by Kit Reed
They say every son needs to kill his father to become a man, but that’s only in books. My men kill each other every single day. I’ll admit it, Denny means well but he’s a little abrasive. Like a bear cub that hasn’t learned to sheathe his claws.
I love them both but my greatest fear is being pushed to the point where I have to pick one over the other. I just know it will happen sooner or later and I will do anything to prevent it. The least little thing sets them off.
What I hate most is the questions. Can’t do this without them asking, can’t go out wearing that, can’t even think about another piercing, she checks my underwear before it goes in the wash and she isn’t only looking for blood. Like, do they think I keep snapshots of all the crap things that happen to me? They are always around here, spying, prying, like, what ever happened to personal space? When I do go out they sneak around looking at my private things when all I want from them, all I want in the world is to have friends and be happy and for once, just one time be not bothered, as in, totally left alone.
Just now a boy murdered his parents three counties over, we saw it on the TV nightly news. The cops got out an APB. So, what happens next? Will he throw his girlfriend into the car for a joyride or drive on to wipe out the contents of a college dorm?
We’re told to stay on the lookout, but what, specifically, are we looking for? No parent wants to be the sneaky, underhanded snoop who reads diaries and tosses the kid’s room as soon as he leaves the house. My wife and I were brought up to respect people’s privacy, and besides. We’re scared of what we might find. The papers say, if you see a problem, reach out to your child. Easier if you know he won’t bite your hand off.
If only he and his father would talk. They have so much in common: quick tempers, those big, fierce heads, the Esterhazy slouch. If they tried I know they could work it out, but they sit at the supper table like rocks and except for would you pass the whatever, they are so stony that it makes me want to weep. Because it is expected Stan will say “How’s school” in that routine, doesn’t-want-an-answer way. Then Dennis says “OK” just to get Stan to leave him alone. Stan grunts and that’s the end of that and on weekends even that goes by. I hate the silence but if they do get talking, they’ll fight so frankly, it’s a relief.
I look at their hatchet faces and think: I’m so afraid.
They thought I was the one defacing lockers so I got detention, somebody that hates me used my personal hash, I don’t care, the way things are right now, detention is the safest place to be. They ran it across a whole bank of lockers outside the girls’ bathroom and in a way, it was kind of magnificent, scored into the metal like the one on my arm: deny, so I don’t care what they do to me, and at home if they get all pissed off about me being late, I’m all, so what, and the hell with them.
I’m telling you, the situation is dangerous. Book says sit the kid down for a heart-to-heart and that would solve our problems, but what do you say when you’ve been warned that the least little thing will set him off? How do you walk free when your wife cries herself to sleep at night and you personally are hanging on like a squirrel in a hurricane, too stressed to know what to watch out for, or which is the least little thing?
Beware root causes, they tell us, Signs of depression. Talk of death. So, what if your kid won’t talk? Do you count cabalists drawn on his hands and all over his school notebooks? Is the skull gouged in the bathroom windowsill with his fingernails a sign? Listen to your children. Well, you don’t live here, you psychiatrists and grief counselors. That’s easy for you to say.
I try to talk to them, to bring them together, to make it all right but look what happened last night. I reached out to Denny, but he shrugged me off. I called after him, “Are you all right?” He left the kitchen so fast that I don’t know what went wrong with his face, only that it was skewed. Stan tried to get through in his own clumsy way but Denny stalked away before he could clear his throat. Maybe if I put flowers and linens on the dining room table I could get him to stay. Instead of eating in the kitchen we’d sit down to candles, lemon slices in the iced water. Would we linger at dinner if I set the table nicely and pulled the dining room chairs close enough to touch?
Push comes to shove and this is intolerable. The waiting. The unfired shot.
