Kicking Tomorrow

by Daniel Richler

  “Solving problems,” Mom interrupted, “Middle East political settlement Gaza ideological conciliation diaspora Arabs Jews war Holy Land.”

  “I think Ghadaffi’s lost some weight,” Rosie said. “He’s looking great these days, for a mad tyrant.”

  “Abby,” Dad said, “when the Knesset –”

  “Darling, don’t talk to me of the Knesset!”

  “No, darling, let me finish. When the Gush Emunim –”

  “Wait!” Rosie said. “Let’s ask Bob what he thinks!”

  Robbie, who had, until this conversation, been under the impression that the Gaza Strip was a place where girls in the Middle East like Rosie worked, held his knife and fork upright, grease sliding down onto his thumb.

  “Ha!” Mom snorted, “I’ll give you Bob’s political analysis of the last five years: February ’72, SALT signed – the Alpha Jerks play the Montreal Forum. November ’72, Nixon re-elected – the Big Racket wows ’em at the Concert Bowl –”

  “Actually…” Robbie said as mildly as possible (the flooded house still weighing heaviest on his mind), “it was the Paisley Noses at the Concert Bowl.”

  “June ’75, the Watergate hearings underway – Pink Phlegm zonks ’em at Place des Nations…”

  “Aum, kids, did you – I read that Ringo was the real brains behind the Beatles.”

  Robbie’s ears burned red. Did she have to needle him so hard? Plus it wasn’t fair using her professional TV technique on him like that. He felt small, the same way the victims on Hello World! appeared: looked down upon by the camera and miniaturized, while the shots of her lent her imperial authority. He put a gun to his head and fired.

  “I think Bob has a wait-and-see policy,” Rosie said. “I admire that.”

  “Yeah,” Robbie said. “Zackly.”

  “My eye,” Mom said. “But all right. If you want. Robbie tell me, what is this Knesset we were referring to?”

  Thinking hard about this one. And regretting having drunk so greedily. His forehead was wet. He burrowed into the meat, carving aside the fat. And ventured, “It’s a, um, potato dumpling, right?”

  “That,” Dad said softly, “is a knish you’re, aum –”

  Robbie’s lips gnarled up all sad and ugly, and everybody looked at their plates and made like nothing remotely funny or ridiculous had been said at all.

  “Anyway children,” Mom continued, coolly changing the channel, and Robbie went under again. “What you must understand is that Passover is not just about olden times. When it talks about the trials of our forefathers we should also take it to mean the ones in the twentieth century. I’m talking, of course, about the Holocaust.”

  Robbie Bookbinder, ten years old, standing on the back of an old armchair in the living room in town (an old armchair that he more recently found just about floating down the front path), his head close to the ceiling. Reaching up to tip down a fat book with a yellow star on its binding, and wondering if his fingers will leave prints in the dust. The late afternoon light is closing in around him, buzzing like flies. Against angry grey skies, the naked women with broad black smudges of pubic hair standing in the mud. And this is the first time he saw that women have pubic hair. The ditches of blood-blackened bodies, the smoking chimneys, the grinning soldiers posing for pictures. Robbie turning the pages faster and faster in bunches now. And Mom suddenly striding into the living room. “Robbie, you startled me standing way up there.” Guilty Robbie slamming the book shut. “Oh, come on, what is it, we have nothing to hide on these shelves. Show me.” Robbie confused now, and saying, “But Daddy said I shouldn’t.” Mom says, “That’s only because it will make you so very sad.”

  Miriam was quizzing round the table. “And you, Barnabus?”

  “I believe in the gospel according to Jesus Christ,” he said, knees on his chair and reaching for more horse relish.

  “I believe in millions of gods all at once,” Rosie said.

  “Aum, we’re still… commissioning studies.”

  “Mommy?”

  Mom pulled another face Robbie had seen on TV, and it usually meant trouble too, but all she said was, “I don’t think it’s a good time to talk about it.”

  “What better time than Seder?” Miriam demanded.

  Mom sipped her wine and dabbed her lips with her napkin. She leaned forward with both elbows on the table. “Well,” she began, “with all due respect to your grandmother –”

  “Not me, surely,” Grandma Bethel said.

