Okay, all right, I was no angel. One night - Penny was pregnant; she wasn't feeling well. We'd just moved; there was a lot of tension. So I pop into this disco to decompress. I see this hot looking chick, Marge. I 'd seen her there before - a real knockout. So we do some coke - seemed innocent enough at the time - she keeps coming on to me. In a moment of weakness, I go with her to her pad over her plant store. We smoke some wacko weed she grew herself. This is the kind of woman ... I wake up with the imprint of her Mark Cross rape whistle on my chest.
She starts asking me all sorts of questions about my family background-my talents, my IQ. She loves it that I have these eyes like David Bowie. See, look, Ted, one green and one blue? You never noticed? Turns out she wants me to be a sperm donor to these two friends of hers who want a baby. So I'm in a weird mood, I say, "Hell, why not?" then she gives me this turkey baster, wants me to ejaculate into it. I freaked at first, but then she explained it and it made perfect sense. So I did it. The drugs and all. I got caught up in the moment. Then, of course, when I came down, I think of Penny ... pregnant and all... the guilt hits me like a karate chop. So I go home and tell Penny everything that happened 'cause we'd made this promise that we wouldn't let lies start building up between us. That was my real mistake - telling her. I was so sure she'd forgive me and we'd be back on track. Well, I was wrong; I should've just let the lies pile up. The one time in my life I make a conscious effort to be honest and it blows up in my face.
Few weeks later, Penny has the baby. Can I show you something? See this? Polaroid. Nurse took it at the moment of my son's birth. That's me and Penny in the delivery room, breathing like two hippos with a chest cold. I was right there. Penny wanted the bonding things that's supposed to happen, but then, a few years later, so did the divorce. That's Paul Junior - see, there's his little head peeping out. Isn't life too much? Now I can see the beauty! But at the time I almost passed out.
Penny's remarried, moved to Georgia; I haven't seen little Paulie since...too long. Lately I been thinking of that Marge chick and her friends - the thought occurs , Ted, that maybe I've got this secret kid. Chances are I have, 'cause I probably got a sperm count like the national defecit.
There was one time on TV I see this genius - child prodigy or something - playing the violin like he was possessed. I almost switch channels, when it suddenly hits me like a karate chop - the kid looks like me when I was his age. I just about freak. I try to get a close look at his eyes. I could swear one was blue and one was green. I even go call the station, but the said they weren't allowed to take messages like that. So anyway the girl I'm with tells me I'm nutto and shows me how much coke I'd done. So I guess I let my imagination run away with me, but I still think, you know, "What if?"
Once, I obsessed to the point I go back to the plant store thinking maybe I could talk Marge into telling me, do I have this secret kid or not? All they tell me at the store is Marge is dead. Blew me away. She'd practically be the godmother of my kid.
But I get these psychic flashes sometimes; I feel almost sure, except for the genius part, that could have been my kid. I am very psychic, Ted. Like sometimes, I can tune in to a rerun of Twilight Zone and I somehow will sense before it begins which episode it's going to be. I can't stop thinking about it. I ask myself, "What's he like?" "Is he happy?" "Does he have the proper male role model?" "Did the bonding thing happen, I wonder?"