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The War at Home
Nov. 7th, 2003 08:30 amMax and Ben going at it like the biggest gorillas in Cell Block C of the ape house. Hard on my nerves – I never wanted to be a zoo director when I grew up.
Max has had a rough year sports-wise. Last summer when he tore his meniscus, I lobbied relentlessly for meniscus repair rather than meniscus removal. While it’s true, the latter operation has a shorter recovery time – he could have been up and around in a matter of days instead of hobbling around on crutches for six weeks – it also means the joint’s going to wear out faster.
When he tried to argue the point with me on the phone, I told him, “Max, I know it seems preposterous to you now that one day you’re gonna be looking at forty. Trust me – you are. And I don’t want you celebrating your fortieth birthday with a total knee replacement.”
The orthopedist in Santa Cruz I took him to for follow-up told Max: six months. This wasn’t what Max wanted to hear. Reluctantly he’d come to terms with the fact that there wasn’t going to be any football this fall but he’d had his heart set on winter-term basketball.
“There were a lot of old people in that waiting room,” Max said on the car ride home. “Maybe it takes them six months to recover. But it doesn’t take me.”
“Hey!” I said. “That’s why he makes the big bucks.”
“So how come when Jason Kidd gets injured he’s back in the game in two weeks?”
“Jason Kidd has a doc with a designer steroid connection,” I said. “He makes even bigger bucks.”
Max doesn’t do well when he can’t pound physically for one or two hours every day. He’s like his father in that respect, has an excess of purely physical testosterone that needs to be discharged. When he can’t work out, he gets very loud, very argumentative. The young silverback spoiling for a fight.
So last night Max commandeered the living room TV for a Playstation basketball tourneys. Ben has his computer in the living room, and was sitting there doing what Ben does ten hours a day – which is to say reading online newspapers and declaiming choice news items in oratorical tones. Now I like current events as much as anyone, but it does get tiresome listening to Ben and I’ve been doing that a lot as for the past week or so since when I haven’t been working in the store, I’ve been sitting in front of my own computer, designing and coding the Slow Burn web site. I wish Ben could read quietly without needing to share.
“Uh-oh, those wacky Iraquis are shooting down more of our boys,” says Ben, chuckling and he proceeds to relish the latest grenade attack aloud.
We have always been at war with Eurasia.
“So what I really wanna know is when did insurgents stop being guerrillas and become terrorists?” says Ben.
I sigh and look up from my typography. No matter how many times I redo the letters, the rollover buckles and writhes on the page. Logos in heat! “September 11, 2001,” I say.
“What?”
“You asked when. I told you.”
“Nobody I talk to thinks there’s going to be a draft,” Max said.
“Well, you’re just wrong,” said Ben. “Look! They just called up another battalion of reserves! That’s how they’re fueling this war. They don’t have enough regular soldiers so they’re using reserves. Except sooner or later people are going to figure out that joining the reserves means more than a yearly two-week camping trip at Camp Pendleton. And guess what? Nobody is gonna enlist in the reserves. Then what do you think the government will do?”
“Enlistments are up,” said Max in a very loud, very aggrieved voice. “I play chess with a lot of military guys, okay? So I know. None of them think the draft is going to be reinstated.”
“Maybe they’re in denial,” said Ben. “Or maybe they figure since they’re cannon fodder, it just doesn’t matter what happens to anyone else –“
“That’s your opinion,” says Max. “It doesn’t mean anything –“
“Honey, am I right?” Ben calls to me.
“Drop it,” I said. “Both of you.”
“Where does he get off trying to ram his opinions down my throat like they were facts?” says Max. His voice is really loud now, scarily like Bill Hare’s.
“Honey?” says Ben.
“Both of you. Now. Stop.”
I just can’t believe that Ben at age forty-seven is so desperate for an ego boost that he’s gonna run roughshod over what’s got to be a sixteen year old male’s deepest fear – that somehow he’s gonna be trapped by something he has no control over and dangled like bait in front of guys with guns who hate him because he’s American. I mean, the insensitivity Ben is showing here is monstrous. It doesn’t matter that he’s right.
