by David Klass
First, I can look down at the whitish mineral on my plate that is pretending to be turkey. This is not a good way of curing nausea because I believe the whitish mineral may be a powerful emetic, whatever that means.
Second, I can look at the man who is not my father. He is almost done with his turkey leg, although he has actually managed to ingest very little of it. Some of it has fallen from his fork onto the tabletop, where it has accumulated in dribs and drabs around his plate, like the first spotty snowfall of winter. Larger pieces, fearing to be eaten, are clinging desperately to his mustache, or have wedged themselves between his irregular teeth like mountain climbers seeking shelter in ice caves.
The man who is not my father feels my look.
“John, sit up straight,” he barks. But what he is really saying is “Who are you to stare at me? Have you forgotten who rules this particular roost? I can remind you with my right hand as soon as your mother isn’t around.”
“Okay, sorry,” I say, and make just enough of a minor modification in the alignment of my upper vertebrae to satisfy him, but what I am really saying is “I will not snap out a ‘Yes sir’ to you, which I know is the phrase you would like. You may be bigger and older and meaner than I am, you may be my tormentor and the man who has done such a poor job of replacing the man who named me after a toilet, but I do not accord you the rank of commanding officer.
“I will, however, stop staring at you, as the process by which you eat turkey that is not turkey is making me sick.”
So I look away from the man who is not my father, at our dog, Sprocket. In one of the great ironies of my life, our dog Sprocket is indeed a dog. He smells like a dog, acts like a dog, and has the loyalty of a dog. The first time the man who is not my father hit me, Sprocket growled at him. The man who is not my father kicked Sprocket in the head. Although I have not seen it because most of the day I am away at school, I suspect the man who is not my father beats Sprocket even more regularly and more severely than he beats me. I say this in part because Sprocket gives the man who is not my father more and more space.
Sprocket is now curled up in the doorway, eyes closed, listening to us try to chew our dinner. Of course, if we were eating a real turkey dinner, Sprocket would be under our table, wagging his tail and salivating, but since we are eating a mineral pretending to be turkey, Sprocket could not be less interested.
Tonight I cannot look at Sprocket for long. His dog’s snout reminds me of my friend Billy Beezer, who I last saw less than an hour ago, being escorted out of the food court by two mall policemen and a real policeman with a badge and a gun. At this moment, while I am eating my turkey that is not turkey, I believe that Billy Beezer is being interrogated by the foremost experts in criminology in our region.
This is another possible reason why I am nauseous.
Billy Beezer may crack.
He may name names.
He may name my name.
Billy Beezer doesn’t know who I am any more than you do, but he does know my name and address.
Now, it is true that among the Lashasa Palulu, unless you actively participate in committing a crime, you cannot be held in any way responsible. But unfortunately, I am not under the judicial authority of that tribe that is not a tribe.
I do not pretend to be an expert in the conspiracy-to-commit-egg-roll-theft laws of this particular neck of the woods. It is, for example, possible that merely having been present at the Bay View Mall, in the company of Billy Beezer, can get me into trouble. Perhaps at this moment Andy Pearce is going down for his role as Wong Chong chef distracter, and I will be the next domino in the chain to fall. It has even occurred to me that Billy Beezer may try to shift or at least spread the blame for his crime.
I am waiting for a knock on our door. I am listening for the sound of sirens in the night. If the colored lights of a police car were suddenly to make a Christmas pattern on our window curtains, it would not surprise me.
So, for all the above reasons, I do not want to look at Sprocket and his dog snout, which bears such a marked resemblance in shape and size to Billy’s Beezer that it is tempting to believe that Billy’s ancestors—by some great and heinous indiscretion—must have assimilated some canine genetic material.
So there is only one other place I can rest my gaze as I finish my turkey dinner that is not turkey, and try not to watch Vinny the Fox get eviscerated, whatever that means.
I am watching you.
You don’t know me at all, but I know you well. I am familiar with every line and Crosshatch in your so very tired face. I know the way you slice your entire meal up in little pieces before you eat it, as if you are nearing the very end of your strength, so you need to do all the hard work first.
I can see the blurriness in your eyes. You do not have my problem of figuring out where to rest your gaze during this meal that is not a meal. You are barely conscious of the mayhem. The man who is not my father’s table manners do not appall you, because you do not see him clearly. You see him through a filter of tiredness and nostalgia that makes him look to you just like the man you married when you were twenty years old and full of hope.
I have seen you in that wedding picture, standing next to the man who named me after a toilet.
You have more than just hope in that photograph, which is now hidden away. You have more, even, than youthful beauty. You have glee. Your eyes glow.
I did not know you then, but I know you now, and I can see clearly what lies at the bottom of the long slope that you have tumbled down. You have raised the white flag. You have surrendered to the enemy without terms.
The only question that remains is whether your surrender was at all justified and deserving of sympathy, or whether it was a cowardly and despicable act.
This is a difficult question. In deciding it, I must not be cold or unfeeling, or selfish to your sacrifices and suffering.
