A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (22 page)

But tonight there is no going out. I went out on Wednesday, so now and for the rest of the week am staying in, holding the world together.

“
Time for bed.
”

“
What time is it?
”

“
Time for bed.
”

“
Is it ten?
”

“
Yes.
”
[Loud exhale.}
“
It
’
s past ten.
”
[Roll of eyes.}
“
I
’
ll meet you there in a second.
”

He gets into bed and under the covers. I sit next to him, my back against the headboard. Bill bought the headboard months ago—every time he
’
s in town we have to go furniture shopping, with him trying to stock the house with antique knockoffs from the warehouse near the highway—but the headboard didn
’
t fit Toph
’
s bedframe, so we
’
ve just set the thing, this big piece of wood, between his bed and the wall, for effect, a headboard playing the role of a headboard.

I get our book from the floor. We read every night, sometimes for a while but usually for just fifteen minutes or so, the longest I can do it before falling asleep myself, but long enough to provide Toph with a degree of comfort, stability, of peace and well-being before drifting off to his child
’
s slumberland—

We
’
re reading John Hersey
’
s
Hiroshima.
Oh sure, there
’
s all the horror, the indescribable suffering, the people
’
s skin coming off like cottage cheese, but, see, I have decided that as much as there will be fun and hilarity in this house, I am determined to also fill this place with sober and lasting learning. Sometimes during dinner, I open randomly and read from the encyclopedia, the massive one-volume thing we bought from the skinny kid selling them door to door. Before this was
Maus.
Before that was
Catch-22,
though we didn
’
t finish that—with the obscure (for him) references and all the characters,
it
was taking us an hour to get through each page. In
Hiroshima,
I skip over really horrific parts, and he listens with the utmost attentiveness because he is perfect—he is just as enthusiastic about our experiment as I am, wants to be the ideal, new-model boy as much as I want to be the ideal, new-model parent. And after I read, carefully explaining the significance of this and that, the historical context (all made up or
approximated), it
’
s always nice just to lie for a minute, on his narrow twin bed, with him under the comforter and me over it, so nice and warm here—

“
Get out.
”

“
Ehmp?
”

“
Out.
”

“
Noo.
”

“
Wake up.
”

“
No, no, no.
”

“
Go to your own bed.
”

“
Oh please, no. We can both fit.
”

“
Out. Out. Please.
”

“
Fine.
”

I roll over him, making myself as heavy as possible, then get up. I go into the bathroom and then return to his room while brushing my teeth, humming and doing a little softshoe. He gives me a fake thumbs-up. I go back to the sink and spit, and come back. I lean against his door.

“
So. Big day, huh?
”
I say.

“
Yeah,
”
he says.

“
I mean, a lot happened. A full day, this was.
”

“
Yeah. The half day at school, then the basketball, and then dinner, and the open house, and then ice cream, and a movie— I mean, it was almost as if it was too much to happen in one day, as if a number of days had been spliced together to quickly paint a picture of an entire period of time, to create a whole-seeming idea of how we are living, without having to stoop (or rise) to actually pacing the story out.
”

“
What are you getting at?
”

“
No, I think it
’
s good, it
’
s fine. Not entirely believable, but it works fine, in general. It
’
s fine.
”

“
Listen, you, we
’
ve had plenty of days like this, and many that were much more complicated. Remember your big camp-out
sleepover birthday party? The Lake Tahoe-with-your-large-headed-friend trip? Really, if anything, this is a much more pedestrian day than most. This is just a caricature, this, the skeleton of experience— I mean, you know this is just one slivery, wafer-thin slice. To adequately relate even five minutes of internal thought-making would take forever— It
’
s maddening, actually, when you sit down, as I will once I put you to bed, to try to render something like this, a time or place, and ending up with only this kind of feebleness— one, two dimensions of twenty.
”

“
So you
’
re reduced to complaining about it. Or worse, doing little tricks, out of frustration.
”

“
Right. Right.
”

“
The gimmicks, bells, whistles. Diagrams.
Here is a picture of a stapler,
all that.
”

“
Right.
”

“
You know, to be honest, though, what I see is less a problem with form, all that garbage, and more a problem of conscience. You
’
re completely paralyzed with guilt about relating all this in the first place, especially the stuff earlier on. You feel somehow obligated to do it, but you also know that Mom and Dad would
hate
it, would crucify you—
“

“
I know, I know.
”

