He smiled in the mirror. It wasn’t the first instance of his boys breaking stereotype: In the world beyond the Parenthood, teenagers stopped listening to their parents.
Richard flexed his aging biceps, frowned at their appearance in the glass, and put his jacket back on. He’d read the Burt Report later. The staff psychiatrist broke more rules on one page of paper than other staff were permitted over a decade.
Addressing Richard directly. Mentioning A and Z.
He left his quarters and was greeted by two guards in plainclothes outside his door. Both armed. Richard recognized the awe in their eyes—as if he were a celebrity, the pastor in their church.
He still had them, he knew. Twelve years in.
“Just get up there and spread some excitement, right?” Richard said for their ears as they followed him up the black-tiled walkway to the Body Hall. “Show them it’s okay for a man to be overwhelmed by his passions, dangerous as some may be. The time of radiant men has arrived.” Here Richard paused and turned to face Bobby, the thin-haired guard who once stole cars and spent three years in jail for theft. Sometimes Richard wondered if the staff hadn’t simply traded drugs and drink, incarceration, for the Parenthood. “God is sweating, Bobby. Can you feel it?”
Beyond the glass walls of the hall, snow fell. Richard stepped to it and looked out upon the Yard. In the now-hazy distance, the pines stood guard.
“It’s time to usher in the new father,” he said. “And his new sons.”
Greatness, Richard once told a former guard, with one hand on the shoulder of the man’s plaid short-sleeved wholesome shirt, just before sending him to the Corner, is not pretty to look at. Study the faces of the world’s biggest thinkers and you’ll note an optimistic dismay. Exhaustion. May this be the last thing you ever learn, Brad: Exhaustion isn’t brought about by sitting still. You gotta move to get it. And motion will give you those worry lines, that thinning hair, that shell-shocked glaze over your once-bright eyes. Tell me, Brad, which would you rather have? A simple, easily read face or the bloody knuckles of a man who has knocked on his inner sanctum’s door?
The guard Brad had experienced doors locking on him before. Four years in Jackson for assault. But he’d never seen anything like the Corner.
“Welcome to the Parenthood,” Richard said now, still watching the early-morning snow fall through the hall glass. The sudden swell of choral voices, Alphabet Boys singing in the Body Hall, broke his reverie. In blond Bobby’s eyes he saw the dark side of the Parenthood, the closing of the Corner door. Richard thought maybe he could hear the door creaking.
Richard smiled. It was not the Corner at all but rather Gordon emerging from his own quarters on the first floor. The Parenthood’s chief assistant to D.A.D. looked as wonderfully infallible as he always did. His black hair like a shining singular piece, the face and hair of a plastic toy soldier in a thousand-dollar suit.
“Richard,” Gordon said. “Did you read the Burt Report?”
“Some.”
“Well, I have a lot to say about the five suggested alternatives to the floor shift. And seriously, where does Burt get the nerve? I’m sorry the two boys were named.”
“A and Z,” Richard said. He was quiet a beat. “And here I’ve just said their names again.”
The six-part harmony of Voices seemed to emerge from one holy throat. A minor chord as sad as the death of their brothers A and Z.
Spoiled boys. Spoiled rotten.
Richard closed his eyes. He turned his back on the falling flakes and walked toward the Body Hall, toward the sound of his boys singing.
“Yes,” Gordon agreed, writing Richard’s words down on a clipboard. “But you shouldn’t have to think about them just prior to delivering a speech. It was egregious, as Burt often is.”
“Have I changed, Gordon?” Richard asked, his eyes open again, his black boots clacking against the black tiles. Ahead, the last of the boys—H, in all black—could be seen hurrying through the Body Hall doors.
“Changed how, sir?”
“Do I value now what I valued then?”
“You’ve remained staunch in your vision, sir.”
“I have. And yet…”
“The Burt Report is getting to you. That’s all.”
“I fear, Gordon.”
