Tim Sandlin: Social Blunders

“How about you, Babs?”

“Is your father rich?”

“It’s not for me. It’s an imaginary person.”

That got the girls back into a good mood. Women love to catch a man in a lie.

“Okay, it is me and I don’t know if my father is rich or not. The whole deal is complicated.”

A light came on in Babs’s face. She’d found a way to relate to the problem. “On One Life to Live a boy got hit by a race car and he needed a transfusion and the only person he could get it from was his real daddy.” She turned to Lynette. “Remember?”

“He was a blood type only one in a million people have.”

“Only his mama had never told anyone, not even his real daddy, who he was.”

Lynette jumped in. “So she had to tell and everyone got totally PO’ed and the real daddy’s real wife ran off to France with the man who up till that day thought he was the real daddy.”

“They were having an affair beforehand,” Babs said.

“But the boy died anyway.”

“Does that answer your question?”

“Yes.”

The drive home was so loud I had to roll up my windows, but then fumes seeped in from under the Dodge and I rolled them down again. People pointed at me. Children stuck fingers in their ears.

I found Gus in the kitchen, listening to the phone. From her benignly amused expression, I knew who was on the other end.

“Lydia?”

Gus nodded.

“Is she out of jail?”

Gus flared her nostrils, which is a trick I’ve tried and failed to learn for years. “You be nice to your mama.”

“I’m always nice to my mama.”

Lydia doesn’t say hello. Her way of starting a conversation is to dive in like a hawk on roadkill. “They’ll be breaking down the door soon,” she said. “Why aren’t you here to defend your mother’s honor?”

Mother’s honor—the classic oxymoron. “Did you tell me everything you know about my fathers?”

“You’d have been so proud, sugar booger. I stood up for women’s rights and the male-dominated hierarchy capitulated.”

“The TV thing?”

“How’d you know about that?”

“The reason I’m asking about the fathers is Shannon found those photographs you kept hidden in the panty box when I was a kid.”

“Sam, you are not listening. Your mother is on the lam. I expect federal agents will crash through the door at any instant.”

“Hank said they let you out on your own recognizance.”

“That was before they heard about my little social blunder.”

I waited. Lydia’s social blunders range from minor affronts to major felonies, but what they all have in common is sooner or later they cost me money.

“It’s your friend Maurey’s fault. Right from the start I said ‘Do not trust that Maurey Pierce.’ Instability runs in her family.”

“Pot calling the kettle black. What’d Maurey do?”

“She tattletaled.”

“People over twenty-one don’t tattletale. They rat.”

“She ratted. I’m an innocent victim, trying in my own meek way to transform the Earth into a better, more feminine planet.”

I changed the phone to the other ear. “Are you going to tell me what you did that was so innocent?”

“Nothing. I did nothing.”

“Okay, don’t tell me.” Lydia generally won’t release information until someone tells her not to.

“As a joke, I FedEx’ed Rex a poison chew toy.”

“Rex, the dog?”

“Hank told Maurey and Maurey called the Secret Service.”

I considered the implications—cost times bother times time, “How do you poison a chew toy?”

“Soak it in Raid for two days, then sprinkle on some crushed d-Con.”

What could I say? My mother thinks she can improve the world by assassinating famous dogs. “This is all very interesting, Lydia, but about my fathers.”

“Forget the phantom fathers, your actual mother needs sympathy. Now.”

“Remember when you drove Maurey and me up from Rock Springs after she almost aborted Shannon, you told us this story where Caspar was supposed to come home Christmas Eve, only he didn’t, so you invited some boys over for a party and they got drunk and raped you over and over and urinated on you and that’s how I was conceived.”

There was a long silence, which is weird for Lydia. Lydia abhors silence. “What’s the point?” she said.

“What I want to know is, did you know the names of the boys who raped you?”

She didn’t answer.

“You told us one was the brother of a school friend,” I said, “so you must have known their names.”

“God, Sam, it happened over thirty years ago. How am I supposed to remember the names of stoolheads I only met once thirty years ago.”

“Those stoolheads are my father. At least, one of them is. I’d think if a boy rapes you and makes you pregnant, his name would stick out in your memory.”

Another silence, followed by an impatient exhalation. “Mimi’s brother had a silly frat boy kind of name—Sport or Slick, something like that.”

“Skip?”

“That’s him.”

“You told me Mimi’s last name was Rotkeillor, but the Skip on Shannon’s list is Prescott.”

“What are you, Perry Mason? Maybe I mixed up my Mimis. All I remember is he had a syringe he used to shoot vodka into oranges.”

“Was another one named William?”

“Why, at your age, are you suddenly obsessed by sperm donors?”

“Shannon looked through old yearbooks and came up with five names and I need to be certain they’re correct.”

“Why for God’s sake?”

I had no answer. “Why didn’t you tell me my fathers’ names?”

She made a bitter laugh sound. “Hell, Sam, you never asked.”

Good point. “I’m asking now.”

“There was a Billy. And Jake. A big kid named something like Bubba.”

“Babe?”

“That’s it.”

“How about Cameron?”

“Maybe.”

“I have to be sure.”

“One of them was named Cameron.” She paused. “Sam, what difference can it possibly make now?”

It’s my theory that most humans only make two or three decisions in a lifetime. The rest is random luck. At that moment, I made a decision.

“Lydia,” I said, “it’s time I met Dad.”

Saturday morning I fell into a clitoral fantasy at Tex and Shirley’s Pancake House. Over cheese blintzes I discovered Linda Ronstadt sitting next to me while my hand under the table dipped into her silken panties. As I rubbed lightly, side to side across the top, Linda lifted a section of orange to her mouth and with dainty teeth bit off the very tip. Drops of orange juice sprayed across the fine fuzz on her upper lip. A low, Spanish moan rose from her breasts. I went into my world-renowned fingertip figure-eight maneuver.

“More coffee?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll bring your check.” I hate reality. There’s nothing so deflating as a waitress pulling the plug on a daydream. It’s almost worse than not finishing the real thing.

Linda Ronstadt has been a regular part of my erotic imagery for almost twenty years, and she only grows sweeter as the time passes. I take pride in my loyalty toward dream lovers. No jumping from rock star to movie star to cover girl for me. What I do is find an unknown, a starlet on the brink of fame, so I can be the first before every college kid with five fingers and a jar of Vaseline claims a piece of the action. This might be another revolt against my gang-bang heritage.

After the waitress cleared breakfast, I spread a street map of Greensboro on the table and drew five Magic Marker stars on the addresses of the five fathers. High school sports heroes, as a rule, don’t wander. It’s the big fish–little pond syndrome; once you get used to being treated like you matter, it’s hard to uproot and move somewhere where you don’t.