In Trouble Again...or are They Just Overreacting?

James got into trouble again at school. Mrs. Marotta, the Lower School Head (who is as tall as I am), called me at work on a Friday morning to pick him up from school. I remained polite during the brief telephone conversation even though this was an appalling intrusion in my day. James was being suspended because he "used his fists again." What the hell....isn't that what little boys do? He is not a bully. He's a big softy...maybe a little impulsive at times. The thing is, he is so big that when another kid hits him, he barely feels it, but when he hits another boy (even--to him--gently), the smaller boy feels it big time. Well, fortunately, it turned out that the telephone version of the event was much worse than the reality, but I was still annoyed. I didn't want to leave work just for that. Not again. It meant having to devise yet another punishment (which always results in endless and desultory negotiation with a nine-year-old that exhausts me) and having yet another conversation and interrogation (why, why, why?). On the way to school, I imagined what I would say when I saw him. How stern should I be? To be honest, the main thing was not that he had hit someone but that I had to leave work because he had gotten caught. I know, I know....what kind of mother am I....

As soon as I entered Bell Hall, I saw him outside the Lower School Head's office, sitting on a chair, his big soft hands clasped together on his lap. He was looking down at the floor and heaving gently, trying very hard to hold in his tears. Any anger I had felt about the disruption in my day instantly vanished. I saw my son and knew he was hurting. He was confused and embarrassed. I wanted to hold him and make all the bad feelings disappear--just take them away. (Whenever he hurts, I wish to God I could take it from him, take it for him...let me have the hurt instead.) I sat next to him, put my hand on his shoulder and said softly, "Just tell me what happened." He cried then and shook and said only, "Mommy." "Tell me. Please tell me what happened." He said he did in fact "use my fist," but when the other boy didn't complain and it seemed that no one had even noticed, James actually turned himself in, a move for which he received no special consideration. He could have walked away. He could have ignored it, forgotten it....he could have gotten away with it. (And I wouldn't have had to leave work.) So there was now this new ethical qualm to deal with: get away with it or turn yourself in. True, he had done something--used his fist--he was not permitted to do but the incident, as it turned out, had been very minor: no one was the worse off, except possibly my boy who was the perpetrator and confessor.

In spite of himself, even when he does behave, he manages to get into trouble. A few days later, he took a current issue of U.S. News & World Report to school so he would have something to read on the bus. The cover had a picture of a handgun on it, and the big article was about gun control. He asked me about that, what did gun control mean, and I explained the pros and cons (as I knew them without having yet read the article) of these grim times, of gun control, of Charleton Heston and the NRA, of Columbine and big boys who make bombs and sneak guns into highschool corridors, of sociopathic college students who mercilessly turn on their helpless classmates. He asked if we had guns in our house, and I said no way, never (although once, in a pre-Columbine era, his father brought two small loaded pistols wrapped in a towel into our home which had caused me to panic and rant and rave...the guns disappeared shortly thereafter).

When James arrived at school later that morning, he took the magazine out of his backpack and put it in his "cubby." A classmate asked him about the magazine, and when he took it out to show the other child, their teacher saw the photo of the gun on front, confiscated it immediately and sent my child once again to the Lower School Head for discipline. When he came home from school, he hung his head and confessed, "Mommy...something bad happened at school again. I got in trouble and had to go see Mrs. Marotta." After a quick interrogation, I told him that in my opinion, the punishment (being separated from his class and lectured by an authority figure for an indiscretion he was completely unaware of) did not fit the crime...that, to me, no crime had even been committed....not even a rule broken--for how could he have known? I am not keen on disrespecting authority (no, wait....actually, I am....), but I believed his teacher had overreacted; in lieu of hysteria and confiscation, she might have been impressed that one of her third-graders reads U.S. News & World Report instead of making him feel like Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold. This wasn't Guns & Ammo or Shooting Times; it was U.S. News & World Report.

I told him to forget about it. I wasn't at all angry, but I did at least try to tell him about from where comes the current hysteria about guns--even pictures of guns, apparently--in school. His teacher telephoned me from her home that evening, and I politely told her that I believed she had overreacted but didn't say much more. She wanted very much to explain what had happened. But I already knew. This is the new Day. This is the regrettable and overwhelming pernicious hysteria, the omnipresent fear that even when things are very calm, something always could go wrong. In this new Day, at this time, it is imperative that we always be vigilant to take every conceivable caution against every possible danger lurking around every corner, in every highschool student's backpack and even, apparently, in every third-grader's cubby hole.

