That Famous Line

In which Noah discusses best sexual practices with his fiance’s father.

Note: I was forbidden from sharing this story until Susan’s father died. Unfortunately, he passed away a few months ago at the ripe old age of 88. This one’s for you, Jerry.  

In June of 2010, during a trip to San Francisco, I convinced a woman to marry me. As these things tend to go, Susan and I spent the next month basking in the wash of attention that inevitably follows the facebook relationship status change from “in a relationship with…” to “engaged to…” Most of the attention comes from married or engaged girls in their late twenties and early thirties.  These people, I suspected, were not so much happy for Susan and me as they were relieved that someone else also decided to get married, providing herd-mentality validation of their life decisions that they so craved. 

But I digress. Amidst this frenzy of congratulations, it took us about a month to realize that no one had broken the news to Susan’s father. This was understandable. Susan’s dad was ancient. And divorced from Susan’s mother, which meant he was out of the loop, in a non-dementia sort of way.

“Do you want to go by your dad’s tonight and tell him you will soon belong to me?” I asked Susan one evening.

“I guess.  I’ll get my coat- hey, isn’t Dancing With the Stars on tonight?” Susan asked, sinking back into the couch.

Several more apathetic weeks passed before we actually made the trip downtown to tell her dad the news.

Let’s break from the present story for a moment to travel six years back in time, all the way back to a bullshitting session that occurred when I was a not-so-wee graduate student at the University of Florida. On that fateful day, I was part of a routine bullshitting session. The topic on this particular day was marriage. Specifically, one of my friends had just gotten engaged and the rest of us were trying to imagine ways for him to screw his engagement up.

“OK, everyone” I asked, ”Let’s say you want to get out of the relationship. Your plan is to offend the parents so much that they forbid their daughter from ever seeing you again, no matter how much she pleads that you really didn’t mean it.”

‘Rules?” someone inquired.

“Simple. You can say one thing and one thing only, and it’s gotta be bad, so bad that you would never again be allowed to enter these people’s home again. They would attack you on sight, just because you said whatever it is you said. So what is it? What can you say that would be that massively offensive?”

“I got it” my roommate said, “Just eyeball the mother and then say ‘I see where your daughter gets her slutty looks’ to the father.”

“Good one,” I said. “Anyone else?”

And so it went. The clear winner was by girl named Lindsay, whose prize is being mentioned by name in this story. Here was her entry: “Look the dad in the eyes and say ‘Sir, of course we’re engaged in premarital sex now, but I want you to know that we’re saving the butt for marriage.’”

The sheer political incorrectness of telling a parent something like this intrigued me.  For years after, I prompted my friends to try the line (usually claiming I had thought of it – sorry Lindsay), particularly to a priest in mandatory Catholic premarital counseling.  To my knowledge, no one has had the courage to utter these words under battle conditions. 

If you know about literary foreshadowing, you may know where this is going.

Flash back to present day, as we sit down to dinner with Jerry. Here’s the biopic on the guy: In his late fifties, he married a woman 25 years younger and produced a single child. Susan was not close to her father in the way that most children are. After three years of dating, Susan offhandedly mentioned to me that her father had never once said he loved her, nor had she ever told him she loved him. 

As Jerry aged out, Susan’s mother divorced him and married a truck driver she’d known in grade school. According to the unspoken rules that govern women who divorce their much older spouse, Susan’s mom still took care of her now-decrepit ex-husband, in the process exposing him to the new life she had made for herself with a younger man.  Occasionally, we would have forced family events consisting of Susan and I, Susan’s mother and her new husband, and a very bitter Jerry. These were not pleasant.

When not on forced family outings, Jerry lived alone in a cluttered downtown apartment. Most of his time was spent sitting on the couch, admiring a vaguely creepy photo of himself from twenty years previous. Jerry’s main passion (aside from complaining about Susan’s mom divorcing him) was food. He still made the daily plod to McDonalds, and Susan often bought him Twinkies as birthday or Christmas presents. Jerry may have been waiting to die, but he was going out with a full stomach.

Knowing this, we had decided to take him out to dinner to break bread and share the good news.  “Keep him moving, he eats slow,” Susan instructed, as we knocked on his door.  “No dessert.”

Before we’d even reached the restaurant, Jerry was already getting pissed about his life. “Can you believe your mother left me for a truck driver?” he asked as we sat down.  Whine with cheese; the ultimate for Jerry.  As our appetizers arrived, it was time for Susan to break the news. 

Susan tried valiantly to ease her father into the news with an elegant gesture, first dangling a ring-bearing hand in front of the old man, then asking him whether he noticed anything new about her appearance. Nothing, Jerry reported, tearing a piece of bread apart with an audible grunt.

(Since you’re no doubt wondering: At this point, I had no intention of using the line, which was safely buried in my subconscious, far from my tongue.) 

“Guess what happened on our trip to California, dad?” Susan tried again. 

Jerry didn’t look up, too intent on putting a second packet of butter onto his bread.  “I was stationed near San Francisco during World War Two,” he said, stuffing bread into his mouth.  “I was with the air wing at –“

“Noah and I had a little talk while we were in San Francisco,” Susan pressed on, cutting off the impending story.  “And he gave me something.” Another brandishing of her ring.

(Still wondering? At this point I had no intention of using the line.)

“That’s very good,” Jerry said through a mouthful of bread.  “If your mother would have talked with me-“

The soup had arrived, and Susan was out of patience. “Dad,” Susan interrupted, “we’re engaged.”

“And what is it you’re engaged in?” Jerry asked, completely serious.

The word ‘engaged’ set me off. From the derelict netherworld of my mind, the memory of Lindsay’s line hit me like a bolt of lightning. There was no time to review its appropriateness: The thing about lines is, if you don’t have the right timing, they tend to suck. It was now or never, and I picked now. I figured I had little to lose; Jerry frequently forgot my name. 

“We’re engaged in premarital sex,” I announced.  “But don’t worry; We’re saving the butt for marriage.”

Susan, who was already about to blow up with exasperation, jabbed me in the leg, but the words were already out.  Beneath the table, I moved my hand, partly to shield my groin from additional attacks by Susan, partly to check to see if my balls had grown noticeably. 

Jerry had ordered the tomato broth. He had a spoonful of it inches from his lips when I delivered the line.  Without comment, he downed the liquid. We waited with bated breath for him to finish his old-man swallowing and react.

“This soup… is delicious,” Jerry announced, resuming eating as though nothing had happened.

“I think I broke his brain,” I said out loud to Susan.

“Asshole,” she said tiredly, rubbing her forehead.

“Takes one to marry one,” I replied.

‘What’s that?” Jerry asked, looking up from his now-empty cup.

“We’re getting married!” Susan snapped.

“Oh,” said Jerry.

Eight seconds passed in silence.

“The soup here is wonderful,” Jerry added.