“In my book that makes her way more evolved than you.” Robin talked with his eyes closed to the sun, enjoying the drape of orange-red pulled over his eyes.
“People have no idea how to live life.”
“You can’t do it all from inside your head.” Robin wondered at what age exactly he’d started parenting his father. The year self-reflection went out of style, apparently.
“Who says? Consciousness is the seat of the soul. If you aren’t having a revelation a minute, you aren’t living, you’re vegetating.”
Robin sighed. “I swear I’m going to grow up brain-dead, or at least unaware of anything in my physical environment worth noting for fear of inviting waterfalls of reason to come cascading down over my brow.”
“That’s no answer.”
“If you wish enlightenment, stop seeking the truth, just let go of your opinions.”
His father was about to say something, then scrunched up his face. “Not bad, kid.”
Robin contemplated the squiggly life-forms swimming in the red drapes of his eyelids which looked suspiciously like syphilis under a microscope (which his father had happily shown him at the age of five).
Dad picked up L’Etranger, by Camus, flipped to the middle of the book where he’d left off reading. He made it two lines before feeling the need to opinionate. “I don’t know if this nihilistic shit is for me. It’s no more than a complex rational system built around depression so you never have to feel anything else.”
“Gee, I wonder what that’s like.” His father didn’t catch the sarcasm, flipped the page eagerly, filled with morbid fascination.
“Nihilists reject all established laws and institutions.” His father turned the page as if he couldn’t fill his head with the stuff fast enough. “They embrace anarchy, terrorism, any and all revolutionary activity. It translates to total and absolute destructiveness toward the world and oneself. Does that sound like a philosophical system to you, or a decided need for Prozac?”
Ignoring him, Robin focused on getting his kite airborne without leaving his chair. The strong updraft was proving as difficult as it was accommodating. “Why can’t you admit that living your life by any philosophical system is entirely messed up?” Robin tethered the line at the end of the dragon-kite to his lawn chair. The wind was catching it well and swirling it overhead so it provided intermittent shade from the sun.
“Because that’s what we do. We decide on how to procure the best of all possible worlds for ourselves, then spend the rest of our lives creating just that.”
Robin got out the fan, and plugged it into the gasoline powered generator they’d packed in (currently supporting the fridge; dad didn’t trust ice-boxes). He set the fan on the sandy floor, aimed upward at the kite to help sustain the updraft as the winds faltered.
Robin said, “So you spend your entire life hoping to eventually get everything together before you can start enjoying yourself? Does that make sense?” Robin agonized over not being able to compensate for the wind with the fan’s various speed settings. Three was too much, and gave the kite a case of hyperactivity disorder. Setting one was too weak, imparting to the kite a dying-swan demeanor.
“I keep telling you,” dad declared hotly, “aimlessness is no panacea to making decisions and living by them. Admittedly, we suffer the pains of the limits we set for ourselves. Life is a stoic middle ground between daydreaming your life away and nihilism.”
Robin seemed at peace finally with setting two on the fan and the prevailing breeze. It was as close to shade perfection as he was going to get with on-hand technology. “I don’t think that’s what they mean by everything in moderation, dad.”
“You really have the seeds of a great mind. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.”
Robin squeezed the entire bottle of milk-white suntan liquid over his face, keeping his eyes closed until he had a chance smooth it over his entire body. “Maybe if you’d let me grow up at my own rate instead of trying to overdo it with the Miracle-Gro.” He continued lathering. “There’s no way I can justify doing anything with my life now. The humble Socratic method, claiming to know nothing, is the only way to counterbalance your absurd know-it-all extremes. By the time I’m free of you, those habits will be so ingrained as to be unconscious.”
“Don’t live your life as a blind reaction to your old man, child. It’s just unbecoming.” Dad brushed the latest coat of sand off him the wind had blanketed him with.
Robin, from his current perspective many years later, shivered at the prescience of his own words. How indeed his life had unfolded just as he had predicted, down to forgetting the causes underlying his habits of mind. He had become blind to the subtleties of life, the super-piercing, intuitive perceptions that made one indeed more alive, that celebrated consciousness by basking in it from one heartbeat to the next. His father’s own words had been equally prescient. Shame on him for becoming no more than his shadow; the dark reflection of all that was noteworthy in him. He had allowed himself to become quite simply, dull. His biting sarcasm was about the only positive carryover from his past, if one were inclined to be so generous. It, at least, was a valid coping mechanism.
***
Young Robin was thirteen years old and preparing for a date with Sherry Periwinkle. She had a nose that enveloped half her face, but beyond that, was an absolute delight. Her thirteen year old boobs pulled focus from the nose, making it seem, in the grander scheme of things, more akin to one of those birthmarks that showed up with alarming symbolic import in a Nathaniel Hawthorne story.
All Robin had to do was make a good first impression, and he was likely to score a homerun. He had it on very good authority that Sherry was easy.
“You don’t have the barbeque chicken in an insulated container to keep it warm?” Dad’s tone dripped with disdain.
