Social Order In the Second Generation

[mallorys_camera]

The Rapp cousins are here. I’d seen them last on their home turf in Rochester, New York back in 2001 on a family vacation we’d taken just before I started the ICM job. And though I like their mom Julie who dropped them off Tuesday well enough and their grandmother Lucinda who will pick them up today, of course I’d do anything to avoid talking to these custodial adults.

“Was it a complete wash?” Julie asks delicately. “Or did you manage to salvage anything from the store?”

No, Julie, it was a complete wash. I stand before you a squeaky clean cautionary example of how not to live your life in every respect. I am completely ruined. Gossip about me with impunity. Be sure to throw in Ben’s complicated drug history and the fact that while Grandma Nancy was generous in crediting me with saving Ben’s life, she never liked me, thought me a bit too big for my britches. Well I’m fitting nicely into those size two panties now. And they have holes in them!

Interesting watching the kids interact. Maxwell who I remember as a ferociously serious and accomplished little kid has grown into a tall and handsome adolescent. It’s hard to remember he’s only 15. He looks like he just graduated from officer training school.

His favorite book is Ender’s Game.

“And do you have any idea where you might want to go to college, what you might want to do when you grow up?” I ask over grilled hot dogs. Just to be chatty. Surely no fifteen year old in the world knows what college they want to go to, what they want to be when they grow up.

Ah, but I’ve misjudged Maxwell.

“An actuary,” he says. “I want to be an actuary. And I want to go to Georgetown University. They have an excellent business administration program my dad says.”

Wow.

Insofar as the insurance industry runs the world – and after the recent publicly leveraged bailout of AIG to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, can anyone seriously doubt that? – actuaries are the invisible consiglieris pulling all the strings. No doubt there are formulas for adjudicating risk, calculating the probability of death, and mayhem, profit and return. But those formulas are meaningless in any real sense. Really the risk is what the actuary decides it is.

Now the boys are on to a different topic. Robin is spinning some fabulous tale. Griffin is smiling but Maxwell is looking at him scornfully, shaking his head.

“They don’t believe you, Robin,” says Lew mildly.

“Oh, we stopped believing Robin years ago,” says Maxwell.

“When?” Lew asks.

“When Robin told us his brother was a dragon.”

“My brother is a dragon,” Robin said promptly.

“No, he’s not,” says Maxwell.

Griffin laughs again.

Griffin is actually my favorite of the second generation cousins. He’s the only one who would play Perquackey with me yesterday morning. Good at word games, good at science, possessed of a dry, droll sense of humor, he grew up under Maxwell’s shadow though the two brothers get along famously. It was decided that Griffin had a weight problem when he was younger, and that this was a physical handicap of sorts. His grandmother talked about it endlessly, often in front of him. He had to shrug it off. Now at 13 it’s obvious that Griffin will be taller than Maxwell and muscular where Maxwell is imperially slim. He’s a kinder, less judgmental kid than his brother. Not so arrogant.

“My favorite book is Youth In Revolt,” says Robin cockily.

Youth In Revolt! If there are two things I could just slap my own uber-accomplished Max son about it would be giving a copy of Youth In Revolt to Robin for his tenth birthday and turning his younger brother on to marijuana and alcohol at a Fletcher party a couple of years later. So irresponsible. So fucking irresponsible.

And he’s not around to pick up the pieces.

Robin is rambling on and on and on, babbling the entire stupid, ill-conceived plot of Youth In Revolt – less a book than an ill-conceived verbal cartoon. (God, Robin. Where is your taste? It’s so badly written!) Maxwell sits with his lips pursed, even Griffin’s eyes are glazing over.

“Nobody really wants to hear this, Robin. It’s boring,” I say.

“You’re boring,” he responds savagely.

I shrug. “That may well be but let’s reroute the conversation back to topics of general interest, shall we? Olivier –“ this to the silent, mostly un-Englished foreign exchange student the Rapps have living with them for a month – “ do you have hobbies?”

Olivier looks bewildered.. “Obbies?”

“Things you do for fun,” I say wishing I knew shorter words.

“You know like pimpin’ and scoring rock for the homies,” says Robin after a sly glance that ascertains Uncle Lew’s attention is momentarily elsewhere.

Robin is the court jester. I suppose that’s a choice.

Comments

[a1icey.livejournal.com]

oh, maxwell's response is so very of-his-generation... apparently we're creeping out the gen-x'ers no end.

though if you go over to england they still have no clue, even age 22.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Maxwell's generation would be Gen Z, no? I mean Gen X-ers are the ones who came after me (Boomer), all hitting their mid-forties now.

[a1icey.livejournal.com]

actually gen x is 30-50 right now, we're not gen-y we are the millenials. dont ask me why.