occasion, a woman at the bar asked my mother if we could give her a ride home, as her date had walked out on her. This sturdy blonde had a perm so tight that her curls would have served as life-saving shock absorbers if anyone had hit her on the head with a sledgehammer.
I sensed that in fact my gentle mother regretted not having a sledgehammer close at hand, but I was too young to figure out that the blonde’s date had not walked out on her but had passed out, that he was my old man. Enlightenment came the following evening when, lying in bed, I listened to my parents downstairs as they argued about the curly one.
As a consequence of post-midnight, father-salvaging expeditions and other mortifying experiences related to his behavior, I grew up in a state of embarrassment. Because my father’s shortcomings were widely known, I cringed when asked if I was Ray Koontz’s boy. Instead of answering directly, I said my mother was Florence Koontz, because no shame came with that association.
From the moment they saw me in the cradle, two of my aunts were convinced that I was no less of a good-for-nothing than my father. If they chanced upon me, a seven-year-old, lazing dreamily in the summer sun, their faces clouded and they declared solemnly, “Just like your father,” as if other boys my age were earning their first hundred dollars at a lemonade stand or volunteering to empty bedpans in nursing homes.
My dad’s lack of interest in me, his fits of rage and violence when drinking, his threats to kill himself—and us—the anguish and anxiety he caused my mother: None of that affected me as deeply as the embarrassment he brought upon us by public drunkenness, skirt-chasing, a tendency to brag extravagantly, and other behavior that made him a subject of gossip and scorn.
By high school, I was shy and insecure, and I compensated for my low self-esteem by being quick with a funny line and playing the class clown. Language skills were my shield and my sword.
In no aspect of my life did shyness manifest more than in my interactions with the opposite sex. If I asked a girl for a date and she turned me down, I never asked her again. She might decline with sincere regret, and it might turn out to be true that her mother was in the hospital and her father incapacitated by two broken legs and her beloved sister stuck in the twenty-third century after participating in a secret government time-travel experiment. However, I assumed that she looked at me, saw my father, and decided that setting her hair on fire would be wiser than accepting my invitation to the sock hop followed by milk shakes at Dairy Queen.
Then in my senior year, along came Gerda Cerra. I had been attracted to certain girls before, charmed by them, captivated, but I had not previously been enchanted. I had not before been smitten. In fact, I thought it was not possible to be smitten if you were born after 1890. Petite, graceful, beautiful, Gerda had a soft voice that made everyword seem intimate and romantic. When she said, “Something is hanging from the end of your nose,” my heart soared. Not least of all, her self-possession seemed otherworldly.
That I pursued her, shy as I was, all the way from a senior-year date to a marriage proposal is a testament to the impact that she had on me—especially considering that she turned me down four times.
In the first instance, upon hearing which evening I hoped to take her to a movie, she claimed to be working at the dry cleaner that night. Previously, if a girl in a full-body cast pled immobility as a reason for not accepting a date, I assumed the truth was that she found me repellent, and thereafter I avoided her. But a week later, I approached Gerda with a second invitation.
This time she informed me that, on the evening in question, she would be working at the movie theater, behind the refreshment counter. Here was a young woman who either redefined the meaning of industrious or could not remember the dry-cleaner
I sensed that in fact my gentle mother regretted not having a sledgehammer close at hand, but I was too young to figure out that the blonde’s date had not walked out on her but had passed out, that he was my old man. Enlightenment came the following evening when, lying in bed, I listened to my parents downstairs as they argued about the curly one.
As a consequence of post-midnight, father-salvaging expeditions and other mortifying experiences related to his behavior, I grew up in a state of embarrassment. Because my father’s shortcomings were widely known, I cringed when asked if I was Ray Koontz’s boy. Instead of answering directly, I said my mother was Florence Koontz, because no shame came with that association.
From the moment they saw me in the cradle, two of my aunts were convinced that I was no less of a good-for-nothing than my father. If they chanced upon me, a seven-year-old, lazing dreamily in the summer sun, their faces clouded and they declared solemnly, “Just like your father,” as if other boys my age were earning their first hundred dollars at a lemonade stand or volunteering to empty bedpans in nursing homes.
My dad’s lack of interest in me, his fits of rage and violence when drinking, his threats to kill himself—and us—the anguish and anxiety he caused my mother: None of that affected me as deeply as the embarrassment he brought upon us by public drunkenness, skirt-chasing, a tendency to brag extravagantly, and other behavior that made him a subject of gossip and scorn.
By high school, I was shy and insecure, and I compensated for my low self-esteem by being quick with a funny line and playing the class clown. Language skills were my shield and my sword.
In no aspect of my life did shyness manifest more than in my interactions with the opposite sex. If I asked a girl for a date and she turned me down, I never asked her again. She might decline with sincere regret, and it might turn out to be true that her mother was in the hospital and her father incapacitated by two broken legs and her beloved sister stuck in the twenty-third century after participating in a secret government time-travel experiment. However, I assumed that she looked at me, saw my father, and decided that setting her hair on fire would be wiser than accepting my invitation to the sock hop followed by milk shakes at Dairy Queen.
Then in my senior year, along came Gerda Cerra. I had been attracted to certain girls before, charmed by them, captivated, but I had not previously been enchanted. I had not before been smitten. In fact, I thought it was not possible to be smitten if you were born after 1890. Petite, graceful, beautiful, Gerda had a soft voice that made everyword seem intimate and romantic. When she said, “Something is hanging from the end of your nose,” my heart soared. Not least of all, her self-possession seemed otherworldly.
That I pursued her, shy as I was, all the way from a senior-year date to a marriage proposal is a testament to the impact that she had on me—especially considering that she turned me down four times.
In the first instance, upon hearing which evening I hoped to take her to a movie, she claimed to be working at the dry cleaner that night. Previously, if a girl in a full-body cast pled immobility as a reason for not accepting a date, I assumed the truth was that she found me repellent, and thereafter I avoided her. But a week later, I approached Gerda with a second invitation.
This time she informed me that, on the evening in question, she would be working at the movie theater, behind the refreshment counter. Here was a young woman who either redefined the meaning of industrious or could not remember the dry-cleaner
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