by Jim Stevens
“Would you look at those two,” Tiffany nudged me to turn around.
“Probably just stopped by from work,” I say. “Afraid of a little competition?”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Tiffany said as she retrieved her phone from her black purse. “When they go back to work, they’ll be back on their backs working.”
The rest of the spectators were a smattering of business, personal, and neighborly acquaintances; although none of the Kenilworthians I interviewed were in attendance. A downtown funeral didn’t fit in with busy social calendars. It would be so much easier if people had the decency to allow more lead time in scheduling their deaths.
The minister came out, made his way to the pulpit, raised his hands, and the congregation rose to its feet. If I had this kind of control at home, parenting would be much easier. He started in on a canned speech with: “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to pay tribute to Allen J. Augustus…”
The funeral director cleared her throat loud enough to be heard in the next county.
The minister glanced at his notes and continued. His talk droned on as he dropped in appropriate phrases about dust, valleys of death, and a most inappropriate statement, “Thou shalt not want.” The only reason people were in the church was that they all wanted a piece of Alvin, but not what was left in the urn.
About halfway through the opening monologue a click-clock tapping of high heels against the marble floor made me turn to see second wife, Clayton’s mama, Joan make her way up the aisle. The woman paused at Alvin’s big picture, and, for a second, I thought she might put her fist through his nose. She sat down next to her son.
The minister’s blah, blah, blah added a “river of life,” “lilies of the field,” and one more “dearly beloved” before he finally asked the congregation, “Now if anyone would like to say a few words in personal tribute to the dearly departed, please step forward.”
Nobody moved. It was as if every ass in the place was glued to his or her seat. Doris elbowed Brewster and he elbowed her right back. Clayton looked to Christina, whose face was buried in the neck of her brunette.
The minister waited way too long, which made the absence of any good things to say about Alvin even more profound. When Tiffany rose to her feet and exited our pew, I feared she might give some pearls of wisdom at the pulpit, but she headed for the back of the church instead of the front.
“Okay, well, I guess,” the minister stammered, “all stand for the closing prayer.”
His final words were about as heartfelt and touching as the rest of the ceremony, “May he rest in the arms of the angels.”
“Oh, yeah, right, that’s going to happen,” I whisper to myself.
Doris and Brewster strode down the aisle first, followed by the half-siblings. As Doris passed by Joan, I imagined her middle finger rising to remind the woman she replaced who ended up number one when Alvin’s train left the station.
The remainder of the mourners filed out after the family. In less than three minutes the church was empty, except for a large photo of Alvin J. Augustus and a gold urn. We come into the world alone and we leave it alone. In Alvin’s case he left it alone, extra crispy.
“I got ’em.” Tiffany came up to me as I step out of the church, her cell phone in hand.
“Got what?” I ask, but was much more interested in Doris, Clayton, and Brewster getting into one limo and Christina and the brunette getting into another.
“I got a picture of everyone and I’m sure one of them did it, since murderers always show up to see the fruit of their labors.”
“They do?”
“They do in the movies.”
“Maybe I should see more movies.”
“Excuse me,” a rotund man in a dark blue suit said as he approached, “are you Richard Sherlock?”
“Does Richard Sherlock owe you any money?” I ask.
“No.”
“Then, yes, I’m the guy.”
The man pulled a business card out of his breast pocket with the stealth of a magician. “Conway Waddy, attorney at law. I’ll be handling the estate.”
“Lucky you,” I say shaking his hand. “This is Tiffany Richmond.”
“Richmond, as in Richmond Insurance?”
“That’s me.”
Conway is built like a barrel; he wears a pair of suspenders as well as a belt. “Where’s your father?” Conway spoke with a courtroom swagger.
My dad has been dead for years, so he must be speaking to Tiffany.
“He’s not here,” Tiffany tells the man.
“I’m the executor of the will,” he says.
“Okay,” Tiffany says.
Conway’s mad. “If I have to, I’ll get a court order.”
“Okay,” she repeats.
I can sense she has no clue what’s going on with this guy.
Conway sways back and forth. “I’ve called your father numerous times.”
“He’s a busy guy.”
Conway speaks in his best threatening tone. “If you think you can get around me, you’re wrong.”
Tiffany takes a step back, peers at the man’s girth. “I have a feeling you’d have trouble getting around anything.”
Conway tucks the end of his tie into his pants, but it pops out the instant he moves. “The will is to be read Monday morning.”
“Great,” Tiffany says.
“Where is it?” Conway asks.
“You don’t have a copy?” I ask.
“Not all of it.”
“How can you read a will you don’t have.”
Conway ignores me and says to Tiffany, “Tell your old man I need the complete document.”
“Okay.”
“Now.”
Conway Waddy waddles off.
We stand alone in front of the church.
“Whole lot of love in that guy,” I say to my assistant.
“Yep.”
“What does he want?”
Tiffany gets a silly look on her face. “Daddy told me it’s going to be great.”
“What?”
“The reading of the will.”
“Why?”