Too Late for Jenna Jameson

Recollection: A warm Summer afternoon in 1999.....sat at my kitchen table, feeding my big baby boy in his high chair, Jim next to me, awaiting the arrival of Norma’s sister, Lois, who had recently flown in from Las Vegas to take care of some business. Norma had been Jim’s mistress of about thirty years and had died four years earlier. She had spent most of her adult life living in a mobile home in one of Jim’s trailer parks. Several years before in Jim’s office, I asked her how she liked living in "the park," and she said she really loved it, loved her "house" (it was an extra long model), and there was a concrete pad on the side which she called her "patio." She said she loved to sit out there and take in the "water view" which, I believe, was a small stream that ran through the park. And her married boyfriend of so many years was a multi-millionaire who, at some point, made her the manager of that mobile home park. She lived simply enough, played Bingo at the fire station in town (I saw her there once....she sat in the smoking section and was cordial with me...my friend and I sat across from her but had to politely move to another table because we couldn’t stand the cigarette smoke and joked with each other about how all those women will probably get cancer, smoking like that). She was content to have whatever he chose to give her. According to him, though, when his wife became very ill with dementia, Norma demanded that he finally leave her and move in with Norma....or somehow be with her full-time. He refused, telling her that he had to at that time devote himself entirely to caring for his ailing wife. He told her to date other people. She took up with the painter who himself much later told me he had wanted to marry her. They once took a trip together to Florida, on a bus, and from their motel room–according to Jim–she telephoned him during lovemaking so Jim could hear....tried to make him jealous. According to the painter some years later, however, it was Jim who repeatedly called them in their motel room to upset her, to upset the painter and just, generally, to spoil their good time. And then I came along and changed everything (apparently). He did what he swore he would never do. We bought a house and he came to live with me. A few years later, we had this enormous baby with blue eyes who Jim chose to name after himself (I had referred to my son, in utero, as Elvis and after a while, with no input from his father about name selection, had decided Elvis was as good a name as any....) and then, there we were, sitting at the kitchen table waiting for Lois and Margaret, Jim’s granddaughter.

I recall another warm Summer afternoon, before we lived together or were even close to considering that idea, when he picked me up at my office to take me out for lunch. We walked up the alley toward the parking lot, and I saw Norma sitting there in her car. He said, "Stay here, darlin’," and approached her car. I couldn’t hear what they said to each other, but I saw him give her a wad of money before she drove away. I don’t think anyone–even Norma–knew what, if anything, was going on with us at that time. I doubt that either of us even understood or imagined what would come in the future. But at that moment, I understood that she was still attached to him and I felt bad, coming in the way I had and when I did....especially when it was all so inappropriate anyway. I understood, too, –but much later– that she had given most of her life to him, that she had loved him so much that she considered him worth waiting for all those years, so many years, loving and waiting for someone who ultimately did not, of his own will, come through for her. It was tragic. I can never forget it. Jim was full of promises. Some he kept, others he ignored or pretended to forget about. And then she got cancer in her liver, turned yellow and passed away. Her viewing was at one of the funeral homes on Main Street, in town. Jim came into my office after he had visited there. Just sat across from me and looked devastated. I felt awful, confused, sad for him for this loss....wondering if he was plagued with guilt....for making promises that he chose not to honor, for being here with me, for loving someone where it was just all wrong. Is love ever wrong? Must be because often, clearly, even love is not enough.

Her funeral was in the middle of Pennsylvania, where she was from, and Jim drove out there in the snow with Frances Puleo to attend. Once, several years later, on a trip to another place in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania to visit one of his mobile home businesses, we stopped at the little cemetery where Norma is buried. He asked if I "minded" if he got out to go see. I said no, of course not. How could I have minded? He insisted that I go with him. So I did. We walked, holding hands, over to her grave sight. There were plastic flowers on top. I felt helpless. And very scared. This poor woman who loved this man for so many, many years...this man, whose hand I was tightly squeezing, trying to contain my tears, trying to understand and not to understand.

