First they told me I was inheriting the biofather’s art supplies and his own paintings. \u00a0Biofather was a Chinese painter. \u00a0Then they found a new copy of the will, and next to my name was one word, in his handwriting \u2014 with an arrow to be clear:<\/p>\n
OMIT<\/p>\n
is what it said.<\/p>\n
And I thought, well okay. \u00a0There was no reason to expect anything. \u00a0Didn’t he always say he’d be damned if he’d leave me anything? \u00a0I do wonder what that was about. \u00a0I always just chalked it up to his being what he was and that it had nothing to do with me.<\/p>\n
But it did have something to do with me. \u00a0I just can’t work it out. \u00a0It should be simple. \u00a0It should be clear.<\/p>\n
Before he died, I asked if he had any memories of me from when I was very small. \u00a0Since we didn’t have any contact after that until much much later when I tracked him down. \u00a0Maybe I shouldn’t have looked for him at all. \u00a0Probably a big mistake.<\/p>\n
One of his memories was giving me my first and middle names.<\/p>\n
Names I never used. \u00a0Names I won’t even mention out loud \u2014 they are so inappropriate.<\/p>\n
He got a big smile on his face. \u00a0Huge. \u00a0The pain in his phantom leg receded.<\/p>\n
“They were supplied by the government,” he said. \u00a0“Those women.<\/p>\n
“They gave us anything we wanted. \u00a0Just so long as we didn’t leave. \u00a0Great food. \u00a0Wines. \u00a0And those women. This was at the University of Chicago. \u00a0It was part of the Manhattan Project. \u00a0They just wanted to keep us happy and well supplied.<\/p>\n
“Those women,” he said, his eyes misting over. \u00a0“Those were the best days of my life, those women at the lab. They were grad students at the University of Chicago. \u00a0Not just bimbos but smart. \u00a0Smart whores…”<\/p>\n
He described both of them in great detail. \u00a0Blonde. \u00a0Curvey. \u00a0Smart. \u00a0Is all I’ll describe. \u00a0And they did whatever you wanted. \u00a0Just don’t leave the lab.<\/p>\n
There was an accident in the lab. \u00a0Some idiot had built and installed a thick lead safe for the radioactive materials. \u00a0The idiot had attached the safe to the wall of the first lab. \u00a0Only thing is, the idiot only enclosed the box on three sides.<\/p>\n
So. \u00a0The radiation leaked into the next lab. \u00a0And the next one. \u00a0And the next one. \u00a0All the way down the line. Biofather was in the first lab exposed, and therefore got hit with the most radiation. \u00a0They were told to get checked out by a doctor \u2014 but to keep quiet about the accident. \u00a0Don’t say anything about radiation, they were told. \u00a0And so he had hinted pointedly at how the M.D. ought to treat him.<\/p>\n
He was sterile, the biofather was. \u00a0From this little accident.<\/p>\n
And so. \u00a0When my mother became pregnant, he was appalled. \u00a0He just wasn’t expecting it.<\/p>\n
“You know. \u00a0She wanted to abort you,” he said suddenly. \u00a0Big smile again. \u00a0Thank god he stopped talking about how skillful those women were.<\/p>\n
Did I tell you? \u00a0He named me after those two women. \u00a0Whore one. \u00a0And whore two. \u00a0Best memories of his life. \u00a0That’s what he gave me to start off mine.<\/p>\n
“She said it was you who wanted to abort me,” I said.<\/p>\n
“No, no. \u00a0It was her.”<\/p>\n
He didn’t mention the radiation as a cause. \u00a0My mom had told me of their concerns of what the radiation might do to me, since he wasn’t even supposed to have intact sperm or motility. \u00a0It had all sounded reasonable to me. \u00a0I would have been concerned if it had been me.<\/p>\n
So.<\/p>\n
OMIT<\/p>\n
I think OMIT was my default setting.<\/p>\n
His wife of 50 years changed their will. \u00a0She stipulated that all his art should go to the Asian Art Museum where he studied painting. \u00a0They didn’t want any of the stuff.<\/p>\n
So once again I got the paintbrushes. \u00a0And some ink. \u00a0A very cool stapler and a lot of staples. \u00a0His own engravings of naked women. \u00a0When he was still in his Western art phase. \u00a0And all those Chinese paintings. He was a really good painter. \u00a0And chemist. \u00a0He made his own suntan lotions. \u00a0Liquers. His own machinery parts. \u00a0Renaissance man, they said. Gardener. \u00a0One of the things he grew was bamboo. \u00a0To make his brushes. \u00a0Then he’d paint pictures of bamboo growing. \u00a0And eventually worked his way up the great chain of being, with more and more complex paintings.<\/p>\n
Which I just stacked in my garage. \u00a0Along with his brushes. \u00a0They gave me his photo albums. \u00a0Nobody wanted them. \u00a0His photo albums are filled with pictures of his art collection. \u00a0Not family. \u00a0Not travels. \u00a0Just art. The art collection that goes to auction next month. \u00a0That somebody else inherits, I don’t remember who.<\/p>\n
I’m not really sure why I’m alive. \u00a0One of those cosmic jokes, I guess. \u00a0The little sperm that could. \u00a0That was all he really needed to give me. \u00a0It’s the only thing that really matters. \u00a0For any living person, the odds against life are astronomical. \u00a0That’s even more the case, I guess, for me.<\/p>\n
They joked that I’d have wheels instead of feet. \u00a0They joked. \u00a0Was that each of them? \u00a0One of them? \u00a0Both together? \u00a0Were they frightened? \u00a0Expecting a monster? It’s not something I’ll ever know for sure. \u00a0It’s not something I can ask.<\/p>\n
Life is a pretty good inheritance, don’t you think? \u00a0Maybe it’s enough. \u00a0We, none of us, need have lived at all \u2014 but look at us, the lucky ones\u2014we lived! \u00a0We got to see the sunshine and the darkness. \u00a0The stars and the oceans, the lakes, and the streams. \u00a0Muir Woods \u2014 which is one of my favorite places. \u00a0We cuddle our kitties, \u00a0and follow some of our dreams. \u00a0We get to take chances. \u00a0We try to mend fences. \u00a0We can run off together, like wayward young things.<\/p>\n
Or. \u00a0I could sit and eat chocolate, could laugh at his obit. Husband and Father, Grandfather it reads.<\/p>\n
For all that unpleasant stuff that we carry, we can let it all go and just see where that leads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First they told me I was inheriting the biofather’s art supplies and his own paintings. \u00a0Biofather was a Chinese painter. \u00a0Then they found a new copy of the will, and next to my name was one word, in his handwriting \u2014 with an arrow to be clear: OMIT is what it said. And I thought,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[250],"tags":[406,407,226,405,402,404,403],"class_list":["post-2917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","tag-abortion","tag-chinese-painting","tag-dads","tag-inheritance","tag-manhattan-project-accident","tag-radiation","tag-university-of-chicago"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2917"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2919,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2917\/revisions\/2919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}