The Chins

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…’