“Daddy!” he shouted, and then took off in a dead run, his sudden absence causing his mother to topple over onto her backside. I quickly moved out of the line of deplaning passengers, and crouched down much as Jenny had been. “Daddy! Daddy!” Jacob said again and again, the red lights in his shoes blinking with every stride, and in a moment he was in my arms, squeezing me as tightly as he seemingly could, and me squeezing him right back.
We stopped at a fast food joint on the way home for dinner, where we could get decent hamburgers for Jenny and me, and a hot dog swimming in ketchup for Jacob. French fries all around, of course. Dining out with Jacob was no simple feat, but Jenny, as usual, was more than prepared. While I was up placing and collecting our order, she wiped down his chair and tabletop with a sanitizing wipe, strapped his portable booster seat in place, unrolled and fastened a fresh plastic table topper -- this one emblazoned with Sesame Street characters instead of his favorite tank engine crew -- got his royal highness into his bib-smock, strapped him into his booster seat and pushed his chair up as close as she could to the edge of the table. When I arrived with our tray of food, Jacob was already sucking noisily on his sippy cup while he pushed a dozen or so Cheerios around the heads of his favorite muppets.
While Jacob was more or less occupied with his jumbo dog Jenny and I talked about the interview and the strange experience I had had in the Emerald Club.
“They must be really interested in you,” Jenny said.
“You think so?”
“Absolutely. Sounds like this Thompson is a real piece of work and they can’t wait to get rid of him. Did you see any of the other candidates while you were there? At the airport, I mean?”
I hadn’t, and now that she mentioned it, I realized that I hadn’t seen any of the other candidates at the offices either. There had been other candidates, hadn’t there? I mean, Pamela Thronsby had said there were, and she seemed to be carefully marshalling us around the office to make sure we didn’t accidentally run into each other.
That night in bed we talked about it some more, and by that time I had almost convinced myself that there hadn’t been any other candidates, that their purported existence had been a ruse to keep me off balance, to keep me from thinking that I had this thing in the bag.
“Alan, I love you, dear, but that’s just crazy.”
She was reading her worn and dog-eared copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, propped up against some pillows propped up against our headboard, and I was lying on my side next to her, looking up at her face from below.
“Maybe. But I don’t think so. That Pamela Thornsby turned out to be about as phony as they come. It’s a safe bet that anything she told me was at best some veiled version of the truth.”
“You’re paranoid,” she said, not taking her eyes off the page.
The next day was Saturday and we had a birthday party to go to. One of Jenny’s cousins had a daughter a year or two older than Jacob, and that was reason enough for another one of those bashes at Jenny’s aunt’s house on the lake. The preparations for the trip and subsequent appearance made getting Jacob ready for his Happy Meal look like child neglect. Start to finish, including a shower, I needed about twenty-five minutes to be ready to go somewhere and look presentable, but Jenny needed at least two hours, and tacking a third on was usually a good idea if you didn’t want to be twenty minutes late.
It was more than just getting herself ready, of course. There was Jacob, always Jacob, to think of. The backseat of our car was already littered with his toys -- but those, of course, were his car toys. He couldn’t possibly be satisfied with just those, he would have to bring some of his house toys with him as well. There was Milo, the little blue stuffed puppy dog that had been with him since the day he came home from the hospital, he would have to come, of course, there was no question about leaving him behind, but there were any number of other important decisions to make.
And then there was all the equipment and paraphernalia that would need to be brought to keep the little man satiated and fed during the ordeal to come. A dozen or more little pieces of Tupperware, each containing something salty or sweet -- grapes, mozzarella sticks cut into little bite-sized pieces, the ubiquitous fish crackers -- all of them my job to cut and prepare, and all of them stuffed into an old diaper bag with a dozen juice boxes kept in a small ice-packed thermos in order to keep each little eight ounce serving of sugar water at the optimal temperature for the thirsty man on the go. And speaking of diaper bags, there were also a dozen or so pull-up diaper shorts, wet wipes and butt paste thrown in for good measure. Jacob had successfully been potty trained, but he still had accidents from time to time, especially in unfamiliar or exciting locations.
