Lionel Shriver - We Need to Talk About Kevin

“That is the point.”

“I’m still lost,” I said.

“Viruses—they’re kind of elegant, you know? Almost—pure. Kind of like—charity work, you know? It’s selfless .”

“But it’s not that different from creating AIDS.”

“Maybe somebody did,” he said affably. “’Cause otherwise? You type on your computer and go home and the refrigerator comes on and another computer spits out your paycheck and you sleep and you enter more shit on your computer… Might as well be dead.”

“So it’s this—. Almost to, what, know you’re alive. To show other people they don’t control you. To prove you can do something, even if it could get you arrested.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” he said appreciatively. In his eyes, I had exceeded myself.

“Ah,” I said, and handed him his disk back. “Well, thanks for explaining.”

As I turned to go, he said, “You’re computer’s fucked, isn’t it.”

“Yes, it’s fucked,” I said ruefully. “I guess I deserved it.”

“You know, if there’s anybody you don’t like?” he offered. “And you got their e-mail address? Just lemme know.”

I laughed. “Okay, I’ll be sure to do that. Though, some days? The people I don’t like come to quite a list.”

“Better warn them you got friends in low places,” he said.

So this is bonding ! I marveled, and closed the door.

Dear Franklin,

Well, it’s another Friday night on which I gird myself for a visit to Chatham tomorrow morning. The halogen bulbs are trembling again, flickering like my stoic resolve to be a good soldier and live out what’s left of my life for the sake of some unnamable duty. I’ve sat here for over an hour, wondering what keeps me going, and more specifically just what it is I want from you. I guess it goes without saying that I want you back; the volume of this correspondence—though it’s more of a respondence , isn’t it?—attests heavily to that. But what else? Do I want you to forgive me? And if so, for what exactly?

After all, I was uneasy with the unsolicited tide of forgiveness that washed over the shipwreck of our family in the wake of Thursday . In addition to mail promising either to beat his brains out or to bear his babies, Kevin has received dozens of letters offering to share his pain, apologizing for society’s having failed to recognize his spiritual distress and granting him blanket moral amnesty for what he has yet to regret. Amused, he’s read choice selections aloud to me in the visiting room.

Surely it makes a travesty of the exercise to forgive the unrepentant, and I speak for myself as well. I, too, have received a torrent of mail (my e-mail and postal address were billboarded on both partnersnprayer.org and beliefnet.com without my consent; apparently at any one time, thousands of Americans have been praying for my salvation), much of it invoking a God in whom I was less disposed to believe than ever, while sweepingly acquitting my shortcomings as a mother. I can only assume that these well-meaning people felt moved by my plight. Yet it bothered me that nearly all this deliverance was bestowed by strangers, which made it seem cheap, and an undercurrent of preening betrayed that conspicuous clemency has become the religious version of driving a flashy car. By contrast, my brother Giles’s staunch incapacity to pardon us for the unwelcome attentions that our wayward son has visited upon his own family is a grudge I treasure, if only for its frankness. Thus I was of half a mind to mark the envelopes “Return to sender,” like Pocket Fishermans and Gensu knives I hadn’t ordered. In the early months, still asthmatic with grief, I was more in the mood for the bracing open air of the pariah than for the close, stifling confines of Christian charity. And the vengefulness of my hate mail was meat-red and raw, whereas the kindness of condolences was pastel and processed, like commercial baby food; after reading a few pages from the merciful, I’d feel as if I’d just crawled from a vat of liquefied squash. I wanted to shake these people and scream, Forgive us! Do you know what he did?

But in retrospect it may grate on me most that this big dumb absolution latterly in vogue is doled out so selectively. Weak characters of an everyday sort—bigots, sexists, and panty fetishists—need not apply. “KK” the murderer harvests sheaves of pitying pen pals; an addled drama teacher too desperate to be liked is blackballed for the rest of her life. From which you may correctly construe that I’m not so bothered by the caprices of all America’s compassion as I am by yours. You bent over backward to be understanding about killers like Luke Woodham in Pearl and little Mitchell and Andrew in Jonesboro. So why had you no sympathy to spare for Vicki Pagorski?

The first semester of Kevin’s sophomore year in 1998 was dominated by that scandal. Rumors had circulated for weeks, but we weren’t in the loop, so the first we heard about it was when the administration sent that letter around to all Ms. Pagorski’s drama students. I’d been surprised that Kevin elected to take a drama course. He tended to shy from the limelight in those days, lest scrutiny blow his Regular Kid cover. On the other hand, as his room suggested, he could be anybody , so he may have been interested in acting for years.

“Franklin, you should take a look at this,” I said one November evening while you were grumbling over the Times that Clinton was a “lying sack of shit.” I handed you the letter. “I don’t know what to make of it.”

As you adjusted your reading glasses, I had one of those juddering update moments when I realized that your hair had now passed decisively from blond to gray. “Seems to me,” you determined, “this lady’s got a taste for tenderloin.”

“Well, you have to infer that,” I said. “But if someone’s made an accusation, this letter’s not defending her. If your son or daughter has reported anything irregular or inappropriate … Please speak to your child … They’re digging for more dirt!”

“They have to protect themselves.—KEV! Come into the den for a sec!”

Kevin sauntered across the dining area in tiny dove-gray sweats, their elastic ankles bunched under his knees.

“Kev, this is a little awkward,” you said, “and you haven’t done anything wrong. Not a thing. But this drama teacher, Ms.—Pagorski. Do you like her?”

Kevin slumped against the archway. “Okay, I guess. She’s a little… ”

“A little what?”

Kevin looked elaborately in all directions. “Hinky.”

“Hinky how?” I asked.

He studied his unlaced sneakers, glancing up through his eyelashes. “She like, wears funny clothes and stuff. Not like a teacher. Tight jeans, and sometimes her blouse—” He twisted, and scratched an ankle with his foot. “Like, the buttons at the top, they’re not… See, she gets all excited when she’s directing a scene, and then… It’s sort of embarrassing.”

“Does she wear a bra?” you asked bluntly.

Kevin averted his face, suppressing a grin. “Not always.”

“So she dresses casually, and sometimes—provocatively,” I said. “Anything else?”

“Well, it’s not a big deal or anything, but she does use a lot of dirty words, you know? Like, it’s okay, but from a teacher and everything, well, like I said, it’s hinky.”

“Dirty like damn and hell ?” you prodded. “Or harder core?”

Kevin raised his shoulders helplessly. “Yeah, like—sorry, Mumsey—”

“Oh, skip it, Kevin,” I said impatiently; his discomfiture seemed rather overdone. “I’m a grown-up.”