Dave Eggers - Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

— Fine.

— There was one time I picked you up. I used to come to their house and get you after work. And always it was a hassle to get you to leave, but no more than any kid leaving any friend, I figured. But this time you were really resisting. You wouldn’t come, and I was standing there in the doorway to the kid’s room, with his mom, just trying to chat and be casual while trying to get you to put on your jacket and come with me. But you wouldn’t move. I think you thought maybe I’d just leave and let you live there. I mean, it made no sense because obviously you have to leave at some point. So finally it starts getting embarrassing, and the mom, I can’t remember her name, something like Aureola, she says she has to get something in the kitchen or something. She knew I might need some time alone with you. So she left, and she brought her son with her. Then it was just you and me alone in his room. And I got down on my knees and brought you close to me, and I whispered in your ear that we needed to go. I used to do that in public, get you close and whisper sort of urgently in your ear when you were misbehaving. And so I cupped my hand around your ear and whispered a few choice things about us needing to leave, you embarrassing us, how you’d be punished if you didn’t comply, and then I backed up a bit to look into your eyes and make sure you understood, and that’s when this look came over your face and you tried to strangle me.

— I did not.

— But you did. Why else would I remember it twenty-five years later? You put your hands around my neck and squeezed. I don’t even know where you learned how to do that. I’d never been so scared. Just the look in your eyes! It was pure hatred, pure evil. But then you held on. You were so strong and I couldn’t get your hands off me and then your eyes went dull, like a snake’s when it’s got something in its jaws. You know how they have some mouse in their jaws but their eyes stay open and seem so far away? That was the look you had.

— You’re making all of this up.

— So finally I got free, and I spanked you, and you still struggled. I had to carry you out kicking and screaming. You scratched my face and it took a month to heal. I mean, this was terrifying. Can you imagine? You never went back to that house. I was too embarrassed to let them have you over. From then on I always had an inkling you were capable of something like this. Capable of anything.

— You are so full of shit.

— Thomas, you want to attribute your behavior to a set of external factors. You want to cede your life and decisions and consequences to forces outside of you, but that’s the coward’s way. And blaming your mother? It’s so easy. You were not a lump of clay I molded. You and every other child comes into the world with their personality baked in. How else do you think a kid like Jim Avila is gay and designs dresses when his parents are white-trash farmers? The thing you always had was a need to blame. You get a bad grade, it’s because the teacher doesn’t like you. Some girl doesn’t like you and it’s because she’s a slut or whatever else. I mean, as a mother I was exasperated by all this. I wanted to be on your side but there were too many battles. You were at war every day, and it was exhausting.

— So you take no responsibility.

— I take the same amount of responsibility as any parent. Which should be limited. If you were raised in a standard two-parent family, with all the money and stability in the world, you would have turned out exactly the same. Maybe with some superficial differences. You’d have slightly different clothes.

— That’s an incredible statement.

— Thomas, I wasn’t one of those mothers who waited ten years to have a child. I wasn’t placing all my worldly hopes on the outcome of my womb.

— Wait. What’s that got to do with anything? What does that even mean?

— It means I wasn’t so awed by the idea of having a child that I went dancing around you like you were some golden calf. Most parents are so grateful to their children for existing that they become obsequious. I promised myself I would not be one of those obsequious mothers.

— Obsequious? You are amazing.

— I find all that disgusting. It begins a lifetime of perceived debt that does no one any good.

— I have no idea what you’re talking about.

— Thomas, I did not think you some miracle bestowed upon me. You were born and I was happy to have you. And I don’t think you thought of me as some miracle, either. We were, or should have been, partners. I was happy you existed and wanted you to thrive. My hope was that you were happy to exist and that you yourself would endeavor to thrive. But instead you were aggrieved by your existence and my role in it. I think that’s why you were so drawn to Christ.

— I wasn’t drawn to Christ. What does that mean?

— You used to draw the crucifix on your notebooks. Other kids were drawing spaceships or Grateful Dead skulls or penises, but you were drawing crucifixes. You thought that was you, suffering on the cross. I considered you a partner and an equal but you wanted to be beneath me and a martyr.

— You’re the one who brought me to church.

— I brought you once. You know how I hate Christianity and all that wretched iconography. You know what? You see pictures of Buddha and he’s sitting, reclining, at peace. The Hindus have their twelve-armed elephant god, who also seems so content but not powerless. But leave it to the Christians to have a dead and bloody man nailed to a cross. You walk into a church and you see a helpless man bleeding all over himself — how can we come away hopeful after such a sight? People bring their children to mass and have them stare for two hours at a man hammered to a beam and picked at by crows. How is that elevating? It’s all about accountability for them.

— What is?

— The Christians, the Bible. It’s all about who’s at fault. A whole religion based on accountability. Who’s to blame? What’s the judgment? Who gets punished? Who gets jailed, banished, killed, drowned, decimated. You want to know the main takeaway most people got from Jesus’s death? Not sacrifice, nothing like that. The takeaway, after all that Old Testament judgment, is that the Jews did it.

— Incredible.

— You loved it, though. Especially as a teenager. Young men love martyrdom. You get to be the victim and the hero at the same time. Do you remember when you said you wanted to be a priest?

— I didn’t want to be a priest.

— A monk? What was it? It was Don’s influence. Wasn’t his mom some Bible thumper?

— She wasn’t a Bible thumper.

— Don thought himself some kind of elevated young man, didn’t he? He took himself very seriously. The last time I saw him he was spouting some very pious stuff. He looked at me like I was one of his parishioners, like he was taking an interest in me — that he might save me.

— You’re faulting him for caring about you. I know how foreign that is to you. To care about someone. To care about their well-being.

— You mean me with you? If anything, I was too protective.

— Holy shit.

— What are you doing now? Don’t get so excited. Stop the jumping around, Thomas. Please. I didn’t make you get jobs. I allowed you to flounder. It made you soft. I let you quit college. I let you live at home.

— So why did you?

— I felt guilty. You guilted me into it. You made me feel like I’d done all these horrible things, so I coddled you. You’d have been better off in military school. The Army straightens boys like you out. You needed some discipline. You needed to be around people who wake up in the morning and go to work, do something.

— You didn’t keep me safe.