So I am thinking of applying to an exclusive fiction writing program in the fall. I’ve got a few half-baked stories and Essays out there… I do read a lot of crap too, and I think my crap is basically as good as anyone’s crap. Over the past few days I was working on this one story. My rule for short fiction is.. Write it.. then give it a week. if it still makes you laugh, it’s not bad. That’s my theory. I hope I can come up with something else that’s new this summer.. but don’t get your hopes up. This theme of a depressed man reconnecting with a long lost child has been used before, I am sure, but I hope I’m giving it a good twist of my own… – Dmitry Dyatlov, 2025.

Waiting in the therapist’s office, I had some time to reflect on what went on this spring… in Ohio.

I almost became a father. Of course, the best time to find out you’re a father is just before you kill yourself.

I believe that you’ve got to have some kind of moral compass or, rather, a guiding philosophy in life. Mine has always been, everything is good in Small doses. I’m a pharmacist. At least, I used to be. I guess that’s where it comes from. I moved up to Atlanta after I got my degree.

Holly got my current number from a mutual college friend and called at the strangest moment. I was preparing to mix a nice little cocktail of pharmaceuticals to permanently relieve me of the pain of.. Life. And out of nowhere.. Holly.

I guess you could say I got exactly what I always wanted at 34. I got married, and divorced. and I still got to keep the Land Rover. Used. Not too used. Life’s good, isn’t it? However, most days I still felt like I was doing a jail sentence.

Opioids. I was beginning to like them too, and I knew that if at some point, someone at that place ever figured out how to count, well, we would have to have a very uncomfortable conversation. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but something about the scripts seemed more and more suspicious the last few years. All these drugs, it just can’t be healthy. I didn’t want to annoy the Boss with every little inconsistency.
“Just give ’em the pills, you’re not a doctor.”

That’s right. I don’t make the rules.. I just work here. Anyway, after a few years of this, the pesky conscience did begin to hit the brakes on me. I just had to get out. Possibly, I could come back, but right now, I really had to leave. A family member was in desperate need of help, I said, in Ohio! And so I got my month off. And, by some miracle, I did have to go to Ohio, after all.

I suppose I just lost the sense that I was really helping anyone there, you know?

Getting married was something I always wanted to do and at the time it seemed acceptable. This was years before Holly’s little intervention, remember. She seemed acceptable. The wife. I met a Brazilian nurse who drank a little too much. Honeymoon was fantastic. But, you know how it is. Couple years go by, a few extra pounds. Then there was the time her mom went off medication. She would call us 3 times a day for a month. She’d get locked out, or she really thought that someone was hiding in her closets. Oh, and finally, the cheating. You know what happens when you marry a cute little nurse, don’t you? She’s gonna try to trade you in for a doctor… probably sooner rather than later. C’est la vie. She said… she said she just got bored and it meant nothing. Just move on. And so we did… Move on. Separately.

She just GREW UP, you see? Nothing makes me want to die as much as people telling other adult people to GROW UP. Would you like to see my birth certificate? Or my college diploma? I suppose they have a point. I seem to be the only one who gets stuck in the past, trying to invent a time machine… why can’t I just move along? Why does every little fling have to be so special?

In the 90s, my small Florida college was a bit like… a sexual wine tasting. I didn’t have to worry about money at the time. I ran the mile pretty fast. Solid scholarship. Track was cool, at this school, apparently. The female entourage on weekends was actually impressive. And once in a while they let you fool around with the snatch. Everyone has to tell you their pedigree before copulation. Well I am Polish-Italian, or German-Irish, or just a Jew… I think I met at least 7 different kinds of Asian and I still can’t tell them all apart. Was there a Latina in there somewhere? I believe there was… we didn’t get very far. Catholic… she says. Virgin. I guess I wasn’t sleeping with the girls I really wanted, but at least I was sleeping, with people, once in a while. I suppose I got enough sex to not have to hate women forever. We should all be so lucky.

