EXCUSE ME WHILE I GAG ON A MAGGOT

By Kathleen Hoy Foley

My bagel is tasting swell owning to the fresh sweet butter and specially-imported-from- Florida cherry marmalade slathered all over it. Until Phil groans, “I don’t believe this.”

I should’ve known. It’s Father’s Day, a golden moment in the sun opportunity for newspapers all over the country to drag out the done to death, sobbing adoptee-on-the- hunt articles. And oh look, here’s one staring right out at us between the bagels and glossy ads for pleather recliners outfitted with nifty accessories like six pack coolers and if you pay cash, complimentary urinals with no-clog flush valves. All that’s missing is dear old dad and a forlorn adoptee plopped on his lap. Buy one today.

Please excuse me while I gag on a maggot.

Just once in my life, once, I’d like to see an original headline about an adoptee. Say…Adoptee Files Lawsuit. Alleges Ruined Life. Wanted Only To Be Aborted. There’s a story I’d read.

Anyhow, seems twenty years ago this now sixty something woman, psychologist by trade, was startled by a few nefarious revelations about her conception. It wasn’t immaculate. And her daddy wasn’t her daddy. Her mother, who either wasn’t too bright or was suffering the effects of chugging down Two Buck Chuck, blurted out this scoop at a family gathering. See, there was this WWII soldier... Evidently, mortar attacks and air raid sirens set the stage for a brief wartime romance. In a foxhole? In a bomb shelter? Mom wouldn’t say. She would reveal nothing else. Not a thing. Only that nine months later...well, you get the picture.

Evidently this was quite a shock because the daughter, who I assume prior to that moment, was in full possession of her physical faculties, and at least most of her mental ones given her profession, immediately lost half of herself. Poof! Half herself gone! Instantly! Half her body and heart lopped off in less time then it takes to shout ADOPTEE! And so for over twenty years she’s been fruitlessly searching to find that severed chunk of herself. The new old daddy’s got to be what? Eighty, at least. Ninety? Twenty years of pining, crying, searching for the only thing that can complete her—the missing link that by now has to be shriveled up deep inside this old guy’s Depends.

Oh, where is that damn maggot?

But wait! Suddenly I remember. I myself am half adopted. Oh no! Maybe that psychologist-turned-stalker adoptee knows something I don’t. Maybe I really am only half a person, given the fact that I’ve got mystery blood coursing through my veins. Oh no! Who is my daddy?

That’s it! I throw down my bagel and rush to the computer and Google WHO’S MY DADDY?

Oh, happy day. He pops up instantly. Okay, he’s sort of fat, gargantuan, actually. Nothing, though, that gastric bypass couldn’t help. From the looks of it, his bathrobe could use a good soak in pre-wash to get rid of those stains. Probably grease from fried chicken, if the red and white boxes scattered at his feet are any indication. Do wish though, that the robe covered him better; his colostomy bag is showing. Maybe he needs a tent. Not that I hold this against the poor man. After all, this could be my daddy and at any moment I could be called upon to change that bag for him. That’s what good daughters do. I better buck up. I ignore the beer cans lined up like soldiers on the table beside him. I can’t tell if they’re empties or just waiting to be guzzled. Never mind any of it. I’m on a mission to find the other half of myself. I peer closer to the image looking for the lost me in this fellow’s eyes. But I can’t see past the smoke billowed in front of his face. It must be from the cigarette he’s got jammed into that hole in his throat. Ewww. I don’t want this daddy. Next.

Now I’m getting somewhere. At least this guy looks like he’s had a shower in the last six months. I do think turquoise polyester pants always look so smart; I like the way he’s hiked them halfway up his chest. Snazzy white bucks too. Though I think he should upgrade his socks. New ones wouldn’t sag around his ankles. And the comb over is a good thing; it almost hides that crusty stuff flaking off his scalp. Could this be my daddy? I begin to hear strains of violins in the background. Oh. That’s the stereo. Whatever. I look closer into my new daddy’s eyes, but I’m distracted. I’m really not comfortable with that swastika tattooed onto his forehead. I bet there’s some kind of weird story there. A story a proper daughter would have to listen to, maybe be expected to sympathize with. Damn it. Next.

