Fights were par for the course; girls fought as well as guys—but mainly the guys, and not just under the influence of alcohol. (Almost every day in the schoolyard, children grouped around two adversaries—sometimes more than two—screaming the name of the one they wanted to win at the top of their lungs.)
* * *
Such a fight broke out one day between me and Amélie. It was about something childish. Her parents were better off than mine, although not really bourgeois: her mother worked at the hospital and her father was a technician for the power company. That day, to hurt my feelings, Amélie—knowing this would work—had called my parents slackers. I remember this fight with the precision of events we create in our lives out of memories that might have been banal or insignificant. But then months or even years later, depending on who one becomes, they take on meaning.
I punched her. I grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head against the parked school bus, violently, just like the big redhead and the little hunchback did to me in the library hallway. Lots of kids saw us. They laughed and egged me on, Do it, punch her, punch her face in. Amélie, who was crying, begged me to stop. She screamed, moaned, begged. She had made me understand that she belonged to a more reputable world than mine. While I was spending my time at the bus stop, other children like her, Amélie, were reading books their parents had given them, were going to the movies, even to the theater. In the evenings their parents spoke about literature, about history—a conversation between Amélie and her mother about Eleanor of Aquitaine had left me white with shame—while they ate their dinner.
At my parents’ house we didn’t have dinner; we ate. Most of the time, in fact, the verb we used was bouffer, chow down. My father’s daily call was Come and get it, let’s chow down. When, years later, I say have dinner in front of my parents, they will make fun of me Listen to him talk, all full of himself. You can see what’s happened, he’s gone off to that fancy school and now he thinks he’s a gentleman, he’s going to philosophize for us.
To philosophize meant talking like the class enemy, the haves, the rich folk. It meant talking like people who have the good fortune to go to good high schools and universities, and therefore to study philosophy. Those other children, those who have dinner, it is true, sometimes drink beer, watch TV, and play soccer. But people who play soccer, drink beer, and watch TV don’t go to the theater.
* * *
It was to Amélie that I would formulate my complaints about how, compared to her own mother, my mother didn’t pay enough attention to me. I wasn’t able to see that Amélie’s mother had a different kind of job, a different status, an easier life. I couldn’t see that it was harder for my mother to find time to devote to me and thereby demonstrate her love.
* * *
There were other occasions, of course, when I was grateful for my mother’s lack of attention. When I would arrive home from school, she could have seen how drawn my face was, as if I had wrinkles. If my face seemed wrinkled, it was because the beatings aged me. I was only eleven, but already I was older than my mother.
Deep down, I know she knew. It wasn’t a clear picture, but rather something she had a hard time putting into words, something she felt but couldn’t express. I was afraid that someday she would manage to formulate all the questions that had been building up—in silence—over the years. I was afraid that I’d have to answer, to talk to her about being beaten up, to tell her that other people thought the same things she did. I hoped she didn’t think too much about these things, and that in the end she would just forget.
One morning before I left for school she said to me You know Eddy, you should really just cut it out with all the fancy manners, people make fun of you behind your back, I hear them, you know, and you know what else, you should lighten up a bit, go out and meet some girls. She said this in the way my father would speak, with a mix of confusion, shame, and annoyance. She couldn’t figure out why I didn’t try to pick up girls, like my father had done years ago, in nightclubs or at the dances in the village hall.
Starting around the age of twelve I would go to nightclubs with a couple of buddies on Saturday nights in order to meet girls—at least that’s what I told my parents, repeatedly, so that they’d be sure to catch the fictive justifications for these outings. My father, not as easy to fool as I had hoped, saw perfectly clearly that I never introduced him to any of the girls that it would be reasonable to expect I would meet in these places. He would wonder out loud why I was so passive, when my brother would bring home a new girl every month, making introductions, and talking about engagement, marriage, kids.
(This was a privilege reserved for young men. When my sister, coming home from a dance, introduced her second boyfriend to my parents—having broken up with the first one—they told her this wasn’t acceptable. She couldn’t be bringing home a different boy, given that the whole village had already seen her with another one You know the problem’s not with us, he seems fine and we don’t have anything against him, but you can’t just bring boys home like that whenever you want. It’s for your own good we’re telling you this, ’cause other folks, you better believe it, they’re just going to call you a whore.)
* * *
If my parents seemed backed into a corner of incomprehension when it came to my behavior, my choices, my taste, shame would often be mixed with pride when I was the topic in question. My father would never say anything, but my mother would tell me Don’t blame him, you know, he’s a man, and men can’t tell you what they’re feeling. He would tell his buddies at the factory, who would then report it to me, that My boy is good at school, he’s smart and maybe he’s even gifted. He’s smart, he’s going to go on with his studies, and what’s really great (this was what made him happiest), what’s really great, is that kid is gonna get rich. He may have hated, as he often said, bourgeois, middle-class people as much as he hated Arabs or Jews, but he really wanted to see me pass over to the other side.
