My front yard is full of frogs. There are three contingents, I see them when I’m watering. I’m not sure if they are coming out to say “thank you” or “what the fuck, dude?” Either way, the first one I noticed a few weeks ago lives under a pink bougainvillea. I water he hops out refreshed or terrified. My yard is also full of dinosaurs, or lizards. We all know they’re dinos, right?
On to the leg.
My son fractured his leg all over the damn place at the dawn of third grade. I remember this, because third-grade classes were in the portable buildings out back which provided additional obstacles for my son’s wheelchair.
This moment was probably the pivotal collapse of my marriage. Probably of my son as well. He went on to not learn to ride a bike, not take risks unless he was an expert, and not believe in the optimistic things I have told him about himself his entire life. I’m kind of worn out by this exercise now, as he is exhibiting similar signs to last summer. The summer he decided to enter the drug trade as a supplier.
Today, we could all use some new drugs. Ones that worked better than SRRI and had zero side effects. That would be wonderful for so many people. I’m not afflicted at the moment. My son is just beginning to find the asshole angry man inside thanks to pushing his dose to 20 mg once a day. He has agency again. Still spends an ungodly amount of time on the darkened screen porch with a string of dim red LED lights. He’s smoking. Watching something on his phone. Captivated. Perhaps this is his reward today for a touch of hope.
That’s the best pharma can do at this point, with drugs, is add a glimmer of hope. The idea of a future not burdened by the broken legs of the world.
At the same time we were pushing my son all over the place in his unflattering wheelchair, my wife began to take lunches with a younger colleague at work. She was part-time. She showed him “our library.” The one with the good free coffee. She was beginning the same dance with him that she did with me when she was living with a man ten years her senior. Turns out the man didn’t want to sire children. She was pushing 36, so her heartache was chronological in nature.
I gave her what she wanted. Not until we went through a few previews of coming irrational behavior. Her anxiety and panic heading for a higher gear as our first “yes” became a near miss. It was a horror show. We went from “not using protection” to very specific sex positions and a well-fueled desire on her part. I wouldn’t call it sexual desire. More, a desire to have a baby. At all costs. Living with a man was no reason to be faithful to him if he was not going to provide the requested DNA. He wouldn’t have made very attractive babies.
So, we re-met in the parking lot of Sweetish Hill, just down the hill from my condo. A big hug in the parking lot established a motive for me as well as a “potential” for her. Our dear friend was meeting her for breakfast coffees. She’s the one who’s memorial service was last week. I knew her even longer than my soon-to-be wife. She could vouch for me from 4th grade on. I was one of the good guys. Also, from a loaded family.
And sure enough, I had a magnificent condo near downtown. Walking distance to the organic grocery chain that would dominate organic retail forever once Bezos purchased them. Walking distance from Sweetish Hill and Waterloo Records, two icons of Austin, Texas.
But she was living with a guy.
I didn’t know this at the time. I got her number from our dear friend and texted her for lunch. We had a few lunches and the texts became much more lascivious and tempting. She was reeling me in. I’m not sure what she was going home to at night. That part horrifies me. And then, it happened to me too. So, I think it’s her.
I stumbled on to their tryst when I was eliminating the growing amount of spam appearing on our shared computer in the living room. I’d never open someone else’s email. The message had something to do with “connection” I thought it was a spam ad from a competing internet provider. It was an emotional affair type exchange, dealing with my wife’s awful experience of her husband’s depression, how she was happy for the contact with someone who understood. And, yes, lunch again next week would be great, I’m in the office on Tuesday.
I was depressed. I was struggling at work. The stress of the two kids, the unhappy wife, and the bills coming in daily pushed me down in the muck. I was still swimming forward, like a shark or a mudskipper. She was sharing lunch flirts and intimate details of her marriage with a new man. Hmm.
I apologized when I told her about finding the email. She never apologized for the transgression. “I can see how this would feel bad to you, I will not do it again.”
I’m saying I’m sorry. She can’t fucking do it. It would be like admitting she did something wrong. Like today, admitting her rush to divorce was her mistake, her problem. Her ultimate destruction of her son who needed a masculine guiding force in his life. The man she married a few years later would not provide any guidance or support for my son. Unless it had to do with math or money. He and my ex-wife loved to build Excel spreadsheets. Somewhere in those details, they believed was the answer to their happiness and the happiness of everyone on the planet.
Some of this is true. When there is no money there is very little hope for happiness. When things got tight, I sold a lot of my musical equipment to make our mortgage payment. Then I got the job that should’ve saved our marriage. It did not. I didn’t know it, but it had ended with the discovery of her emotionally charged lunch partner. I crushed her hopes for an easy change of transportation. She didn’t need DNA at this point. Just adoration and no negotiation about money or chores or the kids. She needed a lover. She had removed my opportunities over time.
