by Bob Morris
“Let’s go get our seats,” Dad says. “We’ll chat inside. Follow me.”
We move into the warm sea of seniors, shuffling along slowly, shoulder to shoulder. Everyone’s talking at once. It’s like being in a herd of very slow-moving sheep.
“She’s the most advanced child in her preschool,” I hear one woman tell her friend.
“But does she speak any foreign languages?” the friend replies.
Dad looks happy. He’s got his date. He’s got his catch of the day, his Gracie Gravlax. Me? I’m anxious to see this musical. But I don’t like the idea of being the third wheel here. Not at all.
“Here, Bob,” he says. “Why don’t you sit between us so I can be on the aisle?”
But I didn’t come here to talk to her. I give her the subtlest once-over. She’s dressed decently enough in seersucker skirt, white button-down blouse, white clip-on earrings, and white sandals with a sensible little heel. Dressed a little better than my mother would dress—better fabrics, better accessories, but not quite as pretty. I don’t have much to ask this woman. But I know I have to try.
“So where are you from?” I ask, putting down my Playbill.
“Great Neck,” she says, nothing more.
“Oh. And how did you and Dad meet?”
“At a bridge game at the community pool.”
I might as well be the father in the living room giving her the third degree.
“Gracie is one of the top players,” Dad interjects. “But, Bob, why don’t you tell us what you’re working on? You have your Times column this week?”
Dance, Bobby! Dance for the nice lady! Make your father proud!
Mercifully, the lights go down, and the conversation is finished.
Nine is a sophisticated revival of a musical about a narcissistic womanizer having a middle-aged crisis. As I watch the dashing leading man move across the stage, as seductress after seductress descends a staircase to woo him, I find myself wishing I had that many options. Then, I realize that even my father is more like this Casanova character than I am. At least he’s in the game. “I want to be young, I want to be old,” the leading man sings, looking like a circus master in a ring full of lovers. “I am lusting for more, should I settle for less?” The women come and go, negligees swirling, high heels clicking, hairdos blowing. At one point, all are shouting, “Me! Me!” like desperate bridesmaids hoping to catch the bouquet.
At intermission, I rush outside for coffee to avoid any conversation.
But after the show is over, Dad will not let me go home. As we leave the theater, I feel as if I’m in a netherworld. I am not even thirty blocks from where I live downtown, and yet, where in the world am I right now? Am I really out with my father and a woman who isn’t my mother? It was always disorienting enough when I took my parents around Manhattan, which I still think of as a parent-free zone. Now this? It’s too much.
When was the last time I went to a Broadway show with my parents anyway? I think it was Mother’s Day, five years ago, when Mom could still get around. We ditched a dull show at intermission. I took them up to Central Park. It was in full bloom, and I knew what I wanted to show them—the red-tailed hawks nesting over a fancy apartment window on Fifth Avenue. As usual, there was a big group of birders watching from the park’s reflecting pond. “Would you like to look through my telescope?” one asked my mother. She was delighted. To her, a small-town girl with a suburban life who believed that there was nowhere more beautiful than Long Island in the springtime, the city was often about harsh moments and brusque strangers. But here were these friendly nature lovers under blossoming dogwoods eager to tell her about their precious hawks. Even my father, usually opposed to anything natural, could not help but be charmed. My mother watched those hawks for a long time, cooing and oohing as one left the nest and flew out over Central Park in search of a pigeon or rat. “You always have something to show us, honey, don’t you?” she said, as they departed later. It made me feel wonderful. She always made me feel adored.
With Dad the adoration is more complicated. Why would he want me along on this first date anyway? It’s so weird. But I guess it’s only fair to give this Gracie a chance. We cross Times Square with the matinee mob, and then sit down in an empty Mexican restaurant Dad chooses. It smells of disinfectant.
“Now was this the first time you’d seen Nine?” he asks his Gracie Gravlax.
She says it was and that she found the script weak and the songs unmemorable.
“I can’t disagree totally,” Dad says. “But overall, I thought it was a great show.”