  “With all due respect, I can’t put faith in a god who’s constantly allowing innocent people to be murdered. In the camps babies were boiled in the fat of their parents while their brothers and sisters looked on. A god like that must be indifferent or wicked. I’ll have nothing to do with him.”

  Robbie poked at the squidgy lamb with his fork. Impressive, he was thinking, she should hand out pamphlets, but Mom turned on him. “Don’t you like it, darling? Or is your mind on the Paisley Noses?”

  “No, no,” he said. “It’s yum.” He stabbed a piece of, of – a celebrated violinist, a Viennese intellectual, a much-loved aunt–right into his mouth, chewing with his lip curled up.

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” Mom said.

  “No, don’t you worry about me,” Grandma Bethel said.

  “What about you, Grandma?” Miriam said. “What do you think about God?”

  “I don’t know. That was a hard act to follow.”

  “I think Grandma doesn’t want to, aum,” Dad said quietly.

  “Why not? Everybody else –”

  “Grandma lost some people in the war who were very close to her,” he explained with his hand on Miriam’s arm.

  “No, no,” Grandma Bethel said. “Grandma doesn’t mind, dear. You want to know do I believe in God? Of course.”

  “But Mommy just said…”

  “Mommy can say what she feels.”

  “But what about your friends? I mean, the ones who died.”

  “Not just my friends, my darling. My mother. And father. And my brother, too.”

  “But aren’t you mad at God?”

  “I have some questions I’m planning to ask Him. That’s for sure.”

  “I think you’re being sexist, saying Him,” Rosie said.

  Finally Robbie burst out, “There is no God, don’t kid yourselves. And if there was one that’d killed my Mom and Dad, I’d shoot first and ask questions later.”

  “Oh, Robbie,” Mom said. “That’s very sweet, but God didn’t kill Grandma’s mother and father.”

  “Seriously, I’d tell him to go fuck himself.”

  “Robbie, please –”

  “There you – you’re getting – take it down a notch, please.”

  He was close to tears again. Same for everyone else this time, but he was too involved in his grand élan to notice. He was thrilled. An issue he finally cares about and, unbelievably, they want to shut him up.

  “I can’t tell Him such a thing, dear,” Grandma Bethel said, her eyes big and moist as fishbowls.

  “Why not, for Chrissake?”

  “It’s certainly not for Christ’s sake!”

  “But why not?”

  “Because, that’s all.”

  “Because what?”

  “Because… He’s…” Grandma Bethel said, her voice trembling. “Because He’s… all I’ve got…” Now she was weeping, fumbling in her enormous lap for a corner of her napkin, “left.”

  “Mother, Mother,” Mom implored her, “that’s not true. You have us. You know that.”

  “Bethel –” Dad said, helplessly.

  Robbie was as embarrassed as everybody else, but he was secretly pleased he had provoked such a reaction. It would start her thinking about life. Stop wasting time, get real. Of course there’s no God, not one who’ll answer your prayers, that’s plain as the nose on your face. He made a wiggly mouth, mimicking her this time, and exchanging a smirk with Rosie. But Rosie was staring tragically at her plate. Only Dad saw him.

 
“Robbie,” he said, “do you want to get out of here?”

  “Uh, no thank you. I was only…”

  “No, I mean, just get OUT! This meeting is adjourned. Go away, buzz off. We don’t want you here any more.”

  “But–I – what about the songs after the meal? We have to find the hidden matzoh, and –”

  “We’ll manage without you, thanks. Just go away, scram. It’s clear this is meaningless to you. Just, just, get OUT.”

  “K, fuck, K. Bye, then.” He pushed his chair back and stood up, knees shaking. The family and Rosie turned their heads all together to follow his flight. He tore at his tie and ripped off the buttons of his nice white shirt to reveal KEEF SUCKS, grabbed the executive cup and chug-a-lugged the Prophet’s wine. Then he lit out into the night, giving the porch door an almighty slam, to sulk down on the water with the dock spiders.

  The next morning, from his bed, he could hear the phone ringing off the hook. As if things weren’t bad enough. All activity was clearly futile now. Adolescence had been one great rip-off in the first place – not even a full decade, just seven measly teen years – but civilization as Robbie knew it was definitely over. What could he do but kill himself? Throw himself down a chimney at EPX. Stick his finger in an electric socket to make a human amplifier. Out on the lake motorboats farted, and water-skiers shrieked. The beech trees scrabbled at his window to come out and play. He lay there imagining the sound of Hell’s Yells – all scraping feedback, the sound of exhaust. This dying planet gets the electric guitar for its funeral, a steely annoyance, an army of men with black ice for armour, shouting violent disharmonies. A vengeful sound, a music to rape and pillage by. A sound for burning down schools.

