Stories

by Susan Sontag

  No, that was the odd part. Just the two of us.

  We worry occasionally that we can’t be as close to him as other parents because we weren’t all that young when he was born. Not that the generation gap is all it used to be. But still …

  Of course, youth is a state of mind. Don’t you think, doctor? And we do keep fit. We jog. And we don’t smoke.

  Us walk around naked in front of Baby? Certainly not! Not that we have anything against it. But Baby is so beautiful.

  We’re saving Baby’s first lock of hair. Yesterday we took him to an Italian barber in Westwood. Baby hardly cried at all.

  Sometimes we have a sinking feeling of time passing by so quickly. He’s changed so much already.

  You can see it in the snapshots we take each month to record his growth. That album is probably worth more than all the words we’re spilling out here put together.

  That’s a strange thing to say, doctor. You know perfectly well what we want.

  Wednesday

  Reason with him? That’s all we do. But he’s so withdrawn.

  Last year he refused to eat breakfast any more. And now he’s stopped drinking milk. We’ve warned him it’s bound to stunt his growth. Actually, it hasn’t. But it still doesn’t seem healthy.

  Cheez Doodles, Banana Chips, Squirt, Fritos, pizzas, tacos, you know the kind of junk kids stuff themselves with.

  Mostly he stays in his room. We have to ask him ten times before he’ll help with the dishes.

  Baby says he disapproves of hobbies. Imagine! But, of course, he has them. Just like every youngster.

  Model airplanes. But Baby refuses to buy the plastic ones you get now. He made his own parts out of balsa wood and worked out an ingenious propeller and tail strut with Popsicle sticks and rubber bands. The damn thing looks as if it could really fly.

  Of course, we know about glue sniffing. Doctor, please! We weren’t born yesterday.

  Listen, Baby cares too much about his child-prodigy brain ever to get involved with drugs. Also, he’s too unsociable. We wonder if he ever even talks to the other kids at school.

  Perhaps it’s just as well. You should see that school. It’s a mess.

  No supervision. The kids can do anything they want. The teachers are simply afraid of them.

  Maybe the Chinese have the right idea. Not that we’d want to live over there. But at least people are honest, they have a real sense of community, there are neighbors, marriages stay together, children respect their parents. Of course, people don’t have any material comforts and they aren’t allowed to think. But we could do without the three cars and the pool and all that. A lot of good it’s done us, when you come to think of it. And as for heavy thinking, look where that’s gotten Baby.

  You don’t believe that, do you, doctor? That’s a smug look you’ve got on your face. You think you’ve got us pegged, don’t you? Maybe you’ll realize now we’re not as typical as you think. We’re really radicals, though we don’t show it.

  Baby thinks we’re radicals.

  He’s going through a conservative period, like a lot of kids nowadays. We don’t criticize him. We just hope he’ll outgrow it.

  Baby has a Confederate flag over his bed.

  Last Christmas, we gave him a record of Pete Seeger singing anti-war songs. His first phonograph, you know, very sturdy. He couldn’t break it. He could just manage to hook the record on the spindle with his pudgy fingers.

  He used to play those songs for hours. And sing them in the bathroom, while he played with his rubber ducks.

  Now he just wants cash for Christmas and his birthday. We don’t know what he spends it on.

  Oh, we don’t stint. Listen, the kid has to have a normal life. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t feel excluded. And sometimes, when we see him doing something stupid, we really have to bite our tongues.

  But he doesn’t seem to like fun, like other kids. Always studying. Worrying. He’s so stern.

  Baby got a crew cut, doctor. And what’s even worse, you know what he says?

  He says he knows it’s the least flattering hair style in history. And that’s why he likes it. He says it’s meant to deflect attention from the surface to the inner man.

  Strange to think of Baby being such a puritan.

  We begged him to grow his hair long, like the other kids.

  Your hair is sort of short, isn’t it, doctor?