I’m thinking it would be nice for her to say she enjoyed it, since the tickets were ninety bucks each. But she just drinks her Diet Coke and looks at her little wristwatch with grosgrain strap. There is something humorless, brittle about this Gracie, with her hairdo that looks as if one match would burn it off in a fireball. Her answers are too curt. Her countenance grim, her pale lipstick applied just so. She is graceful but ungracious. Dad starts to look sulky. Maybe I can change this vibe.
“Hey, Dad, hear any good jokes lately?”
He raises an eyebrow—indicating mischief—and replies that, in fact, he has one.
“Would you like to hear it?”
“Go ahead,” Gracie says.
He clears his throat. “Three nuns die at the same time and end up at Saint Peter’s gate together. ‘But before I can let you in, Sisters,’ Saint Peter says, ‘I have to ask you each one question.’ So he turns to the first nun and says, ‘Your question is: Who was the first man?’ She says, ‘Oh, that’s easy—Adam.’ And Saint Peter says, ‘Come on in, Sister, come on in!’ Then he turns to the second nun and asks, ‘Your question, Sister, is: Who was the first woman?’ and the second nun says, ‘Oh that’s easy—Eve!’ And he says, ‘Come on in, Sister, come on in!’ Finally, he turns to the third nun and says, ‘And now can you please tell me, Sister, what were Eve’s very first words to Adam?’ So the third nun thinks awhile, scratches her head, and says, ‘Wow, that’s a hard one!’ And Saint Peter says, ‘Come on in, Sister, come on in!’”
It takes a moment to get it, then I laugh. I don’t know where he gets these obscene jokes, but he has a bunch of them, and is always adding more to his repertoire. My mother, the prim librarian, couldn’t help but light up and laugh when she heard them.
“Wow, nice one,” I say as I pat his back. “Obscene and blasphemous.”
“Happy to share,” he says as he finishes his ginger ale. “I knew you’d like it.”
Gracie is not laughing. She’s not even smiling. Her grimace has become more pronounced. “A little rude for my taste,” she says. “But isn’t it time to get going?”
She buttons her cardigan and picks up her handbag. Dad pays the bill and follows her to the restaurant’s exit. He holds the door for her, still trying to play the role of the gentleman suitor, even though it’s clear to me he is entirely unsuitable for her.
I follow behind them onto the sidewalk, crowded at rush hour. He walks with her in front of me, still chatting her up in his amiable way, as she nods and barely responds.
I am seething. Who the hell is this woman to think she’s so superior? Doesn’t she get how funny my father is? Doesn’t she see how handsome he is, what a catch he is? Just who the hell does she have in the wings who would be better than my Joe Morris?
“I guess she just wasn’t looking to be particularly pleasant,” Dad tells me on the phone later that night, when we are doing our postmortem on the afternoon.
“Well, I hope she was grateful for the ticket,” I say.
“Not particularly,” he says. “She found the show disappointing.”
“What a pill,” I say.
“A lot of these woman are hard to take,” he says.
“So that’s the end of Gracie?”
“We’ll see.”
“What do you mean? You’re not taking her out again, are you?”
“We’re in the same bridge group, and she’s not a bad player. I can’t afford
to alienate her. A good duplicate player is harder to come by than you think.”
A few days later, however, he loses her for good when he shows up late for a game. She tells him it’s inconsiderate. He says he’s sorry but life’s too short to take things so seriously. They bicker. It escalates. Smoke comes out of her ears, fire out of his mouth. He tells her he’s who he is, take it or leave it. She says she’d prefer to leave it, and turns and walks away. “She refuses to take my calls now,” he says.
“Just as well, Dad. She was no bargain. Got anyone else lined up?”
“No,” he says. “I’m dry right now. At a total loss.”
He sounds sad. I can’t have that. I won’t have that. So I pull out a piece of paper with a number on it and offer up Florence, the lady with all the fancy real estate whom I had dismissed as too fancy when she was suggested as a match for him. Suddenly, he’s cheerful. Another prospect! He’s going to call her right away.
“I’ll let you know what happens,” he says. “I’m very grateful.”
