by Неизвестный
As I grew older I graduated from being jealous of ski people to being jealous of anyone more fortunate than me in any conceivable area. Self-consciousness descended like an ax and I began to resent nearly everyone, including girls whose hair feathered better than mine, girls whose parents took them on holidays to warm places, girls who got new clothes (even ugly clothes), and girls who had better-shaped eyes than mine. This last area was of particular concern to me. I liked an almond-shaped eye and thought that my whole life would be better if my eyes were just slightly less round. I felt that my puffy postsleep eyes were headed in the right direction, and I tried to train them to stay in that shape through excessive sleeping and salt consumption, but with poor results.
About the time I discovered boys, I also discovered that I had a gift for getting into trouble. Soon, I was a genuine problem child—smoking, skipping school, and hanging around places I wasn’t supposed to. My new lifestyle ensured that I did not mature at a normal pace. Instead of becoming more comfortable with myself and my place in the world, I grew more and more uncertain and insecure. And much, much more jealous.
Have you ever wondered what those bitter-looking girls wearing too much eyeliner who hang around smoking sullenly on street corners are thinking? I can tell you through personal experience. They are basically thinking, “I hate you,” as well as “I wish I was you.”
As my friends and I got more and more into doing things I’m not about to discuss for fear of reprisal, all those parts of us that should have been filled with self-esteem came to be filled with bitter resentment. We battered each other with our jealousy, particularly when it came to competing for the affections of boys.
Romantic jealousy was a whole category unto itself that seemed more serious than our usual envy and insecurity, and also more justified.“Did that cow look at him? She better not look at him because I will end her! ” This from the mellowest girl in our class. Then there was the jealousy aimed at the guy himself. “Are you looking at her? You better not be looking at her or she will be the last thing you ever see.” This was voiced by a teacher to her boyfriend. Even though romantic jealousy had a pathological, murderous quality, at least within our group we had a set of rules to help us cope with it. You didn’t flirt with or look at your friend’s boyfriend. You didn’t date your friend’s ex-boyfriend, even if they’d been broken up for over a week. If some girl from outside the group threatened your friend’s relationship, you turned on the offender en masse like a cackling pack of demented hyenas. We knew how it was supposed to work.
Most people will admit to being jealous in love, but almost nobody will admit to feeling jealous about anything else. I’d say my friends and I spent at least a third of our time cutting each other down to size, a third of our time being jealous about boys, and a third of our time resenting “nice girls.” Our main afterschool activity, besides smoking and looking as bored as possible, was directing ill will at the clean-cut girls with good grades who participated in intramural sports and other teacher-sanctioned after-school activities. God help them if they were rich, too.
My friends, who were only slightly less psychotically jealous than me, coined a name for these smart, nice, well-adjusted girls. We called them Bubblegummers.
I can’t remember whether the term was meant to convey some sticking-to-the-shoe type quality, or was a reference to the way that nice girls were shiny and sweet and stuck together (a smart move given the resentment we trained on them). Either way, it was not a compliment.
We spent hours, days, weeks disliking those Bubblegummers. Every time one would casually mention something she’d read in Time magazine, we would roll our eyes to show that we were sickened by her pretentiousness. (I did this, in spite of the fact that I was a closet reader who had to dumb down my own vocabulary so my friends wouldn’t roll their eyes at me. ) The Bubblegummers were what was wrong with the world. My friends and I wouldn’t look half so sullen and trashy if the Bubblegummers would just stop showing up for class and combing their hair! Fortunately, the Bubblegummers had enough sense and taste to avoid “our” men, or the situation might have grown serious.
It was actually a girl whom I would have considered a Bubblegummer who finally got me to take a look at my jealousy. A year after high school I worked at a wilderness lodge as a housekeeper/waitress. The job was hard. Sometimes it felt like being in a prison, but with killer sunsets. We were up at five-thirty and worked until seven-thirty at night, seven days a week, for two and a half months.