By the time the cargo manifest had been checked and confirmed, we were all buckled into our car seats, and we were backing out of the driveway we were already twelve minutes late, and it typically took between twenty and thirty minutes to get to the party destination.
But no one seemed to notice. As was typical, our arrival was treated like the social event of the season, with our names chortled out with glee and a long line of aunts, uncles, and cousins marching to the home’s wide foyer to welcome us and bestow hugs, kisses, and handshakes all around. They had all clearly been waiting for our arrival so that the birthday ceremonies could begin, but no one brought that to our attention or even seemed all that concerned. When we entered the home’s enormous living room, we saw an even larger collection of relatives arranged in a kind of amphitheater of bar stools, chairs and sofa cushions, all directed towards the large brick fireplace, upon whose hearth sat, surrounded by brightly-wrapped presents, the very guest of honor whose slowly advancing age we had all come to celebrate.
“Happy Birthday, Jessica!” Jenny shouted, holding our contribution to the excess above her head as she maneuvered herself and her pregnant belly through the assembled crowd to deposit our gift on a pile already teetering at a height higher than the birthday girl herself.
Jessica, a blonde-haired and brainless angel of six -- or was it seven? -- in a pink party dress and bare feet with tiny, painted toenails leapt and clapped her hands. “Now. Mommy? Now?”
“Yes, Jessica,” one of Jenny’s cousins -- Rachel, I think -- told her. “Go ahead, honey.”
The ritual that followed was a familiar one. While thirty or more adults and other children sat quietly and watched, Jessica, exulting in the glory of all that attention, took one gift after another off the pile, announced who it was from, and opened it. With every rustle of wrapping paper, the family dog, a smelly, furry beast of indeterminate breed, would come forward to investigate and would be first told and then gently pushed away. Silly dog. With every reveal, those of us in the audience would obediently ooh and ahh, even when we had no idea what the colorful piece of plastic was. What is it? An older relative would inevitably ask, only to be told in a string of syllables that they did not have cultural context to understand. Silly grandpa. And with every gift, Jessica, already at six -- or was it seven? -- was trained enough to hold the item up beside her smiling lips and largely vacant eyes for the dozens of photographs that would be taken and never looked at again.
It was enough to make one contemplate taking one’s own life.
Later, after the cake had been served, and people were allowed to drift to the rooms and company that suited them best, I found myself in the den with a much-needed beer in my hand.
“Hey, how’s that job search going?”
It was Tom, one of Jenny’s cousins. Was he the one married to Rachel? I couldn’t remember. I knew that he worked in financial services.
“Okay.”
“Did you have that phone interview? With that firm out in Boston?”
I always marveled at how much information the people in Jenny’s family could remember about me. Tom and I had spoken about my job search more than a month ago, and then for no more than three minutes, and here he was asking me about it like it was yesterday.
“Okay, I guess. They asked me out for an in-person interview. I just got back.”
“From Boston?”
“Mmmm hmmm,” I said, taking a sip of my beer.
“My man!” Tom said with what could only be taken as genuine enthusiasm. He held up his hand and I slapped it. A little macho, sure, but better than getting another hug.
Tom wanted all the details, and I gave him as many as I thought prudent. Or, to be more precise, I only gave him the ones that I thought reflected favorably on me. That’s what people do, right? When they’re speaking to people they don’t really know? In those situations you can’t share any of the doubts and despair that keep you up most of the night. When I got to the part about the meeting in the airport lounge, Tom’s eyebrows really went up.
“Hey, Alan, that’s great. It sounds like they really want you.”
I wasn’t so sure, but I kept my mouth shut.
