The Mock Dock

So, how old are you?
34. Sadly, 34. Why do you keep asking me this? I thought you were a good listener. I mean isn’t that a key to being a detective? Look at that Jessica Fletcher. Her ears were enormous.
You laugh a lot. Like too much. It’s weird. I think most people hate you because of how much you laugh. Why can’t you be more like those kids on One Tree Hill. You know. Sullen and pre-occupied with the seriousness of high school. What makes you laugh so much?
I don’t know. The Office, Family Guy. Celebrities crashing and burning. Humans existing in this Eliotian wasteland.
Why haven’t you been writing recently? Are you too good to let all of these friends in? You are a pompous ass. I want to punch you in your dick.
Well…don’t please. I like mine. It has a gentle bend – with a “d”, not like the bear – and I would hate to have it straightened out. I guess I just don’t want my insignificant existence and pathetic rapport with life to bother people. People are on the go. Wherever they are, they have to go. Not only do they want to go, but they want more. There are people in the front rows of shows, concerts, gallery showings texting some friend, who is two blocks away. Like you can’t have one second of free time on your hands?
So, why all the empathy? I thought apathy was always your greatest weapon. You have always been so proud of yourself for not caring. God, you are awful. I really am going to punch you!
Just not in my pecker, please. So, I was talking to a friend of mine this week and she said, “Holmes, remember, no matter how bad it gets, there’s always someone worse off than you.” So, now I’m depressed and worried about this other poor guy.
So, with all this new “love” in your heart, what are you going to do with your life? I mean, if you weren’t being Holmes, what would you be “being”?
Boy, I have no idea. I’d probably be on disability, trying to write screenplays. Anything to avoid this regular nine-to-five job, because I am a horrific employee. I really don’t have anything to add to the nine-to-five workplace, except naps.
But doesn’t this being a general slacker leave you in an arrested state of development?
I could blame my life and all that has happened to me for keeping me in an arrested state of development, but I think it’s really just my tiny, tiny brain. I could go back to being a teacher. I don’t think I’d be any more mature. My focus is mildly mature, but the rest of my mind is about 19 years old.
What do you mean by that?
Let’s just say that the thing I hate most about losing losing my hair is that I’m afraid other people can see my thoughts. And I don’t know who is running the film projector in my head, but he is really immature. And really likes naked women.
You are disgusting. And the answer is “No.”
I know. Do you have any pictures?

This past Saturday, my kids and I packed up our flippers, goggles, and dive-y sticks to enjoy the day at our community pool. Slathered in cocoa butter lotion, glistening in the sun, Holmes Jr. and Holmesita feverishly splished and splashed in the chlorine goodness of man’s attempt to thwart Mother Nature’s heat. I - needing to get my awesomely developed calf muscles in the pool as fast as possible to keep the throngs of horny lower-leg lovin’ ladies at bay - ran quickly, jumped, did a flip, and splooshed beneath the quiet depths of the pool’s surface.

With the freedom and frivolity being felt by me and my seed-bearers, I hadn’t taken time to notice the couple sitting and watching us from the deck chairs. As I taught Holmes, Jr. the best form for his backstroke and caught Holmesita time after time as she leaped to the safety of her daddy’s tattooed arms, a man of 45 years, slowly sat down on the edge of the pool, dangling his pasty feet in the ice-cold blue.

With daring audacity, this man’s wife approached me and in a sweet, tentative hush asked me if I could teach her husband how to swim. I was taken aback but am unwilling to not help another better his or her existence. And so it was that I found myself teaching Steve, a grown man who had almost drowned at age 10, how to float on his back and doggie paddle.

I spent my Saturday afternoon, with Holmes, Jr. on my right side, moving gracefully through the water perfecting multiple strokes that propel him like a tiny Irish dolphin, Sean O’Eeeeeeeeoooo. In front of me, flexing her petite legs and flinging her 4-year-old life into the water, to paddle her way to daddy, was Holmesita. And…on my left, ravenously flailing his middle-aged arms and legs - like Tom Cruise trying to film that hang-down scene from Mission Impossible with an ear ache - was Steve.

After a mere hour, Aquaman and his wife were pleased with his ability to doggie paddle enough to not go a-dyin’ in the water, so I wrangled my children and we left that space of the pool to play as a family again. It was only after this awkward and absurd situation that I knew it was the right thing to pass up the offers to don the red, Baywatch suit. For as a TV lifeguard, I would have been known only for my perfectly pouting breasts, and not my girthy heart.

