Nikki is the kind of mom I generally give a wide berth. She is head of the parent board, volunteers for school and charity events, raises money like a champ, works out every day and drives her daughter all over town for activities. I’m more the type to drop my kid off at school and forget about him until pick-up. I’m the kind of person who thinks working out every day is best left as a good idea. So I couldn’t imagine being friendly with Nikki. She was too… capable. What ever would we talk about? Fundraisers? PTA politics? Being friends with Nikki would be a slippery slope. Before long I would be organizing teacher appreciation days and volunteering to be a room parent. I had anxiety just thinking about it. But Nikki had, of course, been the nice mom who had called to welcome my family when my son started the same school as her daughter. So when Nikki just happened to be walking her dog by my house recently, I did what good people do and invited her in to chat.
Then the bomb dropped and the lens through which I saw Nikki was forever changed. “Wait… your father did what?” I asked again. She gave me a quick sketch of the way she was raised and I was speechless. It did not match the image of the supermom I had constructed. I told Nikki that her story was too good to waste. You have to write it, I told her. Nah, she said. I’m a good talker but I’m just not a writer. I studied her for a long moment and then said, “Well, I am.”
Suddenly I had purchased a microphone and was spending hours interviewing Nikki, her extended family and the characters in the life of Nikki’s colorful father. I have been incredibly moved and delighted by the stories of this extraordinary man and have decided that somebody has to tell them. So the following article is part of a bigger piece I am writing that is taken from the true events and the real life of Daddy Harry: Porno’s Mensch.