King Dork Read Online Free PDF Page A

avoiding that subject.
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    T

    * * *
he current man in my mom’s life, technically my step-
    father, is a full-on hippie, though. There’s just no getting around it. He’d say “former hippie” probably, but that’s too fine a distinction in my book.
    Our official legal relationship is pretty recent, though he’s been around for quite a while. I don’t know why they decided to get married all of a sudden. They went away for the weekend to see Neil Young in Big Sur and somehow came back
    married. They still refer to each other as partners, though, rather than husband-wife. “Have you met my partner, Carol?”
    Like they’re lawyers who work at the same law firm, or cops who share a squad car. Or cowboys in the Wild West.
    “Howdy, pardner.”
    Unfortunately, Carol’s dogie-wranglin’ varmint-lickin’
    yella-bellied pardner’s name happens to be Tom also. Just
    my luck.
    He has tried to establish the system where I call him Big
    Tom and he calls me Little Dude. So that any observers (like, say, if someone had planted a spy cam in the TV room) could tell us apart. See, you can’t have two Toms in the same room.
    It would be too confusing for the viewer. Well, he can call me what he likes, but I hardly ever say anything at all, so it never comes up from my end. He’s the one who calls himself Big
    Tom. Which is funny because he’s very small for a full-grown man. The spy cam doesn’t lie: Big Tom is little.
    Little Big Tom can be annoying, but I eventually got used
    to him. Amanda, on the other hand, has never accepted his
    legitimacy. She spent the whole first year of the “partnership”
    sobbing. (So did my mom, come to think of it, but that’s not the same thing: my mom spends a great deal of time crying
    regardless of who happens to be married to whom. Odds are
    she’s crying right now. I’ll bet you anything.) These days, 25
    Amanda contents herself with methodically running through
    all the possible ways to give him the cold shoulder, one after another. No amount of bribery or family-counseling gim-mickry ever manages to charm her, though he continually
    tries. It just makes her angrier. She gets pretty excited when my mom and Little Big Tom have an argument, because she’s
    always imagining that this will finally be the one that leads to their getting divorced. It never is, though. It’s weird to watch the situation unfold: you never know who to root for.
    One time I said “Get a haircut, hippie” to Little Big Tom, because I’d heard him mention that that’s what people used to say to him in Vermont where he’s from. He thought that
    was hilarious, and actually seemed quite excited that I’d said anything at all to him, since that doesn’t often happen.
    He raised his beer and put an awkward arm around my
    shoulder, and I tried not to stiffen up too noticeably. Then he pushed the mute button on the remote, turned to me, and
    said, “Kid, you’re all right.” There was a long silence. Then he took his arm away, de-muted, and sighed heavily. Well, the Giants were down by two.
    “Kid, you’re all right.” How sad is that? What an ass. For a moment, though, I felt a surge of—what? I don’t know the word for it. It’s like when you feel lonely, but for someone else. I don’t know how to say it. Like you feel sorry for yourself, but it’s somebody else’s situation that makes you feel like that. Not feeling sorry for someone in the usual condescend-ing way, like when you feel bad if you run over an animal or when a midget can’t reach a shelf. More like you suddenly
    find yourself pretending to be the other person without
    meaning to, and feeling lonely while playing the role of the other person in your head. I guess, well . . . you could do it with an animal, too.
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    But let’s be clear. In no way should this Special Moment
    undermine our central thesis, which I will always stand
    squarely behind: Little Big Tom should get a haircut.
    Seriously. That ponytail has got to