The Yellow Wood
Page 16
From Galen to Emily, his self-discipline as a change agent and resulting self-improvement, recorded in his tight script, are impressive. His learning curve is plotted by means of line graphs, specific interventions across the horizontal axes, incidence of desired behaviours along the vertical. My skin begins to crawl.
The chapter for Galen, the firstborn, records numerous false starts, unproven or disproved hypotheses, unforeseen results, flat-out errors. In the beginning, his efforts, though perhaps more organized and self-conscious than most, weren’t really much out of the ordinary; certainly nothing here would require a magical or otherwise supernatural explanation. All parents make mistakes, often out of naiveté and an anxious hubris about how much influence they have—or ought to have—over their children. The desire to leave a legacy, to ensure that the next generation will be, by your definition, better than yours—healthier, wealthier, better educated, saner—might even be an instinct in the service of the evolution of the species. But there’s something more than a little creepy about how our father went about it, and about the very fact that he wrote it down in such detail, accurate and complete or not.
My mind fuzzes, doing its best not to take anything from him. From nearly a lifetime of practise, the technique is highly developed, but this time it’s overridden by a need both more primal and more immediate. I read.
GALEN:
AGE 28-33 MONTHS. READ BOOKS AND WATCHED MOVIES RE: SLAVERY, HOLOCAUST. FOCUS ON GRAPHIC VIOLENCE, HORROR, TO MAKE IMPRESSION ON UNDEVELOPED CONSCIENCE. DISCUSSED WITH CHILD IN 5-MINUTE INCREMENTS TO ACCOMMODATE ATTENTION SPAN.
HYPOTHESIS: INCIDENCE OF EXPRESSIONS OF OUTRAGE AND SYMPATHY RE: SOCIAL INJUSTICE WILL INCREASE.
RESULT: NO MEASURABLE OR OBSERVABLE EFFECT. CHILD AWAKENED SCREAMING 11 TIMES: NIGHTMARES?
AGE 36 MONTHS. CRIPPLED CHILD SOLE GUEST INVITED TO G’S BIRTHDAY PARTY.
HYPOTHESIS: PERSONAL EXPOSURE TO LESS FORTUNATE WILL RESULT IN INCREASED TOLERANCE.
RESULT: CRIPPLED CHILD DESTROYED G’S PRESENTS. INCREASED FREQUENCY AND SEVERITY OF EXPRESSED HOSTILITY BY G TOWARD DIVERSE POPULATIONS.
AGE 36-44 MONTHS. TOOK G TO POLITICAL RALLIES FOR DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE. SUPPRESSED OWN DISTASTE FOR MOB MENTALITY TO EMPHASIZE PARTY ATMOSPHERE, “FUN,” IDEALISM.
HYPOTHESIS: CHILD WILL DEMONSTRATE ENJOYMENT, EXCITEMENT, DESIRE TO PARTICIPATE IN MORE SUCH ACTIVITIES.
RESULT: CHILD WHINED TO GO HOME THEN FELL ASLEEP.
AGE 47 MONTHS. SHOT RABBIT IN FRONT OF CHILD.
Jesus. I look away from the handbook, take a few deep breaths, read the stark line again.
AGE 47 MONTHS. SHOT RABBIT IN FRONT OF CHILD. DISCUSSED ANIMALS’ RIGHT TO LIVE.
HYPOTHESIS: DRAMA WILL BE SUFFICIENT TO INSTIL CONCERN FOR ANIMAL RIGHTS. RESULT: CHILD INITIATED DISCUSSION OF INCIDENT SIX TIMES IN SUBSEQUENT WEEK.
This went on for pages, for years of Galen’s life. More than once, Daddy’s efforts to instil in his first child a sensitivity to social injustice, together with the knowledge of how to work for social change bordered on abusive; he placed my brother in situations deliberately designed to be emotionally disturbing and sometimes even put him in harm’s way. Some of it worked, but apparently not well enough to suit him. So then he took a more direct approach.
Between Eva Marie and myself there never was much eroticism. In point of fact, I have long suspected this form of arousal to be primarily delusion. Having of course read Freud, I acknowledge the possibility that I have sublimated erotic passion into more useful pursuits, such as bettering the human condition. Would that more people saw fit to do the same.
At any rate, the prolonged contact of my mouth with Eva Marie’s, though admittedly rather tender, is not a kiss in any usual sense of the word. It is an attempt, however doomed, to establish a usable link between us where there is none. When her coughing causes both of us to turn our heads in self-protection, nothing but bodily fluid has passed between us, and little enough of that.
