Ernie K. Doe, If You See What I Mean

My first de facto mother-in-law was a sweet person I didn’t know how to address (Betty seemed disrespectful, and Mrs. W— a little stiff) but she didn’t grouse when I went with stiff. I didn’t know quite how to act around her, in large part because I was supposed to pretend that her daughter and I weren’t living together. At one point, in 1973, she put a lot of time and effort into making the sequined outfit I wore on stage at Christopher Milk’s last performances. In approximately 2018, it occurred to me that I should have bought her a thank-you gift. That’s the kind of guy I am! Just give me a few decades, and I’ll either do the right thing, or realise I failed to yet again.

When her daughter Patti left me, I started seeing a lot of Betty, which involved driving all the way out to Orange County. She was sympathetic, and very kind, especially in view of my being an entitled little dickhead who hadn’t thought to give her a thank-you gift. It was her impression that Patti had left me not because I was an insufferable dickhead, but because I’d declined to have a child with her (she’d been envious of her best pal bearing the son Stephen Stills refused to acknowledge as his), and not having asked her to marry me. This seemed highly unlikely, but I had no trace of pride left, and was grasping frantically at every straw, and hightailed it back to Hollywood to pop the question. To which Patti replied, approximately, “Well, uh, no.”

First Wife’s parents were like my own in that Mom’s dominance over Pop, who was painfully shy, and giggled nervously a lot, was total. Mom seemed to tell him when and how deeply he could breathe, and it occurred to me that if he had a crest designed for himself, what it should say at the bottom in Latin was “Yes, dear.” Early in our marriage, when I’d tried to instill the idea that punctuality was a nice way to show respect and consideration for The Other, she’d snapped, “I’ve already got a father.” Not once did I yield to the temptation to ask, “Why haven’t I met him?” Boy, did he and I not bond! But better him than Mom! She and I detested each other from Moment 1. When she and Mr. Giggles arrived (from Miami) to meet their newborn granddaughter in 1984. I took NBG out to meet them. The first words out of Mom’s mouth were, “Give me my baby!” 

I won’t for a millisecond deny that they were generous with me. They’d taken both First Wife and me to Spain some months before, and then offered to guy an investment property in northern California, to which I’d come to long to relocate, in which First Wife and daughter and I could live, and in which they could stay when they came out to visit. No one said their visits would last six months at a time. In their presence, First Wife ceased to be my life partner, and instead reverted to being their spoiled teen daughter. I would drag myself home at almost 7 p.m. after having spent four hours commuting back and forth to the soul-destroying word processing job I’d taken in San Francisco to Support My Family and find her in their suite draining a bottle of Freixenent and smoking cigarettes. I’d gently ask if she’d given any thought to dinner. Mom would glare at me, Pop would giggle nervously, and First Wife would marvel, “God, you’re so controlling!” 

I’m of course ashamed (my default mode!) of how I behaved with the family of Koala Gal, with whom I lived for 10 years after recovering from the breakup of First Marriage. I was reminded of the scene in Annie Hall in which Annie’s family’s wholesomeness makes Woody Allen feel as though in danger of hyperventilating. Mom was sweet, wise, and tolerant, and Older Brother one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Older Sister and I weren’t allergic to each other. But Younger Brother was a witless loudmouth, and Older Sister’s and Older Brother’s wife’s detesting each other, though they kept up appearances, made me jumpy. 

The family was big on propriety. Mom was a well-bred New Englander, so no one was allowed to so much touch as touch their fork until she’d picked up her own. Koala Gal, who fancied herself quite the rebel (and expressed her rebelliousness by being even less punctual than First Wife had been) became a zealous enforcer of such nonsense when around them.

A little side road. Koala Gal’s fucking pathological need to demonstrate herself an indefatigable feminist, or something, by never, ever being on time for anything inspired one of my moments of greatest comedic inventiveness. We were going to a matinee of Dances With Wolves on Polk Street. The screening began at 2. It would take us around half an hour to drive there from the foggy Sunset and park. At around 1:15, I began saying, “We’d better go now, hon,” every 90 seconds. We finally left at around 1:43. As we encountered a traffic snarl at the Panhandle, I shrieked, “What did you think, that it was getting earlier?” We both had a good laugh at that. And missed the first 15 minutes of the movie.

But back to the leadup to my apology to my de facto in-laws. Such was my disgruntlement with the Swedish delicacies (like head cheese — yum!) they had to honour of Mom’s being a Swedish-American, that I began making a lasagna to bring to their annual Xmas dinner. The smiles on the faces of those who managed a smile looked pretty strained. At non-holiday get-togethers at Younger Brother’s home, I would excuse myself to play his upright piano with relish and no discernible ability while he told us (even the two of us who’d been there and done that) with his trademark loud boorishness about diaper-changing, for instance. I wrote a satirical poem about Younger Brother’s marriage in which I mentioned no names, but which inspired Older Brother to drive down to San Francisco (from Marin) to ask, with his characteristic gentleness, and in different words, how I could be such an asshole. Later, after Koala Gal and I had split up, he and I actually became friends, though his wife forbade him to invite me over. 

My bad, Koala Gal’s family.