You think I don’t know what it is like to have a husband you love disappear on you? Hah! I know it very well. I learned it from listening to you sob late at night. I understand it because I myself have a hole in my heart for the man who named me after a toilet and never stuck around to explain why.
You think I don’t know what it is like to work a double shift on an assembly line at a factory? Hah! I know it very well, because I know you so well. I can see it in the way your whole body sags, right down to your fingers loosely holding the silverware. I can hear it in the way you breathe when you first come home after work, in so many small sighs, as if even your lungs are exhausted. I can even understand it in your need to be stroked and petted by the man who is not my father. It is pitiful, but comprehensible.
Yes, I understand it. I can even be sympathetic to a point. But here is the essential truth, which I hold to be self-evident: an unconditional surrender cannot and should not be arranged without consulting all the other officers in your army.
I am not just a part of this house. I am not just a brick in the wall or a beam in the roof or the welcome mat that is so frayed the word “welcome” looks like “Don’t come.”
Neither am I the doorbell or the brass lion’s-head knocker, although both are capable of making sounds. I am also not the dog curled up in the dining room doorway, although he is alive. I am not even the TV set, even though it has wheels and can chase us around the house, and is the only altar the man who is not my father worships at.
I am more than any of these. I am a person, a person you clearly do not know, and will never know. I have a full voice here. I have my rights here. It may be your house and I may live in a room that you own, but I have rights and must be heard!
The mayhem suddenly swells to a crescendo. The man who is not my father leans forward with his elbows on the table and gives a loud belch.
Vinny the Fox is being counted out. The ref waves his arm and signals that the fight is over. Vinny evinces no detectable signs of life at all. Doc Whittaker climbs into the ring and bends over Vinny, but there is nothing he can do. He is a cut man, and I believe V
inny the Fox needs an undertaker.
Our dinner that is not a dinner is over.
I get up from the table and clear my plate. I also clear the plate of the man who is not my father. And I clear your plate. I carry plates and silverware and glasses into our kitchen that is not a kitchen, and scrub and sponge and stack and dry.
You are wrapping up uneaten turkey for a future meal that will not be a meal. We are alone in the kitchen. The man who is not my father does not believe in a division of labor among all members of the dining group. He is still seated at our table that is not a table, waiting for Vinny to be scraped off the mat so the next fight can start.
Did you not hear a single word I said, O my tired and worn mother? I’m right here, next to you. I see you so clearly—how can you not see me? Are you that deaf or that beaten down?
Or is it rather, as I have suspected all along, that you do not know me at all?
7
Torture Island
It’s strange how an entire day, or even a week, can become focused on one precise instant.
I am sitting in anti-school, in anti-math class, with a piece of paper in my hand. No, it is not my algebra homework. It is not a quiz that I have finished and am waiting to hand in to Mrs. Moonface. The piece of paper in my hand has nothing at all to do with mathematics. Nor does it have to do with any school subject. Nor is it really a piece of paper at all.
It is really my fate, masquerading as paper.
My right hand is damp with sweat. I did not know that my hand was capable of sweating this much. I have folded the paper that is really my fate up into a neat, small square and now I am holding it in my damp palm and waiting.
I am sitting next to Glory Hallelujah and I am waiting for a break in the action. Mrs. Moonface is at the front of the room, going on about integers. I am not hearing a single thing that she is saying. She could stop lecturing about integers and start doing a cancan kick or singing a rap song and I would not notice.
She could call on me and ask me any question on earth, and I would not be able to answer. If she asked me what color grass is, or what my name is, or how many ears I have on my head, I would not be able to answer.
But luckily, she does not call on me. She is in lecture mode. She has a piece of chalk in her right hand. She is waving it around like a dagger as she spews algebra gibberish at a hundred miles a minute.
I hear nothing. The sound waves part before they get to me and re-form when they have passed me by. Algebra does not have the power to penetrate my feverish isolation.
You see, I am preparing to ask Glory Hallelujah out on a date.
I am on an island, even though I am sitting at my desk surrounded by my classmates—except for Billy Beezer, who is noticeably missing from school today.
I am on Torture Island.
There are no trees on Torture Island—no huts, no hills, no beaches. There is only doubt.
Gloria will laugh at me. That thought is my lonely and tormenting company here on Torture Island. The exact timing and nature of her laughter are open to endless speculation.
She may not take me seriously. Her response may be an honest “Oh, John, do you exist? Are you here on earth with me? I wasn’t aware we were sharing the same universe.”
Or she may be sarcastic. “John, I would love to go on a date with you, but I’m afraid I have to change my cat’s litter box that night.”
She may read my note, cover her pretty mouth with her delicate hand, turn redder and redder with the strain, and suddenly explode with uncontrollable laughter like Mount St. Helens erupting right in the middle of anti-math class.
Or, worst of all, she may disguise her laughing refusal beneath layers of pity: “John, it’s so sweet and brave of you to ask. I’m sure there are dozens of girls who would be thrilled to go out with you on Friday night. I have no doubt that you will grow into a tall, handsome, rich, and successful man, and at the tenth reunion of our anti-school I will eat my heart out for having turned you down.”
