her relatives. She gets this from Dad. Mom endorses the policy but will take guff from anybody if it’s for a good cause.

Little bro is nine. In spite of the fact that he’s all over the place mentally and physically, attracting other students with his antics, his teachers love him. He brings up the class average on the all-important Standardizeds.

These kids watch television, they take part in the dinner conversation, they hear Mom and Dad expressing their views and they form some of their own, though as usual with kids, they are not exactly the views their parents thought they were absorbing. More like a riff on those views, and sometimes even a counter-melody.

You’ve got things to do with your own family, so we’ll leave the Shapiros at their back-yard barbeque, moved inside because of rain. There are soy-burgers for Mom and the children (Dad will have a regular old hamburger on his special day, thank you), French fries done in Canola oil, and a spinach salad only Mom likes, but it’s good for you, and they all know Pop-eye.

Around a green mouthful, Sheba is saying, “Ms. Marshall isn’t coming to school tomorrow. She’s going for an abortion.”