“So did you see your mom and her limp dick husband?” Jason’s father, Randy, grabbed a handful of pills off of his TV tray and downed them with a shot of Idaho Gold Canadian Whisky.

Idaho Gold was the state’s equivalent of a generic spirit, the cheapest that you could find in any of the state-licensed liquor stores. Unlike states such as California, where you could buy liquor at a variety of outlets, including grocery chains and 7-11s, in Idaho, liquor could only be sold from a store with a state license. There was nothing “gold” about “Idaho Gold,” which was hardly a step above bathtub gin, and Jason was sure there were moonshiners making better booze in the swamps of Louisiana.

“You’re not taking Tylenol, are you?” Jason asked, even though he knew his dad was going to blow up.

“So you’re here to lecture me?” His dad shot him a look with red eyes. “Let’s see you with a bad back, and how you handle it, when the pain is so bad you can hardly sleep.”

His dad was a carpenter who worked building houses, and one day when he was helping a roofer, he fell from the roof and landed on his back. Unlike California, with its high-paying union jobs, construction in Idaho wasn’t as regular and didn’t pay as well, so construction workers who injured themselves in this state often couldn’t afford proper treatment. Instead, they self-medicated with a combination of booze and over-the-counter medicines. Now that pot was legal in Oregon, some construction workers slipped over the border to buy marijuana to help medicate themselves.

“I’m not here to lecture you,” Jason said to pacify him. “I’m just worried. I told you that Tylenol is hard on your liver. I don’t even know how they can sell that.”

Jason’s father speared the last bit of Salisbury steak in his TV dinner and shoveled it into his mouth. Randy used to be thin, but after the accident, and sitting home on disability, watching TV, and eating frozen food, he’d put on weight, not to mention that he drank too much.

Jason’s dad poured a shotglass full of Idaho Gold, and handed the glass to Jason, who had been dreading that. “Don’t worry about germs; the liquor kills ‘em.”

Jason downed the shot and tried not to grimace. He set the empty shotglass onto his dad’s TV tray. Actually, the generic Canadian whisky was not as bad as the Idaho Gold tequila his dad bought once, which made Jason sick.

“So you and Mr. Pantywaist get along okay?” Randy looked at his son and cracked open a can of beer.

Jason knew that was a loaded question. “Well, I don’t want to tear the guy down or anything, but…”

“Go ahead, that’s what we’re here for.” Jason’s dad had the eager expression of a man who was ringside at a mud pit wrestling match featuring two busty ladies in thong bikinis.

“I can’t talk to the guy, he’s so boring.” Jason raised his shoulders, and lifted his hands palm up. “He’s a wooden figure like Pinocchio, but before he comes to life.”

“Ha, that’s a good one!” Randy slapped Jason on the back a little too hard in his enthusiasm. “He may be dull and have a tiny dick, but he’s got money, don’t he? I guess that’s what counts.”

Jason’s father looked off angrily as the outdoor channel played on the TV, and Bill Dance reeled in a bass. Randy took a long draught of his beer and slammed it back down onto the TV tray, making it shake.

“Don’t ever marry the wrong woman, son.” His dad shook his head from side to side and gnawed his lip. “Everything’s great, until you get hurt, and can’t work. Then she finds some douche with a bunch of money who works at Frooty Treats. Fuckin’ Frooty Treats! Then all of a sudden it’s Randy who? And you lose the house you worked your ass off for.”

Jason’s dad simmered, and Jason could see the resentment bubbling beneath the man’s skin as his eyes narrowed. He poured another shot and handed it to Jason, who braced himself, mentally preparing to gulp down the cheap liquor.

“Look at this place!” his dad waved from the kitchen down the hall to his bedroom, indicating the entirety of his trailer home.

Jason downed the shot and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before handing the glass back to his dad. “Have you thought of getting the back surgery?”

“Nah, once they start cutting on you, you’re never the same.” Randy took a swig of his beer and ran his fork through the gravy in his TV dinner before licking it clean. “Doc says I got a 20% chance of ending up paralyzed.”

Jason wanted to ask, “How would that be different from your life now?” but he knew that his dad would explode. “Have you thought of moving on, maybe finding someone else?”

His dad let out a contemptuous laugh and wasn’t aware that his spittle landed on Jason. “They’re all bitches, and I mean all of them.”

The alcohol had started to kick in, because his father had gone from “Don’t marry the wrong woman” to “They’re all bitches.” The truth was, until Jason’s father started taking care of himself, he wasn’t going to attract any woman, unless it was somebody just as bitter and dysfunctional, and the thought of such a woman scared Jason. “Paralyzed” described his father’s current life, stuck in angry resentment and recriminations, hating women, hating his ex-wife and her new husband, and unable to move forward.

Randy pointed his shotglass at Jason. “Don’t let my dad con you with any of his crazy schemes.” He then poured himself a shot and knocked it back, which he washed down with his beer. “You’ve got a good-paying, stable job as a teacher—don’t blow it.”

“I’m just paying down my debt right now.” Jason hoped that reassured his dad that he wasn’t doing anything crazy. Jason knew his great-grandparents lived through the Great Depression, and so every successive generation of Whitlocks had been taught the same lesson: get a stable job, avoid risk—especially stocks!, buy a house so you’ve got something, always keep plenty of food on hand, and if you can buy a separate freezer and fill that with food, that’s even better.

