A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

by Dave Eggers

  “That’s what we think.”

  “No, I mean, I think what you guys are doing is sick. You’re using Adam Rich to make a point—“

  “Of course.”

  “That point being that you people are just as good as celebrities like him. You think he’s vapid, dim-witted, with his stupidity arising, first and foremost, from the fact that he is famous and you guys are not. The fact that at nine he was hanging with Brooke Shields, that a hundred million people know his name, a hundred million more his face. And no one knows yours.”

  “You’re breaking out of character again.”

  “I mean, you people cannot stand the fact that this silly person, this Adam Rich person, who you feel is nowhere near as smart as you people, who did not go to college and did not write captions in the yearbook or run the school’s art gallery or whatever, who has not read the books you have, has the gall to be a household name (or was at one time) around the world—for something, like acting in a dramedy, that you find unimpressive. So you make fun of him, first with the umbrella interview, and now with this so-called well-meaning hoax—I mean, can it be any more gruesome and transparently symbolic, you people killing this contemporary of yours, a kid on TV when you were kids watching TV, this victim of your predatory mentality, who you claim is in on it all but who really has no idea of the scale of, the potential consequences of this thing—and certainly not your motivations, the bitterness simmering just below the surface, the desire to dirty him, humiliate him, reduce him to you, to below you—I mean, does he have any idea about the jokes made at his expense at the office? Could he ever imagine the malice involved? It’s disgusting. I mean, what is this? What does this mean? Where does anger like that come from?”

  “It’s not anger.”

  “Of course it is. These people have already attained, at whatever age, a degree of celebrity that you assholes will never reach, and you feel, deep down, that because there is no life before or after this, that fame is, essentially, God—all you people know that, believe it, even if you don’t admit it. As children you watched him, in the basement, cross-legged in front of the TV, and you thought you should be him, that his lines were yours, that his spot on Battle of the Network Stars was yours, that you’d be so good on that obstacle course—you’d win for sure! So doing all this, when he’s no longer such the world-conquering celebrity, gives you power over him, the ability to embarrass him, to equalize the terrible imbalance you feel about your relationship to those who project their charisma directly, not sublimated through snarky little magazines. You and everyone like you, with your Q & As or columns or Web sites—you all want to be famous, you want to be rock stars, but you’re stuck in this terrible bind, where you also want to be thought of as smart, legitimate, permanent. So you do your little thing, are read by your little coterie, while secretly seething about the Winona Ryders and Ethan Hawkes, or even the Sari Lockers—

  “Remember the Sellout Issue? When everyone went to L.A. and New York to interview all these budding celebrities so you could make fun of them? There was that girl from Father of the Bride, and the guy from “Baywatch,” the Australian guy, and of course the Doublemint Twins. You had to make them all look like imbeciles, even while in person you were smiling with them, joking, being kind, accepting theirs. Same with Elle Macpherson.

  And Natalie from “Facts of Life.” And then poor Sari Locker, the sexologist.”

  “That was different.”

  “Right. You get a call from her publicist, a cold call because you people are on some general Gen X magazine list, and even though you would never have any real interest in the twenty-four-year-old author of Mindblowing Sex in the ‘90s—“

  “Mindblowing Sex in the Real World.”

  “Fine. So you say, sure sure, let’s do an interview, chuckling to yourself—you can’t wait to hang up the phone and tell everyone, wanting only to tear her apart. Then while you’re in New York, you have dinner with her. Dinner goes well and you have drinks. During dinner and drinks—like, three or four hours of talking— she’s a little pushy and self-promoting, but also extremely generous—you had not bargained for that—and wants to hear all about me—that part shocked you—and about our parents, and says so many nice things, and during all this, while she’s being kind and listening and everything, all the while you’re balancing your two prevailing interests: recording her words to later use against her— because, she, too, had the temerity to be relatively famous and attractive (with a master’s from Penn)—while also, more pressingly, trying to get invited back to her apartment.”

  “I almost did.”

  “Yeah, you took a cab with her, watched her get out, didn’t know if you should make a move or whatever, and let her go, thinking, there goes my big chance to score with the sexologist.”

  “I almost did.”

  “And then you still went back and wrote a bitchy little thing about her.”

  “She wasn’t offended.”

  “Maybe she’s got thick skin. Maybe she didn’t read it. But don’t you see this is a kind of cannibalism? That you’re just grabbing at people, toys from a box, dressing them up, taking them apart, ripping their heads off, discarding them when—“

  “Weird that you mention Sari. She’s actually coming to town.”

  “Oh Jesus. You’re not going to see her?”

  “Yes I am, young Toph. Yes I am.”

  “f don’t get it.”

  “Nor should you. Much too complex for your tender mind. Put your head down. I have to wipe off your neck.”

  I brush the hair from his neck with a towel.

  “Toph, there are so many things you have yet to learn.”

  “Right, right.”

  “Just stay close to me, and you will glean.”

  “Right.”

  “Fear not.”

  “I fear.”

  He looks perfect.

  “You look perfect.”

  He’s grimacing.

