Charles Bock - Beautiful Children

Is your teen sullen and nonresponsive? asked an advice nugget, found inside a three-ring binder, its pages among the few legal resources available to those who wished to help. Has he/she changed friends and peer groups? Has there been a falling off in his/her personal hygiene?

Lorraine suffered through each category, veritable Cosmo lists of parenting. “Listening to Your Child”; “Overcoming Hurdles to Communication”; “Can You Tell the Difference Between Normal Adolescent Rebellion and a Teen in Crisis?” She tortured herself with their earnest feebleness, their sugary and semiofficial language. It is important to be active in your child's activities. It is imperative to be your teenager's advocate. The active advocate parent takes great pains to praise success and feed their youngster's sense of self, even as they vigilantly guard against that child acquiring a sense of entitlement. Children should be taught to ask questions, to think both de- and inductively, to explore the creative facets of their developing personalities, all without challenging authority. It is important to make sure your child has room to make decisions for him/herself, and learn from his/her own mistakes, although if your child is not working up to his/her capabilities, you are to confront your child, or even his/her school system, for your child should not be allowed to create a pattern of taking the easy way out. Remember: teenagers have peer pressure to deal with. They have friends and influences that may or may not be wholesome. Raging hormones. Body changes. Attractions and dealing with members of the opposite and/or same sex. Delineated sections of the runaway counselor advisory notebook deal with these problems. Should you so desire, you also are more than welcome to stay on the line and converse further with your teen crisis counselor. Otherwise, however, you are advised to continue as you are, dealing and coping, staying calm and supportive, being firm and strong, not sacrificing your dreams, but channeling them; you are to prostrate yourself and give everything you can and fight that good fight, to balance yourself on dental floss above a giant abyss, to work and slave and do the best that your limited and fallible self can, every night laying your weary head against a pillow and comforting yourself with the thought that you have given your all. You are to do all of these things and then one night you are to discover — that perhaps because you have done these things — your only child has not come home. And thus you are to face the stark and brutal fact that every single thing you've done in your life has been WRONG, that your child has fled and your marriage is a sham and your home reeks of cat urine and even the workings of your brain have turned against you. And when this happens, the only way out is to go downstairs and head to the kitchen cupboard and remove that fateful white sleeve from the shelf; only, when you do this, upon removing the videocassette, you will discover a rupture, loose ends of brown film dangling from each end of the cassette. You will discover the cassette has been destroyed. That bastard husband of yours, he's broken your videotape, oh he did it all right — though he will claim the machine ate it, say it was an accident, the thing just snapped, it got worn down. He will feign innocence and make his paltry excuses and you will know better. Whenever he passes your son's bedroom he closes the door. He drops oblique references to “the future.” He's developed that hangdog look and taken to saying, “There's a lot we should talk about.” You do not need his words. You do not even need your tape. You have your misery. Your endless internal monologue. Your running conversation. Your missing child.

2.5

Against the wall, the boy was sitting maybe six inches from the television, staring right into that idiot box. Absorbed by the flashing images, he was ignoring the voice behind him.

From his relaxed position on the couch, Lincoln continued addressing the back of his son's head, explaining that eight hours was average for labor, usually a lot longer for a first child.

The story's subject kept looking ahead — he'd need glasses eventually, Lincoln knew. For Newell's sake, he hoped it wouldn't be soon.

“The nurses told me, if I wanted to take a break, Lorraine's parents were in with her, she wouldn't be alone. They even wanted to give me a pager. The second anything happened, someone would be in touch.”

Shifting in place, Lincoln waded through a memory or two, and reported that he hadn't been able to make heads or tails of the nurse's accent. But he'd known that just like he'd done his part conceiving the kid, he was gonna do his job in the delivery room. Hell or high water, Lincoln was the rock for his wife's fingers to clutch, the flesh for her nails to tear. “I told them straight out where they could stick it,” he said, turning up the macho a few notes, adding a bit of drama and bloodlust to this disturbance. “They tossed me right out of Humana Sunrise. Took three guards. I'm kicking and screaming, and they throw me right out of there, right out on my ass.”

The last word brought eye contact from Newell — a sudden shared moment, both parties knowing the boy's mother would not tolerate that kind of language, that Lincoln used the word for precisely this reason. The code of men. The bond of fathers and sons. Newell's profile was bathed in the television's spooky half-light, frozen there, as if he were not quite sure how he should be reacting. Lincoln thought he saw a twinkle of bemusement in his son's expression, and for an instant wondered if he was laying it on too thick. But he also saw that he had Newell's attention.

“Oh, I was pissed,” Lincoln continued. “Had half a mind to take my pickup right through the front of that hospital. If I'da had my thirty-eight in the glove compartment, I promise you, any son of a bitch dumb enough to keep me from what I love, what I created…” He leaned into a crouch. His hands came together in front of him, and his tone was more focused now. “I mean, we got this, this happening here. And you're nervous as shit. We've done the Lamaze and all that, got the breathing down, but it's different. Like going from a complicated game, dress-up and make-believe. It's the real deal here. A man can't help but wonder. The ultrasound says everything's okay but what the hell do doctors know? If they're such good doctors, what are they doing in Vegas, right? You worry, are Drs. Siegfried and Roy gonna pop you out one of them deformed freak babies, with the second head growing out of its neck or something?”

“Dad.”

“What? You telling me you wouldn't have liked a twin brother?”

“Twenty dollars, please.”

“Deal's a deal, hotshot.”

“Kenny's going to be here any second.”

“Well, when he gets here, I'll get my wallet.”

From the hall bathroom, his wife's voice told him to stop torturing the boy. After a moment, Lorraine emerged from the open doorway, working at the clasp of one of her earrings. “And you,” she said. “Listen to your father.”

She fixed the clasp and started into the living room, toward the kitchen, where she walked in a nervous half circle around the dinner table, looking in each chair. If she was aware of the effect of her little black cocktail dress, she did not let on.

“Your mom sure cleans up nice.”

“You haven't seen my purse?”

Lincoln pretended to make an effort to look, quickly got back to business: “This was when big prizefights still took place behind Caesars Palace. They used to build grandstands on top of the outdoor tennis courts, have the fights right out beneath the stars. Your dad didn't have the clout to get tickets then — I never had a lot of friends at Caesars — and you were on the way, so we didn't have any spare bucks for the pay-per-view.”