Divorced Fathers and Pizza Crusts

            By Mark
Halliday

            
               (posted Wednesday,
Sept. 2, 1998)
            

            To hear the poet read
"Divorced Fathers and Pizza Crusts," click .

            The connection between
divorced fathers and pizza crustsis understandable. The divorced father does
not cookconfidently. He wants his kid to enjoy dinner.The entire weekend is
supposed to be fun. Kids lovepizza. For some reason involving soft warmth and  
   malleability

            kids approve of melted
cheese on pizzayears before they will tolerate cheese in other situations.So
the divorced father takes the kid and the kid's friendout for pizza. The kids
eat much faster than the dad.Before the dad has finished his second slice,

            the kids are playing a
video game or being Ace Venturaor blowing spitballs through straws, making this
hailthat can't quite be cleaned up. There are four slices leftand the divorced
father doesn't want them wasted,there has been enough waste already; he sits
there

            in his windbreaker
finishing the pizza. It's goodexcept the crust is actually not so great--after
the second slice the crust is basically a chore--so you leave it. You move on
to the next loaded slice.Finally there you are amid rims of crust.

            All this is
understandable. There's no dark conspiracy.Meanwhile the kids are having a
pretty good timewhich is the whole point. So the entire evening makesclear
sense. Now the divorced father gathersthe sauce-stained napkins for the trash
and dumps them

            and dumps
the rims of crust which are notcorpses on a battlefield. Understandabilityfills
the pizza shop so thoroughly there's no roomfor anything else. Now he's at the
door summoning the kidsand they follow, of course they do, he's a dad.