Absurdly yours,

Holmes

Tuesdays and Thursdays are the days each week that my kids spend completely with their mom. It is often a 12-14 hour workday for me followed by a slow drive home, a baker’s dozen ice cold beers and a gentle weeping that ends with sharp in-breaths and spittle as I curl up in the middle of my living room floor holding fast to a teddy bear or pillow or pile of freshly clean clothes that they had worn the weekend prior.

Each of these days, however, my 6-year old son, 4-year old daughter and I share a few stolen moments together thanks to Ma Bell and the amazing telephone wires. Each Tuesday and Thursday, Holmes Jr. and Holmesita recall the exciting times of their mornings. Often I am told of Lego towers built only to be knocked down with marbles. I hear of princess dolls that have been held captive by legions of stuffed animals. I hear of alabaster flesh being trounced by the cold waters pouring from the grommets of the sprinkler. I hear of all the things that make my cold, dead heart try to beat again.

My son likes rules. They make him confident and comfortable in this cockamamie world. They give him, a 6-year-old, a sense of control. They give him power of his angst.

As we chatted on the phone this afternoon, he told me of his trip to a local museum filled with a hundred years of racing memorabilia and actual on-track cars. His spirits soared…his imagination higher. It was then that this conversation took place:

“Daddy, Holmesita, went poop at the museum.”

“In her pants?”

“No, no silly. She told Gramma and they went into the bathroom. Then 10 minutes later, she went pee.”

“In her pants?”

“No, goofy. She went in the bathroom and peed. Because that is how it is for girls. 10 minutes after they poop, they pee.”

This is not a rule of which I have been aware. I was married for 10 years. I have dated women of all ages since my divorce. I have not noticed the practical application of this rule in any of these relationships. However, Holmes Jr. has made this a rule in his world. “That is how it is for girls.”

So ladies, I ask that we at least make every attempt to honor this little boys wishes - nay dreams - of the 10-minute Rule.

Absurdly yours,

Holmes

I love the game of baseball. As an attempt to stave off the pang of loneliness that I feel every Sunday when my kids go back to their mother’s house, I sat at my neighborhood Little League diamond watching boys grasp the American dream. I was hoping that surrounding myself with the joy might be positive. Also, being that it was “All-Star weekend”, I thought for sure all of the hot, single moms would be feeling great about their “Kevin’s growth-spurt” and find comfort in the cold, dead blue eyes of a life-battered fellow like me.

As I sat my ass and my awesomely developed calf muscles down on the sun-scorched steel bleachers, I thought, “Wow. It’s a beautiful summer day and I’m sitting alone. Maybe I should fill my cargo shorts with pennies and jump into that pond.”

But I stopped myself short. I saw her raven hair, alabaster skin, pouting breasts. “Perhaps that attractive woman looking at magazines near the concession stand will come over and fall in love with me. No. I am unloveable. I know this. Maybe she will have sex with me.”

Then some guy steps up and kisses her on the cheek. Bastard. Look at him. All showered and color-coordinated and holding Fortune magazine.

Man, I need some hope. I look for it in the face of a young boy waiting to buy some Pixie sticks and Big League Chew. He catches me watching and bellows out, “Mommy, that creepy guy is staring at me.”

His mom is the attractive lady I was looking at ten seconds ago. Now she whispers something to her Izod-ed lover.

He puts his arm around her, pulls his son close and gives me that, “Why don’t you just kill yourself, you creepy hanging-around-kids-parks dull-eyed bum-smoker?” look.

Oh go play golf, you manicure-getting, comfortable-shoe-wearing dope.

I check my phone, see who called. Nobody. Hmmm. Okay.
I take out my notebook, write. That always makes me feel better.

She says, “You’re just afraid of your feelings.” Of course I’m afraid of my feelings. Who am I? Michael Bolton. I don’t know what to do with feelings. That’s why whisky was invented. So I don’t have to feel.”

I peek over at the happy family. Now Dad is ogling younger women. The kid is picking his nose. Mom is eyeballs-deep in OK! magazine, wishing she was richer and younger but not as lonely even though she has a kid and a husband and friends she shops with almost every day.

She truly believes if she had better tits and was banging George Clooney, she’d have peace. Maybe she is right.

I’ll get a cup of coffee. That will help. Yeah. Then I’ll be jumpy and have to urinate. Perfect. Just like them.

Yo soy la pequenia Shania Twrrrraaaain….wink, wink…

uuuuhhhhhh…oh yeah…