  That’s when Dad knocked on the door and said through it, “Robbie, are you there? I think it’s time for a, aum –”

  Robbie hoped for a moment that he had come to announce a raise in his allowance, his salary. Though he didn’t really expect it. As Dad waited at the door like that, politely, like a nervous servant, Robbie pictured him as the scrawny, pimple-ridden teenager he had once been, fleeing Russia – or was it Poland his parents came from? Or Germany? Or was it his grandparents who did the fleeing? Robbie had never got the story down, exactly. On a black freighter anyway, or so he imagined, mastur – aum–bating furtively when he could, somewhere in the belly of the rusting hold, and then growing up to ascribe the same furtiveness to all future generations of teenagers. When it was not Robbie’s thing at all.

  Then Dad barged in, just like that. He sat down at the foot of Robbie’s bed, right on the hillock where Robbie had shuffled off his pyjama bottoms under the blanket, and said, “Listen–aum – “ He gazed out of the window, unable, as per usual, to look Robbie in the eye. Robbie figured he regretted his harsh words from the night before. “The police phoned from town. I’m sorry to – they found a pair of –”

  Stinky sox, Robbie thought, grimly, remembering them now, left there on the top of the stairs like a couple of turds.

  “– and, aum, ‘S.P.E.C.T.R.E. was here’ on the blackboard in your handwriting, I’m afraid.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t see why you hafta blame me, exactly.”

  “Look, I think, we think, Mom and I, that you’ve – how can I –? Basically, you’ve overstayed your welcome. All right? We’d like to give you a month to find a job, if you don’t mind. And a place of your own. We’re quite angry with you, I’m sorry to say.”

  Robbie shrugged. “So anyway,” he said, weakly trying to change the subject, “how’s poor Grandma?”

  “It’s not that we don’t – Mommy and I just think that you should – aum, I’m not good at this – it’s a question of being proactive, not reactive. One day you’ll thank – you’ll see this as a, the incentive you needed to make your, your mission statement. Right now you have to prioritize. Analyze. School’s clearly not your, aum, bag –”

  “Hey. It’s not that it’s not my bag, as you so sarcastically put it –”

  “No, I never – I only meant, since you didn’t mention university all summer, we assumed you weren’t interested.”

  “I am interested. It’s just that there’s no way I’ll even be accepted, so what’s the point of trying. Look – after the school… well, you know, burned down, OK, the principal told us he understood we were too traumatized to do our final exams. Fuck – pardon me – I wasn’t traumatized. I was counting on a final exam. So suddenly they’re judging us on our term performance. What a drag. Plus we got an aptitude test – you wouldn’t remember – in French, of course. Double drag. How can they judge what’s good for me if I’m not allowed to talk about myself in my own freakin’ language? According to the test my IQ’s around 78. A retard. Now at this point in time I know I’m not exactly a Nobel prize-winning physicist, but come on. Seventy-eight! The Bureau of Educational Research, Université de Chibougamau. What do they know about young people like me in Chibougamau?”

  “They have young people in Chibougamau, I’m sure of that,” Dad said. “But I don’t – aum – sorry, what were your results?”

  “That I’m ideally suited to be an undertaker, fuck. And second, a tie between librarian and army officer. Rock star isn’t even on the list. I guess they don’t have those in Chibougamau.”

  “Well, ahh,” said Dad.

  “I know what you’re thinking. That I’m a complete fuckup.”

  “No, that’s –”

  “Your son, the burger flipper.”

  “Well. As a matter of fact, Baron Bulgingburger is nothing to be ash –”

  Robbie glared hard at his toes. “The Baron is not where it’s at,” he mumbled. “I’ll tell you that much for free.”

  “Excuse me?” Dad said. “Where what is – aum – at?”

  Robbie rolled his eyes and scrolled his lower lip downwards to reveal his teeth, tightly packed like sardines in a can.