Five us of worked there: two guides, two house-keepers, and one cook. My partner at the lodge, to my dismay, was perhaps the most perfect girl in the world. Seriously. She had been asked to model multiple times but turned down the opportunity out of some kind of (in my eyes) misguided humility. Her parents were a doctor and a diplomat. She was a Quaker, for god’s sake. A vegetarian. She was the hardest worker I have ever met. She was also frugal. And she had this collection of long skirts and blouses that she wore when it was her night to serve the guests dinner. It was the Prada of wilderness lodge wear, particularly when compared to my outfits: short skirts, tights, big black shoes—stuff that played well on Queen Street in Toronto, but looked terrible in a rustic setting.
And worst of all, my partner, “Joan,” was nice. I’m not talking garden-variety nice, I mean the kind of nice only ever witnessed before on Little House on the Prairie. She was kind, thoughtful, and considerate, and for some unfathomable reason, she thought I was great. Anyone else would have pegged me as insecure from a mile away. Not Joan. She trusted me.
The minute I laid eyes on her I knew we were in for trouble. She was so tall and healthy. Her skin glowed. The girl was radiant. I, meanwhile, felt furtive, stunted, and pasty from years of my unhealthy lifestyle.
As I said, Joan was a good worker. No, make that a fantastic worker. And she was an object of affection for the wealthy and, often as not, elderly guests. She was like a favored granddaughter. The cook liked her and the boss loved her. Joan was his kind of employee: hardworking and physically flawless, with a fantastic can-do attitude. The less said about me and my attitude, the better.
As I felt myself growing more and more jealous of Joan, I tried to tell myself that she wasn’t perfect. For instance, she was clumsy. She had an accident at least once a day. The problem was partly enthusiasm. She was so eager that she charged right into all kinds of hazards. Her height made her stumbles impressive: they had the grandeur of a falling tree. She always laughed good-naturedly, adding yet another Band-Aid to a freshly bloodied palm or scraped knee. I laughed too, somewhat less good-naturedly.
I didn’t want to be jealous. I could appreciate Joan from an outsider’s perspective. She was terrific. So every time anyone expressed their admiration for her, and I felt jealous, it made me feel like a snake. “Why don’t they say that about me?” was my interior refrain, followed by: “Why am I so awful and insecure?”
I cringe to admit it, but I began to obsess about terrible things happening to Joan. I would take my lunch out in the boat and float in the middle of the lake, dreaming of ways she might disappear. I imagined her falling into the lake and drowning, getting lost in the bush and never coming back, bonking her head in one of her many falls and going into a coma. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her; I just couldn’t stand the way she made me feel. And the more I hated having her around, the more I realized what a terrible person I’d become: neurotic, insecure and, worst of all, jealous.
My resentment toward Joan began to leak out. Sharp words escaped me like needles piercing a bag. She was such an innocent, she had no idea how to react. She had not yet learned the defenses used by perfect girls against the mundane spite of those less perfect. Soon the atmosphere around the camp was poisoned with gossip and hurt feelings.
The more negative energy swirled around, the worse things got. People started taking sides. It was a mess. Was all this the fault of my jealousy? Had I turned what had at first been a certain camaraderie into a seething pit of competi
tion and hostility? I felt like something trapped in a toilet, swirling in a bowl of envy, anger, and resentment: buffeted and bashed, rushing ever downward.
By the time the summer ended I was thoroughly disgusted with myself. I had destroyed the experience with my jealousy. Not only that, but Joan had wised up to me. Away from the job and back in the city, I realized that she could have been a very good friend. But she would never trust me again. It was enough to make me take a long look at myself. I had to do something about the envy, resentment, ill will, bitterness, covetousness, distrust, doubt, and insecurity that were messing up my life. I wanted to be rid of them all.
The mere decision to change didn’t cure me of being jealous. That took a lot of work on my self-esteem and a life based on more than pretense. The opposites of jealousy are generosity and trust; both qualities Joan had in abundance. I had to open up to see other people’s excellence as more than a commentary on myself. If I worked with Joan today, I know I’d be able to appreciate her for the great person she is.
