Ben Marcus - Notable American Women

For my part, no matter how often I provoke the boy to a fainting spell by launching his body in the chair — his limbs wheeling in the air above the fainting tank, my own son aloft and unconscious, confusing the bird life in the vicinity — upon landing, his fear of himself is not cleansed. During the resuscitation procedure, after I salt his upper lip, he comes to alertness and seems “glad” to be alive, for I observe his face to gain the rictus of a smile and I watch his arms breach the space toward my person as he nuzzles into my heat, his mouth transmitting coos and baby sounds. But after I right his body, and distance myself two arm’s lengths from him to better observe the effects of the faint, and then note his symptoms in the ledger, he is soon again fending some invisible attack near his eyes, swatting the air, sometimes appearing to hug himself lightly on the shoulders in a solo embrace, as though his arms were being operated from afar and he were administering to himself some early, unchecked version of affection. I am repulsed when comfort becomes the chosen performance of the day, when people decide to soothe one another or themselves. It is so disappointing to ratify our panic. And to try to comfort oneself, a sort of asexual masturbation, like administering a massage to your own body, simply communicates to others what they should never do for you. It advertises your basest need. If Ben desires to be touched by me, he certainly won’t get his wish by touching himself in my presence. That is simply patronizing and far too obvious.

As you know, I prefer objects that do not give when you push or poke or prod them: a wall, a rock, a tower. I prefer men who don’t fall down and weep, who absorb a blow, who do not scamper and yell when chased, but stand firm, crouch, square off, meet an attack with something like resistance, even if it kills them. The four-point stance is my favorite posture for men. It indicates readiness, disguises fear, and raises their bottoms above their heads, which more authentically prioritizes a man’s body. Men should not gust so heavily from the mouth when they are being tended to; their noises should occur as language, or not at all. I do not like their sounds of relief. They sigh too easily, overusing the facial strategy of “smiling,” as though communicating their mood will deliver wanted news from their persons. As though, as though. They expect a far more ample interest in their needs than is ever warranted. The biggest tactical error of our time: using the face to communicate a mood. It amounts to spying on oneself. As for men, it is their completely wrong view of themselves I cannot stand. We could use a little more self-loathing from them, to give the rest of us a break. There is so little accuracy in their faces.

So when I can preside over the alteration of an object, or when that object sympathizes with my touch so much as to yield to it (Ben’s personality, so-called, not to mention his body, such as it is, and his head, his overall yieldingness and susceptibility and failed resistance to everything suggested for him), I am inclined, since I pursue my desires with “intense behavior” (your words), to continue shaping that object until it is small enough for me to stash in my pocket or bury or fling into the sea, all actions that would bring a final harm to Ben and our plan.

Although I am eager to resist the stereotypes of motherhood that would have me coddling the boy, swathing him in blankets, soothing his rages with my special, medical voice, and confirming or accommodating every fear and worry he attempts to indulge, I am not convinced that the opposite Approach of Indifference is any more original a parenting stance, and I’d like to resist ignoring the young man just because it’s a less charted region of behavior, however personally fascinating I might find it, however endlessly rich the results it might yield for me. Detachment is an indulgence of mine, I’ll admit, particularly when Ben speaks to me — announcing his feelings, querying mine, reporting what he has observed in the field, strategies that all cause me to stiffen — and I must moderate the display of my aloof postures with vigilance, lest it seem to him that I am simply powered down, or drunk. As useful as it is to position myself as a remote, masterful mother who employs hidden, satellite controls while refusing her son such techniques as physical proximity, or basic verbal or physical acknowledgments of his messages or gestures, such as eye contact (an overrated method), the danger is that, however advanced his mind might become as a result, Ben’s body will cool considerably, he will grow inert, his muscles will atrophy, and he will become too listless even for the most basic self-care. A dead son is not immediately in our interest at this time.

The question now is, So What? Here is just another crisis of parents with an average kid who will not produce the behaviors they dream about. Welcome to the club. What is so different about our struggle? Why should we complain when our boy fails to pioneer? Should we not be pleased by his divergence, even a divergence into likelihood, sameness, average output? Is it not necessary for him to be precisely other than we thought he would, exactly outside of our imagination for what people can do, a schism that defines the tension produced between generations? Well, yes. In theory, I agree. Let Ben be a Dutch princess. How utterly startling. My problem, which I hope is yours as well, is that Ben’s failure has not proved challenging, surprising, mysterious, complicated, difficult, alarming, or exciting. He is small and colorless and his voice cannot compete with a hushed room. His words, when he uses them, are nervous. He is bald and his head is overlarge. His lips are fat and wet.

Which is where you come in.

I am not sure if, in your ministrations to him, when you cleanse him or coach his life maneuvers on the Person Course behind the shed, you have had cause to handle his face, or to read his gestures with your mitten to discover what our young man might be feeling (not that such a subject concerns you, or should). But I ask that you look to him at once during his next behavior bath, being careful, please, not to alarm him, if indeed he is not accustomed to hosting your hand on that part of his body (reminder: Ben has Afraid of Hands).

Here are some remedy queries you might consider during your examination:

Should a boy’s face be that soft?

Does overnight burial harden a boy’s head?

Will an Outdoor Endurance Occasion create a facial callus sufficient to conceal him into adulthood?

Does such a callus permanently guarantee an emotionless citizen?

Can a controlled flame be used to toughen his face and generate a gesture-free armor for him?

Next, where exactly is that “music” coming from, if not his mouth? I’m sure you’ve heard it, unless you are as deaf to relevant sounds (your wife’s voice, your son’s voice, your own ludicrous voice) as you sometimes seem, a low keening pitch off his body that attends his person in the daytime, like a morose sound track? (“Morose” is probably not the right word. Just to say that a boy’s body is projecting its own sound track should be enough of a description, and types of music are reportedly subjective [a topic outside my expertise], so when I say it’s morose, I’m only revealing the ways in which I allow myself to be sad; it becomes a tool for others to overthrow me. Meaning: Enemies of mine [fill in the goddamned blank] could use Ben to make me sad, when even his rough breathing sounds like an old German dirge. They could station him near my bed while I sleep, and dose me with a hard sadness. They could position pictures of him on my shelves and within my personal effects, leading me to pause throughout my day and spiral into nonuseful contemplation of his face, which still invites interpretation, no matter how finally I have learned to ignore the gestures living there, to never look at Ben’s face, for fear of the trap there. Let me say more specifically that properties of this music arising off our son’s body are able to surmount my current Grief Defense Strategy, which I admittedly developed far too late in life to be effective around the clock. My shield is down sometimes just before a meal. Moments of hunger seem somehow tied to moments of feeling. The precise relationship between the two eludes me.)