Scream (21 page)

“If there was only one other phone, why would Bell need to call him?”

“To say hello?”

“What number was it that he called, then?”

“One. It was number one.”

It could go on like this for quite some time. It was a “oneness” of nonsense. And both of us would laugh, a lot, but whether or not for the same reason I don't know.

how to inspire rage

M
eanwhile, every time I got back to my mom's house from visiting her in the nursing home every day, I was scared of Adult Protective Services. Despite the psychiatrist's words, I still thought they might show up again. There was the neighbor, and the freezing cold house falling apart that I kept trying to get fixed up. My mom had been so scared of being broke that she had never had anything fixed there in thirty years. It was falling down. The police showed up when my dogs barked, even though there were plenty of other barking dogs around, including the neighbor's.

I was used to people's anger, however. There are some people on this planet who irritate others. It wasn't intentional, but I was one of them.

example one

Once there was a television producer and his wife, who was a very well-known romance writer, who had an idea for a brilliant television series and thought I should write it. The television producer called me up, right after I started publishing stories in
The New Yorker,
and asked if I would be interested in writing the bible—and more—for this television series based on his wife's idea.

“What's a bible?”

“A bible for a TV series,” he explained. I still didn't know. He sighed. “It's a book of chapters on each of the people in this TV series, who they are, where they grew up, their natures and personalities. It would contain everything you can think of regarding these characters and their lives. Your job would be to write the bible, and then come up with the episodes, the plots, the stories, the dialogue, first write the initial pilot for the series, and then write maybe twenty or thirty episodes.”

He said he would pay me twenty grand if I did it.

I was very excited. Not just that I would get paid twenty thousand dollars, but that someone knew I existed and wanted to hire me for a job. [Now it is many years later and I am still looking for a job. I wish at the time I had taken that job. That's not the point.] So I said, “Wow! Thanks for thinking of me! What is the idea?”

And he said he would have his secretary send it to me if I would sign a nondisclosure secrecy policy.

And I said that was fine. But then I had a slight panic. What if I was sent the idea and I just couldn't write it? What would happen to me? I would be in trouble. So I told Mr. Krantz (that was his name), “I will read your idea with pleasure. But if I don't think I can write your television bible and pilot and series, is it okay if I just say no?”

“Of course!” he assured me. “There is no obligation. We would love you to do it, that's all, so just sign the nondisclosure secrecy statement, read it, and get back to me. I am going to give you my direct number, so you can call me directly.”

A few days later I got the packet in the mail.

I opened the envelope. There was a twenty-page nondisclosure statement and the idea itself. The idea was: there are some women working on a magazine in New York City.

All they needed from me was the previously mentioned bible, plot, episodes, etc.

I thought for a long time and then it occurred to me: I don't want to write for television! I want to write novels and stories! I want to learn how to be a novelist and not a television writer! Also I was unable to do this job.

Not one idea based on his idea came into my head. I tried, for many days, but there was nothing I could think of. So I called him back on the direct number he had given me and his secretary put me through right away.

“Hi there!” he said. “You got the idea! You are all set!”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “It is a good one, but I cannot do this project.”

“What? What did you just say?”

“I can't!”

“You can't write this? Are you kidding me? I call you up, I give you this great opportunity and you say ‘No'? Who do you think you are, anyway? Just who do you think you are talking to!?” It took him a long time to explain to me.

I was so scared. I started to cry. That's when Mr. Krantz told me that he personally would make sure I would never, ever write for television, and that I would never amount to anything or be anything. He had an extremely forceful way of explaining this to me and I was a very timid person.

I felt that my life was ruined, that he was right when he said I was a nothing, but I just could not think of anything about these women who worked on a magazine in New York City and led these glamorous lives.

Did they live in a basement so dark and damp that every time it rained mushrooms grew around the bottom of the toilet bowl?

example two

I always try to obey the law. One time, I was carrying my two-pound poodle to her vet appointment. She was in a pink snowsuit and I had her in a bag. I had to change from the express to the local train, and since I was running and didn't want her to be jostled, I took her out of the bag and held her in my arms while I ran across the platform and got onto the local train and sat down. The policeman entered the subway car and told me to step out. I got out. My dog was back in the bag.

“I have to issue you a ticket,” he said. “It is illegal for dogs to be on the subway unless they are in a carrier.”

“Oh, I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't want to jostle her. We are on the way to the veterinarian. She is blind and needs an emergency operation to have the eye removed. I did not want to be late.”

“Don't worry,” he said. “The train will be held in the station while I write you this ticket. What's your name?”

He wrote very slowly. The passengers on the local train began staring out at the policeman, who had been joined by two more cops, and at me, the perpetrator. The passengers looked restless.

There was a recorded audio announcement over the crackling speakers. “Due to a police investigation, this train is being held momentarily in the station!”

Now more passengers came to the windows.

“What is your address?” the cop asked me. He was very methodical and repeated the information. The announcement was repeated. Soon the passengers who were stuck began to appear hostile. “Don't worry,” the cop said. “This train will leave but another will soon be here, in time to take you and your dog to the vet.”

The train left. I got a ticket for twenty-five dollars, or if I preferred I could go to court.

I have seen many things on the subway. People spitting and eating and urinating. I have not seen tickets or summonses issued. I had broken the law by having a handheld poodle.

example three

When I was a kid, maybe ten, after my parents' divorce, I came up to my dad's house to assist him and his wife in organizing a splendid pig roast. I worked for days helping them get ready. When it was time for the party, guests began to arrive—children, adults, all ages of people. “Okay, you'd better go home now,” Dad said.

“What?”

“You're not invited.”

Apparently I was quite upset.

