mad, put the toys away, then I'd go to bed and get back up in about fifteen minutes and keep playing. I did it all the time at home. Then Uncle Chris picked me up and said, 'I told you to pick up your toys now.' I knew things weren't going right, so I pulled out another of Mom's tricks and told him, 'I'm tired, I want to go to bed.'"
"Your mother would claim being tired to get out of doing something?"
"Yeah. Tired or sick or grumpy. Whatever worked. Uncle Chris was mad. 'You'll go to bed right after you pick up those toys.' And he stood there and watched me. Every time I tried to sit back down and play with a toy, he'd take it away from me and pull me back up. 'Pick up your toys then go to bed,' he said over and over. I tried whining, I tried pouting, I tried crying. I remember Dad came in after a while. I ran over and hugged his leg. 'Uncle Chris is being mean to me. He won't let me go to bed.' I don't remember what Uncle Chris said, but Dad pulled me off his leg and said, 'Then pick up your toys.' And he walked away." He took a long drag and tapped the ash thoughtfully. "It seemed like forever, but it was probably only like forty-five minutes, maybe an hour, and Uncle Chris waited me out. Finally I was too tired and too confused so I for the first time in my life, I actually did a chore. That, Doc, was my first real encounter with discipline."
"And how did that make you feel?"
"Angry at Uncle Chris and Dad. It was shortly after that I got grounded for the first time. Not really my fault though. Dad told me to do something, and I didn't, of course. He said I had to because he said so. And at age six I yelled back, 'It's not fair! Mommy doesn't do have to do anything just 'cause you say so.'" He shifted his position again. "Can I have a drink, Doc?"
The older man poured out a glass of water for the young man.
He drank it. "Thanks." Then he took another long drag. "God, I'd never seen Dad so mad. Scared the hell out of me, honestly. I didn't care about the grounding. Just for the night, but he shoved all my toys in a box, took them out of my room, and sent me in for the evening. I remember screaming a lot and the next day Dad put my toys back in before he left for work."
The doctor waited patiently.
"When I was eight, I got chicken pox. Probably got it from one of my cousins since I was home-schooled. Well, Dad hadn't had chicken pox, so when Aunt Amy called to say her kids came down with it, and to watch me, Dad decided he'd better check into a hotel. Mom didn't like that idea, but Dad always was pretty firm when it came to me. I remember one night Dad called me and started to tell me to make sure I was drinking plenty of water and eating regularly and to use anti-itching lotion to make sure I didn't scratch so much I got scars. I thought, 'Why is Dad telling me this? Isn't it Mom's job to take care of me when I'm sick?' A couple of days later, sure enough, I got hit by it. Frankly, until I ended up with the fever, I was handling it a lot better than Mom."
"How so?"
"She just kept freaking and worrying and calling Dad every single night bitching about how hard it was taking care of me."
"And the fever?"
"Yeah. A couple of days into it I got a 104 degree fever. It was bad. I was delusional, as I found out later. Got the story from Dad and Aunt Amy." He tamped out the cigarette angrily. "Mom couldn't drive. She knew how, but she pretended to get migraines when she drove, so eventually Dad gave up making her drive anywhere. Even with me that sick, she wasn't going to get behind the wheel. So she called Dad at work, totally freaking out. He calmed her down and called an ambulance for me. Then he called up Aunt Amy to see if she could make the four hour drive from out-of-state to come help out. I was so delusional I didn't even realize I was riding in an ambulance." He noisily lit up another cigarette and he shook his leg, fidgeting. "Aunt Amy made the trip in less than three hours, God bless her. Mom was totally useless. Here I am delusional with fever and Mom was totally totally useless."
"Did your father come visit you?"
"He was still afraid of catching chicken pox. I don't blame him for that. It sucked when I had it, and I hear it's worse for adults. Anyway, Dad was too busy taking care of Mom," he said bitterly. "She passed out at the hospital, you see. Just couldn't handle it all so she passed out. Aunt Amy was the one to come see me. I woke up and asked her where my parents were. Even at that age I could tell she was pissed off. She told me that Mom had passed out and was under observation and Dad was with her. I was pissed off too. Parents are supposed to take care of their children, goddamn it."
"So you are resentful of your mother's attention-grabbing?"
"Wouldn't you be, Doc? Here I am, never really been sick, and my parents can't take care of me. Dad tried to explain to me why he couldn't be around until I was better, and I kind of understood that. But Mom had no excuse. None. I think that was the beginning of my understanding that I couldn't count on Mom to do anything because she just couldn't handle it. It didn't matter what went wrong. The pipes broke one year, and she called Dad at work, totally hysterical. He had to call for an emergency plumber to come over and when he got home, she was sitting on the couch, totally spaced out, like she'd gone through some big trauma. She didn't do a goddamn thing. Hell, she wasn't even watching me. That plumber could have walked out with me and she wouldn't have noticed." He blew out a long stream. "God. After we were released from the hospital, Aunt Amy stuck around for a few days to take care of both of us. That was the worst of it for me, so I recovered in a few days, and Dad could come home. But Mom just whined about mysterious stomach ailments and always feeling dizzy. I think she just wanted an excuse to sit on her fat ass and get fatter. More water, Doc?"
More water was poured.
"After the fever, Dad gave me instructions for emergencies. Calling 911, calling him, then calling my aunt or uncle. Me. I was eight, but I think I wasn't that surprised. He didn't say it right out, but basically I was told Mom was fragile and I would have to be strong and be able to take care of myself. And later, that I would have to take care of Mom. How's that for a kid to deal with? 'Sorry son, I married a useless woman and I have to work, so you'll have to be man of the house.' At eight."
"And were you the man of the house, so to speak?"
"Yeah. I wanted Dad to pay attention me. He was either working, cleaning, or paying attention to Mom. I thought maybe if he didn't have to clean, he'd pay attention to me. What actually happened was that when I was too small to reach a lot of things, I'd spend time with Dad while he cleaned up, and then Mom would announce she was dizzy or sick or God knows what and he'd dutifully tend to her. But hey, it was better than nothing at all."
"So you think your mother was jealous of the attention he gave you?"
"Yeah, no kidding Doc," he snapped, angrily dropping off the ash. His foot was shaking hard with a nervous twitch. "Thing is, I don't think she was doing it on purpose. Well, obviously on purpose, but I don't think she was doing it consciously. Falls in with that psychosomatic stuff, I guess."
"Yes, it does."
"And Dad loved her. God, did he love her. He didn't deserve to fall in love with that kind of woman. He loved her until the bitter end." He blew out a smoke ring. "But we'll get to that later, right, Doc?"
"You can tell me whatever you like."
"So yeah, there I am, starting to clean the house and learning to cook and all that stuff. Dad had his first heart attack when I was ten. He was barely forty years old. Mom freaked out. I had to call 911. How wrong is that?"
"Your father survived?"
"Yeah, that time he did anyway. I was sent to stay with my aunt and uncle for a couple of weeks to make it easier for Dad to recover. Should've sent Mom to stay with them and let me help Dad for all the help she was."
"She didn't help your father at all?"
The young man took a drag and slowly released a stream of smoke. "Well, she tried anyway. But she didn't like it because the doctors gave Dad a new, low fat, low cholesterol diet. Mom's favorite food was sausage. And since the doctors said saus
age was bad, she wasn't going to argue, but she decided it was just too hard to cook with Dad's new diet, so she just stopped cooking. I mean, what the hell? She spends so many years of their marriage bragging about her cooking and not really letting Dad in the kitchen but the minute it means she's actually got to work, she doesn't want to do it anymore.”
“What did your father do about this?” the doctor asked.
The young man sighed. “Same thing he always did. He got mad, she started whining, and eventually he gave up trying to get her to do anything and just started cooking himself. When I got old enough, I helped cook, but Mom never bothered with it again.” He sighed again. “I remember how different it was staying with my aunt and uncle. Ben and Margaret went to public school, of course, so I had to go to work with Aunt Amy. She worked at a homeless shelter, and she expected me to help at least part of the day. I didn't like that. See, Mom's idea of homeschooling was to hand me a workbook and then go surf the web. I finished the workbooks in an hour and then I read on my own. Mom didn't care what I read, as long as I read. So I had most of the day to myself. Aunt Amy was careful to monitor me, of course, and I actually did work. Mostly stuff like folding sheets and towels and that sort of thing. Nothing hard, and not for more