wife, then I might have kept the boy from
getting hurt so often—his fingers broken on the day we fed the horses, his chest bruised
by the goat, his hide chewed off by colonies of fire ants he’d found to crawl through
at the picnic. I could have been a hero to him. As it stands, my son’s past with me
has been a woozy spiral of neglect and woundings. Lucky for us—for me, she meant—he
isn’t likely to remember. Till now.
“He’s at the age where he remembers,” said my wife. “Give the boy a party. Anything
is possible. I bet he’ll forget you were the one who burned his drawings.”
I was doubtful. At our best, the boy and I these past few weeks have been reactive
agents in a mother’s midnight stab at family alchemy. There I hear him padding up
behind me where I’m resting on the sofa; there he hovers at my elbow while I read
the morning paper; there I see him tug my pantleg just below my operation. Or else
I see him on the carpet, with his tablet and Crayolas, filling in what seem to be
the contours of a snowman and a lizard. Of this last occasion I recall I watched him
long enough to know that he was whistling through his nose, and that the damp spots
on his tablet were the emblems of his deepest intellectual exertions, the stream of
spittle falling cleanly from his chin while he had pondered the expressive capabilities
of reptiles, as he knew them.
I said, “Whatcha doin, sport?” surprising him, despite myself, judging by the swerving
action of the Crayola he was working.
He sat back on his hams and strained his head around and up to see me, as if he was
emerging from a shell. His eyes were monstrous, distorted by the thickness of the
spectacles his sight depends upon. I half expected him to answer me in tongues of
damaged birds and fawning quadrupeds. Aawrock ! I heard him saying, Feed me, please, hngrrahh, chirrup !
He said, “What?”
I said, “What’re you up to, drawing?”
“Yeah,” he said, “just drawrin.”
I observed him wipe his chin off with the backside of his hand, the backside of his
hand off on his pantleg. There was Crayola underneath his fingernails, a yellow crust
about his nostrils.
“I see,” I said. “Well, carry on,” and left him.
Ask my mother, and my decision not to kneel, not to crouch or hunker nearer to his
level was both natural and right; whereas my wife assures me that by talking down
at him I am establishing a pattern in our dialogues evolving from a base mistake.
According to my wife, I should have let him tell me that the snowman and the lizard
were my wife and me, before I offered my opinion that a snowman and a lizard might
be difficult to find in tandem, in the real world. Whereas my mother did not blame
me, feeling slighted to have thought myself a lizard, or the woman I am married to
a snowman.
Said my mother, “Your wife doesn’t want that crap on the refrigerator any longer than
she’s got to keep it there. Tell her how your daddy used to start our fires with your colorbooks, why don’t you? Didn’t hurt you any, did it? Tell her that, why not?”
Simple, according to my mother. We are a simple people, she reminds me, our town folks
and our rural both, happily removed from the complexities so plaguing of your denser,
damper climes. Ethno-racial strife, invitro lesbians, queer scouts, cosmetic surgeons,
metered parking, therapists, nutritionists, last month’s rush on all things chintz:
all of these we read as symptoms of a sickness in the bigger world we designate Outside.
We lean from tractor cabs, balance water, stare into the sun and sweep our dust and
count ourselves as lucky not to be there. Clarity, this is us, simplicity, desert
agrarian, the Good Life. Here, a wife knits cotton caps. Here a husband dials his
wavelength on the FM band and tunes into his futures. We know the value of a pork
chop and a baked potato. We pay a fair wage to our Mexicans,
getting hurt so often—his fingers broken on the day we fed the horses, his chest bruised
by the goat, his hide chewed off by colonies of fire ants he’d found to crawl through
at the picnic. I could have been a hero to him. As it stands, my son’s past with me
has been a woozy spiral of neglect and woundings. Lucky for us—for me, she meant—he
isn’t likely to remember. Till now.
“He’s at the age where he remembers,” said my wife. “Give the boy a party. Anything
is possible. I bet he’ll forget you were the one who burned his drawings.”
I was doubtful. At our best, the boy and I these past few weeks have been reactive
agents in a mother’s midnight stab at family alchemy. There I hear him padding up
behind me where I’m resting on the sofa; there he hovers at my elbow while I read
the morning paper; there I see him tug my pantleg just below my operation. Or else
I see him on the carpet, with his tablet and Crayolas, filling in what seem to be
the contours of a snowman and a lizard. Of this last occasion I recall I watched him
long enough to know that he was whistling through his nose, and that the damp spots
on his tablet were the emblems of his deepest intellectual exertions, the stream of
spittle falling cleanly from his chin while he had pondered the expressive capabilities
of reptiles, as he knew them.
I said, “Whatcha doin, sport?” surprising him, despite myself, judging by the swerving
action of the Crayola he was working.
He sat back on his hams and strained his head around and up to see me, as if he was
emerging from a shell. His eyes were monstrous, distorted by the thickness of the
spectacles his sight depends upon. I half expected him to answer me in tongues of
damaged birds and fawning quadrupeds. Aawrock ! I heard him saying, Feed me, please, hngrrahh, chirrup !
He said, “What?”
I said, “What’re you up to, drawing?”
“Yeah,” he said, “just drawrin.”
I observed him wipe his chin off with the backside of his hand, the backside of his
hand off on his pantleg. There was Crayola underneath his fingernails, a yellow crust
about his nostrils.
“I see,” I said. “Well, carry on,” and left him.
Ask my mother, and my decision not to kneel, not to crouch or hunker nearer to his
level was both natural and right; whereas my wife assures me that by talking down
at him I am establishing a pattern in our dialogues evolving from a base mistake.
According to my wife, I should have let him tell me that the snowman and the lizard
were my wife and me, before I offered my opinion that a snowman and a lizard might
be difficult to find in tandem, in the real world. Whereas my mother did not blame
me, feeling slighted to have thought myself a lizard, or the woman I am married to
a snowman.
Said my mother, “Your wife doesn’t want that crap on the refrigerator any longer than
she’s got to keep it there. Tell her how your daddy used to start our fires with your colorbooks, why don’t you? Didn’t hurt you any, did it? Tell her that, why not?”
Simple, according to my mother. We are a simple people, she reminds me, our town folks
and our rural both, happily removed from the complexities so plaguing of your denser,
damper climes. Ethno-racial strife, invitro lesbians, queer scouts, cosmetic surgeons,
metered parking, therapists, nutritionists, last month’s rush on all things chintz:
all of these we read as symptoms of a sickness in the bigger world we designate Outside.
We lean from tractor cabs, balance water, stare into the sun and sweep our dust and
count ourselves as lucky not to be there. Clarity, this is us, simplicity, desert
agrarian, the Good Life. Here, a wife knits cotton caps. Here a husband dials his
wavelength on the FM band and tunes into his futures. We know the value of a pork
chop and a baked potato. We pay a fair wage to our Mexicans,
Similar Books
It's All About Him
Denise Jackson
Letters of Love (Green Division Series Book #3)
Ashley Monahan
Love and Gravity
Olivia Connery
Alchymist
Ian Irvine
Witch’s Concubine
Cara Carnes
Her Dark Lord
Mel Teshco
I Need You
Jane Lark
Down from the Cross
Joyce Livingston
Girls Who Travel
Nicole Trilivas