December 15

  December 15

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon.  The sky outside was grey.  It looked like it wanted to drizzle, but hadn’t quite gotten around to it yet.  The air was thick with cold humidity.  Joey sat at the computer, tapping away at the keyboard, singing the lovely little ditty:  “When love is kind . . . you barf.”  Over and over.

Pete sat at the rosewood dining table, drawing pictures of pears, and whimsical animals.

Brittany sat next to him, taking her turn at reading the most recent installment of the wiener dog story, and jotting down ideas about it.  Her list of ideas was not a long one today.

December 15, 2004

Then, the pear-eaters, one and all, immediately lay down, and fell fast asleep.  It was apparent that they did not faint, or collapse; they had not been poisoned, per se.  No, each donned an expression of tired satisfaction, lay down on the ground, stretched out comfortably, and fell promptly asleep.

"Hey, what are you doing?  Are you all right?  Fawn?"  Malchisedech began by addressing the entire assembly, but his focus became more specific as his concern grew.

"Why did they scarf those pears like that?  They didn't look that good to me," said Akelmeyer.

Martin said, "I don't think these pears were that good for them, either."

"Another enchantment.  More magic.  This is going to be a difficult assignment--we don't even understand the ground rules here."

"Here's one:  eat pears, you lay on the ground."  Akelmeyer was pleased with his pun, even if no one else was.

"Do you smell that?" asked Malchisedech.  The stench of the Raven was again apparent.

And, while the Raven did not appear, his loud and derisive laughter, punctuated by his ear-numbing screech, filled the air.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Pete wanted to think about the pears, and the Raven.  He wanted to think about what had made the Raven evil, and if evil always had a bad stench. 

He wanted to ignore his little brother’s song.  He really wanted to ignore his little brother entirely. 

Actually, what he really, really wanted to do was hit his little brother very hard, but he was tired of being grounded, so he was trying like anything to ignore the stupid kid singing “When love is kind . . . you barf.”  Over and over. 

He was really, really, really trying.  His grip on his pencil became firmer, and firmer, until his hand was more of a tightly clenched fist than a sensitive artistic instrument, and the raven’s feathers looked very, very dark and shiny against the white paper, from all the pressure he was putting on the lead. 

Unfortunately, he found that there was a limit to the number of repetitions of “When love is kind . . . you barf” he could endure.  After about the twentieth time, it had gotten seriously old, but he figured he could be tough. 

He could stand to listen to it as long as his brother could stand to sing it.  He could be stoic, and mature.  He was the older brother, as his parents were constantly pointing out.  The mature one.  By the time the fiftieth repetition rolled around however, he succumbed to the curiosity that had temporarily replaced the annoyance, and he just had to ask.

“Did you make that up yourself?”

         “I learned the ‘when love is kind’ part in music class.  I made the rest up myself.”

         Pete considered solving the problem by teaching him something else to sing.  But the only thing he could think of off the top of his head that would be quirky enough to divert his little brother from the barfing love song was something along the lines of: “Mary shot her little lamb” and he figured that would get old just as fast.  His irritation had obviously put him in a violent mood.

         He decided the better part of valor would be to put some distance between himself and the repetitive musical recital.  He decided to join his mother in the kitchen, where he found her trying to choose between a gin and tonic, and a mango shake before she went back to grading essays. 

The good essays went quickly, she explained.  It was easy to write encouraging, complimentary comments on a carefully written, thought-provoking paper.  She had finished those good essays yesterday.

Now she was down to the ones on the bottom of the pile.  The ones that had come in late.  The ones for which she didn’t know where to start with constructive criticism.  Funny, she commented, how the students who turned papers in late never seemed to have used the extra time to produce something worth reading.  Instead, they turned in gibberish that made her either want to laugh or cry, but she didn’t know which – hence the gin and tonic vs. the mango shake dilemma.  It actually looked to Pete like she was going to start describing the relative merits of both beverage choices (she could get very distracted when she was trying to avoid grading bad papers), when she looked out the window, and puckered up her face as if she were looking at a lower life form (or as if she were drinking espresso compana).

“Now what is that girl doing here?”

Pete looked out the window too, and saw Jennifer standing by the sports field.  She wasn’t doing anything in particular.  Just standing there.  The word ‘loitering’ came to mind, but it seemed like a strange place to loiter.  Nothing was really going on out there.  A couple of little kids were running around; the physics teacher was throwing a Frisbee to his dog, and Jennifer was loitering.