Speaking of hating women. That’s kind of how Holly and I met. There was this one Sociology class senior year led by a fervent anti-Misogynist named G. Wallace. Typical academic. Some kind of fancy, flamboyant jacket, large glasses, ponytail. A tad more body fat than optimal, I am sure. I remember one day when some fool asked him point blank why women always seem so capricious. Wallace told him the facts… the truth. Look, girls have a short time horizon, and a huge potential investment from sex. You, my friend, can still fuck around till, oh 45 or even 50 maybe and then still get your shit together, find a feeble-minded Doe outside some therapist’s office, and make babies. You see what I’m saying? We were assigned to groups for a project. It was me, Holly, and a far less attractive female specimen. The three of us would get coffee once in a while.

So, a few months back, mid-March, I guess, Holly called and said she wanted to catch up. I said this is great timing, as I had a vacation coming up. What a strange coincidence, huh?

I did go up to Ohio, not too far from Columbus was where she lived. And here it is. Here she is. The female child that’s about to give life meaning. Holly seemed so certain that it was me. That it was Mine. I guess I do remember that night in ’97. Sort of. Classes were done. We had a few days before graduation. After checking out some dives (bars) in that Florida town, we expressed mutual interest. We did exchange numbers, but never really kept in touch. I had Grad school and she had to fulfill some kind of missionary commitment… for her church. They shipped her off to Peru, or Bolivia, or one of these places.

“May I ask why you thought this would be such a great time for us to get acquainted?”

And she says her parents died. A week apart. Around Christmas.

“and what exactly does she know about me?”

That you were deported.

Alright, fair enough. I guess I’d buy that, if I were 12. Would I stoop so low as to order the customary DNA test? You know, at some point I probably will. But we’ll see how this goes first. There’s no rush. Why not at least entertain the idea? The eyes… Yes, they could be my eyes. Very pretty.

Their suburban place was big and everyone felt it was appropriate for me to stay with the newfound family. Mary, Holly, and I. After a couple days I decided to start dispensing fatherly advice.

“So what is going on with you, kid?”

Lots of people said that Michael likes me, but when I gave him a “Valentine” last month he told me to jump off a cliff.

Well, I suppose that happens sometimes. People actually love feeling sorry for themselves, you know? They call it a Secondary payoff, I think. You don’t get what you really want, but it’s almost like… like a Silver medal, I guess. You get to Sulk all day, and there’s no fear of loss. Imagine… just imagine having absolutely nothing to complain about. We would die of boredom. Maybe his ‘loving’ parents have horrible fights. So that’s what he’s been associating with attraction. Who knows what’s really going on with this Mike kid. Let me tell you this. Give it a year, and if you still like the kid, give him a Psychology book next year. Something by BERNE, Eric. I think he might appreciate it.

Later that week, I found one of those Bumper car places in Columbus… it’s the stupidest thing in the world, but I always wanted to take my kids to a Bumper car attraction. And then Ice cream.

So the pharmacy job was still an option, and I could put in for a transfer to Ohio, I guess. I still had a few days to make up my mind about what to tell these people.

Toward the end of April, Holly said we had to meet another friend.

Holly and I went to a diner nearby. Well, what a surprise. It’s the old Professor. G. Wallace. Explanation? After getting sober, this sneaky asshole also got a divorce… then got hired by Ohio State after Florida. Said he had to track down an old flame for an AMENDS, you see? Of course, he and I were quite surprised to see each other.

Yes, it’s certainly not Okay to sleep with students. It says so in every university manual, I am sure. But this complicates our situation now, doesn’t it? What exactly was the timeline of Holly’s shameful liaisons?

One might ask why Holly didn’t do the test herself. The DNA test. And I suppose, the only plausible explanation is she believed her own Bullshit. She repressed the particulars of those last few stressful weeks of college, maybe drank a little too much. I suppose I must have made a better impression. Who really wants to remember screwing some Icky 45-year old professor, with a ponytail? She said they ran into each other at some kind of concert.

Soon enough, we had the final verdict. I am Not the daddy, after all.

It was all very nice, and now it’s kind of nice that it’s all over. Mary is still the child of someone that I maybe used to love, and I suppose that’s good enough. We can all be Friends, I guess. I gave her some money and a birthday card with that John Lennon quote – If you can’t be happy, then you don’t know anything about life… something like that. I told her to start jogging and think more about Jesus.

The aging academic said he’ll gladly take over relevant duties. And I said I prefer the South anyway.

What else can I say about kids? I just know that if I say too much, they will blame me for everything.

And remember, everything is good in small doses. Especially family.