The Child

by Sarah Schulman

  “Daddy, there are some problems.” There was Carole, being the substitute wife.

  “I don’t even know this guy.”

  “I know,” she said sweetly. “But the officer said you can’t do anything without the approval of a social worker.”

  “Why should he have all the power?”

  Dan smiled at the real wife. “Do you feel this way, Brigid?”

  “I have no power over anything, especially my son.”

  Okay, so she’s the martyr.

  “Have you told him how you feel?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I say. I ground him, he sneaks out. Do you know what it’s like to make dinner for someone who won’t look at you?”

  “Then my wife and I get into fights.”

  Carole joined in. “Stew is taking no responsibility.”

  “I can’t manage him,” Brigid said. “It’s too upsetting for Stew, and it is too upsetting for us.”

  Stew sat impassively.

  “He sits there like a crazy person.” Marty gestured toward his son. “He grits his teeth and makes fists. He cries like a baby. He yells at us. He’s a bad kid.”

  “I am not,” Stew said. “I just have my own ideas.”

  “Like what?” His mother sighed. She’d been through that one before.

  “Like, Mom–like old is better than like new. Did you know that?”

  “Not when you’re my age.”

  Wisotscky noted on his pad that the kid was inarticulate.

  “See, Doc,” the father said, pointing. “What is he talking about?”

  “I know he was molested.” Mrs. Mulcahey sighed again. “But even before he was molested, he never co-operated.”

  “This kid has got serious problems that have nothing to do with being molested,” Marty explained deeply. He had done a lot of thinking to come to this revelation.

  Brigid looked at her husband. “Doctor, Stew is ruining our lives. He is angry all the time. He wants to leave.”

  “Get it, Doc?”

  Wisotscky could see Marty’s annoyance at having to re-create and summarize this concept for the doctor’s benefit. Obviously Mr. Mulcahey frustrated easily.

  “No, I don’t,” Stew almost cried. “Shut up.”

  “Doctor,” Brigid said. “I’m afraid of him. I’m afraid he’s going to hit me.”

  “Are you talking about your husband or your son?”

  Stew laughed.

  “Why is he laughing, Doc?” Marty squirmed. “It’s not normal.” Marty stared at Stew. “What’s wrong with you? You think this is a joke?” He pointed at his son and then looked up sideways at Wisotscky for approval. It was like Wisotscky was the daddy, and Marty, the little family tattletale.

  Carole put her hand on her father’s shoulder. She was behind him one thousand percent. “Go ahead, Daddy. Tell the doctor.”

  Actually, Wisotscky was not a doctor. He was a certified social worker. But he did not correct Mr. and Mrs. Mulcahey. It made his clients feel more secure in his office if they carried the illusion that he was an MD. Most of the people of Van Buren Township were not aware of the various possibilities within professional categories. Wisotscky softened his face into a more cinematically fatherly disposition. It was what everybody wanted him to be and helped encourage transference.

  “Are you feeling depressed, Stew? Tell me, because there are other alternatives.”

  “He’s not the only one.” Brigid gave a big gasp now and put her hand on her forehead. To Wisotscky she looked like the Irish washerwomen of his youth back in Ashtabula, Ohio.

  “What do you think is the solution? Mr. and Mrs. Mulcahey?”

  “Well, we’ve been talking it over.” Marty looked at his wife. “And we think he’d be better off in a juvenile home, some kind of reform school or military camp. Some place where he’d learn a lot of discipline, like I did in the army. I figure after a few weeks of that he’ll appreciate us more and will learn how to behave. Nothing permanent, Stewie. Just long enough to help.”

  Brigid nodded. “We both agree.”

  “We all agree.” Carole was the royal guard.

  “Stewie,” Brigid tried to smile. “It’s just temporary. I’m afraid, Doctor, that he won’t understand. That he’ll grow to resent us.”

  “Mommy, I resent you already,” Carole said. “For not doing anything.”

  “Shut up.” Stew looked at the floor.

