Jack
awoke to his sister’s karaoke machine playing some washed up pop
number at full blast. The nasally voice of his eight year old sister
Laura rang out off key over the vocals of what sounded like Disney’s
new “it” child star. He moaned and kicked the wall behind him,
but knew Laura wouldn’t take any notice if she could even hear it
at all. ‘Shit,’ he muttered, it was another routine day. He could
make out the hum of a vacuum cleaner that was becoming less faint by
the second. Soon, the racket would be attached to his mother’s
voice squawking at him like a famished night hawk to grab a bite to
eat. He fumbled around for the radio on his nightstand which cracked
and faded until finally settling on a Spanish station.
He
rolled out of his bed with a loud thud and began to shuffle through
the empty soda cans, discarded homework and various other bits of
life’s rubble until he found a t-shirt that he dubbed ‘clean
enough to wear’ by the sniff test. He looked at himself in the
mirror trying to pat down the wild hairs, but eventually just gave
up, the curse of the cow lick had always gotten the better of him. He
stood in front of the mirror awhile longer just glaring into his own
eyes. They were more blood shot than the neighbor’s eight year old
pit bull, Buddy. ‘Buddy, alright,’ he thought, ‘that bastard
nearly ate me about twelve times during the baseball seasons‘. That
had been a long time ago though, Jack hadn’t played baseball in
years and even Buddy who once seemed to be the only threat in life
just laid about in the yard all day, rarely even yapping at the mail
man.
Jack’s
daze was interrupted by Laura’s authoritative knocking, which meant
nothing apart from it was it 1:30 on at yet another Tuesday and the
next two hours of his life would be wasted on a woman he liked to
refer to as ‘The Chins‘. Jack’s twelfth birthday present was
the gift of family counseling which had, even after five years time,
accomplished nothing. In fact, he wasn’t particularly certain why
The Chins was even coming around, well he knew why she chose to and
it had a lot to do with George Washington, but he wasn’t sure why
she was needed. He had straightened himself out and did all his
chores without a fuss which seemed to be the main issue in the house
at the time anyway. But, at every meeting it seemed someone, one
being the keyword, always brought up something to complain about. ‘It
really is either sink or burn in this neck of the woods, Goody
Proctor,‘ he said to himself.
Jack
awoke to his sister’s karaoke machine playing some washed up pop
number at full blast. The nasally voice of his eight year old sister
Laura rang out off key over the vocals of what sounded like Disney’s
new “it” child star. He moaned and kicked the wall behind him,
but knew Laura wouldn’t take any notice if she could even hear it
at all. ‘Shit,’ he muttered, it was another day and as routines
go he could make out the hum of a vacuum cleaner that was becoming
less faint by the second. Soon, the racket would be attached to his
mother’s squawking voice, which at this early hour could only be
described as freshly manicured nails on an old worn down chalk board,
telling him to eat something as if he weren’t capable of figuring
out when he was hungry for himself.
He
rolled out of his bed with a loud thud and began to shuffle through
the empty soda cans, discarded homework and various other bits of
life’s rubble until he found a t-shirt that he dubbed ‘clean
enough to wear’ by the sniff test. He looked at himself in the
mirror trying to pat down the wild hairs, but eventually just gave
up, the curse of the cow lick had always gotten the better of him. He
stood in front of the mirror awhile longer just glaring into his own
eyes. They were more blood shot than the neighbor’s eight year old
pit bull, Buddy. ‘Buddy, alright,’ he thought, ‘that bastard
nearly ate me about twelve times during the baseball seasons‘. That
had been a long time ago though, Jack hadn’t played baseball in
years and even Buddy who once seemed to be the only threat in life
just laid about in the yard all day, rarely even yapping at the mail
man.
