by David Amsden
This is what Dad’s telling me about right now—
We were on the phone. This was the first time we had talked since that stellar Easter vacation. He sounded all solemn, which didn’t fit. Dad’s the type of guy who handles depression much better by doing something along the lines of, say, standing up on a table and jumping in a pile of brie cheese. I almost couldn’t take any of it seriously. It was like he was telling me about the secondary plot of some movie he’d seen ten years ago, certainly not his girlfriend’s miscarriages. It’s funny. Whenever you go a long time without talking to someone who used to matter to you, a lot of pointless things are said, just to fill some kind of space.
“That’s something,” I was saying. This was about the tenth time I’d said this during the conversation, and we’d only been on the phone maybe ten minutes.
“Yeah, feller,” Dad said. God, he sounded so dismal. It was painful to hear. “It sure is, isn’t it?”
“I mean are you—you know?” I said. “Using anything?”
“It’s pretty crazy, huh?” he said.
I figured it was safe to take this as a no. After all, Mary was a practicing Catholic, so I guess it was a lame question.
“It’s something,” I said.
I figured the reason Dad was telling me about all these miscarriages, and about Mary all balled up on the bathroom floor, was because he was embarrassed at how Mary was that one time I met her, at Easter. I thought I understood where Dad was coming from. I mean, no one wants the people he respects to think he’s dating some crazy woman who can barely even look at a stupid photograph or finish a complete sentence because she’s always about to start crying.
But this was all wrong. Dad’s solemn explanation, this rare phone call. It was not an issue of pride. It had nothing to do with an interest in historical accuracy. I mean, the guy may have sounded like he was about to commit suicide, but he was calling to share with me some glorious news.
“But this time,” he was now saying, “it looks like we’re in the clear.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“That there won’t be any complications this time around.”
Of course I knew what he meant. I wasn’t three. But that mechanism we all have went off inside me. You know, where you just want to be so stupid that you don’t understand anything that’s happening around you.
“What?”
In a strange way, I just wanted to hear him say it, very clearly, and not just because I knew it would kill him to say it, but because I knew it would sort of kill me too, if that makes any sense.
“What?” I said again.
“I know, feller,” he said. “It’s somethin’, isn’t it?”
“Wait a second here.”
“It’s true.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “I zoned out for a minute. What’s true? What are we talking about?”
“Mary,” Dad said. “She’s pregnant.”
“Mary is pregnant.” I was right: it did sort of kill me. I hate how I’m always so right. “And I hate to ask,” I said, “but you’re sure that this time it’s—”
“Yeah,” he said. “She’s almost due. About two more months.”
“No shit,” I said. “That’s something.”
“I know, feller.”
“That’s really something.”
“You’re gonna have a little brother,” Dad said.
I was a senior in high school now, in my last semester, actually going to New York City for college in the fall, Hunter College, which may not sound like much to you but I was pretty psyched. Anyway, all through high school I hadn’t really had a girlfriend. I mean, there was Claudia for a while, but that was sort of spillover from middle school so I don’t really count it. But don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t that kid hanging out in the corner, hair growing out of his palms, waiting for the blisters all over his face to disappear so people could see that he was actually a human being and not the forgotten remains of some petri dish experiment. If you were that kid, I’m sorry. I hope you’re better now. Most people seem to improve.
Me, I went out with lots of girls, kissed almost all of them. I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I swear by that last year I had pretty much kissed every good-looking girl in the school. I was lucky that way. I was sort of a fuckup, and if there’s one mystery about girls it’s how they’re all kind of obsessed with getting with the fuckup. I mean, I had even kissed most of the ugly ones too. You know, the kind who are geniuses when it comes to trying to be pretty.
I can tell you stories, that’s what I’m getting at here. Like about when I was a junior and me and this senior girl started fooling around. Her name was Traci—” with an i, not a y!—“and she was one of these really great-looking people who you hate because you know her personality will only continue to disintegrate the longer she lives and, alas, you blink once and suddenly she’s ugly as hell. She was preppie and popular, could often be found wearing a sweatshirt with some college’s insignia smeared all over it, leftover from some older ex-boyfriend who probably didn’t even really like her. She had these very tan legs, even in winter. They were so smooth in that high-school-girl way, where you weren’t sure if she was an all-star with the Gillette, or if she just didn’t have any hair follicles below her neckline. One look at Traci, and I swear all you wanted was to mummify her in Fruit Roll-ups.
But she’s not even worth going into. The only reason I brought her up was because of this one time we were fooling around. Mom was out of town, so me and Traci were up in her room, up on Mom’s fancy bed, pretty much having sex, except that all our clothes were on. So I guess you could say we were just making out, but I’ve never been too big on those kinds of details. My hands were on her ass the whole time, because, trust me, if there was any reason to put up with Traci it was because there was a chance of getting your hands on her ass. And, anyway, because of the motion, you know, the grinding or whatever, I ended up skinning my knuckles. Because of the friction against the sheets. They didn’t bleed, just scabbed over the next day, like some fool had tried to polish them with a Brillo Pad.
