"Me, I knew my dad for about six years, but I don’t remember anything. My dad, he starts a new family in a new town about every six years. This isn’t so much like a new family as it’s like he sets up a franchise…What you see at Fight Club is a generation of men raised by women…My father never went to college so it was really important I go to college. After college, I called him long distance and said, now what? My dad didn’t know. When I got a job and turned twenty- five, long distance, I said, now what? My dad didn’t know so he said, get married. I’m a thirty-year-old boy, and I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer I need."
Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk
My neighbor Landis is a very fertile guy. As near as I can pick up from what he's told me, this is his story:
Born was born and raised in Gate City. By sixteen he dropped out of school, got a GED, and moved out of his parents house and in with his pregnant girlfriend, also estranged from her family. He decided to be all that he could be and joined the army. While in the service, he picked up another girlfriend and a son. He later reconciled with his first girlfriend, but not before getting into a fight with her then-boyfriend, getting arrested for battery, and being discharged from the Army. Before his second daughter was born, they broke up. He shacked up with a new girlfriend and shortly after his second daughter was born, his new girlfriend concieved another. He just turned 22 and has four children by three different mothers.
One of the more interesting things about his story is how non-chalantly he told me about it. To him, it seems practically normal. He only explained it to me when talking about the two mothers of his children, how one was dead-set on reuniting and the other was busy trying to fix him up with someone. Neither request child support and in fact the latter picks up his grocery bill. I met her this week and she seems like a great girl. I also met two of his daughters, both of whom are absolutely beyond precious.
What's funny is that seeing him play with his daughters while his ex-girlfriend looks on looks as positively normal as he describes it. If I didn't know the back story, I'd swear that they're a family.
In an odd way, they're the only family they've got.
Well, it could be worse... they could all hate his guts, be demanding child support, and just generally running him into the ground.
If that were the case it's likely the daughters wouldn't know their father, which would royally suck.
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