Mallory's Camera

Awakened in the middle of the night by RTT texts.

I always leave my phone on and close at hand in the middle of the night in case the kids need bail money, or the kids forget their social security number(s), or the kids are in a plane that’s plummeting from the sky and are calling to tell me (one last time): I love you.

These days, true, I am the one statistically more likely to be having the emergency.

But I have no idea whatsoever whether the kids keep their phones on and close at hand in the middle of the night.



RTT was texting at 3 in the morning to tell me how miserable he felt at Maxfield Whack’s (not his real name) wedding.

Maxfield Whack is RTT’s second cousin.

The fathers of both my sons come from large families, something I’ve always been happy about because my family of birth is both small and extremely dysfunctional. At this point, I don’t talk to any members of my birth family except for my sons and Katherine (who isn’t really my cousin but who’s Rik’s younger daughter, so should be my cousin) and Stew (Annie’s longtime consort.)

I have lots of pals, though, who are extremely close with their siblings, cousins, etc.

And it always seemed to me a delightful arrangement.

Imagine not having to explain any of it! All those personality quirks incomprehensible to outsiders? Family members get them. They understand how the quirks developed; after all, their quirks developed in response to the same stimuli.



Ben was the black sheep of his generation.

Drove his mother, Nancy, insane by disappearing for years at a time, reemerging only to hit her up for large sums of money, ostensibly for medical bills or rent but really for dope or motorcycle repairs.

Of course, when I took over the maternal role—Ben was incapable of relating to any woman who saw through his charm except as a punishing maternal archetype—Ben and Nancy could and did get tight again, and Nancy became Ben’s most appreciative audience for all his complaints regarding me.

Nancy just hated me. From the moment she first met me.

I suspect because of the hold she imagined I had over Ben.

Scratch any black sheep, and you’ll find their Mama’s darling.

Anyway, I don’t know whether it was the selective memory that seems to descend upon the collective following the death of one of its members or whether it was true, but at his memorial service, I was shocked by the number of relations who told me they’d entertained great fondness for Ben. Who’d been a little envious of his outré lifestyle. Who were maybe even a little wistful about that.



Initially, RTT hadn’t been invited to the Maxfield Whack wedding.

And he was all bent out of shape about that.

“Do you make any effort to keep in touch with Maxfield?” I asked.

“Well. No-o-ooo—”

I shrugged and smiled. As this conversation was being conducted by text, he didn’t see either of these gestures.

“I’m his cousin. I should be invited.”

“Do you actually like Maxfield Whack?”

“Not particularly.”

More invisible smiles and shrugs from me.



Maxfield Whack is actually the member of that F2 generation I like the least.

As a kid, he was super-neurotic. He had this OCD-ish perfectionism thing going, would burst into tears if a single thing went wrong. My memory is that his parents actually had him on medication for this at some point.

In retrospect, he may have been modeling his parents’ marital discontent: His mother, Julie, always looked as though she was about to burst into tears.

I remember one particularly awful Easter dinner I got dragged to at their house in Rochester. Julie had baked this elaborate lamb cake. I mean, this cake looked like a lamb right down to its pink gumdrop nose and its elaborate coconut flake wooly coat. I wondered if we were supposed to douse it with Woolite.


I, being entirely ignorant of Catholic holiday rituals, merely thought, What fresh horror is this?

But despite having been raised by wolves—or maybe because I was raised by wolves—I am a stickler for etiquette, so I just sat there making complimentary noises and smiling vaguely.

Not so, Lucinda—Nancy’s sister and mother to Brian, Julie’s husband and Maxfield’s father.

Lucinda got into it big-time with Julie over the lamb cake.

Lucinda thought Julie was dumb as a pile of rocks and never failed to seize the slightest opportunity to air this opinion.

Julie wasn’t dumb. I mean, something was going on with Julie: She always looked as though she was in great intractable pain, and she had to control everything that went on in that household right down to the tiniest detail. There was some deep neurosis there. But it wasn’t stupidity.

Anyway, as soon as Griffin, their youngest son, went off to college, Brian and Julie divorced.
I remember being very surprised by the announcement.

And pleased by the changes wrought in Brian, who metamorphosed from the meekest, most hen-pecked of husbands into a merry, congenial guy who now spends most of his time going on hundred-mile bike rides with his hot new girlfriend.

Like me, Julie has had to figure out a new role for herself within the family dynamic. How to cope with those family occasions that demand the presence of two parents.

Fortunately for me, Ben had the grace to die. (Maybe the only time he demonstrated grace in his life.) Not that occasions involving Ben’s family mean very much to me, but when they arise, and my presence is obligated, I reign as Parent Supreme!

Not so for poor Julie, to whom such family occasions mean a great deal.

I feel some sympathy for her.

###

Maxfield Whack and RTT both went to college in Syracuse. RTT’s college was more prestigious.

