driven, like she is. And also, you know, I’m a flake.”
“You’re an artist,” Tosha offers generously.
“And Becks started to hate me for that. I think. Not for not being a success like her, but for not moving on. Having kids. She was getting older, the window was closing, she really wanted them. I just wasn’t ready, you know? To double down on more responsibility. So I kinda pulled away. Then she tugged me back, couples therapy, all that. And then I got pissed and pulled away harder. Then she stopped tugging, and it was too late.”
“That’s horrible,” she says to me, but she’s looking at George, whomust be listening but is pretending to keep on with his endless kitchen tasks. Tosha is more jarred by my divorce than I am. For me it’s been happening for over a year, after four other years of misery.
“Becks is really very happy now. She’s replaced me with another black American. A proper dark-skinned one with dreadlocks and everything.”
This is true. Becks is
ecstatic
. Becks is
a new life
. Becks is
a great weight has been lifted
. Becks is so overjoyed, on her Facebook page she’s become a Welsh greeting-card machine. If there is a greeting-card company in Wales, and they just need someone to write platitudes for a line of divorce congratulations, Becks has a good decade’s worth of phrases for them. She now produces the happiest posts I have ever read in my life. The messages I get from her solicitor, those are straight venom and threats of financial apocalypse if I don’t get her the money back, but on Facebook she still comes with lots of exclamation points. All that’s missing is
Wish you were here!
“What you need to do is relax, make sense of things. Your dad’s passing, this girl, the crazy house.”
“I got crackheads at that house.”
“Everybody’s got crackheads. Look, Germantown’s changed—it’s come back up. This is the hot new place to live, man. Prices are soaring. But this is still Germantown.”
“That night was like…it was eerie. I thought they were ghosts. For a second I was like, ‘This is some paranormal
ish
or something.’ ” I laugh this out, wait to see their reaction.
Tosha just wags her head.
“There are no ghosts,” she says.
“How can you know that?”
“Because your black ass would already be packed up and leaving town again.” I laugh at this too but she doesn’t, and in the silence I get the feeling I might be being insulted, so I laugh harder till George spares me with his interruption.
“I’ll make sure a squad car makes a regular drive-by, but don’t let those crack fiends mess with your head,” he says.
—
Tosha and George’s children, these three great kids, they are everything my life is missing. I watch George with them, and I’m certain of this. He has purpose and joy, there is a slot in the universe he is fitting, without which there would be a black hole. I totally know, because I live in the black hole. Becks was right. Across the breakfast bar the kids yell out “Uncle Warren” at me and there is an authority in that title. I haven’t earned even “uncle,” and yet still it fills me. I never managed the duties of “son” particularly well, in regard to both my parents. At “husband” I was an even grander disappointment, and I stink of divorced man so bad that even I can smell it, as if every nose hair reeked of its own disappointment. I’ve been failing at “father” for years without even realizing I could claim the title.
“You got to make up the time.” George leans over, puts a hand on my shoulder. Grips. “You have to educate her, man. Tosha’s right on that one. That’s your path to being her father, a chance to give her something. Make sure she gets back to school, and goes to college. You do that, you’ll have started making an impact.”
I make the mistake of asking George how much tuition costs. I don’t know where their kids go to school, but I do know he has to send them to
“You’re an artist,” Tosha offers generously.
“And Becks started to hate me for that. I think. Not for not being a success like her, but for not moving on. Having kids. She was getting older, the window was closing, she really wanted them. I just wasn’t ready, you know? To double down on more responsibility. So I kinda pulled away. Then she tugged me back, couples therapy, all that. And then I got pissed and pulled away harder. Then she stopped tugging, and it was too late.”
“That’s horrible,” she says to me, but she’s looking at George, whomust be listening but is pretending to keep on with his endless kitchen tasks. Tosha is more jarred by my divorce than I am. For me it’s been happening for over a year, after four other years of misery.
“Becks is really very happy now. She’s replaced me with another black American. A proper dark-skinned one with dreadlocks and everything.”
This is true. Becks is
ecstatic
. Becks is
a new life
. Becks is
a great weight has been lifted
. Becks is so overjoyed, on her Facebook page she’s become a Welsh greeting-card machine. If there is a greeting-card company in Wales, and they just need someone to write platitudes for a line of divorce congratulations, Becks has a good decade’s worth of phrases for them. She now produces the happiest posts I have ever read in my life. The messages I get from her solicitor, those are straight venom and threats of financial apocalypse if I don’t get her the money back, but on Facebook she still comes with lots of exclamation points. All that’s missing is
Wish you were here!
“What you need to do is relax, make sense of things. Your dad’s passing, this girl, the crazy house.”
“I got crackheads at that house.”
“Everybody’s got crackheads. Look, Germantown’s changed—it’s come back up. This is the hot new place to live, man. Prices are soaring. But this is still Germantown.”
“That night was like…it was eerie. I thought they were ghosts. For a second I was like, ‘This is some paranormal
ish
or something.’ ” I laugh this out, wait to see their reaction.
Tosha just wags her head.
“There are no ghosts,” she says.
“How can you know that?”
“Because your black ass would already be packed up and leaving town again.” I laugh at this too but she doesn’t, and in the silence I get the feeling I might be being insulted, so I laugh harder till George spares me with his interruption.
“I’ll make sure a squad car makes a regular drive-by, but don’t let those crack fiends mess with your head,” he says.
—
Tosha and George’s children, these three great kids, they are everything my life is missing. I watch George with them, and I’m certain of this. He has purpose and joy, there is a slot in the universe he is fitting, without which there would be a black hole. I totally know, because I live in the black hole. Becks was right. Across the breakfast bar the kids yell out “Uncle Warren” at me and there is an authority in that title. I haven’t earned even “uncle,” and yet still it fills me. I never managed the duties of “son” particularly well, in regard to both my parents. At “husband” I was an even grander disappointment, and I stink of divorced man so bad that even I can smell it, as if every nose hair reeked of its own disappointment. I’ve been failing at “father” for years without even realizing I could claim the title.
“You got to make up the time.” George leans over, puts a hand on my shoulder. Grips. “You have to educate her, man. Tosha’s right on that one. That’s your path to being her father, a chance to give her something. Make sure she gets back to school, and goes to college. You do that, you’ll have started making an impact.”
I make the mistake of asking George how much tuition costs. I don’t know where their kids go to school, but I do know he has to send them to
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