“Oh, Alex,” she murmurs. “Don’t you want to know what I’ve been doing all these years? Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
For a long time after she left, I was desperate to know and not to know what she was doing and with whom. Then I stopped thinking about it, stopped directly thinking about her altogether, a difficult discipline but useful and necessary. Now she is not someone I know or care to know in any personal way. Intimate knowledge of another person costs dearly; I have long ago exhausted my available resources. This is Alexandra’s responsibility.
Straining to sit up, I mimic her tone and phrasing. “Not the least bit.”
Her tears do not move me. Her wheezing and rattling respiration does not move me. I will not be moved. For reasons I cannot fathom, she persists. “I married again.”
This ought not to come as a surprise. I ought not to respond at all. “There is no divorce.”
“I’ve never told him I was married before. I’ve never told him about you or the kids. We never wanted children.”
“My, my, a double life.” Despite myself, despite my icy fury and revulsion, I am intrigued and even a bit admiring.
She stirs, precipitating a protracted coughing fit. I do wish she had the sense to stay still. “No, not double. I left this life, Alex. I never looked back.”
“Untrue.” I stab my finger in her direction, though the room is dark and I doubt she can see me even if she should happen to be looking right at me. “Untrue! As evidenced by the fact that you are here now, demanding something. Demanding a great deal, as a matter of fact. An outrageous demand. Why are you here? Has your—husband—” I can scarcely say the word— “your husband died or left you? How unfortunate for you. How ironic.”
“No, no, we’ll celebrate our thirty-eighth anniversary on New Year’s Eve. I’m determined to live that long. He’s a good man, Alex. We’ve been happy.”
“How nice.” Numerous useless queries clutter my mind: Are you saying your death is imminent? How have you explained your current absence to this “husband” with whom you have been so “happy”? How did you get here? Where did you come from? What is your husband’s name? How dare you? There is no point in uttering any of them.
“But you,” she says, and I hear her turn toward me, “Alex, you’re the one I need now. Not so much you personally—no offence—but that thing you do, the way you just insert into people some attribute or skill, like Vaughn’s music or Alexandra’s writing.”
“This is nonsense,” I manage to say. “This is pure fantasy.”
She doesn’t even hesitate. “Don’t, Alex. I don’t have time for this. Maybe you didn’t realize I knew what you were doing, but you know very well what I’m talking about. Since I’ve been here I’ve watched you still doing it. I need not to be afraid. My husband is more afraid of my death than I am. He can’t give me peace. But you can. You can just put it into me. Please, Alex.”
WILL:
AGE 8 MONTHS 8 DAYS. IN GARDEN WITH ME 2.5 HOURS.
HYPOTHESIS: EXPOSURE TO GARDEN IN PRESENCE OF TRUSTED ADULT WILL INCREASE FAMILIARITY AND PLEASURE.
RESULT: BY EVENING, INFANT FEVERISH, VOMITING. TAKEN BY MOTHER TO E.R.
DX: HEAT EXHAUSTION.
AGE 17 MONTHS. OBSERVED HOLDING PETUNIA CAREFULLY, SMELLING, TOUCHING TONGUE TO PETALS. VERBALIZATION OF PLEASURE.
EXTRAPOLATION: CHILD POSSESSES INHERENT APPRECIATION OF FLORA.
HYPOTHESIS: CHILD POSSESSES INHERENT APTITUDE FOR GARDENING. GAVE CHILD HIS OWN POT OF PETUNIAS TO TEND WITH MY ASSISTANCE.
HYPOTHESIS: EXPRESSIONS OF APPRECIATION WILL INCREASE IN FREQUENCY AND INTELLIGIBILITY.
RESULT: PLANTS DEAD, CHILD DISTRAUGHT.
AGE 22 MONTHS. APPARENT EXTREME REVULSION RE: TOMATO WORM. SCREAMING. NIGHTMARES. REFUSES TO EAT TOMATOES EVEN WHEN ALL OTHER FOOD WITHHELD.
It’s hard for me to take this gardening thing seriously. Talk about your ridiculous control battles. Skimming, I laugh aloud at the foolishness of it, but I�
��m also horrified. Again, our father’s determination that his child will do what he himself was unable or unwilling to do came perilously close to child abuse. Heat exhaustion? Withholding food? When Will was five years old the entries stopped, and I can guess where they will pick up in the next chapter.
