Here Comes the Son
      by Michael Dare

       CHAPTER FOUR

           “Your Honor, I have no defense. How did I ever get involved with such a woman? It was clearly unsafe and unsanitary, your honor, but it was better than nothing. I admit I didn’t want the baby until I saw it, and the only reluctance I had in coming to court and asking for him was that it also meant I had to continue the relationship with his mother, whom I never wanted to see again.”

         He’s got “daddy” down but I’m not sure it’s a word that just applies to me. He doesn’t ever call other people daddy, but he will wander around the garden saying “Daddy daddy daddy” to every rock, tree, and flower. Daddy seems to mean good, happy, everything, all is right with the world, I didn’t fall down, I didn’t bump my head, I can walk, I’m not hungry, I got a bottle, gimme, gimme, gimme more daddy, daddy daddy.
           Bottle he understands. If I say bottle while holding it, he will keep repeating “baboo” or “bawa” until I give it to him.
           He gathers twigs from the pseudo-rubber tree and brings them into the house. I take them from him and give him a piece of corn on the cob.
           Corn on the cob is the perfect tool for first teaching your kid how to eat by himself. It is also the perfect tool for teaching the word “hot”, which should certainly be among the first five words ever taught.
           It worked like this: I handed him a piece of corn on the cob that was a little too hot, and he held it for a few seconds, then cried and dropped it. I picked it up, said “hot,” and blew on it till it was a little cooler. When I handed it back to him, he started to blow on it, then got a pained look in his face and handed it back to me.
           Now he thinks he knows what “hot” means. Obviously hot means that yellow stuff that you can eat some of and then you end up with a stick, and you have to blow on it while eating it and sometimes it hurts your hands.
           As soon as I taught him to blow on his corn, he started blowing on all his food. Hand him a piece of licorice and he will blow on it before eating it. Say “hot” and he will blow on the clump of dirt in his hands. This is going to take patience and self control. It is pointless to get angry at him for blowing on a rock.
           Buster has mastered two words which he works to death, Daddy and bottle. Daddy means Godhead, all giving, all nurturing, always there when you need him, leaning post and pacifier, all wise, all powerful Daddy Daddy Daddy like a mantra, running in every direction. Bawoo is Bottle and Blanket, indistinguishable items that must appear simultaneously.
           Today he did the stomp and snort. He’s learned how to make a sound by inhaling, sort of the back end of a sob. Picture a donkey. He’s also learned to stomp his feet and whirl about in a drunken frenzy while giggling so hard he gets the hick-ups. Together, they’re the Buster dance.
           Sure fire laugh. Put his shoe halfway on, just like you always do, then use his leg as a catapult to shoot the shoe across the room. He will laugh hysterically for as long as you feel like retrieving the shoe. But more importantly, from that moment to eternity he will always let you get his shoe at least halfway on, so the everyday battle of shoding is automatically half won.
           The baby has learned to kiss. Say “Gimme a kiss” and he will pucker up and plant one on your lips. It is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
           Last Thursday, for the very first time, I fell asleep at six in the afternoon with the baby still up and out of his crib. When I woke up at 9:30, I found myself covered in clothes and a sleeping baby. Apparently, Buster had gotten into the clothes hamper and thrown the dirty laundry all over me. Then he crawled on top of the whole heap and went to sleep. It is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
           He likes rearranging things. He takes all the shampoos and soaps and conditioners from one end of the bathtub and puts them in a row on the sink. He takes all the supplies under the sink and puts them on the sofa. He takes all of his shoes and puts them in the toilet.
           He’s asleep right now, which is the only reason I have time to write this. I am the sole caretaker, and I will not let my writing interfere with our relationship. When he is awake, if he comes up to me while I am writing, I stop writing.
           When I write, I know that I am collecting data into a random word processing file in my computer. But to my son, I’m just making funny clicking noises in front of a TV set. He wants to join me, just like I let him join me when I’m sitting at the piano.