So anyway.....back to the original recollection....

Earlier that morning, Jim announced that Lois was coming to have lunch with us, so before she arrived, he went out in his pick-up truck to get hoagies. The wrapped hoagies, smelling of onions and lunch meat, were just waiting to be opened on the table. I was so hungry. While I fed our baby (food from a jar) and waited for Margaret and Lois, Jim matter-of-factly mentioned that Lois had been with many, many men and that, (apparently) because of that, she had recently had a "vagina lift"--or, the way Jim said it with his Southern drawl--a "vahjahna lift, darlin'." "A what?" "Vajahna lift, darlin'." "What the hell are you trying to say?" I asked. He said "That's what happens to ladies who get older. Their vahjahnas need liftin', I guess. Like some ladies get a face lift." At no point in my thirty-four years had I ever even considered that such surgery existed or could ever be necessary. I wondered what a vagina lift entailed, wondered if I would need one at a later time....or even at that time.

Last year, while fishing on the internet for Al Sharpton remarks following the Don Imus incident, I was somehow mysteriously directed to another area on the site which contained an article about the botched vaginoplasty of Jenna Jameson, the porn star who, at that time, was only in her early thirties. That really got me thinking....maybe Jim knew what he was talking about...it wasn’t just an old-age thing. Maybe it depends on use, multiple partners....I don’t know. Via e-mail, I shared my questions and concerns about the Jenna Jameson web site with my friend, Mark Turner, who responded thus:

I get Physician's First Watch, which is an email review of medical journal articles and other news. On 9/4/07 they had an article about a news release from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. ACOG is now strongly advising against "designer vaginoplasty," marketed to women as a way to "enhance genital appearance and sexual gratification," and suggesting that many women develop insecurities because they do not realize the "wide variation in the appearance of normal genitalia." I assume that publicity surrounding the Jenna Jamison medical problems had a role in motivating them to issue this statement, but it's a bit late to help her.

Apparently, people were taking this issue very seriously.

So anyway....I had been sort of concerned about how Lois would deal with seeing Jim (who had been romantically involved with her sister for thirty years and kept her in a mobile home the entire time) and me, way (way) younger, and with Jim’s big baby and in a big house several miles from the mobile home park. I felt crazy. The situation simultaneously contained humor and pathos. In my mind, I contrived an exit strategy, a way out if things became too weird after Lois appeared. I told Jim I might have to leave the Lois visit early because I had something to do at work. Immediately after, Margaret and Lois arrived. Margaret said hello, greeted the baby and then left. Norma's sister took a good look at me, at my child in his high chair, at our house...and wouldn’t you know....she didn’t even flinch or hesitate...just seemed a bit put out and declared "My Lord, if Margaret hadn't driven me, I would have never been able to get here by myself. It's like a maze back here!" "Take a hoagie, darlin'," offered Jim, pressing one into her hand. I took mine and went out the back door.

Miss Foot in the Garden

Miss Foot, in the garden, avoided his bemused half-gaze.

He removed his glasses and rubbed his eye, jabbing at it insensitively with his red knuckles.

"My God! You'll rub it right out of its socket! So rough, Colonel!" He ignored her and continued rubbing and jabbing until it seemed the eye would indeed come loose and land, perhaps with a small splash, into the red watering can which I inadvertently left near his chair. The other eye, a sparkling blue gem, stared dumbly at the dog, Warnie.

He put his glasses back on and rested his chins in the palm of one hand as he lapsed into a pleasant daydream. This annoyed Miss Foot, who looked beyond him to the garden and sneered at the white statue planted among the roses. He hummed. How she loathed that grotesque creature with its pointed breasts! He tapped his fingers to an indiscernible tune, while her eyes rolled in her head. He coughed. She turned. Their three eyes met, and he smiled at her in that peculiar way some people have of turning the corners of their lips down rather than up. He winked. She quickly turned her head to avoid his gaze and fixed hers on a chink in the high brick wall. They were, in fact, hemmed in on three sides by the high brick wall which was "at least a century old," a fact even I can confirm, and an historical point which Bloom delighted in mentioning when the neighbors--or whomever--came to call. Ostensibly, the roses, which were very fine by the local garden club's standards, were the objects of neighborly--or whomeverly--admiration. But it was the statue, his marble goddess in the garden, and his incredible (some said "unnatural") devotion to it that attracted most visitors. And of course, the extensive butterfly collection for which, I believe, he was rather well known among academic fanciers of lepidoptera, were inside the house, which brings us to the fourth side of the enclosed garden, the back of the aged house and the screen door which required endless mending and was at that very moment crying in pain. In fact, the entire house was dying, weak and moaning, but clung tenaciously to life, too sick and stubborn to die. And it was from within the house that the tea kettle could now be heard shrilly calling.

