The Domestication of David

by David M. Howell ©2007
(From the collection of short stories: “Not In Your Life”)


As I lounge at the deckled edge of 50, I’m hard pressed to imagine what makes me a good catch. Good looks? Replaced by the patina of time. Money? I’m an advertising creative, I dress one fashion statement above homeless. Fame? Well, not yet.

Having dated and divorced over the past 30 years, I have picked up on one underlying theme. Women want to get married and have kids. Like a dentist discovering a cavity, all the women I’ve dated seem to have a void that needs to be filled. If you qualify—and here in Chicago that means you exceed in at least one of the above three categories—you are pursued like Elmer after Bugs Bunny.

The first stumbling block for me is the need for marriage to have kids. Some how, in the deep dark abyss of our ancestral past there had to be a cave couple or two who choose to have children out of wedlock. Seemed to work then. The species proliferated to its current population and no primitive evangelical or nagging society besmirched the parents for not “tying the knot.”

So how is marriage a prerequisite to children? Do only married women ovulate? Is married sperm healthier and more active? Possibly. It would explain how dating conversations has quickly moved past what you do and how much you make to the new age conversation of what’s your sperm count.

I hadn’t really pondered any of these questions until I met Danielle.

The truth is we’d known each other for about 6 years but when first we’d met, she was married and that kept our relationship plutonic. We first worked together at the same ad agency. I left the agency and we drifted until a year ago when we met again.

This time Danielle was divorced and exiting an unsatisfying relationship. We had an instant connection and our friendship blossomed anew. As we enjoyed Chicago’s finer restaurants and wines we covered a variety of topics including marriage and kids. Though I was not opposed to either, I made it clear neither were demands for me. At the time she agreed. It was about the fun and enjoying a person who really “gets me.”

Well before long the “gets me” became a full-blown relationship. We even began looking for our own place. The idea of cohabitating was intriguing to me. Marriage was a piece of paper. A status. A destination. Living together was the real commitment—your stuff and my stuff co-mingling in the same closet. It is an experience not a planned event with invitations and packaged food from a third world airlift.

Oh if only it had worked out that way. Shortly after establishing the monogamous relationship the innuendos started.

“I think my parents would be happy for me if I got married again,” Danielle said over sushi.

“Wow…well, if it’s that important. I mean, I know I’ll miss you…”

Lets stop right there for a moment. I have no stats to back this up, but comedians must have the highest “shut-down” rate because you do NOT joke about your relationship. The pope can shit in the woods. The president can hold his own bronze medal from the Special Olympics, but never, ever crack a joke about your relationship. Ironically, the vast majority of women will specify that it is essential that their mate have a sense of humor. Just don’t make jokes.

This seemingly simple joke created 48 hours of turmoil and despair. I mean there were even tears. But here’s the real rub—I had made it clear all along that after two failed marriages, this institution is just not for me. It’s like Nicolas Cage being kicked off the varsity glee club and just being too stupid to get it.

What’s even more disappointing is Danielle has also been divorced twice. Third time’s a charm? Only for a couple of lawyers.

So now the guilt sets in. I care for this woman enough that I don’t want to put her through another divorce. And I respect myself enough not to turn into Marlon Brando. What I find most confusing is why is it my fault, my problem to fix? I said early on marriage is not something I’m striving for. Yet, I apparently don’t know myself and I need the help of therapy to tell me that yes, I’m passive about marriage. It’s like getting your hand caught in a bear trap. Once extricated, it takes months of tear-welling therapy to convince yourself to stick your hand back in the trap. Hey, if the fire is hot the first time, it will be hot the second time.
But with that bridge repaired we visited my family for my niece’s Christening. Now my family knows I believe god and Santa Claus are the same person.

They have to be. Both hiding somewhere like perverted voyeurs watching your every move. If you behave, you’re rewarded. But low to the person who misbehaves. A vengeful god and Santa will smite you with hell fire or at least leave you a lump of coal to start your own mini perdition.

Another thing, you never see them in the same place. Kind of like Superman and Clark Kent. I think Jesus is Santa’s true identity. By day a mild mannered deity with over developed insecurities. By night, a toy-tyrant whipping those poor elves like Chinese child laborers to crank out gifts for just the good kids. (We never hear about the underground elves that mine the coal. And I’m certain there have been a few mine disasters that the folks in the god front office aren’t talking about.)

Anyway, my family would never approach me with religious obligation—especially if it had anything to do with the child molesting catholics. Why parents give their children over to such deviates is beyond me. But my brother had decided that his first daughter needed to have her future determined for her at just two months old and arranged her baptism.

