MY TWO SONS
At first I was horrified when they drew swastikas on their foreheads, but then I remembered that all of their markers are water-based and non-toxic so there would be no side effects. I knew I could wash the swastikas off with soap and water, which I did as calmly as possible. I knew they’d kick and shriek. I anticipated that. No one likes his or her forehead scrubbed like a dinner plate. I also knew, and I still know—fathers are built for knowing—that a swastika doesn’t necessarily connote bad things like Germany, human extermination and what’s-his-name (A.H.), that it also stands for sex, energy, and rebirth in Native American cultures for example, and in Korea.
I’m going to lecture for a minute; this is what fathers do; it’s in our job description. When we’re not gathering logs, boulders, and berries, or hunting animal meat for dinner, we’re called upon to spout wisdom.
Nothing prepares us for the way we are. Your brain sits on top of, or rather inside of, your head, commanding you to do things and you indiscriminately obey. You have no choice. Go to the toilet, the mind commands, it is time. And so you shuffle down the hall, turn a corner, and approach the chamber pot. Like a delivery truck, your buttocks are backed into position, pants and boxers dropped to the ankles. The next command is a simple, ominous, descend. Yes, Master, you silently say back to headquarters, as you bend your knees and drop your hindquarters onto the white plastic ring—a movement you complete like a hapless marionette. Does the contestant win a prize, you ask, since I pressed my ass cheeks onto the circle? No. He gets nothing. Instead he waits, and of course nothing happens in the bowel movement dept. No this and no that, which is another way of saying that we all have madmen at the control panels, steering blindfolded, giggling away, while all the buttons blink red and the knobs spin wildly. My ass cried wolf and my brains believed it. The hypothetical man didn’t have to go potty, I said to Mr. Spider who crawled across the tile floor as flames engulfed the house in a nursery rhyme gone evil. Nothing was in there. It was a false alarm.
Something happened to me the day my kids were born. That’s when the pilot—chained to the wheel with multiple padlocks (a brand name suspiciously called Master; it’s all connected, my friend)—officially dozed off and never awoke. The pilot in me responds to things, but not very swiftly. At this stage of my life, I’d like to drill a hole in my head and drain out all the material. I retract that. I didn’t mean what I just said. I’m happy. You can’t raise kids unless you’re cheerful. My smile is reinforced concrete with rebar jutting out from my upper lip.
Once my kids are in prison, they can get all the swastika tattoos they want. They can both be A.H. and destroy England together.
I get some pleasures. For instance, this morning I fell out of bed before the sun came up. While the water was boiling for coffee, I stepped outside to get the paper. I heard a funny sound. I shined a flashlight up in the tree and there was Alex, my son, 15 feet up, straddling a limb, nibbling on a pinecone. I said, Hey, what are you doing up there? Be careful. He worked furiously, making his way through the cone like it was corn on the cob. We stared at each other for several seconds. He wasn’t eating the pinecone per se; he was just biting off pieces super fast and spitting out each little chunk to the ground, not unlike the action and method of a squirrel, which I think is his current role model. Alex can make that incredible clacking sound that squirrels make when they’re threatened or horny. He’s only seven.
I have a wife and two kids. I have other things as well like a pair of skis, a car, and a collection of peach pits. I am fond of peaches. I like to eat them, upwards of five a day. They’re low-cal. A guy like me better watch his weight or he’ll balloon into a circus animal. I especially love the peach pit’s crenellated texture. Peach pits seem like miniature skulls. To be perfectly frank, nectarine pits separate a lot better from the fruit-meat than peach pits do. I’m not saying anything new here. Anyone who’s consumed both types of fruit knows this. It’s not important information for human survival, but it might tell you a little more about yours truly. I’m not sure what.
