she pretended being asleep was she was curious, or possibly scared. As for me, I thought it’d get him to treat me better. You see, he fancied himself as, and my mother encouraged him to be, the man of the house, what with our dad dead, but he took advantage of it and became a real mean louse. I also never thought she’d believe me if I told her what he was doing. To her, that schmuck was God. But everything turned out OK. We got it all out at a shrink — a family counselor we went to as a family for a year. And now we don’t even think about it or as anything more than sadistic growing-up experimental kid stuff on his part, and on mine, that I should have said ‘Lay off or I’ll call the cops or kick in your nuts’ from the start. And on my mother’s: birdbrain neglect that she was lucky didn’t turn into catastrophic life-changing big brother inseminating little sis.” “I know you said he made you masturbate him and maybe worse, but did he ever stick his finger in you too?” “Finger. Toe. Once a pencil. That’s why I say, he was a sadist then. But he turned out fine and I’ve no fears he won’t be anything but a terrific father to his girls.” “I’m not even sure I can look at the sonofabitch now after what you told me.” “Oh, lay off the guy. He was just a jerk who since then’s done a complete reverse. At least he talked about it openly by the time he was twenty-five. While you, you’ve kept it in and have most likely whipped yourself to death over it several times, even if what you did wasn’t one-fiftieth as bad.” His mother says “What can we get her to amuse herself? She stares at the walls half the day, doesn’t have a clue what to do with herself once her teacher leaves.” They get her paints, pastels, an easel and smock, modeling clay. She tries a few times and then says: “I’m not the artist type. My stuff is so amateurish and hopeless it makes me feel ugly and dumb just to look at it. I think I’m more the type that likes making things people can use.” His mother has him get Vera craft materials at a hobby shop and she makes leather scissor holders and book covers, beaded necklaces and cloth trivets and wraps them and at the dinner table gives them as gifts. “It’s not my birthday or graduation, or not that I know of it,” he says, “but thanks. It’s very pretty and handy.” “I’ll make something else for you then with leather,” and he says “Nah, one’s enough. Not that I don’t really like it, but spread the good work around,” but the next night she gives him another wrapped gift. “Look Mom, Dad,” he says “it’s to hold my keys.” Feels and smells the leather. “Smooth, and very nicely cured. Smells almost like the actual cow’s hide, but nice, though, and now my keys won’t scratch my thighs or cut through my pants pockets and make all my change spill out.” Later he says to his mother “She should be doing something, if it has to be crafts, that I can say ‘That’s fantastic, that truly shows talent.’ Something I can honestly admire if not use — we, all of us — and give her real credit for and which she can get better and better at over the years till she even becomes an artisan at it, why not? and even sells some of it. But work stupid but well-meaning institutions give brain-damaged people to do? It’s humiliating. Or demoralizing. Whatever it is, I hate it for her.” His mother says “She hasn’t a storehouse of talent and imagination and any pushing her to be more artistic will make her feel ugly and dumb again and maybe even make her head hurt. Let her do what she enjoys doing and feel it’s adequate and you continue faking your admiration whenever she gives one to you.” She next gives him a lanyard with a whistle on it and he says thanks, blows it, says “Nice tone, not too tweet-tweet. Maybe I’ll wear it at the next square dance I’ll do-si-do to,” and she says “Where’s that?” and he says “You know, when you call the calls or whatever the caller does,” and she says “When did you ever do one of those?” and he says “At camp, when I used to dance, not call. But I’m really only kidding. But it’s nice, this, though what I can use it for…? Maybe my keys if I’m wearing pants without pockets or something — like athletic shorts for the outside but when I also have no shirt on with pockets in it,” and she says “Really, if you don’t like it, or can’t use it, I know someone who might,” and he says “Well, then you should probably give it to him or her, for it is, to tell you the truth, kind of wasted on me. It’s not quite for the city and I’m always in the city, not that I want to be, and I suppose also I’m just not a lanyard man,” and he gives it to her and she looks hurt and he says “Excuse me, but what did I say? Honestly, Vera, it’s good work. The colors are lovely and so’s the design and it’s just about perfectly constructed—’fabricated,’ is the new word. And if I had to make something like that — if I so much as tried — it’d be