A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (13 page)

We have found a school for Toph, a peculiar little private school called Black Pine Circle, which has given him what amounts to a full scholarship, even though we could pretty comfortably pay for the tuition. We have some money, from the house, from the insurance policy our father took out shortly before his death. Things have been taken care of. But because we are owed, we take the free ride. It
’
s largely Beth
’
s doing, Beth being as much or more owed than Toph and I, and she being gloriously adept at
wringing money from our situation. It worked for her law school tuition, which, considering her (stated) status as a single parent, was waived. Even if it wasn
’
t free, Beth would still be, as she is, half delirious with joy about getting back onto campus in the fall, a few months hence, slipping back into that world and letting it overtake her, flushing out the everything about last year. She is giddy, hyper, and we are both blowing the summer, because we are owed. I am doing nothing much. Toph and I are playing frisbee, are going to the beach. I am taking a class in furniture-painting, and I am taking the class very seriously. I am spending a good deal of time painting furniture in the backyard, and while I am applying my twelve years of art education to the painting of furniture, I am wondering what I will do, in a more general, futuristic sense, what exactly I will do. My furniture is good, I think—I am taking thrift-store furniture, end tables mostly, sanding them down, arid then painting on them pictures of fat men
’
s faces, blue goats, and lost socks. I have it in my head that I will sell these tables, will find a boutique somewhere in town and will sell them for, say,
$
1,000 per, and when I am hard at work on one of my tables, deep
“
inside
”
one, you might say, solving the unique problems of a new piece—
is this rendering of a severed foot too facile, too commercial?
—it seems
that what I am doing is noble, meaningful, and will all too likely make me celebrated and wealthy. I come inside in the afternoon, remove my thick rubber gloves, and on the deck, as the sun sets I permit my own bright glow to subside for the evening. Maybe I will have to get a job at some point, but for the time being, for the summer at least, I am allowing us time to enjoy this, this lack of anything, this lack of humidity, this time to look around. Toph is going to summer camp on the Berkeley campus, run by the university
’
s athletes, and his skills at everything from lacrosse to football to baseball and frisbee make it obvious that soon enough he will be a three-sport (at least) professional athlete and will marry an actress. We assume more scholarships, more gifts spread before
us by the embarrassed and sorry world. Beth and I take turns driving him to and fro, down the hill and up again and otherwise we lose weeks like buttons, like pencils.

The cars flash around the turns of Highway 1, jump out from cliffs, all glass and light. Each one could kill us. All could kill us. The possibilities leap into my head—we could be driven off the cliff and down and into the ocean. But fuck, we
’
d make it, Toph and I, given our cunning, our agility, our presence of mind. Yes, yes. If we collided with a car at sixty miles per hour on Highway 1, we could jump out in time. Yes, Toph and I could do that. We
’
re quick-thinking, this is known, yes, yes. See, after the collision, as our red Civic arced through the sky, we would quickly plan out— no, no, we would instantly
know the plan
—what to do, the plan of course being obvious, so obvious: as the car arced downward, we would each, simultaneously, open our doors, car still descending, then each make our way to the outside of the car, car still descending, each on one side of the car, and then we would we would we would
stand on the car
’
s frame
for a second, car still descending, each holding on to the open car door or the car roof, and then, ever so briefly, as the car was now only thirty feet or so above the water, seconds until impact, we would look at each other knowingly—
“
You know what to do
”
;
“
Roger that
”
(we wouldn
’
t actually say these words, wouldn
’
t need to)—and then we
’
d both, again simultaneously of course, push off the car, so as to allow the appropriate amount of space between our impact and the car
’
s once we all landed, and then, as the Civic crashed into the ocean
’
s mulchy glass, we would, too, though in impeccable divers
’
form, having changed our trajectory mid-flight, positioning our hands first, forward and cupped properly, our bodies perpendicular to the water, our toes pointed—
perfect!
We
’
d plunge under, half-circle back to the surface and then break through, into the sun, whip our heads
to shake the water from our hair and then swim to each other, as the car with bubbles quickly drowned.

me: Whew! That was close!

he: I
’
ll say!

ME: You hungry?

HE: Hey, you read my mind.

Toph is in Little League too, on a team coached by two black men, these two black men being Nos. One and Two among the black men that Toph has ever known. His team (and the coaches, too, as a matter of fact) wear red uniforms and practice on a field in a pine-surrounded park two blocks up the hill from our sublet, where the view is even more startling. I bring a book to the practices, guessing that watching eight-to-ten-year-olds run drills will be boring, but it is anything but. It
’
s enthralling. I watch every movement, watch them gather around the coach for instructions, watch them shag balls, watch them go to the drinking fountain. No, I don
’
t watch all of them, of course not, I watch Toph, follow his new, oversized red felt hat moving through the drills, watch him waiting his turn, watch him field a ground ball, turn and throw it to the coach at second, watch only him, even as he
’
s waiting in line, to see if he
’
s talking with the other kids, if he
’
s getting along, strain to see if he
’
s being accepted, if—though I occasionally catch one of the black kids doing something extraordinary—there are two stars, a boy and girl, both tall and fast and preternaturally gifted, miles ahead of all the rest, loose and lazy with their talent. During the drills, I wait for Toph
’
s turn, and when it comes time for him to field a grounder or cover second for a 4-3-2,1 almost die from the pressure.

