A Rage for Revenge watc-3

by David Gerrold

  I folded my arms across my chest. "Cute," I said. "I have to tell you, I really hate this kind of stuff. It's always so glib."

  She looked upset. "You really are well defended," she said. "There's not a lot of space there even for yourself-so how could there be any space left for Tommy." She held up a hand to cut me off. "No, I'm not going to explain that." She rubbed the bridge of her nose, then ran her hand through her already rumpled hair. "Jim, I don't know what's going on with you or where you came from, and you don't have to tell me if you don't want to; but you've got a lot of big fat red buttons sticking out all over you, just waiting to be pressed. And every time someone presses one, you go off like a skyrocket."

  I wanted to tell her about Jason and the Tribe. If she'd have asked me the right question, I would have-but she didn't. And I didn't volunteer it.

  Why not?

  I didn't want anyone to know what I had been or what I had done.

  She must have seen it on my face, because she changed her tone abruptly. "All right, let me come at it this way. You think you know quite a bit about the Chtorrans, don't you?"

  I nodded.

  "And it's your considered opinion that the teams in Denver don't know as much as you do, isn't it?"

  "Yeah." What was she leading up to?

  "That's because you have firsthand knowledge that things are very different than they believe, right?"

  "Damn straight," I said.

  "Good. So why aren't you willing to give your own adopted son the same benefit of a doubt that you're giving the worms?"

  "Huh?"

  "Don't you think you ought to examine the human race's tentacles and strange habits with the same kind of unbiased observation? You've saddled yourself with the exact same kind of arbitrary judgments that you condemn the men and women in Denver for having."

  "Birdie, I was raised old-fashioned . . .

  "Good. That's a great excuse. That'll keep you stuck for a long time. You won't get results, but you'll always have a wonderful reason why not."

  I opened my mouth. I closed it. I felt frustrated. I wanted to punch her. I wanted to cry. How did I get into this anyway? "Dammit, Birdie! I thought the job of a parent was to help a kid grow up to be a good human being."

  "Who said it wasn't?"

  "Well, then what are we arguing about?"

  "I'm not arguing, Jim. You're the one who's raising his voice." I sat down again. She was right.

  She said, "Look, Jim, you've got this whole thing confused with programming. Do you think your job is to make a duplicate of yourself? Don't be stupid; you'll just be condemning the kid to a lifetime of failure. He'll never be able to be as good at being you as you already are. See, here's the joke: you have no voice in how that kid turns out. It's entirely his responsibility."

  "I'm sorry, Birdie, I don't get that."

  "Good. So, let me ask it another way. Did your parents have anything to do with how you turned out?"

  "Uh, not really."

  "Right. They only provided the space for you to grow. You were in charge of the growing. Pretty lonely, wasn't it?"

  "Yeah, it was."

  "Yeah," she agreed. "That's the essential human condition, loneliness. Remember that. That's why we do everything we do. So, look, if your parents had nothing to do with how you turned out, why do you think you have anything to do with how your kids are going to turn out?"

  "I hear what you're saying, I get what you mean, but I don't. I mean, it doesn't make sense."

  "No, it doesn't. So, just remember what it was like for you as a kid. Do you get it, Jim? You can't teach your kid anything; he can only learn it for himself. All you can do is provide the opportunities for him to learn. Being a parent doesn't mean you own the child; it means you're entrusted with the responsibility of teaching him responsibility. Nothing more. You're performing a service for an adult who is still in the process of getting there-and that service is the creation of continuous opportunities for selfactualization and empowerment. What he does with them is up to him. The best you can do is be an example. He'll learn from what you do, not from what you say." She smiled. "That's the annoying part. You have to take care of yourself."

  "It sounds selfish."

  "It is," she agreed. "Listen, the only thing you can ever give your kids is your own well-being. They're going to look to you as the source of all well-being in the universe. If they don't see it in you, they're not going to know it's possible. You know, most parents go crazy with that. They think their job is to sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice for their kids. Don't do that, Jim. You'll just drive them crazy, particularly when you start thinking that they owe you something for all that sacrifice. Don't expect it, because you're not going to get it. Growing up is a full-time job. They're not going to have much attention for anything else for a long time to come. Let them be the way they are, because they sure as hell can't be anything else."

  "So, you're saying that it's all right if Tommy is . . . that way?"

  She shrugged. "He's thirteen, maybe fourteen. Do you know how to change him?"

  "No."

  "Neither do I."

  "So what do we do?"

  She looked at me with a blank expression. "Nothing. We do nothing at all. Tommy's fine just the way he is." She went on, "See, this isn't about Tommy at all, it's about you. It's about your judgments. They're getting in the way of your willingness to express your commitment. The problem isn't with Tommy. Tommy doesn't have a problem with being gay-if he is. Maybe he isn't, we won't know until he's ready to tell us; but whatever he is, he's already handled it in a way that works for him. You're the one with the problem. And if you're not careful, you'll give it back to Tommy. Right now, you're telling him you don't love him."

  "But I do!"

  "I know you do. Or we wouldn't be having this conversation."

