TO BE A FATHER, OR NOT TO BE A FATHER?
It’s a question I no longer have to ask, since nature has answered for me.
I’m going to be a daddy. My girlfriend Marisa is due in February.
I learned the big news last month seated in a patio lounge chair, sipping beer, smoking a stogie and enjoying the beginning of a long summer vacation.
Marisa, 40, called from work. Blood tests confirmed what she suspected and I figured was impossible. We’re going to be parents. I spent that afternoon and since then in a state of excited bewilderment.
Child-rearing was the last task I had in mind when I moved to Venice Beach four years ago. I came in hot pursuit of my dreams, a poor Playboy hoping to strike it rich as a writer.
Changing diapers wasn’t on the to-do list. Getting laid without consequences was more my area of interest. Nature has revised my script, and I find it to be a terrifyingly wonderful prospect.Although difficult for me to imagine, soon I will be sharing a new series of adventures with a child in my own image.
Unfortunately, my father may never know he’s going to be a granddaddy. John Hyatt has been married at least four times, first with my mother.We stopped talking when I was sixteen.
Before parting ways, he attempted to instill in me Republican values and prepare me for a military career, possibly leading to politics. I confronted him with what I saw for my future instead, a liberal education to support my writing habit.
The disagreement caused a schism between us, and along with other factors, ended our relationship.
The last I heard from him, Dad sold his business and earthly possessions and joined a monastery.
A vision supposedly prompted Dad’s peculiar course of action. While driving on the streets of San Francisco one day, he suddenly imagined he was a patient in a hospital bed. The Virgin Mary was his nurse, and Jesus Christ was his doctor.Jesus checked my father’s pulse with a stethoscope and said, “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be okay.”
Dad interpreted this vision as a sign. He sought to abandon his hedonistic life and become a priest. After briefly serving as a man of God, family told me he fled the monastery and moved to Las Vegas. He married a woman whose family owned a casino, divorced her and has resumed a Playboy life.
Last time any one in the family heard from Dad, he was trying to borrow social security numbers and start a high-end car chop shop in Honolulu. He was also shopping for an AK-47.
For what, God only knows. That was around the time I moved to Venice.Perhaps now you understand why writing has been higher on my priority list than procreating.
Writing is how I have coped. Without being able to put words on a page, I know not how I would have dealt with what to me is often a tragically comic existence.
So, nature has asked me to lead a next generation of Hyatt’s.The bad news is my child will be dipping from a crazy gene pool and the unusual thinking and behavior that come with it.The good news is I’m up to the challenge.My mini me and I will have a blast. He or she will be raised in a small home, but one filled with love.
My mother, who I am very close to, gave me excellent advice when she heard the news. She said pregnancy is a special time in a woman’s life. She suggested I treat Marisa and our unborn baby like it’s the Second Coming.
I think she was right. Treating my girl-friend’s pregnancy like a miraculous event has soothed over any tensions. Since I’m not working right now, and Marisa is, I’ve been diligently handling the domestics — washing dishes, doing laundry,clearing out space for a crib,and rubbing Marisa’s back when she’s home.
However, Marisa will be managing without me for a month.I’m leaving for a long-planned road trip to the Northwest with an old friend and photographer from back east. We will be visiting friends in San Francisco, Humboldt, Portland and Seattle.
Taking a road trip when my girlfriend is pregnant will be an interesting experience for this daddy to be. Admittedly, it is not the most responsible thing to do. Then again, neither was the invasion of Iraq.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 11, 2008. Read the original PDF.