Lisa Unger: Fragile

Ricky walked into the kitchen, standing a full head taller than she, clad in black from head to toe-a pair of jeans, a carefully ripped and tattered tank, high-laced Doc Martens boots, though the autumn air was unseasonably hot. Nearly stifling, she thought, but that might just be her hormones. She was used to the silver hoop in his nose, almost thought it was cool.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hi, baby.”

He started opening cupboards. She tried not to stare. She’d been standing at the counter, leafing through a catalog packed with junk no one needed. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched it. Yesterday, he’d come home with a tattoo, some kind of abstract tribal design that spanned the length of his upper arm. It was hideous. And it wasn’t done; there was just an outline with no color. It would take several more appointments to complete, and he had to earn the money to pay for it. She certainly wasn’t going to pay for him to mutilate himself, not that he’d asked for money. The skin around the ink looked raw and irritated, shone with the Vaseline he had over it for protection. The sight of it made her sick with grief.

All she could think of was how pure and unblemished, how soft and pink his baby skin had been. How his wonderful body, small and pristine, used to feel in her arms, how she’d kiss every inch of him, marveling at his beauty. When she was a new mom, she’d felt like she couldn’t pull her eyes away. Now she cast her eyes back at her catalog quickly, not wanting to look at her own son, at what he’d seen fit to do to his beautiful body.

The fight they’d all had yesterday was over; everything she needed to say, she’d said. He would be eighteen in three weeks. His body wasn’t her responsibility anymore. You have no right to try to control me , he’d spat at her. I’m not a child . He was right, of course. That’s what hurt most of all.

“Not a big deal, Mom,” he said, reading her mind. He was riffling through the mail on the counter. “Lots of people have tattoos.”

“Ricky,” she said. She felt the heat rise to her face. But instead of saying anything else, she released a long, slow breath. It was a thing, like so many things, that could never be undone. It would be on him forever. Maybe she’d stop seeing it, like his hair, which was always a different color, jet-black today. He walked over and kissed her on the head.

“Not a baby, Mom,” he said.

“Always my baby, Ricky,” she said. He tried to move away, but she caught him and gave him a quick squeeze, which he returned.

“Rick,” he said. He turned away from her and headed to the refrigerator.

“Always Ricky,” she said. She knew she was being silly and stubborn. He had a right to say what he wanted to be called, didn’t he? Hadn’t she taught him to speak up for himself, to establish his boundaries, to have respect for himself?

“Mom.” One word. It was a gentle admonishment, as well as a request that she lighten up a bit.

She smiled and felt some of her tension dissolve. No matter how sad, how angry she was, she and her son had the kind of chemistry that made it difficult to fight. They were as likely to dissolve into laughter as they were to slam doors or raise their voices. Unlike the chemistry Ricky had with his father. When her husband and son fought, she understood why world peace was impossible, why people wouldn’t someday just learn to get along.

“How’s the band doing?” she said. A change of subject would do them both good.

“Not great. Charlene and Slash had a fight; she smashed his guitar. He can’t afford another one. We don’t have any gigs lined up anyway. We might be taking a break.”

“Who’s Slash?”

“You know, Billy Lovett.”

“Oh.” Billy of the golden hair and sea green eyes, the charmer, the star soccer player, once upon a time the heartthrob of the fourth grade. He and Ricky were both seniors getting ready to graduate, unrecognizable by those fourth-grade pictures, taken when sunlight seemed to shine from their very pores. Now they looked more like they slept in coffins during the daylight hours. That Billy wanted to be called Slash was a new development.

“Sorry to hear that,” she said. Honestly, their band was awful. Charlene’s voice was middling at best. Ricky had been playing the drums since fourth grade. His technique was passable, but he didn’t have any real talent for it-not that Maggie could hear. Billy, aka Slash, was a fairly decent guitar player. But when they got together, they emitted a raucous, angry sound that inspired in Maggie an awkward cringing.

“Wow,” she’d said to them after she and Jones went to hear them perform last year at the school battle of the bands. They’d been in the final three but eventually lost to another, equally unpleasant-sounding band. “I’m impressed.”

Ricky poured himself a glass of orange juice, managing to spill a few drops on the granite countertop and the just-cleaned hardwood floor. She grabbed a rag and wiped up after him.

That’s the problem. You’re always following him around, cleaning up his messes. He thinks he can do anything . Her worst fights with her husband had been about their son, their only child. Jones didn’t seem to notice that their son, “the freak,” as Jones liked to call him, had a 4.0 average and nearly perfect SAT scores. His early acceptance letters to Georgetown and New York University were hanging on the refrigerator, where she used to hang his crayon drawings and report cards. And those were just the first two.

What difference does any of that make when he doesn’t even want to go to college? All that brilliance and all he can think to do is get his fucking nose pierced?

But Maggie knew her son; he wouldn’t have gone through all the work of those applications as early as he had if there wasn’t someone beneath the punk hairstyle and tattoo who knew what an education meant. He didn’t want to work at the local music shop all his life.

“So are you and Charlene going to the winter formal?”

He flashed her a look, turning his too-smart eyes on her. They were black, black pools, just like her father’s eyes had been. Sometimes she saw her father’s strength, his wisdom, there, too. But mainly, she saw the twinkling before some smart comment or the flash of attitude. Like right now.

“You’re kidding,” he said.

“No,” she said, drawing out the word. “I’m not kidding. It might be fun.”

“Um, no , Mom. We’re not. Anyway, it’s not for months.”

“You could do it your own way, with your own style.” The rag still in her hand, she started wiping down things that didn’t need wiping-the chrome bread box, the toaster oven, the Italian pottery serving bowl where they kept the fresh fruit, when they had any in the house-which at the moment they did not. She really needed to go to the grocery store. God forbid Jones or Ricky would ever pick up the list on the counter and go without being nagged for three days.

She wondered what “your own style” might mean to Ricky and Charlene. But all the other moms she ran into at the school or the grocery store were readying their daughters and sons for this high school event-shopping for dresses and renting tuxes already. Maggie could settle for gothic formal wear; she could handle that. She used to be cool a hundred years ago. She went to NYU, partied in the East Village-Pyramid Club, CBGB-wore all black. Her son’s style didn’t bother her as much as it did Jones. It was the whole college thing that kept her up at night. And Charlene, she worried about Charlene.

Charlene, a little girl lost, hiding behind a mask of black eyeliner and vamp red lipstick. She had an aura that somehow managed to be knowing but desperate, fiery yet vulnerable. She was the kind of girl who started wars, at once acquiescent and defiant. She’d spun a web around Maggie’s son without his knowing it, without even perhaps her intention. Spider silk was stronger than chain if you happened to be a fly.