Dr. Tierney wouldn’t talk to me about Dad, only about how I feel about Dad. I told him Dad’s not as good as Mom, but he’s better than nothing. I wish he’d just give up on his time machine. Last night when he was talking about it, I almost believed him for a second. I thought, Maybe he’ll do it! He’ll go back and change things so Mom doesn’t die! But that’s ridiculous.
But maybe it’s not totally ridiculous. I don’t know anything about time travel. I saw a funny movie where medieval knights come to modern America. I watched it with Mom a few years ago, and she loved it. It cracked us up. I should rent that movie again. I could use a good laugh.
It was nice having someone in the family who thought about me when I wasn’t around. The day we watched that movie, I came home from Simpson’s house and Mom said, “Hey, Josh, I rented a knight movie for us.” She’d been thinking about me and doing something nice for me when I wasn’t even there. That never happens anymore. Not that I go to Simpson’s house anymore. He has two houses, and I don’t go to either of them.
Simpson’s mom drove us to soccer this weekend. Her ear was wrapped in a bandage. When I asked her about it, she gave Simpson a funny smile. She must have let him practice his piercing skills on her. I can’t see Mom ever letting me do that, no matter how much she loved me. Simpson’s mom is too nice for her own good. She would probably adopt us if I asked. But since she’s already sad over Simpson’s dad leaving, she doesn’t need Sammy’s insanity making her sadder. She cried when Simpson told her about Sam talking to Mom in the Power Ranger’s girly voice.
I called Aunt Laura and asked her to visit again, because life is too hard without a mom around.
In most Native American tribes, families mourn for a whole year after a person dies. Aunts probably come around and help out a bit. The men in some tribes cut their hair as a sign of grief. I think that’s a good practice. Sammy and I need haircuts before school starts.
Sammy has his first soccer game tomorrow at six o’clock. The coach dropped off his shirt tonight. It’s number ten. Sammy wanted to sleep in it, but I said no. He’s sitting up in bed right now, staring at it. He’s so excited he probably won’t sleep tonight. He’ll probably bounce out the window, he’s so excited. He’ll probably choke to death.
Friday, August 24th
The decisions that turn out to be important in your life aren’t always about important things. “Do I go skydiving?” is something you’d take your time deciding. But other decisions seem too small to matter. Like, “Should I have a look under the driver’s seat to make sure there’s no snakes in the car that’ll scare me stupid when I’m on the highway going a hundred kilometers an hour between a concrete barrier and a hardwood forest?” Who would ponder that?
There’s no word yet on whether Mom will get a Darwin Award. I didn’t put a proper subject on my e-mail. I chose the “Miscellaneous” category. I asked if someone would qualify if they died because of a phobia. I gave Mom’s example, and I provided a list of smart things she did, like writing two books on medieval plays that stupid people never even heard of.
Mitchell came by our house on Wednesday night with a file box full of stories about Mom from the people she worked with—students and professors and secretaries and even the cleaners, who said Mom was friendly and kept her office neat. One story was totally weird. It was about a student named Ben who had a crush on Mom. He sent her flowers and presents every day. He dropped by her office and hung around outside her classes and creeped people out. Mom wasn’t even nice to him—she took out a restraining order and acted like he was invisible. I thought he must be the one who put the snake in her car. But Mitchell told me Ben was in jail at the time for attacking another student. That says a lot.
I told Mitchell I’d read that one in eight female university students are stalked every year. I asked him if he thought that was true. He said, “Yes. You wouldn’t believe how many young men are basically insane, Josh.” I thought that was a very negative thing for a professor to say. Then Sammy ran up, and the girl Power Ranger kissed Mitchell’s arm and said, “Stay with us, my dear and true friend.” Mitchell just nodded like that was his closing argument.
Sammy’s Power Ranger never stutters. I mentioned this to Dad, and he asked, “Why would she stutter?” I said, “Because Sammy stutters.” Dad said, “Sammy doesn’t stutter.” I said, “I-I-I-I think he-ee-ee-ee-he does.” Dad said, “Oh, that. That’s not a stutter.”
