A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (41 page)

He kicked the door down.

Well, he broke it in, broke off the lock and doorknob, half a hinge

and everything.

Wow.

Dramatic, right?

Well, yes. And did he then punish you more severely?
Not really. When my mom heard the sound of the door breaking, she came running and so he only had me for a few seconds before she was in the room and he was in trouble. Ultimately it was kind of vindicating, because this time, like any time we could prove his instability—the extremes of his volatility, I should say, because while sober he was a pretty normal guy, funny even—we felt like we had scored, notched the permanent sort of scorecard that we all kept against him. I used to want to show up to school with bruises, cuts—I knew from after-school specials that that was how it worked, the teacher would see, and then it would finally be out, made semi-public, he
’
d be given some kind of warning, whatever, and then things would be reined in.

So this was a child abuse situation?

Oh God no. He didn
’
t spank us very hard, once he got hold of us.

I don
’
t remember it even hurting.

Oh.

It was my mom who really hit hard. She hit us way more often than he did, but with her you always sort of knew she had it somewhat under control, though she did say
“
I
’
m gonna kill you!
”
a bit
too often for comfort. We
’
d say something smart-alecky at the dinner table, and she
’
d stomp over and whack us on the head for a minute, a kind of karate chop maneuver, her muscular brown arm swinging—we
’
d cover our heads, just flailing to deflect the blows, her long fingers knotted with these huge rings, her mother
’
s. After a while it was mostly funny. At first, it wasn
’
t funny at all, we
’
d just lose our shit and run upstairs or run away for a few hours, yelling
“
I hate you I hate you,
”
wanting her dead, wanting a new family, wanting to move in with whatever friend
’
s family we felt was more together, normal. Of course in an hour we
’
d be sitting in her lap again, happy as clams. And as we got older, it just got kind of funny. Bill started it, I think, by kind of rolling his eyes and laughing when she
’
d be karate-chopping his head, yelling
“
You damn kids!
”
or whatever. He
’
d just sit there and take it, let her get tired. Then we kind of followed his lead. We were teenagers at that point, and didn
’
t take it all that seriously, kind of let her get her rocks off. And after a while even she started to forget what she was so pissed about in the first place, would be kind of laughing while she hit us. That
’
s a weird sight, I can tell you, watching her, laughing, hitting Beth or Bill on the head, saying she was going to kill them, while laughing, too.

But it does give you a certain flinch mentality—a readiness. You
’
d see the hand rise, the stiffness of the wrist, the fingers all together, kung fu—style, and—

Of course, we hit each other a lot, too, we kids spent a lot of time devising plans to actually kill each other—throwing each other through windows, down stairs—and so we honestly never knew what to expect, because the various thresholds of violence, as you know, can be and were bridged so suddenly, and once crossed, one seldom goes back. The ante being upped, the terra becoming ever less firma. So we became jittery, overly defensive, at least Beth and I, Bill being older, to the point where if our dad came near us with any corporal intentions, we literally went into a sort of epileptic fit, with arms windmilling and legs kicking. We had florid and dark imaginations, I guess, and coupled with enough public service announcement information, some health class statistics and such...in my case, I guess, it was my imagination more than anything, my morphing him into the murderers and monsters I night-mared about every night, to a degree that I became convinced that there was a better than average chance that, given the wrong set of circumstances, that someday, it would be an accident, but that someday he
’
d kill one of us. That door, for instance, was never fixed, was left with this jagged bite in it for something like twelve more years. We never got around to fixing stuff like that.

What did he do for a living again?
He was a lawyer, in futures trading.

And your mother?

A teacher. Reward me for my suffering.

Excuse me?

Have I given you enough? Reward me. Put me on television. Let me share this with millions. I will do it slowly, subtly, tastefully. Everyone must know. I deserve this. I have this coming. Am I on? Have I broken your heart? Was my story sad enough?

It was sad.

I know how this works. I give you these things, and you give me

a platform. So give me my platform. I am owed.