Tom clinked the ice in his glass, probably assessing when it would be time for another rum and coke. “So is Jenny already looking at houses in Boston?”
Suddenly there was a loud crash in another room, quickly followed by the wails of a pair of shrieking children. One of the high-pitched voices, undoubtedly now being heard throughout this affluent neighborhood, was unquestionably, that of my own son.
When Tom and I arrived on the scene we could only join the gaggle of spectators that had bottle-necked in the entrance of a wide set of double doors that let into a sunken and ill-lit den at the very back of the enormous house. Craning my neck I could see that, despite the leather chairs and the dusty bookshelves, someone had tried to repurpose the room as a kind of play room for the youngest children, with a small table and chairs, two fingerpainting easels, and, now, a million or more plastic building blocks scattered all over the slippery throw rugs and darkly-stained hardwood floor. Against the central wall was a low entertainment center, the large television set that had once sat atop it now tipped over and broken on the floor before it -- clearly the source of the crashing sound we had all heard. Crouching among the debris were two adults, Jenny and one of her cousin Rachel, each ministering tender mercies to one of the two children, mine and a boy of about the same age. Jacob, at least, had stopped shrieking, and now stood petulantly and pouty-mouthed while Jenny spoke to him soothingly. The other boy -- Hunter, I think his name was Hunter -- was still crying openly.
A sudden surge of anger rose up within me. I had no evidence for who was at fault -- for which child had broken the television or for what they had done to cause the damage -- but the secret shame I harbored inside had no ability to wait for evidentiary procedures in such a circumstance. It had been Jacob, of course it had been. He had been doing something he shouldn’t have been, something no normal child would ever dream of doing, and he had broken what looked like a two thousand dollar big-screen television.
But before my rage could manifest itself in any action, Jenny’s aunt Carol pushed her way through the crowd. It was Carol’s house and by extension Carol’s television that lay broken on Carol’s hardwood floor. She was one of those unflappable and ever-happy older women -- not quite the matriarch of her clan but clearly heading in that direction and supremely comfortable and confident in her ability to take on that mantle. Her reaction when seeing and understanding what had occurred was very different from mine.
“Oh my!” she said after working her way through the knot of relatives. “Is everyone all right in here?”
There was not a trace of anger in her voice. She moved quickly from place to place, ensuring first that Rachel and Hudson were okay -- Hudson, that was his name, not Hunter -- and then performed the same duty for Jenny and Jacob. “Such a big TV!” she said, the tone of her voice expressing commiseration more than any other emotion. “It must have been very scary when it toppled over like that.”
Then she began issuing orders. First to the two mothers, take the children into another room. Then to two of her grown sons, Tom, evidently, being one, to begin cleaning up the mess of the broken television. Then to the rest of us, disperse, the damage was done, there is nothing else for anyone to do. She spoke with calm authority and no more concern than if someone had tipped over a cup of soda.
“Alan!” Jenny cried, in contrast, her voice in great distress. “Help me with Jacob!” There was a desperate and more frantic message in the tone of her voice that I’m sure was apparent to all. I’m eight months pregnant, you son of a bitch! Help me!
I waded into the room, unintentionally kicking my way through a sea of plastic bricks and crushing a few under my shoes. After helping my wife to her feet I scooped up Jacob and we retreated from the room as a family. Hands were placed on Jenny’s back, and people wished Jacob well as we passed. It’s okay. Don’t worry. You’re fine. Everything will be fine.
But I wasn’t fine. I managed to maintain a cool exterior, but on the inside I was a wild, rampaging beast. How the fuck had this happened? What had Jacob done? What was everyone thinking of us? And who was going to pay for that goddamn TV?
+ + +
“Dragons” is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. For more information, go here.
This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.
Image Source
http://lres.com/heres-why-amcs-need-to-pay-close-attention-to-looming-regulatory-changes/businessman-in-the-middle-of-a-labyrinth/
No comments:
Post a Comment