Something new! Rather than post a bunch of rambly thoughts about movies and Being Alive, I thought I’d post a short story I’ve been fiddling with for a while. It’s called “Tik Tok Daughter.” Hope you enjoy it!
***POSTED 3-18-23 – “CUFF IT” BEYONCÉ BRUNETTE DANCE LIP SYNC 2 MEASURE CHORUS “WE GON’ FUCK UP THE NIGHT” BRUNETTE SHEET LENS EDIT GLITTER MAKEUP BLACK COCKTAIL DRESS LIP SYNC DANCE ADDITIONAL 2 MEASURE***
She was nine when Adam saw her last. Callie was taking her to a dance competition in Philadelphia, and their flight was scheduled to leave mid-afternoon. Adam had to work. On his way out the door he found Harper in the living room, watching TV in her pajamas, absent-mindedly chewing her hair. He asked for a kiss and a call when her plane landed. She told him she loved him. They both thought they’d see each other on Monday.
Callie texted him six hours later. The locks were changed, his belongings in the yard. He had two days to collect his things, and if he came around after that she’d call the police. She blocked his number, and the number of every friend and relation who still spoke to him. He managed to call her on unfamiliar landlines and prepaid phones, but she never answered. A few weeks later she discontinued her number entirely.
He had no legal recourse. The house was hers, the car was hers. The judge had denied him visitation rights two years prior. Callie invited him back because she heard he was sober, and Harper kept asking for him. One last chance. Adam never learned which transgression led to his exile, but they were piling up toward the end. Any one of them would have done it.
Callie didn’t leave everything in the yard. He was missing some cufflinks, t-shirts and a new food processor he bought with his own money. He considered small claims court, but his lawyer told him not to bother. A week later he got hammered and tried to kick down the front door. He splintered the jamb a little, then sprained his ankle and limped away. That was that. He’d drive by the house in his weaker moments, but never stepped on the property. His old life was encased in plexiglass, visible but remote. No entreaty could change things. No going back.
Harper never contacted him. That was the hardest part of it. He waited for years, hoping she’d follow some rebellious, adolescent whim and message him on Facebook. After a solid decade of silence his sponsor, Greg, told him to stop waiting. This holding out hope, it was only causing him grief. He took that to heart. He was beginning to move on.
***POSTED 4-14-23 – BRUNETTE BRUNETTE ARRIVE COACHELLA VIP CABANA BEVERAGE PRETZEL BRUNETTE CLIP TIFFANY HADDISH 2018 FILM “NOBODY’S FOOL” LIP SYNC “OOOOOH THIS IS NIIIIIICE. GIRRRRRRRLLLL. THIS ALL, THIS IS YOU RIGHT HERE? OKAY!”***
“She’s beautiful.”
“Sure.”
“She’s been famous for a while.”
“I’m not on these apps. She uses a stage name.”
“She’s an actress?”
“Sometimes. I meant ‘stage name’ figuratively. Pseudonym.”
“Where does she live?”
“She bought a house in Los Angeles.”
“Bought?”
“She said ‘bought’ in the Vogue interview.”
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-one.”
“Fuckin’ A.”
“I want to see her again.”
“So reach out.”
“I don’t want to seem like I’m asking for money.”
“So tell her, ‘I’m not asking for money.’”
“Then she’ll think I’m asking for money. It’s the most common story on Earth. ‘I got rich and my deadbeat dad came out of the woodwork.’”
“Then leave her alone.”
“…”
“You didn’t like hearing that, did you?”
“No.”
*Sent Monday, April 24th, 11:21 AM*
“Hi Harper”
*Sent Wednesday, May 3rd, 9:14 AM”
“Hi Harper”
*Sent Wednesday, May 3rd, 9:15 AM*
“It’s Dad. If you want to talk you can message me at this account. I’d love to reconnect. Miss you”
*Sent Sunday, May 18th, 3:32 PM*
“Hi Harper”
She capitalized on her first viral videos with a shocking degree of canniness and speed. Within a few months she struck brand partnerships, scored interviews in major press outlets, collaborated with mainstream celebrities. After a year she was a guest-judge on a reality competition show and acted in a miniseries on a popular streaming service. (Not a lead role, but a substantial part.) A rumor circulated, briefly, that she was dating Leonardo DiCaprio, but the “source” of that rumor may have been making an ironic joke to a celebrity gossip account on Instagram. Harper denied it, anyway.