  “Look, aum, since you and I… why don’t you take a tip from someone you admire instead, like, well, Rosie. She has a good sense of her limitations. Give yourself a realistic mandate, too. Ask yourself, What are my basic skills? What’s my performance potential? Channel your rage. One day you’ll thank us. Life is what you make it, you know. Oh, and Grandma says goodbye. She took the early bus to town.” He squeezed Robbie’s collarbone. Weird, that was the first time they’d touched since the spanking days, except those occasions when Robbie’s fingertips had brushed his big palm collecting allowance.

  Robbie sat, stunned that retribution had struck with such unequivocal suddenness; he would have preferred to tease out the torture of the guilty secret all weekend. And the idea that he would one day thank his parents for such foul treatment didn’t make him feel any better at all.

  When Dad left the room, he sat up in his bed, with his guts in a knot and his throat as tight as a collar and tie. The Generation Gap, he reflected, is a brook bordered with poison envy that old people have polluted by dumping their own crappy resentment into it. But for all his rage he was ashamed that he hadn’t beaten his parents to the punch, and been the first to think of leaving home.

  See, Robbie hated Keef Richards’ guts, but at least the guy had done things his own way, leaving his old man in his dust. For the Strolling Bones wrote songs not just about the crimes of totalitarian regimes around the world, but of parents too: as the story goes, Mr. Richards, Sr., had spent his life’s savings so his son could attend a fancy private school that would give him a chance to rise up through Britain’s hobbling class system. But all the school had done was force him to wear a nancy little uniform, and instilled in him bourgeois attitudes that almost cut him off completely from his real brotherhood (which, he said, was the disenfranchised of England, the salt of the earth, and not a gallery of pseuds and citied intellectuals). He had deliberately failed his exams, causing his father to despair, and returned to the ranks of the honest working class, which these days, he said with stinging irony, meant you didn’t work at all. In an argument that’s become part of the Bones’ myth
ology, Keef put the issue of paternal devotion this way: “Da, if the only way to save me from dying was to eat a bucket of snot, would you?”

  “Aww, son,” Mr. Richards had replied, “don’t go being a blithering idiot.”

  “No, really, Da,” Keef had insisted. “Would you do it or no?”

  Now Keef’s father was broke and wouldn’t speak to him, but Keef didn’t care because his patricidal hit songs had made him a fucking fortune, and his old man was so deluded by middle-class aspirations that he was as good as dead, anyway. He was a rootless fool, Keef said, quoting somebody Robbie didn’t know, divorced from the full-bodied blood of the land. All Parents Must Die.

  Mom was in her study downstairs, sheltered from the midday sun, curled up in the bay window, poised on needlepoint cushions, her ankles crossed like Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid. She was sifting through heaps of newspapers, clipping articles for Hello World! Always weeding, Robbie thought.

  “Bluespapers,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb. “What’s the point? The Generation Gap. S.P.E.C.T.R.E.”

  Mom kept reading.

  Ah ha, the ignore routine. No one in this house shouts when they get mad. Confrontation’s a thing for families without table manners. The Bookbinders just stew. He knotted his cheeks to parry and looked around, casual as someone waiting for a bus. Herds of plants were bunched on shelves, trailing onto the parquet floor. They stirred, alert to his presence. He thought of stepping forward. The floor was a maze of bunched papers, stapled notes, luxurious Italian stationery in crimson and cream, blotters and pads with suede covers and gold-thread tassels, articles clipped and sorted and stuffed into envelopes according to some secret system of hers.

  Without a word still, she reached down, pulled a copy of Rolling Stone from the heap at her feet, and held it out between her thumb and index finger, at arm’s length, like a dead something. She never even looked up. He took it with resignation and dragged his feet into the garden, leafing through it idly, wondering what was the point of starting anything, since she had already clipped a third of it out. It was just like life in the seventies, as far as he was concerned: edited out and handed down. He felt like rolling it up and tossing it back through the window. He felt like throwing it in the lake. He felt like toking up and throwing himself in the lake. Yes, come to think of it, he really did feel like committing suicide, throwing himself in front of Rosie’s slalom-ski, as she blindly sliced the waves. “Life is what you make it,” was one of Dad’s favourite bromides, but Robbie had sussed one thing out for sure: life ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. And another problem was, he had in fact tried suicide once, but it hadn’t exactly agreed with him. He hadn’t had the basic skills required.