In parting, I threw him a bone. "I did fight very hard to give you my last name."
"Yeah, well, saved you trouble. T h e old K-h-a. ..?" he slurred.
"Thanks to me, n o w everybody in the country knows h o w to spell it."
D i d you k n o w that Americans stare at pregnant women? In the low birthrate First World, gestation is a novelty, and in the days of T & A on every newsstand, real pornography—conjuring intrusively intimate visions of spread hams, incontinent seepage, that eely umbilical slither. Casting my o w n eye d o w n Fifth Avenue as my belly swelled, I would register with incredulity: Every one of these people came from a woman's cunt. In my head, I used the crudest word I could, to bring h o m e the point. Like the purpose of breasts, it's one of those glaring facts we tend to suppress.
Still, I once turned heads with a short skirt, and the flickered glances from strangers in shops began to get on my nerves. Along with the fascination, even enchantment on their faces, I also spotted the incidental shiver of revulsion.
You think that's too strong. I don't. Ever notice h o w many films portray pregnancy as infestation, as colonization by stealth? Rosemary's Baby was just the beginning. In Alien, a foul extraterrestrial claws its _ _ 6 9 —
way out of John Hurt's belly. In Mimic, a woman gives birth to a two-foot maggot. Later, the X-Files turned bug-eyed aliens bursting gorily from human midsections into a running theme. In horror and sci-fi, the host is consumed or rent, reduced to husk or residue so that some nightmare creature may survive its shell.
I ' m sorry, but I didn't make these movies up, and any w o m a n whose teeth have rotted, whose bones have thinned, whose skin has stretched, knows the humbling price of a n i n e - m o n t h freeloader.
Those nature films of female salmon battling upstream to lay their eggs only to disintegrate—eyes filming, scales dropping—made me mad. T h e whole time I was pregnant with Kevin I was battling the idea of Kevin, the notion that I had demoted myself from driver to vehicle, from householder to house.
Physically, the experience was easier than I expected. T h e greatest affront of the first trimester was a watery thickening that easily passed as a weakness for Mars bars. My face filled out, beveling my androgynously angular features into the softer contours of a girl. My face was younger but, I thought, dumber looking.
I don't k n o w what took me so long to notice that you were simply assuming that our baby would take your surname, and even on the Christian name we weren't like-minded. You'd propose Leonard or Peter. W h e n I countered with Engin or Garabet—or Selim, after my paternal grandfather—you assumed the same tolerant expression I wore w h e n Brian's girls showed me their Cabbage Patch Kids. Finally you said, "You cannot possibly be proposing that I name my son Garabet Plaskett!'
" N n o o , " I said ."Garabet Khatchadourian. Has more of a ring."
"It has the ring of a kid who's not related to me."
"Funny, that's exactly h o w Peter Plaskett sounds to me."
We were at the Beach House, that charming little bar around the corner on Beach Street, no longer extant I ' m afraid, and rather wasted on my orange juice straight up, though they did serve a mean bowl of chili.
You d r u m m e d your fingers. " C a n we at least nix Plaskett-Khatchadourianl Because once the hyphenated start marrying each other, kids'll be going by whole p h o n e books. A n d since somebody's gotta lose, it's simplest to stick with tradition."
"According to tradition, w o m e n couldn't o w n property until, in some states, the 1970s. Traditionally in the Middle East we walk around in a black sack and traditionally in Africa we get our clitorises carved out like a h u n k of grisde—"
You stuffed my m o u t h with cornbread. " E n o u g h of the lecture, babe. We're not talking about female circumcision but our kid's last name."
" M e n have always gotten to name children after themselves, while not doing any of the work." Cornbread crumbs were sailing from my m o u t h . " T i m e to turn the tables."
" W h y turn t h e m on me? Jesus, you'd think American m e n were pussy-whipped enough. You're the one w h o complains they're all quiche-eating faggots w h o go to crying workshops."
