Jonathan Foer - Here I Am

“For what?”

“ Choose . To live with.”

Max didn’t like this.

“Don’t kids just, like, split time, or whatever?”

“Yeah, it would begin like that, but then, you know, it always becomes a choice.”

Max hated this.

“I guess Dad’s more fun,” he said. “And I’d get in trouble a lot less. And probably have more cool stuff and screen time—”

“To enjoy before you die of scurvy, or melanoma from never putting on sunscreen, or just get sent to jail for getting to school late every single day.”

“Do they send you to jail for that?”

“It’s definitely the law that you have to go.”

“I’d also miss Mom.”

“What about her?”

“That she’s her.”

Sam didn’t like this.

“But I’d miss Dad if I went with Mom,” Max said, “so, I guess I don’t know. Who would you choose?”

“For you?”

“For yourself. I’d just want to be where you are.”

Sam hated this.

Max tilted his head up and looked at the ceiling, encouraging the tears to roll back under his eyes. It appeared almost robotic, but his inability to directly face such direct human emotion was what made him human. Or at least his father’s son.

Max put his hands in his pockets — a Jolly Rancher wrapper, a stubby pencil from a mini golf outing, a receipt whose type had vanished — and said, “So I went to a zoo once.”

“You’ve been to the zoo a lot of times.”

“It’s a joke.”

“Ah.”

“So I went to a zoo once, because I’d heard it was like the greatest zoo in the world. And, you know, I wanted to see it for myself.”

“Must have been pretty spectacular.”

“Well, the weird thing is, there was only one animal in the entire zoo.”

“No kidding.”

“Yeah. And it was a dog.”

“Argus?”

“You just screwed up my timing.”

“Do the last line again.”

“I’ll just start from the beginning.”

“OK.”

“So I went to a zoo once, because I’d heard it was the greatest zoo in the world. But the thing is, there was only one animal in the entire zoo. And it was a dog.”

“Jeez!”

“Yeah, turns out it was a shih tzu. Get it?”

“Really funny,” Sam said, unable to laugh, despite finding it genuinely really funny.

“You get it, though, right? Shih tzu?”

“Yeah.”

“Shih. Tzu.”

“Thanks, Max.”

“Am I being annoying?”

“Not at all.”

“I am.”

“Just the opposite.”

“What’s the opposite of annoying?”

Sam tilted his head up, darted his eyes toward the ceiling, and said, “Thanks for not asking if I did it.”

“Oh,” Max said, rubbing the erased receipt between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s because I don’t care.”

“I know. You’re the only one who doesn’t care.”

“Turns out it was a shit family,” Max said, wondering where he would go after leaving the room.

“That’s not funny.”

“Maybe you don’t get it.”

“Dad?” Benjy said, entering the kitchen yet again, his grandmother in tow. He always said Dad with a question mark, as if asking where his father was.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“When you made dinner last night, my broccoli was touching my chicken.”

“And you were just thinking about that?”

“No. All day.”

“It mixes in your stomach anyway,” Max said from the threshold.

“Where’d you come from?” Jacob asked.

“Mom’s vagina hole,” Benjy said.

“And you’re going to die anyway,” Max continued, “so who cares what touches the chicken, which is dead anyway.”

Benjy turned to Jacob: “Is that true, Dad?”

“Which part?”

“I’m going to die?”

“Why, Max? In what way was this necessary?”

“I’m going to die!”

“Many, many years from now.”

“Does that really make a difference?” Max asked.

“It could be worse,” Irv said. “You could be Argus.”

“Why would it be worse to be Argus?”

“You know, one paw in the oven.”

Benjy let out a plaintive wail, and then, as if carried on a light beam from wherever she’d been, Julia opened the door and rushed in.

“What happened?”

“What are you doing back?” Jacob asked, hating everything about the moment.

“Dad says I’m gonna die.”

“In fact,” Jacob said with a forced laugh, “what I said was, you’re going to live a very, very, very long life.”

Julia brought Benjy onto her lap and said, “Of course you aren’t going to die.”

“Then make that two frozen burritos,” Irv said.

“Hi, darling,” Deborah said to Julia. “It was beginning to feel a bit estrogen-starved in here.”

“Why did I get a boo-boo, Mama?”

“You don’t have a boo-boo,” Jacob said.

“On my knee,” Benjy said, pointing at nothing. “There.”

“You must have fallen,” Julia said.

“Why?”

“There is literally no boo-boo.”

“Because falling is part of life,” Julia said.

“It’s the epitome of life,” Max said.

“Nice vocab, Max.”

“Epitome?” Benjy asked.

“Essence of,” Deborah said.

“Why is falling the epitome of life?”

“It isn’t,” Jacob said.

“The earth is always falling toward the sun,” Max said.

“Why?” Benjy asked.

“Because of gravity,” Max said.

“No,” Benjy said, addressing his question to Jacob. “Why isn’t falling the epitome of life?”

“Why isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure I understand your question.”

“Why?”

“Why am I not sure that I understand your question?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Because this conversation has become confusing, and because I’m just a human with severely limited intelligence.”

“Jacob.”

“I’m dying!”

“You’re overreacting.”

“No I amn’t!”

“No you aren’t .”

“I amn’t.”

“ Aren’t , Benjy.”

Deborah: “ Kiss it , Jacob.”

Jacob kissed Benjy’s nonexistent boo-boo.

“I can carry our refrigerator,” Benjy said, not quite sure if he was ready to be done with his crying.

“That’s wonderful,” Deborah said.

“Of course you can’t,” Max said.

“Max said of course I can’t.”

“Give the kid a break,” Jacob whispered to Max at conversational volume. “If he says he can lift the fridge, he can lift the fridge.”

“I can carry it far away.”

“I’ve got it from here,” Julia said.

“I can control the microwave with my mind,” Max said.

“No way ,” Jacob said to Julia, too casually to be believable. “We’re doing great. We’ve been having a great time. You walked in at a bad moment. Unrepresentative. But everything is cool, and this is your day.”

“Off from what ?” Benjy asked his mother.

“What?” Julia asked.

“What do you need a day off from?”

“Who said I needed a day off?”

“Dad just did.”

“I said we were giving you a day off.”

“Off from what ?” Benjy asked.

“Exactly,” Irv said.

“Us, obviously,” Max said.

So much sublimation: domestic closeness had become intimate distance, intimate distance had become shame, shame had become resignation, resignation had become fear, fear had become resentment, resentment had become self-protection. Julia often thought that if they could just trace the string back to the source of their withholding, they might actually find their openness. Was it Sam’s injury? The never-asked question of how it happened? She’d always assumed they were protecting each other with that silence, but what if they were trying to injure, to transfer the wound from Sam to themselves? Or was it older? Did the withholding from each other predate meeting each other? Believing that would change everything.