Stories

by Susan Sontag

  What would that accomplish? What’s done is done, isn’t that right?

  But we are still trying. Why the hell do you think we came to see you in the first place? Isn’t it evidence enough of good faith that we’ve—

  Already?

  Tuesday

  Do you have a cold, doctor?

  Sounds like a cold. You’d better take care of yourself.

  It’s off the subject, of course, but we’re curious to know your opinion. Do you believe in massive doses of vitamin C?

  Baby does. He’s a regular health nut these days.

  Anyway, it’s better than becoming a Krishna freak like his cousin Jane. Painted all blue and everything.

  Not Bert’s sister. Bert’s cousin. Baby takes fifty vitamin C pills a day. But he still gets colds.

  Squeamish about some things, yes. Baby threw up eating a soft-boiled egg because the white was runny. And he refuses to kiss his Aunt Rae—Bert’s mother—because he says she has a black mole on her cheek.

  No, he isn’t imagining it. She does have one. The kid’s not a basket case, for God’s sake.

  But we don’t think that was the real reason.

  Rae’s a good-hearted gal, but you have to know how to handle Baby. You have to win his confidence first. He’s not delicate but he’s high-strung, like all precocious kids.

  You can’t just charge at him and grab him. You have to kneel down, get down to his level and talk to him first. Before you can touch him.

  Baby’s never been the sort of kid who likes to be hugged and kissed just like that, or jumps in your lap, the way Bert is. Every kid is different. And they understand a lot more than you think, even before they can talk. We learned that.

  You know, doctor, what you’ve just said is a little surprising to us. If there’s some misunderstanding, we better clear it up right now. Baby isn’t crazy.

  We don’t have your clinical experience. But we know the difference between crazy and not crazy.

  Sure, we can give you an example. Baby told us recently that for the past two years, every time he is about to board the bus that takes him to school, he hears a voice. The voice says, “Sit on the left side. Or you will die.” Or, “Sit on the right side. Or you will die.” And he never knows, each morning, which command the voice is going to give.

  Right. But wait till you hear the rest. We were very upset, of course. The morning Baby told us this, quite casually, as he was eating breakfast before he went off to school, our hearts sank. Once you start hearing voices, and voices that say you’re going to die if you don’t obey them, it’s pretty serious.

  But then we thought to ask Baby a question. Has it ever happened, we asked, that when you got on the bus, the side that the voice told you to sit on was completely full? So you were forced to sit on the other side?

  “Sure,” Baby answered. “Lots of times.” And then what happens? we asked. Wondering if Baby had noticed that, despite having disobeyed the voice’s command, he hadn’t died.

  “Oh, then,” Baby said cheerfully, “then the voice says: ‘Today it doesn’t matter.’ ”

  What are you thinking, doctor?

  Well, it’s obvious. You couldn’t come up with a neater example of the difference between psychosis and neurosis, we’ll bet, if you practiced your dubious profession for a hundred years. You know what we mean? A psychotic is someone who doesn’t hear a voice at the last minute saying, “Today it doesn’t matter.”

  Don’t you agree, doctor?

  It’s not that we’re asking you to give us much hope. But he’s not crazy. That’s not what’s wrong.

  Maybe it’s worse.

  Tuesday

  Baby’s become a vegetarian. We’re humoring him. He’ll outgrow that, don’t you think?

  Cottage cheese and fresh pineapple. And lots of raw peas. He always has some in his pockets.

  And his pockets always have holes. If you want to sum it up, there it is.

  He never takes care of his things. Clothes are to wreck, as far as Baby is concerned.

  He’s stopped wearing underwear. Is that a fashion these days among junior-high-school kids, doctor?

  Baby likes to hold his breath under the water in the bathtub. He’s got a stop watch.

  Baby hasn’t washed in two months.

  1-Y. He was all ready to go to Canada, he said. We were beside ourselves. But it turned out the adenoids were good enough. Of course, we’d feel safer with a 4-F. But Baby says they’re really the same now and that we shouldn’t worry.

  He doesn’t respect any of the conventions any more. At his high-school graduation, when they played “Land of Hope and Glory,” we cried. Baby didn’t even go.

  Don’t think we’re feeling sorry for ourselves. We’re probably better off than most parents. Two of Baby’s friends have OD’d. One suicide. And his best friend in high school is doing one to five in San Quentin for holding up gas stations.

  He’s certainly holding his own.

  Maybe we expected too much of him. The way you do with an only—

  All we hope is that some of the damage can be undone. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

  If he would only confide in us, tell us some of his problems. Then we could help him better. He knows we know it’s not easy to belong to his generation.

