Child of My Right Hand (6 page)

The first step was to clean out the top drawer of his file cabinet; since grad school he'd reserved the top drawer for current work. Abstracts, off-prints of articles cited. Hard copies of the six completed chapters. Rejection letters, grant applications. Correspondence with prospective contributors to an essay collection he could never place. All of it out of the drawer and into a file box. All those weeks, months and late nights when he could have been learning to flop a wedge or spin approach shots backwards towards the cup. Jack dropped papers in the box file and felt as if he were filing for divorce.

Sorting, he was reminded of Schrödinger's Cat, a paradox said to have arisen out of a discussion between Einstein and Schrödinger about scientific inquiry and the nature of the universe. Was objective observation possible, as Einstein claimed—“God does not play dice with the universe”—or was the observer, however objective he might attempt to be, inevitably implicated in his observations. Here was Schrödinger's proof: construct a hypothetical Rube Goldberg device around a single atom of radioactive material with the half life of an hour; at the other end of the line was a box containing Schrödinger's cat, which Jack had always imagined to be an orange tabby named Rex. Within the first hour, there existed a 50 percent likelihood that the isotope would emit its electron, prompting a Geiger counter to click, causing a ball to drop, then a hammer to fall smashing a vial of cyanide gas inside the box containing a tabby named Rex.

Thus, if the observer left and returned after an hour, much like God the Absent Creator (the only sort of God Jack's four-year immersion in German eugenics permitted him), it was equally likely but impossible to know if the box contained a living cat or a dead one. Only by opening the box and thereby implicating himself in the experiment could an observer reduce all the possible outcomes of Schrödinger's cat to a single fixed one: Rex on his back, paws in the air, or Rex at the door, mewing to be set free.

Jack's eugenics project was his Schrödinger's Cat: dead when he looked at it. Or maybe, he thought, sealing the box file with packing tape before lugging it to his office closet, all his professional training was in that box: the myth of the objective eye, which had prevented him from seeing himself or his career, and quite possibly from having anything interesting to say about the influence of American racism on the rise of German race science in the 1930s. As a Jew, he was so anxious to leave himself completely out—What me, a Jew? You think that's why I'm interested in this? I'll prove it. I'll provide no point of view at all—that what he produced was virtually unreadable. In fact, for months, even he'd been unable to read more than a sentence or two without needing a nap. (Late-onset narcolepsy was another explanation, he supposed.) But late that night, unable to sleep, he decided to develop a lengthy review of the current biological and genetic research on the causes and development of homosexuality. Was this a subject matter he was implicated in? You bet.

In 1991, Northwestern University's Michael Bailey and others had published the best known study of homosexual concordance rates in twins, and reported, among other findings, that if one identical twin was homosexual, there was a 50 percent likelihood that the second twin would be as well, clearly indicating a genetic component. A 1993 study by Whitam and others found a 65.8 percent concordance in identical twins, as opposed to only 30.4 percent for fraternal twins. (This was against an accepted base rate of 5-10 percent of homosexuality in the general population.) That same year, a team of N.I.H. researchers led by Dean Hamer published an article in
Science
reporting that in their study of forty gay brothers, thirty-three had the same set of DNA sequences in a region of the chromosome called Xq28. This study, which was seized upon by gay activists as if it were manna in the conservative desert of Homosexuality is A Life-Style Choice Not Deserving of Anti-Discrimination Protection, made a star of Dean Hamer (himself homosexual). The study and its follow-up were bitterly attacked by family value organizations eager to refute it as not only a gay rights polemic, but bad science.

In April, 1999, researchers at the University of Western Ontario, led by neurologist George Rice reported in
Science
that their study of fifty-two pairs of gay brothers directly refuted Hamer's study, finding that their Xq28 sequences were no more similar than what might be expected from sheer chance. Hamer stood by his findings, especially since two subsequent studies (one unpublished) supported his findings. He did concede, however, that not every case of homosexuality was because of Xq28. “I expect,” he said, “we'll find that many genes are involved. One of them will be on Xq28.”