Years later someone posted about how difficult as a child I had been. The author had been a child who arrived at this pig roast and witnessed me having some sort of breakdown and being sent home. The author suggested that I was some sort of juvenile drama queen.

example four

When Willow was a baby, I took her to the bathroom to change her diaper. She was less than a couple of years old. In the lavatory a woman started to chat with me, asking me endless questions about the baby. When I got back to the table a man came over. He said he was an author and he wanted me to read his book. I suggested he mail it to me. That would not be necessary, he said. He wanted me to take the manuscript right then and there. It was a large, bulky manuscript. I was in the middle of the meal, chatting with my friends, trying to enjoy my food. I took his manuscript, but I don't know what happened to it; we might have gone elsewhere that night, it might have gotten lost, I might have put it down at home and forgotten about it.

He printed an angry letter in the paper: he had seen me in the restaurant, sent his wife to delay me in the women's room while he ran home and got his manuscript, and gave it to me—only I was so rude I never responded.

the search for help for willow

D
ays went by when I spoke to no one except the teenager. The teenager was sharp, smart, and charming, but she also knew she was living with a nincompoop. I knew that according to Mark Twain, when he was twenty, his father was the stupidest person on the planet, but when he got to be twenty-five his father got very smart. Willow was unhappy and she needed some advice but she didn't want advice from me. Against my better judgment I booked an appointment for her with the local psychiatrist of her choice, not the man with the hat but another who she had found, specializing in child psychiatry.

Willow was seventeen. She was in eleventh grade, and now she and I were living together, alone, in upstate New York. She was in high school here and every day I was going to see my mom in the nursing home and trying to pack up that thirty years of stuff in her house. I was trying my best, and my kid wanted to see a psychiatrist.

Sure, why not? If you hadn't grown up as the child of a psychiatrist, why wouldn't you want to see one? A kindly, sympathetic soul, interested in listening to you and exploring your issues? Willow researched online and found Dr. Leonid. She was proud of her discovery, so we booked an appointment. This guy was going to see her briefly, then he would meet with us both.

We went to his house, which was also his office. A woman sitting at a desk introduced herself as Mrs. Leonid; she was the doctor's wife, office manager, secretary, whatever. You have never met a more seriously depressed woman. Her aura—the atmosphere—reeked of potential suicide. The doctor came out, a small, wizened fellow with preternaturally bright and angry eyes, and we introduced ourselves.

He looked at me suspiciously. “Tama! I have never met a
Tama
.”

“That's okay, I have never met a Doctor Leonid.”

“Ha! Touché!”

He took Willow in.

A few minutes later I was called in.

“Sit down!” He is gleeful. “Did you know that your daughter smokes marijuana?” Willow winces. Maybe she wasn't expecting him to betray her, at least not so brutally, so immediately.

“Um, yes, I knew.”

In my opinion, you might want to give a couple minutes' chitchat before you break your patient's trust, but, whatever, you could see the disappointment in his eyes. “Your daughter is in serious need of psychiatric help! She is seriously depressed! She started crying when she came in here and she told me she cries every day!”

“Oh, so did I at her age. I cried every night.”

“That's not normal! Your daughter is not normal!”

“Um, Dr. Leonid, do you have any daughters?”

“What?” A sizzling coil of rage, some kind of . . . I don't know, demonic entity? A dybbuk? He'd just shrunken in hate.

“Any daughters. Got any teenage daughters—or girls?”

“. . . No.”

“Do you have any sons?”

“No! But that's not the point. Your child says she hates school and she has ALWAYS hated school. I am going to prescribe major medication for her, antidepression, anti-anxiety, sleeping pills. BUT I WILL NOT GIVE HER THESE MEDICATIONS UNLESS SHE STOPS SMOKING MARIJUANA. Willow, will you do so?”

“Um, I don't think so.”

“For today, the fee will be two hundred and fifty dollars. From now on I would like to see her four times a week at two hundred dollars a session. I will also need to see you, and Tim as well. Then after that, if necessary, any or all of you can call me—for fifteen minutes—and that is ninety dollars. Do you have any questions?”

“I have a question,” said Willow. “What are your thoughts or opinions about the meaning of life?”

“For me?” He looked angry. “I am here to help people. That gives me pleasure.”

We departed. I wrote a check and handed it to the depressed sodden mass of tissue that was the doctor's wife.

“Mom, I don't want to see that guy again,” Willow said.

A short time later she got a boyfriend and a bicycle and didn't mention therapy again.

About six months later, Willow got this big-deal scholarship to learn Arabic in Jordan for the summer. It was very prestigious and had been a real bitch to get; letters of recommendation had to be obtained and interviews arranged and essays written. I was so proud and excited. She went to Washington, D.C., for two days of orientation. On Sunday night, when the group was scheduled to leave, first for Frankfurt and then on to Amman, the director of the program called and said, “Willow was crying, so we asked if she really wants to go on this trip and she said, ‘No,' so we pulled her out and sent her to a hotel. She'll fly back to Ithaca tomorrow.”

“What?” I said. “Where is she? Put her on the phone right now and I'll tell her to get on that plane with the group and shut her trap.”

“Oh no,” the director said. “The rest of the group is boarding and Willow has been sent back through security.”

If there had been an issue, at least give me a chance to kick the child's behind and talk some sense into her; it was eight thirty and the flight was scheduled for nine. What could I do with that amount of time?

I could not stop crying. This scholarship would have meant her acceptance into college. The State Department offered internships and jobs to those kids. I had found her an Arabic tutor to assist her prior to the trip (the kids, all high school juniors and seniors, were supposed to teach themselves basic Arabic before the journey). I had bought presents for the host family she was staying with and got her a hijab, which, believe me, was not the easiest thing to find in upstate New York. Our neighborhood in Brooklyn would have been different. We had a lot of hijab shops, believe me, a subway stop or less away.