The Event
When he signed up to being a father, he had no idea what was in store for him.
Not that he signed anything, of course, before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion, or starts wondering, "Hang on, there was a sign up sheet? I missed that!"
Triceps deep in a trash can outside the club, with beats pulsing through the bricks walls at his head, he realized that he may have been going above and beyond the call of duty, as a father of a beautiful young lady, blossoming like a speeded up time lapse photo into womanhood.
We'd been told, her mother and I, in our living room. I had the Patriots game on, my wife and daughter were sitting through the game in silence. My wife tolerates my football-watching behavior, so long as I don't swear at the television, which I haven't, for some time. They've come a long way since the days of Steve Grogan and Stanley Morgan. Which was just about the last time he was able to watch a football game in peace. Until recent years, that is.
We had our first child in the fall of '88, and our second in the spring of '90. I understood that I'd be putting away my normal trousers, jeans, and shorts, and acquiring "Dad pants" by the drawer-full, following sports teams, sort of, by a quick glance at the sports pages in the morning, maybe, and that life, as it had been, would never be the same.
I emerged from that haze at the tail end of summer in 2007 to find myself, as I'd mentioned, rummaging through a trash can out the back of a club in the lower teens in Manhattan, over on the east side.
I was not supposed to be in New York City. I was not supposed to be rummaging in trash cans.
From reliable sources, my daughter was doing... something, studying, one would presume, at NYU's University Hall, where she was staying, her first year away at school. From other, also reliable sources, Douglas Flynn was inside this very club I was... well, not standing outside of, but outside, anyway. Or he had been there, not too long ago. And here I was, looking for a scrap or two of paper.
The trouble began when I failed to enter the CIA as a young pup out of school. The thought didn't even cross my mind, graduating with a psychology degree from the College of the Holy Cross. Had I known I'd be having daughters I probably would have at least considered it as a career path.
To be continued.... ?
disclaimer:
Due to mild illness (the editor being a baby), this week's issue ships on Monday, but it really gets to you, the Customer, on Tuesday. It's all in the name of quality control.
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