  Thursday

  He did it again! Played hooky yesterday. You see what we’re up against. Probably went to the movies. At least, we hope so.

  Baby has seen The Great Escape with Steve McQueen thirteen times. Would you say that the film represents—

  Oh, you haven’t seen it.

  Do you go much to the movies, doctor?

  Never. Even when he brought girls to his room, we closed our eyes to it. After all, we hardly have the money to set him up in an apartment of his own. Not at this stage of the game. But we thought he shouldn’t be penalized for that. Our problem.

  Then one day we caught him stealing.

  Oh, no. He doesn’t know we caught him.

  No, you couldn’t exactly say he was accident-prone.

  He did get a nail in his foot in camp last summer. The counselor said he was quite brave.

  All his shots.

  But he never tells us when something is wrong. That’s why we have to worry so much.

  After Baby had his wisdom teeth out all at once, we took him down the Colorado. We were in a dinghy with the other tourists, all wearing heavy black slickers. He started to bleed on the rapids. A lot of water came into the boat. Baby’s face was wet and the blood ran out of both sides of his mouth. But he didn’t say a word.

  No, that was his decision. He’s got to learn to make decisions on his own. And not come to us for everything.

  Baby wants a motor bike. But we told him it’s too dangerous, what with city traffic. Not like the Valley in the old days.

  His cousin Bert had a dreadful accident and was laid up for eight months in St. John’s. Both ankles shattered, three operations. He still limps a little. Probably will for the rest of his life. And Bert was lucky! We’ve heard of some really gruesome accidents.

  You know kids. They never stop wanting things.

  He’s always wanted a dog, but we don’t think he has enough sense of responsibility. He’s too young to walk the dog each night. And he’s already late every other morning for school. So you can imagine if he had a dog to walk first.

  In a few years, maybe.

  Getting him to accept responsibility has always been the hard part. He thinks we’re here just to pick up after him.

  But you should see Baby’s room. He never throws out anything. All his torn issues of the National Lampoon and Penthouse and Rolling Stone. Jars of pennies and God knows what else, movie stubs, Dodgers score cards, dirty Kleenexes, cigarette butts, old candy wrappers, empty matchbooks, Coke cans, his clothes all over the floor. Not to mention what’s hidden.

  Baby has a swastika in his top bureau drawer, beneath his underwear.

  Baby draws obscene comic strips.

  We used to go in and pick up after him, as soon as he left for school. But he would be furious when he found something missing. Now we don’t touch anything.

  If he wants to live like a pig, he’ll have to find out how unpleasant it is.

  Some of them, we admit. They turned out to be collector’s items. Of course, Baby won’t sell them. But you’re not going to tell us that Baby’s keeping six years’ worth of TV Guides is ever going to amount to anything.

  People have to choose, don’t they, doctor?

  Friday

  Do you think a gradual gain of weight is a sign of anything wrong, doctor?

  The past six months.

  Not more than usual.

  No, he doesn’t smoke. Thank God for that. As a matter of fact, Baby’s always kidding us about smoking. He’s rather hypochondriacal. Since he was small.

  Baby is afraid of germs. He’s s
tarted wearing a white-cloth mask over his mouth, like the Japanese.

  Of course we’ve tried to give up smoking. Hasn’t everybody?

  Does this smoke bother you? Come to think of it, we just assumed, because you have all these ashtrays around—

  Good.

  Maybe he’s afraid we’ll die before he grows up.

  Pretty long-lived, on both sides. But we can’t talk about longevity to Baby, just mention the idea and he goes wild. It only seems to remind him about death.

  Sure he knows. Every date. Baby made a genealogical chart and hung it over his bed, beside the Confederate flag. You wouldn’t believe the questions he asked.

  Imagine, he wanted to know if we were first cousins.

  Enough is enough, we said to him. Trying to make a joke out of the whole thing. And he actually seemed disappointed.