From the Body Hall, the voices rose, swelled to a weeping peak. Richard paused at the door. He eyed the alternating choir, the six boys who sang today. In their black slacks and black turtlenecks only their faces shone, floating visages hovering in the shadows under the arches of the Body Hall. The echo of their song added ghosts to their small number.
Richard relished the sight. The Parenthood choir, Voices. The other boys, too, dressed in black, seated in the pews. The white carpet of the aisle. The shadowed podium on the stage. The staff lined up against the walls like watchers.
Or perhaps like the victims of a firing squad.
Richard spotted Warren Bratt, sloppy and overweight, slouched and frowning.
“What do you fear?” Gordon asked.
The Body Hall lights reflected off Bratt’s glasses, and Richard couldn’t tell if the cynical author was looking at him or not.
“Surprises,” Richard said.
One deep breath and he entered the hall. Gordon followed.
As Richard walked the white carpet, his red jacket and slacks like spilt blood upon it, he was engulfed in the morbid tones of Voices, today the boys from Floor 8 with F and W accompanying. Despite Richard’s total ban of religion in the Parenthood, the boys sang Barber’s Agnus Dei. Aesthetic gibberish to them all; they had no way of knowing Latin.
His boys. His Alphabet Boys.
Oh, how they stared. Flat admiration in their eyes. Even those who sang: J and D, L and Q, F and W. As their voices rose to the Mural of Ambition upon the Body Hall’s high ceiling, they did so in one unified chord, seemingly adding dimension to the image of the shirtless man raising the boulder with his mind. The boys in black, the boys in the pews, some whispering, some elbowing, all fixated on the man in red leather, a moving wound now upon the white carpet toward the stage. As Richard climbed the steps, as Gordon and the guards shuffled to the sides of the stage to join the other staff, many of the boys inhaled deeply. They’d been with him only moments ago at their individual Inspections, yet seeing their D.A.D. at the podium in the Body Hall was a sight each and every time. Looking right, Richard smiled Warren Bratt’s way, showing nothing of his opinion of the unkempt, balding author’s particularly rumpled appearance. Then Richard signaled the boys of Voices to cease singing, and their final chord rang out long after they took his cue.
The boys of Voices took their seats.
Richard leaned toward the mic till he felt the cold metal touch his beard.
He delivered his speech.
“BOYS! I won’t take up too much of your time. I expect you’re hungry and can smell breakfast from where you sit. I thank you, each of you, for congregating on such short notice. These Body Hall events are, as you well know, rare enough that my calling them must mean something or must mean, at the very least, I’ve got something to get off my chest.”
Richard paused. He’d opened with “plain speak.” Gordon’s suggestion, many years ago: Relax them with something casual, Richard, then Trojan-horse the real message in.
“First I’d like to congratulate you all on some of the best Inspections we’ve had in years. Your frankness, your honesty, and your transparency are valued above all things. You’ve brought a tear to your D.A.D.’s eyes.”
“We love you, D.A.D.!”
F called it out. Funny F. Richard smiled and held up an open palm to quiet the rumbling the boy had inspired.
“Thank you, F. I love you, too. I love all of you boys and I feel particularly proud of you today.” He looked to J directly. J’s eyes were partially hidden by his black bangs
. Richard could barely make out the innocent spheres that had looked to him for everything in this life. “But I wouldn’t be honest with myself if I claimed that it was only through the Inspections that I’ve concluded you are all, indeed, on the right path in life. I’ve observed you boys very closely, perhaps in ways you don’t even know.” Here, E and O looked to one another and Richard saw hope in their eyes. Has D.A.D. been watching us? Isn’t that exciting? “Why, before Inspection this very morning I overheard a wonderful conversation brewing between two of you regarding a possible alternative to gasoline, and I couldn’t help but smile. My boys. My boys! Oh, how I enjoy eavesdropping as two of my boys employ the powers of their blooming intellect, toying with the concepts of cures, alternatives, of process and progress, the same. Do you see? Are you able to recognize the virtue of such an exchange, no doubt considered flippant by the two participants, and how much more meaningful it was than the subject matter boys your age could be engaged in?”
