I’m up in my room when I hear Mom call up the stairs. She wants Cindy and me to go down. When we get there, Mom says, “I need to tell you guys something.” She stops, like she doesn’t know how to say it. “I need to discuss something with you guys,” she tries again.
“You said that,” I say to her. I wonder what we’ve done … she looks serious.
But she says to us, “You’re not in trouble. I just have to tell you something.”
“What’s going on?” Cindy asks. She sounds suspicious.
“It’s about your dad,” Mom answers.
I groan. “Now what?”
“I haven’t even told you what it’s about,” Mom snaps. But I don’t let her finish.
“If it has to do with Dad, you don’t have to,” I snap back at her. I go sit on the couch, and Cindy sits next to me. I can tell she wants to hear what Mom has to say. Cindy is such a dork. Maybe I should just let Eddie Farr have her; they could raise a nice little family of total imbeciles. Actually, Cindy isn’t like Eddie. In fact, as goofy as she acts a lot of the time, she’s smart at school stuff; she just doesn’t have any common sense.
Mom interrupts my thoughts. “You’re mad at your dad. I know that, but you need to set that aside for a moment and just listen. The Alice Ponds Show is going to do a program about your dad’s newest project—”
Cindy interrupts. “The thing about the schools?”
“No,” Mom says.
“What new project?” I ask.
“Your dad’s writing a new book. It’s about Earl Detraux.”
“Oh no!” Cindy moans and curls up on the couch. I can see she’s really upset.
I say, “Who? Who’s Earl Dayglow?”
“Has Dad gone crazy?” Cindy asks from behind her knees.
“Your dad thinks it’s an important story. He thinks—” Mom starts to answer. But Cindy interrupts her. I can tell this whole Earl guy thing is something bad.
So I ask again, “What’s going on?! Who’s this Earl guy?”
“He’s that monster from eastern Washington who murdered his kid,” Cindy hisses.
I still don’t know what they’re talking about, but as they go on, I catch the drift. I guess this Detraux guy killed his retarded kid and got sent to prison. I’m still not tracking real close, though, so I say, “I don’t get it. Why’s Dad into that?” Mom gives me this whole bull story about how Dad’s writing is all about getting other people to understand what it’s like for families like ours—who have kids like Shawn. Yeah, like he’d know anything about that. I start to get really pissed off again in time to hear her say, “He wants you both to know that if you want to, you can join him on the program and talk about life with your brother. The people at The Alice Ponds Show—”
I can’t believe this!The Alice Ponds Show is one of those I-married-my-sister-who’s-in-love-with-our-cousin’s-Pomeranian types of programs. I yell, “Right! Alice Ponds. I’d rather have ground glass pounded up my nose!”
“Paul,” Mom starts.
But Cindy interrupts, “Join him? Why?”
Mom makes this big excuse about Dad thinking he’s going to help people by going on the show … blah, blah, blah … it’s all bull, of course; after all, my dad’s behind it.
Mom goes on to say, “Your father—”
I interrupt. “My father is a hopeless jerk, and I wouldn’t help him do anything, least of all go on a freak show and talk about my brother.” I pause for a second and glance over at poor idiot Shawn sitting there drooling. Thank God he doesn’t know what a complete and total ass our old man is. “Alice Ponds?” I say, unable to believe that even Dad could stoop this low. “Alice Friggin’ Ponds!”
I feel a huge rush of anger. Now the whole country is going to see my brother, the whole world is going to look at him and feel sorry for him and for my dad, but nobody’s going to really know the truth. I have no idea what goes on in Shawn’s head, and he has no idea that I even exist! But millions of people are going to have the totally wrong idea that they know us: “Do you ever talk to your brother?” “Does your brother like to be read to?” “Does your brother like Christmas? Easter eggs?” “What’s his favorite TV show?” “How does your brother communicate his feelings to you?” “If you could have one wish come true for your brother, what would it be?”
My brother this and my brother that! Hell, I barely even have a brother!