“
But then again, I should say, and Bill and Beth would say— well, probably not Bill, but definitely Beth—that your guilt, and their disapproval, is a very middlebrow, middle-class, midwestern sort of disapproval. It
’
s superstition as much as anything—like the primitives who fear the camera will take their soul. You struggle with a guilt both Catholic and unique to the home in which you were raised. Everything there was a secret—for instance, your father being in AA was not to be spoken of, ever, while he was in and after he stopped attending. You never told even your closest friends about anything that happened inside that house. And now you alternately rebel against and embrace that kind of suppression.
”

“
How do you mean?
”

“
Well, you think you
’
re so open about stuff now, you believe that you and me are the New Model, that because of our circumstances, you can toss away all the old rules, can make it up as we go along. But at the same time, so far you
’
ve been very priggish and controlling, and for all your bluster you end up maintaining most of their customs, the rules imposed by our parents. Especially the secrecy. For instance, you hardly ever let my friends come over, because you don
’
t want them to see how messy the house is, how we live.
”

“
Well—
“

“
I know. I understand. You fear the knock on the door from the child welfare agency, whatever. But then again, you
’
re not so afraid, and you know it. You
’
ve planned out what you
’
d say, excuses you
’
d make, how you
’
d break me out of a foster home if it came to that, where we
’
d flee, how we
’
d live, new identities, plastic surgery. But first of all, if any child welfare person, or any person at all, ever tries to move in on us, on this, what is now your turf, your project, you go absolutely ballistic, you lose your mind.
”

“
I do not.
”

“
Allow me to recount a scene from just last week, between you and one of your best friends:

‘
So he was at Luke
’
s the whole time, but he hadn
’
t called. For about five hours. I had dinner ready, was waiting around, was going out of my brain. And he had just flaked. Drives me insane. He needs to learn the value of my time, that I cannot wait around all day for his call. I
’
m going to ground him.
’

‘
Oh, the poor thing. Don
’
t ground him.
’

‘
What?
’

‘
He
’
s sorry, I
’
m sure—
‘

‘
Are you telling me what to—
‘

‘
No, I just think that...
’

‘
See, that
’
s just such bullshit, that you think that you have a say in something like that, just because I
’
m young. I mean, you would never contradict some forty-year-old mother, would you?
’

‘
Well—
‘

‘
Well don
’
t. Because I am a forty-year-old mother. As far as you and everyone else is concerned, I am a forty-year-old mother. Don
’
t ever forget that.
’

“
Poor Marny, one of your oldest friends. She meant nothing by it, just an innocent comment. She
’
s probably the last person in the world who would ever be insensitive, but see, you
’
re always ready to fight. You
’
ve got that single-parent rage, that black-single-mother defensiveness, combined with your own naturally ready-be-indignant/aggressive tendencies, inherited from our mom. I mean, tonight, when you finally go to bed, you
’
ll lie there and think of things you
’
d do to people who would come in here and do me harm. You
’
ll picture all manner of murders in my defense. Your visions will be vivid and horrifically violent, mostly you and a baseball bat, with you taking out on whoever would invade our sanctuary the cumulative frustration you feel from all of this, our present situation, the walls and parameters set up already, the next ten, thirteen years laid out, more or less spoken for, and also the general anger you feel, have felt not just since Mom and Dad died—that would be convenient if it were true—but it began well before that, you know this, the anger coursing through the marrow of kids growing up in loud, semi-violent alcoholic households, where chaos is always... What is it? What
’
s funny?
”

“
You have toothpaste on your chin.
”

“
Where?
”

“
Lower.
”

“
Here?
”

“
Lower.
”

“
Still there?
”

“
No, you got it.
”

“
The point is, with me—
“

“
It looked like a bird dropping.
”

“
Fine. Ha ha. Anyway, with me you have this amazing chance to right the wrongs of your own upbringing, you have an opportunity to do everything better—to carry on those traditions that made sense and to jettison those that didn
’
t—which is something every parent has the chance to do, of course, to show up one
’
s own parents, do everything better, to upwardly evolve from them—but in this case, it
’
s even more heightened, means so much more, because you get to do this with me,
their own progeny.
It
’
s like finishing a project that someone else could not, gave up on, gave to you, the only one who could save the day Do I have it right so far, big man? And best of all, for you at least, you finally have the moral authority you
’
ve craved, and have often exercised, ever since you were very young—you used to go around the playground chastising the other kids for swearing. You didn
’
t drink alcohol until you were eighteen, never did drugs, because you had to be more pure, had to have something over the other people. And now your moral authority is doubled, tripled. And you use it any way you need to. That twenty-nine-year-old, for instance, you
’
ll break up with her after a month because she smokes—
“