  We both had hard lives. Nobody gave us a head start, and we’ve had to work to get where we are now. But at least we could take certain things for granted.

  The family.

  Poor Baby! You’ve got to help us help him. We’ll never forgive ourselves if we don’t.

  His life is just beginning, ours is at least half over. It isn’t fair, doctor!

  We’ll do anything.

  But what more can we do?

  Wednesday

  Baby has asked more than once how babies are made. We tell him, but he always forgets and asks again in a few weeks.

  It must be that he can’t connect it with anything in his experience. We feel awfully silly explaining it over and over.

  But if we don’t answer his questions, he’s liable to think there’s something shameful about the whole business.

  He’s quite dexterous. He learned to tie his shoelaces on a wooden shoe in one morning flat.

  A friend of ours gave Baby a Marine flak jacket for his birthday. Of course, it’s much too large now. He’ll have to grow into it.

  Ronnie Yates. He runs the heliport in Venice West. He got stuck on helicopters during the war. Baby loves to hear Ronnie’s war stories.

  Baby wants a set of barbells and an exercise machine. It seems to us he gets enough exercise already. Sheer narcissism, that’s what it looks like to us.

  He’s always chinning himself.

  Baby wants to get a tattoo. A black sun between his shoulder blades, larger than a silver dollar.

  Yes, but if he ever gets tired of it, he won’t be able to have it taken off. They say it’s awfully painful to do that.

  He may be stoical, but he’s not that stoical.

  Everybody has their limit of pain, isn’t that so, doctor?

  Of course, he’s healthy. That isn’t the point. No matter how many times the pediatrician gives him a clean bill of health, we can see with our own eyes.

  Baby has found a guru. Doctor, he looks so awful with his hair long. Sickly. The guru lives in a dune buggy parked by the San Pedro marina. Baby is planning to go with them on an expedition to Guatemala, gathering medicinal herbs.

  Threatened and threatened him. We told him right away we’d cut off his allowance. But they had warned him that would be a part of his initiation.

  But we hate to think that our authority over Baby finally rests on the simple fact that we’re still supporting him.

  His wife apparently doesn’t want to go. That’s our only hope. She’s scheduled to give some noon and midnight poetry readings at Farmers Market in April, and she doesn’t want to pass up the opportunity.

  Yes, but it all depends on whether Baby really loves her.

 
Frankly, we don’t think Baby knows what love is. That’s his problem.

  Wednesday

  What we’re afraid of, doctor—it’s an awful thing to have to say—is that Baby is poisoning us. We discovered him trying to synthesize parathion in his lab in the garage the other night. When we asked him what he was doing, he looked scared and didn’t answer at first.

  You’re right. We should have told you before. But there are some things that are just too painful to face. Even the bravest of us become ostriches from time to time, isn’t that so?

  We’ve heard that three drops is enough.

  Did we mention that he won the citywide Bausch & Lomb Science Award in high school? And it was he who founded the chemistry club in his high school.

  Astronomy, too. Baby asked for a telescope for Christmas.

  Of course, we wish he’d read more. Literature, that is. He must take after one of us that way. You can’t get him near a book that isn’t some manual all full of charts and formulas. Still, it’s more practical to be interested in science.

  Did you ever want to be anything other than a doctor when you were a child?

  What a strange ambition.

  Baby is so single-minded. Once he decides something, you can’t budge him. You wouldn’t believe how stubborn he is.

  Sure, everybody hates to be wrong. But Baby takes it much harder than most people.

  Changed the subject? How?

  But what can we do? We don’t have any proof. We can’t call the police.

  Oh, we threw it out. When he wasn’t looking. He hasn’t said anything about it yet.

  Well, we certainly aren’t sleeping as well as we used to.

  With the lights on.

  Of course, we’re keeping our date with the Turnells tonight. If we don’t, Baby is sure to get suspicious. We can’t let on that we know.

  That’s the only advantage we have right now. He thinks we’re dumb. That we haven’t noticed a thing.

  No, how could Dr. Greenwich help? He’s never even met Baby.

  Well, if we don’t show up for tomorrow’s sessions, at least you’ll know, doctor.

  You hate wisecracks, don’t you, doctor? Listen, if we were serious about this all the time, we’d go crazy.

  Look, don’t worry. You want us to give you a call around midnight, just so as you’ll know we haven’t received our forty and forty-one whacks, respectively?

  No. Baby’s supposed to go to a yo-yo tournament with Bert at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre.

  Baby has fantasies of omnipotence.

  No. Much more specific. What it is is that he thinks that everyone he sees is blessed, something like that, because he looks at that person. If only just for one second, in a crowd. So he has to travel around as much as possible, so his glance will catch the greatest number of people.

