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Every Day Is Father’s Day
“Should I be offended?” Daken says. He bends forward and leans close to Logan—uncomfortably close—and sniffs once.
“Um, no,” Logan says, but it sounds like a question.
“I’m kind of offended.” Daken straightens and continues to peer at Logan. His stare isn’t hostile, but it’s not quite amused either. (Even after all this time, Logan still can’t read him.) “I mean, here it is Father’s Day, and you’re taking the weekend off. You’re going to the X-Men’s version of Kennebunkport to be by yourself. You have no idea how much that saddens me. It’s just poor etiquette, Logan. Not to mention the fact that X and I planned a little party for you.”
Logan searches Daken’s face for the lie, but he doesn’t find it. Daken is pleasantly impassive, as usual. “Really?” (Then: he can’t believe he actually said that. He can’t believe he let so much unmasked surprise creep into his voice.)
Daken rolls his eyes. “Really.” He lowers himself onto the stool and opens a newspaper. “You only have one father. Technically, anyway. X,” he says without looking up. “Come in here.”
Laura paces into the kitchen. She doesn’t shuffle or hurry. She stands in the doorway.
Daken looks her up and down. “Remember all that stuff we talked about? Father’s Day?”
Laura stares at Daken. “I was unfamiliar with the concept behind the holiday before you explained it to me, but yes.”
“Well, as it turns out, daddy dearest here is jetting off to Long Beach for the weekend. He remembered to pack his flip-flops, but he’s not bringing us. Could you die?”
Logan clears his throat and looks between Daken and Laura. Daken’s eyes are skimming the classifieds. “Would you two like to come?”
Laura says nothing. She looks to Daken.
Daken turns back to the newspaper. “Now you’re just asking us to make yourself feel better.”
Logan’s not quite sure if he’s asking them to make himself feel better—or if genuinely wants them to come. He’s not quite there yet. (In all honesty, maybe he does want them to come. Maybe the thought of sitting alone under an umbrella on a white sandy beach reading a James Patterson novel is kind of lonely, even though loneliness never bothered him before. Maybe he could use the company. Other people go places with their family—why doesn’t he?)
***
And that’s how he ended up on a road trip, blazing down the California coast with Daken and Laura. Daken called shotgun, and Laura sat in the back.
Logan glances over at his son. Daken’s long legs are anchored to the space near the wheel well, his knees bent slightly. He looks out the window. He whistles and then reaches for the radio.
“I don’t think so,” Logan says, catching his hand in his.
“C’mon, Logan. This is a long drive. I’m tired of hearing you breathe through your mouth.”
“I can’t drive and listen to Meatloaf at the same time.”
“You can’t drive, period.” Daken grins and glances back at Laura. “I can’t wait for karaoke, can you?” He turns back to Logan. “We’ll sing Meatloaf for you, Logan. We’ll rock your weekend.”
“I have memorized the words to ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’ just for this occasion,” Laura says. “I hope you find it enjoyable, Logan.”
For Father’s Day? Logan thinks. They did that? Why would they do such a thing? He remembers to stop clenching his teeth—it’s bad for him. It’s giving him headaches.
“Seriously, Logan. Step it up. We haven’t even reached Santa Barbara yet. My whole goddamn life is going by. Christ, we’re going to hit Los Angeles just in time for rush hour.”
“I’m already doing eighty,” Logan says. He puts both hands on the steering wheel.
“Seventy-nine,” Laura points out. “Throughout this trip, you’ve averaged thirteen-point-seven miles per hour over the speed limit.”
Minutes later, Daken announces that he has to go to the bathroom. Laura doesn’t have to go, of course (and neither does Logan), but when Logan pulls into the McDonald’s parking lot, she jumps out of the car anyway and follows Daken to the building. They walk side by side together until Daken pulls the door open and lets her go in first.
Logan tries to relax. Seeing the two kids together—never mind the fact that one is a clone and the other is sixty-five years old—should warm his heart. Really, it should. But in the car with the engine off, he’s hot, not warm. He wishes they’d just hurry up already.
