The Awful Possibilities

by Christian TeBordo

  The punishment should fit the crime. If the child is caught with his hand in the cookie jar: discipline should be concentrated about that hand which was in the cookie jar, as well as the stomach which he would have filled with cookies and is therefore a co-conspirator, if not the driving force behind the offense. But it will not always be so simple. The child is likely to do ninety-nine percent of his offending with his mouth. In a perfect world, this would not pose any problems: discipline would be concentrated about the mouth. However, this is not a perfect world, and, unless you are a stricter disciplinarian than I, i.e., one who does not: allow the child to leave the house, for any reason, you can imagine the many problems that such an approach could cause. You must then find a method of discipline which will not become a matter of: public knowledge, or worse: public involvement. Many have opted for: washing the child’s mouth out with soap. Since the first time my father washed my mouth out with soap, I have found this to be the most ridiculous form of discipline. As disciplinarians, we need to think like our children in order to ensure that lessons are well-taught and equally-as-well-learned. The symbolism of washing a mouth out with soap, making that mouth “clean,” is lost on the child. He is left with a soap flavored mouth, and he will get the soap flavor out of his mouth by marching defiantly over to the cookie jar and eating a cookie, convinced that you will do nothing more than scrub another part of his anatomy as further punishment. And how could you really do otherwise? A child needs consistency. He needs a reminder, something that will stay with him longer than a mouth full of suds. I recommend: choosing another part of the child’s body, the right thigh for instance, and renaming it, for the duration of the discipline: mouth. You need not consider the philosophical implications of this renaming, so long as the child is led to understand that, for practical purposes: his leg is his mouth. This may, in fact, kill two birds with one stone, as the boy will, for a time at least, be less prone to committing offenses with either: his mouth or his right thigh. Remember though, that the opposite is not true: the renaming and punishment of the leg in place of the mouth does not accrue to credit for future offenses by the leg. If the child commits simultaneous offenses with the mouth and the right thigh, and for the above reasons, you choose to name the right thigh: mouth, you must then designate another part of the anatomy, perhaps the left thigh: right thigh, and apply proper discipline. Stick to the basics. The most successful disciplinarians stick to the basics. They recognize that discipline is an heirloom which has been handed down to them, and which they must preserve intact for future generations.

  Finally, do not: allow the child any opportunity to discipline you, ever. If this entails posting an armed guard at the door of his bedroom, better yet: guarding the door yourself, then do: so. Curbing the child’s desire to discipline is a painstaking and time-consuming process. Again, there are various ways of dealing with it. Some have chosen to engineer a crippling accident in an icy driveway. Others have gone with a simple policy of sending the child to live with a distant relative at a predetermined age. These are not corrective, but preventive measures in which there is no real lesson to be taught or learned. The child can be faulted for many of the things he does in adolescence, but it is something of a stretch to fault him merely for being an adolescent. And while the latter method seems fool-proof, there arises the potential that the child may act out his desire to discipline on his unsuspecting grandmother. It is also, in a sense, an abandonment of your duties as a disciplinarian, and it denies you the fulfillment of practicing discipline on a less fragile subject. The more honorable disciplinarian chooses not to transplant, or fully disable the child. If you are not going to complete the disciplinary process, then there is no point in ever beginning it. I would advise you to administer sedatives secretly, by grinding them into powder and slipping them into the child’s supper, or by placing the pills in an empty bottle of vitamins. If you decide upon the latter method: you will want to make sure that he takes the “vitamins” regularly, encouraging him to grow up big and strong, so as not to betray your intense fear that exactly that will happen. Should he go even one day without the drugs, his disciplinary instincts are bound to surface, and when they do: the child will surely tear you limb from limb, leaving you bound to your bed, and forcing you, in your old age, to: dictate your rules and regulations to: some fairy college boy who wants to: make a poem out of you.

  Rules and Regulations

  Do what Dad says, but think what you want. He is a shriveled, jaundiced thing, and his phantom limbs are as corporeal as your phantom sister, the pain of them proof that he will not be outlasting anyone as predicted.

  Take dictation—fluff his pillow in the morning, change the channel now and then, turn out the lights when you see he’s asleep, enact your revenge with double-knotted bows and dirty linen. Every happy family is as corporeal as his phantom limbs. The unhappy ones are like us. We are tired and angry phantoms. Admit it. Just ask yourself when you do what Dad says. Why are you so tired?

  Take dictation—take your vitamins. No, the ones that make you tired. Change the bedpan, bite your tongue. Next time do it before you try to remind him that his arms and legs are attached to his shoulders and crotch, respectively, respectfully enough. Not for him. Bite your tongue again while he berates you for the reminder, but think what you want. Think the bathroom is five feet from his ass. Even his voice is shriveled and jaundiced. Even as it tells you it is going to outlast you all it is falling asleep. The process can take hours. Try not to gag when the process has taken its time. Try not to jitter while trying not to gag.