  Dan leaned toward Brigid compassionately. “Why do you let him talk to you that way?”

  “I can’t stop him.”

  “Tell me a little bit about yourself, Mrs. Mulcahey. What do you do for a living?”

  “I work at Soto’s Insurance.”

  “Like it?”

  “No.”

  “Have you thought about getting a new job?”

  “If I ever lost my job, I’d never find another. Who wants an old hag who doesn’t know computers? I hate computers. They’ve ruined everybody’s life.”

  Stew laughed. “I don’t feel sorry for you.”

  “Well, you should.”

  “Brigid, why should he feel sorry for you?”

  Mr. Mulcahey looked at his son. Wisotscky could tell that the father was nervous. “My wife and I had some problems. But now they’re straightened out.”

  “My father had a girlfriend.”

  Marty blew up. “You make everybody’s life miserable!” He looked around, humiliated. “You think I like sitting here? You think I like taking time off from work? You’re like a crazy, sick person. You are the problem. You are wrong, kid. You’re a wrong kid. You hear what I’m telling you? I don’t know what else to do.”

  Wisotscky let the requisite moment of silence pass and then did his thing.

  “Stew, it sounds like you’ve made your father pretty angry. Why do you think your father is so angry?”

  Stew was so angry he couldn’t talk. He pressed his teeth together ferociously in order to keep from saying anything that could be called inappropriate, thereby sealing the lid on the box he was backing into.

  Wisotscky noted repressed rage at father on his pad.

  Stew balled up his fists to keep from crying at his father’s comments. His position was untenable. There was a limit, Wisotscky knew, to how much Stew could keep under wraps. Eventually he would spill it. Perhaps a short visit to a juvenile detention facility would do the trick. Those clenched teeth distorted his whole face.

  Wisotscky noted uncontrollable on his notepad.

  “Stew,” Brigid said, reaching out for his little shoulder. “How can we help you to behave if you won’t say anything? We want it all to work out, but you have to co-operate, too.” She took her hand away.

  “Why are you lying?”

  Brigid was up to her elbows in suds again.

  “See, Doctor? I’m in over my head. Marty and I are trying to do everything you people tell us to do, but you’re not helping us handle it. Right now, with Stew acting this way, I can’t deal with him. If you make me take Stew home, something terrible is going to happen.”

  “You stop that, Brigid, or I’m out of here,” Marty blasted, exhausted. “I can’t take any more.” Marty looked scared. “Control yourself, Stew.”

  Wisotscky could see that the mother was narcissistic and childish. She acted like a girl. If the father would give the son some contained attention, everyone would be satisfied. And the father would feel better about himself, more self-esteem.

  “I am controlled.” Stew was enraged. “I’m not doing or saying what I want to say or do. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “Stew.” Wisotscky decided to wrap it up. “Do you want to have a short-term residency in a juvenile detention facility?”

  “You’ve got to stop it, Dad.”

  “Stop what, Stew? Your father isn’t saying anything.”

  “No, he said it before. He’s got to stop all those sentences beginning with the word you. I can’t take them anymore. Listen to me, Dad. I can’t take it. I’m not just saying that. I’m
telling you the truth. Please, please, stop.”

  “I’m talking, too,” Brigid said.

  “Stop what?” Marty said. “What are you talking about? Are you hearing voices?”

  “Stop everything that starts with the word you. I can’t take it, I’m not kidding.”

  That was it. Marty gave up. Wisotscky saw him get overwhelmed. A little more paternal confidence and everything would be fine here.

  “See, Doc, the kid doesn’t make any sense. Now he wants to stop me from talking. Well, kid, you can’t tell me how to talk. I’m going to tell you how to talk. Shut up. That’s how you should talk.”

  “Mrs. and Mrs. Mulcahey, Carole, please step outside for a minute. I want to speak with Stew alone.”

  Wisotscky sat back in his chair, watching, as Brigid, Carole, and Marty obeyed, angrily, awkwardly, silently, negotiating their exits.

