My Algorithm Thinks I’m Ready to be a Father
My algorithm and I go way back. His name is Allen. And Allen has helped me through some tough times. First there was that self-help course he suggested. The five personality traits that keep you single. Best twenty dollars I ever spent. I quit talking about my parents’ open marriage at parties after that. Or that article, “Is Your Narcissism Costing You Friends?” Allen was right. I needed to focus more on myself. Excavate the deeper issues.
I was rolling a joint at my desk before my restaurant shift and watching a squirrel hang upside down from my bird feeder when it happened. Right there in front of me. In the top corner of my computer screen next to a blonde in lingerie suggesting firmer erections. Fifty percent off diapers and half off the latest stroller. The Baby Bomber 2000. Sounded violent. What was Allen thinking? Was I really ready to be a father?
I licked the glue on my paper and twisted my joint into a sloppy cylinder. I lit it and coughed a cloud in front of me and the smoke parted like a curtain and the boner-pill woman was gone. Replaced with the best price on baby formula. Discounts in a national shortage. Allen wasn’t kidding. Maybe I was ready to be a dad after all.
I glanced at the clock on the screen. Almost two in the afternoon. Enough time to finish my joint, drink my coffee, shower, and make it to the restaurant by four.
Jess the new salad girl didn’t talk much and she kept vodka mixed with cranberry juice in a coffee mug by her stand. We’d share cigarettes in the lot on breaks and I could smell the booze on her breath. Sometimes I’d slip her a shucked oyster when service was slow and she’d rap her mug with her long red nails and I’d take a sip.
It was a slow Monday and my ticket machine was silent so I shuffled over to her stand as she grated parmesan cheese over a Caesar. She took my hand in hers and her pinky lightly grazed my skin. We finished four mugs before the night was done and we lingered in the lot and smoked cigarettes before heading home.
Jess’s apartment didn’t have furniture, and the sink spilled over with crusty dishes. The empty living room could double as the baby room, I thought. We tumbled onto the carpet, giggly from the vodka. My knees were raw from the rug after I finished and she nestled in my arm and her star stickers glowed on the ceiling.
The next morning, I searched the web for videos on training children. “Raising children,” Allen corrected in my google search. Turns out kids need nutrition, sleep, love, and a constant routine. Did I need that, too? Then Allen suggested online therapy and a low-cost associate degree. Turns out I could scrape together a nice living as an X-Ray technician. I had always wanted to see through things.
Two o’clock came again, and this time I only smoked half my joint. Then I texted Jess and rode the bus across town to her place. I thought it’d be nice to ride to work together.
PETE PROKESCH is a writer from the Boston area. His fiction has appeared in Denver Quarterly, Four Way Review, and Evergreen Review, among others, and he has received support from Mass Cultural Council. He also works in green building.
Read more by Pete Prokesch
Author’s Website
Story in Four Way Review
Story in The Westchester Review
Story in TINGE Magazine