A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (44 page)

“
Oh. My. God,
”
said Marny, and burst out cackling.

It took Toph another few beats to realize what he had said.

I turned to him.

“
You
’
re eleven, Toph.
”

He blushed and sat back down. Marny kept roaring.

But as much as I want to encourage his mingling with his own age group, I fear that if he becomes too involved elsewhere, he won
’
t be ever-available for my own needs. What would one do if one did not have a Toph, sitting in his room, ready at a moment
’
s notice, always willing to run one
’
s errands, to be pushed against a
wall and have his kidney punched, to be brought, as he is at the moment, to the Berkeley Marina, for the throwing back and forth of things? To not have Toph would be to not have a life. We go to the Marina when we want to throw by the water and can
’
t make the long drive to the ocean. The marina is some kind of landfill jutting, fingerlike, straight into the Bay from University Avenue. Past the docked boats and the restaurant and club, there is a park, running parallel, a huge rolling park, mostly treeless and green. It
’
s a kite-flyers
’
haven, especially at its farthermost point, the point farthest into the Bay. It
’
s always crowded with people flying kites, a few kids, their parents, but the kite-flyers are primarily the semi-professional sort, with their box kites and dual-handled remote-controlled F-16 Tomcat kites, kites with the detailing and windows and cockpits, trick kites with elaborate cantilevers and thirty-foot tails, swooping up and back, quick diagonals down to touch the grass, then shooting back up again, their masters looking stern, purposeful, captains at the helm.

They park their campers and vans right there, on the cul-de-sac that almost meets the Bay, and sit, on folding chairs, chatting about better brands of string, or conventions for all the kite people, or how they can better get in our way,
completely get in our way driving us fucking crazy,
while we
’
re trying to throw. When we go to the marina, we pray that they will not be there, but this time, like most times, they are there. We park and leave our shoes in the car,
get
the stuff out, Toph with his—

“
Hey, you can
’
t wear that hat.
”

“
What do you mean?
”
he says.

“
We
’
re wearing the same hat. You have to take yours off.
”

“
No, you.
”

“
No, you. My hair will look weirder.
”

“
No
it
won
’
t.
”

“
Yes
it
will. Your hair
’
s still straight. You know what I look like with hat-head.
”

“
Too bad.
”

“
What?
”

“
No.
⁹¹

“
C
’
mon. Please?
”

“
No.
”

“
Toph.
”

“
Fine.
”

“
Thanks.
”

“
Freak.
”

We come prepared, with a variety of things we can throw back and forth. First the football, the enjoyment of which never lasts long because Toph
’
s hand is still too small to get around it. Then baseball, which we really need to practice, because the team he
’
s on now
is
better than the last one, he
’
s with older kids, tall and strong, and he
’
s starting to get spanked, abused, suddenly left behind—stuck in the outfield, sometimes in right field—a humiliation for both of us, after all these years of work. So we do fly balls, trying hard, but not too hard, to avoid hitting the kites, knocking them out of the sky as they bob and weave above us, their strings slashing between us.

He is missing the ball. He is missing the ball because he is experimenting, doing tricks.

“
Hey, skip the basket catches, fancyman.
”

“
Skip the basket catches, fancyman.
”

“
Bite me.
”

“
Bite me.
”

Today we are imitating me.

We drop the mitts and play frisbee, and wait for the awed crowds to form. There is not quite the room here that there is on the beach, or at the park in the hills, and the shorter playing field necessitates a certain delicacy, obviates the need for the brutal force we usually put into the throwing, makes impossible the long, high, epic sorts of throws for which we are known and acclaimed. But we
make do, slicing the frisbee through the diagonal kite strings, curving it around passersby, catching it of course in any number of wildly impressive ways—through our legs (but not like some frisbee weenie), behind the back (while jumping, half-twisting, left to right), and after tipping it, two, three, four times, taming it, slowing it to a weak spin, retiring it for the one-fingered catch. We are so good. Everyone thinks so.

In front of us a couple, the man black and the woman white, are walking with their girl, about four, whose skin is the color of a walnut. The girl
’
s skin is a hue much more beautiful than either of her parents
’
, and remarkable in how rudimentarily she is the product of her parents
’
mixed pigments. Brown and white make light brown—the color of skin mixing like paint.

“
Throw it, loser.
”

“
Here.
”

Toph
’
s throw bends toward the family and almost beheads the tiny girl. The frisbee is picked up by the father, who tries to throw it to me, tossing it like a horseshoe. Poor guy.

The park is a haven for innovative people-combinations. Even more than Berkeley in general, it
’
s a sort of laboratory, the grass perhaps the grounds of a laboratory for experimental people-making—the mixed-race/ethnicity couple capital of the world. Easily half of all couples therein, whether married or dating or on first dates or just jogging together, are somehow mixed—mostly black and white, but often Asian and white (even the somehow less common Asian man/white woman pairing), Latino and white duos, Asian/Latino, black/Asian, a smattering of lesbians. It
’
s been cast by the directors of commercials for banks.

