The Porcupine of Truth

by Bill Konigsberg

  “I didn’t say you were a terrible mother,” I say. I look at her face, and she’s grimacing. “Mom —”

  “You think you’re the only person with a mother who disappoints you? You think my parents were any better? My mother disapproved of every single choice I ever made. Driving around the country alone made me seem like a … prostitute. Getting pregnant before I was married? Do you have any idea? She wore black to my wedding, Carson. She told me your father was a huge mistake, that I was wasting my life away. When I came back to New York after the divorce, she told me I’d gone and ruined two lives. All I wanted to be was the kind of mother who didn’t do that to her child.”

  I can’t imagine my grandma, my sweet, lovable grandma, doing these things. Saying these things. Is nobody pure? Is everybody fucked up? Is that life? Is that okay? Is it acceptable?

  “Do you have any idea how much energy I spend trying to keep it together? Do you get that when I measure my words, I’m trying to protect you from me losing my … do you get that?”

  “Maybe we should stop,” I say.

  “Stop?”

  “Trying to keep it together. Trying to protect each other from each other.”

  Mom slides down from the love seat until she is sitting against it on the floor. I do the same off the couch. Our outstretched legs touch, and I’m waiting for her to pull her legs away. But she doesn’t. She doesn’t do or say anything.

  I study her face. It’s tired. Discontent. She has a pimple on her forehead. She raises her head just slightly, and there’s just a bit of a booger visible at the end of her left nostril.

  This horrible, stinky, sad idea strikes me and takes all the air from my body. My mom is just a person. A fucked-up person, like me, like Dad, like everyone.

  It occurs to me for the first time in my life that it’s truly possible to know something and not know it at the same time. Because how could I not know that my mother is a flawed person? That she’s just me with slightly more experience? That she dropped me off at the zoo the first day we were here, not because her normal, brilliant understanding of the world had momentarily warped, but because she had no idea what else to do?

  I crawl over to her and wrap my arms around her. She slowly gives in to the hug, uncoiling her tense body almost one vertebra at a time. I feel her letting go, and soon she turns toward me and hugs me back.

  She leans her head against mine. I don’t pull away. “Thanks,” I say, marveling at the warm feeling of her skull against mine. “That was a treat. This is.”

  She sniffles and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “It shouldn’t be.”

  We keep our heads connected, and we talk. For basically the first time in our lives, we talk for real. I like feeling the vibration of her words inside my ears. I tell her about how Grandpa died, and she shuts her eyes and nods as she takes this information in. For the first time in my life, I can feel my mom’s love for my dad. I feel it in my scalp, this palpable love, despite everything, that she has for him.

  That feeling is confirmed when she tells me it’s been hard to be back here, but she’s realized that she still cares for Dad, all this time later. Part of me lights up when she tells me this, because it’s the missing puzzle piece, and it flickers brighter.

  I tell her about all the people we met on our trip, and all the adventures. She pulls away a bit, and I remember that while Aisha and I were doing all that, I was actively ignoring her.

  “Mom,” I say. “It’s okay, really.”

  “What’s okay?”

  “That you’re pissed at me. I’d be pissed at me too.”

  I feel her nod. “I am … pissed.”

  I lift my head off hers and look her in the eye.

  “If you have to, like, yell at me, you should yell at me,” I say.

  “You want me to yell at you?” she asks, like she’s not sure if I mean it.

  “I want you to yell sometimes. When I screw up.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  She mock-screams, “No! I won’t yell at you!”

  For the first time, I realize my dad is not my only parent with a weird sense of humor. This makes me smile. She smiles just a bit too.

  “You’re grounded, by the way,” she says. “Incredibly, outrageously grounded. Possibly for eternity. And if you ever, for any reason, even a very good one, leave the state you’re supposed to be in without telling me, I will come find you and make you sorry you ever lived.”

  “Maybe pull back on the yelling a tad,” I say.

  She smiles again, and my whole body relaxes. My mom.