“It’ll be all up for grabs. Fingers will get pointed, everybody swears up a storm, the siblings start throwing punches at one another and the two wives get into a catfight. I can’t wait.”
“Tiffany, what’s Daddy holding?” I ask.
“The rider.”
“The rider he won’t tell you about?”
“I would think that would be the one.”
“He hasn’t told you yet?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He knows I can’t keep a secret.”
10
Not a good time dad
The first thing any dad does the moment he moves out or is kicked out of the house is to go out and buy a How to be a Good Dad During the Divorce book. There are about three hundred to choose from at your local bookstore.
They’re all the same. Chapter One concerns not talking badly about your wife in front of your kids, even though your kids are quoting your wife verbatim on what a low-life their father is, or relaying messages about her need for more cash, new tires for the car, and that the garage door you fixed still needs fixing. Chapter Two is a warning about the perils of becoming a “good-time” dad. The books put this malfeasance in the same league as spilling the beans about Santa or the Easter Bunny. The good-time-daddy trap, they explain, is when your kids only look at you as the person to take them shopping, to the zoo, amusement parks, and museums, and not as the father they need in their difficult time of transition. Sooner or later, the books lecture, you will run out of good times and your kids will turn on you because you’ve become a boring, no-fun kind of a dad. The book says you should give your children a template of what life is really all about and this will prepare them to live their lives not expecting every other weekend to be whoopee from the get-go.
This is a problem I wish I had.
What has h
appened in our lives is the direct opposite of what the books warn. I pick the kids up on Friday night, fight traffic back to my apartment and order a pizza, because it is too late for me to whip up a culinary delight they’ll refuse to eat. They eat in front of the TV on Friday, but all other nights we eat at the table as a family. On Saturday morning, while they sleep in, I get up before six, get to the “Fluff and Fold” before the crowd and do three loads. By the time I get back, they are up and back in front of the TV. I make them breakfast, which again they turn their noses up at, then we get going for our fun-filled Saturday. First stop, dry cleaners. Second, the drug store. By ten we’re at the market, squeezing melons.
If you are divorced with kids, go to the market Saturday morning, for this is the time divorced-with-kids women shop. If you prefer to bump carts with single, younger women, shop in the late afternoon when the prettier of the species fill the pre-cooked, pre-packaged aisles. You can always tell a woman’s marital status with one look into her cart.
Kelly and Care are a pain at the market. Each pleads for sugary cereals or those awful fruit roll-ups, which they swear are as healthy as any plum or prune. There is a constant reading of on-the-box claims of nutrition percentages, daily adult requirements, and actual fruit flavors; the conversations always end with a “Please, Dad.”
“No, that stuff will rot your teeth.”
“But the label says it’s fortified.”
“In a few years, I’m going to have to get you braces and what would be the point of putting braces on teeth that are fortified with junk?”
Unfortunately, I always concede to one or two utterly worthless food items, but that’s all.
By the time we get home, unload the groceries, and have lunch, it is time to get back in the car and start driving. So far, good-time dad and his two little kids have had zero fun.
We drive and drive and drive. There are birthday parties, tryouts, lessons, bar mitzvahs, dances, study groups. These kids have a social calendar I would die for. I end up sitting in the car, waiting for one to finish or one to start or figuring out how to get Kelly to a practice and Care to a play date ten miles apart at the same time. Sure is fun for me.
On Sunday mornings I used to take them to Sunday school at a local Catholic Church. Kelly’s argument of “If we have to go, you have to go” ended their formal religious training in less than six weeks. My children are pious only up to the fourth commandment.
Now on Sundays, they sleep in and I get up and clean the apartment. The TV goes off in the afternoon, when all homework must be completed. I help, but secretly fear the first algebra book coming home. We sit down together for Sunday dinner. I try to talk with them about their lives, but they are too busy complaining about what a crummy, boring weekend they have had. This is the time they remind me that when they are with their mother on weekends they get to ride their new horse and do fun things. I explain to them that that isn’t what real life is all about. “Life is hard. You have to work, cook, clean, do chores, pay taxes, and be responsible.”
“It isn’t that way at home; Mom’s got help.”
“One day you two are going to thank me for teaching you all these life lessons.”
“Yeah, right, Dad.”
I drop them off at their mother’s house at 8 pm Sunday evening. I have followed the book’s instructions to the letter about not being a good-time dad. I feel so proud.
___
This weekend followed the template pretty much down the line. Pick up pizza, laundry, market, lunch, and finally to the mall, because Kelly could no longer live without a pair of bright-red Crocs, so I relented to her and also had to buy Care a pair. Thirty-six bucks for ugly, plastic shoes is outrageous.
The mail was waiting for me when we got home from the mall on Saturday afternoon. Amidst the junk, catalogs, offers to invest all the extra money I have un-invested is an envelope, letter-sized, almost square. I almost threw it away along with a timeshare offer in Boca and the chance to upgrade my computer to lightning internet speed. The envelope had been postmarked on Thursday at the main station downtown, meaning it could have come from almost anywhere in the city. It was addressed to Richard Sherlock, no Mr. and no IL, just my street address and zip-code, handwritten as if by Care when she was five, and no return address, a postal no-no.
