A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

by Dave Eggers

  These people.

  These people are freaks.

  Worse, Toph thinks he is one of us. Though he had always spent time with my friends—since he was tiny he had known Flagg, Moodie, Marny, et al., had considered them his own friends—lately the confusion had reached a new, distressing level. Though he was doing fine socially, at school, he had been lethargic about pursuing friendships with kids his own age. He couldn’t believe the stupid things they said. The girls were hopeless, the boys just a little better. And so he was never hesitant to attend any social gathering of my own demographic, shied away from no one, especially if the atttendees, mostly strangers, were up for a rousing sort of parlor game. It was not uncommon to find Toph, at one of Marny’s barbecues, in the middle of fifteen, twenty people sitting on two couches arranged in a V, briefing the assembled on the rules and subtleties of charades, a game I did not teach him but which he knew well and could readily organize. His presence was so expected socially, and at the office—

  Paul: “Hey, Toph.”

  Moodie: “Hey little man.”

  that when someone noticed him for being him, we would all have to stand back a second and see him for what he actually was, at least superficially: a seventh-grade boy. Of course, he had a difficult time discerning, himself. He had recently made this clear, when he and Marny and I were driving back from the beach. She and I were talking about one of the new interns, who, at twenty-two, was much younger than we had assumed—

  “Really?” said Toph. “I thought he was our age.”

  He was in the backseat, leaning forward, head peeking between us.

  “Oh. My. God,” said Marny, and burst out cackling.

  It took Toph another few beats to realize what he had said.

  I turned to him.

  “You’re eleven, Toph.”

  He blushed and sat back down. Marny kept roaring.

  But as much as I want to encourage his mingling with his own age group, I fear that if he becomes too involved elsewhere, he won’t be ever-available for my own needs. What would one do if one did not have a Toph, sitting in his room, ready at a moment’s notice, always willing to run one’s errands, to be pushed against a wall and have his kidney punched, to be brought, as he is at the moment, to the Berkeley Marina, for the throwing back and forth of things? To not have Toph would be to not have a life. We go to the Marina when we want to throw by the water and can’t make the long drive to the ocean. The marina is some kind of landfill jutting, fingerlike, straight into the Bay from University Avenue. Past the docked boats and the restaurant and club, there is a park, running parallel, a huge rolling park, mostly treeless and green. It’s a kite-flyers’ haven, especially at its farthermost point, the point farthest into the Bay. It’s always crowded with people flying kites, a few kids, their parents, but the kite-flyers are primarily the semi-professional sort, with their box kites and dual-handled remote-controlled F-16 Tomcat kites, kites with the detailing and windows and cockpits, trick kites with elaborate cantilevers and thirty-foot tails, swooping up and back, quick diagonals down to touch the grass, then shooting back up again, their masters looking stern, purposeful, captains at the helm.

  They park their campers and vans right there, on the cul-de-sac that almost meets the Bay, and sit, on folding chairs, chatting about better brands of string, or conventions for all the kite people, or how they can better get in our way, completely get in our way driving us fucking crazy, while we’re trying to throw. When we go to the marina, we pray that they will not be there, but this time, like most times, they are there. We park and leave our shoes in the car, get the stuff out, Toph with his—

  “Hey, you can’t wear that hat.”

  “What do you mean?” he says.

  “We’re wearing the same hat. You have to take yours off.”

  “No, you.”

  “No, you. My hair will look weirder.”

  “No it won’t.”

  “Yes it will. Your hair’s still straight. You know what I look like with hat-head.”

  “Too bad.”

  “What?”

  “No.91

  “C’mon. Please?”

  “No.”

  “Toph.”

  “Fine.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Freak.”

  We come prepared, with a variety of things we can throw back and forth. First the football, the enjoyment of which never lasts long because Toph’s hand is still too small to get around it. Then baseball, which we really need to practice, because the team he’s on now is better than the last one, he’s with older kids, tall and strong, and he’s starting to get spanked, abused, suddenly left behind—stuck in the outfield, sometimes in right field—a humiliation for both of us, after all these years of work. So we do fly balls, trying hard, but not too hard, to avoid hitting the kites, knocking them out of the sky as they bob and weave above us, their strings slashing between us.

  He is missing the ball. He is missing the ball because he is experimenting, doing tricks.

  “Hey, skip the basket catches, fancyman.”

  “Skip the basket catches, fancyman.”

  “Bite me.”

  “Bite me.”

  Today we are imitating me.

  We drop the mitts and play frisbee, and wait for the awed crowds to form. There is not quite the room here that there is on the beach, or at the park in the hills, and the shorter playing field necessitates a certain delicacy, obviates the need for the brutal force we usually put into the throwing, makes impossible the long, high, epic sorts of throws for which we are known and acclaimed. But we make do, slicing the frisbee through the diagonal kite strings, curving it around passersby, catching it of course in any number of wildly impressive ways—through our legs (but not like some frisbee weenie), behind the back (while jumping, half-twisting, left to right), and after tipping it, two, three, four times, taming it, slowing it to a weak spin, retiring it for the one-fingered catch. We are so good. Everyone thinks so.

