Here is what I wrote about him in Bedtime Stories:
"Chet
is our opposite in almost all things. He’s a chubby love ball
quick-crawling to every single friend or stranger in his path. His
charm is so genuine and infectious. I may be a little biased but to me
he’s a genetically engineered hybrid of Bobby Kennedy, Muhammad Ali
and Elvis.
The Caetano song is the perfect
portrait of my son. I memorized it when I was teaching in Brazil, so
far from him and his sister. After the fourth day away I was beginning
to re-member, albeit dimly, the timbre of my life before marriage,
kids and divorce. I’d heard the song for years and knew that it was
one of Caetano’s most popular but it was only on this trip, after I
had taught myself Portuguese, that I understood what he was saying:
I love watching you little lion,
Walking under the sun.
I like you so much little lion.
You take the sadness out of my heart, little lion,
Just by meeting you on the path.
A
lion cub is not only cute, any baby ani-mal is cute, but a lion cub is
also goofy and yet at the same time full of the promise of nobility
and magnificence. That’s all that I see in my son.
I
forced the unfortunate Brazilians at the screenwriting workshop with
me to patiently teach me all the words and that very first night back
home it was my new lullaby for the kids. Ava, as usual, laid
motionless in her tod-dler sleigh bed until I finished the song and
leaned over her . That’s when her arms rose and captured my neck. I
kissed her twice and she turned into her pillow with a smile.
Chet,
on the other hand, had kicked off the blanket I had just tucked around
him in his crib and was sitting up and smiling at me.
Go to bed, now.
I
wrestled him into my arms and held him against his squirming as I sang
him the song again. By the time I delivered him back to his crib he’d
been tranquilized, and nuzzled his tiny nose against my bicep. Not
this night, but often, he would mistake it for a breast and tickle me
by trying to take a sip."
