Bastard of a Poet

On the other hand, parents weren't supposed to swipe food from shops. After high school graduation, they needed to leave behind childish things like petty larceny. Obviously, Don was the sort of person who didn't give a damn about convention. This explained a lot about my own disrespect for rules. On the other hand, I'd always been soothed by my perception that Jim's pragmatic genes had contributed to my DNA in a manner that would keep me out of serious trouble. Now my illusion was shot to hell. "That's how we managed to eat," Polly said. "Don talked himself into a teaching gig at the University of Chicago, told everyone he had a PhD in philosophy. It was more like he had a PhD in bullshit, and when they found that out, they canned him immediately." She emitted a loud, braying guffaw. "At least we had heat that winter." During my mother's story, I had scooted so far forward that I was literally hanging from the edge of my seat. Polly gazed sharply at my slumping posture, and I shimmied backwards until my back aligned with one of the seat cushions. She smiled and continued, "When spring came, he was out of a job and the rent was overdue. Jim stopped paying after he and Don almost got into a fistfight. Don came and went as he pleased. He was seeing a guy on the side, but I didn't really care. Sometimes the three of us shared a bed together." This last tidbit of information almost overwhelmed me with its implausibility. I'd always been aware that Polly was different from most women of her generation. In her adolescence, she set herself upon an artistic path, pushing defiantly against the will of her own mother. After high school graduation, she briefly attended the Art Institute, met Jim, and then dropped out to marry him. At least, I had been fed this narrative for as long as I could remember. Now I was forced to envision my mother as a confused but highly sexed Bohemian woman, freely enjoying the affections of several different lovers. It was both terrifying and intensely romantic. Don was flagrantly bi-sexual, irresistibly roguish, prone towards lying and theft, and a poet to boot. By contrast, Jim was staid, dependable, and scrupulously honest. Or at least I had thought he was honest. He'd participated in the farce, and it couldn't have been easy for him. "Obviously you ended up with Jim and not Don," I said. "Does Jim know he's not my father? Have you told him?" My mother nodded vigorously. "Everyone knew except you," she said proudly. "Grandma, Grandpa, your stepfather, and of course Jim. Jim figured it out himself, since we had stopped having sex months beforehand. It was a stigma to be illegitimate in 1959. We all agreed to keep it a secret until you turned eighteen." She stubbed out her cigarette and instantly lit another. My mother enjoyed her exhalations, and the first one was always the loudest. "I was honestly surprised you never discovered the truth on your own. I mean, I have blue eyes, and so does Jim. I thought you'd eventually ask yourself how you wound up with brown ones. I certainly was naive-not only had I lived eighteen years without ever considering that my father might be fake, but I lacked all knowledge of basic genetics. I should have paid more attention in science class. "Don's eyes are brown?" I asked dazedly. Polly smiled. "A shade darker than yours, actually. Good thing you have brown eyes, since it made paternity identification a snap. Of course, I was no longer sleeping with Jim, and Don's guy stopped coming around long before I got pregnant. I think I can pinpoint the exact evening you were conceived. It was my birthday. Don and I had a huge fight, and then we had make-up sex. It must have been then." So, I was the illegitimate daughter of an artist and a poet, conceived during make-up sex in a coach house behind a seedy hotel on the corner of Clark and Division. I paused for a moment to allow this information to sink in. "Is the coach house still there?"