Odd Adventures with your Other Father

by Prentiss, Norman

  (Since you’ve asked again, Celia, here’s what Jack saw at the Tavern—though you might be sorry to hear it.

  As Jack described it to me later, that, shall we say, amorous young lady had the muscular guy pushed against the wall in the hallway. One of her hands rubbed at his pectorals through his shirt. The other went lower. She’d undone the last button of his shirt and slipped her hand inside to drag her fingers over the soft hairs of his stomach. Then Jack detected an odd slurping sound. When the young lady pulled back her hand, a string of drool trailed from her fingertips to the opening.

  Yes, Celia, a tongue down there. As Jack realized this, his gag reflex starting, he also noticed openings beneath each of the chest pockets in the man’s shirt. Large eyes stared out those openings. That’s when he dropped the glasses of beer and started cursing.

  You think that was worse than my experience in the Bittinger foyer? You might be right.

  In the commotion, a few of the patrons walked in from the back bar, adding to Jack’s surprise. As he figured it out, that wasn’t simply a make-out hallway. It was the meeting ground between two groups: people like Flora and that amorous young lady, with their heads beneath their shoulders, stayed mostly in the front room; the back tavern was for folks like Simon Bittinger and the muscular man who chased after us—no heads at all, but with giant facial features implanted in their chests.)

  #

  Jack got his interview after all, but not with Flora. Simon talked to him at length, on condition that he never mention the town’s location in his article. Not too many people knew about Garora, of course, and the residents made only rare visits to one adjoining town—with the Dodge dealership, and a group of open-minded friends Simon visited for a regular Friday night bridge game.

  He told us about a legendary tribe called Blemmyae who supposedly lived in ancient Africa. Othello mentions them as one of the travel narratives that captured Desdemona’s fancy: “men whose heads / Do grow beneath their shoulders.” In Naturalis Historiae Pliny the Elder wrote about them much earlier than Shakespeare: about 75 AD. These were never confirmed accounts, however, and Simon didn’t believe there was a direct lineal descent from Blemmyae to the inhabitants of his own isolated community. He only said, “We’ve been different here as long as anybody can remember.”

  Before Jack and I left Garora, he showed us the interior of his car. A mirror and lens device stretched through the dashboard and beneath the hood, allowing him to see through the missing section of the front grill. “It doesn’t work so well on hills,” he said. “That’s why I almost ran you guys off the road.”

  (Simon gave us this souvenir, too. An old flannel shirt—he was going to throw it away, or use it as a rag. Take it. See the holes here, cut beneath the front pockets? Gives you an idea how big their eyes were.

  He also drew up a map to another strange town he thought Jack and I might want to visit. But that story will have to wait until you’re a bit older . . . )

  Chapter III

  Graysonville University called it “Smart Camp,” and most people assumed the name was a pun on smart phones, even though the camp predated that particular advance in technology. The camp itself followed the model of an international program run by the same college where Celia’s father worked: academic classes for gifted students who were happy to read books during the summer rather than playing sports, hiking, or learning a musical instrument.

  Celia didn’t think she’d qualify for the more prestigious program. She certainly wasn’t the smartest person in her ninth-grade class. She just worked the hardest.

  What attracted her about Graysonville’s version was that she didn’t have to take any of those number-two pencil, bubble-in-your-choice tests to apply. All she had to do was fill out a form and attach an essay from one of her high school classes. Well, that and convince her dad to pay for it. Oh, and beg her best friend to apply, too.

  Dad Shawn had been fine with the idea. He always encouraged her interest in studying, and was probably secretly pleased she’d chosen to spend camp time with a bunch of other kids. He wouldn’t exactly say it, but she knew he wanted her to have more practice with social interaction, typically her weakest report-card category.

  Nora was pretty easy to convince, too. She actually was one of the smartest people in their grade, and she saw it as adventure, and an escape from her older brother and sister who, in Nora’s words, “spend too much of the summer trying to push me around, literally.”

