The next day the test came back negative for meat products. Sweet Caroline got in big trouble for lying and we were returned to the house. Mom spent the next six months on a mission to prove how delicious vegetarian food can be.
As far as I’m concerned, the mission failed.
“What has you so busy?” I ask Dad. “In general terms.”
“Dad’s working on important things,” Sweet Caroline says as she climbs into the back of the car. “Daddy, it’s disgusting back here.”
“I didn’t get a chance to straighten up.”
“That’s okay,” Sweet Caroline says as she pushes stacks of books and papers out of the way to make a space.
The car door doesn’t close correctly in back, so she has to slam it, then pull it hard three times until it clicks.
“You’re inventing things for the government, right, Daddy?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Dad says. “I only know I had to interrupt important work to be with you here today. To escort you on this critical mission, Sweet McGeet.”
Dad has, like, fourteen pet names for Sweet Caroline. He only has two names for me.
Sanskrit
most of the time, and
Aaron
when he’s angry at Mom and doesn’t want to say the name she chose for me.
“Remind me. What is this important mission?” Dad says.
“See’s Candies, Daddy,” Sweet Caroline says.
“I
sees
a chocolate truffle in your future,” Dad says with a smile.
I’ve heard that stupid joke fifty thousand times, but Sweet Caroline laughs like it’s brilliant. She loves See’s Candies. I wish the stuff would make her pudgy. It’s hard to be arrogant when you’re pudgy.
“Sound like we have a road trip on our hands!” Dad says, getting excited. “We had some crazy road trips in college. Back in the day, boy, the gearheads and I knew how to do it right.”
Gearheads. That’s what they called the engineers at Cal Tech when Dad went to school there.
“I have to go to Dr. Prem,” I say. “That’s why you’re here, remember?”
“Oh, right,” Dad says, depressed by the sudden appearance of responsibility. “And you have to be there at—”
He looks at the clock. It’s 1:30.
“We’re late!” he says.
“We have to be there by two,” I say.
“But your mother said—”
“She gave you the wrong time because you’re always late.”
“Your mother is a real case, let me tell you.”
“The psychologist said you’re not supposed to say
bad things about Mom,” Sweet Caroline says. “Even if you hate her.”
“I don’t hate her,” Dad says.
“Resent her then,” Sweet Caroline says.
“Where did you learn a word like that?”
“From the psychologist, Daddy. Plus, I read. Unlike some people.”
She kicks the back of my seat, but I ignore her.
Dad throws the car in reverse and shoots out of the driveway, narrowly missing an oncoming SUV.
“Watch out!” I say.
“That guy can watch out,” Dad says. “I’m trying to back out of my own driveway.”
It’s not Dad’s driveway anymore, but I don’t need to remind him of that. Instead I say, “That’s not how it works, Dad. The oncoming driver has the right of way.”
“In what universe?” Dad says.
“In our universe,” I say.
“I don’t like our universe,” Dad says. “That’s why I’m inventing a new one.”
“Can I be in your universe, Daddy?” Sweet Caroline says.
“You are the queen of the new universe,” Dad says.
“If anyone smells throw up, it’s mine,” I say.
“That’s disgusting,” Sweet Caroline says.
“Where is Attack of the Mummy’s office again?” Dad says.
Dr. Prem is a Sikh, so he wears all white. Dad calls him Attack of the Mummy.
“In Beverly Hills. Remember?” I say.
“Oh, that’s right,” Dad says. “Poop bird.”
He presses the brakes too hard and pulls an illegal U-turn in the middle of Wilshire Boulevard. A bunch of plastic water bottles slide by my feet.
“Why do you need so much water?” I ask Dad.
“What if the big one happens while we’re driving?”
The big one. The great Los Angeles earthquake.
Dad taps his head. “Water. It’s the key to life.”
“Better safe than sorry,” I say.
“That’s right,” Dad says, like he’s taught me a valuable lesson.
“Daddy, have you gotten any calls from school?” Sweet Caroline says.
I throw a warning glance towards the backseat.
“Why would I get a call from your school?”
“From
Sanskrit’s
school.” Sweet Caroline corrects him.
