Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction (73 page)

A date. The word still brings up visions of Palm Springs, California and the date orchards on the outskirts of town, the sticky sweetness of the dark fruit. We drove through the orchards on car trips during the summers, my family hot and irritable in the blue station wagon. The stores had giant dates painted on their awnings, and when we stopped, our misery was forgotten. My mother doled the fruit out to us from the front seat, her eyes already half-closed in pleasure. The dates — heavy, cloying, dark as dried blood — always made the roof of my mouth itch, but I ate them anyway because they came in a white box like candy. I ate them because I was told they were precious, the food of the gods.

A man I like is coming to dinner. In two hours. The chicken is marinating, and the house is clean, and if I take a shower now and get dressed I’ll have an hour and a half to sit fidgeting on my living room chair, talking to myself and to the fish, whose water, of course, I’ve changed. “Make a good impression,” I plead with him. “Mellow out.” He swims back and forth, avoiding my eyes, butting his pinhead against his bowl. I call my friend: Do I light candles? A fire in the fireplace? Do I use the cloth napkins? She says yes to the napkins, nix to everything else. I must walk the line between casual and serious, between cool and aflame. Perfume? Yes. Eyeliner? No. I remake the bed, only now realizing how misshapen my comforter is, all the feathers bunched into one end, so the coverlet lies forlornly against my pillows. It’s yellowed at the edges, and my pillowcases are mismatched. Skirts or pants? I ask my friend. Wine or beer? My friend listens, a saint, then finally says: “Why are you asking me? I never get past the third date!” Suddenly I want to get off the phone as quickly as possible.

A man I like is coming to dinner. He’s late. I sit on the edge of my bed, unwilling to stand near the front windows where he might see me waiting. My stomach hurts, and is not soothed by the smell of tandoori chicken overcooking in the oven. My hands, like a cliché, are sweating. I lie back on the bed, at this point not caring if I mess my hair, or wrinkle my green rayon dress, chosen for its apparent lack of effort. My name is painted in Japanese above my black bureau. Pieces of myself are scattered all around me: a blue kilim from Turkey, a seashell from Whidbey Island, a candlestick from Portugal. Pale light sifts through the venetian blinds at an angle just right for napping or making love. If I had to choose right now, I’d choose a nap, the kind that keeps me hovering on the edge of a consciousness so sweet it would seem foolish to ever resurface. My lavender eye pillow is with in reach. My house is so small; how could it possibly accommodate a man, filling my kitchen chairs, peering at my refrigerator door?

On my bedside table is
The Pillow Book
of Sei Shonagan, a Japanese courtesan of the eleventh century, a woman whose career consisted in waiting. In this expectant state, she observed everything around her in great detail, found some of it to her liking and some not. I idly pick the book up and allow it to fall open. I read, “When a woman lives alone, her house should be extremely dilapidated, the mud wall should be falling to pieces, and if there is a pond, it should be overgrown with water plants. It is not essential that the garden be covered with sagebrush; but weeds should be growing through the sand in patches, for this gives the place a poignantly desolate look.”

I close the book. I look around this apartment, this house where I live alone. My room feels clean, new, expectant. Now I want nothing more than to stay alone, to hold myself here in a state of controlled desire. But if this man doesn’t show, I know my house will quickly settle into the dilapidation Shonagan saw fit for a single woman; the line between repose and chaos is thinner than I once thought. Despite all I’ve tried to learn in these years alone — about the worthiness of myself as an independent woman, about the intrinsic value of the present moment, about defining myself by my own terms, not by someone else’s — despite all this, I know that my well-being this moment depends on a man’s hand knocking on my door.

The doorbell rings, startling me into a sitting position. I clear my throat, which suddenly seems ready to close altogether, to keep me mute and safe. I briefly consider leaving the door unanswered; I imagine my date waiting, looking through the kitchen window, then backing away and into his car, shaking his head, wondering. Perhaps he would think me crazy, or dead. Perhaps he would call the police, tell them there’s a woman he’s worried about, a woman who lives alone. Or, more likely, he would drive to a bar, have a beer, forget about me. The thought of his absence momentarily pleases me, bathes me with relief. But of course I stand up and glance in the mirror, rake my hands through my hair to see it feather into place, and casually walk out to greet this man I like, this man who’s coming to dinner.

Dinty W. Moore

 

DINTY W. MOORE
is the author of the forthcoming memoir
Between Panic & Desire
. His other books include
The Accidental Buddhist, Toothpick Men, The Emperor’s Virtual Clothes
, and the writing guide
The Truth of the Matter: Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction
. He edits
Brevity
, the online journal of concise creative nonfiction, and was once trampled by a retired circus elephant.

 

Allen, Tim

Best known as the father on ABC’s
Home Improvement
(1991–99), the popular comedian was born Timothy Allen Dick on June 13, 1953. When Allen was eleven-years-old, his father, Gerald Dick, was killed by a drunk driver while driving home from a University of Colorado football game.

