The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green

by Joshua Braff

  “Where’s your cap gun, Claire?”

  Laughter.

  She pats her pockets and smiles. “Musta left it in my other holster.”

  More laughter.

  “That’s funny,” my father says with surprise, nodding at the audience. “Not bad.”

  She dips her head for a moment and when she lifts it, she’s looking straight at me. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. Speak. Say anything. Please. She swallows and bites her bottom lip.

  Just. Say. Anything.

  “Weren’t they great?” she says with her arm toward the cast, and the clapping briefly erases the lengthy pause. As it slowly dies down she grips the mike with both hands and stares down at it to speak. “Know that . . . there’s plenty of food and of course popcorn on the dining-room table. Just . . . help yourself. If that runs out just let me know. Don’t panic. And there’s coffee, both caff and decaf, and soft drinks and juice in the kitchen, and plenty of ice in the freezer so . . . let me know if you have any questions with that.” And lastly, since I have you all here in one place, I have something to share with you. Along the garden ways just now . . . I too heard the flowers speak. They told me that our family garden has all but turned to sand. I want you to know I’ve watered and nurtured this square of earth for nearly twenty years, and waited on my knees each spring for these gentle bulbs to rise, reborn. But want does not bring such breath to life. Only love does. The plain, old-fashioned kind. In our family garden my husband is of the genus Narcissus, which includes daffodils and jonquils and a host of other ornamental flowers. There is, in such a genus of man, a pervasive and well-known pattern of grandiosity and egocentrism that feeds off this very kind of evening, this type of glitzy generosity. People of this ilk are very exciting to be around. I have never met anyone with as many friends as my husband. He made two last night in line at Carvel. I’m not kidding. Where are you two? Hi. Hi, again. Welcome. My husband is a good man, isn’t he? He is. But in keeping with his genus, he is also absurdly preoccupied with his own importance, and in staying loyal to this, he can be boastful and unkind and condescending and has an insatiable hunger to be seen as infallible. Underlying all of the constant campaigning needed to uphold this position is a profound vulnerability that lies at the very core of his psyche. Such is the narcissist who must mask his fears of inadequacy by ensuring that he is perceived to be a unique and brilliant stone. In his offspring he finds the grave limits he cannot admit in himself. And he will stop at nothing to make certain that his child continually tries to correct these flaws. In actuality, the child may be exceedingly intelligent, but has so fully developed feelings of ineptitude that he is incapable of believing in his own possibilities. The child’s innate sense of self is in great jeopardy when this level of false labeling is accepted. In the end the narcissist must compensate for this core vulnerability he carries and as a result an overestimation of his own importance arises. So it feeds itself, cyclically. And, when in the course of life they realize that their views are not shared or their expectations are not met, the most common reaction is to become enraged. The rage covers the fear associated with the vulnerable self, but it is nearly impossible for others to see this, and as a result, the very recognition they so crave is most often out of reach. It’s been eighteen years that I’ve lived in service to this mindset. And it’s been devastating for me to realize that my efforts to rise to these standards and demands and preposterous requests for perfection have ultimately done nothing but disappoint my husband. Put a person like this with four developing children and you’re gonna need more than love poems and ice sculpture to stay afloat. Trust me. So. So, we’re done here. The family you’ve known is over. And I’ll be building a new garden with a man some of you know and I imagine this will be infuriating to learn. But I am very much in love with him. So much so that tomorrow I will alter my children’s lives forever when I tell them the truth. My husband has known for quite a long time that this day would arrive. He’ll need your love and your friendship. And he very much deserves it. “Also, the downstairs toilet, the one in the den, keeps clogging with a kind of tinkling sound if you don’t jiggle the handle after you flush it. We apologize. Old house. Be as comfortable as you can, those of you on the floor. Halfway through we’ll do a quick—”

  “Very quick,” says my father.

  “A very quick intermission so you can all stretch your legs. Thanks so much again for coming. Enjoy.”

