The Foster Dad

by Christopher X Sullivan

  “Hey,” Mark whispered as he nuzzled my ear. He played footsie with me.

  “Stop it.”

  He kissed my cheek. “Loosen up. We’re all good now.”

  It was true; Alex was back to being a happy kid and he had stopped leaning against my body. He was a furnace, but I didn’t want to let go.

  I whispered to Mark. “I can’t believe they killed... effing... Mufasa.”

  “Do you need to sit in my lap for a few minutes?”

  I turned to him and mouthed a ‘fuck you’.

  He grinned and tapped my foot again. We shared a kiss on the lips. Then he jumped back to his seat and I deposited Alex between us.

  “It’s all going to be alright?” Alex asked, looking up at me with those big, green glasses.

  “Yep. It’s all going to be alright. You were brave through the scary part.”

  “Yeah...”

  Then we had to deal with the scary parts where Scar was talking to his hyena deputies. That’s another thing to hate on Disney about—what’s with these fascist hyenas? Actually, in hindsight, The Lion King is a terrifying horror story.

  We got to the Hakuna Matata part and we sang the words to Alex. I got on one side of his head and sang “Hakuna” and Mark was on the other singing “Matata.” Alex ate that shit up. It was also a happy score in the background so there was this swell of emotion and he started laughing in that beautiful, childlike way that always made me feel so happy. I kissed him on the cheek and Mark did the same.

  Later, there was the love scene as Simba took a literal tumble in the grass during Can You Feel the Love Tonight. Mark’s hand touched my shoulder and while I had initially planned to keep PDA out of the theater... well, it was dark. And Alex was preoccupied.

  And if there’s ever a part of a movie when you’re allowed to make out with your lover... it’s gotta be during Can You Feel the Love Tonight.

  We kissed. There wasn’t anyone behind us so I guess it was fine. Plus, afterwards I did feel slightly less stressed out about the fact we were showing Alex an extremely traumatic movie about a power-crazed autocrat willing to psychologically manipulate his nephew into believing he was the sole reason for everything bad happening in the world. Fucking Disney!

  At least I liked the songs from The Lion King. That movie might be why I’m so attached to Elton John’s I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues. I used to blast that song up in my room and really get into the lyrics, even though I didn’t quite understand them when I was a kid.

  I finally understood why they call it the blues when Mark and I broke up. I heard that Elton John song on the radio one day when we were apart and it brought back fantasies from my childhood mingled with memories of Mark and our time together.

  It’s funny how music can do that to you.

  What will Alex remember from The Lion King? Will he remember that moment of fear in the theater as he lived through the story of Simba and watched Mufasa die such a treacherous death? Or how about the drive home when we brought up the music videos on Youtube and sang them together, which kind of bewildered Alex at first so he just laughed.

  Whhhhhhhhyyyyyyy bun yaaaaaaayyyyyyyy mamafeesemufaaaaa.

  Or however the movie starts. They laughed at me for going all out with the singing, but it was fun and I would do it all again. I was surprised at how quickly Alex recovered from his reluctance to sing with us. Raising a kid is the most fascinating, terrifying thing I have ever been a part of. It’s like you look at him growing, learning, experimenting, failing... and it all happens in slow motion so that you almost don’t notice it happening unless you really look or there’s a truly memorable life event.

  Like watching him squirm while Mufasa fell into a fucking stampede of water buffalo.

  Disney movies also reinforce the power of storytelling. Even as children, we understand the basic tenets of a story. We understand that what we’re watching isn’t real life, but we can still experience and broaden our understanding of the world and of human emotion.

  Humans are born craving stories. In a way, even the story of watching The Lion King is, itself, a story. When it first came out, all the parents took their kids to see it. And the parents then shared stories of how their kids experienced it. And then maybe the parents would take their kids as a group like how Stacy’s kids and Ryan’s twins all went to see Frozen together.

