Benny Jay: Happy Father’s Day!

June 22nd, 2009

I get up early, pour some coffee, page through the Sun-Times, and wind up reading an essay by Roger Ebert about “Cinnamon Peeler,” a poem by Michael Ondaatje.

It makes me curious to read the whole poem, so I go to the computer to look it up. Only, you know how it goes, one thing leads to another and I end up reading a completely different poem: “Well Said, Davy” by John Fuller.

Never heard of the poem, or the poet. But that means nothing. You could fill the universe with the stuff I don’t know, and I know it all.

I’m not sure what the hell is going on in this poem. I stumble over a few lines. I lose track of where Fuller’s at and where he’s going. I hit a line that makes no sense: “The law was a devil to cheat as you pleased, as we knelt on the back of the city girls’ knees.” I give up.

The thing about a poem is you can’t panic. You have to take your time. The meaning’s down deep, it won’t always be obvious. But I’m in a hurry. I got stuff to do. So I forget about “Well Said, Davy” and get on with my day. I bike to the library, and look for a book by Studs Terkel. It’s not on the shelf. I ask the reference librarian and she looks it up in the computer and tells me it’s lost.

“Lost? How can a book be lost?”

She offers no explanation. But she calls a nearby branch. They keep her on hold for five minutes, and then they hang up….

I go to the video store. I ask the guy: “Is `Candyman’ a good movie?”

He pauses to think about it and says: “It’s a scary movie.”

Hmm — he didn’t answer my question, but I get the movie anyway….

I go home to eat lunch, and wind up on the phone talking to Daddy Dee about track and field….

I go to the park and run along the lakefront; then I sit in the field, watch some kids play soccer, call Milo on my cell phone and talk about Joakim Noah….

I meet my wife. We walk to a restaurant. I eat chicken and watch the White Sox game on the TV that’s above the bar. We go home and have this intense discussion about why I do some of the stupid things that I do — like crossing the street when I see other people coming my way….

My wife goes to bed. But I don’t feel like sleeping just yet. So I lie on the couch and read “The Night Gardner” by George Pelecanos until my eyes get droopy. I close the book and get up to go to bed, when — wham! — it hits me like a jolt. Out of nowhere, Fuller’s mysterious line returns: “As we knelt on the backs of the city girls’ knees….”

Why, of course! Duh! They were doing it doggy style. You know, the Greek way. Coming at it from the back, so to speak.

Oh, my God, it’s so obvious — why didn’t I see it right away?

I want to call Milo and tell him all about it. I think he and Fuller have a lot in common. But it’s long past the Pussy Magnet‘s bedtime.

The clock tells me it’s a new day — Father’s Day, to be exact. I walk to the bathroom and study my face — all fifty-something years of it — in the mirror. It could be worse. Happy Father’s Day, big feller….

On the way up the stairs, I think about Fuller’s line. It took awhile, but I figured it out. Amazing things can happen if you wait all day…..