" I ' m the one at fault. I should never have left the Liquid-Plumr out of the cabinet."
Kevin shrugged. "Never said I blamed myself." He stood up.
"I be excused?"
" O n e more thing," you said. "Your sister's going to need your help."
" W h y ? " he said, ranging into the kitchen. " O n l y one eye, wasn't it. N o t like she needs a guide dog or a white stick."
"Yes," I said. "Lucky her."
"She'll need your support," you said. "She's going to have to wear a p a t c h — "
"Cool," he said. He came back with the bag of lychees from the refrigerator. It was February; they were in season.
"She'll be fitted with a glass eye d o w n the line," you said, "but we'd appreciate your sticking up for her if neighborhood kids tease h e r — "
"Like how?" he said, carefully pulling the rough salmon-colored husk off the fruit, exposing the pinkish-white flesh.
"Celia does not look like a geek?" W h e n the pale translucent orb was peeled, he p o p p e d it in his m o u t h , sucked, and pulled it back out.
"Well, however y o u — "
"I mean, Dad!' Methodically, he splayed the lychee open, parting the slippery flesh from the smooth brown seed. " N o t sure you remember too good, being a kid." He angled the mangle into his m o u t h . "Ceil s just gonna have to suck it up."
I could feel you internally beaming. H e r e was your teenager trotting out his archetypal teenagery toughness, behind w h i c h he hid his confused, conflicted feelings about his sister's tragic accident. It was an act, Franklin, a candy-coated savagery for your consumption. He was plenty confused and conflicted, but if you looked into his pupils they were thick and sticky as a tar pit. This teenage angst of his, it wasn't cute.
"Hey, Mister Plastic," Kevin offered. "Want one?" You demurred.
"I didn't k n o w you liked lychees," I said tightly once he'd started on a second one.
"Yeah, well," he said, stripping the fruit bare and rolling the pulpy globe around the table with one forefinger. It was the ghosdy, milky color of a cataract.
"It's just, they're very delicate," I said, fretting.
He tore into the lychee with his front teeth. "Yeah, whadda you call it." He slurped. " A n acquired taste!'
He was clearly planning to go through the whole bag. I rushed from the room, and he laughed.
On the days that I took the early afternoon visiting hours, I worked from home; Kevin's school bus would often drop h i m off at the same time as I returned from the hospital. T h e first time I passed him as he sauntered languidly across Palisades Parade, I pulled over in my Luna and offered him a ride up our steep drive.
— 348 —
You'd think that just being alone with your own son in a car was a pretty ordinary affair, especially for two minutes. But Kevin and I rarely put ourselves in such stifling proximity, and I remember babbling associatively all the way up. T h e street was lined with several other vehicles waiting to rescue chddren from having to walk as m u c h as ten feet on their o w n steam, and I remarked on the fact that every single car was an SRO. It was out of my m o u t h before I remembered that Kevin hated my teasing malapropism for S U V — o n e more pretend-gaffe to service the myth that I didn't really live here.
"You know, those things are a metaphor for this whole country," I went on. I had been put on notice that this sort of talk drove my son insane, but maybe that's why I pursued it, m u c h as I would later bring up Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris in Claverack just to goad him. " T h e y sit up on the road higher and mightier than anyone else, and they have more power than anyone knows what to do with. Even the profile they c u t — they always remind me of fat shoppers, waddling d o w n the mall in square-cut Bermuda shorts and giant padded sneakers, stuffing their faces with cinnamon buns."
"Yeah, well, ever ride in one?" (I admitted I hadn't.) "So what do you know?"
"I k n o w they piggy up too m u c h of the road, guzzle gas, sometimes roll over—"
" W h y do you care if they roll over? You hate these people anyway."
"I don't h a t e — "
"Single-room occupancy!" Shaking his head, he slammed the VW door behind him. T h e next time I offered him a lift up the hill, he waved me off.
There was even something strangely unbearable about those couple of hours he and I sometimes shared the house before your 4x4 plowed into the garage.You'd think it would be easy enough, in that vast splay of teak, but no matter where each of us settled I never lost an awareness of his presence, nor he, I suspect, of mine.