  Applause. My father kisses her and wraps his arms around her. He lifts and spins her before letting her down. She stumbles over a speaker wire as she’s lowered but quickly gets her balance. “And now,” my father says, “to introduce our feature film . . . Ladies and gentlemen, you know him, you love him: Gabriel Woody Allen Greeeeeen!”

  Over

  When a man takes a woman and marries her . . . if she find no favor in his eyes . . . then he shall write her a bill of divorcement and send her out of his house. Deuteronomy 24:1

  Rule Number 8 of the Green House Rules (Jacob’s Copy):

  You will now be part of a joint-custody agreement. The agreement states that you will be “shared,” or parented, equally by both your mother and your father (although never again in the same home). Within the week you will have a second house in nearby Hayward, New Jersey. It is here you will notice that your mother is sharing a bed with a man you’ve known as Dr. Nate. As this particular rental house has one bathroom, you will see this virtual stranger in the early mornings and often find yourself attempting to urinate next to him while he hums and shaves. He will be wearing black “banana hammock” bikini briefs and have a great deal of hair on his back and shoulders. In time his presence will become less strange and the very notion of his bearlike nudity, pressed up against your mother, will begin to dissipate. Every other Sunday until you graduate from high school, you and your two younger siblings will move back to your father’s house and spend a week under his parental guidance. Your older brother will have a choice. He can travel back and forth with you or he can pick one house and settle there until his graduation. Dr. Nathaniel Brody’s three-year-old daughter, Amy, will be on your schedule and she too will pack a suitcase each weekend and alternate between Hayward and her mother’s home in Evansville. Megan has been given a choice to remain at your father’s house but needed less than two seconds to decline. It is undetermined where she will move. You will have two rooms and two toothbrushes and two beds and two phone numbers and you won’t need to change schools or meet new friends. Your immediate challenges, given your age and level of maturity, are the following:

  a. With puberty upon you, you may find this early “honeymoon” period between your mother and Nathaniel to be a tad more nauseating than most. Entangled legs, the stroking of earlobes, a glimpse of the sides of their tongues during overly affectionate greetings—all possible triggers. And as you are too young to voice this gripe with effective language, the resulting emotional outcomes range from irritability to anger to varying degrees of depression. Knowing your history and the way your father handles fury, you are also in a high bracket to smash something with your own closed fist.

  b. Also due to early sexual awareness, the sight of Dr. Nathaniel’s naked body will be more disturbing in that it’s a body with whom your mother has obviously commingled. When, for example, his penis is brandished during your time together in the aforementioned bathroom and, let’s say, draining like a fire hose into the toilet next to you, an early teen might have trouble erasing the sounds and smells of such image, and how it pertains to his mother and her use of said penis.

  c. You may encounter at this age a grave sense of abandonment from this circumstance. Your dreams will often be scenarios in which you are left alone, trapped in small places, falling from great heights or submerged in sand, water, or some type of clingy mud. Depending on your emotional drive, you will either survive and fight your way out of these corners or just wait to die. You’re currently in a high bracket for the latter but dying in a dream state ju
st means waking up all sweaty and frightened and uncertain where you are.

  Rule Number 9 of the Green House Rules

  Keep loved ones and people you trust close to you. Remind yourself that you’re truly and actually and technically not alone. And remember that most kids lose their fathers entirely when their mothers fall madly in love with their college professors and move with them to neighboring zip codes. You’re lucky. You still have your father in these vulnerable and blooming years of early adulthood. And you know what’s even better? Your father still has you.

  “Mmmmthinkmmmmmgonnathrowup,” says Gabriel, as he stands and gags twice like a cat. My mother leaps to her feet and puts her palm on his chest. “It’s okay, baby,” she says, pulling him into her arms. She kisses the top of his ear as he begins to cry in silence. “I’m not leaving you.”

