Fathers' Day

Two stories nearly side by side in the New York Daily News1, each one terrible in its own way, each one describing the unnecessary death of a child.2

The first story, "Dad crushed over death of little Kyle," tells the story of one Elliot Smith, suffering through the loss of his recently-murdered 3-year old son:

The boy's guardian, Nymeen Cheatham, 30, has admitted to beating Kyle with a hairbrush and her hands in the Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment she shared with her boyfriend, Lemar Martin, 25. Martin told cops he hit the boy repeatedly in the arm.

The article claims that Kyle's "drug addict mother was unable to take care of him," thus he wound up in the safekeeping of Cheatham, a woman who had no legal claim to the boy, and who had had her own four biological children removed from her custody, before moving to New York from Texas.

But the article brings us no closer to the true mystery of the story, the question that's between each of its lines. All it says on that subject: "It was unclear why Smith did not claim his younger son." A question that Smith is very likely asking himself tonight.

*      *      *

Seeking refuge from the awfulness, I turn the page3 and find "Bronx girl at play struck by cabbie"—this time, the story of M'Mah Bangoura, playing in an open fire hydrant. The spray of water apparently hid her from view: she was struck by a cab and killed.

The cabbie immediately called his girlfriend, to say he "thought he had hit a little girl." "He wasn't certain," the girlfriend told police. Then the cabbie drove the injured girl to the hospital, where she died.

The article said nothing of the girl's mother, but described the father, understandably, as "brokenhearted." "Every day, after school, she calls me," sobbed the dad, "and today I didn't get the call."

*      *      *

As holidays go, Father's Day is often taken to be a somewhat artificial and arbitrary one: it lacks pedigree (having been invented in the 20th century) and lacks uniformity (celebrated on different days in different countries). "In recent years, retailers have adapted to the holiday by promoting male-oriented gifts such as electronics, tools and greeting cards," says Wikipedia. And that's most of what there is to say about Father's Day.

Without fail, day after day, newspapers report on random, sudden acts of violence, and label them "tragic." They are "tragedies," the papers say—as if we, the chorus, bearing witness to the unfolding awfulness, stand something to learn from it all. I don't know what to learn from it all. But I do know that this year, Father's Day will be, to me, a little less artificial, a little less arbitrary.

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1. New York City's paper of ill repute.

2. The adjective would seem to imply that there is such a thing as the "necessary" death of a child.

3. This being the Daily News, if I were really seeking refuge from the awfulness, I'd have put the paper down.