The Reluctant Daddy

(Continued from CHECKS AND BALANCES)

Camp.

When I was 6 ½ years old, my panicked mother and father hastily decided to cure their son’s effeminate nature by sending him to a place where the prevailing ‘drill and kill’ child psychology was celebrated with the pomp and circumstance the Soviet military reserves for those hideous Victory Day celebrations.

In my all-boy, ‘military style’ camp, we were up before dawn each day and put through a vigorous regimen of terrifying team sports, tasteless meals, and tuneless camp songs, cheers and chants. Hoping I would turn into the macho, sports-minded son they always wanted, my parents were greatly disappointed to learn that instead of excelling in baseball, basketball, or hockey as they had hoped, I excelled in…DRUM ROLL PLEASE…the theater program. After all, what honest-to-goodness gay boy goes to camp and bothers to excel at some boring sport when the glitter and glamour of footlights, costumes, and stage makeup beckon? I must say that despite my lack of ‘professional’ experience, I was boffo in the camp productions of MY FAIR LADY, HELLO DOLLY and THE SOUND OF MUSIC.

Now you may be asking yourself why an all-boy, ‘military style’ sports camp would care to stage a play at all, let alone a camp play that calls for a knocked-out, blood and guts performance by it’s presumably female lead. Honestly… I have no clue. I can only guess that our Darth Vader-esque camp director possessed a maniacal zeal to stamp out our attraction to anything considered ‘theatrical.’ Each summer he would choose a play so inappropriate, humiliating and in his words ‘fruity’ that any lad stupid enough to audition would surely curl up and die before the opening night. What Camp Director Darth hadn’t counted on was the will and determination of a theater-obsessed gay boy with stars in his eyes and hot glue gun in his hand.

(To Be Continued)

In my terrifyingly expensive married-with-children existence, I am the partner charged with maintaining the family finances.  In other words, not only am I the schmuck whose ‘pleasure’ it is to pay for everything my never-buys-on-sale spouse desires but it is also my sole obligation to pay for my son’s ‘hot mess’ nanny, scarily-devoid-of-nutritional-value groceries, and atrocious imported clothing.

It is also my responsibility to throw vast sums of money at an army of teachers, tutors, instructors, and coaches in hopes of ‘giving my son everything I didn’t have.’  I do all of this on the off chance that a teenage Ethan won’t tell me to go fuck myself after accusing me of being the world’s worst father.  Call me crazy, but I don’t think it matters how many fencing lessons I give my kid, he’s still going to tell me to go fuck myself.  Call it daddy intuition.

The bills come in, and the money goes out. Like a tidal wave, when the end of the month comes, a tsunami of Nordstrom, Gelson’s, and Verizon bills crash against the lonely shores of my pathetic bank account. I’ve come to accept this as the natural order of things as one might accept old age, senility and eventual death.  With every invoice there are the five stages of grief:

1.    Denial – “This bill can’t be ours! You spent $800 on candles at Williams Sonoma – how’s that possible?”
2.    Anger – “You are coven of financial and emotional vampires trying to suck the life out of me!”
3.    Bargaining –  “I’ll pay the electric bill this month only if you agree to stop shopping at that ridiculously overpriced Bristol Farms and start shopping at Trader Joes where you belong!”
4.    Depression – “Let me get this straight – you want me to cut my monthly Juvederm and Botox injections to every-other month?  Why bother living at all?
5.    Acceptance – “Leave your bills and get out!  I can’t stand the sight of either one of you.”

My husband George has resigned himself to these dramatic performances each month, and like a discerning critic saves his savage reviews for his circle of housewife friends who no doubt encourage him to take Ethan in his Pilates-worked arms and run screaming from the theater.
I am pleased to tell you that one invoice did arrive this month and despite my having to sell a kidney on the black market to pay it – I uncharacteristically and without any kind of reservation sent my check FEDEX.  The only people on the planet who do not need to send me late notices, reminders, duplicate invoices nor need to resort to threatening phone calls or collection agencies are the good people at Camp Wakahonick; for they are kind (naive and crazy) enough to take my son Ethan for seven blissful weeks each summer.

(To Be Continued)

If my teenage, TWILIGHT-esque tastes aren’t tragic enough, I have a rather gayish affection for movies about gladiators. I know, I know – your eyes are already rolling in their sockets as you smugly recall the infamous line from AIRPLANE, where a lascivious, Captain Oveur played by Peter Graves asks a clueless young boy, “Joey, Do you like movies about gladiators?” In 1980, with my greasy, feathered hair parted down the middle and a big white comb crammed in my pocket, I had only the vaguest inkling as to what made that line funny. Today of course, I get it. Gay guys like movies with the three ‘S’s,’ swords, sandals and sodomy. Not necessarily in that order.

(Continued from HAIR BRAINED Pt. 2)

As my son Ethan fled in terror to the safety of his room, I sat in the kitchen smiling dementedly while preparing a vodka and tonic. I knew the haircut battle was already underway, and figured that a little libation couldn’t hurt. As the ice cubes clinked merrily in my glass, and as I ascended the main staircase of our house, I couldn’t help but make a comparison between my current situation, and the infamous scene from THE SHINING where Jack Nicholson chases his terrified son through the snowy hedge maze with an axe. In hindsight, I think Jack’s character was tragically misunderstood.