  Take dictation—warm up something from a can, take your vitamins and mix them in, take it to him, spoonfeed, wipe, repeat. Try not to think of the airplane game. Try not to laugh when you think of the airplane game. He is too tired to care, but don’t push. Ask yourself while you do what he would say. Why are you so sad?

  Be your own dictator—turn him on his side so his phantom limbs don’t get phantom bedsores. Ask yourself while you watch him look like a sleeping baby. Will this shriveled baby outlast us all? How will this jaundiced baby last with us all gone? Is this phantom tired or is it another unhappy trick? Tell him you were not talking to yourself. Tell him you were talking to your corporeal sister. Tell him you do so have a sister.

  I’m sorry. This has been my fault, but you will have to do what Dad says. Think what you want. Think we all thought he would be more tired than he is. Think who is tricking whom.

  Take dictation—put him back on his back, change the channel, go start a pot of coffee, take it to him, spoonfeed, wipe, repeat. Apologize for the airplane game. Apologize for the laughter, all laughter everywhere, and for babies who are children who will outlast their parents. Apologize for being so dramatic. Apologize for spilling about a drop of coffee on his shriveled, jaundiced chest. Try not to spill anymore. Tell him to stop screaming. Ask him to stop screaming. Plead. Try not to notice how he fans the burn site with his phantom arms, but if you do, bite your tongue. You’re learning.

  Take dictation—go get a bag of ice, notice the ice cream beside the ice cubes.

  Be your own dictator—make up for it all with a bowl of ice cream. Take your vitamins, crush them up and sprinkle them on. Don’t be stupid, they don’t look like sprinkles. Slather the ice cream in chocolate syrup, take it to him, apologize, go get the bag of ice, apply, apologize again, spoonfeed, wipe, repeat. Think what you want. Think how did you ever think that the airplane game was funny. Do not do the airplane game. Don’t be so sad. Your trick is working, this time it is. He’s tired, so tired that he doesn’t stop himself from pushing away your corporeal arm with his phantom arm while dribbling the previous mouthful down his shriveled baby chin. Wipe. Say there, there if you can’t resist. Say Dad. Dad? Are you awake? Poke him with a finger. Not in a phantom limb. Poke him on the chest. Say are you awake.

  Be the only dictator—turn him on his side. Don’t think about the cold, rubbery feel of his baby body. Don’t look at all. Don’t look back.
Do what you want for a while. Sit in a chair at the kitchen table and think what you want. What do you want? Do you want an unhappy family? A family is happiest when it wants what it has. This family has any number of phantoms. Which phantom is angriest, the chicken or the egg. Go be a chicken or an egg. Take another vitamin if you’re chicken, but go do it. Do what Dad wants. Think what Dad says. Don’t look at him. Don’t think about how his skin glows jaundice in the dark. Stop thinking.

  I’ll be your dictator—reach under the bed for the soiled sheets. They’re soiled. All the better. Say Dad you soiled the sheets. When he doesn’t respond say my dad is a phantom shit factory, a big yellow armless legless baby with arms and legs, my dad is good for nothing but spoonfeed wipe repeat. Keep it up, not louder but going. Check for rapid eye movement while you lay the soiled bedclothes on the floor beside the couch. It means he’s asleep but not too deep. It means your monologue is being the dictator of his phantom dreams. It means just a tweak in volume when the time is right and things will go exactly as you want for once. Don’t talk to your corporeal sister. Not now. Say you know as well as I do that I believe in you but I’m in the middle of something that’s not going to do itself and if you want to watch you can but it isn’t going to be pretty.

  You need a new dictator—get back to Dad quick. Tell him you never ever believed he would really outlast you all. Lie. Tell him you hardly expect him to outlast the night. Separate the strips you ripped last night from the mostly intact and in any case corporeal mass of the soiled sheet. Use the strips to tie your father’s phantom limbs together, wrist to wrist behind his back, go easy if he stirs. Grin when he doesn’t wake up. Say What. What would you do about it anyway, baby Dad? Your sadness is the last thing on your mind now, isn’t it?

  Try dictating for yourself again—raise the volume slowly as you lift the soiled sheet to his ear. Go ahead and put it down to double check the knots if you must. Continue to raise the volume as you lift the sheet again.

  Take Dictaphone—press record and lay it on the couch beside Dad’s head. Lower your mouth to Dad’s ear and raise the sheet. Talk while you tear. Say Dad this is the sound of tearing, of anything tearing, a sheet, a skin, a limb from a limb. Raise the volume as he startles awake. Tell him you are tearing him to pieces as you start another strip. Throw the first strip in the air and watch it flutter like a long, wrong snowflake to your father’s face and laugh as he struggles then whimpers, begs and finally cries saying he wants his arms back, his legs, how he knows you are good and he is bad and how he can fix this. But he can’t, because for now you’ve forgotten your sadness and the memory of his miserable face and the sound on the tape. And the fact that you’ve left your father’s phantom limbs bound on the couch with him will keep you company until you fall asleep and wake to clean up your mess.