  Nora picked the class they should rank as first choice: “Drama and the Literary Arts.” The title was a bit generic, but the course description caught Nora’s interest. Strange phrases like the alchemy of reading, and mysterious reference to artistic and performance techniques that bring a book to life. Celia wasn’t too happy about “performance techniques”—it sounded too much like acting classes, or worse, public speaking, which was nearly a phobia for her. But this was summer camp. Time to try new things.

  Or, as Nora was always telling her: “Face your demons.”

  The class turned out to be more fun than Celia could have hoped. Midweek, since her dad wasn’t really serious when he instructed her not to call home, she told him what the class was like.

  “Some of the kids were worried when the teacher first walked in,” she said. “The guy is pretty old, and he’s chair of the college’s English Department, so we thought . . . ”

  “Define old,” her dad said.

  “It turns out he’s really energetic and interesting. He even told us to call him by his first name.

  “Every book we study, we do some kind of art project to prepare. Monday, we made these plaster masks and painted them and glued on yarn for hair. Then after lunch we read Antigone out loud, and we had to hold the masks over our faces the whole time. We had to speak louder and use more emotion, because of the masks. So weird, trying to read the play through eyeholes we’d cut out, and yelling through the mouthpiece. But guess what? I didn’t feel self-conscious like I usually do. It really helped me.

  “Yesterday we made puppets out of pipe cleaners and scraps of cloth and cardboard shapes, and I know it sounds kind of goofy but they all came out really good. Bennet, our teacher, he said up front, ‘I’m not an artist, or an art teacher, so remember we’re not trying to create masterpieces. These are props, to help us appreciate literary masterpieces.’ And it worked: he rolled in this miniature stage, and we used our puppets to act out scenes from Shakespeare.

  “Today, we did a nature walk behind the campus, and he told us to collect rocks or leaves or sticks as we went along. When we got back to class, we wrote our own poems, and then we painted the words on the items we collected. I’m saving everything, so I can bring them home to show you.”

  She told him, also, how much fun Nora was having, all the new friends they’d made in such a short time, and they played games, too, during their breaks from class and before their evening homework sessions.

  “What about the weekend?” her father asked. “Are there classes then, too?”

  Celia paused for a moment, a bit of warmth flushing her face. “No, uh . . . the Hall Chaperones—they’re older students who attend Grasonville during the school year—they organize a lot of activities for us. Tournaments and movies and stuff, a talent show and a carnival.” She stopped there, hoping she’d said enough. Grateful, too, for her recent practice with dramatic readings.

  “Glad you and Nora are having fun,” Dad Shawn said. “Don’t let me keep you.”

  “I’ll call again in a few days.”

  “Only if you have a spare minute—and it doesn’t sound like you will.”

  “I’ll call.” And she said she missed him and loved him, and her dad said the same.

  Celia pressed “End” on her phone. She was happy they’d talked. The camp guide said that phone calls might make some kids feel even more homesick after they hung up. For the most part, though, camp was too exciting and kept her too busy to feel homesick.

  But she got butterflie
s in her stomach now. This weekend. Was she really doing the right thing? Would she even tell her dad about it afterward?

  #

  Celia wasn’t sure what to call the older woman who met her in the camp office. People who grew up with their grandparents developed special names for them—sometimes before they’d even learned to speak properly. Gamma. Gran. Mee Maw. They have traditions when they meet, the grandchild jumping up and down, rushing forward with arms out for a hug, face upturned for a kiss. But she’d never really had any grandparents. On Dad Shawn’s side, his mother raised him mostly by herself, and moved to Europe with her new husband several years before Celia joined the family. And there’d been a huge rift with Dad Jack’s parents, Edward and Charlotte Pruett.

  “Hello, grandmother.” Celia held out her arm for a handshake.

  “Hello, dear. My, how you’ve grown since the last time I saw you.”

  Had they actually met before? If her dads ever brought her to Georgia, she was too young to remember. There was no such visit mentioned in any of the stories, at least—but Dad Shawn was mostly silent about those years.

