"Mister Deck, are you my stinkin' Daddy?" a youthful, female, furious voice said into the phone.
I could not have been more startled if I had looked up into the blue Texas sky and seen a nuclear bomb on its way down. I was on my south patio, having breakfast with Godwin, watching the fine peachy light of an early summer morning spread over the prairies; I had assumed the call was from my agent, who was in Paris and would soon be swimming up the time zones, hoping to spawn a few deals.
"I don't think I stink," I said politely. The remark caused Godwin to look up from his Cheerios.
"Stinkin's what I call it, never speaking to me in my whole life and leavin' me down here with two babies, only gettin' minimum wage," the young voice said, even angrier. “I seen it in Parade that you’re the richest writer in the world. Is that the truth or is that a lie?” “I probably am among the richest but I’m not exactly a writer,” I said, even more politely. The profuse ambiguities of my career held no interest for the blazing young person on the other end of the phone. “I don’t give that much of a shit what you are exactly,” she said. “If you’re rich and I’m workin’ in this Mr. Burger supportin’ two babies, then I hope Jesus puts you right where you belong, which is in hell.” I heard the wail of an infant, and she hung up.
Godwin had been patiently watching his last six Cheerios float around in their milk. In his old age he had acquired mystic pretensions; he claimed to see things in the float patterns of Cheerios. Some days he would rattle off to Dallas in his ancient Volkswagen, where he would procure exotic milks (goat, camel—even, he claimed, yak) to float the Cheerios in.
The phone rang again. The previous call had been so brief, violent, and surreal that I almost felt I had dreamed it. Here was another chance; the morning might yet veer onto a normal course. Probably my agent had just finished his lunch at one of the internationally prominent watering holes he favored, in which case he might now have our European syndication in his pocket.
I picked up the phone a little gingerly under Godwin’s newly watchful eye.
“This husband of mine’s got his creepy side,” Nema said. “On the other hand he’s already ready. That’s something, agreed?”
“Agreed,” I intoned cautiously. Over the years I had learned to resist too-hasty agreement with Nema in her musing about her various husbands and even more various lovers. I was the scale she weighed them on, but often the scale took a lot of balancing. A given guy might tip up or down for an hour or more as Nema—a tiny, hyperenergetic redhead—moved small pros and cons onto the trays of the scale.
“Even if we got divorced we could still fuck a good bit, I just wouldn’t have to let him use the kitchen,” Nema reasoned. “One of his creepiest habits is that he never cleans the blender.”
“A bad sign,” I ventured. I was already wishing Nema would hang up and that my angry daughter—if it was my daughter—would call back.
“What’s the matter with you?” Nema asked, annoyed. “You’re not paying a bit of attention.”
People who think TV stars are insensitive bimbos should have the experience of a few years of phone calls from Nema Remington. Talking to her took concentration, even if she was just idly musing over whether to sign her guy-of-the-year for a second season before dispatching him to the minors, as it were.
I had only uttered four words, but the fact that they had not exactly twanged with attentiveness registered in Nema’s brain as evidence of an alarming froideur.