“What’s the matter with Jennifer?”  Pete asked.  He knew what he thought was the matter with Jennifer.  He just wondered what his mother would say.

“Right now, her paper is the one that has me considering the gin and tonic.”

Emphasizing that he and Brittany, who had followed him into the kitchen, could not tell anyone, and that she would deny it if he did, she read aloud from Jennifer’s essay: 

“The United States should not have slavery.  It would be wrong to have slavery in the United States.  Because of what it says in the Declaration of independence.  The declaration Of Independence is a legal document that helps our government run our country it says that all men are created equally so we should not have slavery.

“She then repeats this point in slightly different words, making slightly different grammatical errors, as if that will somehow make it more convincing, then she goes on to say:

“I mean, one dog doesn’t own another dog. 

“Later on, she writes that we can’t blame George Bush for the Iraq war because all three branches of government vetoed on it.

“What do I even do with something like that?  The Declaration of Independence doesn’t help run the country.  The Judicial branch does not vote on whether or not America goes to war, which is what I have to assume is what she was trying to say, and correcting the mechanical errors seems like a complete waste of time.”

“What was her topic?”

         “Isn’t that what I’d like to know?  The class is on European history.  Whatever she thinks she’s writing about – it’s no topic I assigned.”

         Pete shook his head, and tried to look on the bright side.  “At least it sounds like she didn’t get it off the Internet.”

         “Are you defending her?  She makes me spend my valuable life energy reading this garbage, and you’re defending her?”  His mom turned towards the doorway to the living room to yell at Joey, “And will you be quiet about the barfing, already.  We’ve had enough.”

         There was a lull in the conversation in the kitchen, while they stood listening to Joey’s footsteps, pounding up the stairs.

         “I recognize that paper,” Brittany unexpectedly announced.

         “Don’t tell me she asked you to proof-read it.”

         “I’ve never seen her before in my life.  It’s from some eighth grade speeches.  Some really bad ones.  We had to listen to them in advisory last week.  The bad ones kind of stuck in my mind.”

         She went on to explain that the eighth graders had prepared speeches in their Social Studies class, and that they had split up into small groups to deliver the speeches to sixth and seventh grade advisories.  Some of the speeches had been really good because the eighth graders had been allowed to research anything they wanted about American history, so they talked about things that really interested them:  What were the real causes of the Civil War?  What would America be like if we had lost the Revolutionary War?  What was George Washington really like?  That kind of thing.  But then there had been a few really awful ones.

         “Taylor Jones talked about how we shouldn’t have slavery.  He wasn’t saying that slavery was a bad idea back when it was happening in America, and he wasn’t saying that modern stuff like sweatshops in China, or like you see in the documentaries about human trafficking, are bad, but that America shouldn’t have slavery right now.  In the twenty-first century.  I didn’t get it, because I didn’t think anybody was actually thinking about re-instituting slavery in America, so it seemed pretty much like a no-duh kind of thing to me, but that line about one dog doesn’t own another dog was definitely in there.

         “And Mark Savage talked about checks and balances.  I remember the part about all three branches of government voting on the Iraq war, (I think he actually said voting) because after he said that he started punching the air with his fist, and going ‘Ya!  Ya!’ and lots of people cheered because he’s really hot, or maybe because it was really stupid, or maybe both.”

         “So you’re saying that not only is Jennifer totally lacking in integrity, she doesn’t even have the intelligence to go on the Internet and plagiarize something sensible and relevant.”

         “Oh, I don’t know,” Pete protested teasingly.  “Mr. McAllister says having integrity is being true to yourself.”

         “And in what way could our Miss Jennifer possibly be being true to herself by turning in this offensive nonsense?”

         “Your mom’s got a point,” Brittany said, in defense of Mrs. Meren.

         “Maybe her true nature is to lie like a cheap rug.”  They all jumped to realize that Mr. Meren had been standing in the kitchen doorway listening.

         “So if you use that logic,” Brittany said, “You could claim that Hitler had integrity because it was in his nature to be an evil anti-Semitic scumbag, so he was doing the right thing to try to systematically kill every Jew in Europe.”

         “I wonder what kind of term papers Hitler wrote.”  Pete’s mom mused darkly.

         “I can find out!”  Brittany announced, and she ran to the computer.  Pete followed her so that he could look over her shoulder to see exactly what words she would type into the search engine.  Maybe she knew some secret method that he didn’t. 