  The next time my mom babysat Alex for the afternoon, I told her about how we went to watch The Lion King on the big screen and how Alex had gotten scared, but now he wanted to watch the movie over and over again. And he would tell himself how it was all going to work out—it wasn’t his fault. The bad lion was tricking him.

  And my mom said, “Ahhh... The Lion King.” Then she got this wistful expression like she was reliving a private memory and in her smile, I felt a shared camaraderie with her like never before. No amount of rolling our eyes at my dad or berating him for drinking a two-liter of Coke every day or how we used to prod him off the couch—never had I experienced such a strange understanding with my mother.

  As I get older, I wonder if there isn’t a stage in life where parents cease to be on that level above you. Like, at some point do we all reach the same evolved state? Now that I’m a father, I feel much closer to my parents than I ever did in my twenties. I suspect that if I’m fortunate enough to watch Alex go off to college, then I’ll feel even more of an equal to my mom and dad.

  I mean, they’ll always be my parents and they’ll have my respect. But we just have a deeper understanding of one another and about what life is and we seem to be reaching the same level of ‘lived experiences’.

  ALEX ABSOLUTELY LOVED The Lion King. We introduced him to other Disney movies, but that one always had a particular hold over him. I never allowed him to watch Aladdin or The Jungle Book because those have elements of strong mind control, which my kid is never going to be exposed to. I’m not sorry about it, either. That’s a hard pass on magical snakes with hypnotic eyes or magical staffs with the ability to make your mind go blank. You want to know where I think my mind control kink came from?

  Disney.

  Fuck that.

  I’m not even too keen on The Lion King, if I’m being honest. It’s that fascist marching and turning everyone into mindless soldiers and everyone else into slaves. I’m not comfortable with those elements of the movie.

  But Alex has watched it so many times that he knows every line. Maybe it was the fact that we started to call Mark, Pumbaa. Well, actually it was me who started calling him that when he was being Bad Mark. Then we started singing the beginning of Hakuna Matata (me as Timon and him as Pumbaa) and that kind of became our thing for a few years.

  Wow... I feel so bad for Alex. I can see why he sometimes gets embarrassed when we show up for his school functions. I try to keep my distance as much as possible because I know how much I was embarrassed to have my parents come to all my sporting events. It always felt like I wasn’t talented enough to warrant their crazed devotion.

  But Mark has the exact opposite view. I guess his parents never really went to any of his baseball stuff other than the major tournaments, so he wants to be there at every game, even though his work sometimes keeps him away.

  And Alex, for his part, seems to be the kind of kid who likes the attention. He does get a little embarrassed when my mom and dad show up, but (for now) Mark and I seem to be cool enough to stick around.

  Also... Mark is kind of the assistant coach of the summer baseball league and I’m the scorekeeper... so the kid doesn’t really have a choice. Even though I always say he has a choice! If he wants space, we’ll let him go on his own! I swear! And it won’t hurt one bit!

  My dad coached my sister in her summer softball league. My mom kept score. Mark and I have somehow fallen into the same rhythm. Dad didn’t coach me, seeing as he was kind of AWOL for a few years and I also resented any attempt they made to hover around me.

  Alex is very much his own person. Sometimes he’s like a little grown
-up and other times he’s clearly still a kid, even now that he’s in middle school. He has his likes and dislikes and he’ll let you know right off the bat. He doesn’t like swimming. No matter how much I’ve tried to get him interested, the most he’ll do is jump in an inner tube and float around in a pool. He just hates swimming.

  Dunno what that’s about, but I have to accept it.

  He also doesn’t like tennis! My God. What’s wrong with this kid, I swear. If he showed any enthusiasm in swinging a racquet, I would’ve made that kid into a tennis star. I wish we had a tennis team out in the country where I grew up. It’s just... the best sport ever.

  Yeah, I did manage to get Alex on the tennis court and play with us, but really the two of them just humored my enthusiasm. Once Alex got his glasses and was better able to see the ball, he quickly learned how to hit it over the net. We played with these giant racquets that were supposed to be easier for children.

