Making Nice (12 page)

I thought of a painting in the hallway outside my brother’s and my childhood bedroom of two cartoonish kids with oversized heads and big eyes that, whenever I worked up the courage to look at them, seemed to be looking at me. The grasshopper’s effect was similar. I didn’t like it.

I continued staring back at the grasshopper, and it continued staring at me, like in a staring contest or showdown, and after a while I said to it, “Shoo, dude.” But it didn’t shoo, and it didn’t “scram” or “get the fuck outta here” either—it just stared. Finally I stomped my right foot at it and it catapulted itself directly into the toilet bowl, where it began paddling around at panicked random, circles and Xs, ovals and figure eights.

My one experience with near-drowning is that it’s uncomfortable. Also, I lifeguarded at a small inground pool at a home for mentally disabled people back in the early nineties, and there was a guy there named Joe Pepe who liked vacuum cleaners so much that all the nurse’s aides cut vacuum cleaner ads out of the paper and gave them to him as a reward for behaving himself, one of the many things he had no talent for. I once saw him sneak up behind a fellow patient and try to strangle him with a piece of yarn. I don’t remember too much else about him except that he looked exactly how a person with Down syndrome and glasses looks like, and that every day, as soon as I showed up for work, he’d tell me he fucked my mom. I’d tell him that he didn’t, and he’d tell me that yeah, he did, last night, she loved it, and I’d insist that he didn’t, and he’d insist that he did so, and so on. This would continue until I grew tired of the argument and quit, after which he’d make some kind of celebratory noise, then jump and spin and stag-leap his way out of the room. Ballet, but graceless.

What Joe Pepe didn’t do though, not ever, at least not while I worked there, was go in the pool. So one day after he started in with the mom stuff I said to him, “I’m sure she enjoyed it, Joe. Why don’t you come swim in the pool and we’ll talk about it.” His face scrunched up. “Awww, what’s the matter, Joe,” I said. “You’re not scared to come into the pool, are you, Joe?” He clenched his fists and spun around two times. “Not you, Joe,” I said. “No way. That couldn’t be the case, because my mom wouldn’t fuck anybody that’s scared to go in the pool. She told me so on my thirteenth birthday. She said, ‘Happy birthday, Alby, here’s your present. It’s a card, and in it you’ll find five dollars for every year of your life, for a total of
ffffffffffffffff—
sixty-five dollars. I love you very much, and I am very proud of you. You are growing up so fast now, and I just want you to know that I will never fuck anyone who can’t swim. Not ever. It’s unattractive, and probly means they’re a fuckin’ moron.’ So, Joe, if you really want me to believe that you fucked my mom last night, you’re gonna have to prove to me that you can swim. You up for it?”

He sniffled, then wiped his nose then his eye with his wrist. “No!” he yelled. “No no no no no no!”

“Well why not, Joe?”

“I don’t wanna,” he said.

“Well why don’t you wanna?”

“’Cause I almost drownded once,” he said. “It hurt!”

*   *   *

I pissed around the grasshopper as best I could and pinched off as soon as possible. Then I stood there, over it, watching it struggle up the side of the bowl, slip back in and rest. Over and over: Struggle, slip, rest. Struggle, slip, rest. Struggle.

I looked around a little for something to fish him out with and, finding nothing, I simply reached in and scooped him up with my right hand and carried him outside, where I put him on the ground near a bush and nudged him with my index finger. Then—and I may have imagined this but I don’t think so—he kinda shook himself dry, like a dog, and jumped one small time. I nudged him again till he made a bigger jump.

Afterward, as I was washing my hands, I guessed that it must’ve been confused, that I’d startled it, that it had made a mistake. But then I considered the possibility. Of course, I don’t really believe an insect has the mental capacity to suffer the kind of anguish one has to in order to
want
to kill oneself, but certainly there’s nothing too unreasonable in wondering if things could be so bad for a grasshopper. Two steps toward the paper towel dispenser and I was pretty sure the answer to that question, no matter the animal, is yes.

T
ESTY

I

Walking wasn’t easy with fat legs and a big head; I was three years old and did the best I could. I made it into the kitchen and there, on the floor, was a little baby in a little baby carrier, and my mother’s feet were there, and another woman’s feet, too. There were often new moms’ feet around because mine was a Lamaze instructor and her students liked to come back and show off what came out of them. I waddled over and started petting the little baby on its fat little baby arm, and my mother praised me for making nice. The baby also seemed to enjoy my making nice to it—it cooed and gurgled and showed me its gums—and I continued petting it until my mother and this woman went back to their conversation above me, at the table. Then I started pinching the baby. It got quiet and screwed its face a little. I pinched harder, and when I was most successful its head started to shake in a way that seemed involuntary. Not that much about babies is voluntary, so maybe it’d be better to say that the head shake had something to do with the pain I succeeded in causing it. I dug my nails in—thumb and index—put marks all over its arms and legs like
. Still, the baby did not cry. I can’t know what I would have done if I were stronger or if I were alone with it, but as it was I just dug my nails in deeper, pinched harder, twisted further, and then finally this baby opened its toothless mouth and let out a whimper, then a wail, and I was proud.

A)
objective indifference.

B)
violent anger.

C)
strong disapproval.

D)
qualified regret.

A)
do not allow for differences in age and gender.

B)
do not account for change in an individual.

C)
fail to arrive at definitive answers.

D)
are depressing.

A)
Women are great.

B)
Women’s feet are great.