  When Aisha comes back upstairs, my mom and I are still hanging out, chatting. I can see Aisha take in that something has happened here, and then she just goes with it, pretends that it’s not unusual for Mom and me to talk like we’re actually inhabiting the same world. Turk and my dad are still in the bedroom, and I am anxious for them to come out so I can see how Dad is doing with all this.

  Aisha and Mom talk for really the first time ever too, and I get to see a different side of my mom. She’s still her psychologist self; I mean, I guess I’d be surprised if she ever lost that therapist tone. But she also opens up a bit about how scared she felt when she didn’t know where I was, and at the same time how glad she was to know I had Aisha there with me.

  “You’re more than welcome to stay here as long as we’re here,” my mother says. “I know how important you are to Carson, and that’s meaningful to me.”

  I roll my eyes and say to Aisha, “We want you to locate yourself here.”

  My mom narrows her eyes at me.

  “Too soon?” I ask.

  “Much too soon,” my mother says.

  “Be nice to your mom,” Aisha says.

  “Sorry.”

  I crawl over and kiss my mom on the cheek, and she cups my chin in her hands.

  “Apology accepted,” she says.

  I hear the door to my father’s bedroom creak open. Dad and Turk emerge slowly. My mom and I stand up. Dad looks small. He stares at the ground, emotionless.

  “It’s chilly in here,” he says, and no one responds. No one says anything and no one moves. We’re all just waiting for something we can work with, I guess.

  When she gets tired of waiting, my mom goes over to my dad. She clasps his hand in hers. The she leans in to him, and he puts his head on her shoulder. She envelops him in a hug, and he hangs there in her arms, his own arms splayed out and not around her, and someone who didn’t know my dad might think he didn’t want the hug. But I know him a bit, and I know he does want it, that he desperately needs it. He just doesn’t know how to react because he’s sad and he’s broken, and that’s a tough combination.

  Watching my mom hold my dad is like the time I went to the planetarium and watched this show about the stars and the planets. There’s this place where the planets shift, or maybe the sun covers the moon completely or vice versa, I don’t remember exactly what. I just remember feeling like the earth was shifting and my balance was gone and even though I was sitting and looking up at the ceiling, I felt like I could just fall over.

  Turk comes and stands on my right, and Aisha stands on my left. I lean on both of them. They hold me up, and I’ve never felt this way before, supported like a building needs support beams. They keep me upright as the planets of my parents collide and stay collided.

  Eventually we all sit down, my mom and dad on the love seat and the three of us on the big couch. No one says much of anything.

  My dad finally says, “He was alone and sick, and I couldn’t help him.”

  Turk shakes his head slowly. “He wasn’t alone.”

  My dad nods vacantly.

  “He loved you very much and he knew you loved him and that’s the truth,” Turk says.

  “Why did this have to happen to me?” Dad asks. “Us, I mean.”

  No one has an answer for that one.

  “All this wasted time….” he says.

  Turk tells a few funny s
tories about the things my granddad did in San Francisco, like the time he dressed up for Halloween in a blond wig, pantsuit, and poofy hat, and around his midsection was a bulky felt square, with six round white dots on the back side, one round white dot on the front.

  “He was Princess Die,” Turk says, and my mother, of all people, laughs. My dad hangs his head, and I realize it’s not that easy taking this all in, hearing about what your dad was doing when he wasn’t with you, for whatever reason. Like if your dad can’t be with you, he should be miserable the whole time. I definitely know that feeling.

  I guess Turk gets it too, because he says, “At least once a week, Matthew, I’d wake up to your dad’s sobs. He was an utter mess, not being able to be with you.”

  My dad chews his bottom lip. My mom squeezes his hand, and after a while, I see him squeeze hers back.

  It’s after midnight when we finish talking, and my mother tries to figure out where everyone can sleep. Turk will get the living room couch, she says, and she brings out fresh linen for him.

  “Would you be happier on a nice, working air mattress?” I ask.