This is not meant to hurt anyone. I don’t think my ex-wife will ever read it. Too painful. She’d rather I not write about periods of my life that involved her or the kids. Ever.
Oops.
Before the leg break, before I discovered the love letter, my son was vibrant, confident, and extremely creative. His mom dabbled in painting and writing. As he was shivering in shock as his body remedied the pain with endorphins, his hopefulness was draining out of him, like the blood out of his lips. He became a tentative 8-year-old. He no longer liked to be pushed on the swing. He admired his sister’s newfound ability to ride a bike (I taught her in an open field in our neighborhood park) but vowed to never ride another scooter, bike, or wheeled device.
A few months ago he disabled his only remaining wheeled device, his Infiniti G-36S. He would want you to know it was an “s” model. I think it stands for speed.
Today his courage returns in spurts. Bursts of “I’ll take any job” then back to staying in bed podcast-dreaming all day. It’s not okay. He’s going up the creek. We’re doing it again, giving him another chance at a recovered life. In the last 36 hours, he’s gotten the idea that maybe he doesn’t need treatment, maybe he shouldn’t go, he’ll just stay here at my house doing whatever the fuck he wants. Um, no, sorry, that’s not how this works.
It looks like the Prozac is working as expected. From Flight to Fight. That’s the plan. Get him back in fighting shape to tackle two electives to finish his college degree in programming computers. A great field. He is not outstanding in that field, no matter what he might try to tell you, most of it’s bravado.
For example, in a random conversation a few months ago, before his first trip up the creek, he said something about Ambien that I knew to be false. I was going on about different ideas. He was telling me all the chemical reasons and scientific knowledge he had about the workings of the chemicals and the mind. I said something about “GABA” and how Ambien worked the same neural pathways. “No, it’s not a GABA-antagonist,” he said, with great confidence. “Hmm. That’s not what I understand, but maybe you’re right.” He was not right.
Often he is not right.
At the moment, I would guess, his thinking goes something like this.
Dad’s house is comfortable. I get away with anything. He gives me money, food, and car access when I ask. I won’t ask. Fuck him. I shouldn’t have to ask. This should all be mine. The money from his mom was for me and my sister. She promised us.
The last part is an idea my mom worked on for a few years before she died. She was drafting a trust document for the payment of my two kid’s college fund. I don’t know what became of that trust, but when she died five years ago, she left her money in equal parts to me and my remaining sister. My sister had to use most of that money to pay off her kid’s college loans. My kids were/are still in college.
“I will pay all of your college loans off,” I have told them since my mom died. I’m also saving most of the money for them. For my ability to help them in their future lives. Down payment on a house, perhaps.
My son has some idea that the money should be his. That the college degree is unimportant but should also be his. That the large university should change its policy for his emotional exception. The dean of accommodation wished him well and advised he continue treatment until he could return to campus to finish his degree. They did not offer remote classes for any senior-level computer science class. None. But we had to wait until last week, the last days of admission, to find out that it was not possible for my son to finish his degree from the comfort of my house.
A plan was hatched for a transit bus, both classes on Monday. No apartment in Dallas. No fucking way. It was a pipe dream. This is a guy who can’t get up and go to work for more than two days in a row before collapsing (correction, being allowed to collapse) in his room for days. Nope.
And I’m no longer interested in being a parent of a teenager. He either gets himself up or he misses the opportunity.
He asked me to pay for a new tattoo, a black widow spider, “before I go into treatment.” I agreed. Yesterday, he asked me to pay for a gaming mouse. “To replace the one I had. I can’t find it.” Another $150. “Um, you could earn that money over two days of work,” I said.
“I don’t think your point is landing,” he quipped back.
“You could earn $150 dollars with two days of day labor, minus taxes if you want the mouse.”
Ouch.
Okay, so we’re all lining up, aligning as parents (with his mom and her husband) to pay and support my son’s second rehab attempt. He has no idea what this is costing. He doesn’t care. “Can you buy me a…”
D-day is next Monday. I’m thinking it’s not going to go as planned. Just as the chemistry in his brain is saying positive things, he’s going to bolt into a new plan, on the optimism and anxiety blend of the moment. The last time it took a totalled car. Not sure what the next level of pressure is for him. What are the consequences if you never face consequences? What does something cost if you’ve never had to earn the money to pay for it? How is he going to learn to ride a bike?
At some point, you learn to give up. Kids are not robots or pets. They are autonomous little animals. You can feed them, pet them, and give them praise and advice. And they are going to do whatever the fuck comes into their minds at the time. For my son, this has been a defiance “disorder.” I personally think it’s a simple ENTITLEMENT.
A detail or two about Kurt Vonnegut’s suicide attempt at 61.
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