  He says it’s his responsibility.

  Well, not exactly blessed. But their lives become different, once he has looked at them. All the people he’s seen will get what they deserve. The good will be rewarded. And the bad people will be punished, eventually.

  We think so too, doctor.

  No. He says he hasn’t decided whether the look works for people he only sees in photographs or on TV.

  That would give his powers a much wider scope, wouldn’t it? Perhaps we should be encouraged that he’s at least hesitating there.

  Justice! What’s justice got to do with it? That’s the last thing in the world that interests Baby.

  He wants to make us feel bad. He wants to make us feel unwanted in our own home.

  Thursday

  What are you being so aggressive for, doctor? If you don’t think you can help us, we can see someone else.

  Defensive, then, if you like.

  Well, of course, everything is relative. Isn’t it, doctor?

  We want Baby to be more independent.

  He’s devious. That’s the word. He never tells us anything.

  A water bed. We have to keep Baby off or he’d wreck it.

  He wants to make us feel like outcasts.

  We’re bleeding. Can’t you see, doctor? Help us.

  Are you a medical doctor?

  Yes. Much better.

  Oh. Did we tell you that Baby has a gun in the closet? He’s an N.R.A. junior marksman.

  Then you do think it’s possible to make poisons with a Chemcraft set. A big, expensive one.

  He has everything set up in the garage. That limits the damage, at least. Like when he burned himself with his Bunsen burner.

  Baby got gassed at an anti-war demonstration at the Long Beach Naval Base.

  He was always a natural pacifist. When he was four, we read him a child’s version of the Iliad and he wept at the death of Patroclus.

  We’re hiding the book from him until he’s older.

  Baby carries a picture of Steve McQueen in his wallet. That’s the sort of person he admires now.

  He’s trying to grow a mustache.

  Maybe he got tired of being a sensitive child. But don’t you think he’s gone too far in the opposite direction? We never asked him to be a genius and we never asked him to be a slob.

  Baby’s teacher came over this morning and told us he beat up a little kid in his class and took away his lunch money.

  We wouldn’t be surprised if he joined the Hells Angels. Or worse.

  If they’ll have him. Baby’s not as tough as he thinks.

  Oh, doctor, it’s terrible to want something from a child. Baby is right. We should be treating him like a visitor from another planet. We shouldn’t care what the hell he does. We should be taking care of ourselves, for a change, instead of throwing good money after bad.

  Not you, doctor.

  Thursday

  We had to cut Baby’s right hand off. It was the only way. He kept playing with himself.

  We made a little wheelchair for Baby. And a bed with sides, so he doesn’t fall out.

  We had to cut his left foot off, because he tried to run away again.

  All we wanted for him was to be happy, make a living, rear a family, contribute to society, and stay out of trouble.

  Do you believe everything we tell you, doctor?

  That’s not really an answer. Maybe it’s part of your profession to be evasive, but for once we’re asking you a direct question. Why don’t you answer?

  Of course, we’re telling you the truth.

  About the foot?

  That’s right.

  And the hand.

  But we told you it was a terrible situation, doctor.

  Maybe you see too many people who have to exaggerate in order to get your attention.

  If you want to know the truth, our problem is that we tend to minimize things. We like to face life with a cheerful point of view. There’s enough horror in the world without inventing more, don’t you think, doctor?

  Sure. Of course, you probably have an overly sad view of life. Since you spend most of your time listening to people complain. We’ve always felt that the more positively you confront a situation, the more likely it is to turn out well. At least to your advantage.

  Because even disasters can be a blessing, can’t they? They teach you something. You become wiser.

  What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

  Exactly. That’s how we try to approach the situation with Baby.

  Baby says what doesn’t kill you leaves scars. He’s right, too.

  Sure, it’s horrible. That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you all along.

  Didn’t you believe us?

  For God’s sake, doctor. Now’s a fine time to tell us that—after all these weeks. And then calmly look at your watch and say it’s the end of the session. Put yourself in our place.

  All right. Maybe we’ve accomplished something today, after all.

  Friday

  It was Dr. Greenwich who saved our marriage. Before joining the group, we were so caught up in the rat race, we’d completely lost touch with each other. Just going to their meetings
once a week—

  Sometimes.

  Yes.

  You’re right.

  It’s a relief to talk about ourselves for a change. We envy your other patients, doctor.

  Well, back to work.

  Of course, we do. Isn’t that natural?

  He could get work part-time in the post office or drive a truck. Jim Turnell offered him a job as a data shipping clerk in his Van Nuys warehouse. But he says he doesn’t want to do anything.