  I look at Asher on my parents’ bedroom floor, propped up by his elbows, his shoe tips pointed at ten and two. He peeks at me from the corner of his eye and lets his head flop backward between his shoulder blades. “Kabooooom,” he says softly, and my father looks his way. There’s a blur in the air as the truth settles in my skin, a slowing of time. I am awake, I think, as I touch my own face and eyelids, reaching for tears I can’t even feel.

  “I’m not leaving any of you,” she says with a wobbly voice.

  “Are you leaving Daddy?” Dara asks.

  My mother pulls Gabe even closer and faces my sister. “Yes, I am.”

  “I . . . worked very hard,” my father says, “to make this all go away.”

  “I’m confused,” Asher says, a sarcastic tone. “Who lives here . . . and . . . where do I sleep on Tuesday?”

  “Here,” my mother says. “We’ll all sleep here for now. I’m not going anywhere for a few days.”

  “Why not?” he says harshly, sitting up straight. “Why draw it out?”

  “Can’t you see your brother’s upset?” my father says. “Can’t you—?”

  “We’re all upset,” says my mother. “I’m staying for a while, Ash, so we can all adjust. So we can ease into . . . what has happened here.”

  Gabriel suddenly looks up at her. His face is drained of all life, a ridiculous pale of confusion and fear. He burps and bends as his cheeks fill with air. My mother shuttles him to the bathroom and I run to open the door for them. The toilet seat clinks the tank and I hear the thump of Gabe’s knees as they hit the floor. We’re all frozen as we wait, listening to the mourning of this shocked little boy. Burp. Gag. Puke. Puuuke!

  “Good.”

  Flushhhhhh.

  “Good, sweetie. Any more?”

  “I don’t knooooow.”

  “Wait a few seconds,” she says out of breath. “Just wait.”

  A somber whine pours from Dara’s mouth and she stands and walks to my father. He embraces her off her feet and wears her weeping body like a sash.

  “Agaaain,” says Gabe before a burp. Burp. Puke. Puke. Puuuke.

  “Okaaaay,” says my mother. “That’s the one we needed.”

  “I just want this to go away,” says my father. “I just want it all to . . .”

  Flushhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

  IT’S TWO HOURS later when my mother ushers Gabe and Dara to bed. Asher stands slowly for the first time all night and walks without a word from the bedroom. My father watches him go, and waits for the door to close before covering his face with my mother’s pillow. I sit alone with him now amid the smells of their sheets and clothes and skin and wish, with a pain I can touch, that I could love him enough tonight. “I need to leave this marriage” is how she began, her hands out and cupped like a Christmas caroler. There was a long beat of silence before Gabriel stood, and somewhere in that quiet, deep inside my mind, I actually felt free. My father pulls the pillow away and stands. He claps his hands twice and rubs his palms together. “I think I’ll do a little dance,” he says with a teary smile, and starts to tap dance on the carpet with his bare feet. I move back to give him more space as his arms whirl around and his feet go through the motions. When he stops after a minute his breathing is heavy and the sound of this fills the room. He sits on the edge of his bed again and looks over at me.

  “How’s my boy?” he says, and a grim smirk lifts the corners of his lips.

  “Okay” is what comes out.

  He pats the mattress next to him. I stand, pretending not to see, and sit in my mom’s wicker chair near the TV.

  “I . . . tried, over these last few months, J. I tried to imagine all your faces . . . when you heard . . . what you heard.” He fluffs her pillow and keeps it on his lap. “I tried to hear your mother’s voice and . . . tried to guess where she’d be sitting when she told you.” He tosses the pillow to his side and walks across the room to open my mother’s closet. With his back to me he runs his fingers down the sleeve of a striped blouse. “I saw you,” he says. “I saw you the clearest.”

  He gently shuts the door and leans on it with the weight of his shoulder. “You held me,” he says as the tears roll from under his dark frames. “In my thoughts. That’s the first thing you did. You stood up, walked over to me, threw your arms over my shoulders, and . . . told me we’d get through this.”

  I hear Gabe’s voice in the hall. I look toward the half-open door and my father walks to shut it closed.