           The obvious solution, sticking the baby somewhere where he can’t gnaw and play drums on my keyboard, doesn’t work. Trying to write with a baby crying in the next room, or outside, or in the playpen, doesn’t work either. Since there’s no one else to do it, it is my solemn commitment to keep this baby amused. This savage reshuffling of priorities is the most startling repercussion of parenthood. Everything becomes second fiddle when your baby needs you.
           Don’t blame the baby if you are on the world’s most important long distance phone call with your career hanging in the balance. You may never be able to get this person on the line again, but if your baby falls off the stairs and hurts his head, you will put them on hold.
           Don’t blame the baby if you’re on the 14th take of a meticulous piano solo you’re trying to record with borrowed equipment that you’ve got to give back TONIGHT, and the baby wants his bottle.
           Don’t blame the baby if my copy is due at 3:00 on Friday and the baby normally naps from 1:00 to 3:00 but today for some reason he fell asleep at 11:00 and woke up at noon so I haven’t had time to write it.
           I was once hired by one of my favorite novelists to assist him in the preparation of a screenplay based upon one of his books. I would get a big chunk of cash, no credit, and I would sign a piece of paper disclaiming any knowledge of the script that, I swear to God, I didn’t have anything to do with. In any case, I spent a month teaching him how I wrote screenplays, and he spent a month teaching me how he wrote novels. It went like this.
           First, you write a sentence, then you rewrite it and rewrite it until it is perfect. Only when you are absolutely positive that sentence number one is polished to perfection, do you start writing sentence number two, which you rewrite and rewrite until it, too, is a sparking geodesic monument to the art of wordsmanship. Then you quickly read back sentences one and two together, and the sensation of skipping from one well place adjective to another surprisingly sublime allusion will hurtle you into the creation of sentence number three, which you rewrite and rewrite until it is perfect.
           This process may turn the creation of a simple paragraph into a day’s outing. You may spend an entire Cuban cigar just absent-mindedly juggling all the feasible subtleties of an abstract juxtaposition, you may have just discovered the great American metaphor, you might be right in the middle of writing the best sentence you ever wrote when suddenly, oops, excuse me.
           He insists on doing things himself that he can’t do himself. Though he is fully dressed, he will pull my sweater on over his legs just to prove that he can dress himself. He will refuse food if you offer it to him already in the spoon, but give him a spoon and a bowl of something, and he will smear it all over everything while managing to down enough of it to ward off starvation. He knows the word “dydie” and grabs his crotch like an Italian every time he hears it. At first, I thought he was letting me know that his diapers were dirty, but I soon found out he was just letting me know that he knew what they were called. Buster, nothing in my life has ever been normal, and I don’t expect you to be any different.
           He poked me in the eye with his finger, and I said “My eye!” He immediately said “eye” and poked me again, So I poked him in the eye and said “eye.” We repeated this maneuver dozens of times. Now, if anyone says “eye” or even “I”, he will come up to them and poke them in it.
           He comes up to me while I am typing - with a bottle in one hand and two blankets in the other. He wimpers, letting me know that he wants to sit in my lap, which is his favorite comfy place. I pick him up, lean back in my desk chair, and he sits on me, contentedly sucking away, but only as long as I don’t try to continue typing. If I lean forward just an inch while reaching for my keyboard, he will pull the bottle out of his mouth and start to whimper. Maybe it’s because I’m no longer reclining at just the right angle for perfect bottle & blanket contemplation. Maybe he’s just pissed that I’m capable of doing something else while he drifts off into suction paradise. In any case, I’m faced with the choice of leaning back and doing absolutely nothing while keeping him happy, or leading forward and getting some work done.
           Go and stand in a line till you reach the window. Tell them your name, and they hand you a piece of paper and send you to the cashier. Where you wait in line, pay for your visit, get a receipt, go back to the first window, give it to them, sit down, and wait. Fifteen minutes later, my name is called, I’m led to a room where they measure the baby and take his temperature.
