Primordial: An Abstraction

24

My parents come to see me. They supported me during my first voyage dans la lune in graduate school. Naturally they want to see how I’m holding up the second time around.

The first thing they do when they come into my dorm room is turn on all the lights and open all the window curtains. “You need light, son,” my father explains. “We come from light, you know.”

“We come from wombs. Uteri. Uteri are dark. Coffins of flesh and tubes and moisture.”

It’s early. Even the ex-Ph.D.s are asleep. Some of them are in their early 60s. Everybody sort of groans and I snap at them to keep quiet and pull the covers over their heads and lay still. My parents are elderly. This instance of bawdy aggression makes my parents nervous and fitful. I assure them that everything is ok, that my roommates and I have a special relationship.

“For instance,” I explain, “last week I decreed that they couldn’t look me directly in the eyes. If they do, I beat them real good. Sometimes I just put them in the closet for a few hours.” I point at the closet and snap my fingers. The door opens and a head pokes out. I snap my fingers again and the head disappears, the door closes. “In theory I don’t have a problem with my roommates looking at me. It’s the principle of it. Hence our special relationship.”

“I understand,” says Dad.

Mom starts cleaning things up. I order her to stop. “The more you try to dispose of trash in a dorm room, the faster it accumulates.”

“He’s right,” says Dad.

I put on a tie and we go out to eat.

The restaurant is crowded and there’s an agglomeration of townies in the lobby. They just got out of church. Or they’re on their way. The men wear lint-ridden sweater vests that leak crinkled shirttails. The women wear funny hats and cheap mother-of-the-bride uniforms that accentuate the worst parts of their physiques.

I push through the throng, dragging my parents behind me, and confront the hostess. She stands behind a podium like a doe that’s about to be slaughtered. She’s holding a bunch of menus and she doesn’t seem to know what to do with them. I think she’s in my econometrics class. I ask her what the fuck’s going on with all of the people and so forth. She says she doesn’t know and I say, “What the fuck is happening! How much fucking longer do we have to fucking wait! Give me the information! FUUUCK!!!”

“Son,” says Dad, placing a hand on my shoulder.

I feel badly, but that doesn’t change my attitude. Nor does it change this simple human fundament: parents incite adamant regression.

I berate the waitress for awhile. Then the manager or somebody managerial-looking comes out. He apologizes and seats us. On the way to the table, I assure my parents that you got to take the reigns before they’re even tethered to the sleigh. It’s the only way to ensure that things get done the way you want them done.

We sit in a booth. Me on one side, my parents on the other side.

Now the hard part.

Buffet or menu?

I don’t remember what I decide on. Maybe the menu because I don’t go up to the buffet and I end up getting a bunch of food.

During the meal I forget my parents are there.

The book I’m working on right now is harrowing me. It’s all I can think about. I can’t sleep. I can’t study. The flows of my desire shoot in awkward directions.

My thesis is devolving like a Morlock. I don’t know why.

I spread all of my notes across the table and try to figure out what’s wrong as I drink my coffee and eat my poached eggs and my turkey sausage patties and my demitasse of mixed fruit.

“Son,” says Dad.

I look across the table and remember that my parents came to visit. They’re sitting there shoulder-to-shoulder like two wrinkled children who have been sent to the principal’s office. “Oh. I’m sorry, parents. What was I thinking. Let me put this away.”

It takes me about 10 minutes to get all of my papers and things back into my satchel — about half of the time, I gauge, it took me to get everything out. And I must have poured over my notes for a good 30 minutes. I wonder what my parents did while I was working. I lose track of time when I’m working. I don’t think I heard their voices. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have anything to eat. I would have noticed (i.e., remembered) if they slid in and out of the booth a few times to go to the buffet table. I want to ask them, but I’m admittedly embarrassed and I don’t want to call attention to the fact that I forgot about them. As an only child, my cognizance and affections mean everything to my parents. The mere suggestion that I “lost” them — even though they witnessed me “lose” them — would be a demoralizing blow, no matter how I structured my discourse.

When in doubt: deflect.

“I got an A in my Frisbee class last term,” I brag. “It met five times a week at 8 a.m. and I showed up every day and I was never tardy. I can accomplish just about any Frisbee throw known to mankind. And I was voted MVP on my ultimate Frisbee team.”

Mom reaches across the table and touches my arm. “Honey, are you all right?”

I look at her hand and think about the question. “Yeah. Yes. I’m ok.” I reconsider the question. “I mean, I’m lonely, I guess. And I’m mad. Of course I’m mad. I was mad before they sent me back here. You know. Once you get to a certain point in your life, you can’t retool the circuitry, right?” I clear my throat. “It’s ok though. I’m ok. I mean, I’m sad, I’m dejected, I’m agitated, I’m rancorous, I’m resentful, I’m hateful, I’m unflappable, I’m hostile, I’m ridiculous, I’m blue, I’m pathological, I’m crepuscular, I’m tyrannical, I’m confused, I’m maleficent, I’m fanatical, I’m bushwhacked, I’m moravaginean, I’m non est hic, I’m. . I was going to say uxorious, but I’m not that. The kids are all right, though, I think.“ I pause. Nod. “Everything’s fine. I’m anti-oedipal and my muscles are very hard and big and vascular for a guy my age. That’s all that matters.”

My parents try to pay for the check. I say something like get the hell outta here and give the waitress my credit card. She takes the card and stares at the card and stares at me and stares at the card again and you just know she knows there’s no money on it. Still, she goes through the motions. In a few minutes she returns to the table and gives me back my card and blinks at me expectantly.

“There’s no money on it,” I explain.

As always, Mom cries when we part ways and Dad gives me a stiff handshake. I return the handshake, then lean in and give him a hug. It surprises him. But after awhile he de-stiffens and eventually he drapes an arm over me and hugs me back.