(Feet Don’t Fail Me Now…)
The most powerful people in the world are nothing more than spoiled, rotten, and little bratty children. So Sad.
Ice cream, eaten late at night, without anyone knowing, tastes the best. It’s a scientific fact. Look it up.
Today is the 81st Anniversary of D-Day.
(The short story “Hi Daddy” by Matthew Klam appeared in the October 14th, 2024 issue of The New Yorker.)
Photograph by Ryan Lowry for The New Yorker
As I get older, I have this dualistic thought in my head when I think of my parents; How much I am like them, and how much I am not like them. This dualism can cause great joy, and unbelievable anxiety in me. I also know as a middle-aged man, that the more things change, the more they stay the same. With Matthew Klam’s story “Hi Daddy,” a well-intended but uneven work, he attempts to address these issues.
Here’s my way to simple synopsis: Middle aged man says goodbye to his teenage daughter as she goes off to Europe for the summer before she starts college, and then he visits his elderly parents, realizing that he is more like his father than he wants to admit.
Emotionally, I dug this story, and identified strongly with the narrator. There was an honesty in the narrator, that sometimes got very close to self-pity and whining, but Klam was able to pull it back in time. The narrator, in his family, has the role of primary care giver, as his wife has the job that earns the majority of their living. This role has left the narrator feeling taken for granted and left out, though his wife does point out that he is the cause of this situation, as he can be emotionally unavailable, especially to their daughter. Part of his issue stems from having trouble dealing with his daughter leaving home, and the changes that it will bring. When he visits his parents, his father has fallen and has dementia. The dementia means the father no longer recognizes the son, and the fall means that the once stoic and distant father has become feeble and dependent. Again, the theme of change, and the act of dealing with change, gives the story a weight here, and the narrator’s inability to know how to deal with these situations and emotions has a melancholic honesty to it.
Yet, I had issues with this story, and they were all technical storytelling issues. When I finished the piece, I was left feeling unsatisfied, and that was due to none of the story threads felt wrapped up. Many emotional tangents are cast about in this story, but they don’t come back or lead to a resolution. The narrator says that he doesn’t like his parents, but the issues are with his father, so why is the mother put in the same bucket with the father? When the narrator realizes that he is becoming like his father, will that influence future actions of the narrator?
That last one was the kicker for me, for that was the driver for the unsatisfying feeling the story created in me.
If this is a normal “Hero’s Journey” story, then the narrator’s realization that he is like his father would then influence an action in the climax of the story, therefore allowing the hero to defeat the obstacle and view the world in a different way. The best that I can tell, the hero’s obstacle is himself, the climax has to do with the horse getting free (horse also metaphor for father/son,) yet the narrator’s actions in dealing with the horse are not influenced by his realization. If this is a normal “Rising Action, Climax, Resolution” story, then I’m not sure what to make out of the last two sections as a resolution; the thoughts the narrator has about his daughter’s choice in boyfriends and her actions towards them, and final section which is a “Dead Chick in the Basket*” cliché. That left me to believe that this whole exercise was just a meditation on the narrator dealing with a rough two days, and the narrator is the same person at the start of the story as he is at the end of the story. And if that is true, the narrator doesn’t change, then why are we being told this story?
I will say this, “Hi Daddy” has some very fine points, and some crisp, honesty imagery and writing. Matthew Klam is writing about a character who is flawed, which is just ripe for storytelling. And it almost gets there. He just didn’t stick the landing.
* “Dead Chick in the Basket” refers to a writing device where the final paragraph of a short story contains new information about a character which is meant to make the reader view the actions, statements, or feelings of that character in a different light. The first known use of this device was in J.D. Salinger’s short story “Just Before the War with the Eskimos.”
We had a rough night of sleep. More like, we had a rough night of not sleeping.
I’m a night owl, and if I had my choice, I would stay a night owl forever! But, I’m not twenty-four anymore, and as I have more things to live for, and as get closer to my death and further from my birth, I am starting to take my health more seriously. In that regard, I am trying to get more sleep to help regulate my body, or whatever it is that my doctor told me I needed to do to lose weight, and live for a long time.
I have been making progress. I got one of those health apps on my phone, and I have noticed that I am moving from five hours of sleep, to very closely to getting six hours of sleep. The goal is seven, and if one day comes and I get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, I might actually be dead.
Then last night, we had a rough one.
My daughter normally is a great sleeper. Like, she’s out in five minutes after hitting the pillow. In fact, she’s always been like that, even as a baby. We had very few nights where she was cranky and wouldn’t sleep. It was a blessing that we were very grateful to receive. Yet, last night wasn’t her night.
See, she had a test this morning at school, and even though she’s an A+ student and on top of all her school work, tests do make her very anxious. So, before bed, we talked about her feelings, what she was nervous about, what she hoped would happen. All the normal steps we take when she has a very important day in the morning. And after we put her to bed, she was back up in about ten minutes. We did the same thing again, and talked through all of her feelings, making sure she knew we were here to support her no matter what happened, and also building up her confidence for taking the test.