  In front of us a couple, the man black and the woman white, are walking with their girl, about four, whose skin is the color of a walnut. The girl’s skin is a hue much more beautiful than either of her parents’, and remarkable in how rudimentarily she is the product of her parents’ mixed pigments. Brown and white make light brown—the color of skin mixing like paint.

  “Throw it, loser.”

  “Here.”

  Toph’s throw bends toward the family and almost beheads the tiny girl. The frisbee is picked up by the father, who tries to throw it to me, tossing it like a horseshoe. Poor guy.

  The park is a haven for innovative people-combinations. Even more than Berkeley in general, it’s a sort of laboratory, the grass perhaps the grounds of a laboratory for experimental people-making—the mixed-race/ethnicity couple capital of the world. Easily half of all couples therein, whether married or dating or on first dates or just jogging together, are somehow mixed—mostly black and white, but often Asian and white (even the somehow less common Asian man/white woman pairing), Latino and white duos, Asian/Latino, black/Asian, a smattering of lesbians. It’s been cast by the directors of commercials for banks.

  Incidentally, Toph and I, routine-and-inside-joke-wise, are in the middle of a jokes-about-the-dubious-importance-of-race period. We are not sure how it started—surely not by the older and more responsible of us—but it goes something like this:

  I say: Your hat smells like urine.

  He says: You’re only saying that because I’m black.

  Laughs ensue.

  The construction works for any situation, really; for example, with sexuality—“Are you hassling me again because I’m gay?”— and religion—“Is this because I’m Jewish? Is that it?” Oh we have fun, or at least I have fun, because he barely knows what he’s saying. And of course I’m careful to note that such comedy should stay between us, enjoyed only at home, considering that much or most of the appeal might be lost on his fellow fifth-graders, their parents, or, say, Ms. Rich
ardson.

  After half an hour or so of superior frisbee-playing, we rest in the middle of the kite zone, in the grass, watching the tails jump and ripple around us. The Golden Gate is straight ahead, looking small, light, made of plastic and piano wire. The city, The City, that is, San Francisco, is cluttered and white and gray to the left, the Bay flat, blue, rippling noncommittally, dotted with sailboat feathers and motorboats with comet trails.

  And then a notion occurs to me: swim to Aicatraz. That would be something, swimming not from but to Aicatraz. It doesn’t look all that far. Maybe a half-mile? It’s always so hard to tell with water. But I could do it, if the water was calm. Breaststroke. What would be so hard about it? Every time I see an island in a lake or bay I think I need to swim there. / am an excellent swimmer! I tell myself. As long as I don’t panic, or wear myself out too soon, it would just a matter of pacing—

  And Toph would do it, too. That would be something, us doing the to Aicatraz swim, together. That would be a first, two guys kind of leisurely swimming to Aicatraz together. We’d just plan it between us, a secret, would bring bathing suits one day and just jump off the rocks and go. It’s probably illegal. We would be followed by the Coast Guard. Still, that would be amazing, this kind of thing always more impressive with Toph involved—

  “Ow. Jesus.”

  Toph, bored with the rest period, has started picking up the conical pieces of dry dirt produced by the turf aerator, and from about three feet away, he is throwing them at me. He is tossing them carefully at my stomach, watching them bounce off, and chuckling to himself with each hit.

  Because, after maybe twenty tosses of the conical dirt fragments, I have still not paid any attention to him, he starts throwing little pinecones. He only has five pinecones, though, so every time he’s done throwing all five, he has to walk, on his knees, around me, sneaky-like, chuckling still, to retrieve them. Then he kneel-walks back to his original spot, and starts over.

  I tolerate it for three more rounds, then decide to give him the punishment he wants. The fourth time he walks by, I trip him. Then I sit on him. Then he cries. When I let him up, he laughs— “Sucka!”—because he was pretending to cry, which I should have known, since he does not cry, has never cried—but because I have let him up, I have given him room and opportunity for— Jesus. The maneuvers. I dread the maneuvers. He backs up, gets a running start (though still on his knees), and comes at me, doing the maneuver where he slaps his elbow and charges at me. It is one of his three maneuvers. These are the three maneuvers:

  a) The flying-object maneuver: For this maneuver, his most commonly employed, he takes an object, like a ball, or a towel, or a pillow, and throws it at me, in kind of an elaborate, arcing motion. Then, while I’m supposed to be distracted by the object arcing toward me, he comes in after me, right behind the object, shoulder first. The objective, one assumes, is to first cause confusion, then strike a critical blow.

  b) The slapping-the-elbow maneuver: This one, the one he is doing at the moment, is newer than the flying-object maneuver, and makes a little less sense than the flying-object maneuver. What he does with the slapping-the-elbow maneuver is charge at me, right elbow first, sticking it out toward me, in the sort of position one would have if charging

  with a knife, or running to show someone a boo-boo. Then, while he is coming at me, right elbow first, he is also slapping the right elbow with his left hand. It’s unclear why he slaps his elbow, unless its for the sake of distraction, like the flying-object trick. Of course, where the flying-object maneuver succeeds to some extent, the slapping-elbow maneuver fails each time, because it is only bringing attention to his chosen weapon, i.e., his elbow.

  c) The slapping-the-ankle maneuver: This is very similar to the slapping-the-elbow maneuver, I guess obviously, except with this maneuver, instead of slapping his elbow, he charges at me while hopping on one foot, holding the other foot, the ankle of which he is slapping. This maneuver requires no further comment.