Incidentally, Toph and I, routine-and-inside-joke-wise, are in the middle of a jokes-about-the-dubious-importance-of-race period. We are not sure how it started—surely not by the older and more responsible of us—but it goes something like this:

I say:
Your hat smells like urine.

He says:
You
’
re only saying that because I
’
m black.

Laughs ensue.

The construction works for any situation, really; for example, with sexuality—
“
Are you hassling me again because I
’
m gay?
”
— and religion—
“
Is this because I
’
m Jewish? Is that it?
”
Oh we have fun, or at least I have fun, because he barely knows what he
’
s saying. And of course I
’
m careful to note that such comedy should stay between us, enjoyed only at home, considering that much or most of the appeal might be lost on his fellow fifth-graders, their parents, or, say, Ms. Richardson.

After half an hour or so of superior frisbee-playing, we rest in the middle of the kite zone, in the grass, watching the tails jump and ripple around us. The Golden Gate is straight ahead, looking small, light, made of plastic and piano wire. The city, The City, that is, San Francisco, is cluttered and white and gray to the left, the Bay flat, blue, rippling noncommittally, dotted with sailboat feathers and motorboats with comet trails.

And then a notion occurs to me: swim to Aicatraz. That would be something, swimming not from but
to
Aicatraz. It doesn
’
t look all that far. Maybe a half-mile? It
’
s always so hard to tell with water. But I could do it, if the water was calm. Breaststroke. What would be so hard about it? Every time I see an island in a lake or bay I think I need to swim there. /
am an excellent swimmer!
I tell myself. As long as I don
’
t panic, or wear myself out too soon, it would just a matter of pacing—

And Toph would do it, too. That would be something, us doing the
to
Aicatraz swim, together. That would be a first, two guys kind of leisurely swimming to Aicatraz together. We
’
d just plan it between us, a secret, would bring bathing suits one day and just jump off the rocks and go. It
’
s probably illegal. We would be followed by the Coast Guard. Still, that would be amazing, this kind of thing always more impressive with Toph involved—

“
Ow. Jesus.
”

Toph, bored with the rest period, has started picking up the conical pieces of dry dirt produced by the turf aerator, and from about three feet away, he is throwing them at me. He is tossing them carefully at my stomach, watching them bounce off, and chuckling to himself with each hit.

Because, after maybe twenty tosses of the conical dirt fragments, I have still not paid any attention to him, he starts throwing little pinecones. He only has five pinecones, though, so every time he
’
s done throwing all five, he has to walk, on his knees, around me, sneaky-like, chuckling still, to retrieve them. Then he kneel-walks back to his original spot, and starts over.

I tolerate it for three more rounds, then decide to give him the punishment he wants. The fourth time he walks by, I trip him. Then I sit on him. Then he cries. When I let him up, he laughs—
“
Sucka!
”
—because he was pretending to cry, which I should have known, since he does not cry, has never cried—but because I have let him up, I have given him room and opportunity for— Jesus. The maneuvers. I dread the maneuvers. He backs up, gets a running start (though still on his knees), and comes at me, doing the maneuver where he slaps his elbow and charges at me. It is one of his three maneuvers. These are the three maneuvers:

a)  The flying-object maneuver: For this maneuver, his most commonly employed, he takes an object, like a ball, or a towel, or a pillow, and throws it at me, in kind of an elaborate, arcing motion. Then, while I
’
m supposed to be distracted by the object arcing toward me, he comes in after me, right behind the object, shoulder first. The objective, one assumes, is to first cause confusion, then strike a critical blow.

b)  The slapping-the-elbow maneuver: This one, the one he is doing at the moment, is newer than the flying-object maneuver, and makes a little less sense than the flying-object maneuver. What he does with the slapping-the-elbow maneuver is charge at me, right elbow first, sticking it out toward me, in the sort of position one would have if charging

with a knife, or running to show someone a boo-boo. Then, while he is coming at me, right elbow first, he is also slapping the right elbow with his left hand. It
’
s unclear why he slaps his elbow, unless its for the sake of distraction, like the flying-object trick. Of course, where the flying-object maneuver succeeds to some extent, the slapping-elbow maneuver fails each time, because it is only
bringing attention
to his chosen weapon, i.e.,
his elbow.

c) The slapping-the-ankle maneuver: This is very similar to the slapping-the-elbow maneuver, I guess obviously, except with this maneuver, instead of slapping his elbow, he charges at me while hopping on one foot, holding the other foot, the ankle of which he is slapping. This maneuver requires no further comment.

So at present he is coming at me, on his knees, elbow first, slapping it with his left palm, looking like an angry, masochistic double-amputee. I don
’
t have the energy to move clear in time, so I let him land on my back. Soon we are rolling around on the grass, with me in a few seconds pinning him on his stomach, crossing his legs perpendicularly, his ankle in the back of his knee, then pushing his calf, nutcrackerlike, onto his ankle, inducing pain, tremendous pain.