Everything Changes

the pressure from the community would keep her from relenting. And even if she managed to overcome that, she knew that now Norm would never be able to stay in Riverdale.
    We forgave my mother for this, and for failing to realize, in the haze of her flaming rage, that the inflammatory pictures she’d sent out to her friends would find their way into the hands of their children and ultimately into the halls of our elementary school, not only making a laughingstock of her sons but affording them the ineffaceable view of their father in midcoitus, his hairy, dimpled ass, his guilty, shriveled penis, and the unrestrained rolls of his belly fat frozen for all posterity as he flung himself off Anna, who lay engorged and spread-eagled beneath him. I’m here to tell you, you don’t forget something like that. Ever.
    Until then, the only nudity I’d ever seen was in the
National Geographic
magazines my friends and I pored over in the public library, studying the oblong taffy breasts of aboriginal women, their square, sandpapery asses, so unlike what we thought an ass should be, what we imagined lurked like buried treasure beneath the skirts of the high school girls we jerked off to. Then I happened upon Mike Rochwager and Tommy Chiariello in the boys’ bathroom, copiously examining the New Year’s card purloined from Mike’s parents’ mail drawer. They wordlessly handed me the picture and watched me as I looked at it, my face carefully blank. Beneath the picture was calligraphy, in Hebrew and English, wishing the recipient a happy and sweet new year.
    “Is that really your father?” Mike asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “My dad says your mom’s going to take him for every red cent he has.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “You know,” Mike said. “In the divorce.”
    “They’re not getting divorced!” I shouted, tearing the photo in half.
    “Hey, that’s mine!” Mike yelled, pushing me against the wall, wresting the two halves of the picture from my fingers and handing them to Tommy for safekeeping.
    “Give it back!” I screamed, lunging at Tommy, but he’d hit puberty in the fifth grade, and the head start put him a good head taller and twenty pounds heavier than me. He deflected me easily, holding the pictures above his head in one hand while shoving me to the sticky tiled floor with the other. I jumped up, fully prepared to get my ass kicked by Tommy, but at that moment the bathroom door swung open and Rael stepped in. He sized up the situation in an instant and quickly walked over to stand by my side. “Is that the picture?” he demanded. Rael wasn’t quite as large as Tommy, but he was close, and his sharp fearlessness bridged the gap.
    “It’s mine,” Mike whined, cowering behind Tommy.
    Rael ignored him, his eyes never leaving Tommy’s. After a few seconds, Tommy said, “Whatever,” and tossed the two halves of the photo disgustedly to the floor. “Let’s go,” he said to Mike. “He probably wants to beat off to his father’s whore.”
    After they were gone, Rael handed me the pieces with a sympathetic frown, and then leaned against the door as I tore furiously at the photo until it was scattered like confetti at my feet, hot tears running down my face in a steady stream. Who the fuck said anything about a divorce?

    This is what happens. Your father shreds the family with his repeated infidelities and then takes off for parts unknown, leaving you and your siblings to stumble into a new philosophy as to what life is all about. You’re the oldest and therefore feel the greatest sense of betrayal as you witness the extinguished eyes of your mother, the sullen glare of your younger brother Matt, who denies that he’s crying himself to sleep at night even though you can plainly hear him, and Pete, whose lack of comprehension should be viewed as a blessing in this instance, but in whose uncompromising, sweet demeanor you see only a reminder of the depth of your father’s transgressions. You see the members of your family floating in their own separate orbits of misery, and you vow to replace your worthless father, to provide the strength and guidance your siblings need, to take what weight you can off your mother’s shoulders so that maybe the light will return to her eyes, the easy laughter and affection you’d always taken for granted. Maybe Matt will start smiling again, and stop playing alone in his room with his action figures, and maybe it will feel like a family again, instead