I'm Sorry You Feel That Way

Table of Contents

 

 

 

Published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Publishers Since 1838
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Copyright © 2009 by Diana Joseph

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed
in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or
encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada

 

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following, where portions of this book first appeared:
Willow
Springs
: “The Devil I Know Is the Man Upstairs”;
River Teeth
:
“It’s Me. It’s Him. It’s Them.”;
Weber
: “What’s (Not) Simple”;
Marginalia
: “The Boy.”

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Joseph, Diana, date.
I’m sorry you feel that way : the astonishing but true story of a daughter,
sister, slut, wife, mother, and friend to man and dog / Diana Joseph.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-440-68633-7

1. Joseph, Diana, date. 2. Joseph, Diana, date—Philosophy. 3. Joseph,
Diana, date—Family. 4. Authors, American—21st century—Biography.
5. Women—United States—Biography. 6. Feminists—United States—
Biography. 7. Joseph, Diana, date—Marriage. 8. Man-woman relationships—
United States. 9. Motherhood—United States. I. Title.
PS3610.O668Z
814’.6—dc22

 

 

 

Some names and identifying characteristics have been changed.
Some sequences and details of events have been changed.

 

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

A man is a god in ruins.

—RALPH WALDO EMERSON

One day my father sat me down and said, “See, what happens is sometimes a girl will go with this one, and then she’ll go with that one, and then she thinks what the hell, that one over there doesn’t look so bad, why not go with that one, too.”

My father paused to take a long draw on his cigarette. It was 1982, the “Just Say No” campaign hadn’t yet come on full-force, and fathers like mine smoked without guilt or shame or brain-washed children nagging at them to quit. They smoked in front of their children and their children’s friends, they smoked in the station wagon with children bouncing around in the backseat, the baby sitting on somebody’s lap and all the windows rolled up. A sixth-grader could walk to the corner convenience store to play the Daily Number and buy a pack of smokes; no one questioned it. My father played 0-2-6, a dollar straight and a dollar boxed. He smoked Lucky Strikes, unfiltered. I walked the eight blocks from my house to the Fast and Friendly to play his number and buy his Luckies just about every day.

My father was talking, he was explaining something. There was something important that I needed to know, and he was telling me about it. I needed to listen. He wanted me to pay attention.

“Now, look,” my father said, “when a girl goes with this one, and then with that one, and then with that one over there, and with who knows how many others, what happens is people start to talk. People will always hear all about what she did, see, and when they do, they’ll talk about it. They’ll say that girl is a pig.”

The Lucky dangled from my father’s lips and his eyes were squinty from the smoke. He raised his eyebrows. He was jabbing his finger at me. Moving only half his mouth, my father said, “Don’t be a pig.”

That was the first time my father ever talked to me about sex. It would be his final word on the matter. Neither he nor I would speak of it again.

 

 

 

 

 

My father has spoken to me about other things. He is a man of firm belief and definite opinion.

For a long time, one of his favorite issues to put on the table was the ratio of how little money I make to how much education I have. He liked to ask how much was I making, so he could say, “That’s it?” and then taunt me. “I’m the dummy,” he’d say, “and I made more than that. You’re supposed to have all this education. What was all that schooling for if that’s all the money you’re going to make?”

My father, who dropped out of school in eighth grade, owned and operated a tow truck and auto body shop. When I was a kid, he loomed large, big and tall, powerful and strong, his energy endless, but these days, his health isn’t good. He’s given his retirement over to puttering around the house, he’s cooking fabulous meals, baking fabulous pies—even rolling out his own crust—and he dabbles with day trading online.

Usually, when I call home, my mother answers the phone. She’s the one I chat with, the one I ask how’s Dad doing? or what’s Dad been up to? If it’s Father’s Day or his birthday, I call specifically to speak to him, and usually I can get him on the phone to wish him Merry Christmas.

But there have been times, though rare, when I’ve called home, and my mother isn’t there. My father answers the phone. That’s when he and I talk.

This happens once, maybe twice, a year. During these conversations, my father has spoken with great authority and discussed at great length matters I can’t begin to comprehend: investments and annuities, bonds and interest rates, the Fed, the Dow Jones, and the stock market, which I always hear as the
stalk
market. I imagine a small creepy one-room office across the river and in the questionable part of town. It’s where I’d go if I wanted to hire someone to keep menacingly close tabs on someone else. I’m running through the many possibilities of who I’d like to have stalked when I hear my father say how much money do you have in your savings?

The honest answer would be none, I don’t have any money in my savings. I don’t have a savings account, and if you really want to know, the way I balance my checkbook is by changing banks.

But I’m a coward. My answers to the questions my father asks are rarely honest. Because I’m all about keeping the old man off my back, I’m all about telling him what I think he wants to hear. I also want him to think well of me, which means the truth will not do.

“Eighteen hundred,” I say every time he asks, because it sounds like a figure that’s plausible and realistic, like it could be true, but it also sounds, to me at least, like an impressive amount of money to have just lying around. “Almost two thousand dollars saved!” I tell my father, who, in turn, always says the same thing. He always says, “Not enough.”

 

 

 

 

 

During these telephone conversations, my father and I also talk about my brothers. My father confides in me his feelings concerning my brothers’ lives, specifically what they’re doing wrong.

“He’s an asshole,” my father says.

I don’t have to ask which brother he’s talking about. I know that if I’m patient, at some point, my father will reveal to me that both of my brothers are assholes, but each boy is an asshole in his own special way. I never disagree with my father on this matter. I never take up for my brothers, I don’t defend them or argue their cases. I always defer to my father’s opinion, murmuring my agreement that my brother is an asshole indeed, no bones about it. I mean my brothers no harm, but I’m happier when my father is displeased with someone other than me.

While I have wandered from Pennsylvania to New York to Colorado to Minnesota, both of my brothers still live near my parents. This makes it easy for my father to keep up with their lives. This is what enables him to point out with such certainty that my one brother is an asshole because his bitch of a girlfriend is leading him around by the balls, while my other brother is an asshole because of the truck he bought, or because of how fast he rides his motorcycle, or because he says it’s fun to go four-wheeling. One of my brothers is an asshole because of the way he went about digging a hole, or hanging drywall, or building a deer stand, and my other brother is an asshole because he got pulled over for speeding, or because he thinks he’s in love with a single mother seven years his senior.

“I tried to tell him,” my father says, “but he’s a hardhead. He thinks he knows everything. He doesn’t know jack shit. But he won’t listen to me. If he’d listen to me, he’d know.”

“I know,” I say. “It’s true.”

“He’s an asshole.”

“It’s true.”

My father says he doesn’t need me to tell him what’s true.

I agree.

 

 

 

 

 

If it’s a rare thing for me to call home and talk to my father, it’s even rarer when my father calls me. Each time it happens, it catches me off guard, and every time, I’m a little flattered, thinking wow, he must really want to talk to me. He must’ve been thinking about me. I’m charmed by it. I think it’s cute that my father has taken the time to search for my phone number, then dial it. I think it’s sweet. It makes me feel singled out, special, privileged, honored, and loved.