Best-case scenario, I go looking for proof. It sounds ugly to say and it’s vile to contemplate, but I’d love to shake out his clothes and watch needles or pills come rolling out, roofies or X or heroin, whatever gets authorities on his case because he’s just too much for us and I can’t do this alone. If I found hard evidence in his diary, detailed lists of future crimes, I could do this. If I saw death threats or a hit list on his hard drive we could move in on him, get it all out and get this over with. Back him up against the wall and have it out with him, and I don’t mean intervention, I mean ultimatums that he’ll agree to and honor to the death because enough is enough, and I need to lay down the law. Better yet, I find his cache of firearms in the basement or loaded pistols under the bed or blood on the pillowcase, proof that he sleeps with a knife. It would be awful, but at least we’d have a place to start.
Then I could photocopy the evidence or turn the computer over to the authorities or march my son down to the river and stand over him while he deep-sixed every single piece of mail-order artillery he’s probably charged on my Discover card and stockpiled over the years. Then I would force Dennis to his knees and not let him up until he apologized.
Then he would know that I am not afraid and we are not to be messed with, not now and not in any other life.
Better yet—sorry, Stef—I could take him and the evidence to the police station and turn the little bastard in.
Meanwhile the papers boil over with news of kids who kill their parents and forget what they did. What did they think they were doing, routing out vermin or swatting flies? Is this all we are to Denny, pests he can exterminate and forget? It isn’t safe! Stephanie and I know what to be afraid of, but in the absence of proof, we don’t know what to expect.
I hate when people expect you to go around smiling, like it’s your fucking job. Yesterday Diane went backstage with Dick Fletcher at play practice and they stayed there the whole time. Mr. Hanraty yelled so they sent a kid back with the message not to bother them, they were busy running lines, yeah, right. It doesn’t matter anyway, she can’t see me for shit and then I get home and Sunshine Stephanie wants to know did I have fun at play practice yeah well, fuck you too.
I guess I said something that either hurt Denny’s feelings or made him mad and I still don’t know if it was asking whether he’d eaten or mentioning the ugly scrape on his chin but he snarled and forgive me, I said, “If you’re going to be like that, just go away,” and he spat some insult I couldn’t parse and stomped off to his room in such a rage that it shook the house.
This kid in England murdered his parents, just for the use of the family car, I read about it on the web. Took off on vacation with his girlfriend. Nice people, it’s not like they beat him or some damn thing, they just said no. With every kid Denny’s age a walking time bomb, what are we supposed to do? Should the wife and I arm ourselves so we’ll feel safe coming out of our bedroom? Keep a gun in the bedside table or a shiv in the pocket of our robe? Probably. Every time I come out into the hall at night he’s there and every time, it takes me by surprise.
“Agh!”
He sounds outraged. “Dad!”
How did he get so big? I hate surprises. “What are you doing here?”
“Going to pee.” I’m coming to get you.
“Go to your room!”
I don’t have to see his face. I know that look. And when I get you … but he shouts, “What am I, supposed to piss on the rug?”
If I had the right words I would say them and, zot! He’d disappear. Instead, I threaten. “I don’t care what you do. Just go!”
He goes. Which of us wishes the other dead?
To prevent either, we need protection. The only question is
whether to use Snuffy’s Gun Shop, which means everyone on Broad Street would know, or buy on the Internet. But what if Dennis finds out because he gets off on hacking into my machine? What if he’s waiting when the package comes? What if he’s standing in the living room, locked and loaded, when Stef and I walk in the door? Or: smashes into our bedroom and blows us away?
Better forewarned, ergo forearmed.
Diane stuck her gum on my desk today, just left it in the corner when she went past, a perfect thumbprint, like a present for me, it’s not like proof that she loves me, but my heart went up and stayed there until I saw her and fucking Dick Fletcher humping in the bushes outside the gym.
I love him, and I try so hard. Yesterday I made his favorite, blueberry waffles for dinner, with apple sausages, and he tramped through the kitchen without even looking and went on up to his room. How do you make it up to someone when you don’t even know what you did?
You hate me? You hate your mother and you want to sneak in some night and murder us in our bed? Well, not on my watch, buddy. Not on my watch.
At the sight of the neat pistol I bring home from Snuffy’s, Stephanie bursts into tears. “You can’t,” she cries. “This is Denny.”