Conservative therapist groups seized on the twin studies. Okay, they argued. Let's assume that the concordance figure for identical twins is roughly two-thirds. That leaves one-third of all genetically identical twins with different sexual orientations. What can that mean, but that there's no absolute gay gene, but only a tendency that therapy can treat. Homosexuals, they argued, were not born but molded from lumps of clay that might look queer but didn't have to end up that way. Depending on the potter, you could end up with a homosexual vase, or a heterosexual flowerpot. In their view, the as-yet sexually undetermined lump of clay, the stem cell, if you will, of sexual orientation, was pushed towards faggotdom by an absent or distant father. In later life, that unmolded son, seeking the approval he never received from his dad, sexualizes the need for same-sex affection. In short: in the Barish household, because Simon preferred Barbie to football, Jack had rejected him and that made him gay.

And on the genetic side? There were no known homosexuals in the Barish family, certainly not his brother Russ, nor his father Henry, a lusty tax attorney, who, if anything, was too heterosexual. (Jack suspected that his father had had his own affairs.) There were no known homosexuals in Genna's family, either. Then again, neither of them were musical, yet Simon's voice was so weighty and mysterious that when he sang at the middle school talent show an auditorium full of adults leapt to their feet with tears in their eyes, stamping and clapping and crying out for more.

Of course, there was the unknown: Genna's biological father. Maybe Mystery Grandad was where it came from, the instrument and the swish, and Jack was off the hook. On the other hand, Simon looked and sounded so remarkably like him (except when they sang), the only difference being Jack exercised and Simon didn't, that perhaps there was an unexpressed gay gene coming from Jack on some as yet-unmapped chromosome. Who could say?

Jack finished setting up the new top drawer, arranged his desk, walked out to the parking lot and started home. Turning into Forest Glen, then onto his long driveway, he thought, Maybe this will work. Maybe we won't have to move back to Cincinnati so Simon can return to the arts high school. Maybe we won't even have to pay tuition and find a family for him to commute with. Maybe Tipton will be all right.

He opened the two-car garage with a garage door opener—the first they'd ever owned—and entered through the kitchen door. He could smell rosemary chicken roasting in the oven. Monk played in the living room. A yellow bell pepper and an English cuke rested on the cutting board like lovers. The kitchen table was set for five.

Lizzie entered wearing one of her tight tops, listening to her Diskman, headphones tangled in her dark hair. She kissed his cheek, and smiling, reached up and rubbed the crown of his head where the hair was thinnest. “Hi, Boppa. How was your day?”

“Fine, thanks for asking.” Music escaped her earphones. Blink 182, or Three Doors Down, something loud. “How was yours?”

“School.”

“Why are there five plates?”

“What?”

“Turn down your music. You're gonna be deaf by twenty.”

She bestowed one of her new teenaged smiles which never failed to knock him out. Translated, he believed it meant, Dad, I love you, but you are so 1990s.

“Who's the extra plate for?”

“Ask Mom.”

Lizzie exited, hooked up and bopping. Jack found Genna on the deck, Sam at her feet.

“Hey, darling.” He leaned down and kissed her. “Do we have company?”

“Simon's friend, Rich.”

Something in the way she said friend. “Rich?”

There was that wariness in her eyes he found so upsetting. “You'll see when you meet him.”

“Are they more than friends?”

She patted the padded lounger and Jack sat down. “Simon would like to be.”

“What about Rich?”

“He's hard to read.” Genna's eyes twinkled. “Just like you.”

Jack set his hand on her thigh and kissed his pretty wife. “Am I hard to read now?”

She shook her head, leaned back against the lounger and he kissed her again. Then Sam climbed up, wagging his tail and smiling his big dopey grin.

“Down, Sam. Find your own damn girl.”

Jack got down on the deck and pushed the dog over. He growled, then bit the fur at Sam's throat, establishing dominance as he had since Sam's puppy days. Sam flailed and growled happily. His fur tasted of dried mud. His tongue lolled. His open mouth stank of rot, the creek bottom, and who knew what else.

