Lesley Kagen: January 2017

I've decided that rather than featuring quotes from other writers on the front covers of books, in order to cut down on confusion, they should come with a warning label. Here's the caveat emptor THE MUTUAL ADMIRATION SOCIETY would have slapped on the front cover:

Potential Reader: This novel is written for those above average intelligence who enjoy child narrators, possess a sense of humor, can fathom the sweetness of young love, are not offended by swearing, and understand at least a little about the complexities of children's psyches. If you do not possess these qualities, kindly keep moving to another section of the store, where you will find a wide selection of other books that might better meet your needs.

FACT: Life is not the bowl of cherries you might think it is. At any minute, probably when you least expect it, your life could turn into the pits.

PROOF: Seeing is believing, so close your eyes and imagine the funniest, smartest, and handsomest daddy leaning across the kitchen table in a small wooden house on a sweltering summer August morning. Now hear him telling you with the kind of mischievous smile that all the gals at the bar love, “I got Bobby to cover my shift today, kiddo. So what say we beat this heat, feel the wind on our faces, and do a little fishing on the Great Lake today?”

Even though you don’t have any business going out on a lake, Great, or otherwise, because you don't know how to swim, you adore this daddy so much that you’d do anything to spend time with him. So you spring out of the kitchen chair where you just got done eating the scrambled egg and Spam breakfast he cooks for you, your sister, and your mother every morning, wrap your arms around his waist, and say, “Cool, Daddio, cool!” because you know that one of the things he loves most about you is that you can be a real card, same as him.

That’s how you end up bobbing up and down on Lake Michigan in a borrowed white motorboat called The High Life. You’re having a gay old time, and don’t suspect for a second that you’re a sitting duck, oh, no, not you. You’re too busy staring at pouffy clouds in the Robin's egg blue sky that reminds you of your little sister. Searching for shapes, is what you're doing. Something like a collie or a cobra or cow. So later on when the trout you and you daddy caught for supper tonight are getting fried up on the stove, you can tell your little animal-loving sister what she missed out on today. You might even tease her about how she should’ve been at your side breathing in the gas fumes and the smell of your necks roasting pink instead of staying tied to our mother’s apron strings all day, because even though you love her, it ticks you off when she chooses your mother over you.

Hours later, you're still thrilled to be spending the day with your beloved daddy, but you're so sweaty, and gotten bored watching your bobber. To pass the time, you begin imagining you're somewhere else, the same thing you do when you're at church on Sunday. You really like pirate stories, so you pretend to be the main character in one you call BURIED TREASURE. In your book, the captain of your ship, hasn't been wetting his whistle all afternoon with all those bottles of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, but grog—yo ho! When the tip of your tongues swipes the sweat off the top of your lip, it’s so salty that it shouldn’t be hard to see yourself floating not a lake, matey, but on a tropical sea far, far away. A pirate chest bulging full of doubloons and silver cups with rubies and pearls the size of baseballs are lying in the sand below, below, below, calling your name _____, _____, _____.

You're so wrapped up in all this, that when your daddy jerks awake from the little nap he was taking and points at your fishing pole and says, more than a little slurry, “You need bait," you barely notice. And when he stands and reaches for the dirt-filled Campbell’s tomato soup can, you don't thank him. You’re too busy thinking now how you’re going to trade a diamond treasure bracelet you found for that blue Schwinn with the basket that’s sitting in the front window of Melman’s Hardware on North Ave. Or maybe you’re imagining what a kick you'll get out of dropping some of those sandy doubloons you find on the bottom of the lake into the lap of your money hungry mother so she could buy one of those new window air-conditioners that might keep her from losing her temper at Daddy so often.

It's not until your daddy slips on one of the empty beer bottles rolling around on the deck of the boat that all thoughts of your pretend pirate shopping spree go flying out of your head. His impression of one of the three Stooges stepping on a banana peel has always slayed you. And when he falls backwards, smacks his head on the motor and tumbles overboard, you're not scared, quite the opposite. You just about split a gut laughing. He's an excellent swimmer who adores jokes, most especially the kind that practically scare the poop out of you and your sister, so you expect him to stay under the water longer than Houdini before he pops to the surface saying the way he always does when he pulls a scary fast one over on you, “Ha . . . ha . . . ha . . . Gotcha!”

You believe this so deeply with every square inch of your heart that even after the sun finally gives up for the day and lowers itself into the cold lake water and the stars flick on above the sad-sounding seagulls circling overhead, you’re still watching and waiting for his glistening face to magically re-appear any second now. One Mississippi . . . two Mississippi . . . . The red boat with the flashing blue light shows up when you count up to six hundred and twenty-five Mississippi.

One of the guys who comes to your rescue reminds your of a caveman at the downtown museum except he isn’t bare-chested. A white shirt with Shore Patrol has the name Stan written in red above the pocket. After he comes aboard, he looks around and says, “Theresa Finley?" You must've nodded, because then he adds on, "Your mother called us. Where’s your father?”

You almost answer him. But then the muggy air crawling under your skin mixing in with the leftover smells of Daddy’s Old Spice and the beer remind you to do what you’ve done for as long as you can remember when your mother sends someone looking for your daddy. You clam up.
And you don't come to your senses until the burly guy, the one who’s driving the rescue boat, guns it so hard that your head snaps back and you see twinkling above you your favorite constellation. It’s called Orion the Hunter in the World Book, but your daddy always told you those stars stuck together because they were, “The Three Musketeers, like us,” on the nights when he’d sit on the porch steps of your house holding you and your sister close.

My daddy . . . he fell . . . we can't leave him . . . one for all and one for all you want to scream at Stan, but what comes out of your mouth instead is a noise that you’ve only ever heard before coming out of the cemetery behind your house.

But some how Stan knows what you're trying to tell him, because with the stink of the throw-up on your shirt and the pee in your shorts making his eyes water as bad as yours, he puts his arm around you and tells you what you’re brain doesn't want to admit, but what your heart already knows. “I'm sorry, kid. Your father . . . he ain't coming back.” With a shake of his head, he flicks his Lucky Strike cigarette over the side of the rescue boat as it races back to shore. “When you least expected it, eh?”

And the last things you remember thinking the night when the unthinkable happened, when your life would never again be a bowl of cherries again, is how this was all your fault. If you'd only been prepared, your daddy would still be alive instead of lying on the bottom of the deep blue sea. You are the pits.