Boonville by Robert Mailer Anderson Page A

sold out. It was more important to have fun with her father than to remain vigilantly depressed on Mom’s behalf. Right in front of her friends too.
    â€œWhy don’t you go live with the son of a bitch then? I’ll sweep in every blue moon to have fun. That’s easy, anybody can do that. It’s the rest of the job that’s hard!”
    And if Sarah said no, Mom would throw a shit fit. You had sided with her , giving her a license to lay into Dad on your behalf.
    â€œI know you’re a bastard, but I can’t believe you can’t show your own daughter a good time twice a month. All I’ve been hearing is ‘Dad and me are gonna do this. Dad and me are gonna do that.’ I didn’t have the heart to tell her everything you’ve ever said was a lie. I kept it inside. I’ve been hurting inside. But I’m not letting you hurt my baby, you bastard! Not anymore! Not my baby!”
    â€œWe’re behind you, Greta,” one of Mom’s friends would say. “You’re beautiful, woman. Let that silver-tongued devil know!”
    Now Mom would let Dad have it for Sarah and herself, for her friends and all divorcees. For all women. And for the Movement.
    That scene would happen soon enough, Sarah could wait. There would be another one occurring in a few minutes if Dad didn’t arrive soon. She could hear Mom’s waterbed sloshing. The clock shaped like a half-eaten cheeseburger sitting on the television said 11:15. Defcon four. Sarah could smell the melt-down, the husky-musky scent of Charlie and Tab cola. Mom appeared in the living room wearing only an Angela Davis-inspired Afro matted down on one side and puffed out on the other. Vagina proud. She held a pink can of soda in her hand with a cigarette between her fingers. The sight of Mom’s breasts made Sarah uncomfortable. Before the liberation, she always wore a robe.
    â€œSo, that sonofabitch hasn’t got around to picking you up yet?” Mom would ask.
    The answer seemed obvious; Sarah was still there watching cartoons. If Dad had collected her, they would be at the Zoo eating pink popcorn or looking at the buffalo in Golden Gate Park. Sarah didn’t say anything. She didn’t think Mom wanted an answer. Lately, Mom asked a lot of questions she wasn’t expected to answer.
    â€œYou gonna wait all day for that irresponsible bastard?” Mom said.
    There was another one.
    â€œHon, let me tell you something,” she’d say, after taking a drag of her cigarette and depositing the butt in her Tab can. “Your father’s never been there for you and he never will be. Let’s face it, he divorced both of us. Look around, do you see him?”
    That made three.
    â€œHe thinks he can send us a shitty check once a month and that’s enough? Who buys your clothes? Who takes you to the emergency room when your ankle is broken? Who pays the bills? Cooks dinner? Cleans? Sweats blood and shows up to your school’s open house when she’s having a monster period and could have gone to the premiere of Claudine with a personal friend of Billy Graham’s? Who? Huh?”
    They were coming pretty fast.
    â€œNot that good-for-nothing, womanizing, shit-fuck, lousy-lay of a man. Did I ever tell you I went two years without oral sex because I had a recurring yeast infection and he refused to go down on me. Like it was my fault! That bastard!”
    On cue, Dad. His presence preceded him. Sarah didn’t need to look through the window, hearing the sound of his car, motor purring like a cat stalking a bird and then fluttering as if that same bird were flying away. Sarah knew instinctively, working a strong sixth sense. But Mom did too.
    â€œHere comes that rat-fuck now,” Mom would say, like that was the answer that filled in the blanks to all her previous questions.
    Sarah had never thought of her father as a “rat-fuck,” although everything from shrink bills to