  The best part about Baby is just holding him. We feel inadequate sometimes, answering his questions. But when he shows his need for us more directly, then it’s all pleasure.

  If only he’d laugh more often. He has such a wonderful laugh.

  Baby loves spinach. And lamb chops. Those are his two favorite dishes. He won’t let us set him in his high chair unless we call him Baby Lamb Chop.

  Baby’s teeth are coming in crooked. He was born with an abnormally high palate, the obstetrician told us.

  No, but that’s what’s causing the trouble with the adenoids. It was predicted right then.

  And a bluish mark in the small of his back, called a Mongolian spot. Funny. We certainly don’t have any Oriental blood, that’s for sure. The obstetrician said it was very rare in Caucasian babies.

  Have you ever heard of the Mongolian spot?

  At least up to then. Until puberty, he used to run all around the house naked. We dropped some hints, but when he kept on doing it, we stopped. We certainly didn’t want him to feel that we—

  Perfectly normal.

  Fifteen. No, that’s wrong. Fourteen and a half.

  Well, we assume so. Naturally, we haven’t seen him naked since.

  He does like clothes, yes. You could say he’s rather vain. He can take an hour to make up his mind whether he’s going to wear the Mr. Natural or the Conan the Barbarian T-shirt to school in the morning.

  Sometimes he stays in the sauna for hours. It isn’t as if we don’t give him his privacy.

  We always feel that Baby is hiding something from us. That he’s ashamed. Particularly the crush he had on his journalism teacher, Mr. Berg.

  Baby is editor of his high-school paper. He was junior-high-school paper editor, too.

  Of course, it’s normal, in a way. You don’t need to tell us that. But you can understand we were a little apprehensive.

  We just didn’t want Baby to be hurt. We saw what happened when Berg didn’t praise one of his editorials. Baby was in a tearful sulk for days.

  No, we wouldn’t object if he turned out to be. One thing we’ve learned, doctor. Any way you can be happy, you’re already ahead of the game.

  That doesn’t mean that when Baby got married, we weren’t relieved. We’ll be honest with you.

  We don’t believe in early marriages, either. Young people have to find themselves first.

  Her father is a systems engineer at Lockheed. We should tell you about her. It’s too late to start this time.

  Saturday

  Leaving something behind means we didn’t want to go at the end of the last session, right?

  It looks broken.

  No, here. Look.

  Never mind, it doesn’t matter. We have another one at home.

  Perhaps we could double the sessions. We could both come on the same day. One in the morning, one in the afternoon.

  Naturally. But starting Monday?

  Well, it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.

  No, not worse.

  No. Why should we be pessimistic, doctor?

  We’re not pessimists by nature. We’re just trying to be realistic.

  Going to group gives one a certain confidence, you know. Perhaps we were too confident.

  Laurie died.

  The duck. Remember? We told you.

  In the back yard. By candlelight.

  Not very. Surprisingly enough. If Baby could cry when he learned that George Washington is no longer alive, the least we thought he’d do was cry about Laurie.

  We offered to get him another duck, but he said he’d rather have a snake. There’s some snake store out in Culver City, where he went after school last Thursday with a friend. He wants us to come with him, but we put it off. Spoiling him, giving him everything he wants, won’t help, will it, doctor?

  Fish, turtles, a macaw. No, first the macaw and then the turtles. They died. Baby forgot to feed them. Then the chickens and the two ducks.

  It’s funny that Baby likes snakes now. He used to be so terrified of being bitten by a rattlesnake when we had the house on Doheny Hill.

  He’s afraid of policemen, too. It started when he was three.

  We pretend we don’t notice the pot smell in his room. And he pretends he doesn’t know we’re pretending not to smell it.

  Of course, the windows were open.

  He buys an awful lot of pornographic books and sex manuals, it seems to us. You’d think he’d learn enough about all that in school.

  Baby wears earphones when he plays his cassettes. We don’t take it personally, mind you. But it is another way in which he shuts us out. And the look on his face when he’s listening to music is almost indecent.