VAUGHN:
AGE 17-57 MONTHS. TANTRUMS, AVERAGE FREQUENCY 2/DAY, AVERAGE DURATION 62 MINUTES. BANGING HEAD, SCRATCHING SELF, SHRIEKING. APPARENTLY SOOTHED BY DVORAK’S “GRAND CANYON.” SUBSEQUENT TANTRUMS DELIBERATELY PRECIPITATED BY PHYSICAL RESTRAINT AND REMOVAL OF DESIRED OBJECTS. OBSERVED DECREASE IN TANTRUM SEVERITY AND DURATION (SEE GRAPH):
LENA HORNE, “STORMY WEATHER” AND “MISTY”: 22 AND 21 MIN
APPALACHIAN FOLK MUSIC, “BARBARA ALLEN”: 43 MIN
IRISH BALLAD, “DANNY BOY”: 31 MIN
JOHN PHILIP SOUSA, VARIOUS MARCHES: 41 MIN
SIBELIUS, “FINLANDIA”: 16 MIN
GERSHWIN, “RHAPSODY IN BLUE”: 19 MIN
MOZART, “DON GIOVANNI”: 23 MIN
EXTRAPOLATION: CHILD POSSESSES INHERENT APPRECIATION FOR MUSIC OF MANY TYPES.
HYPOTHESIS: CHILD POSSESSES APTITUDE FOR CREATING MUSIC VIA PLAYING INSTRUMENTS AND COMPOSITION.
AGE 48 MONTHS. CHILD GIVEN DRUMS AND WOODEN FLUTE FOR BIRTHDAY. BEGAN PLAYING IMMEDIATELY. WITHIN 24 HOURS, COMPOSING.
Daddy seems to have been right about this one. From an early age Vaughn apparently responded positively to music, as if his appreciation and talent for it might indeed have been innate. Determinedly sceptical, I re-read the notes looking for indications that Daddy imposed his will on Vaughn no matter what the cost, as with my two oldest brothers, but from the notes it seems pretty clear that in this case he had only to nurture what was already there.
Considering what I understand the next phase of the project to have been, I’m thinking Vaughn may not have sections in subsequent chapters at all, that our father may have been done with him. I’m sad for him, which is not the reaction I’d have expected.
“I am retired,” I insist to Eva Marie. She laughs. “I am not joking. I am no longer engaged in active—” Having never spoken of this aloud or thought about it in terms of label or category, I do not know what term to use.
Almost shyly, but with an offensive proprietary smugness, she offers, “I’ve always sort of enjoyed thinking I was once married to a wizard.”
“We are still married.” The correction is reflexive and off the point, but I let it stand.
“And are you a wizard, Alex?”
“ ‘Wizard’ is a silly term,” I retort before I fully realize, with disgust, that she is being coy, even flirtatious.
I am also, quite unexpectedly, what I can only call desperate for her, for Eva Marie, my wife, this woman whom I had thought would never again be any part of my life. I am desperate for contact. Because of that, I know myself to be in mortal danger, and I move as quickly as possible to escape it. She gets to her feet, not a single movement but a series of unbalanced fits and starts that cause her wholly inadequate breath to rattle in her thin chest. I cannot allow this or any other thing about her to impede me. The flat of my hand is on Vaughn’s rough door when she cries, “Stop it, Alex! There’s something! I know there’s something!”
Wheezing and swaying, she leans against the board-and-cement-block shelves Vaughn uses as dresser, desk, bookcase, and medicine cabinet. The oxygen tank stands beside the bed, unattached to her. When she speaks again, she has lowered her voice, but it shakes.
“You have some kind of power. You do something magical or at least unnatural, I know you do. It’s like telepathy, or telekinesis, or voodoo. You cast a spell or you replace who a person is with who you want them to be. I watched you do it with all our kids. I felt you doing it with me. I felt you inside me, in my mind. That’s why I had to get away. And it’s why I’ve come back now. Please, Alex, I know you do!”
The extended outburst has taken nearly all her breath and strength. Coughing, she totters toward me. I remove my hand from the door, turn, reach to fend her off.
The two of us meet somewhere in the space that was between us. Wrapped in each other’s frail arms, supporting each other and pulling each other down, we sink carefully but nonetheless precipitously to the dusty wooden floor.
The “Alexandra” section of the Experimental Design chapter is long. As I mark the beginning of it with one hand and flip through it to mark the end with the other, then gather the pages between thumb and forefinger to turn all at once, I can’t help noting numerous lists and graphs interspersing single-spaced narratives with hardly any paragraphs. I also can’t help noting the page count: sixty-four pages, just for me. Just for the first eighteen years of my life.
The tightness in my throat has spread across my chest and back. Nervous energy races up and down my extremities like running lights. My hands and feet prickle. I’d think I was having a coronary if there weren’t plenty of reason for an anxiety attack. I almost wish I were having a heart attack instead.