“It’s like eighty-five degrees outside, dad. Warm chicken is a given.”
“You need to keep the strawberries further away in the picnic basket from the chicken, or it won’t be cold when you need it to be cold.” He stuck his hands in the basket to rearrange things.
Robin yanked them back out, explaining, “I was going to put it on her tummy with whip cream and eat it off, and she’s less likely to complain if she’s not shivering to death from the cold.”
“I suppose, properly contextualized like that, your logic is not without merit.”
“You’re supposed to be talking me out of having sex, dad. I’m thirteen.”
“Sex is natural, healthy, and talking you out of it is likely to lead to unnatural, unhealthy things, like skinning squirrels in the backyard.”
“I told you, I was going through a phase, and it would likely pass. Three years later, you’re still traumatized.”
Dad took a bite out of a spare chicken leg. “Don’t pretend it wasn’t an outgrowth of your mother’s relentless toilet-training campaign. While you were skinning squirrels, I was painting all the rooms in the house red for the day when I’d have to hide the blood splatter from your mom’s insides from the police. We got rid of the Japanese toilet doomsday device, threating cancer with each drop of feces, and your mother, and look at us, we turned out fine.”
Robin bandied the tube in his hand. “You think I should put the spermicidal gel in with the Jell-O to set the mood, or is that just too aggressive?”
Dad confessed, “I don’t know anything about this girl other than she has a nose like a bloodhound. What’s with that anyway, not another fetish, is it? Because I still haven’t recovered from the sandal fetish.”
“It was not a fetish. It was a hot summer in Berkeley.”
Dad gnawed at the remains on the chicken leg. “Berkeley doesn’t have hot summers. It’s possible you had a fever from all the masturbating without any hand-washing.”
“Speculation in the absence of sufficient facts is the privilege of a fool.” Robin fussed with the arrangement of the basket’s contents under his father’s judgmental eyes.
“Speaking
of which,” dad said, “I think you’re taking a risk with the generic jam. For romance, Smuckers is the way to go.”
“You might have a point. But the Smuckers is opened already, and I thought that was tacky.”
“It’s a little tacky.” Dad drummed the chicken leg in mid-air. “But half-eaten Smuckers still tops uneaten generic. Not everything is going to line up in the plus column. You have to get used to making decisions by more mathematically sensitive means.”
“All right, get the Smuckers.” Robin yanked out the generic jam.
His dad turned his attention to the fridge, as Robin agonized over the tube of Hot Topic. “What do you think about this?” He held up the tube.
“Hey, I’m all for sexual aids.”
Robin threw the Hot Topic on top of the chicken. “What am I forgetting?”
“What’s her idea of a good time?”
Robin fell silent momentarily. “I don’t know.”
“You didn’t research it in advance?”
“I didn’t think to approach her like an advanced course in polynomials.” Robin’s groan was just around the corner from a primal scream.
“Well, now you’re in over your head. I give you a twenty percent chance or less of scoring. Not a point more without some research.”
“What is it all girls love?” Robin asked, before commencing with his brainstorming.
“Same thing all boys love,” his father said, waving the Hot Topic. “Just don’t forget the romance part. Remember, it’s the journey, not the destination.”
“Dad, I think that might be the smartest thing you’ve ever said.” He took the Smuckers from him and stuck it in the basket, closed the lid.
“I was quite the lady’s man in my day.”
“I wasn’t aware you even liked women.” Robin realized the genuine surprise in his voice which jumped out his mouth before he could stuff the tiger back in the tank was potentially hurtful.
“That’s very big of you to not say anything all this time. I must admit, I’m a bit of a misogynist. Most women make lousy company for intellectuals. They want to talk about their facials and their agony over deciding on the right scatter pillow. They want to gossip about people because interpersonal dynamics is their idea of the be-all-end-all. As for sitting around figuring out how to fix the world, and coming up with big universal abstractions to lend life profundity… well, there are the Margaret Thatchers of the world, but they don’t do it for me either.”
“You’re right, dad. That sounds entirely misogynistic, and worse, I agree with you. I will find a woman who I can idolize, even if they’re in a distinct minority. Of course, I will be looking for things besides intellectual stimulation. Well-roundedness may be a more achievable goal in a wife than endless intellectual badinage, which, mercifully, isn’t my thing either.”
“Each to his own.”
“God, I can barely lift this thing,” Robin said, hoisting the basket off the table.
“I’d say that’s proof of a job well done.”
***
“What’s with the gale force winds?” young Robin griped. His picnic blanket spread wide, he was unable to keep the corners from curling back on him. He laid out the contents of the basket along the edges.
“I’m hungry,” Sherry said with all the feed-me-now petulance of a five year old.
“We can’t eat. I need the weight in the containers to hold down the corners of the blanket. Otherwise we’ll be overrun by bugs.”
“We can nibble.”
Robin smacked one of the mosquitos drilling his neck. “That’s all we need, to make our blood sweeter for these mosquitoes. Malaria has returned to the Bay Area.”
Sherry sighed. “We could screw.”