They come out of the McDonald’s with styrofoam cups and plastic spoons. Hot fudge sundaes. “We didn’t get you anything,” Daken says, opening the car door.
“We didn’t know what you wanted,” Laura says, climbing into the backseat. She puts the spoon in her mouth upside down and licks off the hot fudge.
“That’s okay,” Logan says. He watches as Daken eats a modest spoonful.
“I told Laura to skip it.” The corners of his mouth turn up. He turns back to her. “Those hip-hugger X-Force pants are getting a little tight, don’t you think? You don’t want a muffin top, do you honey?”
Laura looks down at herself. “You are calling me fat. I am not fat.”
“I didn’t say you were fat.”
“I have a body mass index of nineteen-point-three.”
“And why not aim for a body mass index of nineteen-point-oh?”
Logan puts the car in reverse. “Stop. Both of you.”
“I’m just saying,” Daken says.
“We consume the same food, Daken. We eat the same number of calories and we are metabolically identical.”
Daken glances over his shoulder. “I’m taller than you are. You take after Logan. Short and stocky with a peasant-like frame.”
“Stop it,” Logan says again and this time he means it. “She’s not fat. I’m not going to sit here and listen to this crap.” (Doesn’t Daken know how seriously Laura takes him? How much she trusts his word? The last thing he needs is for her to develop an eating disorder. On top of everything else!)
“I’m just offering some advice,” Daken says. “I never said she was fat. We don’t always get to eat whatever we want. Not unless we’re terribly lucky.”
“Shut it,” Logan says. His blood pressure climbs. “I’ll leave you on the side of the road.”
“He’s not lying,” Laura says.
“I know,” Daken says. He turns around again and finishes his sundae in silence. In fact, none of them say anything until they’ve reached their destination.
***
Daken’s wrong. The X-Men beach house is hardly a version of Kennebunkport. It’s just a simple townhouse. Two bedrooms upstairs, a kitchen and a living room downstairs. A TV. A pool outside. Furniture covered in plastic. This place has been used for romantic getaways (Logan has brought women here from time to time), but it’s not all that romantic. It’s more for solo time-outs. The students go to the islands to sow their wild oats; this place is for grown-up soul-searching.
And soul-searching was what Logan had been planning on doing before Daken intervened. He has some questions for himself. Such as: Why is he still so anxious and upset after all this time? Why is he waiting for the other shoe to drop?
Both Emma and the professor have assured him that Daken’s conversion is genuine—that he’s not simply playing along for his own unseen purpose. Once they were able to penetrate his programming, and once they were able to bring Daken’s consciousness to the surface, everything changed. A whole new ballgame, Emma said.
Except that it’s not. Daken’s basically the same person. He still hates Logan, likes killing people, and fucks everything that moves. Personality, Logan thinks with some measure of dismay. It really is genetic.
“Give it some time,” Emma said. “It’s Daken we’re talking about. It’s not going to be all puppies and rainbows.” She laughed to herself, a little too smugly for Logan’s tastes. “Is it ever.”
Daken signed up for X-Force right away—against Logan’s wishes. Scott recruited him, and Logan pitched a fit, and Scott reminded him that Daken was a fully functioning adult who could make his own decisions. And besides, Daken had some skills that they could use.
“What exactly are you talking about, Summers?” Logan said. “X and I have the same skills. Daken brings absolutely nothing new to the table.”
“You know what I’m talking about, Logan,” Scott said. “Don’t play stupid.”
So Daken settled in just fine, did his job, cracked some big cases. As Summers had put it, he had some skills. He went undercover. Sometimes he wore a wire and sometimes he didn’t. When he came home, he brought back the kind of intel that made Scott Summers cream his pants.
“I don’t know how he does it,” Scott said one day, closing the file on one of Daken’s latest leads before sticking it in the filing cabinet.