"Tea!" he called back, pressing his tie to his belly and rising form the rusty wrought iron chair. He winked at her again and passed hurriedly into the house. She forced a conciliatory smile, but then, you know, I always thought her an unpleasant spinster. I even felt sorry for poor Warnie for having such a wretched mistress.

An invisible hand slamming a window shut on the second floor stunned her and, with her own nervous hand, she searched for Warnie's warm head, but he was lying on the ground, his big belly sticking out from beneath him on both sides. His eyes rolled, scanning the wall for a fly. Or was it a butterfly?

Then she heard him, humming gleefully from within, and saw his porcine figure through the screen door. His hands were full with the tray, and he nudged and coaxed the door with his sneakered foot. It was here that he encountered difficulty as she (triumphantly) knew he would, but he kept at it. Owing to an ingenious--but timely--local locksmith's invention which had long since gone bad, the door tended to lock itself on warm, moist days. Today, for example. Still, Bloom continued nudging and coaxing, but it would not oblige. Clearly, it required a loving foot from the outside (for it swung both in and out), rather than an indifferent one from the inside. She might have helped him with the door, with the tray, with his half-sightedness (to add insult to injury--we shall presume it is owing to a ghastly injury--the real eye was plagued with both near and farsightedness), but she resolutely decided that she would not, unless he specifically requested her assistance. And he did not. And the door burst open, slamming itself violently against the back of the house.

"The ghosts," he mumbled, shaking his big head as he set the tray on the table.

"Now then, Miss Foot." He winked at her and poured the tea.

This house. These ghosts. It was all too much for her. But, as he was the only neighbor willing to receive her for tea, she endured his more bizarre aspects and became, after all those years, rather accustomed to his company. Still, I think she rather fancied him, but she never made a declaration of love. Perhaps she was embarrassed. Or shy.

He poured his own tea then, humming all the while, and she looked enviously at Warnie, whose eyes were shut tightly, his big tail nervously fanning the air. She concluded that he, too, must be dreaming. And he was.

Plumbing Problems

One night early in the St. Croix week, we decided to go to K-Mart to buy tweezers. B. purchased a party-sized bag of Doritos and a big box of beer. As soon as we got home, he ate fists-full of Doritos and drank several cans of beer. He was careful to throw out each used can before replacing it with another. Early the next morning, and virtually every subsequent morning, B. suffered incredible gas attacks, allegedly (according to him) from major consumption of Heineken the nights prior, and he would leap out of bed and disappear down the hall, apparently to close himself into the bathroom in the other bedroom so as not to offend me. The first morning, I had to cover my face with a pillow so he wouldn't hear me laugh. After a while, though, I realized, of course, that being human, we all suffer these humiliations occasionally. (Despite this new revelation, I would have been horrified if he had heard me fart first thing in the morning.) Within a couple of days, I had become so used to his morning ritual that I barely noticed (and possibly even slept through it once or twice). I even became used to his snoring. Lo and behold, I was becoming used to everything. I even became used to the idea that I was angry at him twenty-fours a day. But just when I had made the adjustments necessary to make it peacefully through the week with B., the real plumbing problems began.