Richard inhaled. That last line was what Burt called a thin-icer. Possibly too close to the truth of things. But Richard didn’t think so. His boys knew as much as he wanted them to know. And who cared how thin the ice was when the truth was twice frozen so far below?
“Can you believe we’ve all reached the point we have? It seems like yesterday little Y was asking…why?” Some laughter from the boys. “And now? Now I ask him. Why? And he might just tell me.” The laughter gave way to awe. It usually did. “We’ve accomplished so much, yet we have so very far to go! And, boys, my beautiful boys, this is what troubles me, this is what has brought me to call upon you…today.”
Richard thought of the losses mentioned in the morning’s Burt Report. A and Z. The bookends of the Alphabet Boys. A coincidence (of all the boys to lose, those two?) that nearly tore Richard’s stomach lining out with worry. It took many hours with the staff doctors, many days in the bowels of the Turret, the boiler thrumming near, the sound of two dozen toddlers a floor above, for Richard to be convinced of the probability, the likelihood, that two boys of twenty-six must meet an unhappy end.
The fact that he was responsible for those ends didn’t factor into his thinking.
A and Z had both seen women.
A and Z had been spoiled rotten.
A and Z had been sent to the Corner.
“I’m going to tell you boys a secret.” Richard paused for effect. It seemed to work. “Long before you reached the age you are now, I had already dubbed these days…the Recasting Years. Just as you fine-tune your visions in the Effigy Meet, so will you recast yourselves here, in the Turret. Why? Why would I consider this age any different from any other? Why would I consider this era any more notable than your budding baby youth, when you couldn’t even lift your own heads? I’ll tell you why: Here…” The Delicate Years to the staff. The Recasting Years to the boys. “You have now officially begun the process of cutting your father-strings, becoming men of your own.” He paused, allowing for the gravity of this to sink in. The fear of being untied, too. “Observing you in the Yard and the Orchard. Observing you at mealtime. Reading over your reports and listening to your reactions to the latest Luxley novel. Your opinions are as sophisticated as mine. The thoughts you casually cast aside are as revealing as those you deem important. Your Inspections prove it. Boys! My boys! You are coming into your own!”
A and Z. A and Z. The bookends are what keep the books standing. But the bookends had been taken away.
Richard adjusted the collar of his coat.
“This is how it goes when it goes right, boys.” The boys in black. Some in turtlenecks and slacks, others in blazers and button-downs. But Richard spotted a dot of white. As he spoke, his eyes traveled to the small spot of color: T’s undershirt showing between the buttons of his shirt. Another omen? Like the coincidence of A and Z? “The mind takes its time, in youth, before it starts acting on its own ideas. Can you remember doing everything your brothers did? Do you recall the days when you would invariably spend the night with your floor mates? Almost incapable of taking some time alone, or simply not wanting to? You boys were inseparable. Why, there were times we had to physically pry you apart and place you back in your own rooms. And look at you now! You have individual interests. Individual theories. You’ve discovered the beauty of intellectual property. The gratifying essence, the root of real genius. You know I am right! Just as those early days were important for the bonds that were built and for the confidence you gained in seeing your ideas and actions approved by your brothers, these new days, now, this molting, has a fresh purpose of its own. Today can be considered tomorrow for how quickly you are growing! Your opinions are yours! They are not mine! Do you see? I taught you when you were small. But you are almost as big as I!”
Had he established an undeniable sense of fatherhood? Or were the boys, brighter than any boys in the world, instinctively aware that he was not blood? That he was not genes?
That he was not father?
