AshDaddy and me, Momma-Mia in bed, slipper-foot down the spiral of stairs: he holds my hand, an Argentine glove, and says, "Are you hungry, chickie?"
I wasn’t, but I said yes because he was already helping me into my coat and galoshes. Nowadays, he sleeps in his jeans and sometimes even his scarf. Momma-Mia will halfheartedly tug it when he jackknifes into bed, but then she’ll stop, blink, and her peppercorn eyes and sodapop-sing-to-me mouth will melt back into the sheets, like prom-queen urchins in their faggy purples and turquoises retreating, once more, to a double-duvet cave. Only she can hear the disco beat.

The International House of Pancakes sits on the nighttime concrete like a kid in a cafeteria, next-to-empty (a compassionate friend, a desperate drip) and I wonder whether depression is contagious. Like philosophic softballs, we are silently bounced from a winter wind to the pulpy wail of Patsy Cline as we hurry from the Sedan to get the last two booth-seats. When the waitress comes, AshDaddy looks sad, so I order a milk. She brings me a rootbeer float. As she sets it on the tablecloth, pretending not to feel the sticky angst of an ovulating lime linen, I look up at Daddy and smile; the sunset in his eyes blubbers over my whipped cream, a sad strawberry syrup, but he is quiet as the waitress wipes a cuss of ketchup on the ass of her Apple-Bottoms.
We eat in silence; as I breathe in bacon fat, I look around. I want to talk, but am ignored. I observe, instead, the pasty, leather-pantsed man in the far right booth, doe-eyed from the honeyed steam of his spiked chamomile. Should he give my father a kiss, I muse, he would forever be snapping his doughy face back and forth in search of a hiding place, clashing against my papa’s carmine skin. Even so, I don’t think the man would want to leave.
The International House of Pancakes looks very American to me, but I don’t say anything.

Finally, AshDaddy opens his mouth. Like an articulate whale, he bares his teeth, running a krill-red tongue across them as he struggles for words. "Girlie-Bird," he sputters.
"AshDaddy," I say, solemn and stern as pointed finger (upon which I will gravely lick off the dollop of pink gumdrop-polish).
He closes his eyes for a moment, a confused wink, and in mourning reminisence, I stare down at the tiled floor, blue as the eyelids of a sour-gum-tree, a made-up whore, weary from years of abuse, winnowing dappled warmth.
"Momma-Mia is...sad." He stops. "Momma-Mia forgot," he says. He fumbles with his hands.
"Her keys?" I chortle and watch his hands. Here is the steeple..."Your laundry?"
His mouth forms the omitted O of a possum, and I steal a limp french fry to beat off any irony-flies. "Momma forgot..." his eyes glaze over. "Mom forgot...Mo fo..."
"...How old I am?" I finish, and Daddy hurriedly nods in agreement, bows his head to the monkeyish leather-chapel between us. "So have I," I admit.
Looking at him, his hairline seems to have receded before my eyes, a competitive little copy-cat as it reveals two pallid curves that just happen to be leather-pantsed-man-sized. I haughtily tug at my scoop-neck T-shirt, but I am not a good sport: I will not shake either of their hands.
He pays the bill and we wait. Kitty Moonhooter the Whore grows cold, as her bruises blink back tears so that they can see.
I laugh into my rootbeer. He cries into his wine.

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