Child of My Right Hand (4 page)

She paused, and just then—his room was directly below theirs, and they'd discovered that although the house was otherwise well-built, there wasn't much sound-proofing—Simon juiced his sound system, and “A Whole New World” from
Aladdin
, which had long been one of his favorites, a comfort song, like spaghetti was a comfort food, blasted through the floor.

“He'd eaten two full plates,” Genna said. “I could tell he hated himself for eating so much.”

Jack watched her recognize the song; tears swelled her rain-cloud eyes. Simon was a soprano when he first learned “A Whole New World” to audition for a kid's play in Cincinnati. By opening night, he'd sounded more like Aladdin than the princess. Two more years, and their boy soprano had become a baritone.

“I asked about his day, and it poured out of him. Apparently,” Genna pursed her lips, listening for Simon to start singing, “it's been going on for some time.”

“Why didn't he tell us?” Before the words left his mouth, Jack knew. And though she didn't say, Because he was afraid you'd tell him not to wear so much eye make-up, she didn't have to.

“It started maybe two weeks ago, then died down. But today was bad again.”

Simon started to sing, and inside the operatic baritone booming up through the floor, there was still a little boy in love with magic carpet rides. “A whole new world. A new fantastic point of view.”

“Besides,” Genna said, “he's been talking to that guidance counselor.”

“Mister O'Neill?”

“No one to tell us no, or where to go.”

“That woman. The one you found so interesting.”

We really do need to talk, Jack thought. Then Simon was singing at the top of his lungs, “A whole new world with you.”

Through the floor he heard Lizzie pound on Simon's door, demanding he shut up, she was trying to sleep.

“We're supposed to call her first thing in the morning for an appointment,” Genna said.

“I'll take care of it.”

“I was hoping you would.” She smiled. “I've got a few more pages in my book.”

“Why don't you read in here?”

“It's more comfortable in my study.” She touched his shoulder. “Don't worry. Everything's all right.”

***

In the morning, from his university office, Jack telephoned the high school and asked for Marla Lindstrom. The secretary transferred him to the guidance office, where a student worker—Jack wondered how much the student knew—transferred him to Mrs. Lindstrom's voicemail. Marla's recorded voice was low and melodic, understated. Five minutes later his phone rang.

“Jack, this is Marla Lindstrom.”

She could have said Professor Barish or Jack Barish, but no, just Jack.

“Thanks for getting back.” Jack's palm dampened the receiver, and he took a deep, steadying breath. “My wife and I would like to come in as soon as possible.” What was the proper way to phrase this? “To discuss the problems Simon's been having.”

“I'm glad, I was about to call you when I got your message.”

“Why?”

“Excuse me a moment.”

He could hear background noise at Marla's end. Then she returned.

“I'd like us to meet with Dr. Burroughs, the principal.”

“Has something happened?”

“Oh no,” she said. “Not really.”

He waited for Marla to disclose what hadn't happened.

“The mother of a football player called to say there was a rumor the football team was going to beat Simon up today.”

“The entire team?”

“She didn't say. And before you ask, I don't know who the mother was, she wouldn't give a name.” Jack heard voices at her end again. “Dr. Burroughs can see us at eleven-thirty. Can you, or your wife come in?”

“We'll both be there.”

He hung up and called Genna. When they'd finished speaking, Jack sat in his office, fuming. Why not basketball? Cross-country? Why did football have to be where all the assholes were? He played in high school. He was pretty good, too. Not like his older brother Russ who was second-team All-Ivy at Yale his junior and senior years. But Jack was good enough to start at tight end two years in high school and to be chosen first or second in pick-up games his entire childhood. At Vassar, too, in the dorm games, the intramurals against the other houses, he was always The Man. Good enough that he thought football was something he'd pass onto his son, not only the skill but a love of the game.

When he met Genna in grad school and learned she had played tennis in school and that her younger brother was a star quarterback, he'd cheered silently, knowing it was silly, but thinking, If we have kids we'll breed football players, they'll get it from both sides. It wasn't until later, when they'd fallen in love and it no longer mattered and they were telling secrets, that Genna disclosed she and her brother had different fathers, that the man she called Daddy wasn't her biological dad. Jack, she'd whispered, I think I'm a love child.

She'd laughed and widened those blue-gray eyes which sometimes filled with light. He ripped off her clothes and they'd made love right there on his grad school couch.

“Love child.” He hummed a few bars, humming and humping for all he was worth.

When Simon arrived he clearly had Jack's body shape, sturdy legs, barrel chest, a miniature football player, the way some very young children don't look like kids at all, but tiny adults. Such hopes, had Jack. His first-born son! He coached T-ball, soccer, and pee-wee football, but could never capture Simon's interest. At six and seven, he was one of those kids (there were some on every team) who'd stand on the field gazing up at cloud faces or squawking birds while the other kids charged past pursuing the ball or each other. That was the first wedge between them, how much Jack cared that he play sports—In our blood, goddamnit!—pressed up against the reality of how little Simon cared.

Now football was back: the damn football team. And however much Jack hated the fucking Barbies (he used to fantasize about destroying them, as if they were the problem and not Simon), the fishnet sleeves and makeup, he adored his son and would defend him against the football team and whomever else. He called the university information number, got through to Dean McWilliams who was in charge of Diversity and Minority Affairs. When he picked Genna up to drive to the high school, he was armed and ready.

They found Marla in the guidance office. She wore a black two-piece pants suit, very tailored, of the sort Genna would never wear because it would be too tight across, well, everywhere. Much as he didn't want to, he found the woman thrilling.

“Marla Lindstrom,” Jack began, “Genna Barish.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Marla offered her small hand, which Genna took in her much larger one. They seemed to take each other's measure, Jack thought, like wrestlers.

“Simon tells me you've been very kind to him. Thank you.”

“He's a wonderful person. A breath of fresh air our school needs.”

“Excuse me,” Jack said. “It seems to me the school's choking on that fresh air.”

“Only certain elements in it.” Marla's eyes were the blue Jack remembered the sky being in California. “And these poor kids need to learn how to breathe.” She checked her watch, which lay small and golden against her slim wrist. “I've felt uncomfortable these past few weeks not being in touch with you. But Simon asked me not to, and I've tried to respect his wishes.”

“We understand.”

Genna often slipped into the first person plural when it came to the kids. Jack wondered what Marla thought about that as they followed her to the main office. One-story Tipton High had been built on the cheap sometime in the seventies. The building was beginning to show its age, but there was nothing grossly deficient. Extra-wide halls permitted students to pass without banging into each other unless they wanted to. The Media Center, formerly the library, was small, the computer lab inadequate. Unlike the Five Towns school Jack attended, there was no formal auditorium. In its place, there was an auditeria: half-lunchroom, half-central meeting space with folding gymnasium seating stored against the walls.

Marla left them front of Dr. Burroughs's office and apologized for missing the beginning of the meeting. They watched her hurry away, heels clicking against the high-gloss hard-tiled hallway. “I can see why Simon likes her,” Genna said, and looked up at him.

They entered Burroughs's office together. The Tipton principal was only five-eight or so, broad-shouldered with a hanging gut, and a neatly-barbered brown beard gone gray on his cheeks. Bushy eyebrows and round, magnifying lenses made him look like a badger, or was it a beaver: round, squat, and furry.

“Mister and Mrs. Barish.” He stood up from his computer. “Thanks for coming in.”

We don't need to be thanked, Jack thought, any parent would. Already distrusting him, Jack shook Burroughs's hand, then sat with Genna across the principal's dark wood desk, the one decent piece of furniture in the office.

“So.” Burroughs cleared his throat. “Mrs. Lindstrom will join us shortly. We've asked Simon to come in at the end.”

Genna and Jack exchanged glances. Academic life and seventeen years of parenting Simon had trained them to enter meetings knowing what they wanted.

“Dr. Burroughs,” Jack began, “I want you to understand where we're coming from. Although we're new in town, we actively support Tipton schools.”

Genna interjected, “We've lived the past seven years in Cincinnati.”

“My wife and I, we're both professors at the university and we'll be talking to student groups, trying to help pass the levy.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“In principle, we have nothing against the football team. I played football in high school. Genna's father played. Both our brothers played Division I football in college.”

Burroughs looked at Jack through his round magnified lenses as if he suspected Jack were slightly mad.

“My point is, we're not biased against athletes. Quite the contrary. But I also need to tell you, we take these threats from the football team very seriously.”

“Now just a minute,” Burroughs said, “I'm not sure the football team, or anyone else for that matter— ”

“The phone call from the mother this morning,” Genna said softly.

Burroughs looked caught out. Perhaps Marla wasn't supposed to tell them?

“And kids coming up to Simon in the hall and saying ‘Die, faggot.' We consider those overt threats, and we take them very seriously.”

Burroughs's right cheek expanded outward under pressure from his tongue. “We all think it's serious, Mister Barish. That's why we're here.”

Jack could feel blood beating in his ears, rage building up inside him, and he struggled to keep the pressure he felt out of his voice. “We think it's so serious that I've spoken to the Title IX administrator at the University, who's informed me that since Ohio and federal laws, and I quote, ‘Guarantee students the right to a school environment free from violence or the threat of physical violence,' and since this threatened violence is about sexual orientation and the school has been warned,” Jack paused, trying to regain control of his voice, “although I've never been party to a lawsuit, I will sue the district for every dollar I can if anything happens to my son.”

“Mister Barish,” Burroughs said, looking out through his round lenses as if from inside a cave, “are you threatening me?”

Absolutely, he longed to say, feeling the telltale tendon bulging on his neck. Not threatening—this was schoolyard when he was growing up—Promising, cocksucker! Then he felt Genna's hand on his knee.

“Of course not, Dr. Burroughs. I'm sorry if I gave that impression.”

Primordial throat and teeth-baring silence followed, during which Burroughs surely believed he had backed Jack down. Then, with her eyes the balmy side of blue, Genna said, “What we'd like, Dr. Burroughs, is for you, or the guidance counselors, someone, to meet as soon as possible with the football team, and tell them how inappropriate this behavior is.”

Jack concentrated on Genna's hand squeezing his knee..

“And how swiftly and harshly Tipton High will deal both with violence or the threat of violence. Something like that.”

Genna smiled at Burroughs—how did she manage it?—then at Jack, as if they were twelve, or maybe eight-year-old chuckle-heads. There was a knock, and Marla entered. “Sorry to be late.” She sat in the last remaining chair and crossed her slim legs. “Simon will be here shortly.”

“Before he arrives,” the principal began, “I wanted to tell Mister and Mrs. Barish…”

That's Doctor and Doctor Barish, Jack thought, but did not say.

“…that there have been complaints about Simon's behavior.”

“From whom?” Jack asked.

“Other students report he's been holding hands in the hall. Kissing his friend on the cheek. That's against school policy, regardless of gender.”

Genna and Jack glanced at each other. He said, “What about kids banging into him saying, ‘Die, faggot'?”

“I'm not excusing their behavior. Don't think for a moment anyone is.” Burroughs glanced at the open file folder on his desk. “But I see that Simon went to a performing arts high school last year. He needs to understand that this is a very different place.”

Genna said, “I'm sure he does.”

“We know about the Klan march,” Jack said. “That's why we settled in Cincinnati in the first place.”

“That was before my time,” Burroughs said.

Jack's eyes swung to Marla.

“It was terrible,” she said. “There are a lot of ignorant people here.”

“Those attitudes remain in the community,” Burroughs added. “They just go underground.”

Like badgers.