* * *
Coming home from school I would find him in our common room slumped in his chair and drinking his pastis while he watched TV. The TV would be turned up too loud, he’d snore when he fell asleep in front of it, and he’d insult my mother when she walked by and blocked the screen. His body’s position was always the same: legs stretched out and hands on his belly. My older sister: With his hands holding his potbelly it’s like he’s pregnant. The room smelled of grease because my mother was always making french fries, my father’s favorite dish I like eating a man’s food, food that sticks to your ribs, not like that fancy rich-people crap where the more it costs the less they put on your plate. It wasn’t just my father’s favorite dish, it was also one of the few dishes he ate, one of the few we all ate, since he decided what we’d be eating. Even if my mother pretended that she decided, she’d give herself away when she’d say I’d really like to cook some beans or make a salad from time to time but your dad would throw a fit. Meals consisted solely of french fries, pasta, every now and then rice, and meat, ground beef bought frozen or else ham from the discount supermarket. The ham wasn’t pink, more like fuchsia, and dripping with fat.
So the room smelled of grease, of wood fire, and of mildew. The television was on all day long, and during the night when he fell asleep in front of it, it’s good background noise, I can’t get along without the TV, or, more exactly, he didn’t say the TV, but I can’t get along without my TV.
We learned never, ever to bother him when he was watching his TV. This was the way things were done when it was time to sit down to eat: watch TV and keep your mouth shut, or else my father would become annoyed and demand silence, Shut your trap, you’re using up all the oxygen. In my house, I expect my kids to be polite, and being polite means you don’t talk while you eat, you keep quiet and watch TV with your family.
While we were eating, he (my father) would say something from time to time, but he was the only person who was allowed to. He would
make comments about the news Damn towelheads, that’s all you see on the news, dirty Arabs. It’s like we’re not even in France anymore, we’re in Africa, as for the meal he was eating There’s one more the Krauts won’t get.
He and I had never had a real conversation. Even the simplest things, Good morning or Happy birthday, were things he had stopped saying to me. On my birthday he’d hand me a couple of presents, without a word. Not that I was complaining, I didn’t want him to talk to me. He’d explain in a falsely casual voice, one that did a bad job of hiding his embarrassment We’ll get you some presents on the first of the month, when the welfare check comes. Bad luck being born on October thirtieth, end of the month.
* * *
I didn’t know anything about him, nothing at all about his past; anything I knew I had learned from my mother.
Every night his friends would show up around six o’clock with bottles of pastis. My father wasn’t working anymore. One morning—or one evening, I’m no longer sure—he had left for the factory as usual. He had taken his lunch tin with him, food that my mother had prepared the night before and put into a Tupperware for the next day. My father ate straight out of the tin, like an animal. On that day, the factory called my mother: Your husband’s back gave out all of a sudden, he had tears in his eyes, and we all know Jacky, he can put up with a lot, but he was actually crying from the pain. Then the doctor came on the line (or else it was my father himself) Your husband was carrying weights that were much too heavy for him at the factory, and for much too long a time. He should have realized it sooner and taken precautions. (But you know, Jacky doesn’t like doctors, he doesn’t trust them, he won’t take his medicine, just like his brother-in-law who’s half paralyzed.) His back is in bad shape, it’s a mess, the disks are ruptured. He’s going to have to stop working for an indefinite period of time. My mother: But if he’s on unemployment that’ll mean less money, won’t it?
My father came home that same night, and for several days he didn’t get out of bed. Sometimes his cries would drown out the sound of the television and of the crying babies next door. My mother: That woman has no idea how to raise kids.
He thought he’d have to take a short break from work, a few weeks at the most. Weeks soon became months, and months years, and my parents would speak of long-term disability, expiration of benefits, unemployment limits, minimum wage. My mother finally admitted to me Yes, he could go back to work, your dad, if he wanted to, but you can see what he likes, drinking bottles of pastis night after night in front of the TV with his pals. You might as well understand, Eddy, your father’s an alcoholic, and he’s never going back to work.
After several years of not working, my father had to face up to what was being said about him in the village, by the women outside the school or in front of the store Jacky’s a slacker, it’s been four years since he had a job, he can’t even feed his wife and kids. Look at what a dump his house is, the shutters are falling off, the paint’s peeling, and then there’s his grown-up son who’s nothing but a drunk who he can’t control.
* * *
My parents stubbornly refused to pay any attention to the gossip. My mother told me she didn’t give a damn about the rumors Those two-faced bitches, who gives a shit, not me, they can mind their own fucking business. My father had in fact tried to find work, but had gotten discouraged around the hundredth rejection. He kept on inviting his friends over every night and they’d bring two liters of pastis, or even more, just for the three of them, and the more the months went by, the harder it became to get drunk. My father and his buddies were perfectly aware of it These days there’s more pastis in my veins than blood.
* * *
I would get home from school at nightfall every Friday. I was in a theater group that my French teacher had organized: my father, who had no idea what to make of my interest in theater, found this extremely annoying and would often refuse to come pick me up in the car after the class, grumbling No one told you to get involved in this theater crap. I would cover the nine miles between school and home on foot, walking through fields for hours, with the mud and dirt that collected on my shoes making them pounds heavier. The fields seemed endless; they went on, as one says, as far as the eye could see, with animals crossing them to get from one grove of trees to another.