  He moves his head from side to side, considering this. “You have an extra one?”

  “Nope. We don’t have any. We have one that leaks air, and Aisha’s been sleeping on that one. I’ve been sleeping on the rug with a blanket. But on the positive side, I now have a wealthy grandfather who owes me presents.”

  “Carson,” my mother says, but Turk laughs.

  “He’s right, you know. I’m a single guy in my seventies with money and no one to spend it on. Until now, that is. Let’s go shopping in the morning.”

  “That meeting,” my dad says softly.

  “Of course,” Turk says. He looks at all of us and says, “Your father has asked me to take him to an AA meeting. Aisha, would you take a look online and find one tomorrow morning?”

  She nods, and the room seems to soften. I close my eyes and it’s almost like I can feel my grandfather’s spirit expand and sigh and relax. And I know that whether or not that’s really happening, wherever my grandfather is or isn’t, he’s happy about this.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I jump out of bed as soon as I’m awake, kiss the still-sleeping Aisha on the forehead, and speed upstairs. It feels like Christmas morning to me. Like there are presents under the tree.

  Turk is snoring on the living room couch, and even though I don’t hear any other creatures stirring, I go into my dad’s room. He’s sleeping. I stand and watch, and then I find myself looking for glasses and bottles, which is kind of terrible. I know he’s going to a meeting today, but part of me is worried that the conversation with Turk was too much for him, and he must have snuck a drink.

  “What are you doing?” he groans when he opens his eyes and sees me on all fours, peering under his bed.

  “Nothing,” I say, standing up. “Sorry.”

  “I guess I can’t blame you,” he says. “But no. No booze. I promise.”

  I sit on his bed next to him. The sheets are a bit sweaty, and he feels warm.

  He yawns audibly. “Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine. I just …”

  My brain and my heart are full. It feels like I could open my mouth and everything I ever held in there could come out, jokes or yells or tears or who knows what. I don’t know what’s first and what’s last, and I’m tired of trying to control it.

  “I miss you,” I blurt. “Goddamn … Not like a week’s worth. Freakin’ … Like years’ worth. Can I just sit here with you for a bit? We don’t have to talk. I just want to be with you.”

  A smile pours over his face. “Sure, kiddo. Yeah. That’d be all right.”

  I smile back, then I put his hand in mine and I squeeze. I try to squeeze life into it.

  “I told you I’d come back,” I say.

  “Yup.”

  “It was a long trip,” I say. I’m fishing for a compliment, so I stop.

  “Thanks,” he says. “If I didn’t say that yet. Thanks.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “Yeah.” He tickles my palm with his fingers. “Sounds like a whole lot of nothing.”

  I want to ask him everything at once. I want to know how he’s feeling, and what’s going through his mind. But he’s staring off into the distance, and sometimes it’s okay to not say anything. No jokes, just being together in the silence.

  He finally says, “Thanks for not listening to me and doing what you did. You’re a good son.”

  I look at him. His eyes are young like a child’s, and they’re weary like an old man’s, and then he smiles, and his teeth are yellowed in places. I don’t know if he’ll make it to fall, and that’s not something I can deal with. He has to be okay. He just has to. You can’t come back into someone’s life and then die. It’s just not right.

  “You’re a … dad,” I say, leaving the “good” part out.

  He laughs. It’s good to have someone who shares your blood, who gets your jokes and you don’t have to explain. I’ve missed that in my life. And now, at least for this moment, I don’t have to.

  After breakfast, Aisha asks me if I’ll take a ride with her. I know where we’re going. She sits rigid as she drives us up Rimrock Road about a mile and then turns north, up toward the actual rim.

  “Here goes everything,” she says.

  The house she’s lived in all through high school is tall, thin, and built up into the rocks. It’s elevated a good twenty feet, and we have to climb some stone steps to get to the entrance. There are huge floor-to-ceiling windows on the first and second floors. We stand at the top of the steps and look up at it. The house looms over us, judgmental and stern. I feel really small standing there, and Aisha’s fear radiates off her skin as she tries to catch her breath.

