Джош Малерман - Inspection

The Inspection reports will reveal when that day comes. These are the Delicate Years, indeed.

But if I’m going to admonish Richard for his use of distractions in what must be a futile effort in the end, I must be able to contribute to the conversation. I must be able to provide an alternate solution to how we, the Parenthood, deal with this sexual revolution (make no mistake, Richard; there will be a revolution waging in each and every one of our boys. Bloodshed on their own private battlefields). Here, then, are my five solutions:

1) Encourage the boys further in the arts. Of course we cannot reveal to them the nature of procreation. That’s fine; as the Constitution of the Parenthood clearly states, we are not in the business of creating biologists, and while genius can wear many coats, the Alphabet Boys are being raised to become the world’s greatest engineers, scientists, and mathematicians. ARTICLE ONE of the CONSTITUTION OF THE PARENTHOOD: GENIUS IS DISTRACTED BY THE OPPOSITE SEX. Richard’s entire experiment balances upon this initial article, the fountainhead of the Parenthood at large. So while other boys their age, or a couple of years older, spend two-thirds of their waking life attempting to court women (and/or simply impress them), the Alphabet Boys will be working three times as hard on the aforementioned subjects. And yet…there must be an outlet. The arts could provide this. I do not think the leisure books penned by Lawrence Luxley are capable of satisfying this need. The arts, good arts, encouraging arts, can act as a more refined placeholder, a bucket, if you will, to catch the boys’ wayward sexuality as it comes pouring out their ears and eyes. Make no mistake, the boys will be changing, in paramount ways, to degrees not experienced in the Parenthood thus far.

X is a fine artist. G has shown signs. To me, Voices is simply not enough. As magnificent as that choir has become.

Painting an abstract picture, singing a non sequitur song…these may placate the unfathomable, focal-pointless feelings they will experience.

As always, more to come on this at a later date.

2) Attempt to influence their dreams. Subliminal hints throughout the Parenthood might cause the boys to dream of specific things, calming things, visions and images that could take the place of a sexuality they intentionally (on our part) know nothing about. I’ll provide one example (but we can certainly discuss this in a much bigger way in person): Hang color photos of rolling hills or desert landscapes outside the door of the bedroom belonging to the most popular boy on each floor of the Turret. That is to say: Whichever room the boys have a tendency to congregate in most often, hang a landscape that resembles something of a naked body. Perhaps this tiny gift (on our part) will assuage (momentarily) the growing need each of them will be experiencing.

As is the case with all these posits: More on this at a later date.

3) Encourage the boys to increase their athletic endeavors. We do this already, but perhaps not to the degree we will need to. It is well understood (and well documented, of course) that Richard would prefer the boys to spend no more than 10 percent of their days in physical pursuit, but the Delicate Years not only announce the coming of an emotional deluge; the boys will need a physical outlet. Why not order a new athletic decree: ONE LAP OF THE CHERRY ORCHARD, which constitutes a 3.1-mile experience, the exact distance of the fabled 5K, which boys their age are no doubt running in other parts of the world. If this idea doesn’t suit Richard’s tastes, then I suggest purchasing treadmills and installing them in each of the boys’ bedrooms; who knows at what time of night they’ll feel the need to burn off some steam. My professional guess is ANY. ANY time of night. And any time of day.

4) Limit the physical portion of the Inspection and increase the emotional query. As I’ve stated above, the boys have much to gain through addressing the abstract feelings they will be (already are!) experiencing, and whether they make complete sense of their “new selves” doesn’t matter. As we adults already know: There is no such thing as “knowing yourself,” not wholly, but the attempts to do so along the way certainly ease the pain.

5) Reconsider Article Sixteen of the Constitution of the Parenthood in which Richard (forcibly, this is true) included the rule that states that, under no circumstances, no matter how trying the Delicate Years prove to be, will the Alphabet Boys undergo any form of castration. And yet…we’ve already lost A and Z to much more gruesome ends. Might it be time to consider removing the sexuality Richard so dreads is coming? NOTE: It’s a year or two away. Plan now.

In summation, Richard and the Parenthood would be well served to either nurture the coming barrage of sexuality through abstraction or to (pardon) nip it off at the bud. It is my professional opinion that a series of distractions (i.e., the floor shift) will only compress the issue, increasing the boys’ curiosity, their thirst for answers, until their behavior resembles nothing like we’ve seen before, or until they break the cardinal rules of the Parenthood and all of Richard’s dalliance and jurisprudence is lost.

Genius may be distracted by the opposite sex, but sexuality itself is not so easily distracted.

(Thank you for your time, Richard, and I look forward to speaking with you directly when next we meet in the Glasgow Tunnel.)

Just before breakfast, the boys were informed D.A.D. was going to make a speech. This, of course, would take place in the Body Hall, named so, J assumed, because of how many bodies they fit into the high-ceilinged, echoey, wood-paneled concert hall whenever D.A.D. had something important to say.

All of them. All of the bodies. From the Alphabet Boys to the Inspectors, Professor Gulch to the cooks. Even Lawrence Luxley himself, always a highlight for J and the others to see in person. The nurses, the cleaners, the health aides, and the plumbers.

The Parenthood.

Speech, the word, like Inspection, had changed over the years. It invoked a much different feeling now than it had when the boys were just children and would, presumably, spark something else years from now. When the boys were kids, D.A.D.’s speeches meant hardly anything at all; J mostly recalled the back of other boys’ heads, the back of their benches, and the dark sonorous syllables of D.A.D.’s words echoing off the walls that seemed to reach the sky. In those days, it took a simple glance across the hall to D or F and it was all J could do to stifle a bout of uncontrollable laughter.

But things had changed.

RICHARD UNDERSTOOD THIS more than anyone. He had planned for it.

It matters not, an early Burt Report stated, whether the boys take in what Richard says. The point is to instill a sense of wonder, a plan that is no doubt working, based upon the sincerely awed visages observing him as he delivers his speeches.

The Alphabet Boys had not been taught God. For Richard, obedience trumped religion.

This morning, the Inspections over, Richard held the day’s Burt Report in one hand, a glass of scotch in the other. He read half of the first sentence his personal psychiatrist had penned one more time:

I’ll cut right to it: If it’s order Richard cherishes most in what he himself has dubbed “the Delicate Years” —

He set the papers upon his desk. Despite the light snowfall outside his first-floor window, he felt warm. He rose from his desk and stepped to the full-sized mirror on the back of his front door.

“You look good,” he said. “Hardly the parent of twenty-four twelve-year-old boys.”