dead, baby

To justify the abrasive title above, I'll describe a conversation had between myself and a group of friends, the first night of my second year of engineering school. By the dim light of desk lamps, we drank Milwaukeean microbrew. The clock showed an early hour. The talk wasn't of death and dying, but of cutting enemies out of the picture of a life. I said, if someone doesn't ever want to see you again, they're dead. Their lifeline ends before you'll ever cross paths. I'd care to hypothesize that one could stand back to back in the supermarket, without even knowing the zombie lurked. As the night made the dorm guests tired little toddlers, an altercation ensued between a new student and my close friend since last year. Some harsh words were spoken. I am amazed at verbal friction and social death between lovers just weeks after meeting. This was the first time these two were in a room together, and I was baffled. They might have wished one another dead, in the real or virtual sense. Though, they were destined to spend at least a semester finding one another at an adjacent urinal, or next up for a shower, living on the same floor, just doors apart.

Alright, I'll attack this head on. In previous blogs I have made mention of a daughter living in the far reaches of the state. To paraphrase the story, the little girl had been abused by her young mother, and the court system had gotten involved. When questioned, the mother indicated that she, in fact, did not know who the father was. This was news to me. When I had brought up getting a paternity test, I was lucky if I made off with only one black eye. It was then recommended that a paternity test be done. I remember well the affection between myself and the mother. So, it was a bit of a mindfuck when the results of the test came back. Negative. I was not the father of who I thought was my daughter. I'd eaten yogurt, which is rich in bacterial cultures, for breakfast the day of the test, but I suppose this is probably not enough to sway the results. Otherwise, the father would be found to be a lowlife single celled organism. How true, but not literally. No mistake had been made. The accuracy, I was told is 99.9%. I have a sick little theory on the paternity of the kid, but it's something I should really keep to myself. The philosophy exists, love them like your own. Given the circumstances, I'll love my ex and her daughter as I love any of my exes, and a kid smiling at me in a grocery store, respectively. Given the circumstances, I may never see either of them again in my life. Though I do not wish death, in all practicality, it's occured. Conversely, I am also dead; to them. However, considering that I am no longer entangled in a situation of fatherhood out of wedlock with a girl seven years my junior, I smell less of dead meat.

I've taken some time to reflect, it's been two days since the news crackled over the telephone. My feelings are segmented, there's relief for all the times I wished for this, and a sense of irony in all I put into the upbringing in the two years of pregnancy and early childhood. There's little in the way of anger, or feeling betrayed. The girl and I have been apart so long, much has dwindled. I'd waited months to say this, and never would have guessed I'd have the opportunity. But, anything I contributed, I consider helping out a friend. This includes multi-hundred dollar shopping trips, dealings with nasty-ass diapers, and taking blow after verbal blow from the mother's father. His regard for me took a crude form, claiming once, you two made her, you two take care of her; and criticising my lack of presence in the delivery room. I thought I was just giving space to the girl, since she requested only doctors and nurses to be present at the time of birth. He's a clever fellow: shortly before Christmas, he ordered up some diapers and formula since Walgreens fell in my bus route... Said it was time to get my feet wet. Heh.

I still can't get off my mind that an error occurred in the test. A sheriff's deputy performed the swabbing, a quick swipe of the gums with a single-ended Q-Tip. He kept filling out the wrong blanks on the envelope, calling himself an "idiot" once during the packaging phase. I've said I remember well the affection the girl and I showed for one another, and I'm pretty sure that it was the way in which a baby is made. I came down with a horrible case of meningitis when I was sixteen, and it makes me wonder if I didn't get my functionality fried by it. Most of the girls I've dated have a high level of integrity, they're trustworthy, I believe it. Yet, pregnancy never occurred, which backs my theory. All in all, this marks the end of something really scary. Sure, babies are cute, and it's fun to watch them grow--like a Chia Pet. But really, I knew the little girl was someone through whom I would relive my fears of living. Yes, I would fear for her safety. I can recall the tight spots in which I've found myself. There are car accidents, fist fights, STDs, blah! I wish her the best, as I would anyone, but I do not play the role of rescuer anymore. The girl and the little girl have been on my mind as a worry for as long as I have lived a four hour drive from them. I don't know how this is going to change things. I never reflected and thought about how free and easy I was before this happened, I had my worries. I'm still in the mode to think, crap I have a kid. Then I think "crap!" I don't have a kid. Then I remember things weren't so stable before all of this either. I can't remember why, though. Things should have been pretty breezy. It's going to take some time. I've got a world ahead of me, and chicks sounding interested. My family sounds sympathetic, but i know they're overjoyed. I wonder if the little girl will ever know who her surrogate father was for her first year, and if she'll ever seek me out. The extent of her personality toward me was to pee a lot, in the time we had. I hear she's a riot, a real sweetheart. No thanks to me she'll probably be a real looker as time goes on. As for me, I'll pick up where I left off two years ago. A single bachelor with no ties, risking it all at every chance I get.