Balancing the manuscript box on one hand and squeezing the “Alexandra” chapter between the other forefinger and thumb, I stumble into my room. It takes a while but I finally find an alligator clip big enough to hold sixty-four pages. Feeling a little safer, I can go back to Daddy’s chair to resume reading.
EMILY:
AGE 11 MONTHS. PLACED CHILD’S FINGER ON INJURED BIRD IN SHOEBOX. MOTHER COMPLAINED OF POSSIBLE DISEASE.
HYPOTHESIS: CHILD WILL DEMONSTRATE THE BEGINNINGS OF COMPASSION.
RESULT: NO IDENTIFIABLE REACTION.
AGE 19 MONTHS. OBSERVED COMFORTING UNJUSTLY PUNISHED SIBLING.
HYPOTHESIS: BEHAVIOUR REPRESENTS COMPASSION. REPLICATED CONDITIONS BY UNJUSTLY PUNISHING SAME AND OTHER SIBLINGS.
RESULTS: NO OBSERVABLE RESPONSE FROM CHILD.
AGE 23 MONTHS. HERPIE ASSIGNED TO SIMULATE INJURY.
OBSERVATIONS: CHILD ATTEMPTED TO KILL H BY JUMPING ON HER. H SLIGHTLY INJURED.
AGE 29 MONTHS. CHILD OBSERVED COMFORTING TEARFUL MOTHER.
UNABLE TO REPLICATE.
AGE 36-42 MONTHS. CHILD GIVEN LIFELIKE BABY DOLL AS ONLY BIRTHDAY PRESENT. AFTER INITIAL REACTION, APPEARS DISINTERESTED. ORDERED HER TO PLAY WITH DOLL MINIMUM TWO 30-MINUTE SESSIONS PER DAY.
HYPOTHESIS: NURTURING ABILITY CAN BE TAUGHT. NURTURING BEHAVIOURS WILL INCREASE.
RESULT: NURTURING BEHAVIOURS INCREASE IN FREQUENCY AND DURATION (SEE GRAPH) DESPITE CHILD’S CONTINUING PROTESTS.
This was evidently the turning point for my sister, when our father’s will won out over hers. The central theme of her life can be seen as having developed from there. By the age of twelve she was babysitting several times a week. All through high school she was a camp counsellor, day care aide, candy striper on the children’s ward, assistant Brownie leader. When she was barely eighteen she married Earl and they had their first child before her nineteenth birthday.
Seeing documentation of the “before” and “after” is chilling. I’m also aware of what can only be called a thrill.
Okay, it’s time. No more putting it off. Fish or cut bait. I’m having trouble getting air into my lungs and my head is spinning, but it’s time. Shit or get off the pot.
I take the paper clip off the grouped pages, turn to the beginning of the “Alexandra” Experimental Design chapter, and read.
“I must study. I must research and experiment. I do not know the formula for what you want.”
“I don’t have time for all that.”
“This is for Alexandra to do.”
“I don’t have time, Alex. I have to get home.”
“Home?”
“You didn’t think I came here to die, did you?”
“Of course not.”
“I came here to learn how to die. Then I’m going home.”
“So, if I understand correctly, I am being asked to give this to you, at considerable cost to myself, and then to send you on your way back to your husband.”
She has the decency to hesitate before she replies, “That’s right.”
ALEXANDRA:
GESTATION AGE: 20 WEEKS.
It takes a moment for me to realize what this means. With me he started in utero. Even inside my mother I wasn’t safe from him. Even when I was still physically connected to her, receiving everything one would have thought I needed directly from her, he was reaching in, inside her body and inside my still-forming brain, to curse and bless me with his gift.
Gifts, plural. Unlike my brothers and sister, I wasn’t given a unidirectional, single, discrete assignment. He gave me all sorts of shit. He gave me things he’d given them—Galen’s social activism, Emily’s compulsion to love—but in more expansive form, as if not trusting what he’d done with them or having decided he could raise the stakes.
This might make some crazy sort of sense if I’d been the last child born after my siblings were old enough for our father to observe what he had or had not wrought with them. Given my birth order, though, and the closeness of all of our ages, it really looks as if he singled me out from the beginning—from before the beginning, depending on your point of view.
ALEXANDRA:
GESTATION AGE: 20 WEEKS.
HYPOTHESIS: PASSION FOR READING AND WRITING CAN BE INSTILLED VERY EARLY. INSTRUCTED MOTHER RE: READING TO FOETUS 2X DAY. MOTHER AGREED BUT DID NOT FOLLOW THROUGH.
GESTATION AGE: 24-37 WEEKS.