All I Can Say Is Thank You, Son, for the Hook

So here we are in the black hole between two seasons--football and baseball--left without our two favorite sports for a few long winter weeks, till pitchers and catchers report and the sun comes out again.

“I need a hook,” the boy says at the kitchen table, nearly passed out over his homework.

“I need a hook,” he grumbles again.

He is writing an essay for school, and he needs a hook to snare readers, to grab them in the first few sentences and never let go. It’s a significant part of his grade.

“I could help you with a hook,” his older sister says.

“You could?” he asks.

“But it would be my hook,” she explains, “a high school hook.”

“I wouldn’t mind a high school hook,” the boy says.

“No way,” says his sister, withdrawing the hook. “The teacher would know it was a high school hook right away.”

And his sister leaves, and the boy goes back to resting on his notebook paper and his elbow, using them for a pillow the way boys do, hoping his thoughts somehow go directly from his head to the piece of paper under his head, a direct transfer of knowledge. For a long time, it doesn’t work.

So he takes a break to bake a cake for his mother, a Valentine’s cake, heart shaped and sprinkled with pink sugar, higher on one end than the other.

More and more, boys are baking their own cakes. Many women can’t bake anymore. Or won’t. Too much symbolism. Or something. Then there’s that messy cleanup.

*

So the boys do it. It’s not that difficult. The instructions are usually right there on the box.

“Here’s your cake,” the boy says.

“Thanks,” his mother says, standing in the kitchen holding a lopsided cake.

“I need a hook,” the boy moans as he goes back to his essay.

These are tough times to be a boy. Football’s over. Baseball has yet to begin.

To fill the void, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition will soon arrive in the mail, filled with dozens of long-stemmed young athletes in skimpy uniforms prancing on some beach with a bunch of old canoes.

His mother, afraid the swimsuit edition will wind up in little hands other than her own, will immediately toss it in the trash.

These are tough times to be a boy.

“Anybody got a hook?” the boy moans into his elbow. “Anybody?”

On the couch, I sit waiting for the next Super Bowl to begin, figuring that it’s only about 50 weeks away now, and the pregame show should be coming on at any moment.

I check Fox, then CBS. Nothing. Just a big fuss about golf. That’s how far we’ve fallen as a nation. Golf boils our blood.

“I’ll check the mail,” I tell my wife.

“Again?” she asks.

“I’ll be right back,” I say.

So I walk out to the end of the driveway, where a young couple is pulling up to the house that’s for sale across the street.

One after another they come, handsome and eager young couples in their Accords and their Jettas and their great, shimmering hair.

Each time, it’s the same. They look at the listing, then at the house. Then at the listing.

I know what they’re thinking. They’re thinking, “That much? How can this little house be that much?”

Part of living in California is to have the “that much?” feeling at some point in your life. Across the street, it’s happening on an hourly basis.

The brave ones get out of the car and wander up the driveway. Sometimes the wife is pregnant. Sometimes they hold hands. They look at the house from all angles, wondering if it’ll turn out to be their dream home. In 10 minutes, most of the couples are gone.

“Remember our first house?” I say to my wife when I get back inside.

“No,” she says.

“Big place, no kitchen,” I say.

“Now I remember,” she says.

*

This is how we talk now. We’ve been together so long that we know what the other is thinking at almost any given moment. So we make up these little dialogues to throw each other off track. To a certain extent, it replaces flirting and foreplay.

“I hope we get good neighbors,” my wife says.

“Someone with a loud dog,” I say.

“Drug dealers would be nice,” she says.

“Maybe a car wash,” I say.

We stand by the kitchen window watching the next young couple pull up to the house. I sip her coffee. She eats my toast.

My wife and I have been together 21 years this past weekend. Valentine’s Day is the anniversary of our second date, the closest we can remember to the exact time we started going out.

For the first 10 years, they were a big thing, these anniversaries. Then they lapsed a little.

*

Now, my wife is noting them again. Twenty-one years together. At this point, we’ve lived longer with each other than with our own parents.

“In a sense, I’ve raised you,” I tell her when she brings up the anniversary.

“Kind of like Woody Allen,” she says.

“You look young, Dad,” says the little red-haired girl.

“So do you,” I say, making a mental note to have the kid’s eyes checked.

Across the street, another car pulls up. A young couple gets out. Sure enough, she’s pregnant. They walk up the driveway, probably wondering what their young marriage has in store. Not much, probably. Kids. Homes. Mortgages. Lopsided Valentine’s cakes. Super Bowls.

“If they only knew . . .” I mumble.

“What?” asks my wife.

“Your eyes are so blue,” I say.

“Thanks,” she says.

“Mom’s eyes are brown,” the little girl says.

“If they only knew . . .” I say.

*

Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.