“No calls,” he says. “At least I don’t think so. I’m not big on listening to messages. Is there a problem?”
“No problem,” I say.
Dad sounds leery. He’s not good with problems. Sweet Caroline says, “They’re doing some fund-raising for next year.”
“Fund-raising? Oh, no,” Dad says.
Sweet Caroline smiles back at me, and suddenly I go
from hating her to thinking she’s a genius. Dad doesn’t have much money, and if he thinks the school is calling to ask for some, he will avoid them at all costs.
In other words, we’re safe.
For now.
“Nice to see you again, Zuckerman family.”
This is how Dr. Prem’s office manager greets us when we walk in. What family is she talking about? Calling us a family is like calling an asteroid a planet. It’s not a planet. It’s part of a planet. The shattered remains of a planet, thrust out of its orbit and shooting through space.
She doesn’t care. She’s just happy to see us.
“Zuckerman family, reporting for quackery,” Dad says, and he salutes.
“Cut it out, Dad,” I say.
It takes guts to walk into a doctor’s office and call them quacks. It’s sort of stupid, too. You don’t want to piss off your doctor before he works on you. Especially a chiropractor. What if instead of an adjustment, he decides to snap your neck like James Bond? If anyone knows how to do that, it’s a chiropractor.
“I’m sorry,” Dad says. “I thought you hated it here.”
“I don’t hate it,” I say, even though I do. “And keep your voice down.”
I glance at the office manager.
“Whatever,” Dad says. “We’re here. And on time.”
“Gold star for you!” the office manager says.
“Hey, this is my kind of place,” Dad says.
Dad expects praise for doing things you’re supposed to do, like showing up for your kid’s appointment on time.
The office manager hands me my chart and directs me back to one of the carrels.
“Do you need me to come with you?” Dad says.
“It’s not the dentist, Daddy,” Sweet Caroline says. She’s making herself tea from the dispenser.
When we were kids, Dad used to come into the dentist’s with us because we were so afraid. He hated it even worse than we did. He said the sound of the drill reminded him of the machines at Zadie’s terry cloth factory and gave him a migraine.
“I’ll be fine,” I say.
“Good luck then,” Dad says, and he puts his arms straight out in front of him and moans like a mummy.
I head to the back, slip off my shoes, and lie down on the hard table. You’re supposed to meditate while you wait for your adjustment. I listen to the sound of water from an electric fountain and a recording of someone chanting in a foreign language. I wonder if
it’s Sanskrit. The sad thing is, I wouldn’t even know if it was because I don’t speak any Sanskrit.
I arrange my neck pillow behind me, and I try to count my breaths. It doesn’t work, so I try to focus on an object, a particular ceiling tile with a pattern that almost looks like a smiley face. When that doesn’t work, I try to feel where my body is in space, monitoring my five senses. All of these are tricks I’ve learned from Mom. But instead of relaxing me, meditating just makes me think faster and faster. Why would anyone meditate if it just makes things louder?
I feel a gentle touch on my foot.
I look up into the smiling face of Dr. Prem and his white turban. I have nothing against Sikhs or people who wear white as a lifestyle choice, but I just don’t believe in it. I don’t believe in the power of white, or the healing magic of the Kundalini yoga he always talks about, or even alternative treatments like chiropractic. I come because it makes Mom happy. And it sort of feels nice when your back cracks.
“How are you, Sanskrit?” he says.
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s find out,” he says, and he starts to press different points on my body.
He presses the center of my chest, holds his hand there for a moment. I start to feel afraid. What if he can feel what’s going on with me? The anger inside of me, the secrets I’m keeping. What if he could get all
of it just by touching me, and the secrets came rushing out of my body without my being able to stop them?
He presses my chest again, but nothing bad happens. He simply says, “Very interesting.”
I open my eyes. He’s smiling at me.
“I don’t believe in this,” I say.
“Why do you come?”
“Because my mother wants me to.”
“I like that,” he says.
“You like that I don’t believe in what you do?”
“No, I like that you were honest.” He leans towards me, his voice dropping to a whisper:
“We don’t have to do the adjustment. I’ll tell your mother I did it, but I won’t charge her.”
“That’s okay,” I say. “I like the cracking sound.”
“You’re sure?” he says. “I’m here,” I say. “We might as well do it.” So he begins.
He holds up my arm and presses a few places on my stomach and chest. Then he sits me up and has me lean back into him, cradling me as he cracks one place in my back. It makes me laugh because it feels like being a baby.
After that he cracks my neck, a loud crack that sends a shiver across my shoulder, down my arm, and out my fingertips.
“The lights are on,” he says.
He has me turn over and put my head in the donut so I’m looking at the floor. He presses a little clicky thing on my back.
The chanting in the room gets louder.
“What language is she singing?” I say.
“Your language,” Dr. Prem says.
“Mine?”
“Sanskrit.”
“I wondered about that,” I say. I relax into the table. My body feels better. My head is quieter.
I feel the tiniest bit happy, like things aren’t as bad as I thought they were.
The woman sings in Sanskrit, the language of me.
Dr. Prem finishes the adjustment by asking me to take a deep breath and hold it. He says, “Think about any physical pain or tension in your body.”
There’s lots of physical pain and tension.
A pain in my neck from Mom.
A pain in my ass from Sweet Caroline.
A pain in my gut from not having a girlfriend.
And a pain somewhere lower that I don’t want to talk about.
Dr. Prem says, “Exhale,” and I let the pain go.
“Again,” he says, and I breathe in and hold it. “This time imagine any emotional distress—worries, fears, upset.”
I’ve got a lot of that, too. Maybe more than a sixteen-year-old should have. I exhale and try to let it go.
“Last time,” Dr. Prem says, “the deepest breath yet.”
I suck in a long, deep breath.
“You are connected to the Infinite and Divine—” Dr. Prem says.
I’m flooded with a feeling of lightness.
“—with every breath that you take,” Dr. Prem says. “Now exhale.”
I let the air rush from my lungs. I try to make the big
whoosh
sound that Dr. Prem likes to hear.
That’s when it hits me.
A vision.
Maybe that’s the wrong name for it. I don’t believe in visions. But it’s something.
I see me with The Initials, walking hand in hand in a forest.
We walk into a clearing, and Mom is there. She’s sitting with a picnic spread out in front of her. A vegetarian cornucopia. The Initials and I join her. We laugh and talk about everything with Mom.
Dad walks by and sits down next to us. He and Mom look at each other—a kind look, not the nasty glances they give each other in real life.
Even Sweet Caroline is there. She comes bounding out of the forest and plops down next to me, jams her hand into a bowl of blue corn chips.
We’re all happy in this vision. Together and happy.
And then it dissolves.
I open my eyes.
“Where did you go?” Dr. Prem says.
“I’m not sure.”
He touches my shoulder.
“Rest here for a moment.”
I lie on the table, exhaling long breaths up towards the ceiling.
Dr. Prem marks something down on my chart. He puts it back in the holder and starts to walk away.
“Do you believe in visions, Dr. Prem?”
“I believe in everything,” he says.
I have to change my life
.
That’s what I write in my journal the next day. It’s what I felt after my vision. The gap between my real life and the vision was so great that I have to do something about it. Life as it currently looks does not work for me anymore. I have no choice but to change.
So I come up with a plan.
It starts Monday morning. It starts with school. It starts with telling the truth.
When I get to campus, I go straight to the main office. It’s empty except for the Israeli office lady.
“Boker tov,”
she says, tapping away on the computer.
“Good morning to you, too,” I say. She looks up.
“Sanskrit!” she says. She pronounces it correctly this time. She jumps up from her seat and throws her arms around me. Her chest presses against mine. It’s much softer than it looks from a distance.
This woman hated me a few days ago, and now she’s holding me like her long-lost child. I’m so shocked, I don’t know whether to hug her back or run out of the room screaming.
“How are you,
motek
? Oh, where’s your
kippah
?”
I touch my head.
“I guess I forgot it.”
“Let’s get you taken care of.”
She reaches into a drawer, pulls out a large crocheted
kippah
that looks like the Israeli flag. I wince as she pops it on my head.
“I need to see the dean,” I say.
“Of course. But he’s in the cafeteria right now.”