Danielle came along. She’d met my family before and they instantly liked her. So it was no surprise at the party afterwards that she was greeted warmly and with affection. After all, it’s my family’s belief that someone—anyone—is good for me. Grasping the concept of being alone is as foreign to them the dreaded Cyclops.

“How could anything have just one eye? It would have no depth perception.”

“Dad, it’s just a movie. Besides, the Hathaway man only had one eye.” I said one rainy Saturday when I was home from my big city career in advertising. My father watched TV like a toll both attendant. He knew something was going on in front of him, but his mind pulled at his consciousness like a hooked Rainbow Trout.

“That Hathaway man was a pansy. He could never catch an outfield fly ball or land a jumbo jet.”

“I think that’s why this particular Cyclops chose a career of hunting and eating people rather that try out for a professional sport.”

“Now what kind of thinking is that? You liberals are always defending the weak and handicapped. The damn Cyclops should have been forced to join a little league team or participated in Punt, Pass and Kick in school. You should have gone out for a sport…maybe then you’d have a career your mother and I could brag about.”

It was always like that. Which is why I kept my visits short and most girlfriends away.

Somewhere along the way my parents gave up on me and focused on my siblings. It was there mission to marry them off. Once they had succeeded, the focus was back on me, the only single child they had left.
Basically anyone I show up with is viewed as a lure to hook me back into the fold of humanity. So when my sister-in-law offered Danielle the baby it was a double-edged sword.

“Oh she looks so good on you,” my brother’s wife said.

“Oh, she so cute,” Danielle cooed bouncing the infant against her breast. “I could hold her forever.”

“How would you go to the bathroom,” I asked.

“It’s just an expression,” Danielle defended. “Boys just don’t get babies.”

“Of course not…if they did, they’d be girls.”

Lesson two, never, ever get between a woman and a cub…even if it’s someone else’s cub. My “attitude” ruined the rest of the day and spoiled the weekend. Anything less than accepting Danielle and her new accessory was viewed with the same contempt Caesar suddenly had for Marcus Brutus. I had stabbed her baby joy with an insensitive barb.

That’s when the real discussion started. It was now my problem that I didn’t want marriage and kids. Everybody wants to get married and have kids! Never mind that the success rate of marriage in America has dropped below 50 percent while the divorce rate has climbed to over 50 percent. Where is it written that my life’s dreams and goals have to be the same as everyone else?

Why are kids such a big deal? Sure they prevent the extinction of the species, but hell, given how we’ve trashed the planet, it might not be a bad thing. Then again, if we weren’t here some other species would rise up to take our place. I could only imagine a world with squirrels at the top of the food chain. No one would carry a wallet. They’d just bury stashes of currency everywhere and hope they can find it when necessary.
Dolphins might be a logical choice but they’d have to evolve to living on land. Trading flippers for arms and legs the world would be ruled by a squeaky fish hybrids. Eventually, when they get around to inventing Hollywood, they too would pass into extinction finding that snorting cocaine through a blowhole would result in debilitating spinal injuries.

But as for the current alpha species, I find that all…not some…ALL of my married with children buddies swear how having kids changed their lives. They are constantly filling my ears with tales of their kids’ successes. As if the necessities of life like learning to pee outside of your clothes is akin to open-heart surgery. Or uttering some cute phrase is equivalent to speaking before the United Nations on the need for birth control.

Okay, listen, I’m happy your little poop machine has surpassed your expectation for thrills and intrigue. But no, your kids are no different than any of the other kids I’ve met. One day, your prodigy will go off to school and discover a world of facsimiles.

What’s even more alarming is everyone—yes all of my buddies—will tell me how much they miss my lifestyle. They love their kids and wives, but man they wish they could just hangout. Read a book. Catch a movie that isn’t animated. And have sex with random women. Okay, that last part just doesn’t happen. The perception of ALL my married buddies is that I’m getting laid more often than a casino chip at Harrah’s. But they were single once, they should recall that the closure ratio for a single guy has the same success rate as a soccer game. You’re constantly running around. Constant confusion about the “zone.” Lots of ball handling but very little scoring.

What kills me is how everyone’s kid is the best kid ever. As if all of history and evolution has conspired to make this one kid the greatest. I’m sure Zerelda James was proud of her boys Frank and Jesse.

“Zerelda, how are the boys?”