Sure, I still experience the odd pang of envy. Something about Gwyneth Paltrow can bring it on again, as can any discussion of Jennifer Aniston’s hair. But envying celebrities is like wanting to become Malibu Barbie. Even I know it is ridiculous.
Sometimes I think about that little chicken child that I used to be, standing in the pasture watching the ski people drive by in their Volvos, and I think I can even appreciate her now. Sure, her family had entirely too many chickens. But she was her own person, and that’s worth something.
WE’RE ALL GREEN ABOUT SOMETHING
Kristina Bauman and Christian Bauman
Eric fumbled for a cigarette, all backed up against a brick warehouse, chalky red and sprinkled with graffiti and wads of bubble gum. He pulled the last Marlboro from the pocket of his bomber jacket and struck a match off the bricks, then brought it up to the end of the cigarette. Flicking his wrist, he sailed the burning match over the sidewalk and toward the curb where it sizzled into an oil-streaked puddle.
He hung the cigarette crooked from the corner of his mouth and walked, farther into the dark of the city, hands shoved in his pockets.
When he got to her building, he tilted his head back to look at the smoke-stained sky. Eric stared, sighed, then returned his gaze to Earth—the set of steel stairs and thin railing that accompanied it, leading up to a matching steel door. Pulling a final drag from his smoke, Eric tossed the butt to the ground, stepping on it as he walked up the stairs and leaned on the buzzer.
A muffled voice filtered out through the screened-in speaker to the side of the door. “Who is it?”
“Eric.”
“Damn it, okay, hold on.”
He heard bolts slide; then the heavy door swung in. A silhouette of a woman stood in the dark opening.
“What the hell do you want?” the woman asked, not moving from her spot.
“Hey, Luce,” Eric said. He tried a grin. She didn’t see or didn’t care. The woman stood silent. Finally, though, she stepped backward, holding the door open.
“Come on.”
Eric walked in, letting Lucy shut the door behind him and slide the bolts into place. She climbed the stairs behind the door, talking over her shoulder as they went.
“So what is it now?”
“Come on, what do you think it is?”
“You want your money, right?” she asked, rounding the first corner and going up the next flight.
“Yeah, I want my money. It’s been two months. I can’t just let this slide.”
“I know, I know. I’ve got it . . . it’s upstairs.”
Eric followed in silence as Lucy led him to the third floor. She pulled a key out of the pocket of her ratty purple sweater and unlocked the stained brown door, leading him in, slamming the door behind her. Eric stood by the door as she disappeared into the next room, mumbling something under her breath. He heard another door slam and guessed she was in the bathroom. He leaned against the door, grinding his teeth, staring at the ceiling.
Richard’s fingers paused on the keyboard as he reread his words on the computer screen. Like they were glued, the pads of his fingers. Resting on the last four letters of the last word he’d typed—three fingers from his right hand on “L", “I,” “N,” and his left index finger on “G.” He leaned forward, reading it all again: . . . grinding his teeth, staring at the ceiling. Satisfied, Richard let his breath out and lifted his fingers from the keys. He saved his work, backed it up on a CD, pushed his chair away from the tiny desk. He popped his jaw, then released the CD from the computer and played with it in his hands. Richard stared, absently running a palm over his pimpled cheek, then through his long black hair. He stared, then slowly, slowly, began to smile.
This is it, he thought, and his smile grew wider. He’d never written better.
His bedroom was dark. From down the hall he could hear his father snoring. Seemed lately he did nothing but snore. Sleep and snore alone in his bedroom, the phone ringing unanswered all day, Richard either at school or up here typing, his father snoring through it all.
But whatever. Richard looked down at the CD in his hand.
It was funny, in a way. To feel so good. Because writing wasn’t, always. Good, that is. It went well. Almost always. But the place he wrote from, the place in his head . . .