  As they shook hands, Celia waited for a connecting spark. A warmth that said, She’s the mother of one of my fathers, and we share a special bond.

  She didn’t quite feel it. Maybe that kind of thing takes time.

  Grandmother Pruett was well-dressed, almost formal in her bearing. In her face, Celia could see some slight resemblance to Dad Jack. The nose was identical, and the mouth had a similar shape—but without the wide smile her other father easily produced for whoever held the camera. Her eyes were inquisitive, but lacked the gleam of mischief she saw in Dad Jack’s photos.

  “This is my friend Nora.”

  “Oh, yes. You mentioned her in one of your emails.” Celia’s grandmother stepped over to Nora, making a steep bend to shake her hand. Then she stepped back with a quizzical expression. “Your grandfather’s parking the car. I don’t know if we have room . . . ” She made an awkward wave at Nora and the chair alike, unsure what to do with either of them. “Of course, your friend is welcome to come along.”

  “She’s staying here. She just came to the office with me.” Celia wanted Nora to meet her grandparents, but didn’t dare reveal the real reason. Nora was the best judge of other people, and promised to signal if her grandparents seemed ominous in any way. Last night after lights out, they’d tried to develop a code. They rehearsed sentences that emphasized key words, and laughed at how unsubtle they were: Last year I tried to RUN! for student government, or I’m CRAZY! about sports. In the dark, Celia could imagine her friend winking and tilting her head as she exaggerated each stress. Finally, Celia mimicked her, saying: “He looks like an AX! MURDERER! —Do you think that code is too easy to break?” They laughed, because things were especially funny at night when they were supposed to be sleeping.

  “Well, very nice to meet you, Nora,” her grandmother said. Then she asked Celia: “Are you sure this visit is okay with your father?”

  “He put your names on my permission form.” Practically the first words Celia had spoken in person to her grandmother, and they were lies. “I realize you guys don’t get along anymore, but he didn’t want to stand between me and my only grandparents.”

  “That’s good. We should have some nice time to get to know each other.”

  Nora said, “Be sure to phone me tomorrow.” She put a faint emphasis on phone, like one of their game sentences last night, but the code didn’t quite make sense.

  “We have to sign out,” Celia said. One of the Hall Assistants monitored the front desk, and he checked the permissions in Celia’s folder, matching the name to her grandmother’s signature and double-checking against her Driver’s License.

  “Sorry you’ll miss the carnival tomorrow,” he said to Celia. “Bet you’re not sorry to miss a day of cafeteria food, though.”

  She smiled at the joke, since the typical camp fare of pizza, burgers, and hot dogs were notoriously bad here, with the worst offender being a breaded patty affectionately referred to as a “chicken puck.” But Celia took the vegetarian option or got something from the always-available cereal station, so she didn’t have the same food complaints as many of her peers.

  “Oh, here’s Edward,” her grandmother said. The front door opened and a tall, silver-haired man walked in. He carried a cane, but it didn’t touch the ground as he moved forward.

  “Celia,” he said, and he leaned down to hug her. The cane slipped out of his grip and clattered on the tile.

  She felt a bit startled, half afraid he’d knock her over. Celia returned the hug with one arm, the other reaching out for balance.

  “Hi grandfather,” she said after the hug. She readjusted her backpack where it had started to slide off her shoulder.

  “Oh, call me Pop Pop.”

  “I will.”

  “You must be Nora.” For a second Celia thought he was going to hug her as well, chair and all, but it ended up as a two-handed handshake.

  He was a better fit to her impressions of Dad Jack, tall in stature and with an open manner that matched the fearless adventurer of the stories she’d heard. She didn’t yet feel related to him, however, and wasn’t ready for the emotional public displays that seemed to come naturally from his end.

  Celia was willing to consider that she was part of the problem. She’d always had trouble meeting new people: a hug, which was supposed to put the other person at ease, was an awkward dance for her, an intimacy assumed before it was earned. At the same time, her grandmother’s polite distance rang false as well—a formal coldness that struck the wrong tone.