He wanted to admire all this, but self-consciousness kept getting in the way of his pride. Perhaps he could tell that, if she were a stranger, he wouldn’t like her work. Her dancing was competent, but not all that remarkable. Her songs were peppy but her voice was badly auto-tuned. Her acting was objectively terrible. A Rolling Stone piece called her “The hopelessly mediocre future of entertainment,” which he found cruel, but he couldn’t help thinking the same.
She posted five times a week, on average. Her ambition was enviable, but she was exhausting to watch. She was a lot like Callie in that way. They had the same drive, focus and false exuberance. If he were still in Harper’s life he would have told her to be more authentic in her videos, and sincerely authentic, not the rehearsed authenticity she puts on when she talks about “mental health” or “online bullying.” Who knows if she’d have listened. Her approach seems to be working.
“Our parents said the same shit about MTV,” Greg told him.
“And now the world is worse. Maybe they had a point.”
“Do you love her less because she makes ten second dance videos?”
“No.”
“Then why do this to yourself?”
“It might make things awkward when I see her again. She might sense I disapprove.”
“Has she responded to you?”
“No.”
“Work on that first.”
***POSTED 6-7-23 – “LOVE IS EMBARRASSING” OLIVIA RODRIGO TEXT “NEW YORK RECAP” SOHO BROOKLYN ROOFTOP WAFFLE HOTEL ROOM 11 CHAMPAGNE BOTTLES SUBWAY FACIAL CAB WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE***
*Sent Wednesday, July 12th, 8:43 PM*
“I don’t know if you're getting these.”
*Sent Wednesday, July 12th, 8:51 PM*
“I promise all I want is to hear from you. I’m happy you're so busy and that you so success. I’m proud of you.”
*Sent Wednesday, July 12th, 8:51 PM*
“And that YOU’RE so SUCCESSFUL”
*Sent Saturday, July 22nd, 7:12 AM*
“Is that Dubai?”
*Sent Sunday, July 30th, 6:38 PM*
“I talked about you in a meeting today. This young girl went all wide-eyed when I mentioned your name. She said she would DM you and convince you to speak to me. I hope she doesn't annoy you. Then again maybe if she does you'll respond to my messages. *cry laughing emoji*”
*Sent Sunday, July 30th, 6:54 PM*
“That came off bitter. I'm sorry. But I’d love a response. Whenever you get around to it.”
One of his students, a loud dunce named Lucas, brought her up during class. He awkwardly shoe-horned her pseudonym into an analysis of House of Mirth, comparing her clumsily and inaccurately to Lily Bart. He spoke with the goading, conspiratorial tone of a student making an inside joke to befuddle the teacher. Adam curtly said “Interesting,” and moved on to a new topic. He suspected his reaction gave something away.
They look alike, but lots of people look like celebrities without anyone assuming parentage. The simplest explanation is that someone talked after he brought up Harper during share. No one in that meeting had any relationship to his students, at least not to his knowledge, but maybe somebody knew somebody. He was furious at this hypothetical betrayal but, like usual, his rage turned to self-admonishment. He should have been more vague. He didn’t need to mention her name, her stage name at that. In retrospect, he might have been bragging.
Another student, a confident young girl named Leslie, came right out and asked him during office hours. “Are you related to — ?” He had been thinking about how to handle this. Honesty would be best, but he enjoyed the clean start this teaching job afforded him. Most people don’t need to expose the most painful moment of their life to hundreds of work colleagues. Most people have the luxury of keeping their darker moments secret.
“I’m her father, but we’re estranged,” he said. “It’s a long story.” Leslie nodded sympathetically. She didn’t pry. It took all of Adam’s willpower not to elaborate further.
*Sent Friday, August 11th, 1:27 AM*
“I worked as a counselor at a sober living facility for a few years. That got me on my feet, but the pay wasn’t good. Then an AA buddy helped me get a teaching job at a community college. I’m finally doing well, not just getting by. Not rich by any means, but I’m building some savings, becoming a person. People say getting sober feels like being born into your adulthood, and it’s true. I live like a very average thirty-year-old. Even my friends tend to be younger.”
