Friday, June 15, 2012

sonny talks

I have ingested an insane amount of sirloin steak, $6.99 a pound, and the stuff will sit in my gut for the next three days refusing to digest.  When you don't eat meat much your body forgets how to process it and flatulence follows you around like a faithful puppy.  My father was here for supper and I prepared his favorite, shish kabob and normally I would concentrate on the vegetables but Dad had something serious to discuss and I did what any normal human being does when confronted with uncomfortable news, I overeat.

Sonny has been in this relationship with a woman he has known for sixty years. They play Scrabble in the park, have fish dinners on Friday nights and go to organ recitals at some church.  My father says their together time has lessened in the last several weeks and he is not liking this.  But Cathy is her own woman and a contemporary one at that and she tends her garden and makes silk flower centerpieces for banquets and is a member of a bridge club, a reading club and the Red Hat club.  Okay, we'll forgive her that last one.
"There were eighty people at her birthday party," Dad tells me clearly annoyed, "I'd be lucky if eight people showed up for mine."  Wow, I say, eight, woo-hoo, that many and I'm trying to divert the man with a little humor, very little humor it seems.

And I would rather be diagnosed with rectal worms than have this conversation with my father.  "So you want to take it to the next level?" I ask and I cannot believe I just uttered this inane sentence but there it is  "There isn't much more level to take it to," he replies clearly misunderstanding the question thank god.  My mother was content clipping recipes out of magazines sitting across from my father night after night after night.

So Sonny will be at Cathy's home tomorrow for yet another fish dinner and he will have a talk with her, a talk, and the word hangs above us in the air heavy and dreadful and worrisome. I know he doesn't want any advice from my position but only that I agree with him, that's what men of his generation require from the rest of us subordinates.

"Just make sure you have the talk after you eat, Dad" I finally say. And it's a wrap.

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