turning
Marvin’s kid is great. Jason, his name is, and he’s the smartest kid Whizzer’s ever met. Bright as a button, as Whizzer’s mom would’ve said. Marvin has Jason for three and a half days every week and his wife, Trina, who has lovely hair and dresses and for some reason hasn’t punched Whizzer in the fucking head yet, has him for the other three and a half. Marvin works eight hours a day five days a week, so on wednesday thursday and friday Whizzer picks Jason up from school and makes him and Marvin breakfast and dinner.
Jason takes a shine to Whizzer, like most kids to. Asks him who the hell he is. What his real name is. Where he’s from. Who his parents are. Who his friends are. What his job is. If he’s a fag, like Jason’s dad. Whizzer answers the questions honestly, because he thinks lying to kids is despicable: He’s Whizzer Brown. His real name is Micah Marisol Matos, but Jason mustn't tell his dad that or ever call Whizzer by his birth name. His parents are Abram Matos and Josie Louise Brown. He’s from Israel and Brooklyn. His friends are Cordelia O’Malley (the lady who bought over cookies) and Charlotte DuBois (the lady who let Jason hold a real surgery knife). He was a photographer, but he can’t be anymore because he’s gotta look after Marvin and Jason (‘like a girl?’, Jason asks. Whizzer doesn’t answer.) He supposes he is a fag, if that’s what Jason wants to call it. Jason is satisfied.
Sometimes Whizzer thinks he’s too young for this shit. Twenty five is way too young to be a domestic queen, he thinks. He should be out there fucking shit up. Telling it like it is. Fighting the patriarchy or the self hating queers or the police or whatever needs to be fought. Instead he’s cooking meals for some breeder and his kid. Smiling constantly. Reading. Drinking tea. Doing laundry. Making shabbat dinner for everyone every second Friday. Everyone includes Trina and it’s utterly forced and awkward, but Marvin insist on it. They sit in silence. Sometimes Jason acts out so he can be excused. On Saturday Whizzer goes to shul. Trina goes to the same shul, but walks as far ahead of Whizzer as she can. Marvin thinks he’s too smart for religion. The fourth month that Whizzer’s a part of the unit it’s saturday and Whizzer and Trina are walking to shul. Trina’s ten steps ahead. Whizzer’s yarmulke falls off. He cringes with embarrassment as the bubbes walking by click their teeth at him, reaches down to get and when he straightens up Trina’s standing in front of him, armed with bobby pins. She fixes his yarmulke and they walk the rest of the route to shul together, talking about challah recipes. They walk back to Marvin’s together, too, and Trina even flashes him the world’s smallest smile when she says goodbye. Marvin berates him for buying into that religious garbage when he gets in, but he doesn’t mind. Jason asks if Whizzer will play chess with him. Whizzer says sure. They play for three hours. Jason is ecstatic.
Seven months into the situation Whizzer has basically conditioned himself into not minding this routine. He convinces himself that he doesn’t miss running around in the city. He convinces himself that he doesn’t miss taking pictures of things other than sunrises or sunsets over the same trees. He didn’t realise one could get bored of a sunrise.
Nine months in he starts snapping. Telling Marvin to pick up his own damn clothes, do his own damn laundry, make his own damn dinner. Marvin retaliates, snaps louder, with more force. It’s an endless game of tug of war, and Whizzer is always the one who ends up on his ass after the other lets go of the rope too soon. But he’s still soft with Jason. Tries not to let on that anything’s wrong. Whizzer will never be a father, but he will make sure that Jason isn’t fathered the way he was.
Ten months in Whizzer beats Marvin at chess and something snaps inside Marvin. Whizzer thanks the Divine Creator that Jason isn’t home, because Marvin goes ballistic. Screams at Whizzer. And sure Whizzer puts up a fight, but he can’t for long. He cries. Hears his own voice crack and quaver when he tells Marvin to just leave him alone. To stop trying to make him into something he’s not. To give him a damn break. Marvin pauses, looks at Whizzer for a long moment then walks out of the room. He comes back with Whizzer’s battered old suitcase. Whizzer throws it at him. Marvin throws it back, harder. Screams at Whizzer to get out of his fucking house and stay out-
There’s a knock on the door. Marvin hisses at Whizzer to stay upstairs and answers the door. It’s Trina. Oh Jesus. Whizzer stands frozen, listening to Marvin screech at Trina and Mendel, the shrink, try to get Marvin away and then, finally, the sound of skin on skin. A hit to the face. Whizzer feels it, too. It pushes him into action. He shoves everything he owns (which is much less now than when he arrived somehow) into his suitcase, closes it, bolts down the stairs and through the hall and out the door so fast that no one can catch him. And runs. And runs. So fast that it hurts his throat. So fast that he can think nothing except that he has to get away. So fast that when he crashes onto the ground in the park his head is spinning and he can’t breathe. He shuts his eyes. He has nowhere to go. No family. No friends, he hasn’t see Charlotte and Delia in months, no home, no money. He’s back where he started: as a skinny kid out too late in central park, wandering around with nothing. He’s come full circle and he can’t take it. It’s over.