The Sperm Donor’s Daughter and Other Tales of Modern Family by Kathryn Trueblood Page A

buttock.
    â€œHey,” he says to me, more directly. “You look like a garden party and I look like I’m going to a rumble. Mind if I pull up?”
    â€œNo,” I say, shrugging habitually. “I like a man who doesn’t try to impress me.”
    â€œBecause no man can, right?” He laughs easily. I’ve seen him around for years.
    â€œIt’s boring to be a trained seal with a ball on your nose,” I answer. More ice crashes behind the bar and suddenly nothing is funny to me anymore. If I told these guys about my workmen, wouldn’t they shrug it off as some foolishness? Bar humor. The down-and-out, the underdog, the disillusioned, the dead-end, the fears self-fulfilled, and my downy cheeked child forced to chug-a-lug her first fill of it. I turn fully towards him, in case that’s what he wants: a look.
    â€œListen, I don’t have to laugh at your bitter jokes.”
    â€œHey, I only laugh at my own jokes out of courtesy. I was raised to be polite.” He puts one elbow on the bar, effectively shielding himself from me and lights a cigarette.
    I sigh in a long stream of smoke. “I’m sorry. I don’t like men much in general.”
    He turns back to look at me. My age is enough to let him know I’m not trying to be cute and challenging; I don’t try to gauge my looks much anymore. I’m a weather vane, still recognizable. His dark eyes are set too close together, his rather large nose actually has a divot in it, he’s got vertical wind lines on both cheeks and a jaw like an icebreaker’s prow—a face made for flinching.
    â€œI’m one in a multitude, darling,” he says, up-ending his drink until the ice cubes crash against his teeth, down-ending it with precision. “And I’m not going to try to im press you or de press you or com press you or even press you. I don’t like pressure myself.”
    â€œWere you in Vietnam?”
    â€œBingo. But you won’t find me shouting about buddies and bodies in your ear. I don’t like to talk about it.”
    â€œSo what do you shout about?”
    He raises an eyebrow skeptically and smiles. Clearly, the subject is off limits. Then he goes on. “Let’s talk about this. When a lady looks at you like she’s got to be afraid. And some son of a bitch has given her good cause. Most you can do is look at her before the light changes to green and gun it.”
    â€œIt’s true. Anything you say only makes you more suspect.”
    â€œSo all that’s left is how you look when you’re saying it. No impression you can make, only one she can take.”
    He snorts and looks at me then back at the bar mirror. When he shouts, I twitch.
    â€œHey, Maynard, Gallon up. Bring the lady a refresher.” The bartender spins back from the bottles and gives me a bemused, flattering look. Frank turns back to me; he’s on a roll.
    â€œWhat’s the smartest thing I can think of? Don’t analyze other people’s pain. Don’t assume it’s going to make sense.” His nostrils flare and his eyes are stark and wide. “One guy was my neighbor, lost part of his head in ’Nam. They filled it up with putty or something, covered it over. When we got back, he used to go to this one spot and just watch the water, you know, for hours. Then this business man comes along and builds a big old house. One day, they find the whole family dead, knifed. That’s why he did it … cause the guy blocked his fucking view. What does that tell you about war?”
    â€œMaybe he should have just put the guy’s eyes out.”
    He taps his finger to his lips, looking at me a moment.
    â€œWhen I came back, I used to touch up old photos, an uncle’s business. Once I’m touching up a photo for a family whose son had died. In the picture, his eyes were closed. They wanted me to paint them open. Shit, it creeped me, like prying back the