— 3 4 9 —
Lacking you and Celia as a buffer, just the two of us in the same residence felt—the word naked comes to mind. We barely spoke.
If he headed for his room, I didn't ask about his homework; if Lenny stopped by, I didn't ask what they were doing; and if Kevin left the house, I didn't ask where he was headed. I told myself that a parent should respect an adolescent's privacy, but I also k n e w that I was a coward.
This sensation of nakedness was assisted by the real thing. I k n o w that fourteen-year-old boys are b r i m m i n g with hormones, all that. I k n o w that masturbation is a normal, vital relief, a harmless and enjoyable pastime that shouldn't be slandered as a vice. But I also thought that for teenagers—let's be serious, for everyone—this entertainment is covert. We all do it (or I used to—yes, once in a while, Franklin, what did you think?), we all k n o w we all do it, but it isn't customary to say, "Honey, could you keep an eye on the spaghetti sauce, because I ' m going to go masturbate."
It had to happen more than once for me to finally mention it, because after our set-to in the hospital parking lot I had blown my tattling allowance for several months.
" H e leaves the bathroom door open," I reported reluctandy in our bedroom late one night, at which point you began to brush the hairs from your electric shaver intently. " A n d you can see the toilet from the hallway."
"So he forgets to close the door."You were clipped.
" H e doesn't forget. He waits until I go to the kitchen to fix a cup of coffee, so I'll see him on my way back to my study. It's very deliberate. And he's, ah—loud."
"At his age, I probably jerked off three times a day."
"In front of your mother?"
"Around the corner, behind the door. I thought I kept it secret, but I ' m sure she knew."
"Behind the door," I noted. " T h e door. It's important." My, that shaver was really clogged with stubble tonight. " K n o w i n g I can see—I think it excites him."
— 350 —
"Well, no matter h o w healthy you try to be about it, everybody's a little weird in this department."
"You're not, um—getting it. I k n o w he's going to do it, I don't have a problem with his doing it, but I'd rather not be included. It's inappropriate." That word took heavy duty during this era. T h e Monica Lewinsky scandal had broken the m o n t h before, and President Clinton would later put a napkin over the specifics by deeming their relations inappropriate.
"So why don't you say something?" You got tired of intercession, I suppose.
" W h a t if Ceha were masturbating in front of you? Would you talk to her about it or prefer that I did?"
"So what do you want me to say?" you asked wearily.
" T h a t he's making me uncomfortable."
"That's a n e w one."
I flounced onto the bed and grabbed a b o o k I'd be unable to read. "Just tell h i m to keep the goddamned door shut."
I shouldn't have bothered. Yes, you reported that you'd done as you were told. I pictured you poking your head into his room and saying something jovial and collusive about "growing a little hair on the palm," a dated expression he probably didn't get, and then I bet you tossed off, super-casual,"Just remember it's private, okay sport?" and said good-night. But even if you instead had a long, earnest, stern discussion, you'd have tipped h i m off that he'd gotten to me, and with Kevin that's always a mistake.
So the very next afte
rnoon after your "talk," I ' m heading to the study with my cup of coffee and I can hear a telltale grunting d o w n the hall. I ' m praying that he's gotten the message and there will at least be a thin but blessed w o o d e n barrier between me and my son's budding manhood. I think: Aside from closets, there are only about four, five doors in the whole bloody house, and we should really be getting our money's w o r t h out of them. But as I advance another step or two the noise level behes this most minimal attempt at propriety.
I press my w a r m coffee cup between my eyes to soothe a nascent headache. I've been married for nineteen years and I know how men work and there's no reason to be afraid of a glorified spigot. But subjected to the urgent litde moans down the hall, I'm ten years old again, sent on errands across town for my shut-in mother, having to cut through the park, eyes trained straight ahead while older boys snicker in the bushes with their flies down. I feel stalked, in my own house, nervous, hounded, and mocked, and I don't mind telling you I'm pretty pissed off about it.
So I dare myself, the way I always got home in the old days, when I would discipline myself not to run and so give chase.