           Then I’m sent back to the most appropriately named room in the hospital, the waiting room. An hour later, my name is called again, this time by the doctor I had an appointment with two hours ago. He questions me on the baby’s general health, his diet, his hearing, his vocabulary, his bowel movements, his sleep patterns, and his bottle. I explain that he had a very high fever a month ago that caused a febrile convulsion. He was surprised that I didn’t bring the baby in. I told him that it was over quickly, that he passed out, and I cooled him off in a bath. He explained that it could be something serious, and I told him that I tested him to see if he could touch his chin to his chest, so I knew it wasn’t spinal meningitis. He was surprised that I knew such a thing, and I told him I had this book called The Well Baby Book which told me not to panic, and explained the right things to do. He could see that the baby was fine, but he told me to definitely bring the baby in if it happened again.
           He asked if the baby drank bottle or city water. I told him that we drank bottled water, and he told me that the baby should get fluoride, which was in the city water but not in the bottles.
           Then he tested Buster’s eyes and ears, listened to his chest, looked at the immunization record, and told me the baby needed two shots. Instead of just giving him the shots, he wrote down the order on a prescription pad. I had to go to the pharmacy, pay for the shots and the fluoridated vitamins, come back, and show the nurse the receipt before Buster could get the shots. He took them well, with only about thirty seconds of crying, and I went home.
           I gave him some Tylenol, like I was told to. He took a bath and got put in his PJs. He came to me with his customary whine, a bottle, and two blankets. He sat in my lap for two minutes, threw the bottle to the ground, jumped from my lap, and ran to the door with determination. He quickly opened it, went outside, and said “Bye bye.” He’s off to see the world. Write if you get work.
           The natural forces of this genetic relationship can gang up on you in unexpected ways, but they are all organic, part of an inescapable maturing process. You’ve got to expect to encounter difficulties with a creature who knows absolutely nothing but what you teach it. My baby knows no other way to behave but the way I do, with the added element of endless experimentation. Daddy does something like THIS with these items I don’t understand, so what would happen if I did something like THAT with these items. Daddy puts them out of reach, so he must be hiding something from me. Daddy keeps all my favorite toys out of reach, so all those other things on his desk must be toys too, so I will play with them.
           This leads to your turning your back for one second and discovering that the baby has moved his chair over to your desk and climbed on top to play with everything on it. He could hurt himself with a pen. He could pee on this manuscript.
           The problems I didn’t expect to face had to do with prejudice. Though there are a majority of people out there who light up when Buster enters the room, there are a chosen few who, out of jealousy, impatience, or sheer vindictiveness, try to make my life as miserable as possible. The two most shining examples of this concerned my job and my landlord, both of whom sent me the same clear signal - “Who needs you?”
           I accidentally found myself dwelling in the negative, rerunning some ancient emotional crisis, stuck in an endless loop of questions. Why did I say that? Why didn’t I do this? There are thousands of scenes from my past that are conjured up uncontrollably in these seconds, like a montage that is constantly re-edited to deliver different messages in each situation. I am not drowning, but my life is passing before my eyes. I can see it all, and I wonder if my present actions are somehow governed by the fact that, in the future, I will find great amusement at my past.
           I recognized mistakes that had been made with me, mistakes that I would never make with him. It’s tempting to invent my own mistakes, to take advantage of the natural power trip now available to me. I mean the kid’s a sucker. He will believe anything I tell him, no matter how ridiculous. I palmed a chocolate almond and pretended I got it out of his ear. He ate it, and spent the next five minutes searching his ears, secure in the knowledge that ears are where chocolate comes from.
           Bobbe has promised that if I go to her house for a visit, she will return all the things she stole from me the lasttime she visited. I arrived at her house at 4:30 with Buster. Sitting on her table was my stapler, my now empty Robot piggy bank, my calculator, my watch, a statuette of Jiminy Cricket, and a little yellow notebook that contained the following message, which I’m sure she read. “You are only as sick as your secrets.”
           She screamed at me, she screamed at the baby, she offered to kill me, she said she hated me, she asked me to hold her, she said she would get me back, that she’d make me suffer like I made her suffer, that I had to get ten dollars, that the baby had to SHUT UP, that she wouldn’t get out of the car until I gave her my money. I gave her two dollars and she asked for my change so I gave that to her too. She got hysterical, said that I was going to make her go back into prostitution, that some day she’d tell Buster the truth about me, and that I better hope that Buster didn’t believe her just like the court didn’t believe her.