I folded my arms and brought out the heavy artillery. " M y father was b o r n in Dier-ez-Zor concentration camp. T h e camps were riddled with disease and the Armenians had hardly any food or even water—it's amazing the baby survived, because his three brothers didn't. His father, Selim, was shot. Two-thirds of my mother's extended family, the Serafians, was so neady obliterated that not even their stories have survived. I ' m sorry to pull rank. But Anglo-Saxons are hardly an endangered species. My forebears were systematically exterminated, and no one ever even talks about it, Franklin!"
"A million and a half people!" you chimed in, gesticulating wildly. " D o you realize it was what the Young Turks did to the Armenians in 1915 that gave Hitler the idea for the Holocaust?"•
I glared.
"Eva, your brother's got two kids. There are a million Armenians in the U.S. alone. Nobody's about to disappear."
"But you care about your last name just because it's yours. I care about mine—well, it seems more important."
" M y parents would have a cow. They'd think I was denying them. Or that I was under your thumb. They'd think I was an asshole."
"I should get varicose veins for a Plaskett? It's a gross name!"
You looked stung. "You never said you didn't like my name."
" T h a t wide A, it's kind of blaring and crass—"
"Crass!"
"It's just so awfully American. It reminds me of fat nasal tourists in Nice whose kids all want ice c r e a m . W h o shout, Honey, look at that 'Pla-a-as-kett' w h e n it's French and the word's really pronounced plah-skay."
"It's not Plah-skay, you anti-American prig! It's Plaskett, a small but old and respectable Scottish family, and a name I'd be proud to hand on to my kids! N o w I k n o w w h y you didn't take it w h e n we got married.You hated my name!"
" I ' m sorry! Obviously I love your name in a way, if only because it's your n a m e — "
"Tell you what," you proposed; in this country, the injured party enjoyed a big advantage. "If it's a boy, it's a Plaskett. A girl, and you can have your Khatchadourian."
I pushed the bread basket aside and jabbed your chest. "So a girl doesn't matter to you. If you were Iranian, she'd be kept h o m e from school. If you were Indian, she'd be sold to a stranger for a cow. If you were Chinese, she'd be starved to death and buried in the backyard—"
You raised your hands. "If it's a girl it's a Plaskett, then! But on one condition: N o n e of this Gara-souvlaki stuff for a boy's first name. Something American. Deal?"
It was a deal. A n d in hindsight we made the right decision.
In 1996, fourteen-year-old Barry Loukaitis killed a teacher and two students while taking a whole class hostage in Moses Lake, Washington. A year later, thirteen-year-old Tronneal M a n g u m shot dead a boy at his middle school w h o owed him $40. T h e next m o n t h , sixteen-year-old Evan Ramsey killed a student and his principal and w o u n d e d two others in Bethel, Alaska.That fall, sixteen-year-old Luke W o o d h a m murdered his mother and two students, w o u n d i n g seven, in Pearl, Mississippi. Two months later; fourteen-year-old Michael Carneal shot dead three students and
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w o u n d e d five in Paducah, Kentucky. T h e next spring in 1998, thirteen-year-old Mitchell Johnson and eleven-year-old Andrew Golden opened fire on their high school, killing one teacher and four students, wounding ten, in Jonesboro, Arkansas. A m o n t h after that, fourteen-year-old Andrew Wurst killed a teacher and w o u n d e d three students in Edinboro, Pennsylvania.The following m o n t h in Springfield, Oregon, fifteen-year-old Kip Kinkel massacred both his parents, proceeding to kill two more students and w o u n d i n g twenty-five. In 1999, and a mere ten days after a certain Thursday, eighteen-year-old Eric Harris and seventeen-year-old Dylan Klebold planted bombs in their Littleton, Colorado, high school and
went on a shooting rampage that killed one teacher and twelve students, while wounding twenty-three, after which they shot themselves. So young Kevin—your choice—-has turned out as American as a Smith and Wesson.
As for his surname, our son has done m o r e to keep the name Khatchadourian alive than anyone else in my family.
Like so many of our neighbors w h o latched onto tragedy to stand out from the crowd—slavery, incest, a suicide—I had exaggerated the ethnic chip on my shoulder for effect. I've learned since that tragedy is not to be hoarded. O n l y the untouched, the well-fed and contented, could possibly covet suffering like a designer jacket. I'd readily donate my story to the Salvation Army so that some other f r u m p in need of color could wear it away.