Listen, I
—

I can tell you more. I have so many stories. I can tell you about the wigs they wore, the time, in the family room, that fall, when they both took off their wigs at the same time, that time in the family room, knowing it would terrify me, their heads spotted, hair like
torn cotton, they laughed, laughed, their eyes bright— and the times he fell. I can do last breaths, last words. I have so many things. There is so much symbolism. You should hear the conversations Toph and I have, the things he says. It
’
s wonderful, it
’
s unbelievable, you couldn
’
t script it any better. We talk about death and God, and I have no answers for him, nothing to help him sleep, no fairy tales. Let me share this. I can do it any way you want, too—I can do it funny, or maudlin, or just straight, uninfected—anything. You tell me. I can do it sad, or inspirational, or angry. It
’
s all there, all these things at once, so it
’
s up to you—you choose, you pick. Give me something. Quid pro quo. I promise I will be good. I will be sad and hopeful. I will be the conduit. I will be the beating heart. Please see this! I am the common multiplier for 47 million! I am the perfect amalgam! I was born of both stability and chaos. I have seen nothing and everything. I am twenty-four but feel ten thousand years old. I am emboldened by youth, unfettered and hopeful, though inextricably tied to the past and future by my beautiful brother, who is part of both. Can you not see that we
’
re extraordinary? That we were meant for something else, something more? All this did not happen to us for naught, I can assure you—there is no logic to that, there is logic only in assuming that we suffered for a reason. Just give us our due. I am bursting with the hopes of a generation, their hopes surge through me, threaten to burst my hardened heart! Can you not see this? I am at once pitiful and monstrous, I know, and this is all my own making, I know—not the fault of my parents but all my own creation, yes, but I am the product of my environment, and thus representative, must be exhibited, as inspiration and cautionary tale. Can you not see what I represent? I am both a) martyred moralizer and b) amoral omnivore born of the suburban vacuum + idleness + television + Catholicism + alcoholism + violence; I am a freak in secondhand velour, a leper who uses L
’
Oreal Anti-sticky Mega Gel. I am rootless, ripped from all foundations, an orphan raising
an orphan and wanting to take away everything there is and replace it with stuff I
’
ve made. I have nothing but my friends and what
’
s left of my little family. I need community, I need feedback, I need love, connection, give-and-take—I will bleed if they will love. Let me try. Let me prove. I will pluck my hair, will remove my skin, I will stand before you feeble and shivering. I will open a vein, an artery. Pass over me at your peril! I could die soon. I probably already have AIDS. Or cancer. Something bad will happen to me, I know, I know this because I have seen it so many times. I will be shot in an elevator, I will be swallowed in a sinkhole, will drown, so I need to bring this message now; I only have so much time, I know that sounds ridiculous, I seem young, healthy, strong, but things happen, I know you may not think so, but things happen to me, to those around me, they truly do, you
’
ll see, so I need to grab this while I can, because I could go at any minute, Laura, Mother, Father, God— Oh please let me show this to millions. Let me be the lattice, the center of the lattice. Let me be the conduit. There are all these hearts, and mine is strong, and if there are— there are!—capillaries that bring blood to millions, that we are all of one body and that I am— Oh, I want to be the heart pumping blood to everyone, blood is what I know, I feel so warm in blood, can swim in blood, oh let me be the strong-beating heart that brings blood to everyone! I want—

And that will heal you?
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

VII.

Fuck it. Stupid show.

I get the news over the phone, from Laura Folger. I have not been chosen. She tells me how close I was, how much they liked me, how sad my story was (and it was,
it was),
but that mine was one of hundreds, that I was only one of so many, most of them younger than me, carrying around this sort of cross and that kind of baggage, people with the sorriest backgrounds, but that, in the end, they couldn
’
t use more than one suburban white male, that they had to settle on one, and he was not to be me. My spot, my catapult, has been taken by someone named Judd.

“
Judd?
”
I say.

“
Yes,
”
she says.

“
Judd?
”

“
Yeah, he
’
s a cartoonist.
”

Fuck it. It
’
s just as well. It
’
s a relief. It would have been wrong. It would have been wrong, right? It would have been wrong. It
’
s a stupid show, a show that
’
s almost unbearable to watch, everyone on it made hideous, silly and simple, two-dimensional. Fuck it. Let the cartoonist be made into a cartoon. I don
’
t need it, we don
’
t
need it. We don
’
t need
The Real World,
we don
’
t need any crutches, we don
’
t need an ongoing role on a television show with a massive worldwide audience and an unqua
’
ntifiable kind of influence over the hearts and minds of the young and impressionable. No. We will continue, against the odds, with only these simple tools, these small hands. We
’
ll make this thing run on nothing. On fumes, if need be. On our own fumes. Whatever.

In a few weeks, we get a thick envelope in the mail from this Judd, Judd Winick. His stationery has drawings on it, dozens of little characters with funny expressions, in various funny poses. He is for some reason looking for work from us, and so has sent easily five hundred comic strips, what seems to be each and every installment from a daily strip he did throughout college.

The cartoons—about a bunch of young people (the protagonist is a lesbian—a fact of life in the
‘
90s, see) living in a brownstone somewhere—are decent, very traditional, crafted well. But not for us. In the month or so since that first issue,
Might
has become something different. We are much less inspired than we were then, and going through with another one seems, on a certain level, more dutiful than impassioned. After all, the last thing we want from this, or at least the last thing I want from all this, is some kind
of job.
We have to avoid that kind of cruelly ironic fate—that we, the loudmouths who so cloyingly espouse the unshackling of one
’
s ideas about work and life themselves become slaves to something, to a schedule, obligated to advertisers, investors, keeping regular hours— Yes, we still care about changing the lives of our peers, and of course the world, and still expect at some point to be sent into space, but on the other hand...we have narrowed our scope and sharpened our knives. We have targets now, we have decided upon good guys and bad guys, friends, enemies (obstacles).

We begin a pattern of almost immediate opinion-reversal and self-devouring. Whatever the prevailing thinking, especially our own, we contradict it, reflexively. We change our minds about
Wendy Kopp, the young go-getter we heralded in the first issue, and her much-celebrated Teach for America. Where we originally praised her gumption and her organization
’
s goals—to bring young, enthusiastic, well-educated teachers into underprivileged schools for two years—now, in a 6,000-word piece that dominates the second issue, we fault the nonprofit for attempting to solve inner-city problems, largely black problems, with white upper-middle-class college-educated solutions.
“
Paternalistic condescension,
”
we say.
“
Enlightened self-interest,
”
we sigh.
“
Noblesse oblige
”
we