A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (37 page)

The Tragic Person.

Right. I realize I seem much too average, at first. I
’
m white, not
even Jewish, my hair is horrible and I
’
m poorly dressed and everything—I know how blah that seems, suburban, upper-middle-class, two parents (why do we seem so boring, all of us? Are we as utterly boring as we seem?)—it certainly didn
’
t help with my college admissions experiences, let me tell you. But you need someone like me. I represent tens of millions, I represent everyone who grew up suburban and white, but then I
’
ve got all these other things going for me. I
’
m Irish Catholic, and can definitely play that up if you want. And then the Midwest thing, which I don
’
t need to tell you is pretty valuable. And if you want to go hard-core rural, play that angle, I went to school in the middle of a cornfield, have seen cows, smelled their waste every day there was a south wind. Oh and: it was a state school. So, I can be the average white suburban person, midwestern, knowing of worlds both wealthy and central Illinoisian, whose looks are not intimidating, who
’
s self-effacing but principled, and—and this is the big part—one whose tragic recent past touches everyone
’
s heart, whose struggles become universal and inspiring.

It must be hard.
What?

Raising your brother.

How do you know about him?

It was on your application.

Oh. Right. Well, no, it actually isn
’
t hard at all. It
’
s like...do you

have a roommate?

No.

Have you ever?

Yes.

It
’
s like that. We
’
re roommates. It
’
s easy, it
’
s actually often easier than
it
would be with a regular roommate, because you can
’
t tell a regular roommate to sweep the hall, or go get some margarine. So it
’
s the best of both worlds. We entertain each other. So no, it
’
s not— Oh, but if it needs to be, it can be. It can be hard. Actually yes, it is hard. Very hard.

Well, how do you plan to manage being on the show?
How do you mean?

With your brother and all.

Oh, right, right. Well, I
’
ve talked it over with my sister, and she
’
d be willing to pick up the slack for the duration of the show. She lives only like a block away— Wait. How long does the filming go on for?

About four months.

And I
’
d have to live in the
Real World
house?

Yeah, that
’
s the idea.

Yeah, I mean, I could do that. We talked about it. We made a deal, Beth and Toph and me, from the beginning. The deal was, that we
’
d do everything we could to keep everything normal, to maintain, actually, more normalcy than we grew up with, but at the same time we wouldn
’
t feel obligated to make the all-encompassing sacrifices that our mom had made, that had for all intents and purposes killed her, we felt.

On your application you said it was cancer.

Well, sure, technically. But it was stomach cancer, which is extremely rare, its provenance unknown, and Beth and I—we
’
re the ones who ruminate on such things, while Bill has moved on, is mentally much healthier, by all appearances completely normal—

Beth and I got to thinking that its contraction, the development of this cancer, was due to her internalization of all her stress, her many burdens, all the combat within our family over twenty-odd years, it coming down to her to—it was like, in a way, it was like a soldier jumping on a mine to save his... maybe that
’
s a poor analogy. I mean, she swallowed the chaos, sequestered it there, and there it festered and grew and darkened and then was cancer.

Do you really believe that?
Sure. Kind of.

You were saying, about the deal?

The deal was that while Beth and I were holding together and starting over, and creating a world of relative order, and giving Toph as normal a life as possible, under the circumstances, if opportunities arose, that we would do everything we could to— The point is that we would not use each other, to use obligation as an excuse to say no to things. At least not if we could still manage. I mean, you have no idea how thoroughly we shelter him from absolutely everything—honestly, like, he
’
s never even heard more than a few swear words in his life—but we
’
ve agreed that we
’
ll do whatever we can to facilitate the things we want to do, will not hold back and become bitter and years later blame him or each other, right? Oh wait, that
’
s a funny story. There was a word my mom used to call us sometimes, that I only figured out in high school. I
’
ll try it out on you. Okay, the word was
“
mahdda.
”

What
’
s a mahdda?

Oh ha ha. You
’
re good. You
’
re good. I should have seen that coming. But seriously, that
’
s what I always wondered. When we were sulking about something, or if we had a cold and complained about going to school—we were forbidden from staying home, by the way, never missed a day until late in high school—my mom
would say, Oh don
’
t be such a
mahdda\
We always assumed it had something to do with being sullen about something we hadn
’
t gotten. Then in high school I figured it out. The word was mangled by her Boston accent.

Martyr.

Right, the word was martyr. Of course, my mom was one of the

great martyrs of all time.

About the show...