Signs of depression are setting in. That gallon of rocky road in the freezer keeps calling me. But I must persevere. There’s always hope. It doesn’t take long before my persistence pays off. Oh my God. Here he is. They could be my own eyes staring back at me from the computer screen. I zoom in. Blue, with dark lashes—what’s left of them. Do I notice a slight curl in his hair, just like mine? Yes! And it’s shoulder length too! The black dye is a bit over the top. And I think his false teeth are too big. But at least he has them. Sorry, even though I am trying very hard not to be picky, I just can’t get used to toothless grins on geezers.

And there’s more! “I want to be your daddy,” he says right there on the page. He wants to be my daddy! Ahhhh…he loves me. He really loves me. Already.

I sit back in my chair and sigh. After all my minutes of suffering, it looks like I’ve finally found my daddy. Surely. Easy as that, I’m healed. Who could imagine it? I’m gonna invite this guy home. Give him a bagel and share my precious marmalade with him. Maybe take him out bowling. Play a few rounds of shuffleboard; a couple hands of Canasta. Introduce him to the grandkids. At long last, I’ve found my daddy.

But wait. What’s that? The small print there beneath his picture? I plaster my face to the screen. Does it say what I think it says? That my daddy is searching for a young girl? For a very young girl?

Howling and slobbering, I stagger back to the table. “My life is ruined,” I cry to Phil. “Do you hear me? I’m ruined now that I’m only half a woman. Who am I? What does this bagel with my favorite marmalade even mean now that I am only half a woman? I’ll never find the other part of myself.”

I am moaning and bawling while Phil has moved onto the Target ads.

“Do you hear me? I said my life is ruined now that I’m only half a woman. My life is meaningless.”

“You’ve only been half a woman for ten minutes.” He doesn’t even bother looking up. “Give it another five. Maybe you’ll feel better.”

He does not understand. He simply does not understand. I’m an orphan. I’m a nobody. He has a real father. Or had one, once.

“Help me, Phil,” I wail. “It’s my god damned hour of need.”

He only rolls his eyes and gets up from the table.

“Where are you going?” I demand.

I can be very rude when I’m on a rant. And now that I’m only half a woman, I have every right to throw tantrums. Every right to make him miserable, make everybody miserable. Somebody’s got to pay for my half a woman misery.

Hold on. It’s Father’s Day. A big day for senior citizens to crowd the restaurants with their oldster kids. There’ll be scores of elderly men in walkers. On oxygen. Coughing up phlegm. One of them has to be my daddy. Phil and I must go out find that him. He’ll regret abandoning me sixty years ago, leaving me half a person like this. Oh, he’s going to pay. He’s definitely going to pay.

Hands on hips, I bark all of this at Phil as he walks past me.

“Where is it that you’re going?” I demand again in my best caustic tone.

“Excuse me,” he says. “I’d like to stay here and listen to you, but there’s a maggot I need to gag on.”

I should end this story here, shouldn‘t I? I bet you even think I deserved Phil’s snippy remark—my own surly words coming back at me like that. But I’m the writer, so I get to have the last word. Several, in fact.

Nobody can stop me from going after that old man daddy of mine. Because I have to know about stuff. I have a right to know if I’ve inherited that phlegm gene. And what if one day I just up and start wearing turquoise polyester sans-a-belt pants? Now that’s going to be a problem no psychologist will ever be able to figure out. Well, except maybe one. Maybe the two of us can share a couple rounds of Two Buck Chuck and bemoan the missing part of ourselves.

Here’s the thing though—that whole swastika issue. Then there’s that colostomy bag situation. How much pressure does that create? It could come with a bunch of guilt, you know? Do I? Don’t I? Can I? Will I? A lot of creepy stuff can mess up a perfectly lovely Sunday morning. Know what I mean? It could get ugly.

Bagels versus colostomy bag. Colostomy bag versus bagels.

I’ve given this a lot of thought in the last fifteen minutes since I realized I’m only half a woman.

Pass the marmalade.