No.  All she wrote was ‘what kind of a student was Hitler’ and the first thing that came up was a whole website talking specifically about the man’s pre-political years.  Pete decided that she must have some kind of charmed relationship with the Internet.

Pete’s mom and dad had followed her too.  Pete figured anything must sound better than grading those last few history papers.

         Brittany read aloud, “Hitler left school at fifteen with no qualifications.”  She looked up at Pete’s mom.  “I guess that means no degree, or diploma?”

His mom nodded. 

Brittany continued.  “His French teacher said that he was lazy and lacked self-discipline.”

“Sounds like our Miss Jennifer.”

Wow, Pete thought.  His mom really didn’t like Jennifer.

Brittany was still reading, “and that he reacted with hostility to advice or criticism.  His grade in French was unsatisfactory, but his record wasn’t all bad.  He had some satisfactorys in German, history, and geography, and excellents in art and gymnastics.  It says he wanted to be an artist, but his father didn’t want that, and he didn’t get into art school because he painted landscapes, not people, and the art school didn’t want another landscape painter.”

         “There you go,” his mother said.  “He wanted to be an artist.  If he had been true to himself, he would have kept trying, and he might have made a positive contribution to German culture, instead of slaughtering six million Jews.”

         Brittany was still reading.  “It says he tried to make a living painting post cards, but he ended up shoveling snow instead, because no one would buy the postcards.”

         “I still don’t think the solution was to invade Poland,” said his father.

         Pete asked if some people have an easier time than others expressing their true nature.   Maybe Hitler should have just kept at the painting a little longer, or tried a different art school.

Pete’s mom was reading over Brittany’s shoulder.  “It says his father insisted that he should become a civil servant.  Sounds like his father was pushing him against integrity, if you accept Mr. McAllister’s definition.”

         “OK,” said Brittany, “But it also says that his mother was very loving and caring, and that she supported him in everything he wanted, which must have included art.”

         Pete’s dad was reading over her other shoulder, “It also says that his father was short tempered, and brutal.  Sounds to me like Hitler had a good angel, and a bad angel fighting for his soul while he was growing up.”

         “And why did the bad angel win?”  Pete wanted to know.

         “Isn’t that a question every parent would like to answer?”

         Pete went back into the kitchen to look out the window.  Jennifer was still standing there.  It had started to drizzle.

*   *   *

         The boy unzipped the backpack by the front door.  It was a good sturdy one – the kind of backpack he would like to carry his books to school in.  He was pretty sure the Spiderman on the big outside pocket would glow in the dark.  That could be useful if you took it camping.  He pulled out brand new t-shirts just his size, and some Magic Tree House and Andrew Lost books that he hadn’t read.  Brand new copies, not from the library but from a real-for-sure bookstore.  He couldn’t believe it!  And then there was a bright orange sweatshirt.  Big.  Big enough to fit a man.  And money.  Money in a metal box.

         “Don’t touch that!”

         The boy jumped.  He hadn’t been doing anything wrong, but the man’s voice was so loud and angry.

         The metal box clattered against the slate floor when it slipped from his hands.

         And the man was sitting on the floor next to him.  Hugging him.  Telling him that it was all right.  That he hadn’t done anything wrong.

         “I always wanted a Spiderman backpack.  My friend at school has Spiderman light-up shoes.”

         The man rocked the boy back and forth.  He knew.  He knew the boy liked Spiderman, and Magic Tree House, and Andrew Lost.  That’s what scared him.  That, and the metal box full of money.

         He found his cell phone, and called the police.

*  *  *

All I wanted was to be a good mom. 

No.  It wasn’t all I wanted. 

It’s the thing to say, isn’t it? 

“All I wanted was to be a good mom.” 

But it wasn’t all I wanted.  What I wanted was to give my son adventures – to make memories.  But that would have been selfish, because the adventures and memories would have been for me.   Being a good mom would have been to let him be who he is.  Boring and practical, like his father.  And I did try.  For five years I tried.  Built towers for him to knock down.  Taught him to play dominoes, and Junior Scrabble.  Built more towers for him to knock down.  I tried so hard, but inside, I was drowning.

Longing to dress us all in pirate clothes, and go hunting for treasure without worrying what people might think.  And what would they think?  That we might be having fun? 

What’s wrong with having fun?

And even when I tried to make you happy in your own way.  Happiness is a clean, clean house.  Happiness is eye shadow and earrings.  And even when I tried –

Were we doomed before the journey started?  Or did our guardian angels fall asleep?