Good job, Dad. Just friggin’ great!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Unbelievably, my brain-dead sister actually decided to accompany Dickhead Dad to L.A. for The Alice Ponds Show. They taped the program a couple days ago and it’s showing this afternoon. The gods have seen fit to torture me, meaning that by an utter fluke of horrible luck, I don’t have basketball practice today. So when I get home from school, there’s Mom and Shawn and Cindy all parked in front of the TV, and guess what’s coming on in about five minutes? Yep, good old Alice Ponds. I’m stuck without any decent excuse for not watching. It’s ridiculous, all of us curled up nice and cozy to watch this total catastrophe of total garbage!
I look at Shawn. For once I’m glad that he’s so out of it. How horrible it would be to have your sole function in life be a prop in your own father’s “artistic” pity party? Disgusting.
The show starts and it’s all the usual crap. Alice Ponds is a total phony.
I’m not paying much attention, really. Alice says something and Dad says something back and all the morons in the audience, who make Eddie Farr look like Albert Einstein, start asking totally stupid questions. It’s hard to believe that this show could actually be as bad as I thought it would be, but it’s worse.
I walk over to the kitchen and grab a handful of potato chips. As I walk back toward the couch, I notice that Mom isn’t looking so I slip Shawn a little piece of chip, laying it on his tongue. I have no idea whether Shawn likes this or not, but it’s a little ritual we have going. Whenever I can, I feed Shawn bits of stuff he wouldn’t get otherwise. His regular diet is oatmeal and mashed-up eggs and other nasty stuff that nobody should have to eat, but Shawn can’t swallow very well and this soft food is easier on him. Can you imagine being too messed up to swallow? When he eats, he drools even more than normal, so Mom has this huge bib she puts on him. The bib catches the drool and all the food that slips back out of his mouth when he’s being fed. Mom hates for him to eat without his bib, which I can understand, but I don’t care—some food pleasures are just too good to pass up. So when Mom isn’t looking, I slip my bro treats.
To be honest, most of the time it’s hard to know how to be good to Shawn. I know it’s totally weak to feel this, but nobody understands unless they have a brother or sister like Shawn themselves. There’re kids at school who volunteer for one weekend a year to help out at the Special Olympics. For me, these kids are the worst, always talking about how cool retarded kids are—like they really know what it’s like to be around a human veg twenty-four seven. And another thing, in our family we’re all supposed to act like Shawn’s condition isn’t any big deal. We never talk about it, and it’s obvious that Mom wants us to just accept him. I try to do this, but when I have a friend over and we walk into a room and it smells like shit, I mean literally like feces because fourteen-year-old Shawn has just taken a big dump in his pants—it’s kind of hard to pretend that everything is normal family life. I try to love Shawn, and most of the time I do, but sometimes it’s too hard. So one of the ways I let Shawn know that I care about him is to sneak him bits of tasty stuff when Mom isn’t watching, just in case somewhere inside himself, he knows I’m his brother.
Over the years I’ve introduced Shawn to the joys of Wheat Thins, smoked oysters, strawberry cheesecake, the full range of Frito-Lay products, and an occasional frosty sip of a tall Bud and a wide variety of other fine malt beverages, both domestic and imported (I think he’s partial to Coors Light). Hey, the guy’s gotta have some fun!
Right now, he’s sucking away on the hunk of Mesquite Barbecue potato chip that
I just slipped him. As I cruise back to the couch for more Alice Ponds torture, I wink at Shawn, as if he knew what was going on.
I try to watch and listen: Blah, blah, blah … blah, blah, blah … and then a little more, blah, blah, blah.
Just as Dad and Cindy come on, Shawn goes into a seizure. Mom looks at him and jumps up, hurrying over to make sure he’s okay, that his strap is snug around his chest. As she stands next to him, she runs her hand through his hair, real gentle, trying to reassure him. My mom is the best. I can’t help but wonder whether the bite of chip I gave Shawn is going to cause a problem, but luckily he’s not choking.