I march rather than tiptoe down the hall, heels hitting the floorboards, clop-clop. I get to the kids' bathroom, door agape, and there is our firstborn in all his pubescent splendor, down to a rash of fiery pimples on his backside. Feet planted wide and back arched, he has pivoted his stance at an angle to the toilet so that I can see his handiwork—purple and gleaming with what I first assume is K - Y jelly, but which the silver wrapper on the floor suggests is my Land O'Lakes unsalted butter—and this is my introduction to the fact that my son has now grown fine, uncommonly straight pubic hair. Though most males conduct this exercise with their eyes closed, Kevin has cracked his open, the better to shoot his mother a sly, sleepy glance over the shoulder. In return, I glare squarely at his cock—doubtless what I should have done in the park instead of averting my gaze, since the appendage is so unimpressive when confronted head-on that it makes you wonder what all the fuss is about. I reach in and pull the door shut, hard.
T h e hallway rings with a dry chuckle. I clip back to the kitchen. I've spilled coffee on my skirt.
So. I know you must have wondered. W h y didn't I simply walk out? Nothing stopped me from grabbing Celia while she still had one eye left and hightailing it back to Tribeca. I could have left you with your son and that horrible house, a matched set. After all, I had all the money.
— 352 —
I'm not sure you'll believe me, but it never occurred to me to leave. I may have spent long enough in your orbit to have absorbed your ferocious conviction that a happy family cannot be a mere myth or that even if it is, better to die trying for the fine if unattainable than sulking in passive, cynical resignation that hell is other people you're related to. I hated the prospect of defeat; if in bearing Kevin to begin with I picked up my own gauntlet, bearing Kevin on a daily basis involved rising to a greater challenge still. And there may have been a practical side to my tenacity as well. He was about to turn fifteen. He had never spoken of college—had never spoken of his adult future at all; never having expressed the slightest interest in a trade or profession, for all I knew he was sticking to his five-year-old vow to go on welfare. But theoretically our son was out of the house in about three years. Thereafter, it would just be you, me, and Ceha, and then we would see about that happy family of yours. Those three years are almost over now, and if they have proved the longest of my life, I had no way of anticipating that at the time. Lastly, and this may strike you as simplistic, I loved you.
I loved you, Franklin. I still do.
Nevertheless, I did feel under siege. My daughter had been half blinded, my husband doubted my sanity, and my son was flouting his butter-greased penis in my face. Abetting the sensation of assault from all sides, Mary Woolford chose this of all times to make her first indignant visit to our house—and the last, come to think of it, since the next time we'd meet would be in court.
She was still whippet slim then, her dark hair jet to the roots so I'd never have known it was dyed; the way it was pinned up was a tad severe. Even to make this neighborly call she was dressed to the nines in a Chanel suit, a demure jeweled spray on her lapel twinkling with respectability. Who'd have guessed that a scant three years later she'd be shambhng the Nyack Grand Union in a streaked outfit that needed pressing and vandalizing raw eggs in the child seat of another woman's cart.
She introduced herself curtly, and, despite the chill, declined an
— 3 5 3 —
invitation inside."My daughter, Laura, is a lovely girl," she said. "A mother would naturally think so, but I believe her attractiveness is also apparent to others. With two important exceptions: Laura herself, and that young man of yours."
I wanted to reassure the woman that by and large, my surly son failed to see the attractiveness of anyone, but I sensed that we were still in the preamble. This sounds unkind considering that my son would, in just over a year, murder this woman's daughter, but I'm afraid I took an immediate dislike to Mary Woolford. She moved jaggedly, her eyes shifting this way and that, as if roiling from some constant inner turmoil.Yet some people coddle their own afflictions the way others spoil small pedigreed dogs with cans of pate. Mary struck me straight off as one of this sort, for w h o m my private shorthand was Looking for a Problem—rather a waste of detective powers I always thought, since in my experience most proper problems come looking for you.