If I could be anyone else in the world right now, I guess I would choose to be a scientist. I’d experiment on animals and people. I’d like to make monsters. In my dreams I see frogs crossbred with pit bulls. But what am I talking about? My dream has partly come true. My wife (the professional sleeper) and I have two so-called beautiful children. I almost called them chickens. They’re 100 percent people. I started to say chickens, maybe because when they were infants, I wanted to eat them; that’s a normal adult reaction. The only difference for me was that when I held them close, and took a deep breath, all I could think was duck, turkey, chicken. When they acted up while we were barbecuing, I could see myself stripping them naked and slamming them down onto the hot grill, slathering them with Uncle Buster’s Red Paste, and turning them into Tandori Brats. I could never picture my sons as ground beef (an unsavory thought). I’d cook and serve them country-style, full carcass. For some odd reason cannibalism has never bothered me, not even slightly. Eat your own: a motto I’d hammer above the hearth if I had the proper wood-burning tools and a little extra time for arts and crafts. But if truth be told, the only fellow who’s going to get his head cut off around here is me—me chopping off my own. That’s what razor-sharp knives and weights and pulleys are for. One beheads oneself when one’s had it up to here. Don’t think I don’t think about this because I do, constantly.
When strangers tell my oldest boy that he has beautiful eyes, he kicks them in the shins. They’re marbleized gray with streaks of blue. They look like precious stones. He’s so handsome it’s distracting.
When my sons grow up, I expect some part of the North American continent to be missing, just torn from the earth, stomped and burned, floating in the Pacific, drifting beyond Hawaii. I pray that they make it to 18, but I pity whoever is in their path. Right now the parents of underage criminals are being sued by surviving families. They’re holding us responsible. They don’t realize there’s nothing we can do. The fierce monkey kills whenever it wants to. If you forbid the Catholic school girl with braids to run around with boys and lift up her plaid skirt, she will hightail it to the Wiggle Room and become a lady of the night. If you arm your children with weapons, they will join the Peace Corps. All I’m saying is being a parent ain’t like it used to be. In one sense you could say it’s more exciting. Girls, on the other hand, are less violent. That’s a plus. But it would be insulting to say that girls are not capable of brilliant destruction. Unfortunately, I don’t have any daughter to offend.
My wife is a very attractive smiling machine with the disposition of a cantaloupe—fragrant and watery. One of the boys is always screaming, cussing, throwing up; defecating in every conceivable room besides the john, in every possible receptacle besides the toilet. I privately refer to them as the two Charlie Mansons. They have actually written pig on the living room wall with their own excrement. They know that food is a weapon, also the sound of their voices, and the aforementioned deposits that the rear end manifests. Mix these things together and you have quite the juvenile arsenal. Then double it and make it so they are never held accountable. They both point at each other, he did it, no he did it. In the end, the villain is always me, the father, the tired blob who hasn’t slept soundly since they were born, the chump who drained his bank account on their behalf. Wait till we get to college, they shout into a megaphone, or so I imagine, we’ll eviscerate your funds and encourage Mom to divorce you. We’ll make up shit in court; you molested us when we were toddlers; you’re currently sleeping with other women and lots of men; we’ll Photoshop pictures of you doing nasty things to animals; we’ll make you look fatter and even more unappealing than you already are so she’ll think you’re immoral and depraved cuz fat people always suck. These are my own fears, my own neurotic babblements. None of it is true. Exaggerating my own problems makes me feel like everything’s really okay, like maybe I have the perfect life.
“TORMENTING THE FATHER�
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WRITTEN BY ME, THE FATHER
SPONTANEOUSLY PERFORMED BY THE WHOLE FAMILY
The following conversation takes place in our living room, a carpeted area 25 feet long, 15 wide. There are two hundred thousand toys scattered everywhere. Every step one takes, there’s a good chance that a restful plastic creature will shriek itself to life and request affection or threaten you with violence. A person must be mentally sound when passing through this room. Once you hit linoleum, the room tapers into a very narrow kitchen, which is where I am, the father, when the curtain rises. I am 35 years old, going on 50. My two sons, Marco (five years old) and Alex (seven), are on the couch, on their backs, feet up in the air, their heads dangling off the seat like a couple of marsupials. They’re very irritable. Before we begin, let me say this: It’s easier for me to imagine my life in the form of a play. It’s not as painful. But this is not a play. This is exactly what happened today, word for word. It’s Home Life Vérité.
MARCO: Breakfast. Stop reading. Make us breakfast. Do it nowww.