“Now who’s playing stupid,” Logan replied and thought about putting Scott’s head through a wall. “I mean, seriously. Let’s not shit around.”
***
Logan takes the room with the double bed and puts his suitcase in the closet. Then he goes back and unzips it and gets out his flip-flops.
In the other bedroom, the one with the bunk beds, Daken and Laura chat and unpack their things. Logan wonders what they’re talking about. He focuses. Listens. “The way that man screamed,” Daken is saying. He laughs. “Remember that?”
“It was indeed quite loud.”
“It wasn’t loud. It was ungodly. I haven’t heard such a high-pitched squeal since I was in Colombia in 1989. Un-goddamn-real. Hold that thought, Laura dear. I’ll be right back.”
Daken’s heads to the hallway. Before Logan has a chance to look occupied, he appears in the doorway.
“We’re going down the water,” he says, his hand resting on the doorframe. “Do you want to come?”
Logan looks down at his flip flops and then up at Daken. “Go ahead without me. I’ll catch up later.”
“Suit yourself, old man.” He strides away whistling the woman’s part to “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.” In a few moments, Logan hears them clamor down the stairs. The door slams shut.
Logan sighs. He tries to breathe the tension out of his body. He moves over to the window and looks outside. Down below, Daken and Laura walk side by side, hands in their pockets. They go over to the pool and stop by the fence. They talk for a while. Then they stride past the pool and head to the beach.
Logan shuffles into his flip-flops. He’ll go look at the boardwalk.
Once he’s on the boardwalk he lets go of his body’s urge to catalog everything. He buys some popcorn and sits on a bench and watches the sun go down. All around him are couples and families—women pushing strollers, men holding children by the hand, teenagers dragging behind their parents or walking far ahead because they’re so embarrassed. Most of these families live in the suburbs. They own houses and cars. The kids go to school. Well, not right now. It’s summertime. The kids are off school. Maybe some of the teenagers have jobs already. Maybe they work at the mall or at Starbucks. Maybe a lot of them can’t find jobs.
At least Laura and Daken are . . . employed. That’s one thing he can be thankful for. In this economy! No one thought the Great Recession would last this long.
He sours. He can’t help it. Why should his kids have to do these shitty jobs? he thinks. Why them? Why not someone else’s kids?
Then he sits back and rolls his eyes. Whom is he kidding? Laura and Daken were built for this kind of work. No—this kind of work was built for them. Isn’t he lucky? He could have squeamish children instead—children who come home from Afghanistan all fucked up. Or who steer away from medical school because they can’t tolerate the sight of blood.
During moments like this, Logan feels a certain disgust for himself—and for the entire situation. He’s hypocritical, he knows. But it’s not the killing that bothers him. It’s the fact that Daken and Laura both lack the capacity to have rich emotional lives. Daken especially. Laura—well, she is what she is. But Daken’s lack of self-reflexivity upsets him. Logan knows from experience that the path back from so much programming isn’t an easy one, but Daken seems to willfully shirk his own humanity.
And the kid still doesn’t have any pride. It’s bad enough that he’s X-Force’s sex bait, but does he have to be so pleased about it? Initially, Logan had read Daken’s actions as more attention-getting behavior—just another way to piss off dear old dad. While Logan was in New York, Daken was earning his X-Force kneepads. The stories filtered down to him. Daken liked his new job, people said. Loved it. He really had a lot to offer—who would have thought it! He knew how to blend in at high-class restaurants. And how to wine and dine with the West Coast’s anti-mutant elites. He never had a problem getting past hotel security. And he was so goddamn discreet. Just look at the newspapers—they rarely said anything. Oh, once in a while there’d be a blurb about Representative So-and-So who met with an unfortunate “boating accident” while staying at a seaside resort. Or a small article about Justice What’s His Face whose untimely death was surrounded by “mysterious circumstances.”
And that’s all people would say. To Logan’s face. He still overheard things.
“Better him than us.”
“He really knows how to take one for the team.”
