Page 68 - Demo

An Adoption (continued from preceding page)
old adoptees with their so-called surrogate parents, “I’m interested.”
gumming their food, some being fed. One morning, I waited five long minutes outside the locked bathroom door before an extremely old person with sunken eyes was escorted out by his caretaker. “I’m sorry, we’ve had an accident,” the caretaker said. I had to exit immediately after entering, the toilet seat and floor a disgusting mess.
“I don’t need the pressure. You think they just can’t wait to throw open the doors for me at The Comedy Store?”
~
“No, the pinnacle is winning over an audience when you’ve got the whole room laughing. Laughing their asses off. It doesn’t matter where you are. Or how many. Even if it’s only one person. That’s the pinnacle. Knowing it’s because of you.”
Jocelyn had stayed out west after attending the Uni- versity of Arizona. I had been against it, a party school, and wanting our only child staying closer to home. But Ruth, chronically supportive, said, “The climate will do her good.” The distance never came between them. They Zoomed frequently like two so- rority sisters. Ruth went out to visit often without me. Although I was glad for what they had, I felt painfully omitted left alone at home.
“Well, I may have an idea for you,” I fumbled. “New material.”
After she finished college, I was even more dead set
against our daughter going out to LA to pursue a ca-
reer in comedy. She had never shown any inclination
toward humor; at best, a spark writing about campus
life in the online college newspaper. She landed a col-
umn she called Gotham. I told her Gotham was New
York’s name. She said the name fit the campus be- “Aren’t they pretty old themselves?” cause it was so big and inhospitable like Gotham City
in Batman movies. “No one will get the reference,” I said. Jocelyn called me terminally uncool.
“That’s what I mean. The old guy’s going to suffer. It’s elder abuse.”
After two full years, however, Jocelyn’s hopes for com- edy success in LA were hardly materializing. We were sending her money regularly. She had part-time work copy editing for a radical news site and was dating the editor. I knew very little about him except his name was Shag. Ruth and I both worried, though she continued to cheerlead our daughter’s impossible dream. They reserved Sunday afternoons for lengthy Zoom calls that I resented from the other room. “She’d talk to you more if you had a sunnier disposi- tion,” Ruth said. Ironic. I considered the sunny dispo- sition department, or lack thereof, the one area our daughter clearly took after me. I could only imagine her brand of humor was pissed off irritability picking apart society for all its faults.
“I’ve got to go.”
When she and Ruth were done Zooming, I would get a minute on the tail end looking for things to talk about. And looking for signs that something about her had changed—a blouse rather than a sweatshirt, styling her unruly hair. “Any new gigs?” I asked this time.
“Why are you asking me that?” 61
“The Comedy Store is the pinnacle, huh?”
“Oh, so now you’re a joke writer?”
“No joke, but this whole adoption thing they’re doing in New York. Have you thought about it? It’s so unac- ceptable maybe it’s good for a laugh.”
“Where’s your social conscience?”
“You remember the Yaegers? They’re getting an adop- tee.”
“Go where? We were talking. We never do that enough.”