But what she will really be saying is: “That may all happen in the future. But in the here and now you are a hopeless dweeb, named after a toilet, and I am Glory Hallelujah—how dare you even think that I might allow us to be seen together in a social situation?”
So, as you can see, Torture Island is not exactly a beach resort. I am not having much fun here. I am ready to seize my moment and leave Torture Island forever.
I have a plan to leave. It is a bold plan. It could work.
There is only one problem. Mrs. Moonface must cooperate with my grand design and create some space for me. She must turn completely away from us and begin writing formulas furiously on the blackboard. That will in turn compel all the students in anti-math class except me to begin copying furiously in their notebooks. Hence a double void will be created—a hole in space and time, if you will—that I can use to seize my moment and escape from Torture Island.
I will at that precise second lean over and tap Glory Hallelujah lightly on the shoulder. Or perhaps I will tenderly nudge her elbow. Or it may be that I will blow a cool stream of air, like a zephyrous autumn wind, whatever that means, across her cheek. She will turn her lovely features in my direction. Our eyes will meet. My right hand will rise slightly and come forward in the universal gesture of friendship and note-passing. She will deftly take the note from me, our fingers brushing slightly, magically, in the process.
She will unfold my note in her lap, like a secret treasure map, and read it with a single glance from her flashing blue eyes. And then she will look up at me, and I will have my answer in an instant, and whatever that response is—good or bad, pleased or angry, willing or unwilling—I will be off Torture Island.
I guess you are probably wondering what is written on the piece of paper that I am holding in my right hand.
I confess that I did not sleep last night. I lay awake in my bedroom that is not a bedroom, staring at the ceiling, and pondered strategy and tactics as a great general does before a battle. There are not many ways of asking a girl out that I did not consider and discard.
I had not hit on a method I liked when I arrived at school this morning. In fact, I had drawn a total blank. But then, suddenly, a rumor flew into our homeroom like a giant horsefly, buzzing around from desk to desk. Billy Beezer had gotten into trouble with the police the previous evening at the Bay View Mall. He was being charged with petty larceny, or shoplifting in the third degree, or juvenile hoodlumism, or some such minor first offense. Our school has a policy: anyone who gets into trouble with the police and is charged with a crime is suspended for one week.
It’s automatic.
Hence no Billy Beezer in school today. Or tomorrow. Or Friday, for that matter.
Also, according to the rumor, Billy Beezer’s parents had grounded him for a month. So he would not be hanging out at the Bay View Mall anymore. Nor would he be able to attend after-school basketball games.
And suddenly I knew what I would do.
Right there, in homeroom, I ripped a piece of paper from my yellow notepad. My black ball-point pen shook slightly in my trembling right hand as I wrote out the fateful question: “Gloria, will you go to the basketball game with me this Friday?” Beneath that monumental question, I drew two boxes. One box was conspicuously large. I labeled it the YES box. The second box was tiny. I labeled it the NO box.
And that is the yellow piece of paper I have folded up into a square and am holding in my damp hand as I wait here on Torture Island for Mrs. Moonface to turn toward the blackboard and give me the opportunity I need.
I cannot approach Glory Hallelujah after class because she is always surrounded by her friends. I cannot wait and pass the note to her later in the week because she may make plans to go to the game with one of her girlfriends. No, it is very evident to me that today is the day, and that I must pass the note before this period ends or forever live a coward.
There are only ten minutes left in this anti-math class. Mrs. Moonface seems to have no intention of r
ecording her algebraic observations for posterity. Perhaps the piece of yellow chalk in her hand is just a prop. It is possible that the previous night she hurt her wrist in an arm-wrestling competition and can no longer write. It is also possible that she has forgotten all about her students and believes that she is playing a part in a Hollywood movie.
Mrs. Moonface, I am sorry, but this is not Gone With the Wind and you are not Vivien Leigh. This is not even Gone With a Faint Breeze. This is anti-math class and you are our teacher, and even though I can’t hear a word you’re saying because I am marooned on Torture Island, I would like to remind you that your other students need to record the exact nature of your valuable algebraic theorizing. To do this, they need visual assistance. So write something down!
There are only seven minutes left in anti-math class. I attempt to turn Mrs. Moonface toward the blackboard by telekinesis. The atoms of her body prove remarkably resistant to my telepathic powers.
There are six minutes left. Now there are five.
Mrs. Moonface, for Pete’s sake, write something on the blackboard! That is what mathematics teachers do! Write down axioms, simplify equations, draw rectangles, measure angles, even, if you must, sketch the sneering razor-toothed face of Algebra itself. WRITE ANYTHING!
Suddenly Mrs. Moonface stops lecturing. Of course, I cannot hear her, because no sound penetrates the isolation of Torture Island, but I can see her mouth stop moving. Her right hand, holding the chalk, rises.
Then her hips begin to pivot.
This all unfolds in very slow motion. The sheer importance of the moment slows the action way, way down.
The pivoting of Mrs. Moonface’s hips causes a corresponding rotation in the plane of her shoulders and upper torso.
Her neck follows her shoulders, as day follows night.