“What are you talking about? He doesn’t take one for the team. He takes an entire team.”
Logan thought about confronting Daken, but he knew that confrontation would only make things worse. Daken would know that he’d gotten to Logan, and he would start looking for new and amazing ways to shock and awe.
“It’s his life,” Summers said when Logan told him to take Daken off the team. Daken had just gotten his ass kicked—inexplicably—by a terrorist cell while planting evidence in a dockside warehouse. Logan suspected that the ass-kicking had included a gang rape—and he had a feeling that Daken had willingly let it happen in order to keep his cover.
“You’re just loving it, Cyclops. My son’s a cum dumpster, and that’s the fucking highlight of your day.”
Scott’s lower lip twitched.
“Don’t give me the sad clown shit,” Logan said. “If this was your son—”
“But it’s not,” Scott said. “It’s yours, and it’s his choice, and that’s just something you’re going to have to deal with.”
***
When he gets back to the beach house, Laura and Daken are upstairs. Music is playing. Daken clamors down the stairs. “Under my umbrella, ella, ella,” he sings. He slips into the kitchen. Then he catches a glimpse of Logan and comes back into the main room.
Daken’s hair is teased. He’s wearing eyeliner, and his nails are freshly painted. “Didn’t hear you come in, Dad.”
“Where are you going?”
“Out,” he says. He calls up the stairs to Laura. She comes down. Her hair is done up in about twenty different braids and she’s wearing a miniskirt and fishnet stockings. She too is plastered with a lot of makeup—lipstick and eyeliner and about four coats of eye shadow.
“Holy shit,” Logan says.
“Like her hair?” Daken says. “I did it myself.”
“Where the hell are you two going looking like that?”
Daken pouts. “Are you going to tell us we can’t go out like this? Because we got invited to a party.”
“A party?”
Laura straightens her skirt. “The graduation party of Felipe Hernandez. He lives two and a half blocks away. He graduated yesterday from California State Long Beach. He’s twenty-three years old and holds a degree in accounting but hasn’t yet passed his C.P.A. exam.”
“And he just . . . asked you to his graduation party,” Logan says.
“It’s what people do,” Daken says. He winks. “I make friends everywhere I go.”
This time they don’t ask Logan to come along. They leave him alone in the beach house. He watches TV and drinks a beer and climbs into bed around midnight.
When he gets into bed, he just lies there and thinks. He can’t sleep. He dislikes himself right now. He doesn’t know why spending time with Daken and Laura is such a chore. He should be happy for this opportunity, right?
Thing is, he loves the kids. He’s just not sure that he likes them.
They come home around three. He hears the back door swing open and slam shut. For a couple of assassins, they aren’t too stealthy. Daken says something and snickers in the dark. They go into the room and climb into bed. A couple of minutes later, their breathing is calm and even. They’re asleep.
Logan dozes off but wakes up around seven. He listens for Daken and Laura. They’re no longer in bed. He can hear them downstairs. He can smell food, too.
In the kitchen, Daken’s wearing a bathrobe and stirring some pancake batter in a large white bowl. Laura’s perched on a stool and sitting next to the center island. She’s got a game of Connect Four in front of her.
Daken smiles when he sees Logan. “Good morning, starshine.”
“Did you have fun last night?”
Daken stirs the batter. Laura looks up. She drops a black chip into a slot.
“We sure did.” He chuckles. “Laura gave a guy a blowjob under the boardwalk.”
“What!”
“I did not,” Laura says, slipping in another black chip. “Daken is the one who performed an act of fellatio.”
“Laura sweetie,” Daken whispers softly, his eyebrow cocked. “Blowjob. Say it.”
Logan feels ill. “Jesus Christ.” He lowers himself onto a stool. “Why the hell would you do something like that?”
Daken pauses in mid stir. Shrugs. “Do you want some café con leche, Daddy?”
Logan looks up and covers his mouth with one hand. Sighs. “Son.”