And the really funny part is that two days later I was doing the exact same thing with this other girl, Tanya, who was sort of heinous but kind of attractive in that way prudish girls can be when they’re trying to fake like they’re sluts. So we’re going at it, in Tanya’s little bedroom, on Tanya’s little twin bed. It was in the afternoon, before her mother got home—like everyone else, her parents were divorced too, never really around. We were on her pink sheets, when all of a sudden she’s flipping out because there’s these streaks of blood all over the place. We’d ripped off the scabs. You should have been there. You would have cracked up, I swear.
“How’d the cuts get there anyway?” she asked.
She was on top of me now, holding my hands and looking at them. She was looking at the palms though. Girls are always looking at your palms, acting all whimsical, if you haven’t noticed.
“Oh I don’t know,” I said. “Sometimes I cut my knuckles when I get real upset.”
“Seriously? That’s kind of—”
“No, I’m kidding,” I said. “I fell down the stairs and got a real bad carpet burn.”
It’s amazing, the lies you can get away with. That’s the problem with me, I’m always telling these sort of half lies to people. She was pretty cool with it though, actually didn’t want to stop. Tanya was obsessed with reading three-quarters of every one of those stupid Anne Rice vampire books, so she was conditioned to think the blood was sexy. The girl wanted to roll around in it.
“We can pretend I’m on my period,” I said.
That got her. She didn’t want to mess around anymore, or really even talk to me ever again. I don’t know why, but I was always saying things like that to girls back then. It’s not all that different now.
So I’d never had a girlfriend. And if you really want to know, I didn’t really like fooling around with girls that much. I don’t mean I was gay. They just
all seemed so stupid, at least all the good-looking ones. And I don’t mean it sexist, because most of the guys were just as stupid, so really it was kind of amazing that anyone took the time to hook up with anyone. I mean, everyone around me was flat-out dumb. Things like this don’t bother me so much anymore, but back then I wasn’t so smart. Once you realize that most of the people around you are jackasses, you stop caring about whether they like you or not.
At the time I’d just get with girls because I was constantly curious about why I didn’t like it. For me it was always a sort of experiment, where I was both constant and variable. I would just never let them do anything to me, never really let them touch me. I’d do all sorts of things to them, anything they’d let me really. And if they ever tried to reciprocate, which high school girls are always doing, attacking you like it’s a sacred mission, I had a pretty genius plan. It went a little something like this:
“Oh no,” I’d say. “Don’t. You don’t have to.”
“You don’t want me to?”
“No, it’s not that, I just—”
“Do you not like me? Do you think I’m fat?”
“No, it’s that I like you so much.”
“Shut up.”
“No really,” I’d say. “It’s sort of embarrassing. I mean, I didn’t want to say anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that I—God, it’s embarrassing—but I just, um, actually got off. You know, when I was doing that to you.”
“No way! Really?”
“I swear. Really.”
“Well, I could sort of feel it. Now that I think about it.”
“Yeah,” I’d say. “I thought you could.”
Does this make me a criminal? All I’d do is wait for them to leave, and then I’d take care of that element for real, their reciprocation, when I was alone. And if you want to know something truly perverted, I still thought about Claudia most every time. Claudia in the woods. Claudia in some Gap dressing room, that dark skin of hers all bare and goosebumped. Claudia and her thin brown mouth. Claudia on the phone that night telling me exactly what to do. Claudia when she’d still talk to me, when she looked at me in the halls. Claudia accepting my apology, and me still saying I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Claudia telling me don’t worry, it’s okay, it’s fine. Actually, I still think about Claudia quite a bit. That way, I mean. When I’m alone.
Mom was always working, but she was cool in that she made sure we ate together as much as possible. She just didn’t cook too many of the meals. Instead, the people who worked at Hunan Palace just off North Washington Street ended up cooking and delivering a lot of dinners for us. They probably fed us four days a week. The other three we went out to restaurants because Mom was making cash now and could afford it. I liked this kind of lifestyle, because I thought it was more urban, and since I was soon moving up to New York I was especially into the idea of being as urban as possible.
Right now me and Mom were eating Hunan Palace, on the living room couch, using the ottoman as our dining room table. This is how we always ate, even though we had a real dining room just on the other side of the kitchen. The dining room table was just too big or something. All those empty seats made you lose your appetite.
We were watching Jeopardy!, munching on pork dumplings fried on both sides, General Tso’s chicken, and who knows what else that you’ll never find for real in China. A commercial was on, and pretty much out of nowhere I announced—
“Dad called me today.”
She always handled everything with Dad all professional, only a few times did she lose it, like that time I told you about when she went off about the cocaine. Sometimes I look at Dad now and wonder why I actually like the guy at all, and I guess it’s because Mom stepped back and let me get to know him on my own. I asked her about this once, not too long ago, asked her why you even let me see the guy. “Well, he is your father, and I wanted you to be as close to him as possible.” That’s all she said.
It’s pretty amazing, I think. Some parents—like the parents of half my friends—put their kids through such ridiculous shit that the kids will never be able to take themselves seriously as adults. A lot of these kids are adults now, so trust me. I know what I’m talking about. Parents like that should be shot. Problem is, they’re more than half this country.