“You better be on your best behavior with this one,” I say. “I won’t have you embarrassing me. She lives on Fifth Avenue, you know.”
“I know.”
“So wear a clean shirt when you see her.”
“Okay.”
“And, Dad, don’t ask for a doggy bag at dinner.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. Do not under any circumstances let her see the inside of your car.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.”
“And don’t do all the talking at dinner. Give her a chance to tell you about herself.”
“I’ll do my best, sir. Over and out for now.”
CHAPTER 5
Dating Games
One day, when I’m running out of ways to entertain myself while entertaining my father, I bring him an application for Who Wants to Marry My Dad?, a new network reality show. I’m not naive. I know the kind of Dads they’re looking for. David Hasselhoff Dads. Bruce Willis Dads. Randy, divorced Dads. Dads who are catnip to hot broads in their late thirties, women who are, like most of my single women friends, a volatile combination of picky and desperate. At a certain point, any man can look reclaimable, I guess. One of my editors tells me that, when he was in high school, his father, a free-spirited anthropology professor, started supplementing his income by working as an exotic male dancer. And the women were all over him, a constantly changing cast of chorus girls. That’s the kind of father who’s reality-TV-ready, not mine.
It’s a warm summer afternoon, and we are sitting on the balcony of the Centra, application and pen in hand. The building is its usual ecosystem of widowed wildlife. Birds everywhere, and a few old mallards with droopy feathers. But mostly it’s a female population. There are great blue-haired herons who fish through their handbags for lipstick, and adorable clucking hens who gossip and knit. Loons with jet black dye jobs. Plump robins and mynah birds with sharp Bronx accents that my father finds unpleasant. They flock to the dining hall and elevators. They perch at card tables, picking at cookies and decaffeinated tea—well-dressed women with standards, glancing over at us. Most are attractive, like so many women in Great Neck. “Nice-looking ladies,” I tell Dad.
He shakes his head. “Not what I’m looking for,” he mutters.
Everyone in this building, to his mind, is too senior for him, too over the hill. Actually, many are not. They just happen to live here like he does because it’s easier than living alone. But he sees himself as Joe-on-the-Go, just using the place as a perch, not a nest. He doesn’t want to face the fact that he’s elderly. Life still interests him.
So we turn to the Who Wants to Marry My Dad? application, making sure to lower both his age and weight. Some of the questions require little thought. “What’s the main quality you look for in a potential mate?” I ask him. “Flexibility,” he answers. “Okay, I’ll put that down,” I say. Of course I’d like to suggest that “submissive” would be a more accurate response, but I don’t editorialize. To the question, “What kind of person will you absolutely not date?” his response is “Fat.”
“Do your children’s opinions affect who you date?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
Okay. But if he relies on my opinions, he might end up alone the rest of his life. That certainly seems to be the direction I’m heading.
“What was the craziest date you’ve ever been on?”
“Probably the time I ended up in my friend Jack’s bed at Bard College,” he says, smiling at the memory. “He wasn’t in it at the time. But he showed up in the middle of the night with a girl. My presence took all the romance out of his evening.”
“So I’ll just put down ménage à trois, okay?”
“Sure, why not?” he laughs.
I don’t know why I can’t picture my father in his twenties having dating shenanigans and high-jinx when he’s having all kinds of dating shenanigans sixty years later.
“When was that date? Were you playing the field at the time?”
“It was 1949, after college, just before I met your mother. I dated a lot in those days. But mostly I found that the women I got set up with were nothing extra.”
“And Mom was something extra?
He sits up straight. His smile becomes almost sad, remembering her as young.
“Yes. She was gorgeous, a lovely country girl compared to the ones I was meeting. She didn’t come loaded down with a lot of problems.”
“So did you have to woo her?”
“The summer before we got married I was on Long Island and she was upstate with her family. We wrote letters because long-distance calls were so expensive.”