  So at present he is coming at me, on his knees, elbow first, slapping it with his left palm, looking like an angry, masochistic double-amputee. I don’t have the energy to move clear in time, so I let him land on my back. Soon we are rolling around on the grass, with me in a few seconds pinning him on his stomach, crossing his legs perpendicularly, his ankle in the back of his knee, then pushing his calf, nutcrackerlike, onto his ankle, inducing pain, tremendous pain.

  “Now,” he ekes out, his lungs probably collapsed under my weight. “Have you.. .had.. .enough.. .punishme—“

  “Have I had enough what?” I’m kind of bouncing on him now.

  “Puni—“

  “What? You’re not making sense. You have to enunciate.”

  “Pundim—“

  “E-7z##-ci-ate.”

  People are watching.

  I jump off, as I usually do when people notice us wrestling in public, because now, as he’s getting older and bigger, and because I have creative facial hair, we do not want people to think what I might be thinking if I were watching a grown sort of man sitting on top of a young sort of boy, in the middle of a park, making grunting sounds.

  When it starts getting dark, when the kite people are gone and the joggers arrive, we leave.

  When we get home there is a message from Meredith.

  “Call me as soon as you get this,” she says.

  I call.

  “It’s John,” she says. She’s just gotten off the phone with John, who she says sounds blurry, and has been talking to her about ingesting the pills he has next to him, on the table next to his couch, in his apartment in Oakland.

  “Jesus,” I say, closing the bedroom door.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why’d he call you?”

  “He said you weren’t home.”

  “You think he’s serious?”

  “Yeah. Maybe. You should get over there.”

  “Should I call him?”

  “No, just go.”

  I tell Toph to stay.

  “Lock the door.”

  I’m in the car.

  I’m a hero.

  John would never do it for real.

  He’s just looking for attention.

  Oh but he might. He might fuck it up.

  The traffic will be murder. It’s five. Fuck, the traffic’s going to suck, fuck fuck. Take the highway? No, no, worse. I get down to San Pablo, drive south, straight shot, but—why does it have to be five? There is the radio, it needs to be turned up, because the radio gets turned up when there is fast driving and weaving. The radio is up. This is purpose, something is happening. The window needs to be opened. The radio needs to be turned up more now that the window is open. Something is happening.

  He’d never do it. Why would he have told Meredith about the pills if he really meant to do it? Aha!

  John has been seeing a new therapist, is on Zoloft, and has been acting more and more erratic. Meredith and I have been taking turns dealing—

  “I’ve been throwing up all morning,” he’ll say.

  He’s always throwing up, dry-heaving, spitting up bile, blood, pieces of his liver. No one knows why. He calls, sounds different, his speech slow, labored.

  “Where are you?”

  “At home.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “No one.”

  “Then why do you sound drunk?”

  “It’s the medication.”

  Down San Pablo. It’s almost nice here and there, just past University, all the boutiques—

  Move your car, dickfuck! Yes, you, move!

  San Pablo into Oakland, where the buildings are crooked and closed and vacant, look like prop buildings, two-dimensional— radio’s all the way up, Pat Benatar, oh Pat Benatar—

  Drive your truck, dumbassdickfuck, drive! Go, go! Go, Beetle-driving cockfuck! You mother//^£er!

  This is taking way too long, way too long. He could be dead by now, could be dead. He’s not dead. He’s acting. He wants my attention, he wants sympathy. The
spineless—

  Maybe he will do it. Maybe this is it. Cannot believe this is me again. I’ll have a dead friend. Do I want a dead friend? Maybe I want a dead friend. There could be so many uses... No, I don’t want a dead friend. Maybe I want a dead friend without having a friend who dies.

  At his building I worry about getting in— Can I buzz? I can’t buzz. He won’t buzz me in, there’s no way— I didn’t think of how I’d get in— Fuck, I’ll have to climb the fire escape, maybe break a window, maybe— Shit, I can just buzz someone else, any apartment, duh— But they’re going to ask who it is and what will I say? I’m not going to tell them what’s happening— Why wouldn’t I tell them what’s happening? Tell them about dickhead with the pills! It’s not up to me to keep his secrets— Fuck, fuck, but then ah! here! a woman walking out! timely! perfect!— I’ll just go through, catch that second door in time, not a bad-looking woman, kind of elfin though, smelling like—what is that smell? Oh! Jessica Strachan, sixth grade! oh Jessica, I owe you a call, I have to remember— The elf-woman is kind of cute, actually, maybe a little old, but—

  Fuck. I run up the four flights, three steps at a time, I am so quick like an Indian and goddamn it even his door is open and when I burst through and bang the door against the wall for effect I expect drama or blood or his mouth foaming or his dead cold blue-green body, maybe naked even, why naked? not naked—but he’s just there, on his futon-couch apparatus, drinking wine.