Should have had that one.

Good, good, good.

Oh, God, c
’
mon!

I say nothing, but it
’
s all I can do to avoid making noises. He catches well, can catch anything really—we
’
ve been working on that since he was four—but the hitting... why can
’
t the kid hit?
A lighter bat?
Choke up!
Quick bat!
Quick bat! Jesus Christ, that was served up like a fat fucking steak. Hit the ball.
Hit that coconut, boy!

I was never much of a baseball player, but did pretend to know enough to land a job as a T-ball coach and sports camp director during half of my high school and college summers. When Toph was old enough, he attended, came in with me every day, gloating shyly in the celebrity born of being the brother of the camp director, as dashing as he was.

I watch, and the mothers watch. I do not know how to interact with the mothers.
Am I them?
They occasionally try to include me in a conversation, but it
’
s clear they don
’
t know what to make of me. I look over and smile when one of them makes a joke that is laughed at by all. They laugh, I chuckle—not too much, I don
’
t want to seem overeager, but enough to say
“
I hear you. I laugh with you. I share in the moment.
”
But when the chuckling is over I am still apart, something else, and no one is sure what I am. They don
’
t want to invest their time in the brother sent to pick up Toph while his mother cooks dinner or is stuck at work or in traffic. To them I
’
m a temp. A cousin maybe. The young boyfriend of a divorcee? They don
’
t care.

Fuck it. I don
’
t want to be friends with these women, anyway. Why would I care? I am not them. They are the old model and we are the new.

I watch Toph interact with the other kids, scanning, guessing, suspecting.

Why are those kids laughing?

What are they laughing at? Is it Toph
’
s hat? It
’
s too big, right?

Who are those little pricks? Yll break those little fuckers.

Oh.

Oh, it was that. Just that. Heh heh. Heh.

After practice, we walk home, down the road, Marin Road, a pure forty-five-degree monster. It
’
s almost impossible to walk it without looking ridiculous, but Toph has invented a walk that surmounts the problem—it
’
s a kind of groovy walk, with his legs bent extravagantly, his arms sort of swimming in front of him, a grabbing of air and sending it behind him in a way that makes him look, in the end, much more normal than the arm-flailing, sole-slapping awkwardness the road normally necessitates. It
’
s an extremely happening walk.

As we hit our street, Spruce, and the ground flattens out, I inquire, as gently as I possibly can, about his hitting, or lack thereof.

“
So why do you suck so much at hitting?
”

“
I don
’
t know.
”

“
Maybe you need a lighter bat.
”

“
You think?
”

“
Yeah, maybe we
’
ll get a new bat.
”

“
Can we?
”

“
Yeah, we
’
ll look for a new bat or something.
”

Then I push him into a bush.

We are still driving. We are going to the beach. While we drive, when there is not watershed rock and roll on the radio, watershed rock and roll conceived and executed by masters of modern music-making, we play word games. There must be noise, there must be music and games. No silence. We are playing the game where you have to come up with the names of baseball players, using the first letter of the last name to start the next first name.

“
Jackie Robinson,
”
I say.

“
Randy Johnson,
”
he says.

“
Johnny Bench,
”
I say.

“
Who?
”

“
Johnny Bench. Reds catcher.
”

“
Are you sure?
”

“
What do you mean?
”

“
I
’
ve never heard of him.
”

“
Johnny Bench?
”

“
Yeah.
”

“
So?
”

“
So maybe you
’
re making him up.
”

Toph collects baseball cards. He can name the going price for every card he owns—thousands, if you count the collection he inherited from Bill. Still, though, he doesn
’
t know anything about anything. I stay cool, though he deserves to have his head knocked against the window. You should hear the sound that makes. It
’
s amazing, even he says so.

Johnny
Bench?
Johnny fucking
Bench?

“
Trust me,
”
I say.
“
Johnny Bench.
”

We stop at a beach on the way. I stop at this beach because I have heard about the existence of beaches like these, and then, on the fat side of a wide bend, a few miles from Montara, there is this certain beach, this beach with a sign that says
“
Nude Beach.
”
I am suddenly reeling with curiosity. I pull over, jump out of the car—

“
Is this it?
”
he asks.

“
Maybe,
”
I say, lost, dizzy—