Say That To My Face. David Prete
seen. All the other big stuff I knew was so damn loud—our house, the school, my parents’ divorce, dinner. Even my mother’s new marriage was loud. My stepfather was a very low-key individual. The longest conversation I ever had with him went like this: What time’s the Yankee game on? Seven o’clock. When my mother would fight him, he would never fight back, so she would have to fight herself. She’d lock herself in the bathroom, yelling at my stepfather through the door. She’d scream about the life he had promised her and how good things were supposed to have been and how it was all bullshit. That’s how she fought him. He never screamed back. The loudest thing I ever heard my stepfather say to my mother was, “No, I’m not like your ex-husband. I don’t beat you.”
That was really loud.
So I wrote a poem about the blue whale on the ceiling at the Museum of Natural History. The poem said that the biggest thing I ever saw was also the quietest. Mom hung it on the refrigerator. Also, I took my blue Magic Marker and I drew a picture of the whale on the bottom of my kitchen chair. Then I would lie on the floor and look up at my picture, so the whale could be over my head, just like they had it at the museum. Also, no one else would see it there.
When I come back in the house, the report card discussion continues. She says, Joseph, I know you’re a smart kid. I know you can do very good in school, that’s the only reason why I get upset, OK? She throws a hug on me and my head lands in her stomach. She plays with my hair and asks me if I’ve locked the side door. I say I have. See, she says, and holds me tighter, poor Gloria, she doesn’t have a man around the house anymore. It’s scary. God forbid someone tries to break into her house at night, what’s she gonna do?
LIKE EVERY SATURDAY morning, our father comes to pick my sister and me up at our mother’s house and then we stay with him for the weekend. I sit in the back and my sister in the front. He drives a Volkswagen Bug and the gears are tight, which makes for a jerky ride every time he shifts. It’s not something that’s happened to me before. I’ve never peed my pants in my mother’s car. But I feel it rising up now as soon as I get into his car. This Saturday morning, I get a tender feeling below my stomach when we stop at the light. It gets worse when he starts to drive, then he throws it into second, the car jerks and it happens. My sister notices first and says, Daddy, Joey needs help.
My father looks at me in the rearview mirror and says, what’s the matter, Joey? You OK?
When he realizes what’s happened, he stops the car, gets a towel out from under the hood and spreads it out on the seat next to me. He says, Joey, it’s OK. You’re not hurt. It’s OK, Joey. Sit on this now and we’ll put on different clothes when we get home. That’s all. It’s OK.
When we get back to his place, my stepmother cleans me up. I wear my pajama bottoms while I wait for my jeans to dry. I walk out of the bathroom to the living room, where Dad’s sitting in an armchair.
Come here. Sit with me, Joey. Sit with your old man.
He lifts me up. My father has hands that feel solid as two pieces of teak furniture. My butt lands on one arm of the chair and my feet on the other. He goes, sit here on the big chair like a man. There we go. You feel better?
Yeah, I say.
See, no big deal. He drags his thumb across my neck. It feels as big as the barrel end of a baseball bat. What happened to your neck? he wants to know. You wrestling with someone?
No.
Then who grabbed you?
I say, someone in class. I was hoping he would drop it there.
Who? he asks.
Kerri.
Kerri? Oh, yeah? This, he is very interested in. Kerri who?
Gallagher.
Huh. An Irish girl. Is she nice?
Yeah.
He says, you like her? I smile. He pokes me in the ribs with a finger. I’m sure she’s very nice. She cute?
I think I’m not supposed to tell my dad how cute I think girls are. So I keep it shut and hope he puts this subject to sleep.
Aaaah, Joey, he says. Girls … they’re different than guys. If only women understood that, less marriages would go into retirement. Patty, she understands. I’ll tell you something, it’s like this—you like this girl Kerri, and maybe there’s another girl that you like also. Right?
Um … no.
No? No one? I shake my head. Well, someday there will be. And you’ll find yourself trying to understand why you like them both, you’ll start to feel a lot of things and you’ll get confused, but let me tell you, it’s simple. There are some things that guys need that ladies do not. And this is the whole difference between them. A guy needs the kind of thing he can keep his feelings out of. And this is the thing that your stepmother understands what many women—I don’t mention names—don’t understand, and that is why a lot of marriages go south. You know what I mean?
He continued.
Look, a guy needs the kind of thing that he can keep his feelings out of. And I don’t think women can do that, they’re too emotional. A woman can’t fall down an elevator shaft, for instance, dust herself off, then have sex with you ten seconds later. If they don’t feel it, it’s not gonna happen. Period. But guys can get into a plane wreck and lose limbs. Two hundred fifty dead bodies floating in the ocean, sharks are eating the survivors and in the life raft as the helicopters are coming, the guy will hit on the stewardess. And this is true. Some women don’t understand how we could do a thing at a time like that. If the stewardess is hot, then we can do it. It’s simple. So what, she may have lost a limb. We’d still do it. Even in the face of death. They think we’re just pigs. Let ’em do their claptrappin’. I’ll tell you the truth, son, we’re not pigs, we’re just different.
The only thing I’m sure of is that his lips are moving and sound is coming out of them. Sharks? Helicopters? Pigs with no arms? He could be conjugating Cantonese verbs into Sanskrit, for all I know.
He goes on.
And this is what Patty understands that many women do not. She doesn’t judge. And who should? Who should be able to judge a thing like that? It’s not the kind of thing … Your Grandfather used to say, “He who casts the first stone who lives in glass houses … you shouldn’t do it.” Your stepmother understands that we’re different. You understand, Joey?
What if you like only one girl? I ask. Then what?
Then that’s OK. It’s OK if you like only one girl for now. I mean, you’ll see. There will be plenty, is all I’m saying. Someday you’ll have your own place, you’ll have your own stuff …
My father gets introspective. It’s unfamiliar to me. When he comes out of it, it’s hard for him to look me in the eye. He speaks slower and deeper than he has been. Joey, he says, when you get older—sometimes I think, probably, you might think of me and you’ll say, “You know, my dad was a real jerk-off when it came to certain things, but then other things he was OK with.” I hope.
Now he tries to lighten himself up.
Don’t tell your mother this, he says, but secretly I can’t wait for you to get older so we can get dressed up and go out—you’re gonna look sharp. Always look sharp, Joey. It’s important. You see, my father, your grandpa … he used to go out alone. And I think we can do better than that.
There is a heavy pause.
We all work with what we have, he says.
Another one.
You know how to listen, Joey. It’s a good thing to know how to do.
He grabs my arm and pulls at what little muscle is there and says, Jesus, look at you. When did you get so big?
I try to figure out how to break away from those hands. It seems he wants to be friends, something I think parents aren’t supposed to be. I understand the