  It was often Alex and Mark on one side with me on the other chasing down balls. Even though he never grew to love the sport, Alex has always enjoyed hitting back and forth with me. And his serve is already as good as mine and he’s not even out of middle school... so there’s that. (And, to tell you the truth, he has the most enthusiastic coach in the world.)

  My birthday is in late August, which means it’s right before the US Open. You’d think I would’ve gone to all kinds of tennis tournaments, since it is one of my favorite pastimes. And you’d think, with a birthday so close to the Open, that I might’ve been gifted a few trips to New York to watch the stars compete in the biggest tennis stadium on the planet.

  It only happened once.

  [Note from Chris: major tangent alert! Feel free to skip to the next chapter if you hate tennis, sports or the Williams Sisters.]

  I’ve been to the Cincinnati Open twice (typically humid midwest America), the Miami Open (refreshingly warm in the spring compared to Chicago), and Indian Wells, which is in the Coachella Valley in California. Honestly, I prefer all three of these Masters 1000 tournaments compared to the US Open because I hate New York. It’s even worse than Chicago.

  I absolutely hate megacities.

  But actually sitting in Arthur Ashe Stadium is an experience like none other; it’s something every tennis fan should pay to see. Yes, tickets are expensive. Yes, it’s better to buy in advance after you see the draw come out. Yes, you can basically only reserve the lower bowl seats because the upper bowl are for grounds passes.

  It’s worth it.

  Mark bought me tickets once in my life... and it was the night session between Venus and Serena. This was a few years after we adopted Alex. Unfortunately, Alex had to stay with family friends that night, but don’t worry, we had grounds passes the day before and I took him around the practice courts and we got as many autographs as possible. At one point, we were waiting outside for Venus to finish up and she came over to us, but she was only going to do a few autographs because there was a pretty big crowd.

  I wasn’t having any of that! When I saw she was about to leave, I was ready to toss my child over the barrier if that’s what it took to get her to sign that stupid, oversized tennis ball. Take my child, Venus, Venus, Venus! Look at this cute kid. He’s floating over to you, just look up and sign his stupid ball!

  I get really into my tennis.

  And that Venus-Serena match was one for the record books. It was the quarterfinals and Serena was going for the Calendar Year Grand Slam, which would mean she’d hold the Australian, French, Wimbledon and US Open in the same year—a feat that hasn’t been achieved since Steffi Graf did it a generation earlier.

  Those two amazing women did not disappoint. And the clash of titans was so incredible that to this day I cannot believe I got to experience it from within the rocking Arthur Ashe Stadium.

  You could feel the stress on Serena’s racket. Gone were the days of awkwardness when the sisters played each other. Sure, the quality of tennis usually wasn’t the best when they met, but that night was something special.

  You could see how much Serena wanted that match. How historic. The one thing she had never achieved in her storied career—all could be wiped away by her sister.

  It blew my fucking mind.

  How could Venus even get into the headspace to want to defeat her sister? You’d think her play would dip and she would’ve psychologically conceded the match, as sometimes happens when the sisters play each other. But for some reason, that night, she didn’t.

  She nearly won. It went to three sets.

  It was this grueling match that emotionally sapped Serena so that she would lose in the semifinals to a spunky Italian, Roberta Vinci. Venus was the last great champion in Serena’s way for that tournament and something funny happened after that match, the expectations ramped up beyond anything ever known in sports history. After defeating her sister in such spectacular fashion, Serena was then the overwhelming favorite not just to defeat her next opponent (a thirty-four year old clay-court specialist who had never made it so far in a Grand Slam), but also another older Italian who, like her compatriot, had never made it so far in a Grand Slam and would later announce her retirement after winning the US Open.

  Into this mix of overwhelming odds... Serena broke. She’d never failed so spectacularly. Two years later at the Australian Open, she wouldn’t give in to such weakness again—she’d be playing pregnant in the finals and, miraculously, Venus was on the other side of the net. I don’t know what kind of devious mind could possibly let slip how there was a small child growing in her belly, but one of a handful of people in the world to know of the pregnancy happened to be across the net from Serena.

