an incident at a warehouse in Dorchester. Some achievement that: Josef Mengele couldn’t get ejected from Boston’s finest for that shit. The real reason was that he took a dive to protect a higher-ranking officer. Dad used the payoff dough well: he wrote a crime novel, which wasn’t too bad. Since that debut, he’s blossomed as the suburbanites’ choice; they can sleep easy knowing that his Boston tec protagonist, Matt Flynn, is out there protecting them, tying everything up in neat resolution. Yes, he’s metaphorically grown into that airbrushed jacket photo of him, looking like a chunkier, nightclub-bouncer version of Doctor Drew. I suspect Botox, but he fervently denies this.
— Thanks, Dad. It’s scary, looking back, but I just reacted.
— You sure did that! I’m so glad I encouraged you with all that kickboxing and tae kwon do. You saved two men’s lives, and probably your own.
I know Dad makes a living through crime hyperbole, but the truth in that statement makes me shudder. While I wasn’t the target, there’s no telling how an asshole with a gun might react once he’s spilled blood.
— I’m glad too.
— And I’ll tell ya someting else, I’m gonna make you rich, princess! I got contacts in Hollywood now. Been speaking to agents and producers about Matt Flynn screen and TV adaptations.
What to say to that? — Well, um, okay . . . but you might be too late. A TV company has already been in touch about a pilot. In fact I’m just heading to a meeting in a little while. I’ve got a local talent agency working for me.
— That’s my girl. The Brennan get-up-and-go! But watch out for those guys, kiddo. Keep some native Southie cunning back in the locker room. You know what this wiseass Hollywood agent said to me the other day?
— No . . .
— He said, “I see Matt Flynn as being a down-the-line project for the Damons, Afflecks, or Wahlbergs. Like a nest egg for those guys when the gym-rat stuff gets too much like hard work and the middle-aged spread hits and they can finally do that grizzled, lived-in shit.”
— Right. I get that.
— No, think it through, honey, and this is what I said to him: those guys are fuckin
actors
. By the time they’re ready to play hard-bitten, fifty-five-year-old BPD homocide detectives, they’ll be seventy, and I’ll be in an urn on somebody’s mantelpiece!
— Dad, this is taking on a morbid turn, like so many of your conversations.
— Well, the clock’s ticking. Give me a grandkid, honey; just do the nine months for your old pop. One that can make me proud. Hell, I’ll pay for the kid to attend the best schools. You’ll never see him.
It.
Oh my God, I thought I’d get through a phone call without that old theme recurring. —
You know what? Have you ever asked yourself why I become more dykish every time you address me directly? Like, since I was about six years old?
— Jesus, honey, don’t do this to your old pop. Anyway, lesbians do the motherhood thing, it’s all the rage, he contends. Dad knows I’m bi. He doesn’t like it, but at least he acknowledges it. Mom almost physically chokes when I mention it. She would send me for extreme ECT if she could. — Why should a woman be denied motherhood on the grounds of sexual orientation?
I’m about to retort that I could find a hundred men to impregnate me, but, disturbingly, the only face that pops into my head is Miles’s. — It’s on the grounds of choice, of not wanting my body wrecked. Of things like liking sleep, hard breasts, tigh—
— Don’t say “tight vaginal walls” for chrissakes. Remember I’m your goddamn father! I don’t have the gift of abstraction when it comes to you!
— Sorry, Pop.
— Think it through, pickle. Ticktock. Ticktock. That’s the way it is. The human condition, he wheezes, then sings in pain, — the cocksucking, evil, motherfucking, God-awful human condition . . .
I let a brief silence hang, which he fills. — I gotta go now. But I’m in
— Thanks, Dad. It’s scary, looking back, but I just reacted.
— You sure did that! I’m so glad I encouraged you with all that kickboxing and tae kwon do. You saved two men’s lives, and probably your own.
I know Dad makes a living through crime hyperbole, but the truth in that statement makes me shudder. While I wasn’t the target, there’s no telling how an asshole with a gun might react once he’s spilled blood.
— I’m glad too.
— And I’ll tell ya someting else, I’m gonna make you rich, princess! I got contacts in Hollywood now. Been speaking to agents and producers about Matt Flynn screen and TV adaptations.
What to say to that? — Well, um, okay . . . but you might be too late. A TV company has already been in touch about a pilot. In fact I’m just heading to a meeting in a little while. I’ve got a local talent agency working for me.
— That’s my girl. The Brennan get-up-and-go! But watch out for those guys, kiddo. Keep some native Southie cunning back in the locker room. You know what this wiseass Hollywood agent said to me the other day?
— No . . .
— He said, “I see Matt Flynn as being a down-the-line project for the Damons, Afflecks, or Wahlbergs. Like a nest egg for those guys when the gym-rat stuff gets too much like hard work and the middle-aged spread hits and they can finally do that grizzled, lived-in shit.”
— Right. I get that.
— No, think it through, honey, and this is what I said to him: those guys are fuckin
actors
. By the time they’re ready to play hard-bitten, fifty-five-year-old BPD homocide detectives, they’ll be seventy, and I’ll be in an urn on somebody’s mantelpiece!
— Dad, this is taking on a morbid turn, like so many of your conversations.
— Well, the clock’s ticking. Give me a grandkid, honey; just do the nine months for your old pop. One that can make me proud. Hell, I’ll pay for the kid to attend the best schools. You’ll never see him.
It.
Oh my God, I thought I’d get through a phone call without that old theme recurring. —
You know what? Have you ever asked yourself why I become more dykish every time you address me directly? Like, since I was about six years old?
— Jesus, honey, don’t do this to your old pop. Anyway, lesbians do the motherhood thing, it’s all the rage, he contends. Dad knows I’m bi. He doesn’t like it, but at least he acknowledges it. Mom almost physically chokes when I mention it. She would send me for extreme ECT if she could. — Why should a woman be denied motherhood on the grounds of sexual orientation?
I’m about to retort that I could find a hundred men to impregnate me, but, disturbingly, the only face that pops into my head is Miles’s. — It’s on the grounds of choice, of not wanting my body wrecked. Of things like liking sleep, hard breasts, tigh—
— Don’t say “tight vaginal walls” for chrissakes. Remember I’m your goddamn father! I don’t have the gift of abstraction when it comes to you!
— Sorry, Pop.
— Think it through, pickle. Ticktock. Ticktock. That’s the way it is. The human condition, he wheezes, then sings in pain, — the cocksucking, evil, motherfucking, God-awful human condition . . .
I let a brief silence hang, which he fills. — I gotta go now. But I’m in
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