  They’re new people, she thought. They’re my grandparents.

  “All set? I parked in the Visitor’s Lot.” Her grandfather—could she really call him “Pop Pop”?—reached down to pick up his cane, and then used the same hand to hook the handles of her overnight bag.

  She felt a tug at her shoulder, and realized her grandmother was trying to lift her backpack, but Celia quickly grabbed the strap and held it tight. “I keep this with me,” Celia said, and she hoped her reflex action hadn’t seemed too mistrustful.

  She then said goodbye to Nora, who said “See you on Sunday, okay?”—her emphasis on okay offering a fairly neutral assessment of Celia’s visitors. Not have a GREAT! or LOVELY! time; but at least better than HATE! to see you go or hope things don’t get too WEIRD! while you’re gone.

  They were family. It would be safe to go out to dinner with them, to spend one night in their Georgia home then the following day, learning more about their son, her other father.

  #

  Her grandparents chose an Italian restaurant in Heflin, a small town part way on their ride from Graysonville, Alabama, into their hometown of Kennesaw, Georgia. The restaurant had barely a dozen tables, but it had a bright cozy atmosphere. They sat at a wooden booth against the wall, her grandparents together on one side and facing her across the table. Celia took off her backpack and put it on the bench cushion beside her. She looped part of the strap under her leg, so she’d feel a tug if the pack started to fall, or if somebody tried to take it.

  Her grandfather opened the menu then read it through the lower portion of his glasses. “Order whatever you want,” he said.

  Grandmother Pruett brushed her finger over a tabletop flower, pulling back with a slight pucker of distaste when she realized the yellow petal was plastic. “This place was in better shape the last time we were here.”

  ”We were in better shape then, too,” her grandfather said.

  When the waitress arrived with a basket of bread, everyone encouraged Celia to order first. She chose pasta with tomato sauce and mushrooms, and a side salad. Her grandfather ordered meat lasagna, and his wife ordered a steak.

  “So, tell us about yourself,” Grandmother Pruett said. “What do you like to do?”

  Celia told them she liked to read, and that she really enjoyed school and studying. She mentioned soccer, too, because she knew it would ma
ke her sound like less of a bookworm. Her grandmother asked, “Does your friend go to the games? The one in the chair?”

  “She manages the team. She plays sometimes, too.” They both looked skeptical, and Celia knew in their school days a girl like Nora wouldn’t have had the same opportunities. By way of explanation, she added: “We don’t always win. It’s not all about winning.”

  “Of course not,” her grandmother said.

  Her husband shook his head back and forth, trying to imagine a teammate pushing Nora’s chair along the field. “But soccer is all about kicking. You can’t touch the ball with your hands.”

  “Dear,” his wife said.

  “What, does she use a croquet mallet or a baseball bat?”

  “That’s not the point . . . ”

  They lost her in that brief moment of back-and-forth bickering. Celia realized, this is what it was like to have two parents, who could sometimes talk in front of you, about you or one of your friends, as if you weren’t there.

  And maybe that was why she didn’t have that immediate connection with them. Her grandfather was funny, her grandmother a bit fussy, but the overwhelming sense she got was that they were ordinary. They were almost like the regular parents she sometimes wished for—though a good bit older, of course. No trace in them of the adventurous spirit Dad Jack exhibited in the stories she’d heard.

  “Do you have any pictures of my father?” Celia said, hoping to direct their focus away from Nora.

  “Oh, yes. Let me see.” Her grandmother reached into her purse and pulled out a thick rectangular wallet. She undid the clasp and lifted the checkbook compartment to uncover a section with picture sleeves, flipping them up them with her thumb until she got nearly to the back. “Here’s one.”

  She held the wallet open and extended her arm toward Celia’s side of the table. Though the photograph was about ten years old—his hair thicker, the shade closer to blond—Celia recognized her father instantly. But it wasn’t the father she expected.