“Oh, Gertie, you know boys. Them two. Jesse and Frank robbed themselves a train last Tuesdee. And, dan-gum it, they went and holded up a bank. Such go getters.”

“You must be plum proud o’ them, Zee.”

Listen, not every kid is going to be then next Knute Rocke or Albert Einstein.

I’m sure Caroline Maria Goring couldn’t have been more thrilled of her son Hermann, when he mentioned over dinner that he’d hit a personal best in killing millions of Jews.

No, your kids are just kids. Get over the fact that they can do no wrong. Everyone fucks up. Mistakes get made. Hell, according to a couple of my friends even their kids were a mistake.

Needless to say the ride back to Chicago after leaving my sister’s was a tense, silent passing. With rigid determination, I endured another 48-hours of pouting and innuendos. But by the following weekend we were back to our happy little sphere of a relationship. We continued to look at some pretty awesome Chicago real estate and discussed our future together. That’s when the Hydra lifted is cooing little heads and attacked. The subject of marriage and kids breached the calm shores. However, the landscape had changed to what if scenarios. Like, what if we did have kids, of which of our friends would make the better babysitter.

What I’m coming to realize is that through this process of dating my voice is getting fainter and fainter. The more I say, kids and marriage aren’t for me, the more often the topic turns to our marriage and kids.

“Would you ever consider getting married in a foreign country?”

“What…wait…”

“You know, like what if when we go to Scotland this fall, we decide to get married?”

“Why would we do that?”

“Just what if…”

“What if we went to Scotland?”

“No, silly goose. What if we got married WHILE we were in Scotland?”

How do you answer that? “No way” hasn’t been working. Like Katrina looming on the horizon I could see this category 5 conversation laying waste to the weekend. I needed a relationship FEMA. Wait, they fucked up New Orleans. Scratch that, I needed an evacuation plan.

“Hey, you know we don’t have to go to Scotland. We could go to Brazil. I hear it’s beautiful.”

“What if we got married there?”

“Well, ah…I don’t speak Portuguese …I might accidentally order us a flaming dessert.”

Working back to food was always my salvation. Danielle was a foodie and the mere thought of dessert sent her chef-like mind reeling at the possibilities.

The funny thing about a committed relationship is how insecure it becomes. I know this is completely opposite of what you’d think. Like tightening down hatches on a stormy sea secures a ship. Or installing an alarm system secures your house. But when dealing with a relationship, the more secure you make it, the more insecure it becomes. And it was this insecurity that eventually brought the relationship house down.
Danielle was meeting with some girlfriends a few blocks from my condo. We’d made plans that she’d come by afterwards and we’d walk to our neighboring offices together in the morning.

Promising an early evening I wasn’t surprised when she called around 9 pm to say she would be on her way soon.

“Yeah, just wrapping it up and Marla’s. I guess I could walk over…”

“You’re five blocks away. If you’re tired, take a cab.”

Now unless you’re from rural Indiana, Chicago is a pretty safe town—especially downtown. And I live in one of the most heavily trafficked areas. Sure we get crime, but hell there was a bomb scare in Buchanan, Michigan—population 400. There are more people living on my block that in Buchanan. Crime is everywhere.

But it wasn’t fear of the streets that gave Danielle pause. It was the need to show off her boyfriend.

“You could come pick me up?”

“What…”

“I could meet you out front of Marla’s building.”

“Danielle, you could walk here faster than I could get to the garage, get my car out. Negotiate the myriad of one-way streets to get you. Seriously, take a cab.”

There was a long pause. Danielle was a pro at long pauses. And I was getting good at recognizing their significance.

“Well, I just want to feel wanted.”

“Then rob a bank.”

“Can’t you just tell me you want me?”

It was my turn to pause. What the fuck? It’s not like we’d just met in a bar and were sizing each other up. We’d known each other for years and were dating serious since early spring. Now, as the summer drew to a close she was questioning if I “wanted” her?

“Look,” I said. “If you want to play games, date one of the Parker Brothers.”

The line went dead.

And here we have the final lesson in domestication. The need to feel a part of something will inevitably pull you apart. Try as you might to be one person, there are always two minds and two hearts. And they think differently and beat at different rhythms. Sure marriage vows talk about two people becoming one but you don’t. You’re still two people.

A relationship is a path through life…and one of many…it’s planks joined by the glue of communication. Relationships fail for no other reason than a weakness between joints. No matter how close you are to someone, sometimes you just don’t hear what they’re saying. Danielle and I spoke the same language. We just used different words.