Glen is an investment banker who spoke to me briefly while I sat at Jack Ryan’s pub in Manhattan, this past April, imbibing the only two items on the menu I could afford, chicken soup and a dark German stout, of all brews.
Raising two girls brings unimagined stress.
My wife has been gone for six years—cancer.
Their grandparents live in Florida, so I enrolled them in school. It’s not far from West Palm Beach. Somehow I thought I’d shield them from all this, this ever-grasping place.
[looks around mournfully at the beautiful and handsome empty vessels at the bar]
There is no escape. Not one known to me.
They come home for Christmas wearing makeup like, like, like slapping vinyl siding on a marble church, with designer fingernails—those painted claws the black girls used to wear…
Their mother and I taught them modesty, conservatism, restraint. Not with the rod either, but the carrot. Never laid a hand. There is so much to earn through restraint. Decency brings its own rewards…
They are both dating the same guys they’ve been seeing for over a year. Boys from good families. I decided to invite the boyfriends out on the boat this last trip—I see them every month for a long weekend. Here we go, a nice family outing and my daughters show up in thongs with bikini tops—not even eighteen!
Good God, what’s next?
Botox?
Breast implants?
I’m thinking of transferring them to a school up here.
[“Tap, tap, tap,” went his cufflink on the deeply polished bar-top]
You should try the Guinness here…
White in the Savage Night: A Politically Incorrect Life In Words: 2016
link › jameslafond.blogspot.com
