House of D

Recently, Richel and I watched a movie written, directed, and produced by David Duchovny called "House of D". It's one of those coming-of-age movies about a young boy who grows up and becomes the way he is. Later on, as a grown adult and a father, he returns to his routes to confront his past and fears. It's a great movie but it didn't do well at the box office because there were no really big box-office names, except for Robin Williams, but he wasn't even the main character.

Anyway, in the movie Duchovny races across town on his bike to his home on his son's 13th birthday. He promised his son a bicycle ride with him but Duchovny gets there so late that his son has already fallen asleep. Watching this scene brought back some memories for me when I was back in college.

Back at ol' UCD, I used to drive around Gung's '87 Toyota Tercel, with nothing in it but a tape player and radio. Don't get me wrong; I'm grateful that I had the car, but some AC would be nice, especially up in Davis, CA. And being up in Davis use to be so bloody boring at times, espcially after Quinn graduated and left for med school. I had no one to hang out with or do things with or anything. In essence, I was a loner. Maybe by choice, maybe not. In any case, I was. So there was no point in hanging around the ol' farm town on the weekends. So I used to go home just like many other college kids did. For me, though, the 90-120 minute drive without AC through San Francisco Bay Area traffic during rush hour was sickening, especially after doing it for 2 years straight every bloody weekend. Instead, I used to go over to Gah's place every-so-often. The up side was that I was always taken care of at Gah's house (i.e. I always had something to eat, there was DOOM on Mike's computer, and they had cable). The down-side was traffic wasn't that much better going there, and none of my friends were there, either. But I always did enjoy visiting my sister when I was in college because she was fairly close by. And because I always got to baby-sit Bryan and Nicole. Nicole was still a baby at that time and Bryan was about 3-4 years old.

Whenever I did come over, Gah would always tell Gong-wing that I was coming over. Well, shoot. Who doesn't get all excited when the Yummy Kow-fu comes over? But the thing is I would wait until well after dark, either waiting for traffic and the temperature to die down, or just putzing around at home before I made the trip over. Often times, I would arrive around 10-11pm or so and find little Gong-wing lying on the sofa fast asleep. He had his Yummy blanklet with him, but it's not like he was set to sleep outside in the living room; he had no pillow or blanket to cover up (not like he really needed the blanket, though).

"What's he doing out here?" I asked my sister. I knew Gah did some weird things sometimes and thought this might be one of them.

"He fell asleep waiting for you! He didn't want to go to bed until you came over. What took you so long?" Gah answered. Gee, I sure felt like a @#$@$!$-hole. Just like Duchovny, I got there late. Too late for the little bugger to keep awake. And it happened on more than one occaision, too. You'd think I would learn after the first time. In any case, that's a huge regret I realized I had; a situation that I'll never be able to rectify or return to. Gong-wing is now 15 and doesn't wait up for anyone these days.

Maybe that's why I'm such a stickler for being on-time these days. Or at least I try to. Making adults wait is one thing; making kids wait is a whole different story.