She was down for about an hour, and then she got up again, but this time she was sleep walking. This is also a normal reaction that she has when there is a big day ahead of her. Usually, we can gently get her back into bed. But last night, she was up three more times, and with each occurrence, she was angrier and angrier. And each time, we remained calm, got her back into bed, and tried to sooth her to sleep. The final episode was at 1am, and I have to be up at 5:30 to get our family going.
And she was tired this morning when I got her up, but she had no memory of the night before. She remembers getting up the first time, but nothing else. I don’t believe that the kid is trying to deceive me, I don’t think she was lying. I know that the best thing to do in these situations is not to draw too much attention to the night before, and make her feel guilty. It happened, and we are all okay, and we are all here to support each other.
On the way to school this morning, she was bubbly, and said she was ready for her test. Then we ran into a friend, and the two of them talked Percy Jackson books, and summer camps. I guess she’s okay; I mean, I won’t know till after school. She seems okay, but sometimes that isn’t always the truth.
If you are not aware, besides being a theatre artist and a writer and a sketchbook enthusiasts, I am also a stay at home parent. I like to see how many hats I can put on over the course of a day, as every day is a balancing act. I make time for my family and try to take time for myself.
But all of it will come to a crashing halt when the kid gets sick, which happened this morning. She woke up groggy and not hungry, which were yellow flags that something was up. And then there was a cough, followed by her repeating to us that she felt warm. Ahh… the final red flag.
I took her temperature and immediately thought of how when everyone is a kid, they think they can force their body to have a fever to get out of school. Too my sad surprise, the kid actually had a fever. Holy Crap! It’s just the second week of school; is that even possible?
The answer is yes. And as the day has gone on, the fever has slowly crept up. Nothing scary, but it went from 99 to now resting at 100. Tylenol and Gatorade be damned! Nothing will kill this bug!
What was I planning on doing today?
Doesn’t matter. This is a day of toast making and YouTube watching. Reading stories, and playing games.
The writing I wanted to do today? Ha! Dream on, sir! There is a little girl that needs her dad.
And deep down, I know I’d rather take care of the kid than do anything else.
Even though I might pitch a story idea to a comedy blog, and write a couple of short story reviews.
Who am I kidding? I’m going to let the kid paint my nails.
The drive back to New York City was over two days. We drove four hours to a hotel south of Harrisburg, then on Sunday, we’d drive four more hours and be back home. I had planned for enough time, so if we saw something that we wanted to look at, we stop and it wouldn’t throw off any schedules.
Growing up, on family car trips, we had a running joke, which was “we’ll hit it on the way back.” See, mainly the only time we took a road trip was to go up to Illinois to visit family, which we did just about every Summer. My father is an easy-going man, but when it came to driving, we had a schedule to stick to. And though we made this trip every year, there were attractions along the way, and when me and my brothers would squawk to him about stopping to see the world’s largest ball of twine, he’d tell us that we’d hit it on the way back. Then two weeks later, as we were passing the exit for the twine, and the old man would ask us if we wanted to stop, all of us wanted to be home badly, so we’d him that we’ll do it next year. You now see how this cycle repeats itself. At some point, we all came to understand that “hitting it on the way back” was as good as a no.
With the kid in the car, and on a father daughter adventure, I was determined to not say no to stuff the kid wanted to see. Now, deep in my core, I wanted to be home as soon as possible. I still had a sick wife at home that might need some nursing, and I didn’t want to delay her chance to see her daughter as soon as possible. Yet, when we’d see a sign for something, and I offered to stop, the kid kept telling me; she wanted to get home. She wanted to see mom, and be in her bed. I know I could have stopped – forced her to experience a natural cavern with her dad – but forcing her to do something wasn’t the point of the exercise.
When we checked into our hotel south of Harrisburg, I knew I had to feed the kid. Luckily, there were plenty of chain restaurants all around us – with unlimited salads and breadsticks, chips and hot sauce, or whatever it is they give you at a road house from Texas. None of it sounded appealing to either one of us.
“What was the one food you were missing at camp?”
“Sushi.”
“I can work with that.” One quick search and I found a sushi place two minutes from our hotel in a very gray cement strip mall – and it wasn’t a chain.
This is where I got my wish, “Order whatever you want.” And she wanted miso soup, and something called Rock Shrimp for an appetizer. I let her pick out the rolls as well, and she selected an eclectic group. Salmon, and tuna, and something with cream cheese in it, which she had never had before and wanted to know what it was like. “Let’s find out.”
I don’t know if I’m doing a good job as a father, and I bet I will never know. By not trying to screw her up, I know that I am screwing her up. I don’t want her to be afraid to try things in this world, to go out and do something. That was a huge hurdle for me to overcome. So much of my youth was always staying in the orbit of my parents. Never straying too far. They always encouraged me to go forth, leave the nest and explore, so I honestly feel that whatever was holding me back was me. When I broke free and move away from everything that I had known, it was difficult, and I felt like I was abandoning them – I felt guilty. I still feel guilty from time to time.
I don’t want her to feel like that. Maybe I do force this on her – pushing her out into the world, telling her that she will leave, and that’s okay, and that’s what you should do. Don’t be afraid to leave what you know. I hope it lands; I hope that she learns this lesson sooner than I did.