These evenings when I got home later than usual, my father’s pals would already be there. They’d be drinking glass after glass of pastis, each time saying Come on, just one more for the road and my mother would retort A couple more one-mores and we’ll be lucky to get you out the door on all fours. The room was inevitably clouded with smoke from the cigarettes and the wood-burning stove, thick enough to dim the light. My mother: Now that’s a good smoke. The television. My father and his pals, Titi and Dédé, watched the same show every night. Always the same running commentary about the women on the show in order to mutually reaffirm their virility Damn, she’s hot, that babe, I’d like to have a go at her, I’d jump her bones, and my annoyed mother That’s all these jerks can think about. One time, when I got home from school, they had a different channel on. It was a rare occurrence, given their loyalty to their favorite program, Wheel of Fortune. They’d say, when it was time for the program to start Our show, quick it’s time for Wheel, don’t wanna miss the beginning, interrupting whatever they’d been doing, or talking about, and rushing to their seats, breathless. They’d been waiting for this moment all day, in a way, the whole day made sense only as a prelude to this moment of watching Wheel in the evening, glass in hand.
There was a gay man on the other channel who was part of a reality TV show. He was quite extroverted, wore bright colors, had effeminate manners, and a crazy hairdo as far as anyone like my parents was concerned. The very idea that a man would get a professional haircut was frowned upon. Men got their hair cut by their wives with an electric razor; they didn’t go to a salon. This fellow really made them laugh—that laughter again—each time he’d speak Man, I bet that guy visits the fudge-packing factory. Watch out, don’t drop the soap! What, no way, he’d be the one bending over, more likely. This was the kind of humor that easily veered toward disgust Those fucking faggots should all be shot, or someone should stick a hot poker up their ass.
It was at that moment, while they were talking about the gay man on the television, that I got home from school. His name was Steevy. My father turned around and called out to me Hey Steevy, how’s it goin’? How was school? Titi and Dédé guffawed, they were laughing hysterically: it brought tears to their eyes, they were doubled over as if possessed, gasping for breath Steevy, oh my God it’s true, now that you say it, your kid acts kinda the same way when he talks. Once again, crying was not an option. I smiled and hurried to my room.
My Other Father
Here is an anecdote my mother told me. It was during one of the village dances—outlandishly named dances that would take place in the village hall a couple of times a year, like “Tartiflette and Eighties Night,” or “Cassoulet and Johnny Look-alikes Night.” There was a gay man, a brave guy, who had made the choice to live his life openly. He would go to these dances with other men he had met, probably at some of the cruising spots found in the area, deserted parking lots or seedy gas stations. All the boys from the village would also turn up, gangs of buddies who came to drink, have fun, sing, and try to pick up the very small number of girls who weren’t already taken, who didn’t already have children. What with the alcohol and group dynamics, the boys started bothering the gay man, bumping into him with their shoulders, giving him hostile looks, So what’s your story, you’re a fag, right, you like sucking dick, stop looking at me like that or I’m gonna punch your face in. My father came over, having heard everything. He was really angry, his jaw clenched, and he said, Leave him the fuck alone, you shitheads, you think you’re funny calling him names, so he’s a fag, why the fuck should you care? What’s it got to do with you? He told them to go home Enough of your bullshit. He came this c
lose to beating them up himself my mother concluded.
* * *
My mother told me another story from my father’s life when, around the age of twenty, he had decided to quit the factory, to give up everything and head for the South of France. He told his boss to go fuck himself, and it wasn’t an easy thing to do, you know people around here never go anywhere. They go straight from junior high to the factory and they spend their whole life in the village or they move a couple of towns over but never too far. But your dad really up and left.
* * *
So my father left. It must have been something he had often dreamed of doing. He imagined that down there the sun would make factory life more bearable, that the women there would be prettier. He left. He attempted to find work in Toulon, without success. My mother: He tried finding work as a barman but I imagine he spent more time at the bar drinking than actually asking for work. I don’t know if he maybe traded odd jobs for things, or what really went on, ’cause your dad isn’t exactly talkative, but I know he lived with an old lady. An old lady with lots of money. A Mormon if I remember right.
During his trip he had become friends with a young ne’er-do-well (my mother said: a pickpocketer; she was always mispronouncing things) who went by the name of Snow, an ironic nickname given his dark Maghrebi complexion. They became extremely close, spent all their nights together, and the pair of them would go out to pick up women. For a few months they were inseparable, but then my father came back North, for reasons my mother didn’t know. His past caught up with him, as if despite his best efforts there was no way to escape. This was something my mother didn’t understand: So that’s why your dad never talks about this stuff, his trip when he lived down South, because it’s pretty strange, it don’t make sense, when he says we should kill all the ragheads but then when he lived in the Midi his best buddy was a raghead. I’m telling you this because I can’t figure out why your dad is such a racist, ’cause I’m not, even if it’s true the Arabs and the blacks get away with everything, and the government spends way too much money on them so there’s less for us, but still it’s not like I’m for killing them or hanging them or putting them in camps like your dad is.
The End of Eddy Page 7
