Grab a bowl of Jello and throw on your favorite ugly sweater.
This week, we've got a special visit to the Gutter.
This week, we've got a special visit to the Gutter.
America's Favorite by Hector Duarte Jr.
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African-Americans. Fuck it,
black families started being taken seriously because of me. I was the
alternative. Compared to what? A junk yard owner and his son nailing
stereotypes into the civil rights coffin every week. What happened to Sanford
after that? Dead of a heart attack like his TV character always predicted he
would. They had nothing on me as they watched me slowly inch my way up to that
sacred 8 o’clock time slot. A black doctor and his lawyer wife living in a New
York brownstone dominating prime time slots while yuppies were at the peak of
their Babylonian excess. Top jazz musicians were always on the horn asking for
a part. I was on all the magazine covers. My sweaters sold like mad on holidays.
During a time when family values were careening down the shitter, everyone
wanted a father like the one I played on TV.
Things change like a
motherfucker, though, and quick. The show tanked cos people started looking for
a different image of a father. One to match up with their real-life shitty
ones. No one wanted the squeaky clean black doctor anymore. Even those who’d
given me an Image Award just two years earlier. They said they couldn’t relate.
All the hip-hoppers came out of the woodwork to go on and on about how pops was
never given an opportunity by white America to even try and become a doctor;
same for Mama. Change the fucking record was always my response, but who wants
to hear that from America’s once most-favorite dad?
Then everyone started giving
me shit when I decided to plug one of the country’s favorite desserts. What do
you want from me? It was America’s favorite dessert; America’s favorite father.
Simple enough, right? Wrong. People baffle me. Soon as anyone—even America’s
favorite dad—falls flat on his face, everyone just points and laughs. Shitty
movies followed, even a shitty detective series. Man, all I wanted was a sliver
that life on top again. Nobody wanted me, though. Next time I was on the TV
screen, it was after my son was killed helping a woman repair a flat tire on
the roadside. Everyone had a fucking opinion about that. What was he doing helping a random woman on the side of the road that
time of night? Was it a random woman? Things like that don’t just happen
randomly. There has to be something more. Yes, things happen randomly. My
son was stabbed on the side of the road by a delusional derelict who thought my
son had risen from the underworld to kidnap unsaved souls.
I wrote some op-ed pieces
asking people to stop resorting to arguments about the white American
conspiracy against them. I was looking for them to become such a powerful force
that white people would have to invent conspiracy theories about them. Everyone
thought I was old. Mid-seventies at that point, it was easy for them to blame
senility and dementia. Like a God damn racing horse, there was no more of me to
give. Society’s gun pressed to my temple, I was ready to go gentle into that
good night.
There’s no rest for the
wicked, though. Some girl; a grandmother now, takes to all the big news outlets
about how I was supposed to have done some shit to her more than thirty years
ago. I mean, how the hell am I supposed to remember what happened thirty years
ago? Of course I fucked around. All of us did. America’s favorite dad doesn’t
come without its perks. Drugs? It’s insulting anyone would think someone like
me would resort to drugs to get women. Now everyone stands by and awaits the
second fall of America’s favorite dad. Why? You need to prove to yourselves
your own father might not be the worst out there. So I’m the one who takes the
axe. Like your father was supposed to commit to doing soon as you first stared
into his eyes. Where is he, then? Which direction do you point your finger to
lay the blame on him? None, because you have no idea where he is. Here I am.
Easy to spot. Easy to point at. So, go ahead. Point. That’s why I’m still here:
reliable and ever-present, ready to take the punch, absorb the black eye.
America’s favorite dad.
I’m still here. So, tell me:
where is he?
