Ben Marcus - Notable American Women

Statistics for Father: Chaos at the house. My real father was banished during this phase. He slept in the shed. I wanted to call him a girl’s name, but I was not allowed to see him. My sister clearly thrived as Father: she boomed; she boasted; she tore through the house. She smashed the behavior television; she burned her old sleep sock. Mother was scared. A soothing litany of vowel songs was used on my sister to calm her down, without which she might have escaped. By the time the name would have worn off, she would have reached Akron. We restricted the study to two days. When we stopped calling her Father, she shed the hardest skin of all the names. My mother removed it from the house with a shovel before inviting my father back inside.

[Mary]

Every five minutes, a woman named Mary will stop breathing. It is a favorite of children, and every five minutes there are children standing in witness to the ending of Mary. Children clap at it when they see it. They are thrilled and they weep. Sometimes they become excited by a Mary that comes to die before them and they chase it and hit it. The Mary takes a wound. It holds up an arm and shields what is coming. It holds a wound in its hand, and the children are delighted.

Statistics for Mary: She was mostly slumped over. This was near the end. We tried to groom her, but her body was cold. Her hair broke when you touched it. She weakened visibly every time we said “Mary.” She refused all food. In the mornings, she wrung her hands and wept quietly. Mother collected something from her face. Possibly some scrapings, possibly the smallest bit of fluid. Mary was the last thing we called her. It was possibly the name that killed her.

Certain factions of women go by a nonname and therefore participate in a larger person that is little seen or heard or known. It cannot be summoned or commanded. Generally, it walks stiffly, owing to its numerous inhabitants. A body such as one not named can be toppled, no doubt — felled and pinned to the turf, brought under control with water and a knife, some rope, and hard words. It is the primary woman, from which many women have emerged, to which many will return. It is believed to reside in Cleveland. Probably it is bleeding and tired. By now, it might be nearly finished.

Statistics: We treated my sister with silence at the end. We used an openmouthed name that failed to break the air, no different from a deaf wind. A great deal of hissing was heard in the house, though we could not find the source of this sound. My sister’s skin was clear. It would not peel. It would not shed. We waited near her slumped body. She stayed nameless. She retained her skin.

AT THE TIME OF THIS WRITING, I am going to be Ben’s mother my whole life, no matter how extreme, inspired, or innovative my behavior. It is not a role I requested. My projects with emotion removal and silence would have thrived similarly without him. I do not seek your agreement on this topic. There was no invitation or application to this motherhood, only your oily body seeking to seal our obligations to each other. You inter-coursed all over me in order to finally obligate me to you. I can’t forget you with your back arched like a swan’s, your teeth bared, clutching the sheets on each side of me as you funneled noiselessly between my legs, forgetting to breathe, until I felt you slowly wilting inside me, then a pool of dampness leaking down my bottom, which you asked me to stanch with your handkerchiefs. Your apologies afterward hardly made a difference. As soon as Ben was conceived, he was apologized for. A detail conveniently omitted from the prelaunch forecast we made when we cataloged our vision for the person he might become.

As much as I had hoped to court ambiguity, complication, and mystery regarding my basic relationship to Ben, to somehow annex my motherhood to my other projects, so that I was not merely shepherding another average person into the midwestern atmosphere, there is a fate that I am not imaginative enough to outdistance, a biology I have yet to surpass. I would like to alter it with chemicals. I would like to zero my heart, enter a silent house, and perform the gestures that will deliver me from all of the sameness. To be new in this awful, old job. I would like to outsmart the role that is destined for me. But I can’t. I have failed to destroy my category.

Did I ask to be Ben’s mother? I did not. Did I know that you were having sex with me? I did. Did I enjoy it? I did not. Encourage it? No. Did I realize that your rampant thrusting over my deliberately inert body would lead to a child such as Ben? I don’t think so. Whose fault is it? Mine, of course. Is anyone else to blame? You are. Do I want something from you now? You’d better fucking believe it.

First, listen to what is happening to him; attend to my decay narrative. Next, note my requests of you. Note them. Note them. Note them. Last, learn what has been decided for you. One, two, three. Is there a punishment in store for you? Possibly, probably, awfully certainly. Yes. Better to think of it as a fate, a result, a consequence to what you did and didn’t do. I mean to extract some final favors from you. You will soon see why you will be compelled to grant them. Pay attention.

Note: All quotes of you are taken from real things you said. I will quote you liberally. I will paraphrase you. I will channel your voice, imitate you. Since you apparently believe first and foremost in yourself, since you only subscribe to ideas of your own issue, I will allow your own words a front-and-center role. By pretending to be you, I will finally have you believe me. In case you get bored. In case you fool yourself into thinking another person’s words, even your former wife’s, are beyond, beneath, or beside your notice. Just in case. Put this aside at your peril. Read this at your peril. Do nothing at your peril. Breathe at your peril. No matter what, your peril will be the featured attraction of that portion of time we have been conservatively, cautiously, fearfully referring to as the future. If it is bad, and it hasn’t happened yet, rest assured it will. You can look forward to it. At your absolute, total peril.

Now. Because we have withdrawn to opposite wings of the house this season, where we cannot audit the growth of our “son,” or even gather at the behavior farm to chalk-talk an emotion-concealment style for his upcoming Akron debut, I am submitting a memorandum to you that demands your immediate attention. My concern is manifold and complicated and probably beyond your narrow comprehension. You need only know that my worry is for the boy we made together, who roves the Marcus property so cautiously, so breakably, that even our domestic animals could probably molest him for their own amusement.

Yes, you have visitation of Ben as part of the Allotment for Father. You ostensibly observe him at work and at play, alone, with others, asleep, at table, weeping, laughing, bleeding: the basic behaviors. But can I rely on you to be appropriately alarmed when Ben is less than average, inferior, loathsome, predictable? I cannot.

My aim is to forestall the demise of this new person we once shared ambition for. Although our launch objectives may have forked (yours into God knows where), we are each, I imagine, still vested in Ben’s success enough to revise our separate child-rearing styles, which might ensure his feeble life at least through this season’s behavior trials.

It is not appropriate — indeed, it is alarming — for a boy of Ben’s age to be developing the hairline of a much older gentleman, and the apologetic body style of a low-riding dog. He appears to be someone who might more appropriately carry a cane, or use a walker to get himself comfortably from the couch to the toilet, if he even moves at all.