In other news, I’m still in major crush mode. My artist and I emailing daily. We have a pretext for meeting now. But nothing ever goes the way you imagine it will so I’m afraid to fantasize.
Max has had a rough year sports-wise. Last summer when he tore his meniscus, I lobbied relentlessly for meniscus repair rather than meniscus removal. While it’s true, the latter operation has a shorter recovery time – he could have been up and around in a matter of days instead of hobbling around on crutches for six weeks – it also means the joint’s going to wear out faster.
When he tried to argue the point with me on the phone, I told him, “Max, I know it seems preposterous to you now that one day you’re gonna be looking at forty. Trust me – you are. And I don’t want you celebrating your fortieth birthday with a total knee replacement.”
The orthopedist in Santa Cruz I took him to for follow-up told Max: six months. This wasn’t what Max wanted to hear. Reluctantly he’d come to terms with the fact that there wasn’t going to be any football this fall but he’d had his heart set on winter-term basketball.
“There were a lot of old people in that waiting room,” Max said on the car ride home. “Maybe it takes them six months to recover. But it doesn’t take me.”
“Hey!” I said. “That’s why he makes the big bucks.”
“So how come when Jason Kidd gets injured he’s back in the game in two weeks?”
“Jason Kidd has a doc with a designer steroid connection,” I said. “He makes even bigger bucks.”
Max doesn’t do well when he can’t pound physically for one or two hours every day. He’s like his father in that respect, has an excess of purely physical testosterone that needs to be discharged. When he can’t work out, he gets very loud, very argumentative. The young silverback spoiling for a fight.
So last night Max commandeered the living room TV for a Playstation basketball tourneys. Ben has his computer in the living room, and was sitting there doing what Ben does ten hours a day – which is to say reading online newspapers and declaiming choice news items in oratorical tones. Now I like current events as much as anyone, but it does get tiresome listening to Ben and I’ve been doing that a lot as for the past week or so since when I haven’t been working in the store, I’ve been sitting in front of my own computer, designing and coding the Slow Burn web site. I wish Ben could read quietly without needing to share.
“Uh-oh, those wacky Iraquis are shooting down more of our boys,” says Ben, chuckling and he proceeds to relish the latest grenade attack aloud.
We have always been at war with Eurasia.
“So what I really wanna know is when did insurgents stop being guerrillas and become terrorists?” says Ben.
I sigh and look up from my typography. No matter how many times I redo the letters, the rollover buckles and writhes on the page. Logos in heat! “September 11, 2001,” I say.
“What?”
“You asked when. I told you.”
“Nobody I talk to thinks there’s going to be a draft,” Max said.
“Well, you’re just wrong,” said Ben. “Look! They just called up another battalion of reserves! That’s how they’re fueling this war. They don’t have enough regular soldiers so they’re using reserves. Except sooner or later people are going to figure out that joining the reserves means more than a yearly two-week camping trip at Camp Pendleton. And guess what? Nobody is gonna enlist in the reserves. Then what do you think the government will do?”
“Enlistments are up,” said Max in a very loud, very aggrieved voice. “I play chess with a lot of military guys, okay? So I know. None of them think the draft is going to be reinstated.”
“Maybe they’re in denial,” said Ben. “Or maybe they figure since they’re cannon fodder, it just doesn’t matter what happens to anyone else –“
“That’s your opinion,” says Max. “It doesn’t mean anything –“
“Honey, am I right?” Ben calls to me.
“Drop it,” I said. “Both of you.”
“Where does he get off trying to ram his opinions down my throat like they were facts?” says Max. His voice is really loud now, scarily like Bill Hare’s.
“Honey?” says Ben.
“Both of you. Now. Stop.”
I just can’t believe that Ben at age forty-seven is so desperate for an ego boost that he’s gonna run roughshod over what’s got to be a sixteen year old male’s deepest fear – that somehow he’s gonna be trapped by something he has no control over and dangled like bait in front of guys with guns who hate him because he’s American. I mean, the insensitivity Ben is showing here is monstrous. It doesn’t matter that he’s right.
In other news, I’m still in major crush mode. My artist and I emailing daily. We have a pretext for meeting now. But nothing ever goes the way you imagine it will so I’m afraid to fantasize.