  Are you recording what we say? Funny, we never thought to ask you that. There’s no tape recorder on your desk. But, of course, that doesn’t mean anything.

  Lots of doctors do. Dr. Greenwich does. We don’t mind. It’s probably a very good system, especially if you don’t have an excellent memory. Go right ahead.

  Are you sure?

  In fact, it might even be helpful for us to listen to ourselves. You could play back parts of the sessions and we could comment on them.

  Really, you ought to think about it, doctor.

  Monday

  What pressure?

  When he dropped out of Occidental, after one year, we didn’t insist that he get a job. We told him that his room was always there, waiting.

  He hung around.

  That was later, after he did try something.

  Right. Then we forked out for flying school in Long Beach. It’s supposed to be the best in the country. But he flunked out because of his nose.

  Three adenoid operations. But there’s still something wrong with his nose.

  Have we? Every specialist known to God and man.

  Sure, we’re going to try again. We can’t let the kid go around breathing through his mouth for the rest of his life.

  You should see what happens when we go to the movies together. People near us change their seats, his breathing is so loud. They can’t at a play, because the seats are reserved.

  Oh, one thing. Before we forget. At the meeting last night, they asked us to report on our work with you, doctor. You don’t mind, do you? Perhaps we should have asked you first.

  Dissatisfied? Certainly not.

  Sometimes, though, to tell the truth, we have the impression that it’s you who are dissatisfied. With us.

  Well, impatient, then. Isn’t that true, doctor?

  Listen, if you think we have any interest in prolonging this, you’re sadly mistaken. Not to mention the money that’s going down the drain.

  Okay, but imagine how impatient we are. We have to live with the problem every day, round the clock. You get to sit there, listen to us, and then you can forget about us after we leave.

  Of course, we have moments of joy. Have we ever denied that?

  Baby got a new tooth today. Don’t think that doesn’t give us pleasure. But it doesn’t cancel everything else out.

  How? We don’t just live from moment to moment, like the lilies in the field, doctor. Much as we might like to. We have memories and h
opes. And fears.

  Afraid of you? Why should we be afraid of you, doctor?

  Feelings are one thing. But sound advice is another. Dr. Greenwich vouches for you. We’re sure the group is going to give you a clean bill of health.

  We’re afraid of Baby.

  Monday

  Why shouldn’t we look grim? He’s started drinking again. Mescal. Southern Comfort. And some vile stuff called Georgia Moon.

  Since he’s of age, how can we?

  Moral force? That’s easier said than done.

  Baby has a will of his own, doctor. That’s what you don’t grasp. A terrible will. Trying to stop him only makes him do it more. He’ll do anything to defy us.

  Even cause himself pain.

  We had to put bars in front of the portable grill after Baby inched all the way across the dining-room floor in his playpen, rocking it back and forth, and laid his palms on it. He knew what he was doing. He knew it was hot.

  A terrible burn. He’s got both little fat hands bandaged up over the wrists, like gloves. But the pediatrician says it won’t leave any scars.

  One day he’s really going to hurt himself. That’s what worries us.

  We’re not sure he even knows any more what causes him pain. Or else—and this is worse—Baby has made himself into someone who just feels less and less.

  When Thelma DeLara moved away, Baby was inconsolable. He cried for weeks. You remember our telling you about Thelma. His best friend in first grade.

  Now he’s gotten cold and hard.

  Whatever we want to do, he’s against. What we cherish, he spits on.

  Last night he hung a big black flag from the television aerial on the roof. We almost broke our necks getting it down.

  Patient! What do you think we’ve been all these years? You’ve heard of the limits of patience, haven’t you, doctor?

  We’ve been shopping around for a special school. Not an institution, of course. He wouldn’t feel locked up or anything like that. Just some place where people would know how to handle him.

  It’s only reasonable, don’t you think, doctor? To admit defeat when your back is against the wall.