One day, we dsicovered that we had no running water in the house. I telephoned the owners, Sue and her son, Nathaniel. Sue said she was "so very, very, very sorry" and promised to summon the plumber at once. No one showed up. I called Sue again and she acted surprised. "Really? Are you sure he didn't come while you were out?" To satisfy her, we checked the faucets and the toilets. "Well, Sue," I said, clenching my legs together "since we were out of the house for a while, I can't say with certainty that the plumber wasn't here. But we have no running water." She then suggested I hand the phone to B., a man, so she could tell him how to get water into the house. He took the phone and disappeared outside. Fifteen minutes later, he returned, complaining that his thumbs hurt from having to push something down for a long time. We still had no water I got used to repeatedly telephoning Sue and having to listen to her profound apologies and explanations ("I am so, so, so very, very, very sorry about this." "This is an island, you know. Things are different here." "The plumber still hasn't shown up? I don't understand. Are you sure? He assured me he would be there in four to seven hours." "Since the plumber hasn't returned our phone calls, Nathaniel is getting into his car right now to see if he can physically track him down."). Just another day in paradise.

B. sometimes peed outside, facing the ocean. At least he could do that. I would have to walk along the beach to the Hibiscus "resort" (some resort....we saw rats by the dumpsters....and there literally wasn't one piece of fruit on the premises because, according to the chef, it was too expensive to buy fruit) just to use the Ladies' Room. Actually, it was pretty good in there. I could lock the door and relax a bit. The water in the bowl was blue. Nice. When I peed, it turned green. And in case I had to fart, I knew B. couldn't hear. Still, I missed the convenience of having a working toilet in our own house, but what can you do....yet another adjustment I cheerfully made.

One morning, Nathaniel appeared in our doorway. He told us he was going to try to fix the plumbing problem himself, at least see what he could do. We were on our way out. He told us he'd lock up. When we returned, we discovered that he had made our bed and tastefully arrayed some of my personal belongings on top of the comforter on my side of the bed. Books and dirty panties that had been in a small pile on the floor. We wondered about this....why would Nathaniel do this....not sure if it aroused any suspicion in B.--although we joked about it because we had been wondering if Nathaniel was gay--but either way, I decided that if Nathaniel wanted to smell my panties, I just hoped he enjoyed himself. Oh, what the hell.

Another morning, B. went to breakfast without me because I was unable to shower or pee. Naked on the bed, in disarray and with sagging spirits, I telephoned Sue again. "The plumber still hasn't been there yet. Really?" I told her I understood she was "so very sorry" and all that, but I needed some running water right away. She told me to put B. on. I told her he wasn't there.....his absence piqued her curiosity. I'm not sure why, but she asked where he was. I thought of making up a good story, but I wasn't up to it (because my spirits were sagging) (and I was naked) (and in disarray), so I told her he had gone to breakfast, that he needed coffee immediately. She asked if I was "capable" of going outside to get the water going. I said I'd give it a try. So I put the phone down, threw my red robe on, picked up the cell phone and went outside without even tying the robe. Well, lucky me, there were two men out there by the horse, so I quickly clutched my robe together, but the shock of the bright sun nearly blinded me, so I let go of the robe to shield my eyes. Obviously, I couldn't wave to the men at that point, but I think I somehow greeted them anyway. So then Sue, still on the phone, told me to go over to the house next door and guided me through a procedure which required me to go into the garage, pull out some plugs, follow the blue cord, flip a switch, blah, blah....and then go back outside to the side of that house, pull some levers, turn a faucet, etc. and "that should do it. Now go back into your house and tell me if the water is on." The men by the horse stared and waved (by that time, I had actually tied my robe but realized that I had unintentionally flashed them a few minutes earlier.....I really had to pee), so I smiled at them and went back into the house. Eureka! We had water. I thanked her and ran for the bathroom.

On the last morning, a plumber did appear. He had the darkest skin I've ever seen. Spoke to B. as if it we owned the house. The toilet in the bedroom had run the whole time we were there (I thought it rained every night.....), so while I lay on the bed half-dressed, telephoning the rental car place repeatedly (because they kept putting me on hold while my cell phone was "roaming," and that really pissed me off), the plumber worked on the toilet in the bathroom. (Apparently, as I had previously and cheerfully made all the necessary adjustments, modesty, too, had gone out the window.) Turned out, part of the toilet's insides had to be replaced, and the part that he brought with him was too contemporary or something. The men discussed this at some length, and I thought to myself, "Hmmm....who knew B. was so handy with these things?" Even though I was still angry at him, I was sort of impressed with his knowledge of ball cock assemblies. Who knew? B. is just full of surprises.