Well I’ll the Son of a Dude

Well in reality I’m a daughter and, Mother was a bitch. Not all the time, just when it required persuasion to get something done. I never saw much of my father when I was a child.

I knew when he’d been around. Mother was always evasive when I said I could smell something in her studio, but I knew he’d come by. I called it “odour of Pa.” I kind of convinced myself it was his manly aftershave.

When I was old enough to go to high school I soon realised odour of Pa was pretty common, most in quiet areas of the school or in the nooks around the main building. Sometimes our art teacher used that aftershave. By the time I got to fifteen I’d renamed it to odour of Pot.

My father used to visit every few of months. Mother tried to keep me away but one time he turned up unannounced while I was in the studio. Mother tried to hide me behind the changing room drapes where her models got undressed, but it was easy to see through the gaps between them. Mother left the studio in a fluster leaving “Him” to pour himself some kind of milky drink from the bar. I’d never seen anybody with so much hair, but his expression was, like, calm and friendly. He looked in my direction just as the drapes parted too far. He squinted at me, then an expression of comprehension crossed his face, he winked. After a slight hesitation he, like, shambled over toward me. I wanted to go to him, but Mother returned and called out in her sharp voice, ’Jeffrey!’ He stopped and, like, shrugged at me before going back over to Mother.

I noticed, Mother held a wad of dollar bills. She ushered my father out of the studio. I heard her raised voice and a deep rumbling reply coming from outside. I didn’t hear what they said, but when she returned the money was gone. After that I was, like, determined to know him. I was around six or seven.

Now I can be pretty heavy myself, Mother said I get it from my grandfather. He died when I was, like, three? I remember he was always in a chair with wheels. I worked out a routine where I would regularly whine about wanting to see my Papa when Mother was trying to concentrate on her work. I even learned to burst into tears at the right moment.

After more than a year I couldn’t seem to wear her down. I never saw Father again and nearly gave up, but something great happened. When I got to sixth grade, Mother moved me to an independent school. She said bad influences caused of my tantrums and so she changed her mind about me having a public school education. The new school was about ten miles away – closer to L.A. I had to be driven there and back in the family limo.

I never really liked the new school, but I enjoyed the rides in the limo. Chad, the driver was a really sweet guy. Sometimes he would drive me out into the country or to Hollywood and point out the places where he’d worked. He told these crazy stories about when he drove for the film studios chauffeuring film stars and later, rock stars. He said he was getting too old for all that which was why he went to work for the family.

One afternoon I came out of school early and I saw Chad had a guy with him in the front of the car. When they saw me the guy got out and tried to walk off, but oh my God! I could see it was my father. I screamed out, ‘Don’t go, don’t go.’ I ran after him and grabbed his coat, ‘Please don’t run away, Dad, I pleaded.

So that’s how it started. Chad knew Father from when he drove for my grandfather and persuaded him to get in the car with me. We spent a whole hour talking about how we both wanted to meet each other real bad. We had so much in common. I guess we were both, like, rebels. Chad said he’d bring Father every week even though he might had gotten fired if mother found out. Father gradually changed after we met, he said he wanted to be more responsible so Mother would accept it was good for me to be with him. It was great, but I dreaded the summer break in case I couldn’t see, Dad, as I began calling him.

Two weeks into the vacation I was hanging around in the Mother’s studio when Dad walked in. His hair was neat and his beard trimmed, he had real nice clothes. I ran to him and we hugged each other. Mother was furious, but I could see Dad had some kind of effect on her, she relaxed when he spoke in his calm voice; she just couldn’t help herself.

He took Mother’s hand and kissed her cheek and she listened in silence while he explained that way back when he was a roadie, he wrote songs in a note book which he gave to one of the band when they fired him. He said he was so stoned back then he didn’t remember giving it away. When the guy overdosed years later somebody from the recording company found the book and read it. One of the songs impressed him and he recorded a hit. The studio didn’t want to risk getting sued for plagiarism and found, Dad. They bought the song for thousands of dollars plus twenty percent of the royalties. Dad said he wanted me to have the royalties when I was an adult, he reckoned he got enough from the sale.

Mother was none to too pleased at first, but she came around and agreed for my father to visit regularly. Slowly the visits lasted longer and became overnight stays with Mother. They found common ground in 2000 when the Democrats lost. Since then they have both worked for the party and when Mother took over running the company from grandma she donated millions to Uncle Barack. Dad stays in the background doing his bit, mainly because . . . well he, like, still uses the same “aftershave.”   

Oh BTW, I have a teenage brother and a new Labowski on the way. 

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