After a couple seconds Shawn falls asleep or whatever it is that happens to him once the electric currents in his brain stop misfiring. I wonder if he’s dreaming. Can a guy with a totally useless brain, a brain that can’t even think, dream? I’ve seen dogs and cats having dreams; you’d think that if even animals do it, a human brain, even a bad one, would have something going on. I try to shake off these thoughts; they don’t help anything.
With Shawn sleeping, Mom sits back down and we watch as Dad’s interview comes on. In the videotape Detraux is in prison and Dad’s sitting there with him and they talk about how Earl killed his little two-year-old retarded kid. It’s kind of interesting: the gray prison bars, the guards standing around in the background, the big cuffs on Detraux’s hands. Earl looks sad, and Dad has this phony-looking sympathetic expression. What I like best is seeing my old man in “the big house”—if the world was fair at all, guys who run out on their retarded kids would get life plus twenty years.
After they play the interview, a woman in the audience asks Cindy, “Do you wanna kill your bruvver?”
Cindy, without missing a beat, asks back, “Which brother?”
I burst out laughing, and the real Cindy, sitting next to me on the couch, blushes and smiles. We give each other high fives.
On TV Cindy answers the woman’s question. “No, I’ve never thought about doing anything like that. But I have thought about Shawn’s life, about how his condition affects all of us. I mean, I’ve heard some people talk about what a ‘precious gift’ a retarded child is to a family—but I think that’s totally a lie, an excuse to deal with how heartbreaking and hard it can be sometimes.”
Alice Ponds, real condescending and like she’s speaking to a five-year-old, asks Cindy, “Surely you’re not for mercy killing of innocent children who have hurt brains?”
Cindy answers, “Surely you don’t speak from any experience of living with a severely handicapped brother or sister?”
Alice sputters. “Well no, I don’t have any firsthand experience of a sibling with—”
Cindy interrupts, “No, I didn’t think so, because if you had, you wouldn’t ask that question. Mercy killing? No, I’ve never thought about killing Shawn; none of us know what his life is really like. But I have thought, lots of times, about him dying. And I’ve wondered, a million times, what the purpose of his life is. There’s no way I’ll ever believe that the problems a brother like Shawn brings to a family are ‘gifts from God.’ That’s the stupidest thing in the world and the worst kind of denial. Having Shawn as a brother is hard. You even feel guilty for feeling bad about it.”
I’m sitting here amazed. Cindy sounds so smart. She’s putting into words all kinds of stuff I’ve thought but could never say. I’m afraid to look over at Mom, but when I peek, she looks quiet, sad, but not mad at all.
We never talk about Shawn this way. We never tell the truth: that Mom has sacrificed her whole life to take care of him; that Cindy does the same thing. Cindy’s got friends and is into music a little, but her life is pretty much committed to Shawn too. And then there’s me. I’m trapped here taking care of everyone, trying to protect everyone, especially my brother. All of us give our lives away, every day, for Shawn. All of us except my dad.
As the show ends, Mom leaves the room, turning her face away so that Cindy and I won’t see the tears in her eyes.
I say to Cindy, softly so that Mom won’t hear us, “You were great on the show. The things you said about how Shawn’s condition affected us all, how it changed us forever, that was such a great way to put it.”
Cindy and I talk back and forth, being sure to speak softly so that Mom won’t hear.
Suddenly Cindy asks whether I think Dad might be planning on hurting Shawn. At first I don’t even know what she’s talking about, but then she explains: What about all the stuff about Detraux? What about Dad talking about killing your kid to end his pain? Cindy’s worried about it.
“Nah, Shawn’s safe,” I say.
I think about it and add, kind of lamely, hoping I sound more sure of myself than I actually feel, “Yeah, Shawn’s safe. Even if Dad’s gone nuts and wants to do something, he’d have to come through me.”
Cindy nods and looks away.
But now something shifts inside me. It hits me hard. I feel my face go red and my hands start to shake. I’m totally ashamed. I flash back to that day I beat up the bullies who were hurting Shawn with the Bic lighter. I know Cindy is probably thinking about that day too. But she doesn’t know the whole story. She doesn’t know what really happened—nobody does. Cindy thinks I saved Shawn, and I guess maybe I did save him, but …
I take a couple deep breaths to try and get control of myself.
