depicted in its products, all the while screaming at me, I marched out into the living room like a man who had traveled a long distance to avenge a death.
“Hey!” I shouted at my dad, who was eating his daily bowl of Grape-Nuts.
He looked up at me, making a face that said, “Be careful in choosing your next words.”
“You told Mom about my,” and then I silently mouthed the word
He put down his paper, looked at me, and replied in a measured voice, “Yeah, I thought about that. Too risky for me not to tell her. You shouldn’t have left that porno in our VCR. Your penis betrayed you, son. Made you think stupid. It won’t be the last time that happens.”
On an Elderly Family Friend’s Erectile Dysfunction
“I don’t know why people keep coming to me when they can’t get hard-ons. If I knew how to fix that I’d be driving a Ferrari two hundred miles an hour in the opposite direction of this house.”
On My Frequent Absences at High School Dances
“You bitch about not going, so why don’t you just go? . . . So then find a date. . . . So then meet more women. . . . Jesus Christ, son, I’m not continuing on with this line of questioning, it’s depressing the shit out of me. Do what you want.”
On Practicing
“Nobody likes practice, but what’s worse: practicing, or sucking at something? . . . Oh, give me a fucking break, practicing is not worse than sucking.”
On Getting Rescued by a Lifeguard at the Beach
“What were you doing that far out? You can’t swim. . . . Son, you’re a good athlete, but I’ve seen what you call swimming. It looks like a slow kid on his knees trying to smash ants.”
On Breaking the Neighbor’s Window for the Third Time in a Year
“What in the hell is the matter with you? This is the third time! You know, at this point I think it’s the neighbor’s fault. . . . No not really, it’s your fucking fault, I’m just in denial right now that my DNA was somehow involved in something this stupid.”
On the Varsity Baseball End-of-the-Year Fund-raiser
“Just tell me how much money I have to give you to never leave this couch.”
On Video Game Systems
“You can’t have one. . . . Fine, then go play it at your friend’s house. While you’re there, see if you can eat their food and use their shitter, too.”
On the Importance of Watching the Evening News
“Let’s finish talking in a bit, the news is on. . . . Well, if you have tuberculosis, it’s not going to get any worse in the next thirty minutes.”
On Appropriate Times to Give Gifts
“Yeah, I got him a gift. He got his kidney stone taken out. If you shoot a rock through your pecker, you deserve more than just a pat on the fucking back.”
On My First Driving Lesson
“First things first: A car has five gears. What is that smell? . . . Okay, first thing before that first thing: Farting in a car that’s not moving makes you an asshole.”
Confidence Is the Way to a Woman’s Heart, or at Least into Her Pants
“No one wants to lay the guy who wouldn’t lay himself.”
Between the end of my freshman year of high school and the beginning of my junior year, I grew ten inches. Suddenly I was six feet tall. “You’re starting to look like a man, sort of,” my dad told me on my sixteenth birthday, as I bit into a filet mignon he ordered for me at Ruth’s Chris Steak House.
The downside of such a quick growth spurt was that I wasn’t really in control of my body. I moved around like I was being puppeteered by someone with cerebral palsy. The good news was: Despite barely being able to walk ten feet without tripping over something, I could throw a baseball pretty hard. I was moved up to the varsity baseball team as a pitcher and led the team in wins and strikeouts.
That year, my school’s cheerleading coach decided that in a show of school spirit, she was going to force her squad to attend all of the baseball games. Going to a high school baseball game is a lot like going to a student film festival; you’re there because you feel obliged to someone involved in it, and after two repetitive, mind-numbing hours of “action,” you congratulate that person and try to leave as quickly as possible. Needless to say, the cheerleaders mostly passed the time doing their homework and watching the grass grow on the sidelines. But my dad, who came to most of my games, thought otherwise.
“I’ve seen the way they look at you,” he said as he drove me home after a game.
I tried to explain to him that they didn’t look at me any way at all; that if they looked at anything during a game it was at their watches in hopes it was almost over.
“Bullshit,” he said.
Fortunately, he left it at that. But not for long.
On Sundays, my dad would usually wake up early and head down to Winchell’s Donut House, where he’d buy a dozen donuts for my family’s breakfast, including six chocolate-glazed twists specifically for me. But on one Sunday in the spring of 1997, I woke up to discover there wasn’t a box of donuts sitting on the dining room table next to the kitchen.
“Get dressed, let’s go get some donuts,” he said as I groggily padded into the dining room.
I tossed on a pair of basketball shorts and a T-shirt, and we headed out into my dad’s silver Oldsmobile. When I tried to turn the car radio on and he quickly shut it off, I knew he wanted to talk to me about something.
Then we cruised right past Winchell’s.
“I thought we were getting donuts,” I said.
“Nah, we’re going to have a real breakfast,” he replied as he pulled into the parking lot at our local Denny’s.
“This is Denny’s,” I said.
