Read Online Other Plans by Constance C. Greene - Free Book Online

doesn’t know any other kind. I’ll tell you what she looks like.” Abruptly, Keith came to a halt. “She’s got these gigantic knockers.” He gestured extravagantly, outlining the knockers. “And she’s a blonde, maybe a redhead, probably in her twenties. She reads the Wall Street Journal and the National Enquirer and she dresses all in the same color. All pink, all lavender, whatever. And before my father goes out with her, he has a massage and a facial and a manicure and he holds in his stomach and holds up his head so his chins disappear and he dances up a storm. He said she could give Brooke Shields a run for her money.” Keith hunched his shoulders down into his sweater. “I didn’t even know he knew who Brooke Shields was. Usually he sticks with the golden oldies. He gets the hots over Tuesday Weld, for Christ’s sake.” Keith kicked savagely at the snow.
    â€œMy father and I are having a confrontation tonight,” he blurted, not having planned to tell Keith anything about it. He was better at listening to Keith’s problems than Keith was at listening to his. “At eight o’clock sharp we square off. He’s sitting me down to hand out the same old crap. He wants the skinny on what I’m doing with my life, what my plans are for the future. Christ, you’d think I was pushing forty and still living off him. I’m only a callow youth. I’m only sixteen, Daddy. That’s what I’m going to give him.”
    To his utter dismay, he felt his eyes fill with tears. He drew his shirt sleeve across his face, pretending it was part of the act.
    â€œTell him to put it on tape,” Keith said in a bored voice. “That way, he can play it back when he’s in a lecturing mood.”
    â€œOh, I just tune out. I know all the dialogue.” He imitated his father. ‘“John, you’ve got to pull up your socks. Get your act together. Buckle down. Follow through.’ All that.”
    â€œFathers are full of bullshit,” Keith said. “Just because they’re fathers doesn’t mean they’ve got the answers. Keep that in mind next time he lays you out and stomps on you. They don’t know an awful lot more than we do. They just pretend, they fake a lot. One thing about my old man, he doesn’t hand me any bullshit. He knows I won’t buy it. Besides,” Keith smiled a little, “with his track record, how can he let me have it between the eyes?”
    Later, on his way home, he thought about what Keith had said. Maybe it was easier dealing with a father who didn’t live under the same roof, who you saw once or twice a year. Or when you were best man at his wedding. Maybe it was easier getting along with your father if he was divorced from your mother and lived far away and your mother and father fought over you and tried to get in good with you. He smiled to himself, imagining his father trying to get in good with him. That’d be the day.
    He admired his father, wanted to be like him in many ways. But if he ever had a kid of his own, an unlikely possibility, he’d pat the kid once in a while. Not too often. He wouldn’t be a pal to his kid, but he’d give him the time of day once in a while. Toss a ball around, kiss him on his birthday, stuff like that. His father almost never touched him. Except in anger, that is. Last year, he’d given his father a book on gardening for Christmas. Exactly the right book, it turned out, and his father’s face lit up when he saw it and he’d reached out and for a split second he’d thought his old man was going to hug him. But his father just said, “Terrific, John, just what I wanted.” Even so, he’d felt like a star.
    Spare the rod and spoil the child, the adage went. No danger in his house. Both he and Les had had their share of spankings, Les not as many as he. But one of the good things about his sister was she