  “It’s too short. It’s brutal.”

  “No, no. It’s perfect.”

  When Toph is gone, servicing his new, to-be-truthful-kind-of-annoying social life, things are sort of weird at home. At the moment he’s at Gabe’s house and there’s nothing to do. It’s not that I’m bored. Am I bored? I go into the hallway and lean my back against the wall. I look at my shoes. I should not wear white socks with these shoes, because the hole at the left pinkie toe becomes so much more pronounced with this bright white fuzz protruding. When was he supposed to get home again? He hadn’t said. I should call Gabe’s house. But would that look anxious? I don’t want to look anxious, do not want to be a parent who is jealous of his child’s time with friends, much like Mrs. H—, whose son we liked but who only let him out occasionally, because, we all felt, even at twelve we felt that she was afraid that he would come to like us, his peers, more than her, his mother. I straighten the rug in the hall. I find the broom and sweep. I open the refrigerator and throw away a heavy bag of blue oranges. And baby carrots, now brown and soft. I go to my room, open the blinds. Across the street, at the retirement home, an elderly woman is out on the porch, moving slowly, watering her plants. I go back to the kitchen and pick up the phone. Who to call? I put it down. I turn on the computer. Get up, turn on the oven. What to cook? We have no food. I sit down, look at the computer and turn it off and stand up, staring toward the door. I lean my head against the molding near the window. What if my head became attached to the wall? I could be half of a pair of Siamese twins, attached at the head, the other half was actually this wall. I could be half man, half walL Would I die if not separated? No, I could survive. I would stay attached to the wall. Toph would feed me, and I would have a specially prepared chair, tall enough, so I could sit— But how would I change my shirt with my head attached to the wall? I think about this for a few minutes. Then it comes to me: Button-down shirts! Oh, but the bathroom problem... I’ll need a bedpan. Or a catheter. I could do this. I could.

  But my head is not, in fact, at
tached to the wall. I remove my head from the wall.

  If he got home by four there’d still be time to play. Is it too windy? Will he be too tired?

  The bell rings.

  I look out the window and down. It’s him. A surge runs through me.

  “Where’s your key?”

  “I forgot it.”

  I make the obligatory scoff. You flake ha ha! I throw him my keys. They clink on the sidewalk.

  I watch him put the key in, turn, push, disappear into the wall.

  Should I scare him when he walks in? No, no, he knows I’m here. Punch him? Pour something on him? Shit, no time!

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “So? Was it fun?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “Nothing. We got pictures today.”

  “What pictures?”

  “School pictures.”

  “You got them when?”

  “Today.”

  “No. I mean, when did you take them?”

  “I don’t know. A month ago I guess.”

  “You didn’t tell me. What did you wear?”

  “A yellow shirt.”

  “Which one?”

  “The dark yellow one.”

  “Was it clean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me see the picture.”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Are your eyes closed?”

  “No.”

  “Are you giving the finger?”

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  “You’ll see.”

  He digs the pictures, letter-sized, carboard backing, in a plastic sleeve, from his backpack and hands them to me and Good fucking God no. No. No. No. No. This is bad. This is so bad. This is unbelievably bad. This is so unbelievably bad. They’ll take him away now. They’ll take him away for sure. If ever they needed a reason now they have one good God. It’s proof of everyhing. The proof they want.

  “Toph, this is bad.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “It’s so bad.”

  “It’s not.”

  “It’s horrible.”

  “Whatever.”

  “No, you whatever yourself whatever whatever. God. Damn. You look like you’re about to cry. Jesus. You like you’re pleading for help.”

  And he does. Yes he is tan and blond and cute—he does look very cute, his eyes exceptionally blue here—but he’s looking out so forlornly, so helpless, soft, neck extended, eyes almost watery... Fuck. This is so bad. This is worse than the Phone Voice Problem. The Phone Voice Problem we have addressed over and over, and it’s improved but still hasn’t been resolved, fixed.

  For years he’s been answering the phone like this: m i*?

  And of course people wonder. What’s wrong with Toph? they ask me when he hands me the phone. And always I have to be cavalier. That’s just Toph! ha ha. But he does sound like he’s been bawling, like he’s locked himself in the bathroom and I’m banging on it, yelling over his sniffling, and he’s just starting to control his breathing when someone calls and that’s when he says Hello?... And worse, he achieves this same tone every time, day or night, always this crinkly slow *«/ /·/», at the edge of 12-year-old sanity and suffering. So I’ve been imploring him to sound normal. Please sound normal, Toph, you are normal, we are normal so just sound normal please can’t you? Don’t sound like I’ve been beating you, like you’re in the bathroom hiding from me, because I have been there, have hidden from parents before, have been on the other side of a door being struck with all conceivable parental force, have searched the bathroom for places to hide, have found a place in the closet where the bath toys are kept, under the lowest shelf, and I have hidden there, and have seen, darkening the white slit of light under the door to this closet, his shoes, and then the white light everywhere as the door is opened, and have had my shoulder grabbed and.. .and he’s been working on it, especially when I make him do it in front of me, my arms crossed in front of me, watching, coaching, making a chipper smiley face for him, eyebrows shooting skyward... happy!