Could Dad be thinking of killing Shawn? I know what Cindy’s asking. We all have moments when we wonder what Shawn’s life means. We all have moments when we wonder what life would be like if Shawn weren’t around. I feel kind of sick thinking about this, especially thinking about my dad. Could Dad be thinking about mercy-killing Shawn? I guess he could be.
But why would he? After all, Dad’s Shawn lives only in the books Dad writes. Dad’s Shawn never needs his diaper changed. Dad’s Shawn never needs to be fed, or has a seizure, or needs protection from bullies. Only Dad has escaped the real Shawn. The rest of us, Shawn especially, are like Earl Detraux, stuck right here in our own jails forever and never going anywhere.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I’m sure that the main reason I decided to come along with Dad and Cindy and Shawn today is the chance to watch my dad suffer. It really is obvious that it’s hard on him to be around Shawn, and today that’s exactly where he is! I’m gonna love this; welcome to my world, Dad!
Dad’s taking the three of us, Shawn, Cindy, and me, to the Seattle Center, a repeat of a trip we took years ago, back when I was in sixth grade. What’s funny about this, a sick, disturbed, totally messed-up “funny,” is that Mom isn’t here this time to play the buffer between Shawn and Dad. Of course, he’s got Cindy, who is a Mom clone when it comes to caring for Shawn, but at least Dad will have to take some responsibility. I can’t stop wondering, Why is Dad doing this? What does Dad want? It’s like he’s trying to be a parent again, but I know that can’t be true.
As we drive toward the Seattle Center, Dad’s trying to be all cheerful, which is ridiculous. He’s singing along to songs on the radio’s oldies station, like “Lola” by the Kinks. When we were little, we used to go for rides in the car and sing “Lola,” so Dad is cheerleading us to sing along now.
It’s totally ridiculous.
Cindy actually seems to be enjoying it! I swear, sometimes she acts more retarded than Shawn. She’s singing away, happy as can be. Shawn is moaning his loud “ahhhhhhhh,” which is not exactly in whatever key Cindy and Dad are singing in.
Dad says, “Come on, Pauly—jump in anywhere,” then starts to sing again.
He has a really rat-sphincter voice, too.
We get to the Seattle Center and Dad unloads Shawn’s wheelchair, lifts him out of the van, and straps him onto the leather wheelchair seat. We head toward the amusement park rides. I hear people screaming and laughing as we get closer, the roar of the roller coaster and the tinkling sound of the merry-go-round. The smells of popcorn and junk food are doing combat with the stink of diesel fumes wafting through the air. There’s a pretty decent size crowd.
As we’re walking, getting closer to the ticket stand, a guy about my age walks by in the opposite direction. The guy looks at Cindy and she glances back at him. He’s an okay-looking guy, a little on the preppy side, but even I notice him checking out Cindy.
Dad sees this too and smiles. He says to Cindy, “You think he was checking you out or just gaping at Shawn?”
Cindy’s face drops, and I can tell that her feelings are hurt. She gives Dad a killer look.
Dad tries to cover. “I was just kidding, sweetheart. Of course he was …”
But before Dad can finish, Cindy spins and walks away. Dad awkwardly turns Shawn’s wheelchair around so he can take off after her.
“Idiot,” I say under my breath—and I’m not talking about my brother!
I wait, staying out of it. Dad catches up to Cindy and talks to her, no doubt trying to talk his way out of trouble, trying to charm her like he does everybody else, all the time. In a couple minutes they come back, and Dad, looking at our faces, laughs and says, “Lighten up. This is going to be great!”
Shawn starts to rock back and forth in his chair, going “ahhhhhh” even louder than normal. There’s so much noise and confusion and chaos here that it must be kind of weird for him.
I say, “You know, maybe this was a mistake—to bring Shawn.”
Dad says, “Nonsense. There are plenty of things for Shawn and me to do.”
Shawn and him? I can’t believe what I’m hearing, but Dad fishes into his wallet and digs out two fifty-dollar bills, handing one to me and one to Cindy.
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