*Sent Friday, August 11th, 1:39AM*
“Your grandfather passed away last November. Do you remember him? He came by for a few birthdays and Christmases, but I don’t remember when, or how many. I doubt you would have gotten along, he could be a real bastard. His wife paid for a nice long obituary in the Gazette. You can look it up. His first name was Walter.”
*Sent Sunday, August 12th, 12:16 AM*
“When you were on ‘Call Her Daddy’ you mentioned you don’t drink. Is that because of me?”
A man with bleached-blond, shoulder-length hair approached him at Starbucks, holding a manila envelope. The man was muscular in an unattractive, sickly way, like a bodybuilder with an autoimmune disorder. The man called out Adam’s full name, first, middle and last. He thought he was being served a court summons. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
“This has to get to your daughter,” the man said.
“What?”
“It’s important. It’s important she receives this. Her representation has not been responsive to me.”
Adam blinked, glanced at the exit, and blinked again. “If her, um—”
“It’s important.”
“I don’t have a daughter.”
“Please. I drove a long way. Her representation has not been responsive to me.”
“This is some kind of mistake, I think, I don’t know—”
The man put his envelope on Adam’s table.
“Please send this to your daughter. My contact information is inside if you need more copies, or would like the digital files. It’s urgent that it gets to her. Please.”
The man wandered off. Adam was afraid to open the envelope, but curiosity got the best of him. It was an eighty-five page business proposal, single-spaced and typed in eight-point Courier New. It described a “world revolutionizing” weight loss system focused on “cardiovascular fitness and the restorative powers of Gyokuro green tea.” The man was offering Harper 15% profit participation if she was willing to be the face of his brand, posting weekly for the next six months. He had no up front cash to offer, but he said it was “a growth opportunity the likes of which has not been recorded since the initial Facebook IPO.”
Adam called Greg that afternoon.
“Her birth name is on her Wikipedia page, that might be the issue.”
“The receptionist shouldn’t tell people where you hang out.”
“She had no way of knowing.”
“You should figure out how to make your shit anonymous. On the internet or whatever. I’m sure one Google–”
“I’m more distressed by—if they’re coming up to me like this, what’s going on with her?”
“Yeah.”
“All the world is knocking at her gates, trying to get her attention. It must be exhausting.”
Greg paused for a long time.
“Hello?”
“No, I’m—yeah, I’ll bet it’s annoying.”
***POSTED 8-29-23 – CLIP SCORE OBSCURE FRENCH DRAMA “LA LEÇON PARTICULIÈRE” WIPE EDIT BRUNETTE FACE ALGORITHM GENERATE BRUNETTE MAN TEXT “WOULD” *TONGUE OUT ONE EYE CLOSED EMOJI****
*Sent Saturday, September 2nd, 10:13 AM*
“I used to hate talking about my past. Regrets that can’t be corrected, traumas better forgotten. “Why bother?” I’d think. But the cliché about being doomed to repeat a unexamined past turns out to be true. There’s no wisdom without reflection. Mistakes will abound. As I came to learn.”
*Sent Saturday, September 2nd, 10:21 AM*
“When I was making my amends, I reached out to my father. I’m not sure we ever had a substantive conversation before then. He could be very cold and cruel to me, particularly after he started his second family. He roamed in and out of my life like a feral cat, abandoning me inexplicably and for years at a time. But when I talked about my sobriety he was attentive. He couldn’t help but get in a few digs at me about my earlier misdeeds, (“You were such a Goddamn handful for so long,” he said) but he could tell I was sincere. He wasn’t the father I wanted, but he became a father I could love. We had a good handful of years before the end.”
*Sent Saturday, September 2nd, 10:29 AM*
“After he died, his last wife told me how much those years meant to him. She explained that he saw my alcoholism as an indictment against his youth. Glaring evidence of his own failures, as a father and a man. (He was an alcoholic himself and never got sober, though he was better at managing his addiction than I was.) She said this not to excuse him, but to explain. After I came to him, he felt he could be my father again. According to his wife, ‘It was like a missing piece of him had been restored. He was so much more at peace those last few years. He was a newer, better man.’ She said this verbatim. I’ll never forget it.”