There was one page inside, an eight by eleven, twenty-pound piece of flimsy bond paper, the kind used by Kinko’s for its cheapest service. The message was printed by a computer. Who uses a typewriter in the technology age? It was folded into thirds, and folded in half. The message had no date, name, or address; this was no piece of business mail. The writing was on the top third of the page, a succinct note of brief instruction:
Don’t tell any buddy about this. Call 312 555-5675 request Diane Monday.
Always nice to get personal mail.
There is some Disney musical blaring out of the TV, as I sit between my daughters and place the note and envelope in my lap.
“What is it, Dad?” Kelly asks.
“A letter.”
My daughter looks at me as if I’m weird. “Nobody writes letters anymore.”
“What do they do?”
“Text, email, Twitter, whatever.”
I reread the note. It was written by a woman. Mid-twenties to early thirties, once a lousy student and not employed where she would use her brain over her brawn, grammatical skills a dead giveaway. She is petite. No one big writes that small, even with the opposite hand. She has some, but little, knowledge of the computer, just enough to write and print this note. She couldn’t figure out how to computerize and address the envelope. I suspect she is not married, since the envelope is the kind sold with a greeting card. A married woman would never have one without the other laying around. She was nervous when she wrote and mailed the letter, due to the uneven first two folds into thirds, and then trying to make up for it with the last attempt to fold the page perfectly in half.
I pull the phone to me, dial the reverse directory, hear the command and punch in the 312 number on the letter. “The address of the number you have requested is unlisted, please try another number.” I figured as much. I will assume that Monday is not Diane’s last name and hang up the phone. I carefully place the page back in its envelope, place it on a stack of stuff I know I’ll clean around, and ask the girls, “Tuna casserole for dinner?”
“Oh, gross.”
My kid weekend ended much the way it began: boring.
I get home after dropping off the kids at about nine. I retrieve the letter and dial 312 555-5675.
If you were to dial my number and I wasn’t available to answer the telephone, a lady would tell you I wasn’t around, but “Please leave a message at the sound of the tone.”
The exact same lady said the exact same words to me after five rings. This must be one heck of a busy woman.
“My name is Richard and I want to request Diane Monday.” I say into the receiver.
My phone rings five minutes later.
“Hello.”
“You called 555-5675.” The male voice was deep, quick, and to the point.
“Yes.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to request Diane Monday.”
“Is this your home number?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your home address?”
I fill in the blank.
“I’ll call you back in five minutes,” he says and hangs up.
I wait and in exactly five minutes, the phone rings.
“Hello.”
“I’m Nick.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“What time would you like to see Diane?”
“You pick.”
“One hour or two?”
“One should be plenty.”
At this point I have a pretty good idea what this is all about, and not because I’ve done this before.
“In or out?”
“In.”
“Four o’clock.” Nick’
s voice picks up in tempo. “Eleven thirty-eight North State. The name of the building is One State Street. Go to the front desk, tell the concierge you are Richard Sherlock and want forty-one-fourteen. He’ll call, and then buzz you in. Go to the second bank of elevators, not the first. You don’t want to be looking stupid wandering around the wrong elevator bank.”
“I can handle that.”
“Knock on the door, your hour starts at four,” he hesitates, “you want anything special?”
“No, I’m kind of a non-special kind of a guy.”
“It’s four hundred, cash. We don’t take credit cards.”
“Fine.”
“Where did you hear about us?” he asks.
“Ah,” I hesitate.
“You see us on the net?” he says. “Escorts R us dot com?”
“No.”
“In the Reader?”
The Reader is a Chicago alternative weekly newspaper, which carries “Adult Entertainment” advertising. “No.”
Nick must have a sheet to record the value of his advertising dollar. “Then where did you hear about us?”
“Fan mail from some flounder.”
Nick laughs, a fellow flying squirrel fan. “See you Monday.”
“Thanks,” I said, “can’t wait.”
I hang up the phone and turn on the computer. It takes forever to come on and get to the open space where I type in www.EscortsRus.com. A disclaimer comes on the screen. Is this absurd or what? I click, swear my age is over twenty-one, hit “Okay” and am sent to the menu page. What a menu. Halfway down the page are two women I last saw in church.
Off goes the computer. I pick up the phone and dial. She picks up on the sixth ring. “What?”
“I need you to bring an advance with you tomorrow morning.”
“What?” Tiffany’s voice is weak.
“Tiffany, are you okay?”
“I’m tired,” she says, “I’ve been flushing my system all day. I’m sick of eating bran cereal.”
“I need some cash.”
“Daddy hates giving out advances. What’s it for?”
“A prostitute.”
“Oh, Mister Sherlock, if you’re that hard up, I could fix you up with one of my friends,” she stops, quickly retracts, “I mean one of my friend’s mothers.”