Daken turns around dribbles some batter onto the frying pan. “How many do you want, Logan?”
“I have no appetite.” He turns away at an angle and takes a few deep breaths. “Daken,” he says. He looks at Laura. Maybe he should ask her to leave. Then again, maybe she should hear this.
“Oh Logan, spare me the boring lecture. We had a great time. I just happened to finish the night by giving Felipe a graduation present he won’t forget.”
“And what did he give you?”
Daken turns sharply. “Did you really just ask that question?” He smiles.
Logan sets a hand on the counter. “I’m serious, Daken. What do you get out of all of this? All of this whoring around, huh? Do you think it’s pissing me off? Because I got news for you. It is. But forget about me—you’re only hurting yourself. You’re turning yourself into a thing.” He reaches into his shirt pocket for a cigarette. Then he remembers that he quit smoking.
“Can we save the whole my-body-is-a-temple speech for another time?” Daken says. “Because my body isn’t a temple. It’s not even a Las Vegas wedding chapel.”
Logan rises to his feet.
“Stop acting so pure, Logan. Mr. one-night stand.”
“There is a difference,” Logan says, “between having sex and being a whore.”
Laura looks up from her Connect Four game. She’s waiting to know the difference between having sex and being a whore. She has no idea.
“You’re so predictable, Logan. So fucking . . . nineteenth-century. You’re just pissed off because I have sex with men, and that makes me a slut. If I’d gotten my cock sucked last night by some chick named Tiffany, you’d be buying me a beer and asking for details.”
Logan closes his eyes. Opens them. “That’s not true. It doesn’t bother me that you’re bisexual.”
“I’m not bisexual!” Daken says. He sets the pancake batter down with a clunk.
“He’s not,” Laura confirms. “Daken does not subscribe to identity politics.”
“Fine,” Logan says. He glances at Laura. “Maybe you should leave, honey.”
“I have no secrets, Logan. She can hear.”
Logan looks Daken straight in the face. “Son, what you do for X-Force? It hurts.”
“I kill people for X-Force,” Daken says. “Same as you. Same as X.”
“You know what I mean. It hurts you and it hurts everybody else. The team. It strips away your dignity. It cheapens the mission.”
“Jesus Christ, Logan,” Daken says. “Way to ratchet up the melodrama—by being a sanctimonious little bitch. What do you think X-Force is about? So it’s okay to kill people but not fuck them in the meantime? And by the way, X-Force’s numbers are pretty goddamn rosy since I joined. We make more headway than the X-Men and the Avengers combined.” He laughs to himself. “Maybe I should join all of your teams.”
“X-Force might be a black-ops team,” Logan says, “but it still requires a little dignity. There are certain things that are beneath even us. And you do all of them. And don’t stand here and tell me that you’re not doing these things just to piss me off. Because son? That’s just not a good reason.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Daken says. “I still hate your guts. But I don’t take it up the ass for you. Not now, not ever. You’re not worth that kind of pain, Daddy.” He smirks. “And just in case you’re wondering? When I’ve got some sixty-year-old mutant hater’s wrinkled dick shoved down my throat triggering my gag reflex, and it’s all I can do not to put my claws up his ass, you’re not the one I think ab—”
“Daken—” Laura says. She points to the stove. The pancakes are burning.
Daken takes the frying pan from the stove and shoves it into the sink. He turns to leave the room. Then he stops. “Sorry X and I are so far beneath your lofty standards, Dad. I know you inspire a lot of devotion in others, and it must be devastating for you, that we’re not like Hisako and Jubilee and what’s-her-face United Colors of Benetton model and the rest of Team Logan. That your own DNA produced such a pair of odious individuals.”
Now who's being melodramatic? “Quit acting like a victim,” Logan says. “You haven’t earned the right.”
Daken stalks out of the kitchen and goes upstairs. Logan can hear him shuffling around up there, throwing things. He suspects that Daken will pack up his shit and leave. Instead, he comes down in a half an hour wearing the tightest, skimpiest pair of bikini bottoms Logan has ever seen in his life. They’re black with pink and red dots.