all over the joint, a perfect mess. But what if — but maybe I shouldn’t say this, though if I don’t I’m sure I’ll regret it even more, so here goes. What if you started doing something that would thoroughly take you over and make you want to do it every chance you got and which, let’s say in a year or so or just whenever it happens, could eventually become something like art or just great or truly excellent crafts? Because you show talent here with this lanyard — with the bracelets and leather works and that cloth hot pot thing — I always forget the name of it — you truly do. The colors and way you make them and such and the quick way you picked it all up, besides the variety of different crafts you’ve done.” “I’m not interested in making things like that, but thanks for what you said about my work,” and she doesn’t show him any of it after that. A few weeks later he asks his mother what Vera’s been up to with her crafts, “since she hasn’t given me anything in a while, and come to think of it, even shown me it or spoken about it,” and his mother says “She seems to have lost interest in it and I’m afraid is back twiddling her thumbs most of the day, when she isn’t staring out the window at the sun and burning her eyes,” but gives no hint she knows what took place between Vera and him. His parents buy her a special television set she can control from her bed. She gets to like a couple of the afternoon soap operas and follows them every day. Just to get her talking about something, he asks her “So what is it about these shows that you watch them so much?” He tells himself that whatever she says he’s going to answer “That’s nice, that’s fine, makes sense, very interesting, now I can understand.” She gives the story line of one of the shows for the last two weeks and says “Maybe not to you, but to me it’s kind of fascinating. Also the acting is very good and the whole thing feels like real life but not any that many of us live. All that plus looking forward to it and probably guessing what’s going to happen next has hooked me and a few million other people, like a good novel would to you that takes place over a few centuries. You know, very long and involved and with family after family and lots of living and dying.” “Actually, some of the things you described do make me think it could be good, like a long-term infection that doesn’t make you sick or anything and even makes you feel chipper.” She invites him to watch it with her one day after he gets back from teaching junior high school. He says “Usually I’m too bushed to do anything but nap for an hour before I have to start correcting papers and things, but one day I might.” “You’ll see you could get hooked too. I’ve even read where big-time college professors changed their class schedules when one of the soaps moved to a different time, just so they wouldn’t miss a single minute of it.” “Well, if they can watch and appreciate it, why not I? I could even use a daily rather simple distraction like that, which could be why they do it, to clear the head a bit, or maybe it is that engrossing and good. Tomorrow then, if I don’t fall asleep on my feet second I get home.” He tells himself “Remember, if you don’t like it, which you know you won’t, don’t say so. Just nod and say it’s pretty good and you could see why someone of any kind of intelligence could get hooked on it, but you only wish you had the free time most college professors have, but you have a ton of paperwork and lesson plans to do each weekday if you want to keep your weekends relatively clear.” During the first commercial break she says “What do you think so far?” and he says “Not bad, not bad,” and during the next break she says “Did it get any better for you?” and he says “Why, don’t you think I’m enjoying it?” and she says “You’re obviously not. Fidgeting around; chewing your cuticles; that sourpuss look you always have when you’re bored with something and feel you can’t get out of it — that one goes back to when you were a boy,” and he says “Oh, that’s my stomach acting up which it’s been doing all day — teaching often works on my muscles there in addition to giving me cramps,” and she says “Listen, if the show’s junk, say so. Because what are you holding back for, my feelings?” and he says “Well, they mean something,” and she says “Believe me, whatever you say’s not going to hurt me or change my watching it,” and he says “OK then; all right. To me — mind if I talk while it’s on?” and she presses the remote control and the show goes off. “To me the whole thing feels made by admen for idiots.” “That sounds rehearsed.” “No. If it’s good, then it’s a mistake. And you’re no idiot by a long shot, so I don’t know what you see in it; though maybe those professors are, experts in one line but dumb and young in most everything else. Or maybe today’s segment is an isolated bad case and all the