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AAAA League

We're sitting there at the table having dinner. It's the three of us-- my wife, my daughter, and I. My wife is 39, my daughter is fifteen. My wife is 2 years younger than me. It's a Friday night and our table is quiet. Lately it hasn't been too pleasant having dinner, the three of us. Our daughter's been putting us through the wringer. We talked about it, my wife and I, and sort of came to the conclusion that, you know, young people are always more cool around their friends. We decided to give her some distance and be more relaxed about the whole thing, not pry so much, treat her a bit more like an adult. Our daughter was growing up. But she even pushed against that. It seemed we couldn't do anything right. It seemed like anything we said was met with exasperation, eyeball rolling, exaggerated sighs. Just be there for her, we thought, she'll come around, she'll come back. Just be patient. It wasn't working. When we laid off and there was no change, we thought that she was thinking we no longer cared. When we asked her how things were going, we thought she was thinking that now we didn't trust her, that we were being overly intrusive. There was a fine line that we kept tripping over and our daughter was always fast to remind us when it happened.

My wife has been telling me on more than one occasion about how she'd be driving our daughter somewhere with her friends in the car to a movie or to one of their friends' houses or to a birthday party or something and she'd start insulting her mother about her mother's clothes, her hair, her weight, or apologizing out loud to her friends about having to be driven in 'such a shitty car.'

Taking pains to not embarrass our daughter in front of her friends my wife would say something like, 'Honey, be nice, you don't mean that.' Our daughter apparently replies with something to the effect of, 'Yes I do. You're so pathetic.' If my wife volunteers anything in the company of our daughter and her friends, she gets told to Shut up or Why don't you mind your own business. The last incident occurred two days ago when she went to pick up her and her friends from soccer practice. There was more of the same. Even though she was out of earshot, my wife was sure it was about her weight again because even though they were downfield quite a ways, the girls were looking at her and pointing and turning into each other to giggle. My wife was in tears that night as she sat up in bed telling me about it. But it's like she knows. Our daughter, I mean. She knows she is out of line, but she just keeps going, always pushing. We've grounded her, cut off her allowance, no new clothes she'll just have to make do. And I know she knows when she asks me if she can go out tonight. She doesn't even look at me, just stares at her plate and pokes at it when she asks. I tell her No and that she should know why, that she missed her curfew by 3 hours last Saturday, and she'd been very insulting to her mother, to the point of tears and without so much as an I'm sorry. So- No, you're not going out tonight. She looks up, shoots her mother a dirty look and says, 'I'm sorry, OK!?', really sarcastically. My wife doesn't say anything, just puts down her fork and sits there with her hands in her lap. My daughter turns to me and says, There, I said it, OK? Now can I go out?

No.

Why, she says.

I say because I don't like your attitude, young lady, and I don't think you meant it. But she's such a loser, my daughter says, referring again to her mother. So I say:

Look, what the hell is your problem?

She says, What do you mean what's my problem?, with a little wag of her head. Now I get to hear that tone of voice and what's more, she's giving me this look with her mouth open, an arch in the corner of her upper lip, her eyebrows raised, chin pointed down, eyes now looking into mine. It was supposed to be a scolding look. But it's one of those things where you don't know whether to laugh or snap. This from a fifteen year old. It stings. I feel a bulge of laughter, hysterical laughter, force its way up my throat, but all that comes out is, Hah!! I look at my wife but she is no help. I should tell you, we've tried patience. We've tried talking to her separately and together, but she'll just put on this deliberately vapid expression and we get nowhere. My wife and I have discussed every possible scenario, any possible reason for this. Where it was coming from. We even did little mock-plays where one of us would play our daughter and do a Q&A, just to get a clue. Even just saying Hi would get a reaction like I just jumped on her last nerve, always snapping at me, at her mother. After a while I started to think twice before asking her how school was today or complimenting her on her appearance. Now there is this. And I feel like… like, imagine a little frail old man rapping on your window for hours and yelling about how he's going to kick your ass. You can't do anything about it. There is just no action that merits the level of frustration. Well, all right, say you did go out there to do something, anything? What would happen? He'd scream bloody murder, that's what. And you'd be the one to get in trouble, despised and arrested. It's little things like that that could let the whole world come rushing in all at once, the one time there is a lapse in judgment, the one time you failed to chain the door before opening it, the one time you fail to just grit your teeth and bear. There are job interviews. You wear your best suit. You are on your knees in your best suit. You are super-polite, smiling, unassuming. They say no, they say they Will call you. If that isn't Life's hand pushing your head in, I don't know what is. You are already on your knees…

There are millions of them out there, setting traps in conversation and action, goading you, daring you to put your soul on the line. They all want a piece of you, they want to drag you in, even though no one knows what will be given and what will be taken until their lives crash into each other. Some cruise for it, some are cruising for it, some are deliberately careless and hoping for that mysterious and deliciously dreadful something to happen. Munchausen behind the wheel, drunk and speeding. Hitler youths being shoved out the door every morning. Finally, when it did happen, you ended up on the cross, a martyr to nothing, yelling out loud to the invisible and apathetic gods of sanity and reason. You cannot scream loud enough to be heard over their yawns. The blue men come, you are taken to the asylum, to prison. For nothing more than yelling at the woman who brought $103.97 worth of groceries into the 10 items or less lane, who fiddled about trying to find the coupons she 'almost forgot,' who argued over the receipt, who paid with a check that was left blank until the last possible moment, located somewhere under the mounds of junk in her purse. Really, her husband was a welcome sight. When it was over, I got real close to her face and said, Happy now?