“Why don’t you call up your cousin and hang out sometime?” I asked.

RTT made a face. He didn’t actually like Maxfield Whack all that much.

After college, Maxfield Whack applied to medical school.

Didn’t get in. Spent a couple of years in also-ran limbo.

Eventually, though, he did get into medical school. And graduated and did a residency in something bloodless and remunerative, I’m thinking. Radiology, maybe.

And yesterday, he married another doctor. A skinny, blonde, perfect doctor. The new Missus Maxfield Whack looks like an unironic Barbie doll. And the weest bit like Julie.

So, you know.

Maxfield Whack is the F2 generation success story.

And RTT—ported to the wedding as one of Uncle Lew’s plus ones—feels like the Big Failure.

I know it’s your perception that you’re the “weird one” at the family gatherings, I texted him this morning. I can’t tell you whether that’s true or not. Except that it wasn’t my observation at the family reunion Whitney & Steve hosted summer before last at their vacation cottage.

I think what you MAY be feeling is that all your second cousins seem to have a set path in front of them—and that you do not. And that makes you feel inadequate.

Set paths are very, very difficult. If there aren’t one or two things that you love beyond all others, that you can’t live without doing, then one actually has to sit down and give some strategic thought to that one.

This is about as close as I feel comfortable saying to my grown-up son, Get your shit together.

My mother-in-law gave me this. (That's not a showercap on my head, that's the matching hat.) She really doesn't like me, does she?

Watching It's A Wonderful Life last night, it occurred to me that this is a terribly dark movie. One might be tempted to call it a socialist parable except at the end of the film Mr. Potter gets to keep the missing $8000 while the working class characters – who can least afford it – have to float the failing Bailey Building and Loan.

Was Charles Keating an uncredited screenwriter?

"Yes, but when Mr. Potter dies, he has no one to leave his vast fortune to," says Ben. "So he's forced to endow a building at Hudson University." (Hudson University is the mythical campus on Law & Order where all academic-related murders take place.) "George Bailey's great-grandchildren, on the other hand, moved to Elmira where they're active even today in the thriving crack cocaine industry."

The real life town that the fictional Bedford Falls was modeled after is Seneca Falls in upstate New York. I've spent a lot of time in those Finger Lake towns with their shabby, snow-dome Victorian facades and their sense of utter hopelessness. Richard Russo (Nobody's Fool, Empire Falls) gets it exactly right. Boomtowns once upon a time when the Erie Canal was a major commercial throughway and the hydroelectric power from the natural cascades supported factories, distilleries and the world's third largest flour mill. The first women's rights convention was held there a hundred and fifty years ago.

The mansions are all still there.

The population, for the most part, isn't.

Of course, Seneca Falls is paradise compared to some place like Elmira, a once prosperous town and famous as the birthplace of Huckleberry Finn. (The novel may have been conceived in Hannibal, MO but it was written in Elmira, the Clemens' summer home.) In 1972, a freak hurricane – Agnes – funneled up the Susquehanna Basin, dumping three feet of water in downtown Elmira, virtually wiping out the commercial district and forty percent of the city overnight. Shades of New Orleans – the destruction of the economic base led to a massive exodus: Elmira's population went from 120,000 to 30,000 in six months. The people who stayed either worked at the prison or had incarcerated relatives. Then fifteen years later, the crack cocaine epidemic hit.

Not quite a pointless ramble – my mother-in-law grew up in Elmira.

I had every intention of being a marshmallow while Nancy was visiting – she’s old, she has a good heart, she dotes on Robin, I’m Mother Teresa. Blah blah blah.

And actually we only got into it a couple of times.

For instance: when I wanted to do Griffin’s laundry.

Now, Nancy traveled with an entourage: her sister, Lucinda; Lucinda’s grandson, Griffin. Griffin is a stout blonde eight year old who’s smarter than anyone gives him credit for. In every large family, a kind of mythology grows up about its various members and the rap on Griffin is that he’s a loser, perpetually in the shadow of his brilliant older brother, Maxwell. Maxwell, as Nancy never tires of reminding us, is a competitor. A veritable sand devil on the basketball court. Knows more Scrabble words than the entire Random House Dictionary. Cleans his room!

Griffin was invited to travel with Grandma Nancy as a kind of reprieve on loserdom. “It should help his self-confidence,” Nancy would boom, most often with Griffin in earshot. “Now, of course, it’s difficult to be Maxwell’s younger brother. That boy is so amazingly gifted –“

Needless to say I have always disliked Maxwell heartily.

So on the next-to-the-last day of Griffin’s visit, I carted his suitcase out to the kitchen table where Nancy sat, bottomless cup of coffee at hand.

“What are you doing?” Nancy asked.

“I thought I’d do Griffin’s laundry!” I said brightly.

“Why would you insult Julie –“ Griffin’s mother – “ that way?”

“Huh?”