“Get out,” Mom was now saying. “How long had it been?”
“Like more than a year,” I said. “A while.”
“Wow.”
“I know,” I said. “He didn’t know if he should call himself Dad or Joe.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Seriously,” I said. “He ended up settling on Joe.”
Mom was laughing hard now. So was I. Me and Mom were pretty close, real close, like so close I don’t want to talk about her too much here, don’t want to taint her like that. Anyway, we could find humor in stuff like this. Like how I used the twenty-five-dollar money order Dad gave me every year for my birthday to take Mom out to dinner on Father’s Day.
“He settled on Joe!” Mom was saying.
“I know!” I said.
“I don’t even think of him as Joe anymore!” she said.
We just sat there laughing. Me and Mom together were always laughing, when I think about it. It’s the same today.
Jeopardy! came back on now and we both got quiet. We were pretty involved in the show, even though neither of us would have really wept if someone came along and euthanized Alex Trebek. Mom was an expert at the show, real smart, and I wasn’t so bad myself, considering I barely got passing grades. I was really genius at geography. I really like maps, just staring at them, especially memorizing bodies of water. Me and Mom’s big, hilarious inside joke revolved around this time that I knew that one of the Final Jeopardy answers was the Strait of Dardanelles (which goes into the Aegean Sea, in case you ever want to sound smart). What’s funny is that’s why I did bad in school, because I spent half my time making sure I knew exactly where places like the Strait of Dardanelles were, like I had this big trip planned or something.
Another commercial came on now, and it hit me that I had left out another funny detail from the conversation with Dad. I figured me and Mom could have another good laugh.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Know what else? About Dad?”
“What’s that?” Mom said. “Did he call you ‘sir’?”
“No, seriously,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“You know Mary?” I said.
“His wife?”
“They’re not married,” I said. “But she is having a baby. Mary is pregnant.”
Mom’s all quiet for a minute, not really laughing at all, and not really seeming like she was about to anytime soon. She was quiet in a real pensive way. It’s funny. I’ve noticed that single moms can all get quiet in the exact same way. It’s not so fun to witness.
“Wow,” she finally said. But she didn’t sound all that enthusiastic.
“I know,” I said. “Mary is pregnant.”
The show came back on, but right now neither of us was particularly dying to watch it.
“God,” Mom was saying. “Are they getting married?”
“I guess,” I said. “I think he said something about that. I feel pretty bad for Dad.”
That was the thing. I really did feel bad for him. I mean, I had a pretty great gig going on, with this great house and this nice car and a cool mother, and part of that could have been his. That’s how I got to thinking about Dad, and his life up in Jersey. I guess for a little while there I had been sort of angry, that Easter trip being a prime example, but I’m the type of person who can’t stay angry that long. It tires me out.
See, right when Dad told me that Mary was pregnant, right when I realized he’d probably have to get married to this sort of frantic woman and live with her kid Melanie forever, I just felt bad for him. Like one day he’ll be dead, and all the wrong people will show up at his funeral. There was no getting around it. Dad’s
life up there was a wreck. It was the exact kind of life that nobody wants. And now he had to keep on living it.
“He got himself into it,” Mom was saying.
“Yeah I know,” I said. “But it just sucks for him up there. I mean, you should see it. It’s this dirty little house in this weird area.”
“Your father and I once lived in a dirty little house in a weird area, before you were born.”
“Yeah, whatever. That kid Melanie is probably the worst kid in the world, and he has to deal with her calling him Dad all the time. And Mary, I told you how she freaked out when she saw that photo of you and Dad. I don’t know. I just feel bad for him.”
“It’s amazing,” Mom said.
“Yeah, it’s crazy.”
“No,” Mom said. “It really is amazing how forgiving you are.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “I forgot something else.”
“There’s more?”
“Well, it’s really nothing.”
“What is it?”
“The baby,” I said. “They know it’s going to be a boy.”
“Wow,” Mom said. “You’ll have a little half brother.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s wild.”
“It really is. It’s really something.”
“But that’s not what I wanted to say,” I said.
“Well?”
“This kid,” I said. “Dad wants to name him after me.”
That last year of high school there was this one girl I was interested in. Her name was Liz, and she was one of these new students who come from out of nowhere and disintegrates the tiny reserve of common sense in every single boy in the school. She looked about twenty-five, dressed like a woman in a magazine, in these short sexy skirts, bright stockings, funky tight shirts, clunked-out boots, the laces crossing ten thousand times. Sometimes around her wrist you’d see a spiky bracelet. She was tall and skinny, had a strut in her walk, also like the people who make it into magazines. And she was always reaching into her backpack, or fixing her shoe, or putting a clip in her black hair in just the right way that her top would drift up and you’d see a little bit of her stomach, the knobs of her pelvic bone, or her lower back, which in my opinion is a woman’s strongest feature. Basically, I’m not lying or being at all subjective when I say that Liz was the best looking girl to come to any high school in any American town in 1998. You know that way football types talk about girls, like all obsessive, the same way criminals talk about God? Well, that’s how everyone talked about Liz.