  Finally we march up to the bright-red front door.

  Her mom answers. She’s a smallish, dark-skinned woman with Aisha’s cheekbones, and she wraps her arms around Aisha and squeezes with all her might. Aisha stands there, arms at her sides, and it’s like the air around us swirls with unsaid stuff.

  “This is my friend, Carson,” Aisha says, pulling away, and her mother eyes me. “He’s been putting me up.”

  Her mother gulps. “Thank you,” she whispers to me.

  “Who is it?” a loud voice booms from above us.

  Aisha’s mother jumps a bit. “No one.”

  “Mommy!” It’s the youngest I’ve ever heard Aisha sound.

  Her mom shakes her head. She puts her finger on Aisha’s lips, and she steps outside and closes the door behind her. “He’s not ready. You know how he is,” she says.

  “Well, he needs to get over himself. Or else you’re not gonna be seeing me again.”

  “You have to be patient with him. You know your daddy.”

  “But —”

  Her mother raises a finger, telling us to wait. She scurries inside and returns with a slip of paper, which she hands to Aisha. “I got a second cell. He doesn’t know about this number. You stay in touch with me, hear?”

  “Mommy, you gotta —”

  “He’s on a rampage,” she says. “Football stuff. This is not the right time.”

  And her mother is closing the door on us.

  Aisha screams, “Dad!”

  Nothing.

  “Dad! Get down here, Dad.” Her voice echoes in the canyon beneath the Rim. I hear it reverberate off the rock.

  More nothing.

  “I know you can hear me. You have to come down. You have to stop this. You don’t come down and that’s it. Hear me? … You’re gonna lose me. Forever. Dad?”

  We stand in front of the door for a bit. Then we sit down on the steps, and Aisha puts her head in her hands, and she cries. I hug her and she cries some more, and then I cry too, because Aisha deserves to be celebrated by her dad. She doesn’t deserve to lose her father.

  No one deserves that.

  When the tears subside, we stand up, and Aisha stares at the door like she’s trying to memorize it,
like she’s trying to memorialize the moment. I let her do her thing, and then she clasps my hand and we walk back down the stairs in silence.

  When we get down to the bottom, she glances back at the house. We both look up, and there, standing against the floor-to-ceiling window on the second floor, is a huge, bald black man with his large arms crossed against his chest.

  Aisha raises her hand to him.

  He doesn’t move. I feel my heart crack.

  Then he slowly uncrosses his arms, and he raises a hand back to her and places it against the glass window, and Aisha makes a noise I’ve never heard before, like a squeaky bleat, and she bounds up the stairs. Her dad disappears from the window. From a distance, I watch as the door opens, and he grabs her in his arms and lifts and hugs her, and he swings her around.

  I can’t hear the words. Standing there, I realize that I may never get to know what the words are. I’m the sidekick, and this is her moment. They talk for a bit, and Aisha’s dad crosses his huge arms again and Aisha motions wildly with hers while she says whatever she says. Then she leans in and listens to him as he says whatever.

  She rises onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, and he puts his face in his hands and his body begins to convulse. He turns away from her, shaking, and Aisha watches, her hands on her hips.

  He turns back and gently kisses her on the cheek, then he hides his face again and walks inside. Aisha is left standing alone, in front of the red door.

  Just as I’m deciding to go to her, she comes walking down the stairs. I see her eyes are wet and glassy. I give her a big hug, and then we get in the car and drive off.

  “Well, I suppose it’s better to know” is all she says.

  Aisha takes a grief nap when we get back, and I tell my mom what happened. She listens with her hands holding her head like a vice, like she’s trying to keep her skull from exploding.

  “Where will Aisha stay when we go back to New York?” my mother asks.

  I shake my head. I can’t even think about that. If we go back, does that mean Dad is dead? Could he come with us? Too many variables, too many things I don’t want to imagine.