  9

  The next day, Monday, Eva came back from work, groceries in hand. And flowers. Something horribly unexpected had happened on the way home. But inside their apartment, Mary was the one waiting for comfort.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, tiny, vulnerable, relieved.

  This sweetness opened Eva’s heart. It healed her. She kissed the love of her life.

  “So am I.”

  “I walked into the theater and he said, ‘I can get this play done, and I can do it soon.’”

  “Wow!” This was great news. “The Federal Theater said that!” Eva put down the shopping bags and started jumping around.

  “Wait!”

  “Oh, okay.” Listening quietly, Eva unpacked the vegetables. This was her greatest pleasure. To belong to someone. Someone to come home to, to talk to, someone waiting for her. Someone to listen to. To look at. This was it.

  “That’s what I thought.” Mary was pacing, gesticulating, finally supported enough to be outraged. “I thought, Wow, this is finally going to happen.” She lit a cigarette.

  The radishes were gorgeous. They were so white, they were like stars. Eva put them on a blue plate. It looked incredibly weird.

  “Okay.” Mary imitated the gruff, dumb, generically male artistic director. “‘But we have to make the play work,’ he says. ‘It needs one good story.’”

  “Okay.” Eva was open, wanting to get it. “Oh wait, is this that whose play is it thing?”

  “Wait!” Mary inhaled.

  “Okay.”

  “‘I love the part about the boy,’ he says. ‘But those two gay women will have to go. They’re a distraction from the real story. What in the hell do they have to do with that boy?’”

  “I like them,” Eva said, offering Mary a radish. “I like those two gay women.” She started putting flowers in a vase. “Did you explain?”

  Yes, Mary had explained. This was her third appointment with the dramaturge at the Federal Theater. The first time, she’d come all dressed up and waited in the lobby for two hours while the seen-itall tired queen at the switchboard kept ringing his line and getting no answer.

  “But he said two o’clock.”

  “He’s up there.” The receptionist fluttered, batted his eyelids, drooped his eyelids, raised his eyebrows, fully activated all faggoty gestures that could possibly emerge from the ocular area. “He just don’t answer.”

  The second round was three months later in a snowstorm. She’d braved blocks of no buses, no sidewalks, no paths. Arrived in the stone-cold lobby and waited for two hours. Then braved them all again empty-handed.

  This was strike three. The dramaturge was a sort of cruel, sarcastic young man. He had a respected actor for a boyfriend, and that gave him even more status. It made them an “It” couple. And therefore part of the infamous theatrical hierarchy. That was one thing that had taken Mary years to figure out. The Hierarchy. If you were lower than someone, they were dismissive to you, and if you were higher, they were subservient. It had nothing to do with whether or not someone authentically liked her. It had nothing to do with her at all. If one day she could get some currency, then people who had been awful would be nice. And that would feel great—she knew it. But how to get from here to there?

  So finally she’d made it into his office, where he sat behind an important desk and she sat in a single chair. But she was ready. She’d come prepared to explain.

  “See,” Mary told this man with power. “I grew up in a small town called Del Sol, California, where the wind changes direction many times a day. It taught me that in life there is momentum on all paths at once.”

  He was still breathing.

  It was so warm, that wind. It pushed you forward, kissed your soul, stood in your way. One force in many directions, each with its own purpose.

  “So the two gay women in my play are actually interesting. But the audience doesn’t know how to watch them. They’re not used to them. They’re used to watching men.”

  He seemed to still have a pulse.

  “That’s what I have to offer an audience that’s special. That big news that we’re all in the same world, together. And that no one needs to see a boy in order to see himself. You know?”

  Something was going wrong. Mary started to panic. The man who was supposed to finally help her, the one who was supposed to be different and open the door. That man wasn’t coming through. He wasn’t getting it.

  “You know? The boy and the women are each other’s story. One story. The space between their experiences is the story. One story. Like the wind. One wind.”

  She sat back watching this lump of entitlement decide her fate. She’d brought him a gift, didn’t he see that?