  "But you're telling me there's nothing I can do!"

  "That's right. You've already done enough. Now it's time to stop doing and start being."

  "Huh?"

  "You're carrying around a whole bunch of pictures about what's the right way to be a Daddy. They're getting in the way. You're already a Daddy. But those pictures you've got about the right way to do it-that's really your ego in disguise. You've got some stuff going on about your manhood, right?"

  "Uh . . ." That was the large part of it.

  "Right?" she pressed.

  "Uh, yeah."

  "Do you know most men have that same stuff going on? You're normal. You're just as crazy as everyone else. Now, try not to take it out on Tommy."

  "I see your point," I said.

  "Thanks. Listen, your commitment is real clear. You've taken on a big responsibility, and this conversation is about that responsibility. It's about the fact that you want to do the job right, don't you?"

  "Yeah. "

  "Good. So let me tell you this. You won't. No matter what you do, you're going to screw it up. Your kids will blame you, just like you blamed your parents, and probably still do. The only way to measure your success as a parent will be the speed with which your kids forgive you."

  "That's really reassuring."

  "That was the good news," she said. "I don't think I want to hear the bad."

  "You don't have a choice. Listen, Tommy's all right. He'll figure things out fast enough. He'll work it out one way or the other. He's a survivor, he's already proven that. Now, he's ready to go beyond just surviving. Teach him how to contribute to the people around him and you'll have done your job. No, it's Alec who I'm really concerned about. He needs to learn how to be independent. Neither you nor Tommy will be around to take care of him forever; he'll have to be on his own a lot sooner than you think, it always works that way. He's your real problem, Jim."

  I hadn't even thought about Alec in all of this. He was so passive, so accepting of everything, that I tended to take him for granted. If he didn't say anything, then I assumed everything was all right. Except Alec hardly ever said anything.

  "What do
you mean?"

  "That kid needs to learn how to interact with other people. He's very withdrawn."

  "You're right about that. I just haven't had the time to . . . "

  "And you never will. There's never enough time, Jim."

  "Okay." I threw up my hands in a gesture of surrender. "What do you suggest?"

  "I recommend that you put yourself and your kids into the Living Game at least three times a week."

  "You're kidding."

  "Not at all. If you want, I'll make it an order. I'll prescribe it as necessary to your mental health, and you'll have to be there. I want you and your kids to participate in this community. At least one of those nights, I want you assisting in the management of the Game."

  "I don't need that cr-stuff."

  "Neither do I. Neither does B-Jay. And we play every night. It makes a difference for the kids, Jim."

  I sighed. "You play real dirty, lady. What time should we be there."

  "Yep," she agreed. "And I get results. Be there at seven-thirty. Wear comfortable clothes." She turned back to her keyboard, then stopped and looked at me again. "Oh, you still want to put up worm fences, don't you?"

  "Huh? Yes!"

  "All right, look. Betty-John and I were discussing the idea again last week, when the charms came down. I agree with you that it's a good idea, but B-Jay doesn't want to spare the manpower; but if you're willing to put them up yourself, I'll talk to B-Jay and we'll push it through at the next Directors' meeting."

  "Birdie, one person alone can't install a worm fence-"

  "I was getting to that. I can probably talk B-Jay into letting you have one and a half helpers."

  "One and a half?"

  "Jack Balaban and Dove. Don't make a face. Dove can be your gofer. And Jack's a good worker. Take Tommy out to help you. He needs some strong role models anyway."

  "But Jack and Dove?"

  "Your bigotry is showing, nigger."

  "Uh, sorry. I'll give it a try."

  "You do that. You might do some growing up."

  I walked away from Birdie's office feeling better. Not a lot, just a little.

  Because she was right about almost everything she had said. She had only missed one point.

  I wanted to make love with Tommy as much as he wanted to make love with me. But I was ashamed of the wanting. And I was ashamed of my shame.

  If I wasn't a part of Jason's world any more then I couldn't follow its ways. But I didn't know if I could be part of this world either.

  I wondered how long I could keep holding him off before one night I gave up and gave in.

  There was a young fellow from Norwich

  Who liked having sex with his porridge.

  With sugar and cream

  and a buttery scream

  (The leftovers went into storage.)

  37

  Life is but a scream.

  "A taboo is someone else's rule about what you may or may not do with your own body."

  -SOLOMON SHORT

  The Living Game was something Betty-John had invented for the children. And for the rest of us too.

  The assumption was-as B-Jay explained it-that because of thc plagues and everything else, we had all forgotten how to live. We were all so busy lost in our various griefs and trying to survive at the same time that we were everywhere else but here. "Some of us are lost in the past and some of us are just lost. And some of us are elsewhere, but damned few of us are living in the present."

  It was B-Jay's theory that we needed to relearn, that we had to be retaught. Only there weren't any classes in how to be a human being, in how to be alive. "It's like the instruction book that you didn't get when you were born. Except you did-only everybody else has piled so much bullshit on top of it, you can't tell what's real and what isn't any more."

  She sounded a lot like Jason in that moment, but I knew what she was trying to say, so it was all right.