Since two out of three men in my family are insane, Mitchell is probably right to believe the crazy-stalker statistics.
It was very nice of him to bring the stories over. He typed them up and printed them out with headlines and clip art and put it all in a report cover. We’re calling it the Professor Book. It’s mostly boring, and the stories have nothing to do with me and Sammy or Dad. They don’t belong in the Mom Book. Even if Mom were alive, we’d never know those stories, unless we found out about the stalker guy when he got out of jail.
Mitchell put his own story in the collection, and it wasn’t about how much he adored Mom. It was about how Mom adored me and Sammy so much that she made the other teachers want to have kids. Mitchell knows all the details of our lives. He knows that Sammy likes the red Power Ranger best—although anybody could guess that, because the red Ranger is always the best. He also knows about tiny things, like Sammy’s Scooby-Doo flashlight and how he sneaks into Mom’s bed and annoys the cats with it every night. Except now he sneaks into my bed.
Mitchell knows that Cleo’s full name is Cleopatra and Charlie’s full name is Charlemagne, which even I’d forgotten. He teaches a course on the real Charlemagne. He also plays Civilization—which is weird because he’s forty, and he’s tall, dark and handsome, so you’d think he’d be going out with women instead of playing games all day. Whatever. He knows that I’m an expert player and that I want to make games when I’m older.
He said he liked making the Professor Book. “It’s a wonderful way to honor someone you love,” he said, right in front of Dad. Dad winced at the word “love.”
I asked Mitchell what Roman Catholic people do to mourn the dead. He said he didn’t know because he’s not a practicing Catholic, whatever that means. His father died when he was young, and his mother planted a tree as a memorial. They decorate it with lights on his dad’s birthday every year. But that’s not a Roman Catholic practice. It’s just what his family does.
There was a strange moment when Mitchell first arrived. I shouted down the basement for Dad, and Sammy said, “Daddy’s building his time machine.” At first Mitchell thought it was a joke, but then he realized our dad was actually in the basement ignoring us and building a time machine. He said, “Why?” Sammy smiled and stuttered, “So he-e-e can take the-the-the snake out of the car.” It was hard for me not to cry. A lot of times Sammy says something sad without knowing it, because he’s too little.
Before Mitchell left, he told me there’s an exhibit on Albert Einstein at the Museum of Nature that I should go see with my dad. As if Dad’s still a regular person who goes anywhere besides work and the basement. I might check it out by myself. I don’t know much about Einstein.
I asked Mitchell if he knew any available mothers for Sam, since we obviously need one. He could probably tell that by our shrunken gray clothes and our house that smells like cat litter and the fact that we were eating popcorn for supper when he arrived. He said he’d keep his eye out. He doesn’t need a wife as badly as Dad does.
Mitchell is divorced but he’s not a father, so he’s not too depressed. All the divorced fathers I know drink beer at lunchtime and try to make dates with total strangers in grocery store lineups. Ameer’s dad is a mess, and Karen’s dad is almost as bad. They can’t even dress themselves properly. They make bad jokes to pretty women and never take the hint.
Simpson’s dad is normal because he ran to a new wife—which is not nice for Simpson’s mom, but at least he’s not annoying strangers all over town. He’ll be driving us to soccer tonight, which is neve
r as much fun as when Simpson’s mom drives. I’d bet a million bucks he won’t have any piercing wounds anywhere on his body.
Since Dad is a widower, he doesn’t bother women the way divorced fathers do. But as a parent, he’s much worse than average. Even though he shouldn’t get married for a year, according to the Jewish rules, it wouldn’t hurt to check out what mothers are available. In our scrapbook interviews, I’ve added a question about whether anyone knows a nice woman to be Sammy’s new mom. By focusing on Sammy, and ignoring me and Dad, we’ll have a better shot at success. Sammy is totally cute and in obvious need of maternal care. Who wouldn’t want to be his mom?