           Bobbe had a tough case to prove, but her lawyer didn’t seen to think so. He was gung-ho, looking confident and successful, right out of L.A. Law. He was going to win this one for the firm.
           I decided to go with the lawyer that had been assigned to me by the court, who was small, mild mannered, and confident. I figured that Judge Weisberg would be more comfortable with someone he dealt with all the time. There was to be a series of hearings that stretched out almost a year before Judge Weisberg would make his final decision as to little Michael’s custody.
           Once again, three attorneys, one state-appointed for the child, one state-appointed for me, and Bobbe’s killer corporate knothead. Our case worker testified that the baby seemed fine where he was, and she recommended leaving him with me. Then a court appointed psychiatrist testified that Bobbe was disturbed and that the baby should be left where he was.
           Bobbe testified that she wanted her baby back, that she hadn’t attended any of the drug counseling sessions, but that she had signed up, that she had left the state to have another baby, and had not informed her case worker about it.
              When asked why she thought that I wasn’t providing good enough care for the baby, she explained that I didn’t keep my bathtub clean enough, that she found some crumbs in the crib, indicating that I might have actually let the child eat in there, or worse, used the crib as a playpen. Also, she didn’t like the way I once grabbed the baby’s arm when he picked up my TV remote control.
           She then admitted that I had not only smoked pot with her, but that I had gone to get some drugs for a friend. She then testified that I once left her alone for 25 minutes during a visit that was supposed to be monitored. Then she produced a photo of herself with a black eye and said that I beat her up. She also managed to get in that we had smoked freebase together many years ago.
           Once again I was forced to deal with unfortunate subjects that didn’t need to be brought up. Defending myself against these charges felt ludicrous, but I had to do it.
           “Yes, your honor, the baby took a bath, and I dried him and dressed him before pulling the plug in the tub. Hours later, when I removed the plug, I found that the baby had left a little surprise for me on the bottom of the tub. Bobbe showed up for her visit at that instant and got very upset that I was letting the baby shit in the bathtub. Then she cleaned it up. I would like to thank her for doing that, and thank her for bringing up the subject.
           “Yes, your honor, I dealt drugs ten years ago, no I don’t do it any more, no I didn’t go get any for a friend while Bobbe watched. If I were to smoke a joint, the last person I would do it in front of is Bobbe. I’m surprised she didn’t claim that she found a hypodermic needle in my bathroom.
           “Yes, your honor, there might be crumbs in the baby’s bed, but I have never deserted him there to do other things. I can let him out my front door, and he’s got a giant garden and patio to play in. Why would I coop him up in the bedroom? My computer faces the window, and I can do my job and watch him play outside at the same time. It’s lovely.
           “Yes, your honor, after more than 100 visits from Bobbe that were monitored for every second, there was a time last week when I ran out of milk, so I scooted to the corner 7/11 to get some. I couldn’t possibly have been gone more than ten minutes. I did it once, only once, and everything went okay. She was still there with the baby when I got back and nothing was missing. I know the court ordered otherwise, but I would like to believe that I can eventually trust this child with his mother. I thought I was ushering in a new era of trust in our relationship, but apparently I was wrong. I can’t believe she’s trying to use this against me. I believed I was doing her a favor by showing that she could be responsible, but I was wrong and it will never happen again.”
           My lawyer turned to me and said “Judge Weisberg has stopped taking notes. That means he’s already made his mind up.” Soon I noticed that he had not only stopped notes, he was not paying attention. His eyes were constantly on the move, looking for something else to do. He gave occasional orders to clerks, he inquired as to how other cases were proceeding, and at one point he actually sustained his own objection to one of Bobbe’s lawyer’s line of questioning, ordering him to get on to something else.
           The psychiatrist spent at least three minutes rattling off his credentials. He then explained that he had testified in more than 200 cases such as this one. He described a test that he had given Bobbe, and showed how certain results were indicative of specific types of mental illness.