Daken doesn’t even look at him. He tells X that he left the bikini wax in the bathroom and that she’s welcome to use it. Then he goes out to the porch and grabs a raft and heads to the pool. Hours later, he’s still floating in the middle of it. Logan watches from the porch. When X gets into the pool and swims over to him, he paddles away. Christ, he’s so moody. He’s like a chick.
But this observation doesn’t change the fact that Logan feels bad. What Daken said is sort of right. He does prefer spending time with some of the other kids. Other people’s kids—they laugh. They approach the future with pragmatism and wonder. Even if they’ve seen shitty things, and even if they’ve been traumatized—well, they’re still excited to begin their lives.
In the middle of the day, Logan puts on a hat and goes down to the beach. He finds Daken sitting on a chair in the sun, his feet buried in the sand. He’s reading Faulkner.
“It’s hot out here,” Logan says.
“Yeah. Like a desert.” Daken closes his book and looks straight ahead. “On the bright side, the best thing about our mutation is that we don’t have to worry about UVA rays. Sun block smells bad.”
“Son,” Logan begins.
Daken holds up a hand. “Let’s not ruin the moment, Logan.”
Logan looks at the ocean. People surf. Kids play in the waves. He didn’t know that he and Daken were having a moment.
“I just—” Logan says. “I just want you to know that there’s more to sex than just getting what you want. Or giving someone else what you think they expect. Sex shouldn’t be a job, son. It should be something you enjoy. It should make you feel good. Not just physically. Emotionally, too.” He can’t believe he’s saying this! He knows that all this talk of emotions is lost on Daken. He’s not even going to touch the whole love aspect. Right now, that’s too advanced for Daken. Way too advanced.
Daken doesn’t say anything.
“It’s not right, what X-Force is doing to you.”
“I don’t care.”
“I know,” Logan says. “But you will. Right now, you’re being used. And remember how we talked about being used? How the people who use us make us feel like we’re in control, even when we’re not?”
Daken shifts his gaze to Logan. Sniffs.
“That’s not to say you should quit,” Logan says quickly. He doesn’t want Daken to do something rash. “I just think you should be more . . . aware. Go into these things with your eyes open. If you don’t want to do something, then don’t do it.”
“Thanks Oprah,” Daken says. He reaches for his book again.
That night, Laura and Daken don’t go out. They play Connect Four together. Then they wander into the living room together and watch TV.
The next morning, Daken sleeps in. They all sleep in. They don’t come downstairs until half past nine. No pancakes this time—just cereal and coffee. It’s Father’s Day, but none of them seem to give a shit—including Logan.
“Christ, what are you wearing?” Logan says to Daken.
Daken looks down at himself. He’s wearing a pair of boxers and a tight tee-shirt with big scripted pink letters. It says “Daddy’s Little Princess.” The tee-shirt was clearly designed for a child. He shrugs.
“That’s mine!” Laura says with a huge gasp. She looks horrified. (Logan can’t remember her ever getting so fired up about anything.) “You’re ruining it! You’re stretching the fibers. I can see it coming apart at the seams.”
“It’s not yours. You found it on the beach. And it was too small for you anyway, Laura darling,” Daken says. “I told you to lay off the ice cream.”
“That tee-shirt’s not fit for anybody,” Logan says. “It just shouldn’t exist.” He pops his claws. “You want me to do the honors, son?”
Two hours later, they’re ready to say goodbye to the beach and head back up to San Francisco. Daken says that he’s driving. Logan relents. He locks up the beach house and walks around to the driveway.
Daken and Laura are already in the car, the engine going. But that’s not what catches Logan’s attention. It’s the tee-shirt, cut to the size of a small flag, hanging from the antenna.
“You get shotgun,” Daken calls from the driver’s side. His tattooed arm dangles from the window. He reaches up and slaps the roof of the car.