C)
Women are often proud of things they shouldn’t be proud of.

D)
Politeness is a part of good behavior.

E)
It depends.

II

There was a traveling animal show in the middle of the Sun Vet Mall. One part was a chicken-wire petting zoo with goats and piglets and hay—I liked the piglets—another was a pony ride, which, according to the black marker written on a white paper plate and scotch-taped to the fence, cost five tickets. The man standing at the gate verified that: “Five tickets.” My mother poked around in her coat pockets and pulled out a used tea bag from the one on the right—my brother and myself and the man didn’t know what to make of that—then put it back in her pocket and pulled her lady wallet out of the left one. She snapped it open and took out a five-dollar bill, then four singles, the three of us watching her pushing coins and cards and receipts around with her index finger, digging now, and then
Wah-lah!
she said, pulling out another single. I looked at my brother and nodded.

She stood there tidying the six bills, the fiver either on the very bottom or the very top, uncrinkling them with a game of tug-of-war that her right hand always lost. Then, like it had only just occurred to her, which it might have but I don’t think so, she asked the man if she could skip the ticket thing and just pay him the ten dollars in cash. He said no, he needed the tickets. I was nervous then about what my mother’s reaction would be, but she said OK, and we walked over to the ticket table, a tiny square with a tiny lady sitting behind it. My mother smiled and handed her the ten dollars cash, and the little lady sitting behind it tore ten tickets off the red roll, all of them still connected like paper sausages. My mother took them and said thank-you, counted and tore, handed my brother and me each a string of five. As we walked back toward the gate and the man beside it, I looked at my half of the red tickets, and each of them had
TICKET
printed on it and a number. I was excited.

My brother went first, and he sat on the pony while it walked. And then it was my turn, and I sat on the pony while it walked. Afterward, we agreed that it was the best thing we’d ever done, and my mom said,
Woo!
and clapped as we headed in the direction of a small crowd.

Curious what they were crowding around, we squeezed through to the front, where there was a tiger lying there not moving except to breathe and occasionally lick the metal bars of its otherwise red cage. It was emaciated and missing patches of hair, and if I’m remembering correctly it didn’t have any ears, like maybe it had scratched them off. We stood there, in the crowd, all of us fewer than a dozen, all of us staring at it. Just when my mother tugged on my shirtsleeve, meaning it was time to leave, the tiger slowly stood, arched its back in a stretch, and yawned. Everybody seemed to enjoy that, seeing the inside of its mouth, its tongue and its teeth. When it finished yawning, the tiger walked in a slow circle, its shoulder blades pushing up so high with each step I thought they might pop through its back. Then it stopped walking, lifted its tail, and showed everyone its tigery asshole, and from somewhere just below that, shot out piss directly at my brother’s gawking face. It smelled like white rice and pine trees, and later he told me it didn’t taste as bad as you might think.

A)
loving it, man. Life’s a party.

B)
victims of the paper sausage trade.

C)
fortunate to have rewarding careers in the entertainment industry.

D)
hydrated.

A)
totally cool.

B)
not as cool as cobras.

C)
not as cool as cobras before their tiger ears fall off, but after their tiger ears fall off, tigers are number one.

D)
lonely.

A)
OK

B)
Pretty good

C)
Not so good

D)
Fucked with

E)
Lonely

III

One time, after a winter storm, my sister and I were building an igloo together in the backyard when she stopped in the middle of her brick-making duties to regard a very tall pine tree, its branches bent to the ground under the weight of the snow. When I ordered her back to work, she pointed to the tree and told me how magical and amazing it would be to sled down the branches. “It would be so magical and amazing,” she said, “so fast, so glamorous.” I admitted that the steep slope did look tempting, in fact I’d even thought of it myself, way before she ever did, first. She said that didn’t matter, what matters is who
does it
first, no guts no glory and nobody remembers the Santa Maria. Fine, I said, I’ll do it, I can do whatever I set my mind to, Mom said so. However, as I set my mind to it, I began to doubt it was even possible, and as I looked at the tree again I wondered out loud if the glory was worth the risk.

The glory is definitely worth the risk, she said, because if you do it you automatically won’t be a fagatron anymore. I wasn’t a fagatron, but she was though, and after we argued about that she said, if it made me feel any better, she would climb up there with me and personally hand me my red disk sled. I don’t know, I said, let me check it out, and she said too late, forget it, and broke into a slow jog in the direction of the tree. I ran after, and she stopped to wait for me.

I climbed all the way up to the tippy-top of the pine tree and popped my head through. From up there I could see over the roof of the garage and the front of the house to the river and down the block to Dowling College, and in the other direction I saw cars the size of my matchboxes creeping along Montauk Highway. I yelled down to her that it was really high and steep, and she assured me it was both—as she climbed up to hand me my sled—but that snow is soft. I wasn’t so sure about that but she was very sure about that and she handed me my sled and said, wait till I’m on the ground with a good view. Fine, I said, but hurry up
. Hurry up!
Hurry or I’m not doing it, I swear. I was about to definitely not do it when she came running out from under the tree and was on the ground with a good view, yelling, go ahead, fagatron, do it. I will, I said, hold on a sec, don’t rush me, and, adjusting my footing, I held my sled out in front of me with my left hand, took a deep breath, and let go with the right, tottered just a little and
woosh.
I fell right through and Plinkoed down four or five or ten branches before my fat leg got caught about halfway to the ground. Then I just hung there upside down, arms limp above (or is it below?) my head, fine and glittery snow floating down all around me.