  “Do you love me?” he asks, with his hand still on the knob.

  “Yes.”

  He faces me and says nothing. I shift in my seat, unsure if he heard me.

  “But do you love me as much as I love you?”

  I look down at my hands. “I think so.”

  “You think so? Is that what you said?”

  “I mean, I do.”

  “Because lately I’ve been feeling a distance between us. Okay? I come home from work and . . . you’re here and I know you hear me but . . . you don’t come to see me. You don’t come and ask me about my day.”

  I sit taller in the chair and it squeaks beneath me. I keep my eyes from my father.

  “And as you can see,” he says, pausing to swipe his cheeks, “I need that now. I need you to tell me it’s gonna be okay.” We stare at each other for a few seconds and I’m not sure if he wants me to say it right now.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” I say.

  “Then tell me that. Tell me that again and again. Will you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because . . . right this second, I’m trying to figure who I have and who I don’t have, ya know? So do I, Jacob? Do I have you?”

  I nod when he looks up at me. “Yes.”

  “Then tell me right now,” he says, moving toward me.

  “Tell you . . . ?”

  “Tell me.”

  “That . . . it’s going to be okay?”

  “No,” he whispers. “That you love me.”

  He steps right up to my feet and I look up at him. “I love you,” I say.

  He nods, and runs his finger along the wood of the bed frame. “It would be nice . . . if I could have a hug now,” he says. “It would be nice if I didn’t have to ask you to give me a hug when I need one.”

  I stand and place my arms over his shoulders. He begins to cry and pull me against his chest and I can feel the coarse hairs of his beard pressing into my neck. He begins to whimper, to sob, his body shakes.

  “It’s all right,” I hear myself say.

  He shakes his head. His tears streak my face, my mouth and I tighten my lips to avoid the taste.

  “I only have you,” he says.

  His arms begin to squeeze my frame, tighter, closer to him and the weeping is now joined by a rhythmic hum. He starts to sway in this dramatic dance of grief that pinches the skin of my arms and presses my eyelids against the buttons of his shirt. He moves us closer to his bed with small steps and begins to lean onto it with my body beneath his. We then topple together like a cut down tree and bounce on the mattress. His weight is crushing my chest and I can feel the cold of his tears i
n the collar of my T-shirt. I try to push him off but I can’t.

  “We don’t deserve this, Jacob,” he sings, mouth wide, an angel hair of saliva connecting his lips. “My family.”

  “Dad.”

  “My whole life.”

  I try to move my legs but they’re entangled in his. I can feel his breath on my neck and chin.

  “Don’t leave me. Never leave me. We need to be closer. Like you and Jonny.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “Your brother is so angry. Did you hear him? He’s . . . a blamer, he is; he’ll blame me till the day I die, he will. I need your love. How do I get that? Tell me!”

  “Dad.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t breathe.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I just can’t . . .”

  “Can’t what?”

  “You’re hurting me.”

  He shifts with a jerk and stares down at me. “I’m hurting you?”

  “I just can’t breathe with you on me like that.”

  “I’m loving you,” he says, lifting his torso from mine. “I’m holding you and letting you know that I’m hurting and I need you right now. You can’t give me that? So dramatic. ‘I can’t breathe, get off me, get off me.’ You really can’t breathe?”

  “I can now.”

  “I ask nothing of you. My life is turned inside out. I need you and all you can do is—”

  “I just couldn’t breathe.”

  “Or maybe it’s more than that, huh? Maybe you want to get away from me. Is that it?”

  “It’s not that.”

  “You got somewhere you need to be, right?”

  “No.”

  “Anywhere but with me. Alone is better than with me. Say it.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Can’t hug your father for . . . two goddamn seconds?”

  “I can.”

  “Well, then hold me. Open your arms and hold me like I’m someone you love.”

  From underneath him I place an arm over each of his shoulders. I turn my face to the wall and feel him staring down at me.