A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (52 page)

“
Wear the helmet.
”

“
Bye.
”

“
Wear it!
”

Because his chain has been stuck, or broken, for weeks—we
’
ve gotten it fixed twice but it quickly reverts to its useless, congealed form—he has been doing what amounts to a coasting sort of thing to school, where, without sitting on the seat, he has one foot on one pedal, and pushes off with the other, using the bike like a skateboard, or scooter. He had described it to me, but I had not seen the routine until one day, when, after he left, I was walking to the bathroom to pee before going back to bed, when I noticed his lunch was still on the kitchen table. I ran out after him, and he was gone so I drove to the school, not expecting to see him en route but there he was, heading toward the first traffic light, at California and Masonic. It was unbelievable. He was doing the thing with the pedals and the pushing off, like riding the bike sidesaddle—it looked like he was joking. No normal child would ride a bike like that. And of course he wasn
’
t wearing his helmet. I honked and stopped him at the corner.

“
Your lunch.
”

“
Oh.
”

I was too tired to say anything about the helmet.

I feel wretched with guilt much of the time, know in my heart that because I do not make him breakfast and drive him to school, he will grow up to skin rabbits and recreate with crossbows and paint guns— But then again, in comparison to some of the other
parents, I
’
m Dr. Spock. There is, for example, the case of the one divorced mother of a kid in Toph
’
s class. About fifteen of us, parents, are out in the Marin Headlands one afternoon, standing by our cars in the parking lot, waiting to pick up the kids, all of whom have been on a two-day camping trip. The mother, tanned and leathery, with long blond hair and pink lipstick, wearing a long rugby jersey over white stretch pants, is talking, blithely and while gesturing extensively, about how she deals with pot in her home, vis-a-vis her other son, a sophomore in high school:

“
I figure if he
’
s gonna smoke, he
’
s gonna smoke.
”
She shrugs elaborately.
“
So I let him fire up at home. At least I know where he is, what he
’
s doing, that he
’
s not driving around or something.
”

Though she is talking to another parent, she is glancing my way. I have the feeling she expects me, because I am closer to her high schooler
’
s age than she is, and, because I have creative facial hair, to be sympathetic to her point of view.

But I
’
m too stunned to speak. She should be jailed. And I should raise her children. Maybe I
’
m the only one qualified to raise all these kids—so many of these parents are too old, dusty. Worse are those like her, who dress like their children and use their expressions. But
“
fire up
”
? Who says
“
fire up
”
?

I tell Beth the story, and she is entertained, as always, by the inadequacies of our fellow parents. She and I are collaborating peacefully, tag-teaming, doing the parent-teacher conferences together. We are a circus family, a trapeze family, with perfect timing, great showmanship, tight green outfits.

We decide holidays on a case-by-case basis. Church is out completely, as are most of the related holidays. Thanksgiving is observed halfheartedly, since neither Toph nor I care much for turkey, and don
’
t eat stuffing and that cranberry-Jell-O-in-a-can job. But Christmas we do. Bill, Beth, and I
get
copies of Toph
’
s list and split it up. Beth handles the stocking and the clothes. Bill handles a few things from the list, but otherwise takes the opportunity to buy for Toph books he finds vital to the development of any budding libertarian—one year bringing both William Bennett
’
s
Book of Virtues
and the
Dictionary of Cultural Literacy.

A few days before, Bill comes up from L.A., and we try as best as we can to set up the presents in the way our mother did. At Christmas, as with all holidays we still bother with, we celebrate it in a way that
’
s at once an homage to our parents and their way of going about things, but more often a vicious sort of parody.

Our mother was a Christmas extremist. Weeks of eight-hour shopping days, lists tendered and revised and revised again, presents pushing outward from the tree, almost to the foyer—a relentless effort to top previous years, to make it look not just joyous or extravagant, but obscene. My father, a fan but a less outwardly enthusiastic one, had a ritual, wherein he, because he was the father goddammit, and had been up half the night putting the goddamn presents together, would rise late, and would come down, at oh maybe ten or so, not to watch us open our presents, but to make for himself and eat a full breakfast. Coffee, danish, bacon, orange juice, grapefruit, newspaper, everything—and at the most leisurely of paces. As we waited, cross-eyed with anticipation, kids from the neighborhood, most of whom had been up since four or five, would frolic outside our windows with new sleds, taunting us, riding by on their Green Machines, pushing the pedals with new moon boots, shining in the winter sun, utterly fabulous.

This Christmas we
’
re dying because Beth and I have been doing the routine. Bill has been sitting, disapproving but still laughing, arms crossed, shaking silently. The routine, which begins after we
’
ve woken up and before Toph has started unwrapping, goes like this:

beth: Okay, you can open them now.

me: No, actually, wait.
{Picking lint from shirt, then slowly, slowly untying and then tying shoes)
Okay...now.

beth: Actually, hold on. I have to use the bathroom.
{Sounds of
water from the faucet. Then silence. Then flushing. More water. Then tooth-brushing)

beth:
{Reappearing from the bathroom, refreshed, straightening sweater)
Okay, I
’
m ready. Go ahead.

me: Wait a sec, wait a sec. You know what would be delicious about now? Grapefruit.