“Julie obviously packed enough clothes so Griffin would never run out of clothes while he was here. If you wash his clothes, Julie will worry that she didn’t pack enough. That’s an insult.”

I stared at her. Her eyes were flashing.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with the number of clothes, Nancy. It has to do with hygiene. Little boys don’t have any. How graphic would you like me to get? Work with me here, Nancy –“

“Julie uses bleach,” said Nancy. She didn’t exactly hiss but the meta-message was clear: I don’t see no Clorox in your laundry room, beeyitch.

This conversation continued for twenty minutes.

At the end of those twenty minutes, I dumped Griffin’s laundry into the washer. “What can I say, Nancy? I’m just a wild and crazy housewife.”

She glared.

One other difficult moment. It came very late at night, while I was chauffeuring the party back from Disneyland, navigating the car down over Pacheco Pass in a thick Tule fog with maybe two feet visibility.

I’m not a good driver. I grew up in Manhattan where the public transportation system is excellent, and like so many other of my NYC sensibilities, I carried this contempt for automobiles to the opposite side of the continent where it’s maladaptive. I learned to drive in my late twenties and it was one of the harder things I ever had to do, Fear Factor territory. So here I was in pitch blackness, my puny little headlights illuminating what looked like a gauze shroud, putt-putt-putting down a six degree grade and Nancy and Lucinda decide that this would be a good time to start discussing dead people. Dead people who dropped dead in their early fifties.

I’m fifty-two.

“Out of no where,” said Lucinda cozily. “One minute she was taking her grandkids to the mall. The next minute – pow. Right there in the parking lot, next to her car.”

“Thank God she wasn’t driving.”

“I know. Can you imagine? They’d all be gone.”

I had a sudden strong urge to drive right off the side of the cliff just to shut them the fuck up.

Instead I fumbled with the radio. Switched on KGO. Bernie Ward. The Left’s answer to Rush Limbaugh. Practically foaming at the mouth with his deconstruction of the vice presidential debates. Focus, focus, focus, I thought and let Dick Cheney’s villainy be the guiding light that pulled me down the mountain.

My mother-in-law worried about Robin and the Amish sawmill. Lew, Ben's brother, needed to pick up some wood for the bunkhouse building project; he wanted Robin to tag along. But Nancy was afraid Robin would make fun of the guys with the scraggly sideburns and funny hats.

“Not to worry, Mom,” Ben told her on the phone. “Robin's seen Kingpin at least twenty times. He's a great admirer of the Amish.”

Being unfamiliar with the oeuvre of the Farrelly Brothers, this reference was lost on Nancy.

I laughed though.

Robin is back in Pennsylvania for the next six weeks. This is a Good Thing because it now allows me to focus twenty-four hours a day on the DiLucchio Hot Sauce fortunes instead of the 23.5 hours I was spending due to the fact that half an hour a day had to be devoted to issues like “Has the kid eaten yet?” and “Will the kid going to grow up to be a serial killer because he's spending his entire summer vacation playing Grand Theft Auto?”

It's odd having two children. I love them both the same. But Max feels more like a solo production - I was a more conscientious parent with Max, I put my very definite ideas about childrearing into effect with him, hence he reflects more of my intent.

Ben was always Robin's chief caregiver. This is because shortly after I gave birth to Robin, it became apparent that Ben is incapable of contributing to the family's financial status in any meaningful fashion. It was up to me to get out there and hustle. This didn't leave a whole lot of time for supervising the evening bath or reading bedtime stories.

Has Robin suffered?

I wonder.

Ben is a doting caregiver, but a very laissez-faire caregiver. Robin eats vast amounts of candy and other sweets, he routinely stays up till eleven o'clock at night. Last year, when his teacher, Mr. Bailey, kept sending home notes complaining that Robin seemed unfocused in class, that he acted silly and inappropriate, that his work was chaotic and unpredictable - sometimes excellent, way above his grade level; most times, not - I knew it was because Robin was eating too much sugar and wasn't getting enough sleep.

Did I step in? Not really. I mean, I bitched at Ben. But assuming yet another job - Bedtime Enforcer! - no. That was too much work. I'm already over-extended.

Once upon a time, Nancy and I used to fight quite a bit. I think she found me too flamboyant, too theatrical. She rejoiced in my misfortunes, a little old-fashioned that one needed taking down a peg. To be fair, she doesn't do it anymore but I distinctly remember a remark she hurled at me in the midst of some argument we had a few years back: “You should appreciate what you have! If it weren't for Ben, you wouldn't be free to pursue that important career you love so much.”

At the time I think I may have been working for People Magazine which was actually fun though it was another one of those twenty hours a day gigs. Still, my mouth fell open. I have never wanted a career. I have always wanted to sit twenty-four hours a day in front of an open window with my eyes slightly unfocused, occasionally noodling a well-turned phrase in a notebook.

The things we want. The things we get.