He was awesome at his soccer game on Tuesday! I couldn’t believe it! He was totally normal and not weird at all. He talked to the other kids and listened to the coach and went on and off the field when he was told. He didn’t even pick up the soccer ball with his hands, like he does when we play in the yard. He kept the Power Ranger in his pocket. I could see his hand in there and his lips moving through the game, but you’d never guess what he was doing if you didn’t already know about his insanity. He was absolutely great. He didn’t shout, “This one’s for you, Mom!” before he took a shot at goal, which I was half expecting him to do.
Aunt Laura came to his game. She’s coming over tomorrow for the whole day. “To get things under control,” she said. When she picked us up for Sammy’s soccer, she made a face at the stench of cat pee. She spent a long time talking to Dad. They were too quiet to hear, but a couple of times she raised her voice. Once she yelled, “You can’t travel back in time!” And once she yelled, “Your children look like orphans!” That was a bit harsh because, even though I’ve blended the colors in the wash, at least we’re not in our pajamas anymore.
Sam just peeked into my room and asked to come to my game tonight, but I had to say no. He asked, “Why not?” I said, “Because Simpson’s dad doesn’t like children.” He asked, “Why doesn’t Daddy take us?” I said, “Sam, I really have no idea.”
Saturday, August 25th
Somehow Aunt Laura made Dad change the cat litter and clean the bathroom and come to my soccer game tonight. He didn’t sit in the stands reading a book either. He tried to, but she grabbed his book and shook her head. Not like she felt sorry for him, which is how most women shake their heads at Dad. Aunt Laura knows that Dad used to read books at my games way before Mom died. It’s not like he’s stopped paying attention to us or taking us out. Just like he hasn’t stopped cleaning the bathroom or changing the cat litter. He never did those things in the first place. He can’t get it through his head that he has to do them now. Aunt Laura says he should have done them even when Mom was alive.
It was nice to have everyone at my game for a change. Sammy cheered in stereo each time I scored. Instead of sounding like an insane child with the split personality of his dead mother, it sounded very cool and musical. He cheered, “Way to go, Josh!” in his own voice, then, “That’s my boy!” in the girly voice, with two claps in between. It caught on. Half the team was cheering in two voices by my third goal.
After the game, the coach let me and Sammy kick a ball around the field. Sam scored two goals on me. I was going easy on him, but he did well. He’s faster than I remembered. He’s been walking backward for so long, I forgot how fast he can run forward.
We bought drive-through ice-cream cones after the game and took them to the park. Our neighbor was there—Sam’s coach, Mr. Simpson, as in “Simpson is my last name”—with his daughter, Chloe. She was up on the rubber tires of the jungle gym, and her dad was saying, “Aren’t you going to come down the slide? Why don’t you come down the slide?” Parents always do that. Once a kid finds something they actually want to do, the parents try to get them to do something else. “Oh my god, you’re having too much fun up there, you better come down.”
When Sammy finished his cone, he climbed up the jungle gym to play with Chloe. Five seconds later they were rolling down the slide on top of each other. They kissed and ran around backward holding hands. It was so cute, I couldn’t stop laughing. Seriously, I was worried I might never stop. I got that weird hysteria thing where in the middle of a laugh you think you might cry like a baby.
The same thing happened to Dad, and he actually did start to cry. Big heaving sobs that made Mr. Simpson walk halfway across the park to get away from him. Dad was all hunched over shuddering. I shouted out that it was just an allergy attack and not to worry.
When he calmed down to a regular cry, Dad said he was sad because Mom wasn’t there to see us—to see me scoring at my game and Sammy kissing a girl in the park. He said every happy moment with us in the whole future of our lives will hold the sadness for him that Mom isn’t there to see it. I have to admit, that’s a good reason to cry.
Earlier today, Sammy and I went around taking pictures and making drawings for the Mom Book, so we’ll have a record of places like Mom’s garden and the bike path and the park bench she liked best. While we were out, I saw Karen walking up the street with a towel under her arm. She must be back from camp. I shouted her name, and she looked around and saw me, but she didn’t wave. I shouted again, but that time she didn’t even look. I asked Sammy if he wanted to go to the pool, but he said no because swimming causes drowning.