other days are five times as good,” and she says “This one’s fairly typical, in story and the rest.” “Then I don’t know what to say. But when the commercials are more gripping than the story and better acted and directed, then we better watch out.” “What’s wrong with the acting? You saying it’s bad?” ‘Tm saying it’s quacking, not acting. I’m saying any schnook off the street could do better. You hear about casting couches? This one must have had a dormitory hall of them, one side for men and the other for the young beauties.” “What are casting couches?” “You know. Couches where actors are cast on, like in bronze and stone. Forget that; didn’t turn out. And the bad acting’s probably not the actors’ fault either, for what do they have to work with? ‘Good-bye.’ ‘Good-bye?’ ‘That’s right, good-bye.’ ‘You’re really saying good-bye?’ ‘You got it. I’m truly and absolutely saying goodbye.’ ‘You can’t mean it.’ ‘I mean it, my darling, I mean it.’ ‘Then why’d you call me now your darling?’” “OK, I get the point,” she says. “Wait, I’m getting to the heart of it and having fun. ‘Force of habit.’ ‘Force of habit?’ ‘Yes, force of habit. Now good-bye.’ ‘Shall I see you to the door at least?’ ‘See me if you wish but it won’t change my leaving.’ ‘I’ll see you to it then.’ ‘Then see me, for no more protests I hope on either of our sides.’” “What do you mean by that last thing?” “It’s nothing; another flub. Then, after six commercials and several station breaks with minicommercials, back to where we left him seeing her to the door. The camera zooms in on his hand on the doorknob. Maestro, doorknob music. Then closer to the pinky ring she once gave him. “This is painful,” she says. “Painful, but not close?” “Nowhere near. They don’t repeat talking like that. They almost never follow the same couple scene after scene. And how would we know she gave him the ring? Was it yesterday’s show? Was it today’s? You’re being silly.” “He says so at the door. ‘Want the pinky ring back you gave me when I was your darling?’ ‘No.’ ‘No?’ ‘No.’ Actually, what they have there might not be so bad. Modern drama. I’ve always thought someone should write a play or book where the whole two acts or two hundred pages of it takes place between the time the guy gets out of his chair to go to the window a few feet away till he reaches the window and looks out. Or gal. And maybe at the end all he or she does is look out of it a second and raise a hand to wave or say hi or tries to raise the window and gives up after one try. So I’m saying this soap maybe has something going for it that I didn’t know. Maybe all soaps if they’re all as slow. But I’m tired, as I told you I’d be, so my judgment of them could also be very bad. School teaching knocks the living stuffing out of you. The kids today—” “You really didn’t give it a chance. You came in with lousy opinions of it and then did everything you could to back them up.” “I gave it enough, didn’t I? Ten minutes, around — what more’s it need?” “If it was a book how many pages would you give it? Twenty pages, you’d have to. That’d be about thirty minutes for a fast reader, maybe forty for a slow. “If it was a lousy book I could tell in five minutes. Just three pages — the first two and the last and maybe an extra thirty seconds to zip through the middle. Because crap is crap and doesn’t need anymore time than that. Just as that stupid soap was, which you’re too smart not to know. So what am I saying? I’m saying if you have to watch anything on TV when the sun’s still out and we’re not on daylight saving time, maybe an educational program on another station at the same hour?” “What about if I don’t watch anything because I can’t?” and she looks around for something and he says “What do you mean?” and then “What are you looking for?” and she grabs the glass off the night table and throws it at the screen, doesn’t break it but the glass breaks when it hits the floor. “Oh, smart, smart,” he says. “You want to kill us all if the tube explodes and sets fire to the room? Brilliant,” and he leaves. “Hell with you, bastard,” she yells. “And the tube couldn’t have exploded because the television was off,” and he says “Maybe, maybe,” gets to the end of the hall, then back to her room to pick up the glass. “Martyr, back, wonderful, don’t cut your hands I’m supposed to say,” and after he’s got all the glass but the tiniest pieces he leaves the room. They don’t talk to each other at dinner. After, his mother talks to him and he says he would have gone in anyway to apologize and goes into her room where she’s on her bed reading a magazine and says “Look, I’m sorry, the whole thing was dumb of me, please accept my apology and I came in not because anyone told me to but on my own.” “I don’t want to talk about it. You’re so freaking stuffed with yourself you stink.” “Fine, good, get it out on me; you should.” “I’m not