Free The Girl Who Ran Off With Daddy by David Handler

us. We’ve forgotten how to be brave. We’ve forgotten how to be men .”
    We ate, Thor wolfing his chili down hungrily and wiping his plate clean with his bread. He rinsed the dishes in the pond while I fed the fire and poured out our coffee. We sat drinking it and passing the bottle of Laphroaig back and forth, listening to the fire crackle and Lulu snore. Thor dug his ancient mouth harp out of his deerskin vest and played some old hobo blues for a while.
    Then he sat back, hands laced across his belly. “You’re just making the transition, Hoagy. Happens to all of us.”
    “Which transition is that?”
    “From student to teacher. From asker of questions to provider of answers.”
    “I have no answers.”
    “And you’re scared shitless about it. Because making a flesh and blood person and subjecting her to this world—that’s a terrifying prospect. And not one goddamned bit like writing. Because when we write, we have control over things. They turn out how we want them to. Whole reason we do it.”
    “And here all along I thought it was to meet babes.”
    “Promise me something, boy.”
    “What’s that, Thor?”
    “Promise me you won’t ever stop asking why. Don’t give up the quest. Listen to your wild self.” He got down on all fours and began pawing at the earth, rather like a madman. “Your wild self is your wise self, Hoagy. Pay heed to him.” And with that he raised his head and let out a bloodcurdling howl, something of a cross between a coyote and Tarzan after a sex change operation.
    Lulu opened one eye. She wanted to know whether I, too, was going to howl. Or at least get down on all fours and paw the earth. No way. No how.
    “Pay heed to him, boy!” There was great urgency in Thor’s voice now. “ Promise me!”
    “All right, Thor. I promise you.”
    “Good man.” He dusted off his wild self and unhooked the hammered silver and turquoise bracelet that was on his wrist. “This was made by the Hopi from ancient cave drawings of bears and horses. It was passed to me by an elder. I’ve worn it for thirty years. Time to pass it on. Take it, boy.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s a symbol.”
    “Of what?”
    “Just put it on, will you?”
    I put it on. It felt heavy, like a shackle, and looked faintly silly on the end of my own arm. But I thanked him anyway.
    “I’d like to father another child myself, when Clethra’s ready,” he informed me. “That’s one of the reasons I had to leave Ruth.”
    “What’s another?”
    He stuck his lower lip out, thinking it over. “She was my equal, Ruth,” he replied. “I used to relish the give-and-take, the disagreements, the battles. But I just got tired of her and her whole damned gender war. Tired of having to defend myself because I have a penis. Tired of listening to one feminista after another go on and on about the innate moral superiority of women. How men are greedy and selfish and immature, and women aren’t. How men are afraid of intimacy, and women aren’t. How women are caring, and men aren’t. How men are obsessed with ego and power, and women aren’t. What a load of shit. We’re all people, some good, some not so good, all of us struggling to find our way. Men and women should rejoice in our differences, not get into this pointless blame game.” He drank down his scotch and held out his cup for a refill. He’d probably downed the equivalent of four doubles and still wasn’t showing the slightest effect. “Besides which, it’s all their fault. Keep giving us too damned many conflicting signals. They want us gentle, they want us cruel. They want us strong, they want us weak. They want security, they want freedom. Christ, they don’t know what they want.”
    “Yeah, not like us.”
    “We used to know.”
    “Did we? That must have been nice.”
    The air was much chillier now, fire or no fire. I unlaced my boots and climbed inside my sleeping bag for warmth; Lulu burrowed in gratefully after me.
    Thor got up and watered a