I should have felt terrific when I woke up this morning at 4. Coincidentally, it was that exact hour 20 years ago when we trooped to Cedars-Sinai for the birth of our third son.
I am not prescient, as the child’s mother eagerly will tell you, if you are among the 3 or 4 Angelenos she has not mentioned it to.
But I had a sickening feeling in the basement of my tummy, similar to the way a bank teller reacts when six machine guns, cradled by the same number of unshaven men, stomp toward her window.
My in-laws truly were ahead of their time.
They almost never let us leave home without them.
Unpersuaded by my offer of a free ticket to Mars for the duration, they were strategically positioned for the birthing process, a good 2 or 3 inches from their daughter.
The prospective father, previously known to said in-laws as Hey,You, was ordered to the nearest safe ground — which would have been Montreal if they could have swung it.
At 10:30 a.m., our son formally entered the world — and I do mean “our.”
Talk about a community baby.
Said in-laws, who years before faithfully assumed the stance that the less said to me the better, busily, smilingly, flamboyantly were taking bows and curtsies all over Cedars.
Meanwhile, Hey, You was driving around the East Side, in pursuit of a bogus address supplied by said father-in-law for his allegedly favorite coffee. There was a tall, aging building on the corner where said father-in-law swore a hot food stand, a pit stop for the classy, had stood for nearly 40 years.
Predicting the Future
The sickening feeling at the birth of my son was as precise, and prescient, as a meteorologist standing in the center of a hurricane and bravely predicting showers, shortly.
Months later, the mother and said in-laws, all aboard the same bicycle, left home together, and I departed in a different direction, for keeps.
Such an ice-cold temperature has been consistently maintained in our relationship down to this day, our son’s 20th birthday.
Even though we live but few miles apart, I have not seen my son in 7 years, the day of his bar mitzvah. Why? Only he and his mother know. Even his brothers do not. They don’t speak, mostly.
Seven years. I don’t know how tall he is, whether his personality has changed since he turned 13 or what his voice sounds like.
Two or three years ago, he mst have let down his guard for a moment. Or decided to play a trick on me. We made a date to meet a week after his birthday. When I knocked on the door, I had the feeling it was a faux door, the kind you find on a motion picture set, without any supporting framework.
It may as well have been. No one answered.
Maybe he would answer if I dialed his cell, I theorized two days ago. When he either picked up his telephone or suspiciously uttered “hello,” I called out his name, hopefully. The call ended faster than lightning.
