A Field Guide to the North American Family Read online

  The life of a Consensus is fleeting; in a single day it hatches, finds a mate, gives birth, and dies.

  SEE ALSO:

  •CUSTODY BATTLE •DIVORCE •HOME•MATURITY •OPTIMISM •RECONCILIATION•TANTRUM

  CUSTODY BATTLE

  ❧

  When your house is never clean enough. When your food is never healthy enough. When you’re perpetually five to fifteen minutes late to meet them in the parking lot of Ken’s Big Boy, the neutral zone where your estranged wife insists you meet to exchange your daughter on Wednesdays and alternating weekends. Her Volvo, formerly yours, will be waiting, the sun on the windshield obscuring the passengers within. She always leaves the engine running these days, as if to underscore the point: you’re not on time, and she has places to be. Your daughter will adopt these grievances as her own, but they will retain the familiar tang of Elizabeth, like the pillowcase that still smells of her shampoo. Like the photos in the yearbooks you left behind when you moved out.

  Descended from Divorce, Custody Battle is one of several natural predators of the Amicable Parting.

  SEE ALSO:

  •GRIEF •INFIDELITY •PHASE•RECONCILIATION •SACRIFICE •TRADITION

  DEPRESSION

  ❧

  Instant oatmeal for breakfast. It was always instant oatmeal in the winter. I had grown bored with the available flavors: Maple & Brown Sugar, Apples & Cinnamon, Raisins & Spice. Once, there had been a Cinnamon & Spice, but now you had to make your own by excavating all the raisins, moving them to one side of the bowl. I used the convex part of the spoon to smooth out little trenches in the surface of the oatmeal and then watched as they filled up with milk. “You’re not hungry, Tommy?” my mom wanted to know. She was packing lunches on the other side of the kitchen island. I told her my stomach hurt, which was partially true, in that it would hurt by the time I got to school if I didn’t eat something. “You look tired,” she said. The milk wasn’t filling the trenches fast enough. I hacked out deep crevasses with the end of the spoon. I rolled the raisins in and covered them over. I told her I had been up late doing homework. Really, I had been lying under the covers naked and stoned, listening to the noises that meant my sister and Gabe were dry-humping instead of studying in the next room, or rather the lack of noise, the silence that seeped through the Sheetrock and the pillow. Wondering if Gabe had felt this way back when he was using. Sometimes at school I said things that maybe were a little exaggerated to appear more interesting, but I usually tried to be honest with my mom. It was just that with my dad gone, there were certain things I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t tell her, for example, that half the kids last year had thought I was making it up about Dad until Lacey confirmed the reason we’d been absent for a week. I couldn’t tell her that I couldn’t sleep anymore unless I masturbated beforehand. And I couldn’t tell her that this fucking breakfast made me want to puke. I pretended to take a couple bites and then, when her back was turned, got up and dumped the bowl down the garbage disposal. I pulled on my backpack full of stolen compact discs and graphing calculators and pecked her on the cheek and breezed out the front door, trying to give the impression that, on this day like every other, there was anything to look forward to.

  Evolved from a ruminant species known as Melancholia, Depression now dominates the animal kingdom. Its rapid expansion remains unaccounted for, but some Family-watchers have pointed to a concurrent surge in Search for Meaning.

  SEE ALSO:

  •ADOLESCENCE •ADULTHOOD

  DISCRETION

  ❧

  She would never say who, and there were times when Jack wondered whether knowing his identity would have made it better or worse—afternoons that first fall when he sat on the back porch with a Schaefer and a cigarette, ready to hide the latter at the first hint of a car pulling into the drive. False alarms were constant. He would stub out the butt halfway through, only to gather from the unbroken silence of the house behind him that the engine whine he’d heard heralded the arrival of one of his new neighbors, and not his son. He’d given Gabe a little used Geo for his seventeenth birthday back in September, when he and Elizabeth were still wavering about the separation, like the two last leaves on a branch (as though there were anything to do but give in to gravity). Now he wondered if this wasn’t part of what kept Gabe coming back, some obscure sense of obligation. Certainly Jackie had added the car to an already formidable dossier of evidence that her father favored his firstborn. The scent of tobacco that hovered around Gabe when he appeared in the afternoons after school made Jack pretty sure that his son was secretly a smoker, too. But what could he say? Besides, it almost made him feel closer to the boy. And perhaps Gabe made the crosstown trip so often (far more than the custody agreement stipulated) just to have an excuse to be in the car alone, where he could smoke in private. Jackie never visited anymore. In this way and in most others, she and her brother offset each other. Jack scanned the new backyard. Maybe he would build a wall here that Gabe could paint on, as Elizabeth had reportedly done. The sky, hemmed in by the evergreens at the edges of the backyard, was gray, and had been for weeks. The grass was getting crispy. The wind that gusted up and rattled the wind chimes was nothing like it used to be, off the bay. At the old house, he couldn’t have gotten the cigarette lit. He decided he would have felt better knowing if it had been Martin Luther King and worse if it had been Jack Kennedy. Better if it was Eric Clapton and worse if it was Peter Frampton. Better knowing if it was over. Worse if it was still going on. Better knowing if it was a complete stranger. Otherwise, better to remain in the dark.

  N.B.: Discretion and Privacy are not the same animal.

  SEE ALSO:

  •ADULTHOOD •HABITS, BAD •INTEGRITY•QUESTIONS, NAGGING •RESIGNATION •RUMOR•SECRET

  DIVORCE

  ❧

  He knew, oh, he knew, he saw it coming, he kept asking her, while she gardened, while she unloaded the dishwasher, while she flipped again through the takeout menus unable to find what she wanted, are you happy, Mom, are you happy, knowing somehow she wasn’t, and no, the knowing didn’t make it any better, because another thing he knew, like he knew his own face in the mirror, was that it was his fault, because what was Mom doing, sitting in the corner of the living room with the headphones on every night that week, if not taking a cue from her son…if not, herself, withdrawing? He heard folk music sloshing out of the headphones like water over the rim of a bowl. He had half a mind to go through Mom’s underwear drawer, to see if she, too, had a stash. Then Dad, on the couch with an accordion file, was asking her a question that she, in her headphones, couldn’t hear, and asking again, louder. And then both voices were raised, as Gabe had known they would be—something had happened, as he had known it would—and he went to the basement with the lights off and took the last two pills from the film canister in his pocket and swallowed them without water and knelt in the middle of the rug, and he swore it would be the last time, but oh, he knew, he had done it, he had done it now.

  Due to a growth curve similar to that of Depression, a robust Divorce population has become common wherever Love dwells in large numbers.

  SEE ALSO:

  •ADULTHOOD •COMMITMENT •CUSTODY BATTLE•FREEDOM •GRIEF •INFIDELITY •PARTINGS

  ENTERTAINMENT

  ❧

  In the beginning was the Television. And the Television was large and paneled in plastic made to look like wood. It dwelled in a dim corner of the living room and came on for national news, Cosby, Saturday cartoons, and football. And man and woman huddled close on the sofa or stretched out on the rug, and it was good. When man made partner, they bought a VCR, and soon afterward another Television, and they began to watch videos together in the darkness. And there was popcorn. In the fifth year, the cable company created the premium-channel package. And it was affordable. And woman had moved up in the mayor’s office, and so they said why not. After days of toil, to sit and feast in front of the Television and not to have to think of something to
say was for man and woman a kind of heaven. And then Nintendo said: Let there be Duck Hunt. Let there be Mario Brothers. Let there be Nintendo 64 and GameCube. And the children saw that these were good, though to watch and play at once was not possible. Thus was there purchased a children’s Television, and unto it was given its own room. And thus did the furnished basement come to be a refuge for daughter and son when the silence upstairs ended and the fighting began. Where once they had sat together squabbling over the controllers, they now took turns occupying the room alone, turning up the sound to drown out the voices through the floorboards. And save for the screen’s blue light, darkness was on the faces of the children.

  With its rapid mutation rate, Entertainment adapts readily to changes in the environment. Easily housebroken, it is welcomed in most North American Homes.

  SEE ALSO:

  •BOREDOM •CHEMISTRY •HABITS, BAD•IRONY •MATERIAL •PRIVACY•SIBLING RIVALRY •WHATEVER

  FAMILY VALUES

  ❧

  Long after his life ceased to resemble the one he’d imagined for himself as a kid—after pressed slacks replaced bluejeans, a house on Long Island replaced the East Side walkup, the rush of a massive short position replaced that of a line of blow, and he ceased to recognize the Brooklyn girl he couldn’t keep his hands off in the overweight homemaker he’d married—Frank listened to the Who. He kept disc three of the boxed set in the Suburban at all times and disc four in his Discman. The world around him no longer struck power chords, but stranded in rush-hour traffic or lifting weights at his overpriced gym, he could still feel locked inside his ribs the hunger that had found its perfect expression in “The Seeker,” in “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Even when there was no music, the Who played in his head. It was “Who Are You” that he was hearing this afternoon, in the Hungates’ backyard. He was standing with Jack by the grill, ostensibly absorbing the details of some legal case, but all that was in his head was “Who are you? Who, who, who, who?” He lit another cigarette and looked over at the pool. Tommy was standing in the shallow end, a wet white tee-shirt clinging to his flabby boy-breasts. He was sticking his tongue out at the little Hungate girl, Jackie, who was sticking her tongue out at him. Tommy’s tongue disappeared when Elizabeth knelt at the edge of the water to ask him if he wanted a Coke. She wore a tee-shirt over her bikini top; her tanned legs folded under her. Frank felt a stirring beneath his swim trunks…and then embarrassment as the boy said, “Yeah.” “How about a thank-you?” Frank called to him. “That’s my boy,” he added, after his flushed son had stammered out his gratitude; he didn’t want her to think that they weren’t close, he and Tommy, or that he wasn’t the kind and caring father he in point of fact was. And before rising to disappear into the house, she rewarded him with a brief smile. He apologized to Jack. “We just really emphasize respect in our house. You were saying?” Out of guilt for his impure thoughts, he worked extra-hard to give the illusion that he was listening, but the Roger Daltrey in his head kept screaming, “Who the fuck are you?”

  Specimens of this type—a toy breed of Tradition—are recognizable by their seeming delicacy and attractive plumage. Be careful handling Family Values, however: beneath the surface lies a savage carnality.

  SEE ALSO:

  •DEPRESSION •DISCRETION •FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY•GUILT •MEANING, SEARCH FOR •MIDLIFE CRISIS•MORTGAGE •UNCERTAINTY

  FIDELITY

  ❧

  Like that time? The time we totally knew but were afraid to tell you that that boyfriend of yours was messing around with your former supposed friend Michelle, who we can now all agree is a total bitch and who sometimes we secretly think would have been a match made in heaven for Gabe in terms of being way selfish and also spacey if what happened hadn’t happened, and he was probably like tattooing swans on her forearms with a ballpoint or something the way he did to win you over? That whole time if you would have just brought your concerns to us we would have known you wouldn’t be totally shattered to learn the truth. Because, I mean, we were always looking out for you, girl, that’s what you do when you care. When he got third-degree burns over eighty percent of his body, for example. Because after that that skank washed her hands of him, but you, you were able to forgive, maybe because there was more to him than we knew but probably more because you’re pretty much incapable of cruelty.

  Fidelity is a lesser-known relative of the more common Infidelity.

  SEE ALSO:

  •COMMITMENT •DIVORCE •GRAVITY•HABITS, GOOD •INTEGRITY •NATURE VS. NURTURE•PRIVACY •SECRET

  FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY

  ❧

  Not to put too fine a point on it, Mr. and Ms. Big-Time GOPAC contributor, but the private sector ain’t going to offer to pick up the tab when, after a gruesome accident and a three-month hospital stay, your son’s medical bills pass the million-dollar mark. Although, on second thought, it will employ the doctor who’ll wield the scalpel during the skin grafts, so maybe it’s all right after all. And think of all the magazines you’ll read in the waiting room! The sweet efflorescence of the media conglomerates! Think of the market-driven advances in chair design! The commercials on the television in the corner! Now, all in all, aren’t you feeling pretty good about the private sector?

  Though often identified with Freedom, Fiscal Responsibility typically exists in symbiosis with Mortgage. It can be found wherever there is sufficient Material.

  SEE ALSO:

  •CHEMISTRY •HIERARCHY •RESIGNATION

  FREEDOM

  ❧

  Elizabeth’s been working out. Kicking along with her tae bo video. Listening to mid-period Joni Mitchell while she runs in front of the big picture window on a treadmill rescued from the obscurity of the garage. Reading Susan Faludi and Anaïs Nin. Country line-dancing and wearing tall boots and eating ice cream for lunch. She’s been doing things she never would have when she was married to Jack. She’s been doing things because she never would have when she was married to Jack. She’s constantly aware of all that’s broken or lost: the trust of her son, the happiness of her daughter, the comforting warm lump of a husband in the bed beside her, the narrative thrust of her life, but she’s been telling herself it was worth it. And on a country road on the North Fork one day, edging the Volvo’s speedometer over 90 miles per hour, just because she can, she wonders, does this count as liberation?

  Perhaps because of its resemblance to the endangered Meaning, Freedom is the single most sought-after creature in North America. Like Entertainment, it is increasingly valued as a delicacy in other parts of the world.

  SEE ALSO:

  •ADOLESCENCE •COMMITMENT •DIVORCE•INNOCENCE •MIDLIFE CRISIS •OPTIMISM•REBELLION •VULNERABILITY

  FRIEND OF THE FAMILY

  ❧

  Neither boy can remember a time when he has not known the other; their houses are separated only by two long sections of chain-link fence and a high-strung schnauzer bitch named Tiffany who patrols the Perlmutters’ backyard, directing her piercing bark at any person or animal who comes within fifty yards. The two families have been close since their mothers discovered they were both due in September of 1986, one with the boy who would be Gabriel and the other with the girl she would name Lacey. Marnie and Elizabeth still swim and talk; Frank and Jack swap lawn equipment; Lacey plays surrogate mother to Jackie. It is strange, then, that the boys, only fourteen months apart, have never really been friendly. Gabriel, when given the choice, has always gravitated toward the older kids in the neighborhood, who spurn roly-poly little Tommy Harrison. Gabe himself has never really trusted Tommy, with his incessant blinking and puppydog obsequiousness and outrageous brags. And, since the time Gabe told the other kids about the younger boy’s demonstrably false claim to have a bowling alley in his basement—that is, since the nickname “Lying Tommy” made its way back to the bearer— he’s been uncomfortably sure the feeling must be mutual.

  Friend or Friends was once common in almost every North American Family. Competitio
n from Entertainment appears to have thinned its numbers substantially.

  SEE ALSO:

  •ANGST •HIERARCHY •MEANING, SEARCH FOR•NATURE VS. NURTURE •PROVIDENCE •RECOGNITION•WHATEVER

  GRAVITY

  ❧

  The garage is where it first happened. He was supposed to clean it out for like ten dollars or something. My mom had sent me over to borrow an edge-trimmer, and Mrs. Hungate told me to go into the garage and ask him to help me find it. At first I couldn’t see him. It was dim in there with the single bulb and all. Even though it was the kind of garage with windows, it was a gray day outside at the end of August. I remember there was a tennis ball strung from the ceiling like a Hangman. Kind of creepy. Then I heard this clackety-clack sound from the other side of the car. I walked around the rear bumper and saw him squatting there on the concrete pad, arranging aerosol cans in a milk crate. He jumped a little at the sound of his name. He was like, Do you want something? and I told him about the edge-trimmer. He softened after that; I guess I had just scared him. We were seventeen and hadn’t talked in forever, since the time I pushed him into the pool for trying to give me a wedgie. Or at least in the year since my dad had died. Gabe was a foot taller than he’d been back when I had had my crush on him, and something else…more secretive, I guess. Quieter. He got the edge-trimmer out from wherever it was and put it in my hand and said, “Anything else?” I think it was raining outside. I told him I was sorry about his parents. He stared at me like he might slap me. “I’d rather not talk about it,” he said. I told him I had been there. Boy, had I. But when I apologized, he said “Don’t be sorry.” Next thing I’m sitting on the hood of his mom’s Volvo with his waist in between my knees and we’re kissing. I had kissed boys before, but not like that. Not like fighting and kissing at the same time, with our belt buckles scraping together. When I said I’d better go, what I meant was Tell me to stay, but he didn’t. I spent a couple weeks in agony before he called me on the phone and said, “So what are you doing?”