Once the women and children were out of earshot, Hank said to me, “You’re full of surprises tonight, Dad.”
So I told him that Sue had become my daughter. I pointed up to Sue on the second floor to support my case. Then I outlined all that she had been doing for me—a fucking long list—which was exactly what Hank was supposed to have done as my son. Any real American man would have felt immense shame, but not Hank. He probably thought he had done good stepping aside so that a minority and a woman could have his job as my child.
In response, Hank just added another place setting to the table. Next he put some water into a fancy crystal vase and arranged the flowers Sue had given him. His arrangement looked like shit, because my son is a heterosexual.
I said, “I saw you give Sue the once-over.”
“Please,” Hank said.
“You telling me a liberal like yourself won’t admit to being attracted to a woman of Vietnamese ancestry? I’m shocked. I thought you quote didn’t see race unquote.”
Then Hank said, “She’s attractive, Dad. Anyone can see that. Racists and liberals alike.”
My son was always dividing the world into two categories: liberals and everyone else, all of whom in his view were stupid and worthless and offensive.
“What?” I said. “You’re too good to marry a Vietnamese woman?”
Hank shook his head here and laughed with college-scholarship-boy swagger. Then he said, “I’m already married, remember?”
It was hard to see the level of denial my son was exhibiting. I was embarrassed for him.
I was just about to ask Hank if he really thought Femke was ever coming back to America, but Ella descended the stairs still holding Sue’s hand.
“I wanted to introduce Ms. Sue to Mr. Peanuts, but I couldn’t find him!” Ella said. “He’s vanished again!”
“You have a beautiful house,” Sue said to Hank.
“Thank you,” Hank said. “My wife did all the decorating.”
“Ex-wife,” I said. “She’s long gone. Ancient history. Good riddance too.”
Hank looked over at Ella without moving his head and then said, “Please, Dad.”
“I know that Mommy has a boyfriend,” Ella said to Hank. “Maybe you should have a girlfriend. That would only be fair.”
“I agree,” I said, backing up my granddaughter.
“Wine?” Hank said.
“Please,” Sue answered.
“Can’t drink,” I said.
“We can have Perrier with lemon juice!” Ella said.
It was moments like this that I worried for Ella. What normal American seven-year-old drinks Perrier?
“Your xenophobic grandfather doesn’t drink anything that doesn’t have an American name, let alone a French soft drink,” Hank said and then gave Sue a glance that made me realize he had mistaken my friend for a snooty elitist likely to laugh at his snide jokes. My stereotyping son always assumes that nonwhite people are Obama supporters, which is not the fucking case, and he’d know that if he ever bothered to go out into the world beyond his bubble of morons. Sue voted for McCain and Romney.
Sue smiled back at Hank because she is polite and my son has his mother’s genes, which means he is attractive. I was counting on Hank’s appearance to compensate for his misinformed worldview. Maybe that would be enough to woo Sue and get her interested in being Ella’s new mother.
I don’t approve of the way my son eats, but he is fit and looks like one of those model guys who fall out of the Sunday paper wearing nothing but tighty-whitey underwear and smug looks on their faces. The ones with their hands always behind their heads so you can see their shaved armpits. Those stupid advertising inserts no one wants. I think those underwear guys look like fucking assholes, but secretly I also want to look like them, which is why I spin with Gay Timmy, who has probably done some underwear modeling himself. But while I am an old man whose head-turning days are done, my son is still relatively young, in his mid-forties.
Soon we were all seated at the table, and Hank served something called Caprese Lasagna, which was basically tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil wrapped in gluten-free noodles. I knew they were gluten-free because my son told us ten thousand times. I had eaten Italian food before with Sue, so I wasn’t too worried about her enjoying the meal, especially since younger people generally seem to think my son can actually cook, despite the fact that he cooks pussy un-American dishes. But my hands were sweating the whole time we ate.
At some point Sue asked about the huge painting hanging in the dining room. A shit-eating grin bloomed on Hank’s face, and then my son stepped up to his college-professor podium again.
Before I tell you about this painting, allow me to state that if I hung this one in my house tonight, Hank would disown me the second he saw it. You have to be a bleeding-heart liberal to get away with owning one of these.
It was painted by one of Hank’s top moneymakers—an artist who goes by the name Eggplant X. That’s this fucking clown’s nom de guerre. Eggplant X. If I had come up with that shit, Hank would have snorted at me and called me a million insults.
The painting is a cartoon characterization of an old American stereotype. It’s a little black boy eating a watermelon, only his eyes are huge, as are his lips and nose, and his skin is black as coal. He’s wearing a little shirt that reads i love watermelons, and he’s sitting on a pile of rinds and seeds. No pants. He’s in a red diaper that looks more like a bandana.
Even I’m offended when I look at it.
But here’s the part that’s supposed to make it not racist: over the entire painting, after Eggplant X was finished, he wrote the word shame in big red letters, and that, according to my son, is what makes it politically correct and worth roughly eighty thousand US dollars, if you can believe that shit.
And here is the best part of this fucking story. Are you ready for it?
Eggplant X is whiter than me.
Ain’t that some bullshit?
If a black artist was getting paid big coin for these sorts of shitty paintings, I’d at least feel good about him—or even her—having a good-paying job. Like I said before, this country fucked the blacks with slavery and we should give them first shot over more recent immigrants when it comes to making it in the land of the free. But it sure as hell didn’t sit right with me that some white asshole, who goes around making other white people feel ignorant and ashamed about race relations, should make a shitload of money by painting what he himself labels racist. But this bullshit is high art, according to my son.
“It’s . . . interesting,” Sue said, just to be polite. “Why does he call himself Eggplant X?”
“He refuses to explain,” Hank said. “Which I think is a smart move.”
“Why?” Sue asked.
“You want to tell her, Ella?” Hank said.
“What?” Ella said.
“What sells art?” Hank asked his daughter, trying to get her to do a trick like a trained poodle.
“Stories,” Ella said dutifully.