*Sent Saturday, September 2nd, 10:41 AM*
“I was a better man, too. It’s the sad fact of family, no matter how much pain and resentment is behind us, we crave family’s presence and approval. Sometimes it’s necessary to shut them out of our lives, lord knows, but even then, the blood cries out for them. I didn’t always believe this was a universal sentiment. I figured it was easy for my father to abandon me. It wasn’t, for whatever that’s worth. He felt the same way about me that I did about him, that same acidic mixture of anger, need, love and regret. I wasn’t always certain of that. I nearly went to my grave believing otherwise.”
*Sent Saturday, September 2nd, 10:53 AM*
“I don’t know how you feel about me. I imagine your mother told you the whole long, sad story. The plain truth would be enough to make you hate me forever. But I have changed. I can say that confidently. Not totally, not miraculously. I’m still far too self-pitying and angry, still stubborn, still by turns too timid and too candid. But I am more conscientious than I was, and more importantly, I have been sober for six years. I don’t know if I deserve to be your father, but today, right now, I can be.”
*Sent Saturday, September 2nd, 11:01 AM*
“I’m sure this sounds like manipulation. I guess, to some extent, it is. But truly, losing you was the most painful thing I’ve ever gone through. The fact that you’re within reach has given me this small crumb of rejuvenation, and I can’t let it go. All I’m asking for is a small amount of your time. I know that's a valuable commodity these days, but if you granted me an hour or so, in person, you’d be doing me the greatest favor of my life.”
*Sent Saturday, September 2nd, 11:03 AM*
“You haven’t blocked me yet. I know enough about this app to know that. I hope that means something.”
She wore glasses.
They weren’t purely decorative, she said, but the prescription was weak. They helped with printed text and subtitles on television, but they were primarily for outings like this one, times when she was in public but would rather not be approached. Adam didn’t quite believe this. She looked the same, glasses or no. He did not say this out loud.
He did his best not to say much, in fact. Just ask questions and listen. She had a boyfriend, a musician named Darius, though that was relatively new. She mentioned his rap name but Adam forgot it immediately. She complained about work, its every aspect and demand, for most of their lunch together. She was close to a brand partnership with Voss water, which would be lucrative and secure enough that she didn’t have to post so often. Maybe two or three times a month, instead of the near-daily grind. She didn’t want to do this much longer, she said, over and over. Maybe she’ll buy rental properties and live off that, or maybe she’ll get something steady, like hosting a show on regular TV. (That’s what she called it, “regular TV.”)
He wasn’t sure whether to ask about Callie, but he did anyway.
“She’s good. Do you know about Brian?”
“No.”
“Brian’s her husband. They moved here in June.”
“Oh.”
“I got them a place in Encino. Or I shouldn’t say I got them, I help with the mortgage. She’s weird about that.”
She would be, he thought. “That’s nice of you.”
“They couldn’t afford LA on their own.” She pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. “When do you fly back?”
“Sunday.”
“If you want, I’m hosting a thing on Friday at my house. It’s gonna be small, dinner with friends, people on my team. If you want to stop by.”
“I’d love to.”
“Mom won’t be there.”
“That’s okay.”
“She isn’t–”
“It’s okay.”
He waited with her while the valet got her car, a custom powder-blue Tesla roadster that she got as a gift from he thinks maybe Erewhon. She turned and said, “I’m happy to see you’re doing so well.” Then she crumpled into tears.
He tried to hug her but she threw up her hands and said, “No, I’m—no.”
She ran to her car. “Sorry,” she kept saying. “Sorry, sorry.” She drove off without saying goodbye.
***POSTED 10-13-2023 – “PAINT THE TOWN RED” DOJA CAT BRUNETTE MAN MAN MAN DANCE HIGH-CEILINGED LIVING ROOM 4 MEASURE COLLAPSE SMILE BACKGROUND HALLWAY MAN 50S WALK CAUGHT UNAWARE STEP INTO APPEARS TO BE BATHROOM LOOKS AWAY FROM CAMERA***