Like this Eric, for instance.
Eric was . . .
Richard snorted, running his fingertips along the edges of the disk.
Eric was sort of what Richard might like to be. Well, not exactly be, mind you. But the spirit of him. The . . . the flavor.
“I’d like a new flavor,” Richard said aloud, and his voice in the dark bedroom almost scared him—but then he snorted again and laughed. “I would like a new flavor.”
Maybe high school would be easier with a new flavor. If he was more like Eric, well, then . . .
Richard laughed to himself. Who cares. School was a slow, burning torture, but who cares. This CD was the ticket beyond all that.
Fat Frank heard the sound of footsteps in the hall. Blanket to double chin, he lay without moving, listening to the sounds of his son moving through the house. Toilet flushing. The creak on the top stair, then the creak on the one in the middle. A pause. Then the front door swinging shut. Click. Fat Frank didn’t move. He listened. Nothing else. Alone in the dark he breathed out hard then pushed the covers back, swinging his legs to the floor.
He hadn’t always been Fat Frank. Once he’d been Furious Frank. Furious Frank Corbo. Literary icon. Definer of his generation. Prose for his people, he called it. Righting the wrongs in words. A trim, lean fighter in a double-breasted suit, the two-word headline centered under his photo on the cover of Time magazine: Furious Frank.
He wasn’t furious anymore. He was tired. He pulled his bathrobe on, crossing it over his belly, tying it best he could. He was tired. He was fat. Fat Frank. Fat Frank Corbo. He rubbed his jaw and left the room, first time in two days.
Frank paused at the top of the stairs. He’d been planning on going down, to get something to eat. But he changed his mind. Instead he shuffled down the hall to the boy’s room. He knocked on the door, even though he’d heard him leave with his own ears. Still, you never know. He knocked. No answer. Frank reached for the handle, pushed the door open.
The bedroom was dark, with a green glow from the corner. The boy’s computer monitor, left on. The boy fancied himself a writer. Fat Frank tried not to get involved.
The therapist they’d gone to twice after Fat Frank’s wife died—this was three years ago, and although no longer Fighting, Frank wasn’t quite Fat yet—had thought the boy’s writing hobby to be an issue between them. “He’s jealous of you, Frank. He’s a little boy looking up at a big mountain.”
Fat Frank thought it ridiculous. Although, three years later, the big mountain part wasn’t far off. He rubbed an open hand over his bathrobed belly. Big mountain, indeed.
And jealousy—what was that, anyway? A vague thing. In the corner,
the boy’s computer monitor glowed green. We’re all green about something, Fat Frank thought.
He turned back to the hall, then changed his mind again and stepped into the boy’s room. Pushed through piles of clothes, potato chip bags, issues of Rolling Stone, to the desk in the corner. Fat Frank sat down hard on the boy’s little chair. It squeaked, but held him. He blinked, adjusting his eyes, then focused on the screen.
Eric stood by the door as she disappeared into the next room, mumbling something under her breath. He heard another door slam and guessed she was in the bathroom. He leaned against the door, grinding his teeth, staring at the ceiling.
Frank sniffed, wiped his nose. Allergies. He put a finger out, hesitated, then pressed the up arrow. The text scrolled up. And up. And up.
“Boy’s been busy,” he said aloud. He got to the top, hesitated again, then began reading.
It took almost an hour to read it all. And when he was done Fat Frank went back to the top and read it again. And then he sat—alone in the dark, on his son’s chair, at his son’s desk, at the foot of his son’s creation— for a long time. He didn’t move until he heard the front door open and slam and then footsteps coming up the stairs. He turned his head to look at the bedroom door as Richard appeared in the doorway. His son’s eyes stared silently at his father as Fat Frank pulled his bulk from the seat and Richard moved into the room, wordless.
Fat Frank dropped his gaze. Yeah, we’re all green about something, he thought. Isn’t that the truth.
TOE THE LINE WITH ME