Let it go, I know. I wonder about that sometimes. But they are out there. Too many of them. Fear is the thing. To be made afraid of anyone, any mother fucker at all. Every interaction is a brush with liability: Is the pilot's blood sugar stable? Are the other drivers on the highway well-rested? What sort of people have the psychiatrists unleashed upon us? What is that bulge in her jacket? Did they spit in my food? Will you really call me back? There are no scarlet letters for rapists, murderers, manic-depressives, con artists, incompetents, the sarcastic, the petty cruel. You end up an insomniac, nervous, manic. Rattling tight with the covers pulled up to your chin, a cold-footed millipede walking on the floor of your stomach.

It felt good to get married, to be cared for a little bit. That's the selfish part, I suppose. But why shouldn't I get a little kindness in my life? Goddamnit if a man doesn't deserve a break now and again. I don't ask for so much, really, and my wife is a good woman. So what if she never lost the weight? You can't ride every problem all the time, because you will get thrown. You will get thrown in jail or end up locked in your house, stunned, in your robe, unshowered for days, jumping out of your skin when the phone rings. Some lives are harder than others, harder than mine, yes. But what does that mean, really? That you shouldn't get bummed out just because someone's been through the same before? Maybe worse? Does that disqualify pain? What am I supposed to do, 'take one for the team?' 'Suck it up?' What team? Let me tell you, there is no 'I' in the word 'team,' but it is right smack in the middle of 'win.'

Anyway.

I remembered that same look from when I was maybe a couple years younger than my daughter is now, 12 or 13. There were these four girls who were considered the prettiest in the class. They all stuck together. Whenever I saw them in the hall or outside or something, they'd give me just that same look and call me Scum. One would say it first and then one or two others would say it, too. Scum, You're scum, Fucking scum. I was so young and nervous then, it really felt horrible, like it was me who had done something wrong, even though I had never done anything to deserve it. But then, I had no perspective. It was a death sentence. It happened every day. When I got older, I used to masturbate and imagine grudge-fucking them. Even that was a long time ago.

Now it was in my house, my home. I manage to hold it together. So what did I mean exactly? Well, I say, this has been going on for some time. I think you know what I'm talking about. I'm sick and tired of it. You obviously don't give a shit about your mother or me. The thing is… your mother and I are in love. That's why we got married. We decided we wanted to have a child out of love for each other and we wanted to share that love with a special someone. That's how you came around. For us to see you grow up to be happy and successful is all we've ever wanted. When we see you do well in school or having fun with your friends, growing, learning, it means everything to us. We don't do it for thanks. To see good things happen for you has always been enough, more than enough. But when you get right down to it, it's also a responsibility. We are obligated to clothe you, feed you, see to it that you are educated, kept reasonably safe and healthy. Just basic minimal requirements. I don't have to like it, but I do have to do it, at least until you're 18. I suppose we could send you away to boarding school as a way to satisfy that requirement. I'm not going to give you the old bit that 'I work my fingers to the bone.' I need a house, your mother needs a house. I gotta eat, your mother's gotta eat. There's a little extra for you. Big deal. But really, why don't you go to someone else's house and give them shit? You're such a pain in the ass that it's not really enjoyable to have you around at all. See? So I want your input. It's your life too, so it stands to reason that you should have a say in all this. What do you propose? Because I'll tell you something kid, you're wearing thin. I'm really not interested in giving a shit about giving a damn any more about your temper tantrums, your sarcasm, your insults, your lack of respect or appreciation for the efforts your mother and I put in. It's like at the end of the day, you're another thing I have to deal with, y'know? Either you’re a bitch to me or I have to hear your mother tell me about what a bitch you were to her. Who the hell do you think you are, you little shit? So anyway, you got any better ideas? Life's too short. Why don't you do us all a favor here? I'm really listening.

I kept my cool as I said all this, maybe only tapping the tip of my index finger on the table a couple of times for emphasis. She just kept staring at me with that same look. I knew. I knew what it meant, she had no response. Maybe she was too emotional to speak. Maybe it was self-defense. But I had her. Then I said, Nothing to say, huh? Well, why don't you just excuse yourself and give it some thought, hm? Go on, I said, giving a little brush-off motion with my hand. She left without saying anything. Not even one of those fucking little exasperated breath-sounds. Bye-bye, I said. I heard footsteps going upstairs. My wife looked at me, but I ignored it and started eating again. I didn't care. Then she left, too. No noise. I watched her go.

And I swear to God, in that moment, right then, I wouldn't have given a shit if both of them fell off the face of the Earth. Fucking little bitch. I thought of yelling out something. I pushed my chair back and went upstairs. When I went in, she was on the phone talking to one of her friends. I slapped the phone out of her hand and the next thing I knew, I had her by the throat, pinned to the wall. It felt good to squeeze.

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