Notes From A Burning House

It is the first day of summer and I have learned that a friend of mine is going to be a father.  I am happy for him and happy for the child even though I wonder what they will inherit from my generation and our history.  When I speculate about the world I might see in my old age, it is not always with wondrous optimism so much as weary hope.  Yes, there remains Hope, as she rubs her head sitting next to me on the porch swing, sipping a mint julep I made to keep her spirits up. 

“Hope,” I say, “You spring eternal, but where do you summer?”

She smiles.  She’s heard that one before.  I hadn’t intended on making a joke, but I let her pass on the question.  Hope is fascinating but she doesn’t make a good interview. 

At my birth, according to the certificate, I was a ten-pounder.  I stayed more or less at that weight until I was 30.  Dad became a father at age 24, and my mother was just 21.  Oh, the sleepless nights I put them through.  I had a monstrous case of colic, crying and shrieking inconsolably for reasons unknown.  The artist’s disposition, perhaps.  As King Lear said, when we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.  I have always had a hard time with that. 

Nowadays, there are support groups for young parents with colicky babies.  It’s no joke when your baby cries on and on, when the cause cannot be found, when you haven’t slept through the night in weeks and your baby is suffering and no one can determine the cause.  The sleep deprivation and the helplessness can age a parent fast, wearing deep riverbeds into their faces and digging brackish moats into young marriages.  There were no such supports available to my parents on an Army base in the middle of Oklahoma in 1971.   All they could do was take turns feeding me and comforting me as best they could while I screamed bloody hell into the morning. 

One day a bottle of red wine fell off a counter and chipped, and my mother endeavored to save some of it by decanting into whatever receptacles she could find.  One of the vessels at hand was a baby-formula bottle, which she carefully pushed way, way back in the refrigerator.  This is not something you do with red wine, of course, but I suppose it wasn’t very good wine and tasted better chilled. 

Deep in the night, I howled and wailed away.  It was my father’s turn.  He staggered out of bed, scooped me up in his arms, and bounced and rocked me as he loped with squinting eyes into the kitchen.  Opening the fridge, he rooted around and finally came up with a formula bottle.  Something happened then that he took as a miracle at first: he stuck the bottle into my mouth, I drank deeply, and immediately fell asleep.  Not only that, I slept through the rest of the night. 

As I relayed this story to Hope, she tittered and sipped her julep.  Her gaze was cast out across the yard, more or less in the direction of the avocado tree that has been dropping missiles of late.

The following morning back in Oklahoma, baby woke up rather late.  I was found with a pair of dark glasses on and a cigarette in my tiny hand.   My mother understood immediately.  “Soooo,” she said, “Rough night last night?” 

“My night went great,” whispered the baby.  “This morning, not so much.” 

Hope has a laugh that kind of sprinkles over you.  This story delighted her though she never took her eyes off that avocado tree.  She sipped her drink and said, “It’s a colicky world, bro.  How do you parent it?” 

We soaked in the sun together, silent except for the sound of avocados dropping and the laughter of children somewhere down the lane. 

“Seems like you never look at me,” I said at some point.  “I want to see your eyes but you are elsewhere.”

Hope put on her lime-green sunglasses and turned her face towards me.  “When you’re ready to be changed,” she said, “I’ll be looking you square in the face.  May I have another?”

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