  And now here we are again. This picture thing goddamn. I should start packing his stuff up. Will the foster family be nice? Will he take good pictures for them? Foster families. Foster families.

  “Toph, this is so bad. You know what people will think. You just know. I won’t be able to go to the school now.”

  He’s making a milkshake.

  “Can you turn that thing off?”

  “It’s almost done.”

  “Jesus, Toph. I can’t do the next open house, I can’t see them now because now they’ve got the proof they want. Your teachers! They must think I’m beating you. Do they talk to you like I’m beating you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This is so bad.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re not unhappy.”

  “Yeah, so.”

  “So you’re not allowed to look or sound unhappy.”

  “Fine.”

  “Because that’s what people expect.”

  “Sorry.”

  “And you didn’t tell me the pictures were even happening.”

  “They sent a notice.”

  “They did not.”

  “Fine.”

  This could be the time to escape. We should pack and go. They might be on their way already, the child welfare people. What kind of car would they drive? A big truck or something. Or undercover! We’re surrounded already. We could go out the other door, by the laundry room. We go out the door, wearing disguises—what disguises? Capes! We do have capes!—we go out and get to the car and then get provisions, some fruit, salted meats, yes, then we head for where? Mexico? Central America? No, no—Canada. Then we do home-schooling. We farm and do home schooling. Oh, but Canada. Will he start saying aboot? We both will. And sorry like sore-y. Can’t have that. We’ll have to be vigilant...

  “I just don’t get why you didn’t smile.”

  “I thought I did. I did for some of them.”

  “And they picked this one?”

  “I guess.”

  Maybe this was part of their plan. They pick the sad picture so they can take him away. Or else the photographer is some kind of child slave trader. He’s hooked in with the child welfare agency and he gets them to give him the kids and then sells them to white slavery operations in.. .where are the white slavery operations, anyway? And what kind of cars do they drive?

  “I just wish you’d help me out here, Toph.”

  “I said sorry.”

  “I mean, you know how bad this makes me look, makes us look? They’re going to be bringing over more fruit baskets now. They’re going to be baking us bundt cakes.”

  “What’s a bundt cake?”

  “It’s like a big donut.”

  “Huh.” He’s halfway through his milkshake. Trying to put on some weight.

  I look at the picture again. So pretty, in a way. The yellow shirt matches his hair, so blond after that sunny September and all the time at the beach.. And the background, light blue, just right, matches his eyes. The eyes that say Help Me! And there’s not one but six of these pictures, a grid of them, then four bigger ones below, and then this huge one Jesus christ! All these pleading Tophs, Eleven Tophs saying Look at my sad life, you people, you viewers of junior-high pictures! Class, teachers, see my eyes, which have seen too much! Erase my past, start me over, let me be like you and everyone, normal and happy happy. Watch me smile for my school picture! Save me from him, because every night before dinner he’s asleep on the couch and so dead to the world, and when he can’t get up he tugs on my shirt and begs, he makes me cook for us and then later, once awake, he’s so tense, staring at the screen, writing something he won’t let me see, and he falls asleep in my bed and I have to push him out and then he’s up half the night and—

  “So what do you want for dinner?”


  “Taco.”

  “We had taco Sunday.”

  “So?”

  “If you cook it you can have taco.”

  “Do we have meat?”

  “No. You have to get it.”

  “Can I get something else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Root beer.”

  “Fine. Wake me up when it’s ready.”

  Will I ever get this picture out of my head? Will we ever live it down? Is it as sad as it looks? I know it means nothing but how can it look so transparent? Do any of the other kids look so sad? The girl whose mom and dad are getting divorced—is she crying? God no. These kids, they know the score. They know to protect their parents. But not Toph. All I do—I changed his sheets last week!—all that, and he gives me this.

  My mom used to kill us when we took school pictures without her knowledge, before she would approve of our outfits. Of course, there’s a reason we didn’t tell her about Picture Day, and that reason is spelled P-L-A-I-D. Did everyone wear that much plaid in the early 70s? It’s uncanny, but it seems like every picture we took before fifth grade featured plaid in some way, mostly in the pants category. And we matched, all three of us.

  “You know, we can’t send this out to anyone. I can’t even show it to Bill or Beth.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Then don’t.”

  It might be right then that Marny calls. It might be the day before, or the day after, or the next week. I am at home, and Toph is on the couch, sighing through his math homework. The stereo’s on, and I have one speaker against the wall fighting the neighbors’ must-see Thursday night lineup. The phone rings.

  “Shalini’s been in an accident.”

  “What? A car?”

  “No, no. You know that deck that collapsed in Pacific Heights?”

  “Oh. No.”

  “She’s in a coma. She fell four stories and landed on her head. They don’t know if she’s going to make it.”

  We go. I think we go right then. Maybe we wait until the morning. No, it must have been then, it must be right then that we go. Maybe it is not night that Marny calls. Maybe it is day, and I leave Toph alone. Or maybe I lock—