T h e name? I think I just wanted to make the baby mine. I couldn't shake the sensation of having been appropriated. Even w h e n I got the sonogram and Dr. Rhinestein drew her finger around a shifting mass on the monitor, I thought, Who is that?
T h o u g h right under my skin, swimming in another world, the f o r m seemed far away. And did a fetus have feelings? I had no way of anticipating that I would still be asking that question about Kevin w h e n he was fifteen.
I confess that w h e n Dr. Rhinestein pointed out the blip between the legs, my heart sank. Although according to o u r " d e a l "
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I was n o w bearing a Khatchadourian, just getting my name on the title deeds wasn't going to annex the kid for his mother.
A n d if I enjoyed the company of m e n — I liked their d o w n - t o -
earth quality, I was prone to mistake aggression for honesty, and I disdained daintiness—I wasn't at all sure about boys.
W h e n I was eight or nine, and once m o r e sent on some errand by my m o t h e r to fetch something grown-up and complicated, I'd been set u p o n by a group of boys not m u c h older than myself. O h , I wasn't raped; they wrenched up my dress and pulled d o w n my panties, threw a few dirt clods and ran away. Still, I was frightened.
Older, I continued to give wide berth to eleven-year-olds in parks—pointed into bushes with their flies down, leering over their shoulders and sniggering. Even before I had one myself, I was well and truly frightened by boys. A n d nowadays, well, I suppose I ' m frightened by just about everybody.
For all our squinting at the two sexes to blur them into duplicates, few hearts race w h e n passing gaggles of gigghng schoolgirls. But any w o m a n w h o passes a clump of testosterone-drunk punks without picking up the pace, without avoiding the eye contact that might connote challenge or invitation, without sighing inwardly with relief by the following block, is a zoological fool. A boy is a dangerous animal.
Is it different for men? I never asked. Perhaps you can see through them, to their private anguish about whether it's normal to have a curved penis, the transparent way they show off for one another (though that's just what I ' m afraid of). Certainly the news that you'd be harboring one of these holy terrors in your o w n h o m e so delighted you that you had to cover your enthusiasm a bit. And the sex of our child made you feel that m u c h more that the baby was yours, yours, yours.
Honesdy, Franklin, your proprietary attitude was grating. If I ever cut it close crossing the street, you weren't concerned for my personal safety but were outraged at my irresponsibility.These
"risks" I took—and I regarded as going about my regular life—seemed in your mind to exhibit a cavalier attitude toward one of your personal belongings. Every time I walked out the door, I swear you glowered a little, as if I were bearing away one of your prized possessions without asking.
You wouldn't even let me dance, Franklin! Really, there was one afternoon that my subtle but unrelenting anxiety had mercifully lifted. I put on our Talking Heads' Speaking in Tongues and began buoyantly herky-jerkying around our underfurnished loft. T h e album was still on the first song, " B u r n i n g D o w n the House,"
and I'd barely worked up a sweat w h e n the elevator clanked and in you marched. W h e n you lifted the needle preemptorily, you scratched a groove, so that forever after the song would skip and keep repeating, Baby what did you expect and never make it to Gonna burst into fla-ame without my depressing the cartridge gently with a forefinger.
"Hey!" I said."What was that about?"
" W h a t the fuck do you think you're doing?"
"For once I was having a good time. Is that illegal?"
You grabbed my upper arm. "Are you trying to have a miscarriage? Or do you just get a kick out of tempting fate?"
I wrestled free. "Last time I read, pregnancy wasn't a prison sentence."
"Leaping around, throwing yourself all over the f u r n i t u r e — "
" O h , get out, Franklin. N o t that long ago w o m e n worked in the fields right up until giving birth and then squatted between rows of vegetables. In the olden days, kids really did come from the cabbage p a t c h — "
" I n the olden days infant and maternal mortality were sky high!"
" W h a t do you care about maternal mortality? So long as they scoop the kid out of my lifeless body while its heart is still beating you'll be happy as a clam."
"That's a hideous thing to say."