  "The way we learn things as kids is by playing with them, trying them on and seeing if we like how they fit or not. These kids haven't had a chance yet to play at life. They've been too busy living to learn how to live." B-Jay's idea was to ease the kids into the larger responsibilities of the world by turning it all into a game.

  In a way, it wasn't that much different from some of the exercises we'd done in the Tribe, in the circles. And at the same time, it was very different. Jason's games had been about playing. B-Jay's games were about winning.

  For example, Jason had once said, "Everybody hug. Hug everybody else. The job isn't finished until you are complete with every person in the circle. You must start hugging and you can't stop until you feel at peace." That exercise went on for hours. It's possible to hug someone and still not be with them completely. Jason's instructions were to hug each person until you could be with them completely. But Betty-John played the game a different way: "Okay, let's divide into teams, and let's see which team can give out the most hugs. The team that gives the most hugs wins."

  I suppose that comparing them like that makes it seem that B-Jay's way was the wrong way, was somehow more mechanical and obligatory-a kind of prostitution of the act. But Jason was working with people who were alive and awake and ready for the next step. Betty-John was working with children, some of whom bordered on the catatonic; she was still trying to wake them up into their own lives.

  Jason's people knew how to communicate. B-Jay was still trying to establish communication and for B-Jay, at this moment, hugs and kisses were the most powerful and direct form of communication. Quantity was more important than quality, because she was trying to overlay some very powerful anti-survival programming with a new set of responses, particularly the all-important competitive ones. Winning was everything and repetition was the way you stamped the lesson in. There weren't enough adults to take care of all the children, so the children had to be taught to be their own adults and take care of themselves, and they had to learn it fast. The compassion and the lovingwell, they could learn it later. If there was a later.

  There were too many children and not enough resources and never enough time. We had to make it work anyway, because there wasn't any alternative. Looked at like that, Betty-John's approach seemed the only rational and appropriate one. So what if it was hard and competitive and mechanical? It worked. Sort of. It let us survive.

  Anyway.

  We played the Living Game.

  Sometimes it was about how many dishes we could wash or how much laundry we could fold or how much litter we could pick up. It was never about doing chores. If some of it didn't get done, nobody said anything. It wasn't about chores, it wasn't about work. It was about winning. It was always about winning. Sometimes Betty-John or Birdie would talk to us about "winning the other war, the grown-up war."

  "Nobody ever won a war by accident," Betty-John would say. "Winning isn't a habit. It's a commitment. It's a way of life. Vverything you do-whether it's washing the dishes or sweeping ihc floor or picking up litter-is a game to be won. It's not a problem. It's not a chore. It's not a burden. It's an interesting challenge, with a definite goal. When you accomplish the goal, you win. This is the game: get yourself addicted to winning. That's the only way we're going to win the big war. We have to learn how to win all the little battles between here and there. I promise you, washing the dishes and picking up after yourselves and cleaning your plate and raking the leaves-all of it is all part od winning the big war.

  "It's this simple," said Betty-John, "I will live every moment of every day as if the whole outcome of the war depends upon my commitment to victory. Everything I do shall produce a victory over chaos of every kind."

  The kids ate it up. Of course.

  So did I. It became mantra. Don't stop. This is part of the game.

  Every so often, Big Ivy would hold a special game for the girls and Jack Balaban would hold a special game for the boys. When I asked, Betty-John told me that those classes were about bodies. Their own and others. And shame and curiosity and fear. Yes, there was some
nudity. Later, they would be about masturbation, if necessary, and even about sexual expression, if necessary. I didn't ask the details. What I did ask was, "Are the kids that far gone?"

  B-Jay nodded. "Some of them are. I'm hoping that appropriate role-modeling will help them find an avenue back, and I'm not above using whatever tools are available." She must have seen the look on my face, because she said, "Don't worry about it, Jim. Most of this is pretty innocent stuff. The girls need to be taught about menstruation and personal hygiene. The boys need to learn that an erection doesn't mean you're going to die. Remember poor Marty Christian?"

  Marty Christian would have been funny, if he hadn't been so pathetic. He was a perfect example of how the mind makes inappropriate connections between one fact and another.

  I participated, at first reluctantly, then with a kind of alacrity that was as much performance as anything else, and finally with a real enthusiasm, because I could see the difference the games meant to the kids.

  One day, B-Jay asked me to lead the next night's game. I tried to beg off, but she insisted. "Jim," she said meaningfully, "first Thursday is when we have the Directors' meeting, remember?"

  "Uh, right."

  "You may not have noticed, but this is still a corporation, and we do have a budget and expenses and taxes and a lot of other paper concerns that need to be addressed." She didn't mention the worm fence. She didn't have to.

  Just the same: "B-Jay, I don't know how to do this."

  "Yes, you do. You just don't know it."

  "I don't know what to do!"

  "Make something up. That's what everybody else does. Just have a clear goal in mind so that when you win, everybody can experience a victory. But don't make it too easy. It isn't a victory unless you have to work a little for it. Or a lot."