“I wish I could reach out to each of you with my mind alone; you’d understand how much I value the time you have before you, you’d see the great open expanse of an infinite Yard that needs great care. For any idea you have in these forthcoming years is worth noting, is worth writing down, is worth talking about with your floor mates or taking a short trip to another floor to partake in discussion with boys you don’t see as often. You might even be inspired to take a longer trip to my very quarters. I cannot stress this point enough, how available I am to you during these years, how interested I am in the smallest thought that may occur to you. Your trivialities are my life’s work.”
Many boys exchanged shocked glances. An invite from D.A.D. to his quarters? This was a big day, indeed.
Richard felt sweat dripping beneath the tank top under his jacket. He relished it. It meant he was working. It meant he was present. It meant he was burning with the things he’d said. Burning in front of the boys.
“You look as though you know what I speak of already. I see some of you are blushing. And do you know why the words I say are sinking in? Do you?” He paused. Tried not to look at the spot of white exposed at T’s chest. Tried not to think of omens. “It’s because what I say is the truth! And every one of you values the truth. A change is upon you! And here, you knew it already. You didn’t need me to tell you that your most recent thoughts are the most fascinating thoughts you’ve ever had. After all, you’re experiencing them on your own.” Then, suddenly, with no segue, “You will find a fresh notebook upon your beds following breakfast. It is blue. I encourage you to write these new thoughts down. The erasers have already been removed from your pens and pencils. I do not want to miss a moment of this, the Recasting Years.” Richard paused. He had them. Rapt. His boys. “Write it all down. Every word. Express your strangest thoughts. Nothing would please your D.A.D. more than to be presented with full blue notebooks, overflowing with your concerns and ambitions, the secrets you keep. Do you understand? I can see by your nodding heads that you do. And so I will leave you with this: Hide nothing. For as your intellects have grown, so has the space in which to hide. From me. From your D.A.D. And who among you would do that? Who here would hide what they know their D.A.D. prizes so deeply?”
“Nobody!” S called. More laughter from the boys. This time charged with excitement.
Richard held up an open hand.
“Now,” he said. The boys shifted in their seats because they knew what was coming next. D.A.D. always closed his speeches the same way. D.A.D. thrummed his fingers on the podium, a drumroll of sorts. All at once the Body Hall erupted into two simple words, as the boys cried out exuberantly with their D.A.D. “Let’s eat!”
Richard acknowledged the choir. Voices. The six boys rose, took their places in the shadows again.
* * *
—
J SAID TO D, “I thought the notebook was for me only. D.A.D. told me it was for me.”
“What?”
But they didn’t have time to discuss this. And despite J’s obvious concern, he and the other five boys began Miserere mei, Deus together.
The other Alphabet Boys made for the Body Hall doors.
* * *
—
RICHARD STEPPED FROM the podium. The staff made to leave, too, but Warren Bratt was easy to catch up with.
“Lawrence,” Richard said, calling Bratt by his nom de plume lest a boy was in earshot. “How hungry are you?”
Bratt turned to face him, and all of Richard’s concerns with the author of the boys’ leisure books were increased. Warren Bratt was a priggish, stuffy, self-centered former punk who once fancied himself a fine writer. Ten years as Lawrence Luxley had done much to squash the snobbery, but Richard was learning that, as Burt once said, you could only tie an artist’s hands together for so long before he began creating with his feet.
Warren’s leisure-book ideas had grown disturbingly original. Not a good thing at all.
“Pretty hungry,” Warren said.
“That’s fine. Gordon will meet you in your office after breakfast.”
“Why?”
Richard did not feign friendliness.
“I think it important that, as the boys’ tastes change, so do the books they enjoy.”
Warren nodded. “I know that, Richard. But I’d like to—”
“Good. Then you won’t mind a chat.” He eyed Warren from head to foot. “And wash your shirt. The sweat stains make it look like you’re working too hard. As if you’re being forced to write something you don’t want to write.” As he stepped by Bratt, guards in tow, he added, “The boys worship Lawrence Luxley. Please, show them how a genius dresses.”
The Alphabet Boys Eat
Inspection Page 3