He makes it sound easy. But I remember my mother telling me he was hard to nail down. He made it up to see her that summer only a couple of times. She was even in the hospital for surgery and he didn’t come up. She’d write him lighthearted letters as “Your Lonesome Gal,” telling him she loved him. Then she’d thank him profusely when he did finally drive up to visit. My mother had no shortage of romantic opportunities. But there was something about my father—this funny, earnest bachelor—that rang her chimes. They met at a Zionist Club meeting at the Bay Shore Jewish Center. It didn’t hurt that he was a good-looking man with his own law practice. More than that, he had a sense of fun and romance, and an ability to turn anything into a sing-along. He was sentimental and affectionate, something almost impossible to find in men back then.
“I appreciate your coming up, honey, thanks so much,” my mother wrote him from her parents’ house in 1950. “You know if marriage is a matter of give and take, I think we both have what it takes.” Somehow, they did, but without her ability to be flexible and easily amused, their marriage would have never have lasted so long.
There are more questions on the Who Wants to Marry My Dad? application, some too cringe-inducing for me to ask aloud. (“Describe a romantic evening” and “What is the biggest contribution to your sexual views?” Who the hell would ever ask such a thing of his father?) It’s easier to ask him to list three talents he has. Dad thinks a moment, then says, “Put down making up parodies, dancing, and bridge.”
“Okay. Last question, Dad. They want you to list your bad habits.”
“And how much room do they leave?”
“Two lines,” I laugh.
“Write small,” he says.
So I do. And while he lists a few, a longer list accumulates in my mind. He’s always late. He’s sloppy and absentminded. He chews with his mouth open and is prone to unforeseeable rages over nothing. He is controlling, willful, profligate in advice giving and matchmaking, even when people aren’t asking and don’t want to be set up. He’d rather talk than listen. He loves changing plans. He keeps you on the phone, even when it’s obvious you don’t want to talk. He writes postcards to people he hasn’t seen in ages. His bridge habit is actually an addiction that makes him miserable when he can’t play. And when he does, he gives too much advice to his partners. He remains a rabid
Republican. He veers into the middle lane when driving. And lately, I’ve been appalled to see that, in addition to the ballpoint pens he keeps in the front pocket of his shirt, he has toothpicks that he pulls out at all the wrong moments. Like now. We are sitting among his fellow Centra residents, all out enjoying the late-afternoon sun on his building’s big terrace, and he starts picking at his teeth and making a sucking noise. Appalling.
“Dad, would you mind? Save it for your bathroom.”
Fortunately, he doesn’t take it personally today. But pity the poor date who dares to criticize him if he’s in the wrong mood. Who wants to marry my dad? There are days when I think nobody. And the more I talk about his dating travails to my friends, the more I hear similar stories. It turns out I’m not the only bemused child sucked into a senior father’s mating melee. One friend has an upstanding dad who picked up a woman on a commuter train and dropped her straight into the family without so much as a word of explanation. Two sisters I know are totally flummoxed by a shy Connecticut father in his seventies, very recently widowed, who has taken up with a married woman in her forties. I hear stories of men whose dying wives leave them lists of women they approve of for dating after they’re gone. I hear about an “intervention,” in which a family removes a father from a woman about to marry him and take him for all his money. One friend tells me that when her rapscallion dad moved into her apartment after his fifth divorce, he started lobbying her prettiest friends to set him up with their mothers. “I ended up racing to the phone every time it rang so he wouldn’t answer it,” she says. “It was horrible.”
My favorite story is one about a friend’s father in his late seventies, recently widowed, and also legally blind for thirty years. At his country club, the women circle around him like ducks to bread. One widow, in her seventies, white-haired and overweight, flirts with him, and he flirts back. She recently confided to my friend that she loves flirting with her father because the last time he was able to see her she was still young and thin.
In June, for my Father’s Day column, I write about Dad’s big hunt for new love in his old age, touching on both the amusement of knowing he still has so much potential ahead of him and the unseemliness of the notion that, at eighty, he wants to have what he calls intimacy with women. He’s a good sport about it and doesn’t seem to mind being material for me. He’s always trying to tell me what to write about anyway. So there’s some satisfaction for him in being my topic. And the column gets a good response. One reader, a woman with a seventy-one-year-old mother, is moved to write: