Fathermucker (21 page)

Perhaps the answer is metaphysical. Aquarius, the zodiacal sign of the “New Age” astrologers have awaited for at least a century, is the most evolved of air signs. Air, the element that rules the brain, that governs the way we think. Is this fundamental reorganization of collective human thinking—and whatever its origins, the autism spike represents nothing less—an indication that the Age of Aquarius is at last dawning?

I like to think of Roland's condition as a blessing, a gift. When he's in high school, he'll kick ass in mathematics and science courses. He'll ace his SATs. He'll go to some brainiac college for engineering or physics or, if his current interests hold, architecture, and he will be well-compensated in his professional life. Will he have difficulties making friends? Most likely. But then, he won't need them in the way Maude and the other neuro-typicals will. The truth is, I'm not worried about his future. I'm only worried about his present. If he can make it through kindergarten unscathed, the boy will be unstoppable. I firmly believe that.

Other parents are starting to leave—there go Daryl “Duke” Reid and his daughter, hand in hand, strolling back to the car like normal people—and still Roland sobs gently in my arms. He's stopped fighting back now, resigned himself to the prison of his father's arms, but his cheeks are still red, his face still glassy.

So now I've missed my chance with Reid, I've paid a babysitter for nothing, I still have no idea what Sharon meant about Stacy having an affair, and, worst of all, I've shamed my son in front of his classmates. I'm a complete failure, the worst father in the world.

To get back in Roland's good graces, I resort to the tried-and-true method: bribery. “Roland,” I ask him, running my fingers through his thick sandy-blond hair, “would it make you feel better if we went to Lowe's and got a floor-plan book?”

It works. Thank fucking God, it works. He snaps out of it. His body stills, his sobs cease, the demon is exorcized. A smile crosses his face. He sits up, still in my lap, and looks me straight in the eye (he's always a few inches too close when he does this, making it hard for me to focus). “Daddy, I would like to buy a new floor-plan book,” he says, sniffling.

“Then that's what we'll do.”

Mrs. Drinkwater averts her gaze as we walk by—she, too, is ashamed by what happened—but Lenore says, “It's okay, Roland. You'll have a better day tomorrow,” and Irene gives him a little wave.

By the time we're in the car, he seems to have forgotten all about the outburst. But I remember.

“Daddy,” he says. “Music!”

You can check out any time you like but you can never—

INT. ULSTER COUNTY COURTHOUSE, KINGSTON, N.Y. – DAY

In a large courtroom, a bevy of Ulster County residents, a diverse sea of humanity, at jury duty. Some are reading books, others chatting, still more staring silently at the big flag behind the unoccupied judge's chair.

DARYL “DUKE” REID, sporting a dress shirt, tie, and snazzy suit pants, looks up from the battered copy of
Ulysses
he's reading and squints at the pretty woman sitting one chair away from him: STACY.

T
HEY BUILT THE
L
OWE'S ON 299, JUST OVER THE
N
EW
P
ALTZ BORDER
in Highland, a few years ago, over fierce opposition from the town's vocal
BUY LOCAL
faction. There was a slew of angry letters to the paper—although there are always angry letters in the
New Paltz Times
, whose editors seem to delight in fanning the flames of incendiary municipal conflict, no matter how small—defending the monopoly of the local True Value, lamenting the evils of the parent corporation, and predicting that the presence of the Lowe's would grind to a halt the traffic on Main Street (this last charge was, and is, preposterous; it's a hardware store, not a Dead show). But the opponents were in New Paltz, and the store is in Highland, so the plan was approved. It has saved me untold hours of time driving to Kingston for items unattainable at True Value, and, on rainy days, is a convenient place to take the kids for a ride in the big car-shaped shopping carts. Plus, Roland loves Lowe's, even more than Toys “R” Us. If left to his own devices, Roland would stay here for days. He would live here. He could while away the hours leafing through the floor-plan books, but he also likes to walk the aisles, especially the ones dedicated to lighting, and to explore the kitchen sets on display in the back—opening every cabinet, testing every drawer.

Right now, we're in one of the lighting aisles. Roland is taking boxes off the shelves, reading what kind of light it is, and telling me where it will go—“This is the Plymouth wall sconce. This one we can hang in the
master
bath.”—although he would be talking about where it will go even if I wasn't standing beside him, making sure the box doesn't slip from his shaky grip and fall on the floor. My function here is twofold: to keep the merchandise from smashing and my son from being struck by a stray forklift. Otherwise, I'm useless.

The only sign that Roland has endured the single worst meltdown of his young life is the redness in his cheeks. But then, his cheeks have always been unusually red, even when he was little. (A few years ago, some busybody came to our table at the Plaza Diner and asked if he had measles. Stacy almost threw a butter knife at her, ninja-style.) But aside from the ruddy cheeks, he's totally fine. No trace of the tantrum.

As we stroll slowly down the aisle, I'm struck by the fact that Roland is
walking
, rather than riding in the cart: a recent phenomenon. This is only the third or fourth time he's actually set foot in Lowe's, although he's been here countless times. Kids grow up so gradually, you sometimes don't notice the milestones.

“This pink pendant lamp can go in Maude's room,” Roland says, glancing over his shoulder but not actually looking at me.

We've been here for maybe half an hour, and covered only about a quarter of the lighting stock, when who should come down the aisle but Peter Berliner, his three kids in tow. He doesn't look like a cuckold, that's for sure. He's a handsome guy, strong chin and cheekbones, wavy hair falling in his face. His kids are flat-out gorgeous. Even Ernest, who's autistic and looks it, is devilishly handsome. The three of them together, with their dashing dad, look like the Cullens, from
Twilight
. When they run in the sunlight, their skin sparkles.

Peter slows down his cart as he passes by and gives me a “Hey, Josh.”

The poor guy. He has no idea, none, that every mommy in town is talking about him right now, that his cheating wife was just busted
in flagrante delicto
at Dia:Beacon. I could remedy that, of course, pull a Sharon Rothman, but I would never. It's not my place. Or is it? Am I doing him a disservice, not telling him? Why must I have to make this sort of decision? It's not like I asked to be told. Now the challenge is getting through this conversation without revealing what I know. Like not blowing a surprise party, but with much more dire consequences should I fail.

“Peter. What's the good word?”

We execute an elaborate frat-boy-style handshake that ends with us snapping fingers.

“Cynthia sent me to pick up some bins. Exciting, right?”

“Very.” Long pause as I search for something to say. “I heard you were pretty hammered last night.”

He eyes me quizzically. “No . . .” he says, drawing out the word to form an implicit question. “Ernest, put that back.”

The boy has picked up a curtain rod and is swinging it like a baseball bat, which Roland of course finds hysterical.

“You weren't out with Soren last night?”

“No, I was at HoeBowl, down in Pine Bush. Last night was the semis.”

“How'd you do?”

“Shitty, but we won anyway.”

“So you weren't with Soren.”

“No.” His face is the picture of suspicion. He must encounter a lot of this lately—remarks from people that don't quite make sense, clues dropped anonymously at his doorstep. His subconscious must be catching on, even if his waking mind remains oblivious. Just like I dream of mice before I consciously hear them. “Haven't seen him all week.”

This is strange . . . if Soren wasn't out drinking with Peter, then who
was
he out drinking with, and why did he lie to Meg?
The more you dig, the more you find.

“I guess Meg had it wrong. Or Soren was so drunk he thought he was with you, and it was actually Earl Anthony.”

He snickers, acknowledging my obscure bowling reference. “Maybe. The guy can put it away. Ernest, I said no!” He turns his attention to his son, the other kids more or less behaving, and I realize that Roland is gone.

“Shit, I lost my kid,” I tell Peter, racing to the end of the aisle. “See you around.”

“See you around.”

Roland hasn't gotten far—he's in the next aisle, working his way methodically through the boxes of lights. I decide not to bother hollering at him for straying—he's had enough rebuke for one day. Instead, I coax him out of the aisle with the promise of a new floor-plan book—we go with
One-Story Homes and Garage Apartments
, a real page-turner—and after a trip to the bathroom, we're back in the vast and mostly empty parking lot (so much for the prophetic abilities of that Cassandrine letter-writer to the
New Paltz Times
).

As I'm strapping Roland into his carseat—he's too distracted by the new book to do it himself—I catch a last glimpse of Peter Berliner, shepherding his brood into a green Ford Windstar. He moves slowly, almost sadly, as if he already knows.

Friday, 2:24 p.m.

V
ANESSA IS IN THE DRIVEWAY, LEANING AGAINST THE SIDE OF HER
gold Escort
, puffing on a cigarette but not, best as I can tell, inhaling it. The tableau of a twenty-six-year-old coed with lowcut jeans, a form-fitting top, and a decent-looking face sucking on a Camel Light
if she smokes she pokes
while draped on the soft contours of an American-made automobile should be provocative, sexy, alluring. How many ads for how many products have exploited this sort of image through the years? And yet Vanessa manages somehow to look ridiculous, like a child who's raided her mother's wardrobe and appropriated her cigarettes, which she (and Vanessa) does not know how to wear or smoke.

“Oh, hi,” she says as I get out of the car, taking another puff, but otherwise making no move to hurry.

“Um . . . where's Maude?”

“She fell asleep watching TV?”

Stacy has made it clear to Vanessa on numerous occasions that the television is to be used only as a last resort, that we're paying her to
play
with the kids, not just watch over them in case aliens hell-bent on abduction and anal probing zip over from Pine Bush. This is why we hired Vanessa to begin with; she impressed upon on us how, as a ceramics major, she would do arts and crafts with the kids. Never happened. It may as well have been a New York mayoral campaign promise to build the Second Avenue Subway.

“Right. Do me a favor, then, and stay out here and keep an eye on Roland. He's in the car, reading a book.”

“Oh, okay.”

After tripping over Steve the cat, who has appeared out of the ether as soon as the screen door opens, I enter the house to find that Maude is not, in fact, asleep in front of the TV, but on the toilet, where she has just birthed one of the stinkiest poops of her young life (which is saying something; my daughter can really stink up a room). She's already used half a box of baby wipes in a vain attempt to clean herself. Her right hand is caked in brown, and there is a streak of fresh crap on the blue ceramic wall tile.

Fatherhood is shit.

Back in high school, during my stint at McDonald's, I worked the grill. I used to assemble the cheeseburgers. The way you assemble cheeseburgers is, you put the tops—
crowns
, in the Golden Arches parlance—of twelve buns upside-down on a metal tray. You add the ketchup and mustard, the pickles, the chopped onions, and the slice of cheese. You then clip the tray to the grill and slide the patties onto the crowns. The last step is, you take the twelve bun bottoms—or
heels
—out of the toaster on a giant spatula. The training-video way to do this without spilling any bun heels is by hand—you move the heels one at a time from the spatula to the respective patty. The pros, the guys who really knew what they were doing, had a quicker way of unloading the heels. They'd just swipe them off the giant spatula with one fell swoop of their arm, and
voilà
, the heels would land where they were supposed to go. This was a risky maneuver, because more often than not, you lost a heel or two and had to start from scratch, and you wound up wasting time rather than saving it. But if you were feeling it, and you executed the maneuver—especially at lunchtime, when the stakes were so high—the effect was like pulling a tablecloth out from beneath a set table without disturbing so much as a fork. The first time I did this successfully, during the busy one o'clock hour . . . well, let's just say there's a reason it's called the lunch
rush
.

I often think about those days sweating over the grill at Mickey D's when I am called upon to do something like my current task. Because this is where, as a father—and not to toot my own horn here—I really shine. As quickly as possible, I take a baby wipe and wipe the brown goop off Maude's little hand, before she decides to pick her nose or suck her thumb. Then I pluck her off the toilet and deposit her in the tub, and before she can so much as protest, I've washed her thoroughly with soap and a wet washcloth. I plop her on the bathmat and wrap her in a yellow duck towel. Then I fish the baby wipes out of the toilet, throw them in a plastic bag along with the soiled washcloth, flush the toilet, spray some cleanser on the stain on the tile, wipe it down, add the paper towel to the shit-stained wipes already inside the plastic bag, tie off the bag, throw it out the window, wash my hands, and carry her to her room for a change of clothes. The whole process takes less than three minutes. And when I'm done, I feel as giddy as I did when executing the Magical Heel Trick at McDonald's circa 1989.

No sooner am I back in the living room than the phone rings. I'm expecting Stacy or Sharon, but no, it's Meg. Meg, whose husband has a secret.

“Hey . . . Josh,” she says, her voice slow and stoned-sounding as usual, “what are you guys up to?”

“Oh, the usual craziness. Roland had a meltdown at the pumpkin patch, so we had to leave early, and when we came home, Vanessa was in the driveway smoking a cigarette while Maude was taking a monster dump.”

“Oh. My. God. You
have
to get rid of her.”

“I know.”

“What are you guys doing now? I'm thinking of maybe heading over to Hasbrouck.”

“I just got home.”

“Come back out! I've got some gossip.”

“Yeah, fine, what the hell. You going now?”

“In a few minutes.”

“Okay. Oh, Meg? You don't happen to have Sharon Rothman's number, do you?”

“I think so. Why?”

“Oh, we were . . . discussing something at the playdate, but I had to leave, and we never got to finish.”

“You know what? I do have it, but it's in my phone. I can't get it until I hang up.”

“It's okay. I'll get it when I see you.”

“You sure? I can call you right back.”

“It's fine, really. It's not a big deal,” even though the deal couldn't be bigger. “See you in a few.”

I throw some juice boxes and Pirate's Booty in a plastic bag, grab Maude off the couch, and head back outside, locking the door behind me. Roland is still lost in his book and his garage apartments. Vanessa has apparently fired up another cigarette, and is staring listlessly at the trees, the remaining leaves of which are glorious shades of yellow, orange, red, and brown. Ignoring her, I install Maude in her carseat.

“Oh,” says the babysitter, finally finished with her nicotine fix, “I wanted to talk to you about something?”

I give her a look that suggests she should continue. She doesn't pick up on it. So I say, “Shoot.”

“I was talking with some other babysitters, and they get twelve dollars an hour instead of ten? Twelve is the going rate now. And I think, you know, I've been with you for a while now, and I think I should be paid the going rate.”

The only time Vanessa comes down to earth, the only time she doesn't raise her voice at the end of a sentence and turn every statement into a question, is when money is involved. When she negotiated the job, she had a dizzying list of demands: ten dollars an hour, twenty hours of steady work per week, no Saturday nights, and so on. It was shocking. This drippy girl who would later ask if we had
water
she could borrow was transformed into the reincarnation of Samuel Gompers. This generation, man, I tell you. All these twentysomethings who came up in the boom-boom eighties, they act like they're so
entitled
. And yet so many of them are functionally useless. It's really something.

And there I go, sounding like
my
father. May the Lord have mercy on his crotchety soul.

“Speaking of money,” I tell her, “here.” I dig into my wallet and hand her a twenty.

She eyes it with what can only be contempt. “You said I'd be here for three hours?”

“Well,” I tell her, “you were here for two.” Less than two, actually, since she was ten minutes late, but I don't press the point.

“Yes, but you
said
it would be three.” She crosses her arms. “I was really kind of depending on that extra ten dollars.”

“Were you.”

What I should do is call her out. Fire her. Let her know how I
really
feel about her sorry babysitting abilities. Vanessa isn't in a union; I can dismiss her at any time. I'm under no obligation whatsoever to pay her another dime. That said, babysitters, they do hold a certain power. At the end of the day, we need them more than they need us. Babysitters are Saudi Arabia, we parents are the United States, and the hours they spend watching our children are the barrels of oil deep beneath the desert sand. What if I read her the riot act, tell her to buzz off, and then there's an emergency, and I need her to come back? You can't fire a sitter without a replacement lined up. You just can't. On the other hand, the notion of paying her ten dollars for doing absolutely nothing, especially since I've already paid her twenty for doing absolutely nothing, is infuriating. The more I think about it, in fact, the angrier I become. But I'm just not up for a confrontation. So with a long sigh that is probably wasted on her, I again take out my wallet. All I have
shit
are twenties.

“Do you have change?”

“No,” she says, without checking her wallet. “I only have the money you gave me.”

“Fine,” I tell her, my voice sharp. “Consider this severance.” I hand her the twenty, hop into the Odyssey, fire up the engine, and peel out of the driveway.

Vanessa runs toward the minivan, waving her hands.

I pull back into driveway and roll down the window. “
Now
what?”

I'm expecting her to grovel, to apologize, to beg for her job back, but no. “My bag,” she says. “I left it on the piano.”

Maybe she doesn't know what
severance
means.

“Of course you did.”

So I have to park, and kill the engine, and walk back to the porch, and open the door—Steve runs back out as I do, a black-and-white blur bursting into the woods—and wait for Vanessa to collect her things, which she does with zero sense of urgency.

As we wait in awkward silence, the mail truck drives by. The mailman—who is not a mail
man
at all but a heavyset woman named Fawn, who will beep incessantly when she delivers a package that can't be stuffed in the roadside mailbox, lest she be compelled to remove her ample bulk from the truck and deposit said package on the front porch—gives me a wave as she motors down the hill to deliver my neighbor Bill his McCain/Palin propaganda and NRA membership newsletter.

“I'll give you the change next time,” Vanessa says, stepping onto the porch.

“There's not going to be a
next time
, Vanessa,” I explain, bolting the door. “This is it. We're done. You're not worth twelve dollars; you weren't worth ten dollars. You're a lousy babysitter, and my kids can't stand you. Now get off my fucking porch.”

I jog back to the driveway, collect the mail, and hop back into minivan. I don't look back at her, not once.

I have to admit, it feels pretty good.

A
NOTHER COP ON
B
LACK
C
REEK
R
OAD, EATING A DONUT
—How cliché! At least go for a cruller, officer!—as I pass. Then, dashing across the street as I approach, a blur of burnt orange: a fox, a real live fox! Pinky Dinky Doo's catchphrase comes to mind:
Now there's something you don't see everyday
. In New York, you have celebrity sightings. Leo on his mountain bike, Jake and Maggie at the West Bank Cafe. Here, you catch glimpses of creatures well-represented in fable literature, animals that, as a child of the suburbs and a man of the city, I'd never laid eyes on before relocating upstate: foxes, giant turtles, newts, hawks, even bald eagles. The sense of wonder and excitement I feel upon spying this creature, a red-haired thing that seems half-cat, half-dog, on Black Creek Road, is no different than what I felt when I happened to ride the Rock Center elevator with Heidi Klum ten years ago. A fox is a fox, after all.

At the red light at Ohioville and 299, I flip through the mail. Cablevision bill, Central Hudson bill, Chase Visa bill, Waste Management bill, Netflix (it's either
I Love You, Man
or
He's Just Not That Into You
, my selection or Stacy's, and the contents of that red envelope will determine what I wind up watching tonight, assuming I have any energy left over to watch TV after putting the kids down), and the new
Us Weekly
, the cover of which startles me to the degree that I almost pull a Lizzie Grubman and hit the gas instead of the brake.

On the cover is Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas (as opposed to her older-but-cuter blue-blooded namesake across the pond) and her husband, the famous-for-reasons-beyond-my-understanding Josh Duhamel. At first glance they appear to be together, perhaps attending an exclusive premiere party, but it's actually two different photos juxtaposed to create that illusion. Fergie, on the left, with her Grecian-goddess hair and canary-yellow dress, is a spring flower, a vernal nymph (and not at all the hip hop fly girl of the “My Humps” video). Duhamel, wearing three days of scruff and a black leather sports coat over a black shirt, could not look more villainous. Below their celebrated visages is the terrible headline:

CHEATING SHOCK
FERGIE BETRAYED
Accused of cheating with a stripper,
Josh denies it and races to be with his
wife. The tawdry truth about that night
and why Fergie is standing by her man.

To the bottom right, occupying her own little rectangle, is
THE STRIPPER
, a bottle-dyed blonde with a plain-Jane face—she sort of looks like Vanessa, in fact—in a blue-and-white-striped bikini, jutting her boobs out and forcing a smile.

That celebrity marriages have the shelf life of organic deli meat should surprise no one. After all, celebrities are drawn to other celebrities primarily because the other celebrities are celebrities. Was Jennifer Aniston in love with Brad Pitt, or was she in love with
Brad Pitt
? There are two problems with this. The first is, the novelty of celebrity wears off quickly, especially if you're a celebrity in your own right. Pitt, for example, married the star of
Friends
, the most popular TV show of the moment, and wound up with an image- and career-obsessed diva with zero percent body fat who made him spend weekends with David Arquette. The second problem is that celebrity is not static. When Brad and Jen tied the knot, his career was still ascending, while hers was at its zenith, but at that exact instant in time, they had roughly the same Q rating. At the altar, their celestial bodies were conjunct. Then
Friends
was canceled and Aniston's career nosedived, while Pitt starred in the
Ocean's Eleven
films and a string of other critical and commercial successes. Their marriage could not withstand the celebrity disparity, not when Aniston is so clearly the jealous type . . . and certainly not with Shiva the Destroyer on hand to accelerate the process, in the sexpot form of Angelina Jolie.