BETH: Mmm. Grapefruit.

me: Let
’
s have some grapefruit, then you know what? We could all take a nice walk.

beth: That would be so nice.

me: Fresh air, some exercise...

beth: And closer to God...

ME: And closer to God.

beth: We can have Christmas tomorrow!

beth:
^Thinking, clicking tongue)
Oooh. Tomorrow
’
s no good. Thursday?

me: Thursday
’
s bad. And the weekend
’
s tight. Monday?

At this point Beth and I are choking, crying, contorted, looking to furniture for support. We knock ourselves out.

Toph is waiting, unimpressed. He
’
s seen the routine before.

Addressing Toph
’
s presents is up to me, and the night before, I do everything I can to spruce up the task, to forge new ground. Some I address to fictitious recipients, or to other kids in the neighborhood. Many of Toph
’
s presents I address to myself. Those that actually bear his name are misspelled. Or else I do what I do when filling out school forms: I get his name wrong, writing
“
Terry
”
or
“
Penelope,
”
then cross it out and write his real name, smallish, below. I sign a few from
“
Us,
”
a few from
“
Santa,
”
but prefer this:

from: God.

He doesn
’
t know who to thank. He does not want to seem overly cavalier when reaping the booty, and we exploit his eagerness to please. A package of colored clay is opened.

“
Thank you,
”
he says.

“
Thank who?
”

“
I don
’
t know. You?
”

“
No, not
me. Jesus
”

“
Thank you, Jesus?
”

“
Yes, Toph, Jesus died for your Christmas fun.
”

“
He did?
”

I turn to Bill. Bill is staying out of it.

“
He did,
”
I say.
“
Beth, did he not?
”

“
Indeed he did. Indeed he did.
”

Work becomes ever more depressing, routine, improved only by the occasional near-death experience. To wit: It is any day at all when I am at my desk, working on a spread debunking raves, one in a long line of contrarian articles pointing out the falsity of most things the world believes in, holds dear. We have debunked a version of the Bible written for black kids. We have debunked the student loan program. We debunk the idea of college in general, and work in general, and marriage, and makeup, and the Grateful Dead—it is our job to point out all this artifice, everywhere, and the work is rewarding, bringing truth to an unsuspecting—

I am kicked from inside. A kick with metal-tipped shoes. I am at my desk. It
’
s like a cramp, but more like a spoon poking from my insides out, jammed from inside, a spoon trying to
get
out of me, fuck. I am used to odd pains, usually caused by too much caffeine with too little sustenance, but usually not during the day— they come in the morning, or late, late, when I stare at the screen and think of that winter—

I continue to work. But when the pain should be subsiding as pain always subsides it does not; it grows, the pain, and thinking it might have something to do with my bowel movements or lack recently thereof, I stand to walk to the bathroom and just as my
eyes see the hall to the bathroom the picture is jarred and then the landscape is tilted, and then I see the office from a Batman camera angle—
that
’
s
new!—and then everything is blue— The carpet. I
’
m on the floor. Now there are five spoons, smaller spoons in the same place, kind of twisting and digging, clumsy people in there, dancing with pointy shoes, stomping even, my right side the dance floor. I come to the realization that I am...I am writhing on the carpet. I look up at the couch, maybe three feet away, and must make it to the couch. The couch is my home, the couch is the answer. If only I can... reach... the... couch...

No one is noticing. Have I been shot? I have not been shot. There was no shot. But what if it was one of those silencers? It could have been a silen— I have not been shot. But I am dying. Surely, surely. I am dying. Finally.

I can
’
t talk. I try to eke out words—Help. Me.—but all I produce are little pants, dog breaths, my words taken by some ghost as they leave my—

I am dying, finally. Fuck I knew it. I deserve it. You know this, everyone knows this. It
’
s AIDS and I had it coming, what with that One Time When the Condom Broke with the Woman Who Had
Been Around.
I
get
a vivid picture of the where—a crooked-walled little third-floor apartment overlooking south San Francisco, the dawn coming while I stood by the bed, her on her hands and knees—and the who, yes of course, I know, it all comes to me in flashes,
Goddamn
I should have been checking that rubber as we were going along but oh we were plastered, we barely knew what we were doing, had gotten a ride from a mutual friend, who dropped us off, he knowing what was about to happen—we had run,
run
down the block to her place—

Fuck, Toph, I am so sorry. Will I even have time to call you? Who will take you? Beth? Alone? No— Fuck, Bill
’
ll have to move up—fuck, where will he work? There
’
s that one think tank, where Flagg works, but— What if he wants to move Toph to
L.A.? Oh I
’
ll have to make sure that doesn
’
t— But Toph likes L.A., actually, so— Oh look at how those clouds are moving, through the window, up there, all white, with a little gray, as if lightly bruised and—

Fuck! The pain! I
’
m giving birth!