  Imagine this: you’re sister is pregnant with a child. She’s in the final of a Grand Slam. If she wins, it will be one of the biggest myths surrounding her historic career.

  Even Steffi Graf can’t say she won a Grand Slam while pregnant.

  I don’t know how Venus even managed to step foot on the court that night in 2017, much less play with any level of spirit. If she won, she would be the oldest champion in tennis history. If she lost, her sister and niece would make history. But looking back on it, I wonder if there wasn’t a different fire burning within her during those earlier rounds. She kicked it into another gear—one I hadn’t seen from her in almost a decade. I had, of course, seen her play with that inner fire in the years since her diagnosis with an energy-sapping autoimmune disorder. Anytime she took to the court, you could see her strength and determination to outmaneuver her condition.

  But that Australian Open—the fire of a champion was behind her eyes. Seriously, watch the match against Coco Vandeweghe and watch Venus’ eyes. It’s spooky how alive she was in that moment. How seemingly her entire life balanced on each and every point.

  If the history books were going to include the upcoming final—the myth of Serena winning while carrying her firstborn—if this was going to be in the Williams Sister Legacy, then Venus was going to be there on the other side of the net, just as she seemingly always has been in the legacy of the great Serena Williams.

  Motivation is such a funny thing. That tournament launched Venus into the best year of her career, post-diagnosis. That championship pushed Serena past Steffi Graff’s twenty-two total Majors.

  Everything you want to know about family and competition can be found in those two Venus-Serena matches from 2015 and 2017. Undoubtedly, without Venus, there wouldn’t have been the greatness of Serena.

  I just love them. Their story is so human and enduring. If Venus had succumbed to her autoimmune disorder, I wonder if Serena would’ve kept winning. Would she have been able to see her sister hobbled in such a way? Or would it have made Serena burn even brighter—as if to force herself to be as good as two Williams Sisters combined? Would a little niggle have entered the back of Serena’s mind as, perhaps, her sister had a child of her own since she was no longer playing tennis?

  Without one sister, there wouldn’t be the other.

  When I think of Ven
us, I’m able to analyze myself and my own battles, but from a distance. When I think of the Williams Sisters as a unit, I think of my sister and how that bond was ripped from me—and how I was denied that spirit of competition, the support, and the gentle prodding to be the greatest version of myself.

  When I see Venus and Serena play each other, I think of who I would’ve been if my sister were still alive and if my life hadn’t gotten stuck in arrested development. It’s not a mean or depressing thought. It’s as if I can see my own unfolding story with greater clarity, but filtered through the greatness of the Williams Sisters.

  And then there’s always the pressure that comes with laying it all on the line like a champion. I’m suffering as I finish this self-portrait because of the pressure on me. I can only imagine how much worse it must have been to suffer a humiliating defeat to Roberta Vinci in front of the entire tennis world. 300 to 1 odds.

  Yet Serena picked up the pieces and kept going. And I will too. I’m almost there.

  Bamboo Forest

  I WALKED INTO THE APARTMENT after running errands. The first thing I noticed was that my most prominent orchid was on the ground and that the unique ceramic container it was housed in had shattered.

  Strange.

  Stranger still that no one had cleaned it up. If Mark accidentally knocked it over, he would’ve swept up the shards and returned the orchid to an upright position.

  “Alex,” I called. No response. “Alex!”

  “Yes,” he said from his room.

  “Why don’t you come out here a minute?”

  “Mark is playing blocks and we’re building dominoes and you should come play with us.”

  Dominoes, eh? It would appear someone is trying to manipulate the situation and distract from getting in trouble.

  “Alex. Come out here a minute.”

  “In five minutes,” he called back. He never resisted like this. Normally, if I came home and yelled for him, he’d come barreling out of his room and give me a hug.

  “Right now, please.”