Right, in terms of
The Real World,
I figured that I
’
d still see Toph all the time, but he
’
d live primarily with Beth for that period. She
’
d probably move into our place, and sleep there and everything, with me being there as often as I could—probably not that much less than now, really. I mean, I have it all pictured, the traveling back and forth, between the show and my world in Berkeley, the camera crew maybe with me in the car, following me driving home each night, or whenever, the music going in the background, me making the trip home to be with him, like the divorced dad—you see the potential, no? It would be sort of touching. And then he
’
d occasionally come into the
Real World
house with me. It
’
d be great. He
’
d be good on TV.

How would he feel about it?
I
’
m sure he
’
d love it.

Is he comfortable in front of a camera?
Not really. He
’
s kind of shy, actually.

Hmm.

My heart is pure.

I know what you
’
re thinking.

I know what I mean.

Excuse me?
Nothing.

Why do you want to be on
The Real World? Because I want everyone to witness my youth.

Why?

Isn
’
t it gorgeous?

Who
’
s gorgeous?

Not like that. No, I just mean, that it
’
s in bloom. That
’
s what you
’
re all about, right? The showing of raw fruit, correct? Whether that
’
s in videos or on spring break, whatever, the amplifying of youth, the editing and volume magnifying what it means to be right there, at the point when all is allowed and your body wants everything for it, is hungry and taut, churning, an energy vortex, sucking all toward it. I mean, we
’
re in the same business, really, though we take vastly different approaches, of course, your
Real World
being kind of brutally obvious, no offense, whereas the videos at least don
’
t purport to be anything but what they are— but you guys, your show claims to do more but then has a strange ability to flatten all the depth and nuance from these people.

So why are you here?

I want you to share my suffering.

You don
’
t seem to be suffering.
I don
’
t?

You seem happy.

Well, sure. But not always. Sometimes it
’
s hard. Yeah. Sometimes it
’
s so hard. I mean, you can
’
t always suffer. It
’
s hard to suffer all the time. But I suffer enough. I suffer sometimes.

Why do you want to share your suffering?
By sharing it I will dilute it.

But it seems like it might be just the opposite
—
by sharing it you might be

amplifying it.

How do you mean?

Well, by telling everyone about it, you purge yourself, but then, because everyone knows this thing about you, everyone knows your story, won
’
t you be constantly reminded of it, unable to escape it?

Maybe. But look at it this way: stomach cancer is genetic, passed more down the female side of our family than otherwise, but because according to Beth and me my mother was done in by dyspepsia, the dyspepsia caused by swallowing too much of our tumult and cruelty, we are determined not to swallow anything, to not keep anything putrefying down there, soaking in its juices, bile eating bile... we are purgers, Beth and I. I don
’
t hold on to anything anymore. Pain comes at me and I take it, chew it for a few minutes, and spit it back out. It
’
s just not my thing anymore.

But if the information is in the eyes of everyone you meet...
Then there
’
s that much more sympathy coming back at us.

But if 11 get old.

Then I
’
ll move to Namibia.

Hmm.

I am an orphan of America.

What?

Nothing. Someone else said that, years ago.

So about the dilution...

This is where the lattice comes in.

The lattice.

The lattice that we are either a part of or apart from. The lattice is the connective tissue. The lattice is everyone else, the lattice is my people, collective youth, people like me, hearts ripe, brains aglow. The lattice is everyone I have ever known, mostly those my age or thereabouts—I know little else, know only six or seven people over forty, know nothing to say to them—but my people, we are still there, still able, if we start right now— I see us as one, as a vast matrix, an army, a whole, each one of us responsible to one another, because no one else is. I mean, every person that walks through the door to help with
Might
becomes part of our lattice: Matt Ness, Nancy Miller, Larry Smith, Shelley Smith (no relation), Jason Adams, Trevor Macarewich, John Nunes, on and on, all these people, the people who come to us or we come to, the subscribers, our friends, their friends, their friends, who knows who knows who, people who have everything in common no matter where they
’
re from, all these people know all the same things and truly hope for the same things, it
’
s undeniable that they do, and if we can bring everyone to grab a part of the other, like an arm at the socket, everyone holding another
’
s arm at the socket, and if we can get everyone to, instead of ripping this arm from the socket, instead hold to it, tight, and thus strengthening— Then, urn
—
Like a human ocean moving as one, the undulating, the wave-making—

Ahem.

Or like a snowshoe.

A snowshoe.

You wear snowshoes when the snow is deep and porous. The latticework within the snowshoe
’
s oval distributes the wearer
’
s weight over a wider area, in order to keep him or her from falling
through the snow. So people, the connections between people, the people you know, become a sort of lattice, and the more people, good people, they must be good people, who know that they are here to help, the more of these people you know, and that know you, and know your situation and your story and your troubles or whatnot, the wider and stronger the lattice, and the less likely you are to—