  He smiled. Good.

  “Keep me posted.”

  Then he got back on the phone.

  “I’m going to have a glass of wine.”

  “No, thanks,” Eva said and kissed her on the mouth. “I believe in you.”

  As soon as she tasted the Chardonnay, Mary started strategizing for her meeting the following day with a really big producer. She had to change her method. Telling the truth did not work. This time, no matter what, she would be what he wanted her to be.

  If he’s a nice fag, she’ll be herself and flirt a little and be smart. If he’s an asshole fag, she’ll be really competent and smart, no flirting, but she won’t be smarter than him.

  If he’s straight, she’ll flirt as long as there are no straight women in the room, because they can do it better and she’ll look dumb. If there is a straight woman in the room, she’ll have to remember not to flirt with her, and not to be smarter than her in front of him. Sisterhood and all that. What if there’s a lesbian in the room? There won’t be.

  “What time are you meeting Hockey?”

  “We said he’d come pick me up at seven-thirty, so he’ll be here at seven.” Eva placed the vase of flowers on the table. Then she sat down on the couch. She touched her lover’s sloping shoulder with private gratitude and grace. “What are you doing to do?”

  “I got a tape of the first five episodes of that new series, OB/GYN. I’m gonna watch them, try to figure out the formula.”

  “Have I ever seen that one?”

  “Yeah.” Mary was excited. She had her pad and pencil ready. “Remember? The black guy got shot. The white girl got breast cancer and died. The nurse used to be a dominatrix, and the radiologist needed a green card?”

  “They’re all like that.”

  “No, no, no. In this one a blind girl was kidnapped, someone stole a Six train, the orderly fell in love with the elevator, and the opera singer got breast cancer and died?”

  “Oh, okay.… Honey,” Eva said softly. “Something really creepy happened.”

  Mary stopped, looked up. She saw the expression on Eva’s face.

  “What happened?”

  “At the Bar Association cocktail party. My sister. It’s so ridiculous.”

  Mary cared. “Of course you’re upset.”

  “Yeah, I’m upset.”

  “What happened?”

  Sometimes love is just asking
an open-ended question, then sitting back and listening with compassion. It can be a question like What happened? Or it can be something even smaller, like What is a poem? Or What was it like when you were young? It’s the opening of a window, the creation of space. The interest. The time.

  “Well,” Eva said, now feeling it. Now having her turn. Now being in her home with her lover, having her moment. “It was bad enough when we found out that she’d had a baby and didn’t tell us.”

  “That was awful.”

  “But today I actually ran into someone who had been invited to the baby shower. Isn’t that bizarre? I had to confess that we didn’t know anything about it.”

  “Your sister, I want to kill her.”

  “No one’s killing anyone.” Eva did want to kill her sister, but she would never say so. Mary would say so. Eva depended on her for it.

  “Did you finally find out if it’s a girl or a boy?”

  No, Eva had been too embarrassed to ask.

  “Mary, do you think it’s child abuse to keep your kids away from their lesbian aunts?”

  “Legally? How would I know?”

  “Can I go into court and sue for the right to be an aunt?”

  “I don’t think you can win that way.”

  All the way home from the cocktail party, she had looked at little children on the street and thought about their phantom niece/ nephew. It felt so bad. Eva didn’t know how to fight this thing.

  “What if I offer to meet our niece/nephew with a chaperone?”

  “No.” Mary was certain. “Absolutely not. I am not going to let you do that to yourself. This is not your fault.”

  It felt so good to have someone say This is not your fault when in fact it was not. And yet in some way she wished it were, because then she could change it. If the problem was that Eva was an alcoholic, she could go to detox, rehab, endless AA meetings, and many cups of coffee later change it all. It would be in her hands. But when the cruelty comes from the outside–in some stark, unwanted reality–she is at its mercy. Unless her sister changed, Eva would be spending the rest of her life following little girls on the street wondering Is that my niece? Always longing for justice—to be treated the way that she deserved. To know how to make that real.