“And this is to keep us safe.” Although I stand a little taller, I do not tell her that I really mean: empowered.
She whips her head around. Tears fly. “But he’s just a baby!”
Now, Dennis hasn’t been a baby since that thing when he was three. He claimed the puppy wanted to swim, but I knew. We are cohabiting with danger but to Stephanie, he’s still her baby, which may be how things got so bad. When I’m not looking she indulges him, but I don’t have proof. I suppose partly it’s me, because the kid and I squared off the day she brought him home. Say his name and I bristle. There, it’s out.
I’m embarrassed, but I’m not sorry. We know each other for who we are. I know he never liked me but we’ve survived so far on mutual respect. What does this mean really, when push comes to shove?
When he comes in tonight I will be waiting. One false move out of the little bastard and I tell you, push will come to shove.
When he was small I could take him in my lap and hug him and forgive him, no matter what he did, and I hugged him like that with his head close to me and his legs hanging down until one day he fought me with both fists, shouting, leave me alone, and when I asked him why he started crying and told me: I’m too big. I said, you’re never too big, honey, but then I turned my back on the problem and now he is. On good days I can still call him—Denny? And when he comes into the room he stays long enough for me to ask him, Son, is there anything you want to talk about? when what I mean is, Is there anything you’re afraid to tell me. I stand there thinking if only I could hug you but he backs away saying, Not really, Mom, and just in case I don’t get it, just before he slams the door he says firmly, “No.”
The paramedics leave me in the guidance counselor’s office after the fight. I’m supposed to lie there until the bleeding stops. Then Miss Feely comes on to me all tremulous and wary, like, are you OK Dennis, you look like you’re about to explode and I’m so fucking depressed that it comes out and runs down my face so I’m fucking embarrassed too. Then she starts spitting questions and I can’t tell if she’s afraid I’m going to walk into school tomorrow and start firing or if she’s afraid I’m going to destroy myself but I am grateful for the attention either way, and I dutifully shake my head no when she asks are there problems at home. Then she talks and I sit there waiting for it to end. I’m not convinced but by the time she’s done at least I have a thing to do. I won’t exactly bring home presents but I’m going to, like, smile and be nice to Mom and Dad when I get there because they are the only people left. Besides, I feel sorry for them. I have a shitty life but at least I’m not old, like them. We could probably be miserable together until I get big enough to go out on my own. Lame, right? But it’s a plan.
This is how a mother’s heart breaks. As the gun goes off and his arms fly wide, my only son reaches out to me and his voice rips me from top to bottom, so I will be like this, laid open, until I die. My Denny isn’t mad, he isn’t even reproachful, he is mystified. “Mom!”
—Postscripts, 2008
The Attack of the Giant Baby
New York City, 9 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 16, 197-: Dr. Jonas Freibourg is at a particularly delicate point in his experiment with electrolytes, certain plant molds and the man within. Freibourg (who, like many scientists, insists on being called Doctor although he is in fact a Ph.D.) has also been left in charge of Leonard, the Freibourg baby, while Dilys Freibourg attends her regular weekly class in Zen cookery. Dr. Freibourg has driven in from New Jersey with Leonard, and now the baby sits on a pink blanket in a corner of the laboratory. Leonard, aged fourteen months, has been supplied with a box of Mallomars and a plastic rattle; he is supposed to play quietly while Daddy works.
9:20: Leonard, aged fourteen months, has eaten all the Mallomars and is tired of the rattle; he leaves the blanket, hitching along the laboratory floor. Instead of crawling on all fours, he likes to pull himself along with his arms, putting his weight on his hands and hitching in a semisitting position.
9:30: Dr. Freibourg scrapes an unsatisfying culture out of the petri dish. He is not aware that part of the mess misses the bin marked for special disposal problems, and lands on the floor.
9:30½: Leonard finds the mess, and like all good babies investigating foreign matter, puts it in his mouth.
9:31: On his way back from the autoclave, Dr. Freibourg trips on Leonard. Leonard cries and the doctor picks him up.
