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Lew Watts

Sharkey

“You let me watch Jaws at 4 years of age!?”

the bit
where Bambi’s mum dies . . .
unable to commit

A hypnotherapist has asked my son to document anything that could explain his fear of the deep. It’s not that he can’t swim. He can glide endless laps at the shallow end of any pool. But water beyond chest-height is a challenge, while lakes, rivers, and (god forbid) the sea are impossible. “Okay, what else?” he asks down the phone.

Well, I could talk about our trip to Oman. After promising there were no “Biteys” in the water, I watched him shoot clean out of the sea and onto the boat more gracefully than any penguin as a shiver of Blacktip Reef Sharks swam by.

Or perhaps those days at the neighbor’s pool. His giggles would turn to shrieks as I pulled the mask over my face and slid quietly into the water, singing the theme music to Jaws through the snorkel before diving under his float—dunn dunn dunn dunn dunn dunn dunn dunn… And then, when I could sense his panic, I would reach up frantically with a clawed hand to grab him, to drag him under. Yes, he loved that.

There’s more, much more, but there was always that song. I used to pretend it was a joke, and I still do. But the truth is it was my way of trying to be a father, that traumatizing sons was good for them, would toughen them up.

first day of school
my mother’s make-up
on the bruises

“Dad, you still there? Dad, say something. No, Dad, not that, not that, Dad . . . .”

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About the Author

Lew Watts is the author of Tick-Tock (Snapshot Press, 2019), a haibun collection that received an Honorable Mention in the Haiku Society of America’s 2020 Merit Book Awards. His publications include the novel Marcel Malone and the poetry collection Lessons for Tangueros. He lives in Chicago.