  Rules and Regulations

  Keep a journal but do not write in it such bitch-like things as Dear Diary, You are the only one who I can tell all of my secretest stuff to, for only you understand me and accept me as I am, because fuck that, it’s no way to do things, the whimperest cry for help. No need for help much less cries or whimpers when you follow these simple rules, so keep a journal, or a diary, and don’t write anything in it that the rules don’t tell you to, and for God’s sake don’t write anything actual.

  Pretend you have a brother. Don’t write this down. Pretend to have a brother who pretends to have a sister, which is you. Pretend to pretend. Get so good at it that you’re barely even there anymore, wherever it is you are, until your pretension is so strong that it’s true if not exactly real. But don’t worry about that, Parmenides, your diary is still blank so shut the fuck up.

  When you’ve finally shut up and stopped worrying about inanities such as true and real, you might be ready to disappear, to be the brother, but God help you if you’re not, if you’re lying to yourself about how good you’ve gotten. They’ve got people who can see right through you, who will look you in the eye and hand you the gun, the blade, the pills and laugh at you when you’re too chickenshit to pull, slice, or swallow. Or worse. They’ll coddle you to your face and whisper to Dad that all girls have a tough time in adolescence, that everything will be okay, that all you really need is some love and attention and maybe a positive female role model when you’ve already got so much love and attention you want to puke from the perfect female role model, Dad, so it’s probably best if you just stop here now and come back if you’re ever really ready to be the brother. Go now.

  Don’t imagine for a second that just because you’re reading this I believe you’re really ready or that you have any business believing same. Anybody can read who’s not a retard and that book better still be blank. If it isn’t, burn it and go get a new one. I refuse to be held responsible for your attempt to be the brother, but if you insist, this is what you shall do:

  Be the downside of the cycle of violence, re to every action, passive to aggressive. Everything is your fault and you pretend to know this. Not as you, as the brother. You’re not pretending anything anymore because you are nothing but the brother’s imaginary sister, nothing but the fantasy that somebody gives a shit. But you don’t have to care. Just let him believe he believes you do, like you let him believe he believes he’s the victim when really he’s not. Really he’s just another cog, a whiny little cipher who manufactures impotent little apocalypses every single evening.

  Does this mean anything to you? If not you’d better give up now and forever. If so, open the journal and write your brother’s rules and regulations in big, bubbly, pengirlship for contrast. Do it now.

  I have no way of knowing if you did it right or at all, and even if you did it doesn’t mean you’re ready to be the dad. First, because you already have a dad and your dad is so nice and considerate and caring it makes me want to scrape off every inch of my skin before I jab colored pencils in each ear simultaneous and don’t think I couldn’t. Forget that dad. This is your brother’s dad, and he knows how to handle his business, and his business is ruling and regulating. Can you imagine a dad who knows how to handle his business? Even if you can it isn’t enough. You can’t pretend anymore. You have to become him so hard that you’re suddenly all gone, because he doesn’t believe you exist, even in your imaginary brother’s imagination. It’s just him and the boy.

  Now you’re either dead or alive and I can’t tell you which and when. If you’re where you’re supposed to be you can do anything and you fucking well better. If you’re where you’re supposed to be, then you don’t need these rules and regulations anymore, you’re already writing the father’s rules and regulations in the son’s handwriting, because the father is speaking from his mouth to the ears of the son and from there to the son’s hand, and you’re all of it, every single one. But don’t stop there. If you can be the father, you can be the author of the first and last lines of every story left to the English language and all the others too. You can be Odysseus, Borgia, Faustus, Hamlet, but fuck him. You can be Descartes, thinking therefore you are therefore thinking everyone else too. Shit, you can be Descartes’ evil genius. You can be God.

  Calm the fuck down. Come back. You’re going to need me again when the notebook’s full.

  Ignore that empty feeling when the notebook’s full. Everyone, all those who’ve gone before you have felt that feeling, because those who haven’t failed worse than those who failed the brother. Understand? Breathe deep. Put the notebook down somewhere nobody can find it and come back when you’re ready.

  If you’re ready, pick the notebook up and put it down where somebody can find it, in the living room, where somebody will find it, specifically the father. Not the brother’s father, he’s imaginary again but don’t let on. Your father. The one who’s going to cry his eyes out over whichever page he lands on first, and the waterworks won’t let up until he’s read it cover to cover, wishing he wasn’t, wishing he hadn’t, and ending by asking himself what did he ever do to make you this way, because he won’t blame you, he can’t, and
that’s his fault, one of many, and this is your revenge, the only one you’ll ever need.

  Time it right so that you walk into the living room just as he turns the last page, but don’t let him know you’re there until he closes the cover and looks up like he’s looking up to God but only sees you by accident. Be God. Be God on purpose. Laugh at him like God should, not like it’s all a joke, but like it’s all more serious than he could ever know, so serious it can never be any other way ever. Keep laughing as he stammers trying to say something. Use the foam at the corners of his mouth as fuel for your eternal flame. When he finally gives up, tell him, Did you ever expect that God was a girl my age? Why wasn’t it totally obvious to you, even when I was just an X on a sperm that I was the meaning of life, and the meaning was all a trick all along?