“Whussamadda, Lennie, whussamaddda, there, there, what’s that in your mouth? Something crunches. “Ick ick, spit it out, Lennie. Aaaaa, Aaaaaaa, AAAAAA.”
At last the baby imitates its father. “Aaaaaaaaa.”
“That’s a good boy, Lenny, spit it into Daddy’s hand, that’s a good boy, yeugh.” Dr. Freibourg scrapes the mess off the baby’s tongue. “Oh, yeugh, Mallomar. It’s OK, Lennie, OK?”
“Ggg.nnn. K.” The baby ingests the brown mess and then grabs for the doctor’s nose and tries to put that in his mouth.
Despairing of his work, Dr. Freibourg throws a cover over his experiment, stashes Leonard in his stroller and heads across the hall to insert his key in the self-service elevator, going down and away from the secret laboratory. Although he is one block from Riverside Park it is a fine day and so Dr. Freibourg walks several blocks east to join the other Saturday parents and their charges on the benches in Central Park.
10:15: The Freibourgs reach the park. Although he has some difficulty extracting Leonard from the stroller, Dr. Freibourg notices nothing untoward. He sets the baby on the grass. The baby picks up a discarded tennis ball and almost fits it in his mouth.
10:31: Leonard is definitely swelling. Everything he has on stretches, up to a point: T-shirt, knitted diaper, rubber pants, so that, seen from a distance, he may still deceive the inattentive eye. His father is deep in conversation with a pretty divorcée with twin poodles, and although he checks on Leonard from time to time, Dr. Freibourg is satisfied that the baby is safe.
10:35: Leonard spots something bright in the bushes on the far side of the clearing. He hitches over to look at it. It is, indeed, the glint of sunlight on the fender of a moving bicycle and as he approaches it recedes, so he has to keep approaching.
10:37: Leonard is gone. It may be just as well because his father would most certainly be alarmed by the growing expanse of pink flesh to be seen between his shrinking T-shirt and the straining waistband of his rubber pants.
10:50: Dr. Freibourg looks up from his conversation to discover that Leonard has disappeared. He calls.
“Leonard, Lennie …”
10:51: Leonard does not come.
10:52: Dr. Freibourg excuses himself to hunt for Leonard.
11:52: After an hour of hunting, Dr. Freibourg has to conclude that Leonard hasn’t just wandered away, he is either lost or he’s been stolen
.. He summons park police.
1 p.m.: Leonard is still missing.
In another part of the park, a would-be mugger approaches a favorite glen. He spies something large and pink; it half-fills the tiny clearing. Before he can run, the pink phenomenon pulls itself up, clutching at a pine for support, topples, and accidentally sits on him.
1:45: Two lovers are frightened by unexplained noises in the woods, sounds of crackling brush and heavy thuddings accompanied by a huge, wordless maundering. They flee as the thing approaches, gasping out their stories to an incredulous cop, who detains them until the ambulance arrives to take them to Bellevue.
At the sound of what they take to be a thunder crack, a picnicking family returns to the picnic site to find their food missing, plates and all. They assume this is the work of a bicycle thief but are puzzled by a pink rag left by the marauder; it is a baby’s shirt, stretched beyond recognition and ripped as if by a giant, angry hand.
2 p.m.: Extra units join park police to widen the search for missing Leonard Freibourg, aged fourteen months. The baby’s mother arrives and after a pause for recriminations leaves her husband’s side to augment the official description: that was a sailboat on the pink shirt, and those are puppy-dogs printed on the Carter’s dress-up rubber pants. The search is complicated by the fact that police have no way of knowing the baby they are looking for is not the baby they are going to find.
4:45: Leonard is hungry. Fired by adventure, he has been chirping and happy up until now, playing doggie with a stray Newfoundland which is the same relative size as his favorite stuffed Scottie at home. Now the Newfoundland has used its last remaining strength to steal away, and Leonard remembers he is hungry. What’s more, he’s getting cranky because he has missed his nap. He begins to whimper.