I hope he’s not getting a phobia about swimming. Phobias can start out as rational fears—like a fear of drowning when you’re not a good swimmer. The more you let the fear scare you, the more it becomes crazy and irrational. I read that phobias are the most common mental-health problem in North America. That’s really hard to believe, because Mom and Mr. Smitts are the only two people I’ve ever met with a phobia, whereas psychos are everywhere.
The most common phobias are of animals— especially dogs, mice, insects and snakes—plus storms, heights and closed-in spaces. I had never heard of a fear of storms before. It’s called brontophobia. There are many rare phobias too. Like dentophobia, which is a fear of going to the dentist. Nobody likes going to the dentist, but some people spend years in agony with their teeth rotting out because they’re so afraid to go.
There’s papyrophobia, which is a fear of paper. People with that phobia will run away from newspaper stands, or they’ll leave a restaurant where someone is reading the paper. Maybe the woman who jumped off the bus to have a cigarette was actually papyrophobic and somebody beside her cracked open the comics.
Maybe papyrophobics were hit on the head with a rolled-up newspaper when they were little. Or maybe they watched their parents hit the dog they loved with a newspaper. How else could you become afraid of paper?
Some people are so phobic they can’t even leave the house, and they spend their whole lives alone and afraid. They start off as normal people. Maybe they’re afraid to speak in public, but they have to do a speech for school. They totally bomb, and their fear gets worse. Then they go to the mall, and a pretty girl asks for directions. They stutter and the girl laughs at them, and their fear gets even worse. Eventually going anywhere feels so awful they can’t do anything except stay home.
I have to make sure Sammy doesn’t become one of those sad people. He should eliminate his fears by facing them one at a time. He seems to be totally over his fear of little girls—but since that took thirty seconds with Chloe to overcome, I’m guessing it wasn’t a real phobia. It can take years of therapy to get over a real one.
I told Aunt Laura about behavior-modification therapy for overcoming phobias. I said Mom should have done that. Aunt Laura patted my hand and said, “Josh, honey, half the people on the road would lose control of their cars if a snake slithered out between their feet.” She’s probably right. It would freak you out even if you liked snakes. Dad nearly crashed the car and killed us all once when a bee flew in through the window and landed on his thigh. He totally spazzed out, and he’s not even apiophobic, which means afraid of bees.
Whoever put the snake in Mom’s car might not even have known about her phobia. That makes the list of suspects practically
endless.
I just shut my light off and looked at the stars, but then I realized we missed the Perseids meteor shower two weeks ago, so now I’m bummed. This year there was no moon on August twelfth, which is the peak of the shower, so we would have seen a million shooting stars. It happens every August and it’s named after the constellation Perseus, the Greek hero. At Mom’s university, in the office across from hers, there’s a poster of Perseus holding up Medusa’s head. Mom couldn’t even look in that direction because of the snakes. It was a creepy poster, partly because of the severed head, but mostly because Perseus was totally naked, which is a weird way to fight monsters.
Every August when the Perseids happened, Mom and I would drive out to an abandoned farm outside of town where the light pollution isn’t bad, and we’d lie down on a pile of blankets to watch the meteor shower. Once all four of us went, but Sammy was so afraid of the dark he ruined it by saying, “I hear something coming,” every two seconds. So usually just Mom and I went. This year would have been especially great with no moon.
It still happened—the meteors fell all over the sky—but I didn’t see it. There’s tons of stuff like that happening right now. There’s a new IMAX movie, and new exhibits at the museums, and maybe even a fair. Life is going on around me, but I’m missing it all. Like that Einstein exhibit Mitchell told me about. Mom would have already taken me to that.
I’ll have to start reading the newspaper. Mom was the only person in my family who ever knew what was going on.
Walking Backward Page 7