We’re at a fancy hotel in Bermuda. Like fancy hotels everywhere, the place is paying new attention to the whims of small` children. The baby pool is a hot tub, just for little kids. My two daughters, now ages 6 and 3, leap from the hot tub into the baby pool and back again. The pleasure they take in this could not be more innocent or pure.
Then out of nowhere, come four older boys. Ten, maybe 11 years old. As anyone who has only girls know, boys add nothing to any social situation but trouble. These four are set on proving the point. Seeing my little girls, they grab the pool noodles - intended to keep 3 - year - olds afloat - and wield them as weapons. They descend upon Quinn, my 6 year old, whacking the water on either side of her, until she is almost in tears. I’m hovering in the canal between baby pool and grown up pool, wondering if I should intervene. Dixie beats me to it. She jumps out in front of her older sister and thrusts out her 3 year old chest.
“TEASING BOYS!” she hollers, so loudly that grown-ups around the pool peer over their Danielle Steel novels. Even the boys are taken aback. Dixie, now on stage, raises her voice a notch:
“YOU JUST SHUT UP YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKING ASSHOLE!”
To the extent that all hell can break loose around a baby pool in a Bermuda resort, it does. A John Grisham novel is lowered; several of Danielle Steel’s vanish into beach bags. I remain hovering in the shallows of the grown up pool where it enters the baby pool, with my entire head above water.
My first thought: Oh.. my... GOD!
My Second thought: No one knows I’m her father.
I sink lower, like a crocodile, so that just my eyes and forehead are above the waterline; but in my heart a new feeling rises: PRIDE.
Behind me a lady on a beach chair shouts, “Kevin! Kevin! Get over here!”
Kevin appears to be one of the noodle - wielding 11 year old boys.
“But Moooommm!” he says.
“Kevin! Now!”
The little monster sulks over to his mother’s side while his fellow Orcs await the higher judgment. I’m close enough to hear her ream him out. It’s delicious.
“Kevin did you teach that little girl those words?” she asks.
“Moooomm! Nooooooo!”
“Then where did she learn them?”
As it happens, I know the answer to that one: carpool. Months ago! I was driving them home from school, my two girls, plus two other kids, a 7 year old boy and a 10 year old girl. They were crammed in the backseat of the Volkswagen Passat jabbering away. I was alone in the front seat, not especially listening.
But then the 10 year old said, “Deena said a bad word today.”
“Which one?” asked Quinn.
“The S word, “ said the 10 year old.
“Oooooo,” they all said.
“What’s the S word?” I asked.
“We can’t say it without getting in trouble, “ said the 10 year old knowingly.
“You’re safe here,” I said.
She thought it over for a second, then said, “Stupid.”
“Ah,” I said, smiling.
“Wally said the D word!” said Quinn.
“What’s the D word?” I asked.
“Dumb!” she shouted, and they all giggled at the sheer illicit pleasure of it.
Then the 7 year old boy chimed in. “I know a bad word, too! I know a bad word too!” he said.
“What’s the bad word?” I asked brightly. I didn’t see why he sould be left out.
“shutupyoustupidmotherfuckingasshole!”
I swerved off the road, stopped the car, and hit the emergency lights. I began to deliver a lecture on the difference between bad words and seriously bad words, but the audience was fully consumed with laughter. Dixie, especially, wanted to know the secret of making Daddy stop the car.
“Shutupmotherstupidfuck,“ she said.
“Dixie!” I said.
“Daddy,” said Quinn thoughtfully, “how come you say a bad word when we spill something and when you spill something you just say, ‘Oops’?”
“Stupidfuck!” screamed Dixie, and they all laughed.
“DIXIE!”
She stopped. They all did. For the rest of the drive they whispered.
So here we are months later, in this Bermuda pool, Dixie with her chest thrust out in defiance, me floating like a crocodile and feeling very much different than I should. I should be embarrassed and concerned. I should be sweeping her out of the pool and washing her mouth out with soap. I don’t feel that way. Actually, I’m impressed. More than impressed: awed. It’s just incredibly heroic, taking out after this rat pack of boys. Plus she’s sticking up for her big sister, which isn’t something you see every day. I don’t want to get in her way. I just want to see what happens next.
Behind me Kevin has just finished being torn what appears to be a new asshole by his mother, and is relaunching himself into the baby pool with a real malice. He’s as indignant as a serial killer who got put away on a speeding ticket: He’s guilty of many things but not a teaching a 3 year old girl the art of cursing. Now he intends to get even. Gathering his fellow Orcs in the hot tub, he and his companions once again threaten Quinn. Dixie, once again, leaps into the fray.
“TEASING BOYS!” she shouts. Now she has the attention of an entire Bermuda resort.
“YOU WATCH OUT TEASING BOYS! BECAUSE I PEED IN THIS POOL TWO TIMES! ONCE IN THE HOT POOL AND ONCE IN THE COLD POOL!”
The teasing boys flee, grossed out and defeated. Various grown ups say various things to each other, but no one seeks to remove Dixie from the baby pool. Dixie returns to playing with her sister - who appears far less grateful than she should be. And the crocodile drops below the waterline, swivels, and vanishes into the depths of the grown up pool. But he makes a mental not to buy that little girl an ice cream cone. Even if her mother disapproves.
*** Taken from Michael Lewis's forthcoming memoir Home Game; An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood.