A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (15 page)

“
No way.
”

“
Yes, Toph,
”
I say, looking out to the ocean thoughtfully, seeing the future.
“
You will inherit these nipples, and you will inherit a scrawny, rib-showing frame that will not at all fill out
until your early twenties, and puberty will hit you impossibly late, and soon the beautiful blond straight hair that you like so much, that you wear long and which helps you look like the young River Phoenix, this hair will thicken, harden, darken, and curl so tightly and wildly that when you wake up you will appear to have permed your hair three times and then ridden for six hours in a convertible. You will slowly grow ugly, with skin riddled with acne so persistent that on top of the general zittiness that will roughen your cheeks and chin, you will get red skin-globules— your dermatologist will call them
‘
cysts
’
—that will every other week set up shop in the crevice above your nostril, and will be so large and so red that strangers at twenty yards will gasp, small children will point and cry—
“

“
No.
”

“
Yes.
”

“
No way. I
’
ll be different I bet.
”

“
Pray for it.
”

It
’
s windy but when you are lying down, listening to the sand, it
’
s warm, warm, warm. Toph is sitting up, burying my feet.

There is so much to do. I try not to think yet about everything coming soon, all the things we need to do when school starts and all this becomes real, but one thing—that Toph must see a doctor, must get a physical—breaks through and now my head floods, fuck— I have to get a resume together, and we have to find a new place to live when the sublet ends, and how will Toph get to school if I get an early job? Will Beth pull her weight, will she be too busy, will we kill each other? How often will Bill come up from L.A.? How much should I/can I/will I burden Kirsten? Will she even be around? Will she mellow when she finds a job and a car? Should I lighten my hair? Does that whitening toothpaste really work? Toph needs health insurance. I need health insurance.

Maybe I
’
m already sick. It
’
s already growing inside me. Something, anything. A tapeworm. AIDS. I have to
get
started, have to
get
started soon because I will die before thirty. It will be random, my death, even more random than theirs. I will fall somehow, will fall like she fell, when I found her. I was six and it was midnight, and I found her when she fell down the stairs and opened up her head on the black-slate floor. I had heard her moaning and I walked down the hallway, the green-carpet floor, and at the top of the stairs I saw a figure, in a nightgown, crumpled at the bottom. I walked slowly down the stairs, in my pajamas, with feet, my hand on the railing, having no idea who this was, almost knowing but not knowing at all, and when I was near enough I heard her, the voice hers:
“
I wanted to see the flower.
”
“
I wanted to see the flower,
”
she was saying, three or four times,
“
I wanted to see the flower.
”
Then there was the blood, black, on the black slate floor, her hair matted with blood, now red, brown, glistening. I woke my father up and then there was the ambulance. She came home wearing a bandage around her head, and for weeks I was not sure she was her. I wanted it to be her, believe it was her, but there was the possibility that she had died and this now was someone else. I would have believed anything.

It s too cold to lie bare-chested. I get up and Toph gets up and he runs and I throw the frisbee ahead of him, leading him by a good twenty yards but the frisbee, because I have thrown it perfectly, floats up, floats slowly, and he reaches it with time to spare, overtakes
it,
stops, turns, and catches it between his legs.

Oh, we are good. He
’
s only eight but together we are spectacular. We play by the shore, and we run barefoot, padding and scratching into the cold wet sand. We take four steps for each throw, and when we throw trie world stops and gasps. We throw so far, and with such accuracy, and with such ridiculous beauty. We are perfection, harmony, young and lithe, fast like Indians. When I run I can feel the contracting of my muscles, the strain of my
cartilage, the rise and fall of pectorals, the coursing of blood, everything working, everything functioning perfectly, a body in its peak form, albeit on the thin side, just a bit shy of normal weight, with a few ribs visible, which, come to think of it, might look weird to Toph, might look kind of anemic, might frighten him, might remind him of our father
’
s weight loss, of the way his legs, as he sat at breakfast in his suit, that fall, after he had given up on chemotherapy but was still going to work, his legs were like dowels under his flannel pants, thin dowels under those gray flannel pants, now so baggy. I should work out. I could join a gym. I could get a weight bench. At least get some free weights, a few dumbbells. I should. I have to. I have to present to Toph a body exploding with virility, flawless. I need to be the acme of health and strength, instilling confidence, dashing doubt. I need to be indomitable, a machine, a perfect fucking machine. I
’
ll join a gym. I
’
ll start jogging.

We throw the frisbee farther than anyone has ever seen a fris-bee go. First it goes higher than anyone has thrown before, so that in the middle of the pale blue there is only the sun
’
s glazed headlight and the tiny white disc, and then it goes farther than anyone has known a frisbee to go, with us having to use miles of beach, from one cliff to the other, thousands of people in between, to catch it. It
’
s the trajectory that
’
s important, we know that, that the distance relies on both velocity and angle of flight, that you have to throw the living shit out of the thing, and also put it on the correct trajectory, an upward trajectory both straight and steady, not too high, not too low, because if it
’
s sent on the right upward path, its momentum will carry it almost twice the distance, the second half on its way down, the second half a gimme, meaning that you need to only provide for half of its distance yourself, its momentum providing for the second half, when finally its forward progress slows and slows and stops and it falls, as if parachuting, and then we move and run under it, our quick steps scratching into
t
he wet sand and when it falls, it falls into our hands, because we are there.

We look like professionals, like we
’
ve been playing together for years. Busty women stop and stare. Senior citizens sit and shake their heads, gasping. Religious people fall to their knees. No one has ever seen anything quite like
it.

III.

The enemies list is growing quickly, unabated. All these people impeding us, trifling with us, not knowing or caring who we are, what has happened. The squirrelly guy who sold Toph that cheap lock for his bike—his new bike, the one we bought last year, for his birthday, just before we left Chicago—I wanted to punish that man—he said
it
was the best lock they had,
“
invincible, no sweat
”
he said—and the bike was stolen within the week. And that idiot in the van, who backed over our little Civic, with both of us in it, at a stoplight, in the middle of Berkeley, me forced to picture it happening that second, the van continuing, monster-truck-style, over the hood, onto us, Toph crushed, slowly, me watching, helpess— And something should be done about (or to) that gaunt and severe woman on the BART, the one with the hair pulled back so tight she looked half-onion, who sat across from us, kept looking over her book, at us, disapproving, as I rested my feet on Toph
’
s lap, like I was a molester— And the secretary at school, with her blaming look at me when he
’
s late for school— And that other woman, the across-the-street neighbor, a haggy creature with the chubby son, who stops her gardening and stares every time we
leave the house. And the owners of the Berkeley hills sublet, who kept our deposit, citing (or claiming) damage to just about everything in the house. And most of all, those real estate people. Cruel, vicious, subhuman. Those fuckers were unbelievable.

“
Where do you work?
”

“
I don
’
t have a job yet.
”

“
Are you in school?
”

“
No.
”

“
And this is your...son?
”

“
Brother.
”

“
Oh. Well. We
’
ll let you know.
”

We had no idea where to look. Toph
’
s new school has no bus service, so from the start I knew I
’
d be driving him to and fro regardless of where we lived. Thus, in late July, when we started looking for a place for the fall, we cast our net wide, considered, at least initially, almost every neighborhood in Berkeley, Albany, and southern Oakland. After discerning that between my income— assuming at some point that notion would become reality—and Toph
’
s Social Security money—he
’
s entitled to a monthly stipend, equivalent to what would have been paid our parents, we presume—we could pay about $1,000 a month, we set out.

And were soon struck with the relatively dingy reality of our new lives. There would no longer be hills, or views—that sublet was a freak occurrence. We would have no garage, no washer and dryer, no dishwasher, no disposal, no closets, no bathtub. Some of the places we saw didn
’
t even have doors on the bedrooms. I felt terrible, felt personally responsible; I began to look without Toph, to spare him the gore. We were in decline. In Chicago we had a house, an ample kind of house, four bedrooms, a yard, a creek running behind, huge, hundred-year-old trees, a little hill, some woods. Then there was the sublet, the golden house in the hills, its glass and light, overlooking everything, mountains, oceans, all of those bridges. And now, in part due to the inevitable implosion of
our household—Katie doesn
’
t want to live with all of us, Kirsten and I need some time apart, and Beth and I, like any grown siblings with any kind of history behind them, knew one of us would be found bloody and dismembered if we continued to occupy the same four walls—we had all accepted smaller, humbler situations. Beth would live alone, Kirsten with a roommate found in the classifieds, and Toph and I would find a two-bedroom, would try to live close, but not too close, to one or both of them.

I had wanted a loft. For years I had pictured my first postcol-legiate rental as a huge raw space, all high ceilings and chipped paint, exposed brick, water pipes and heating ducts, a massive open area where I could paint, could build and house enormous canvases, throw stuff around, maybe set up a basketball hoop, a smallish hockey rink. It would be close to the Bay, and a park, and the BART, grocery stores, everything. I called a few places listed in Oakland.

“
What
’
s the neighborhood like?
”
I asked.

“
Well, it
’
s kinda funky. But our lot has a gate.
”

“
A gate? What about a park?
”

“
A park?
”

“
Yeah, I have an eight-year-old. Is there a park nearby?
”

“
Oh please. Get serious.
”

Even when we accepted the prospect of a one-story two-bedroom in the flatlands, people were unkind, ungiving. I had expected open arms from all, everyone grateful that we, as God
’
s tragic envoys, had stepped down from the clouds to consider dwelling in their silly little buildings. What we were getting was something eerily close to indifference.

Early on, we had seen a listing—two bedrooms, yard, North Berkeley—and had made the call; the man sounded enthused, definitely not evil. But then, on a warm and blue day, we drove to his house. As we got out of our little red car and walked toward him, he was standing out on the porch, he looked stricken.

“
This is your brother?
”

“
Yeah.
”

“
Ooh,
”
he said, with difficulty, as if the O were an
egg
he was forcing through his mouth.
“
Jeez, I expected you two to be older. How old are you guys?
”

“
I
’
m twenty-two. He
’
s nine.
”