"For the last year or so," Mary continued, "Laura has suffered under the misapprehension that she is overweight. I'm sure you've read about the condition. She skips meals, she buries her breakfast in the trash, and lies about having eaten at a friend's. Laxative abuse, diet pills—suffice it to say that it's all very frightening.
Last September she got so frail that she was hospitalized with an intravenous drip, which she would tear out if not watched round the clock. Are you getting the picture?"
I mumbled something feebly commiserating. I would
normally lend a sympathetic ear to such stories, though just then I couldn't help thinking that my daughter was in the hospital, too, and not—I was fiercely convinced—because she done anything stupid to herself. Besides, I'd heard too many Karen Carpenter tales at Gladstone PTA meetings, and they often took the f o r m of boasts. T h e prestigious diagnosis of anorexia seemed much coveted not only by the students but by their mothers, w h o would compete over whose daughter ate less. No wonder the poor girls were a mess.
"We had been making progress," Mary continued. "For the last few m o n t h s she's submitted to her modest portions at famdy meals, w h i c h she is compelled to attend. She's finally gained a little weight back—as your son Kevin was more than eager to point out''
I sighed. In comparison to our visitor, I must have looked haggard.What I wouldn't have looked is surprised, and my failure to gasp oh-my-goodness-me-what-has-that-boy-done seemed to indame her.
"Last night I caught my beautiful daughter vomiting her dinner! I got her to admit, too, that she's been making herself upchuck for the last week. Why? O n e of the boys at school keeps telling her she's fat Barely 100 pounds and she's tormented for being a 'porker'! Now, it wasn't easy to get his name out of her, and she begged me not to come here tonight. But I for one believe it's time we parents start accepting responsibility for our chddren's destructive behavior. My husband and I are doing everything we can to keep Laura from hurting herself. So you and your husband might please keep your son from hurting her, too!"
My head bobbed like one of those dogs in car windows. " H o -
ow?" I drawled. It's possible she thought I was drunk.
"I don't care h o w — ! "
" D o you want us to talk to him?" I had to tighten the corners of my m o u t h to keep t h e m from curling into an incredulous smirk all too reminiscent of Kevin himself.
"I should think so!"
"Tell h i m to be sensitive to the feelings of others and to remember the Golden Rule?" I
was leaning on the d o o r j a m b with something close to a leer, and Mary stepped back in alarm. " O r maybe my husband could have a man-to-man chat, and teach our son that a real man isn't cruel and aggressive, but a real man is gentle and compassionate?"
I had to stop for a second to keep from laughing. I suddenly pictured you jaunting into the kitchen to report, Well, honey, it was all a big misunderstanding! Kevin says that poor skin-and-bones Laura Woolford simply heard wrong! He didn't call her "fat," he called her "fab"! And he didn't say she was a "porker"—he said she told a joke that was a "corker"! A grin must have leaked out despite me, because Mary turned purple and exploded, "I cannot for the hfe of me understand w h y you seem to think this is funny!"
"Ms.Woolford, do you have any boys?"
"Laura is our only child," she said reverently.
" T h e n I'll refer you back to old schoolyard rhymes as to just what little boys are made of I'd like to help you out, but practically?
If Franklin and I say anything to Kevin, the consequences for your daughter at school will be even worse. Maybe it's better you teach Laura—what do the kids say? To suck it up!'
I would pay for this b o u t of realism later, though I could hardly have k n o w n then that my hard-bitten counsel would be trotted out in Mary's testimony at the civil trial two years h e n c e — w i t h a few acid embellishments for good measure.
"Well, thank you for nothing!"
Watching Mary harumph down the flagstones, I reflected on the fact that you, Kevin's teachers, and n o w this M a r y Woolford w o m a n were regaling me that as a mother I must accept responsibility.
Fair enough. But if I was so all-fired responsible, w h y did I still feel so helpless?
Celia came h o m e at the beginning of March. Kevin had never been to visit her once; protective, I'd never encouraged him.
You'd issued the odd invitation to come along, but backed off in deference to his trauma. He never even asked h o w she was doing, you know. Anyone listening in wouldn't have thought he had a sister.
We Need to Talk About Kevin Page 37