ME: (to the audience) Marco’s now lasts three seconds. He’s stretched words out over a minute to emphasize a point. It’s an effective method. I’ll do anything to get him to stop. I was reading the newspaper. Back in the bedroom, my sleeping wife snores ever so faintly, not a speck of drool on the pillow. She insisted on getting pregnant two seconds after we got married. I am Commander in Chief of Saturday morning, or so I’d like to believe.
ME AGAIN: (pretends to read the paper and then theatrically closes and folds it) Good morning boys. (standing at attention) What would you like for breakfast?
ALEX: Cereal. (sweeps an arm across the kitchen table, sending a pile of crayons and paper and a wooden Pinocchio to the ground) Why do you always ask, Dad? You know what we want. The menu is a constant, like vomit and the solar system and vultures eviscerating dead cows.
ME: (to the audience) Alex’s vocabulary is currently a runaway train. He’s learning fast and it’s scary. He loves all words that have to do with tearing apart bodies. A future Lee Harvey Oswald or Jonas Salk? All I can do is spread love and hope for the best.
MARCO: Make us everything. Just make stuff. I’m ready to eviscerate.
ALEX: You used that word incorrectly, Marco.
MARCO: No I didn’t, and so what if I did.
ME: Okay, we’ll have a smorgasbord.
BOTH BOYS: (look at each other, speak in unison, mildly disgusted) Yeah, whatever.
ME: (drops newspaper, walks into kitchen, ties an apron around waist) You guys get a good night’s sleep?
MARCO: We always sleep good. How come you always ask us that?
ALEX: Because he’s a girl.
ME: I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. (grabs coffee, walks over to the refrigerator) MARCO: Like he’s going to do anything.
ALEX: See me tremble.
MARCO: He likes wearing girl aprons.
ALEX: Hey, where’s the remote?
ME: (to the audience) My kids are doing incredibly well in school. Their teachers love them and they get along great with the other kids.
ALEX: Dad, are you deaf? The remote. Find it. We’re missing Scooby-Doo.
ME: Try looking between the cushions.
ALEX: No, YOU try looking in the cushions. YOU lost it.
ME: (laying slabs of bacon onto skillet) I’m in the kitchen. It’s there somewhere. Who used it last?
MARCO: You did, lard man, now find it.
ME: (chopping fruit) I’m busy in here.
MARCO: Just come here now and find it. Find it, you insect.
ME: (fussing with the bacon) Hey, talk nice to your father.
ALEX: That’s bullshit, Dad, find it.
ME: Alex, don’t talk to me that way. You have to be nice or else I won’t help you.
ALEX: All right, I’m nice now. See, I’m smiling. Now, find the remote. We’re missing the beginning of Scooby-Doo.
MARCO: Hurry up, toilet fuck. Find the remote.
ALEX: He’s such a jerk.
ME: (laying bacon slices on a paper towel, pouring Cheerios into a bowl, adding milk) Don’t call me a toilet fuck.
MARCO: Okay, penis head.
The father is all smiles. That’s right, I am, and I’m carrying a tray full of food into the TV area, placing it gently on the coffee table. Cheerios and milk for Marco. Cut up melon, pineapple, and peaches, and two strips of turkey bacon for Alex.
MARCO: Nope. Get it out of here. I told you before, no milk. I won’t touch it.
ME: (handing Alex his fruit and bacon) Here you are, sir.
ALEX: On the table. (pointing away) Over there.
ME: What do you say? (searching for sweetness and gratitude, a little manners) MARCO: Eat me raw.
ME: No. How do you thank someone?
ALEX: Shit man, get out of our face.
MARCO: Hey, (screaming) do you understand English, mister? Get these Cheerios out of here. No milk.
ME: (to the audience) I used to wash their mouths out with soap but I was worried I might poison them because they were cursing me all day long and the trips to the bathroom turned into hourly events. It started to get out of control. I’d be in the supermarket looking at mild punishment soap rather than soap for hands and body. But they taunt me.
ALEX: Give us some soap. Come on, Mister Big, try it, see if we care.
MARCO: Soap soap soap.
ALEX: You think you’re so tough with the soap. We like the taste, okay, boy?
MARCO: Ivory, Camay, doesn’t matter to us. Bring it on.
ALEX: Yeah, I like Lava.