“That was my intention all along! Only—”.
“Only what?” Judging from her tone, Sherry’s confusion was quickly overcoming her petulance.
“Only, look!” Robin said, gesturing at the crowded field. “It’s like the teen make out Olympics. I’ve got to study the competition to make sure I win on points.”
“You’re making too much of it.”
Robin fretted despite the admittedly wise words of counsel; he couldn’t help himself. “Trust me, a proper scientific study now could save us years of trauma-recovery.”
“That’s it. I’ve had it. You’re too weird. I’m outta here.” Sherry stood, dusted herself off, and stomped off and out of his life forever.
***
As uncomfortable as the last memory was of him and Sherry at the picnic, Robin struggled to recall what was so traumatic about it that it had bubbled up to the surface like the ooze penetrating the scab of a formerly inactive volcano.
And then he remembered.
He had decided then and there that he had in fact become his father. It was the most shattering experience of his life. He thought of rushing out to the Golden Gate Bridge and jumping off. While he had decided not to, that moment had become the defining moment of his life. The rest would be lived making sure his father never again got under his skin. Socrates once again came to the rescue, just as he had been summoned over a year before on that beach that fateful day with dad, under the dragon-kite doubling as an umbrella. Only, he had smartened up. He realized Socrates wasn’t something he could will on himself; he had to practice at the role every day until his mental habits were ingrained and imprinted on him the way his father’s behavior had imprinted on him.
Say one thing for Sherry, the memory of that day at the picnic with her was all it took for him to toe the line and pick himself up after every fall, until, years later, he forgot about Socrates, and what he’d meant to him. He forgot about his campaign to reform himself. Which was not entirely a good thing, because unbeknownst to him he had fallen short of the Socratic ideal. He had substituted dull and senseless for a friction-free psyche to which nothing stuck. If he couldn’t sense it, he couldn’t be disturbed by it. Couldn’t be driven to rationalize his emotions away in the fashion of dear old dad. He had substituted a kind of inner death for inner peace, which didn’t feel like death, it felt quite alive, owing to his relentless scathing humor, which made others laugh, and him quasi-popular, and made him feel entirely right with life.
Until now.
Hartman’s enlightenment methods were proving questionable, at best, but certainly he couldn’t argue their effectiveness. Lest, of course, this state of being—forever stuck in the vortex—was the new him, and the present moment, something inaccessible.
***
Robin found himself fully back in the moment inside the crawlspace of Hartman’s home, and able to hold himself there this time, helping to diminish his concerns. But the night was young. He hadn’t exactly graduated trauma school, or survived the rest of the initiation protocols just yet. Assuming there was anything to this cult-like approach to self-transcendence.
FIFTY
In the presence of Adam and Jeannie, Manny sank into a silence that he had to admit was as comforting as a down pillow. Still, tired of waiting for Jeannie and Adam to interrupt it, he said, “Hartman's big on facing your demons. So I figured—”.
“You'd deal with the leeches covering every inch of you, metaphorically speaking,” Jeannie said.
He smiled, guilty as charged. “But when there are so many things from your past sucking the life out of you, how do you—”.
“Oh no, we aren't doing talk therapy,” Jeannie said. “You just need a dose of the two of us to set you straight. Teach you how to lighten up.” She tried not to stare at the gun in his ankle holster. But Manny realized his senses had heightened since going on his holy mission.
Adam fought to keep pace with Jeannie’s prevaricating. “Sometimes normal is profound.” Apparently, not liking the look he was receiving from Manny, he said, “Don't believe me? Give it a try.”
***
The three of them played a game of Twister, laughing their asses off. They snaked over and under one another, in and through.
“Damn, this is dif
ficult!” Manny said. “Where did you get this awesome game?”
“Just one of many.” Jeannie pointed to the box of games.
Adam said, “Seems kind of silly now as a coping mechanism for stress.” Judging from his tone, the game wasn’t working its charms on him.
“Not at all. She’s a better profiler than I am.” Manny laughed and panted. His butt planted on the floor, he questioned his capacity to ever stand erect again.
***
Later, following the Twister game, Manny played soldier with a video game on the fifty-inch monitor. He jumped off the couch wielding the controller, shouting, “Die, you bastards! Die!”
In his peripheral vision, Manny saw Jeannie and Adam, seated beside him on the couch, throw a nervous glance at one another.
“Yes! Take that!” Manny declared, jamming his thumb down on the joystick. “And that!”
***
Robin, resting his back against the wall he was listening through, cramped up again. After shifting from one set of aches and pains to another, he quickly found he had exhausted all body positions that didn’t trigger an inner act of rebellion.
Then he heard something that made him forget the pain. He yanked the gun out of his ankle holster.
“I think we're ready to move on to Scrabble,” Adam said. It was the tenor of his voice that had set Robin’s nerves afire; it dripped with fear. Not even the dampening effects of the wall Robin was listening through could rob it of its most essential quality.
Renaissance 2.0: The Entire Series (books 1 thru 5) Page 36