Bees

“A man, after impregnating the woman, could drop dead,” critic Camille Paglia suggested to Tim Allen in a 1995 interview. “That is how peripheral he is to the whole thing.”

“I’m a drone,” Allen responded. “Like those bees?”

“You are a drone,” Paglia agreed. “That’s exactly right.”

Carp

After the female Japanese carp gives birth to hundreds of tiny babies, the father carp remains nearby. When he senses approaching danger, he will suck the helpless babies into his mouth and hold them safely there until the coast is clear.

Divorce

University of Arizona psychologist Sanford Braver tells the story of a woman who felt threatened by her husband’s close bond with their young son. The husband had a flexible work schedule, but the wife did not, so the boy spent the bulk of his time with the father.

The mother became so jealous of the tight father-son relationship that she eventually filed for divorce and successfully fought for sole custody. The result was that instead of being in the care of his father while the mother worked, the boy was now left in day care.

Emperor Penguins

Once an emperor penguin male has completed the act of mating, he remains by the female’s side for the next month to determine if he is indeed about to become a father. When he sees a single greenish white egg emerge from his mate’s egg pouch, he begins to sing.

Scientists have characterized his song as “ecstatic.”

Father Knows Best

In 1949, Robert Young began
Father Knows Best
as a radio show. Young played Jim Anderson, an average father in an average family. The show later moved to television, where it was a substantial hit, but Young’s successful life ended in a tragedy of alcohol and depression.

In January 1991, at age eighty-three, Young attempted suicide by running a hose from his car’s exhaust pipe to the interior of the vehicle. The attempt failed because the battery was dead and the car wouldn’t start.

Green Genes

In Dublin, Ireland, a team of geneticists has been conducting a study to determine the origins of the Irish people. By analyzing segments of DNA from residents across different parts of the Irish countryside, then comparing this DNA with corresponding DNA segments from people elsewhere in Europe, the investigators hope to determine the derivation of Ireland’s true forefathers.

Hugh Beaumont

The actor who portrayed the benevolent father on the popular TV show
Leave It to Beaver
was a Methodist minister. Tony Dow, who played older brother Wally, reports that Beaumont didn’t care much for television and actually hated kids. “Hugh wanted out of the show after the second season,” Dow told the
Toronto Sun
. “He thought he should be doing films and things.”

Inheritance

My own Irish forefather was a newspaperman, owned a popular nightclub, ran for mayor, and smuggled rum in a speedboat during Prohibition. He smoked, drank, ate nothing but red meat, and died of a heart attack in 1938.

His one son — my father — was only a teenager when his father died. I never learned more than the barest details about my grandfather from my father, despite my persistent questions. Other relatives tell me that the relationship had been strained.

My father was a skinny, eager to please little boy, battered by allergies, and not the tough guy his father had apparently wanted. My dad lost his mother at age three and later developed a severe stuttering problem, perhaps as a result of his father’s sharp disapproval. My father’s adult vocabulary was outstanding, due to his need for alternate words when faltering over hard consonants like
B
or
D
.

The stuttering grew worse over the years, with one noteworthy exception: after downing a few shots of Canadian whiskey, my father could muster a stunning, honey-rich Irish baritone. His impromptu vocal performances became legend in local taverns, and by the time I entered the scene my father was spending every evening visiting the working-class bars. Most nights he would stumble back drunk around midnight; some nights he was so drunk he would stumble through a neighbor’s back door, thinking he was home.

Our phone would ring. “You’d better come get him.”

As a boy, I coped with the embarrassment of all this by staying glued to the television — shows like
Father Knows Best
and
Leave It to Beaver
were my favorites. I desperately wanted someone like Hugh Beaumont to be my father, or maybe Robert Young.

Hugh Brannum, though, would have been my absolute first choice. Brannum played Mr. Green Jeans on
Captain Kangaroo
, and I remember him as kind, funny, and extremely reliable.

Jaws

My other hobby, besides watching other families on television, was an aquarium. I loved watching as my tropical fish drifted aimlessly through life, and I loved watching guppy mothers give birth. Unfortunately, guppy fathers, if not moved to a separate tank, will often come along and eat their young.

Kitten

Kitten, the youngest daughter on
Father Knows Best
, was played by Lauren Chapin.

Lauren Chapin

Chapin’s father, we later learned, molested her, and her mother was a severe alcoholic. After
Father Knows Best
ended in 1960, Chapin’s life came apart. At age sixteen, she married an auto mechanic. At age eighteen, she became addicted to heroin and began working as a prostitute.

Masculinity

Wolf fathers spend the daylight hours away from the home — hunting — but return every evening. The wolf cubs, five or six to a litter, rush out of the den when they hear their father approaching and fling themselves at their dad, leaping up to his face. The father will back up a few feet and disgorge food for the cubs, in small, separate piles.

Natural Selection

When my wife, Renita, confessed to me her desire to have children, the very first words out of my mouth were “You must be crazy.” Convinced that she had just proposed the worst imaginable idea, I stood from my chair, looked straight ahead, and literally marched out of the room.

This was not my best moment.