ME: (to audience) Today is Marco’s birthday. I always get two presents so whoever’s birthday it isn’t doesn’t get angry and jealous and cry all day and break things and refuse to eat. I got Marco a battery-operated tyrannosaurus rex with moving appendages and growling voice. There’s a handle on the big lizard’s back with a trigger so you can move all the body parts and make him roar. Non-birthday Alex gets some kind of ball with two rackets. For a short time, the T-Rex is a hit. Then something imperceptible happens.
MARCO: (angry) Hey, this present sucks. It’s dumb. I don’t want it.
ALEX: Give it to me then. Let someone less fortunate than you have a chance.
MARCO: (slamming T-Rex to the carpet, speaking to Alex) Here. You can have it. This present sucks royal.
ME: (crestfallen) Careful. You could break it.
ALEX: You’re right, it does suck.
MARCO: You promised me we’d go fishing. Let’s go, now. I command you.
CURTAIN
SCENE 2
The curtain opens to reveal the father and two boys standing on a bridge, fishing. The mother/wife is 10 feet away, reading a magazine, dangling her feet off the edge of the bridge. A beautiful waterfall in the background.
ME: (to the audience) Since the kids were born, my wife and I have only had sex in hotels. Never once in the house. Anyway, I buy three rods and reels and some lime-green bait out of a jar. We drive to Convict Lake where a hundred years earlier, actual criminals drowned in a shoot-out with the law. I spend two hours untangling the kid’s lines, first one then the other. I never once sip a beer. I don’t even remove it from the ice chest. There’s no time to light my cigar. I haven’t even turned around to look at the waterfall. It’s like I work in an untangling factory. At one point both fishing rods need work.
ALEX: Dad, you’re taking too long. What’s wrong with you?
MARCO: He’s a diaper.
The father accidentally kicks one of the boy’s fishing poles into the water. It quickly sinks.
ALEX: (irate) You cocksucker. You are a total jerk. Why did you do that?
ME: (sheepish) It was an accident, son. I’m sorry. Give me a break.
MARCO: No breaks for idiots.
ALEX: You better buy me another one. You owe me. (face contorting) You are so stupid.
ME: Don’t talk to me like that, son. Talk nice, I’m your father.
ALEX: Just buy another
fishing line and then you’ll be my father. Just buy it and shut up. And quit trying to act like you’re the boss cuz you’re not.
MOTHER: Honey, I’m going to the store for a sandwich.
ME: There are lots of nice things in the cooler that I prepared.
MOTHER: You know I don’t like mayonnaise.
ALEX: Mom, why are you married to Dad? He’s so retarded.
MARCO: Yeah, Mom, you’re cool. We’re going to the store with you. (the three of them walk away)
CURTAIN
“It would be useless to expect to hear heaven murmuring in your windows. Nothing, neither your appearance nor the air, separates you from us; but some childishness more profound than experience compels us to slash away endlessly and to drive away your face, and even the attachments of your life.”
—Antonin Artaud, Letter to the Clairvoyant, 1927
How badly I want to say that my kids love me and we have a great relationship. I can say it, fool myself into hoping that something will change. It’s just that we’ve gotten a bad start. Most mornings I get up early and hang out in the cellar. For the record, I illustrate children’s books. I draw all day long. I can’t put the pen down. I love to draw more than talking, eating, or sexual intercourse with my spousal team member. When my wife hears the boys talk in an abusive manner, she asks them to stop, but it’s never heartfelt and they know it. They know she appreciates their verbal assaults. They’re speaking for her. The kids need to be creative, she might say, if she ever spoke.
ALEX: (to the reader) This play I’m in isn’t over until I say it’s over and it ain’t, so open up the stupid ugly curtain nowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
The curtain rises. Little three-foot Alex is sitting on a large stool.
ALEX: (to the audience) Thank you. I was named after Alexander the Great, and like him I have a great passion for Homer. I will not kill my father, Steve, for the same reason that my namesake from 338 B.C. didn’t kill his, though he was suspected of it. Like he, I have more important matters to attend to, and if you think a seven-year-old doesn’t sound like this you are an even bigger pile of shit than my dad is. If I were a dad I’d take my kids and string them up with rope, upside-down, and leave them there till they were old enough to bring home money. Only then would I cut them loose.
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