  We’ve offered Baby the summer in Japan, Mexico, if he promises to take a job in the fall, when he comes back. But he says he doesn’t like to travel. Isn’t that awful, at his age?

  Not blasé, exactly. All the kids of his generation are a little blasé. But it’s not that.

  He seems angry.

  Sometimes it just doesn’t seem worth it. Neither of us ever had much chance to travel when we were young. But he just doesn’t seem to appreciate that.

  Have you traveled much, doctor? Apart from being born abroad, that is.

  When?

  That soon?

  You’re probably hoping you can finish the work with us by then, aren’t you?

  Doesn’t matter.

  Listen, we’ve been thinking. The financial burden of the two sessions daily is a bit more than we can bear. We’re going to have to cut back to one a day.

  No, Dr. Greenwich didn’t say a thing. We decided by ourselves. You didn’t expect that, did you?

  Tomorrow?

  Saturday

  About travel and enjoying life while you can—

  Don’t you remember? What we were saying yesterday. Some things are just wasted on some people.

  Not you, doctor. Baby.

  Baby thinks he’s going to live forever. We don’t want to disillusion him. It’s great to be young and not know what the world is about.

  Maybe somebody should tell him he’s not going to live forever.

  No. He wouldn’t believe it coming from us. It should be some older, wise person. If he knew someone like you, doctor, you could tell him.

  Tell him he’s not going to live forever. Tell him that we aren’t, either. Tell him that one of us has to die first and that we’ve made a new will. Tell him not to hate us. Tell him what we’ve done was meant for the best. Tell him we couldn’t help it. Tell him we’re not monsters. Tell him how monstrous he’s been to us. Tell him he has no right to judge us. Tell him we don’t have to all live together, if he doesn’t want to. Tell him he’s free. Tell him he can’t leave us alone. Tell him he’s killing us. Tell him he can’t get away with it. Tell him he’s not our Baby, that he was born on Krypton. Tell him we hate him. Tell him we never loved each other but only him. Tell him we didn’t know any better. Tell him we’ve gone away forever and the house and the station wagon are his and the spare set of keys is under the door mat, and that we’ve remade the will entirely in his favor and disinherited Bert. Tell him he’ll never find us. Tell him we’ll be waiting on the patio by the fountain in the cute little house in San Miguel de Allende. Tell him we’ll get him an arithmetic tutor so he won’t flunk fourth grade again. Tell him he can have a dog—Malemute, old English sheep dog. Samoyed, Saint Bernard, whatever, as big and stupid as he wants. Tell him we did try to get an abortion, but the doctor was in Acapulco. Tell him we met Steve McQueen last year and didn’t ask for his autograph. Tell him we poisoned Laurie: Billy too, but it didn’t work, that’s why only Laurie died. Tell him we threw out his collection of old issues of Rolling Stone and National Lampoon behind his back, not the maid. Tell him to wear underwear, because it’s disgusting not to wear underwear. Tell him to take his vitamin pills, and the yeast and the rose hips. Tell him Thelma DeLara’s mother is a dyke. Tell him he’s not any better than we are. Tell him we should never have had children, but we thought we ought to. Tell him we never wanted him to be like us. Tell him it’s too hard to bring up a child, especially an only child, and he’ll see that one day when he grows up. Tell him he’s got to drink milk. Tell him he looks ridiculous with a mustache. Tell him not to take out his braces at night or his teeth will never get straight. Tell him to blow his nose. Tell him the dog can shit all over the living-room rug for all we care. Tell him he got ripped off and the stuff he’s hoarding in the Skippy jar is birdseed and oregano. Tell him he’ll understand us one day when he has children of his own. Tell him we were born on Krypton and were just pretending to be his parents, but we’ve gotten tired of concealing our superpowers beneath this meek, mild-mannered exterior and have flown away. Tell him he’ll miss us when he has to manage on his own. Tell him to feel guilty. Tell him to come off it and burn his Superman suit. Tell him he’s not going to win the Nobel Prize; or if he ever does, by then he’ll be so old he won’t care any more. Tell him how proud of him we always were, and are. Tell him how he intimidated us. Tell him we know he stole the money. Tell him to clean up his room. Tell him to write Aunt Rae the thank-you note for the roller skates. Tell him he has to renew his registration and that he can’t drive the Toyota around with one headlight. Tell him how we lied. Tell him how sorry we are. Tell him we’re victims, too. Tell him our childhoods weren’t any better than his. Tell him how we wept with joy when he was born. Tell him when he was born we started to die. Tell him that we tried to kill him. Tell him that we knew what we were doing. Tell him that we love him.