" I ' m in the m o o d to be hideous," I said blackly, plopping onto the couch. " T h o u g h before Papa D o c came home, I was in a great mood."
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"Two more months. Is it that big a sacrifice to take it easy for the well-being of a whole other person?"
Boy, was I already sick of having the well-being of a whole other person held over my head. "My well-being, apparently, n o w counts for beans."
"There's no reason you can't listen to music—although at a volume that doesn't have J o h n thumping his ceiling downstairs."
You replaced the needle at the beginning of the A side, turning it down so low that David Byrne sounded like Minnie Mouse.
"But like a normal pregnant woman, you can sit there and tap your foot!'
"I don't k n o w about that," I said. "All the vibration—it might travel up to Little Lord Fauntleroy and trouble his beauty sleep.
And aren't we supposed to be listening to Mozart? Maybe Talking Heads isn't in T h e Book. Maybe by playing 'Psycho Killer' we're feeding h i m Bad Thoughts. Better look it up."
You were the one powering through all those parental h o w -
tos, about breathing and teething and weaning, while I read a history of Portugal.
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Eva. I thought the whole idea of becoming parents was to grow up."
"If I'd realized that's what it meant to you, affecting some phony, killjoy adulthood, I'd have reconsidered the whole business."
" D o n ' t you ever say that" you said, your face beet-red. "It's too late for second thoughts. Never, ever tell me that you regret our own kid."
That's w h e n I started to cry. W h e n I had shared with you my most sordid sexual fantasies, in such disturbing violation of heterosexual norms that, without the assist of your o w n disgraceful mental smut shared in return, I ' m too embarrassed to mention t h e m here—since w h e n was there anything that one of us was never, ever to say?
Baby what did you expect—Baby what did you expect—
T h e track had started to skip.
4
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D E C E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 0 0
Dear Franklin,
Well, I had no desire to linger at the agency today T h e staff has gone from good-hearted jousting to all-out war. Observing the showdowns in our small office without taking sides has lent these scenes the slightly comic, unaffecting quality of television with the sound off.
I ' m a little at a loss as to h o w "Florida" has b e c o m e a race issue, except in the way that sooner or later everything becomes a race issue in this country—sooner, as a rule. So the three other Democrats here have been throwing terms like "Jim C r o w " at the two beleaguered Republicans, w h o huddle together in the back r o o m and speak in low tones that the rest construe a
s the conspiratorial mutter of shared bigotry. Funny; before the election n o n e of these people displayed the least interest in w h a t was generally agreed to be a dreary contest.
Anyway, today some Supreme C o u r t decision was due, and the radio was on all day. T h e staff s recriminations flew so fast and furious that m o r e than one customer, abandoned at the counter, simply walked out. At length I did the same. Whereas the two conservatives tend to argue nakedly for their side, the liberals are always weighing in on behalf of truth, justice, or humanity. T h o u g h once a staunch D e m o c r a t , I long ago gave up on defending humanity. It's beyond me on most days to defend myself.
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T h e n , while I do hope this correspondence hasn't degenerated into shrill self-justification, I w o r r y equally that I may seem to be laying the groundwork for claiming that Kevin is all my fault. I do indulge that sometimes, too, gulping d o w n blame with a powerful thirst. But I did say indulge. There's a self-aggrandizement in these wallowing mea culpas, a vanity. Blame confers an awesome power.
And it's simplifying, not only to onlookers and victims but to culprits most of all. It imposes order on slag. Blame conveys clear lessons in which others may take comfort: if only she hadn't—, and by implication makes tragedy avoidable.There may even be a fragile peace to be f o u n d in the assumption of total responsibility, and I see that calm in Kevin on occasion. It is an aspect that his keepers confuse with remorselessness.
But for me this greedy gorging on fault never works. I am never able to get the fall story inside me. It's larger than I am. It has damaged too many people, aunts and cousins and best friends w h o m I will never k n o w and would n o t recognize if we met. I cannot at once contain the suffering of so many family dinners with one empty chair. I haven't anguished that the p h o t o on the piano is forever tainted because that was the snapshot given to the newspapers or because sibling portraits on either side c o n -