Genna said, “I'm not sure we can go out to the movies and leave the boys alone.”

When the kids were young they'd had terrible luck with sitters. They'd cancel. The kids would get sick, or the sitters would. The first weekend they'd arranged to leave the kids, they were called home the first night. Chicken pox.

Jack released Sam and looked up. “Can't Lizzie chaperone?”

“She's going out.”

Sam grabbed his right forearm and bit hard enough for Jack to feel his teeth. “Goddamn it, Sam!”

Genna laughed. “You started.”

Jack climbed back on the lounger. “You really think we can't leave them alone?”

“Would you leave Lizzie alone with her boyfriend?”

“Does she have a boyfriend?”

“If she did.”

Sam bowed over his front paws. Hey, Boss, pay attention to me.

“Absolutely not. Where are the boys?”

“In Simon's room.”

Jack thought of his high school girlfriend, now Doctor Shapiro, somewhere in Boston, the games they'd played in her room even when her parents were home.

“I don't think that's a good idea,” he said. “Do you?”

“They're probably better off here than anywhere else.”

“If they want to make out, fine.” He thought about Simon kissing this Rich whom he hadn't met yet. “But anything else? Let him sneak around like I had to.”

“I think,” Genna said sadly, “Simon's in for a lot of sneaking around.”

Jack stood. Sam went for his forearm, and Jack kneed him in the chest. The dog barely noticed. “Down, Sam.” Jack kneed him again. “Why don't I pick up videos? Maybe Simon and his friend can cuddle with us on the couch.”

“Oh, right. Why don't you see if Simon wants you to get them a video?”

Sam followed him downstairs. Jack knocked on Simon's locked door. He knocked again. Movement within. Then, from nowhere near the door, Simon called, “Who is it?”

Jack hated talking through a closed door. “Dad. Open up.”

He could hear Simon thinking, Would you just go away? But a moment later, the door opened part way. Simon did not appear flushed, nor were his clothes disarrayed. A dark curly-haired boy sat in Simon's desk chair. The computer was on. Simon said, grudgingly, “Dad, this is Rich.”

He nodded to Rich over Simon's shoulder.

“You guys want a video? I'm going to the store.”

“I thought you and Mom were going out.”

“Mom changed her mind.”

“
Practical Magic
.” It was one of his favorites. “Rich, that okay with you?”

Rich nodded.

***

One of the uncomfortable facts of Tipton life was how often you encountered people you didn't want to see. Whoops, the department chair in the dry cleaner. Whoa, a problem student two seats away in the movie theater. There was one of everything. One place to buy the
Sunday Times
, one decent bakery, and one video store, located in the one strip mall next to the only supermarket.

Jack parked in the Valley Video end of the lot, cracked the windows and glanced at Sam, who sat upright in the right front passenger seat. The dog looked mournful, almost, but not quite, resigned to being left. Sam waggled his reddish gold eyebrows; Jack scratched behind his ears. Sam needed to be groomed. He always needed to be groomed. Jack closed the door and his last image, walking away, was of Sam dropping his chin on the top of his seat to stare backwards into the dark minivan, awaiting his return.

Jack was checking titles in the new release aisle, trying not to take too long, thinking about how enticing that rosemary chicken had smelled. When he glanced up, Marla was a few feet away stretching for
American Beauty
, her skirt riding above her slim white knee. Later, he'd wonder how long she'd been there before he noticed her.

“That's a really good movie.”

“Hi, Jack.” She seemed pleased to see him. “I absolutely adore Kevin Spacey.”

“You haven't seen it?”

“Three times.” She cut her eyes. “It's a slow night in Tipton.”

Was a woman who looked like this really going home on Friday night to watch a movie alone?

“Pretty sad, isn't it?” she asked, as if reading his thoughts.

“What's that?”

“The movie.” She grinned, and he felt caught out. “But I like the cinematography, the retrospective narration, and I loved watching Kevin Spacey work out. So what was your favorite part, the rose petals?”

Jack nodded, and she laughed, a clear, happy sound.

“Every man I've asked, his favorite part's the rose petals.”