“Damn stocks. Why not just roll up your money and smoke it? What in the hell is he thinking?” Jason’s dad shook his head and slapped his forehead. “Then he goes off to the Philippines, where the whores there are robbing him blind. He’s fuckin’ 60! Does he think some hot woman wants his old wrinkled ass?”

His dad leaned back, laced his fingers together, and stretched them palms-out to crack his knuckles. “Don’t lose all your money, son, or you’ll wind up like this.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Jason got up from the ratty sofa and put down the comforter he had over his lap to keep him warm in the chilly trailer home. “I’ve got to get going. I’ve got school tomorrow.”

“How ‘bout one for the road?” His dad looked at him expectantly, holding the big 1.75 liter bottle in his hand.

“Thanks, but I’ve got to get up early tomorrow.” Jason waved good-bye to his dad, and his feet echoed on the rickety wooden steps.

He hated visiting his dad, because the guy was so bitter, so full of hate, resentment, and every other ugly emotion, including self-loathing. His dad wasn’t the man he used to be, the guy who loved to watch the Bill Murray movie What About Bob?, quoting the lines verbatim, and laugh until he cried. His dad imitated voices and accents, and would do comedy monologues as an Italian, a black guy, a Mexican, a Chinese, a bureaucrat, an Englishman. None of it was derisive, but sprang from the fact that he loved people, and got along well with all kinds of people, like the Mexican laborers at construction sites, or the Armenian family next door. Because he empathized with people, he could become them, walking around in their shoes and talking like them.

Now his father was a different person. Jason wiped his eyes as he drove home.

* * *

Dr. Steinman shined the penlight in his eye, while pulling the lid down with his thumb. “You’ll be all right. It’s just a black eye. But that’s not why I asked you here. What do you think about getting paid to have sex?”

“Well, uh, Doctor,” Jason stammered, “I’m certain you’re a handsome guy and all, but I’m 100% heterosexual.”

“No, I’m not hitting you up.” The doctor shook his head as he put away his penlight. “I didn’t phrase that well. How about becoming a paid sperm donor?”

“I don’t know about jerking off into a cup, sounds kind of demeaning.” Jason remembered his grandfather and the capuchin describing him as a “broke jerkoff,” so he supposed if he got paid to jerk off, that would actually be an improvement in his miserable state of affairs.

“I should say an in-person sperm donor.” The doctor slid over a chair and sat down.

Jason was puzzled, and had no idea what the doctor was proposing, which had to be what he meant by an “opportunity.”

“Tens of thousands of American men were killed in the Great War,” the doctor began. “As the survivors returned, we should have seen a resurgence in population growth to replace all the men who were killed—the economy needs it—instead, too many of the men are returning shell shocked, and can’t be intimate with their wives. They’re impotent, and can’t perform sexually, not to mention the emotional trauma they’ve experienced. So we’re looking for someone who can discreetly impregnate these women, who are for the most part, young wives without children. You’d be giving them the child they want, but their wounded husbands can’t give them. Think of it as lending a helping hand, or a helping…”

Jason certainly hadn’t expected this. “I mean, shouldn’t you be doing artificial insemination or something?”

“No,” the doctor said flatly. “We have women who are distraught because of their husbands’ injuries, and then to have them come into a sterile clinical environment where a stranger shoves a turkey baster in their vaginas… Not to mention a traditional sperm donor would donate sperm, which has to be collected, then stored, then transferred to a delivery instrument, then injected. A discreet liaison avoids all those needless hassles.”

“Why me?” Jason wondered. “I mean there’s got to be lots of guys who would leap at the chance.”

“I’m certain of that.” The doctor crossed his legs and rested his laced fingers over his kneecap. “If we advertised the position, we’d have a line of several thousand men, I’m sure. But first we need someone who’s healthy and has good genes. We know your medical history, and you’re pretty much a perfect physical specimen. We also need someone who is appropriately…endowed. Betty assures me that you have the tools, and tests show your ejaculate volume, sperm quality and motility…”

“Motility?” Jason asked.

“It means movement,” the doctor explains. “Your sperm have to travel from the vagina to the uterus. They’re all exceptional. So sexually, you make the cut. But there is also an important personal element. The women may have emotional issues, which is why we’re not doing an impersonal artificial insemination. We don’t want some palooka to come in here and just rut like an animal, which anyone can do, but we’re looking for someone with tact, discretion, who can make these women comfortable in what has to be an uncomfortable, awkward situation, and a man who isn’t going to flap his yapper about all the broads he’s banging.”

Jason sat quietly and thought about the radical offer. If he accepted, he would be a fake priest screwing and impregnating married women, which would put him on a greased track to hell. But if he used the money to help fund the shelter, did that make it okay, or perhaps dial down the wickedness level from a 10 to an 8.3?

“I assure you everything will be completely confidential and anonymous.”

“I’ve got a boxing match on the 24th,” Jason told Dr. Steinman, figuring he needed time to figure out what was right, or to build up the nerve to go through with it. “I’ll get back to you after that.”

“Actually, we have a woman in the clinic now, waiting for you.”