to
“She Likes It When I Pinch Her Hard.” And many of my other songs, I’m sure, like “Gooey Glasses.”
He must have read the notebook. Otherwise, how would he have reached the conclusion that my “relationship” with
“my girlfriend” was undermining his generation’s sacred achievement of the institution of easygoing touchy- feely ouchless deodorant-optional crunchy-granola
But I’m getting ahead of myself here. After overhearing the conversation, and in the throes of a full-blown paranoid, sex-obsessed, politically correct midlife-crisis meltdown, he had decided to search my room for evidence of more disturbing-ness and had basically freaked out over what he’d found.
He was much, much more bothered by the war stuff, the magazines, the nunchakus, the “Kill ’em All” shirt, and the Stratego than he had been by the cock tease conversation.
And there’s where he made his mistake. He tried to combine two discussions, the one where you tell your stepson it isn’t nice to call girls bitches and the one where you express your inner turmoil over the fact that being into war and weapons betrays the deeply held values of the generation that stopped the Vietnam War. The result was incoherence, confusion, and the least successful attempt at Family Conflict Resolution since the White Album told Charles Manson to give the world a big hug.
For Little Big Tom, these issues were like two sides of the 100
same coin. He could jump from Stratego to Respect for Women without realizing he had changed topics, but he was the only one who had any idea what he was talking about.
Even my mom, smoking in the corner, seemed confused.
I’m just speculating here as to his state of mind, but I think he looked at everything in my room, along with his very mistaken imaginative reconstruction of my “relationship” with
“my girlfriend,” as a kind of personal attack on him and his fabulous generation. And he saw everything in my world only as it related to his own self-image and personal style, which he held in pretty high regard. He wasn’t too interested in hearing where he had things wrong, either. The theory confirmed his suspicions and he liked it that way. My first make-out session was all about him. So were the Talons of Rage fantasy blades.
And so was Stratego from Milton Bradley. Plus, I think he was embarrassed, worried that some of his PC friends might see me wearing the wrong shirt or something.
His version of my life was pretty hilarious, at any rate. I wasn’t treating “my girlfriend” with enough respect. I didn’t understand how sex was spiritual as well as physical. “My friends” and I were in a “space” of negativity and aggression, which wasn’t healthy. The music he had confiscated was mostly metal, since those were the album covers and song titles that fed into his theory. But he left the Rolling Stones alone: see, they stopped the Vietnam war, too.
All the references to “my friends” threw me at first. Had he really failed to notice that I had no friends other than Sam Hellerman? Then it hit me that he was assuming that some of the band members in the Sam ’n’ Moe bands I’d written about in my notebook were actually real people. (What tipped me off: he mentioned a Debbie, and I was like “who’s Debbie,”
until I realized he was talking about Li’l Miss Debbie, the imaginary nurse-slut vocalist of Tennis with Guitars. It’s a 101
good thing he didn’t realize that some of “my friends” were really me: it might have turned his mind into a pretzel.) All this from Stratego and a few fantasy blades? Un. Real.
At one point my mom chimed in: “Baby, all we’re saying is you have to try to find harmony between your masculine and your feminine natures.” I heard a tremendous guffaw from Amanda in the other room. Thanks for that, Mom. I knew I’d be hearing about my feminine nature from Amanda, and till the end of time.
The one bit of reality in the whole scene did come from my mom, however, though it was the kind of connection to reality that reveals an even deeper disconnection from it.
“Are you having trouble with the kids in school?” she asked.
Bingo. Well spotted. Give the lady a cookie. But on the other hand, how could anyone who knew me or anything about me even have to ask that question? The mind reels.
The whole sorry affair wrapped up like this: we wheeled and dealed for the stuff. Little Big Tom kept the magazines, the “Kill ’em All” shirt, some of the albums, and the throwing stars, nunchakus, and decorative weapons (all except for the bowie knife, which I was allowed to keep for sentimental reasons). I got the books, the coat, most of the videos, the notebooks, some of the albums, and the games. He agreed to respect my privacy and I to respect his values from that point forward. If you’re thinking that that sounds like a joke, well, you’re right, but one of the unspoken terms of the truce was that we couldn’t actually laugh at it till we were out of the room.
My mom said, “Baby, if you ever need to talk, we’re always here.” I gave her a little “right back at ya, babe” salute.
102
Little Big Tom, under the impression that he had achieved something by accusing me of being criminally insane and taking half my stuff, rumpled my hair and said,
“Growing up is rough for everybody. Even old geezers like me. I’d like to think I’m not above learning a thing or two myself sometimes.” That was supposed to be self-deprecating and lighthearted and philosophical and tension relieving.
Hey, I’ll take it. Anything’s better than getting in touch with your feelings in show trial form.
I knew he had fully snapped back to his old self when he turned his head slightly sideways, handed me my notebook, and said, “Some righteous tunes in there! Very creative!” I thought I heard him sighing heavily as I walked out, but of course, that was normal too.
TH E H E LLE R MAN EYE-RAY TR EATM E NT
There’s a scene in movies and situation comedies where the main kid starts to be “interested in girls” and the