Jack’s
daze was interrupted by Laura’s authoritative knocking, which meant
nothing apart from it was it 1:30 on at yet another Tuesday and the
next two hours of his life would be wasted on a woman he liked to
refer to as ‘The Chins‘. Jack’s twelfth birthday present was
the gift of family counseling which had, even after five years time,
accomplished nothing. In fact, he wasn’t particularly certain why
The Chins was even coming around, well he knew why she chose to and
it had a lot to do with George Washington, but he wasn’t sure why
she was needed. He had straightened himself out and did all his
chores without a fuss which seemed to be the main issue in the house
at the time anyway. But, at every meeting it seemed someone, one
being the keyword, always brought up something to complain about. ‘It
really is either sink or burn in this neck of the woods, Goody
Proctor,‘ he said to himself. He’d had a running suspicion since
he was thirteen that his mother was keeping this entire charade up to
increase her social standing with the other soccer moms who met once
a week in their expensive track suits (that never saw the track) at a
local coffee shop to moan about their lives. ‘Oh dear Maggie, how
do you put up with such a dysfunctional child?’ one woman would
squawk as if she cared. ‘You really are a saint, dear,’ another
would announce in an almost believable tone. The question that was
really on the tips of their tongues was how much the family had to
spend to put up with him. As the story goes, none of them really
liked one another but the power of being part of a group, especially
one with money, was too much to pass up in the long run.
He
trudged down the stairs and sat next to Laura with a loud plop, she
glared at him as if he had disturbed a twelve year meditation to ask
her what the time was and then went back to her routine of trying to
keep up with the adult’s small talk. He looked at Laura for a
minute. ‘Poor kid.’ he mumbled under his breath. She had on one
of those awful mother-daughter dresses, a scheme no doubt to show The
Chins who actually got along in the house, and her hair was done in
pigtails, a real tragedy in his eyes. He looked past the cheesy
family photos and over-sized TV screen until his gaze met his parents
who were both sitting on the couch, legs crossed in opposite
directions. ‘Who really needs the therapy?’ he thought, ‘Look
at that body language.’ His mother had her fake grin plastered on,
her real self was hiding behind the ten pounds of make-up she had
rushed to put on after his vacuum cleaner wake up call. She was
making small talk with The Chins, who she and everyone else in the
family politely referred to as Dr. Schmidt. Jack began to focus on
his dad, trying to fade out the mindless drone talk that was going
on. He was a slender man and as usual he had piled on a few atrocious
over-sized sweaters to add a bit of weight to himself. His dad liked
these counseling sessions just about as much as Jack did and usually
spent the entire session nodding with a blank stare. He often
wondered where the old man went when he had that blank stare, but
never bothered asking because he knew his dad blamed the sessions on
him anyway.
The
Good Doctor, the term used loosely of course, was sitting in the
recliner with her ghostly blue ankles exposed revealing socks
plastered with pictures of cartoon cats. She sipped on a Big Gulp
between nods, snickered with Jack’s mother and quickly glance at
her watch every few seconds as to let on she was ready to begin the
session without being rude about the tediousness of his mother’s
small talk. The sessions were all predictable anyway, she would
always begin by asking simple questions about school and chores that
were bogged down with large words in order to, in her opinion anyway,
maintain intellectual superiority over the house. Jack had learned a
long time ago not to look at the woman when she began asking
questions. He had gotten over the eye contact thing years ago, but
every time she spoke to him he couldn’t help but picture the flag
flapping away in the cool summer’s breeze with the ‘Star Spangled
Banner’ playing softly in the distance. He had faltered this time
though and caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye,
sucking him into the patriotic rippling of her massive chins.
‘Have
you accomplished any of the set goals we discussed in our last
session, Dear?’ ‘oh
say can you see by the dawn‘s early light.’
‘I
forgot what they were.’ Jack managed to squeeze out of his voice
box. He hadn’t actually forgotten, but saying he had rather than he
didn’t want to work on them saved the entire family a lot of
trouble. The Chins took a long swig from her Big Gulp and when she
finally came up for air everyone watched the expression of her aging
face change from that of content to extreme annoyance.
‘I
thought we had discussed and agreed that it was time for you to
exhibit some form of interest in your family’s healing process?’
’What
so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.’
It
was in that instant of listening to a woman who clearly had nothing
more important to do than shop at the Seven-Eleven and pick out cat
socks at hobby stores around the nation that he realized the amount
of time he had actually wasted on these sessions. How many hours, no
days, perhaps even months had he lost doing these sessions? What
could he have done if he were out instead of trapped in this torture
chamber? Who had he missed out on meeting? His life could be
completely different without these sessions, better even. He could be
happy. An idea, although remotely insane in even his opinion, dawned
on him: He was going to find a way to get his lost time back. He had
to soon, or else life was never going to get any better. ‘Oh
save us…’
