FatKidsLie

"My dad used to be able to finish the Sunday Times crossword puzzle in about 20 minutes. He’d make maybe one or two mistakes… but other than that it was perfectly filled out. When my sister asked him how he did that he said “You’ve got to have a head full of shit.” well, I firmly believe that having a head full of shit is an important skill. Or feature. I’m not 100% sure of the correct word. But at any rate I’ve attempted to fill my head full of shit by watching crappy TV shows and listening to NPR. Also, i read EVERYthing i can on the Internet. Wikipedia made me lose a job 2 years ago because i didn’t realize it was time to go to work…..

"Get the fuck off of my grave, you shitheads!

While going through some old photos and family memorabilia, I came across some of my dad’s old report cards. From gradeschool.

Yeah. He was a slacker. Now while I’m pushing 30 I realize that my dad was a hypocrite, at least when it came to school stuff. He had a worse homework record than I did! And I pride myself on the fact that I haven’t done homework since I was 8.

Well, I was going through them with my big sister, Suzan, who told me a story that my mean mean evily mean grandma told her about my dad’s fist day in Kindergarten.

In the late 1930’s my family was living in Queens. My grandfather had already gone off to work (hauling seltzer bottles) and my Grandmother’s job was to get my dad all ready for school. He was excited! He was ready to start his education! He went in, did the whole pledge of allegiance thing and sat down for class.

At some point, around 11am or so My grandmother is in the kitchen, doing Laundry (because they were poor and that’s where poor people used to do their laundry) when she hears a knock on the back door to the apartment, she walks over thinking that another housewife had come to either gossip or borrow some sugar or gin (it was 11am afterall). But it was none of that. It was my dad.

My dad had gone on a bathroom break, as evidenced by the giant wooden paddle that had the words “BATHROOM PASS” hand carved into it. When questioned he said that he had had enough. That school was boring and that he didn’t want to go any more. He did say that he’d go back in the morning to return the bathroom pass. He would’ve done it right away but he didn’t want to get in trouble for wandering the halls.

Although he had thought all this through, made a few good points, such as other students being boogerbutts, poopooheads and just in general basically schmucky, Grandma wasn’t buying it. You see, for the first time in 6 years Grandma had the house to herself. To drink gin and fart into the couch all morning. And nothing was going to ruin that.

She grabed my dad by his ear, drug him, crying, back to school. Back through the neighborhood. Past the Butcher. Past the Baker. If they had one, they’d’ve gone past the Candlestick maker. But there hasn’t been one of those outside of an historic town like Williamsburg for over 100 years. But that’s neither here nor there.

Made my dad apologize to the teacher. Who he then called a “shithead”. His favorite insult ever since.

My dad never played a game of golf. This, in of its self, is not that unusual considering he was Jewish and country clubs hate the Jews more than blacks or other minorities because Jews can “pass” and infiltrate the secret societies of the country clubs. While I’m pretty sure that he did play a few rounds of minigolf in his life, my dad did not own a golf ball, let alone a club. Nor did he ever set foot on the grounds of a course or have the slightest interest in the game.

Except once when we were on vacation in Scotland, but that was different. And about 15 years after this story takes place…

You see, my dad may not have been a Gary Palmer or Tiger Woods, but he was an awesome liar. And when my sister, Murm, had a guy come to pick her up for a date who happened to be a semi-pro golfer, well, my dad picked up on that and while knowing NOTHING about the game other than some basic terms at the most he talked to the guy about it. For hours. And hours.

For so long that my sister, who had her heart set on gravy fries and making out in the back seat of his busted Volkswagon beetle; who had spent 3 hours getting ready and shaving her unibrow and moustache, she went back up into her room, with the cracked plaster and Blondie poster, smoked a pack of Pall Malls and drank a bottle of Wild Irish Rose.

By the time my dad was done with his interview/golf-discussion with the boy it was 11pm, my sister had already eaten some leftover lomain that was in the fridge and changed into sweatpants. And was half drunk. The boy had to reschedule the date (which never happened).

My dad’s job was done.

My big sister, Miriam used to live with me when I was a baby. She was 18, 19 or so (She’s my half-sister from my dad’s first marriage). Well that’s not exactly true…

Miriam would live with us when it SUITED her. When she was in New York. From the ages of 16 to 21 she’d move from New York to LA, depending on which of her parents she was mad at at the time. She did this 17 times. Getting to be on first-name basis with the Greyhound Bus drivers. Once, when she was mad at BOTH of them she moved in with our oldest sister.

For 2 days.

Until she got a clump of her hair pulled out for some bullshit.

After that she moved in with a gay man. So she could hag off of him.

Anyway, I do remember her being around when I was a little baby, or maybe I was told that she was around so much that I imagined the memories like what happens when I play Beautiful Katamari while drunk and I can’t tell the difference between what is real and what is a video game….

This isn’t a story about her living with us though. It’s a story about her moving out. Well, about why she moved out one time.

My dad was cleaning out the kitchen, getting it ready for a remodeling (a 100+ year old house who’s previous owners didn’t take care of it or modernize much of anything) when he came across a teapot. He felt that there was something in it so he looked in and found….

Marijuana. Pot. Weed. Grass. Whatever you wanna call it….

He ran up to the attic where Miriam was staying. I vividly remember her room being the unfinished attic with a Blondie poster on the wall and her bed being a sleeping bag on a sheet of plywood on 6 cinder blocks. She had a book case and one of those fancy overstuffed Victorian lounge chairs and an awesome New Art Glass floor lamp, with an ashtray that was perpetually overflowing with her cigarette butts and ashes. There was also an overwhelming smell of Patchouli and Cigarettes but I thought that was just her perfume.

Her car (a baby blue 1970’s Volkswagon Beetle with one black door) always smelled of that too.

Well, dad ran over and started screaming about “How could you DO this?!!” “I have a BABY in here!” etc etc… THROWS the teapot at her, missing by an inch where it shatters on the wall getting chunks of porcelain in her hair…

All the time she’s crying “It’s not mine! I don’t know who’s it is… waaahhhh”.

Then my mom comes running upstairs.

Tells them both to shut up.

Because the pot…. is my dad’s.

You see, he was going to sell it (it was a full teapot’s worth of pot) five years before this all started but the guy that was going to buy it got arrested. For pot. So he couldn’t buy it.

My dad put it in the teapot for safe keeping until he could find another buyer.

Which didn’t happen.

Then he retired from teaching and didn’t need to smoke pot anymore and lost touch with all his old pothead friends (isn’t that just how it goes?). He forgot that he had stuffed half a pound or so of pot into a teapot because he was higher than a Willie Nelson contact high when he put it in there.

No wonder this was the last time Miriam lived with us…