'To give away?' I kid some more, taunting.
'You give money away,' he rejoins in defense.
'To cancer and things like that. Not to other people. Not to kids. I don't shovel it out to kids I hardly even know like it's too hot for me to hold on to.'
'Leukemia?' he asks.
'I knew you'd ask that. Do you want me to?'
He shrugs almost indifferently. 'I would like it, I think. But don't take it away from cancer.'
'I knew you'd start worrying about leukemia the second I told you. I'm sorry I told you.'
'I'm not worrying about it. I don't even know what it is yet.'
'Don't you ever worry about things you don't know about?'
'Like what?'
'Why should I tell you if you don't know about them?'
'Now I'll worry about them. Now I'll worry about things to worry about,' he adds, with another gloomy laugh.
'That's what a lot of people do worry about.'
'You don't like me to give money away,' he observes. 'It makes you angry, doesn't it?'
'Is that why you do it?'
'I'm not gonna tell.'
'You're not gonna do it.'
'Yeah?'
'I'll kick your ass,' I warn him jocularly.
I am happy we are talking together so freely. (I relish those moments when he seems to enjoy being with me.)
He used to give money away (probably still does, or will start giving money away again when the warm weather comes and he finds himself outside the house a lot with other kids), pennies, nickels, and dimes (money that we gave him for himself, or that he took from us, although I don't believe he has started stealing coins from us yet or lighting matches. That will come with masturbation. That's the way it came with me. I stole coins from everyone in my family and set fire secretly to everything I could find in the medicine cabinet that I discovered would burn with a flame. I squeezed blackheads from my face and fiddled with cigarette lighters with enormous fires. And jerked off. We didn't want him to. I used to try to explicate for him with professional authority why it was improper for him to give presents that we gave to him away to somebody else, and that the money we gave to him was a present. It was talking to the wall. He would hear me out dutifully every time; but he would not grasp what I meant. His face was vacant, patient, and condescending. I did not know what I meant either, or why I even tried to make him stop. And continued to try. It was only pennies, nickels, and dimes, and yet I moved in on him with the same zealous dedication with which I used to attack the blackheads around my nose and squeeze from my skin tiny yellow filaments that could have been pus. I think I felt him ungrateful). I think he still does give money away, for I have noticed that he and his friends, like my daughter, who is not normally generous, and some of her closest friends, tend to give money and other things back and forth to each other without keeping record or demanding return. I hope he does (even though I've told him he shouldn't), for I would like him to be unselfish. So why did I harangue him? I would like him to grow up to be one of these young people I see so many of today who seem to want to be very good to each other. They even lend cars. We never lent cars. I wish I were one of them; I wish I had a second chance to be young and could be part of them. I wish I could be sure they are as happy and satisified as I think they are. (My daughter isn't happy, and neither is my son, and maybe she will be, and so will my son. Maybe they still have a chance.) Every once in a while my gaze falls on a young boy and a young girl (she doesn't even have to be pretty) walking or sitting in public with their arms around each other trustingly and intimately and I can almost fall down in pain with piercing envy and lust. No, not lust. Envy. Longing. Every once in a while I do find myself with a young girl something like that; but I think she thinks I'm 'square,' even though she may like me (and sleep with me) for a while. And I think she's right: I am square. I am even gauche. I even feel gauche when I'm making my pitch for some girl with my customary flip, suggestive (and predictable) (and trite) repartee, and I think less of myself for being that way even while I am that way and see myself succeeding. I don't enjoy adultery, really. I'm not even sure I enjoy getting laid. Sometimes it's okay. Other times it's only coming. Is there supposed to be more? There used to be. There used to be much more heat. My wife and I used to upbraid him fiercely each time we learned, through crafty and persistent interrogation, that he had given money away again. Sometimes it would not even be to a kid he liked much or knew particularly well, but to one he had just met that summer who simply happened to be with him on the boardwalk or street and seemed to want it more. Sometimes that was the only reason he gave us for doing it. He gives cookies away too, and candy, and lets other children play with his toys, even when new. For some reason, it still galls me (my wife reacts similarly — a mood of jealousy and rejection is what I feel) when we see him permit some other kid to play with some new present we have just given him. (We feel it is still ours, rather than his.)
I used to try to observe him closely to detect if there were patterns, to see if there were any categories of personality or experience into which the different kids he gave his pennies and nickels and dimes to — I'm not sure if he ever gave away as much as a dime — could be made to fit. I didn't find any. He knew we studied him and discussed him. I told him he was imagining it. Sometimes he was imagining it when I said so; other times he was not. I still watch him. (If my boy ever does get the feeling he was spied upon, mulled over, and talked about when he was young, he would not be entirely wrong. It will not be entirely a delusion.) I feel so foolish and so ashamed for the way I acted (and perhaps will act again). No more than a penny, nickel, or dime was ever involved. But what furors we raised, my adult wife and I; how outraged and scandalized we were that this five- or six- or seven-year-old child of ours had given away a penny, nickel, or dime he had gotten from us or somebody else and did not want for himself. We didn't yell at him. We did worse; we patronized, belittled. We were never really angry with him, never deliberately very mean. But we pretended to be (which must have baffled him even more), and we would raise our voices (not yelling, but for emphasis), and cock our eyes at him in ridicule, amusement, and disbelief. We would cackle and smirk and make jovial, wry wisecracks as we closed in and down upon him in heartless, patronizing argument (while my daughter, who was covetous of the greater consideration she felt he received, would regard us reproachfully from a corner in which she had chosen to hide, too young and still too reserved herself then to object vituperatively the way she frequently does now) that he must not, ought not, simply should not give his money away.
'Why?'
(Why not, indeed? Who knows? We didn't. Although we took it for granted we did.) We were unfailingly good-natured and convivial as we took pains to convey to him (it was our responsibility as parents to do so, we made plain), repeatedly, that we loved him as much as ever anyway and were not punishing him by criticizing him and were not really mad; but we did rebuke him diligently in cordial, tolerant tones (ganging up on him, two of us at a time) as we tried to educate him, and we did try, emphatically, tenaciously, maniacally, to elucidate patiently for him why what he was doing was not wise or correct.
And the problem was that we could not explain. (We had no explanation that made sense even to us. It is difficult to be persuasive when the only answer to his Why? is a lame and dogmatic Because. We were worse to him, I feel now, than Forgione has ever been, more cruel and demoralizing than any teacher. I am overwhelmed with remorse. And yet, I know instinctively that I will do it again if he does it again and I catch him, or at least I will feel the urge to. I hope I restrain myself. I know I feel that what he does is wrong. I don't know why it is wrong. I don't know why I feel it is.) I know we were unable to present to him a single truthful and convincing reason why he ought not to give his pennies, nickels, and dimes away to other children if he wanted to. We actually put him on notice that, not to punish him, but only to teach him a lesson, we were going to punish him by teaching him a lesson. We would withhold money for stipulated periods of time: we would not give him any the next time he wanted some; or instead of money for ice cream, soda, or candy, we would give him the ice cream, soda, candy itself, because we did not feel he could be trusted with money; or tell him, so magisterially, that he would have the money to buy his own now if he had not gone and given it away as we warned him not to. ('See? We told you.')
It crossed my mind whimsically to demand also that he always eat it all up himself right before our eyes (rather than run the risk he might give someone a bite from his Popsicle or candy bar), but I never went quite that