           One true-or-false portion of the test involved a series of sentences that are all true but seem socially unacceptable. Statements like “Sometimes I get angry” or “Sometimes the world doesn’t live up to my expectations” are true for any human being, but they might not seem permissible to admit. Answering “true” to any of the statements would mean that you were honest and in touch with your emotions. Answering “false” would mean that you were trying to hide something, that you were paranoid, that you were scared of what people might think if you admitted to feeling hurt or angry. Bobbe answered them all false. Maybe she actually believes that nothing bad ever happens to the pure at heart.
           Her attorney’s argument was “What’s so wrong with having a positive attitude?” Then he got in his licks by quoting from long lists of categories and descriptions from psychiatric manuals. It seemed futile, since the doctor was clearly someone who knew what he was talking about because of years of experience, whereas the lawyer was simply a bright and energetic punk who had done his homework.
           After spending hours trying to prove how much his client had improved over the past nine months, her lawyer asked the wrong question; What possible reason could there be for not returning the baby to his mother? The doctor explained that if the baby and I had bonded, it didn’t make any difference how much the mother’s condition had improved, the change from one household to the other would be traumatic to the baby. It was the strongest possible statement that could have been made in my behalf, and he wouldn’t have said it if Bobbe’s lawyer hadn’t asked him to.
           After awhile, it became clear to me what was happening. This man was “practicing” law. He is in a real courtroom cross examining witnesses. He is objecting, he is getting sustained and overruled. And he is wasting everyone’s time since Judge Weisberg has clearly already made a decision.
           If this were a jury trial, he might be accomplishing something. After all, it is his job to attempt to punch holes into any and all testimony that might seem damaging to his client. But since we have a judge, it should be any attorney’s sole responsibility to win that single person over. But this guy is pissing off Judge Weisberg to no end. At least five times, Judge Weisberg said something like “How much longer are you intending to pursue this line of questioning?” At one point, her lawyer said “only five minutes.” Judge Weisberg paid no attention for five minutes, then said “five minutes is up.”
           Maybe that’s what all pro-bono cases are. A new young lawyer gets to display a transcript of a trial to his firm that shows he knows the ropes. Even though he lost, he gained valuable courtroom experience, and might be more prepared to handle a real case. He also provided Bobbe with miles of testimony to attack in further appeals. Since the case comes up for review every six months, this could go on a long time.
           I suddenly realized that it would be impossible to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am not doing something. Short of strapping a video camera to my head and running it 24 hours a day in order to show what I’m doing every second, how is it possible to prove conclusively that I am not doing something? My only possible defense became total honesty, I simply had to admit everything, talk about it openly, clearly, with erudite complete sentences. Then, maybe Judge Weisberg would also believe me when I told him that those practices were part of my past. (I discovered, among other revelations, that I like giving testimony. It is absolutely freeing to be under oath and to have nothing to hide.)
           Buster, you will want to reach to the skies and shake your fists at the moronic God that has deserted you on earth. I don’t know what you did to deserve this, but here you are, a helpless little bundle in the care of such as I.
           There are those who believe that this is hell, and I don’t mean that metaphorically. Some people think you have already been judged guilty in some type of former life, and because of that verdict, you were sentenced to a life on earth. They might be right.
           The trial lasted almost a year. By the time both arguments were heard, the baby had been living with me for ten months, and Bobbe was starting to show with our second child, conceived that one fateful night she showed up at my door. The final hearing had to be postponed because she was giving birth, to Nisa, our daughter. Boy, this makes us look real responsible in front of Dr. Death. Considering his ultra-conservatism, it was just as likely for him to decide against both of us, sending little Michael and Nisa to baby prison.
            He finally ruled that Buster could stay with me, but just in case Bobbe’s accusations were true, he ordered me to go through a drug rehabilitation program. Bobbe didn’t find out what Judge Weisberg had to say to her, as she stomped out of the courtroom - vowing never to see the baby again. It was not the last promise that she wouldn’t keep. She immediately moved to Phoenix with her mother.
       

      Chapter Five
       


      Back to The Bachelor's Baby
        

      dareland