Chapter Thirty-One

David wanted to show off his first published poem, so he went to his parents’ house under the guise of saying goodbye before his long road trip. He walked across the yard carrying a newspaper under his arm, pushed open the sliding glass door, and walked into the kitchen. Max was sitting at the breakfast table, eating burnt toast and sipping green tea. He looked up at David and frowned.
“You just sneak into people’s houses?”
“It’s not sneaking. I wanted to surprise you.”
“You wanted to give me a heart attack? It won’t do you any good. I already wrote you out of the will.”
“I didn’t want to give you a chance to call Pat Henderson.”
David’s mother Barbara walked into the room and smiled. She gave her son a big hug and kiss.
“How does your garden grow?” she asked. It was how she always greeted him since he started working at Roseman Gardens.
It was a rhetorical question, of course. She didn’t really want to know how it was growing: that agents of the Department of Agriculture trashed the tropical greenhouse and that the storm completely demolished the garden.
“It grows well,” David said.
He helped himself to a mug of freeze -dried coffee (workingman coffee) and sat down at the breakfast table with his parents.
Max frowned and stirred his green tea.
“Have you come to your senses and left the cult?” he asked.
It was a trick question. Either way, if he answered yes or no, he was admitting he was in a cult.
Max didn’t wait for a response; his question was also rhetorical. “If you have some hole inside you, there’s pills you can take,” he said. “Or you can join Islam. It’s the world’s fastest growing religion.”
David shook his head. “Just ‘cause they’ve got a billion people doesn’t mean they’re not a cult.”
“Islam is not a cult,” Max said. “Most of them are decent people who just want the same things as me; just to live in peace and raise children without any of them joining a flower cult. Look what you’ve done to your poor mother. You’re giving her gray hairs.”
“She doesn’t have any gray hairs.”
“She plucks.” Max looked at his wife. “Go on. Show him.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out a gray ball of hairs about the size of a tennis ball. She offered it to David. He shook his head. He didn’t want to take it.
“That’s a normal part of the aging process,” David said.
Max shook his head, picked up the hairball, and passed it from hand to hand. “I’ve known your mother for twenty-five years. I know her aging process, and this isn’t part of it.”
Barbara handed Max a manila envelope. He opened it up and pulled out some papers.
“I was speaking with Judge White the other day,” Max said, uncapping a black pen. “He says we can’t have you committed. That it’s only if we can prove you’re a danger to yourself or others. Apparently throwing away your future isn’t sufficient grounds to have someone committed nowadays. You’re an adult now and we can’t make your decisions for you. So you’ll have to sign this.”
Max slid a document across the table and marked an X where David should sign. He held out the pen out and waited for David to take it.
“I’m not having myself committed.”
“It’s only for a couple months,” Barbara said. “There’s a nice place out in the woods. You need to be deprogrammed. Pat Henderson has a deprogramming program. It’ll help you leave the cult.”
David pushed the papers back at Max.
“I won’t sign it.”
“Then you can’t stay,” Max said, putting the pen cap back on. “When you’re in my house, you live by my rules.”
“That’s only if I live here. I’m just visiting.”
“And it was mighty nice of you to stop by. You can take your beverage to go. I’ll get you a paper cup. You’re not taking the mug.”
Max dropped the pen in his shirt pocket, stood up, and strutted to the cabinet above the sink.
“Max no,” Barbara said.
“Oh yes.” He dug through the cabinet, pushing cups and dishes to the side. “Where are the paper cups?”
“We don’t have paper cups,” Barbara said.
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t give coffee to go. Only crazy people and Dunkin’ Donuts do that.”
“Well can you pick some up next time you go to the store?”
“Put it on the list.”
Max took out his pen and scribbled “paper cups” on the notepad on the refrigerator.
“All right, you can take the mug,” Max conceded. “But you have to bring it back next time.”
“I’m not going to be back for a while. We’re taking the flowers on the road.”
“You can keep the mug,” Barbara said.
“But it counts as Christmas and Hanukkah,” Max said. “What do you mean you’re taking the flowers on the road?”
By way of explanation, David stood up, unfolded the newspaper, and read his new poem.
“That’s not a poem,” Max said when David had finished. “It’s a help-wanted ad.”
“It’s functional poetry.”
“What?”
David explained the premise of functional poetry, how it wasn’t separated onto a pedestal of “art,” but existed in the real world.
“It’s a cry for help,” Max said.
“No it isn’t.”
“Then why’s it called, ‘Help Wanted?’”
“We’re looking for truck drivers.”
“They made you into an evangelist? The cult has you recruiting new members now?”
“It’s my job. I don’t say your job’s a cult. I don’t tell you to leave the dental cult.”
“Dentistry is not a cult. I don’t go around the country giving people free dental exams.”
“Maybe you should. A lot of people need dental care. There’s a lot of bad teeth out there.”
“You’re not going to convert me.”
“I’m not trying to convert you.”
“Sign the paper.” Max held out the pen.
“No.”
“All right. I can see we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”
Max ran around the table, forced the pen into David’s hand, and tried to press David’s hand with the pen onto the document. Max had the advantage of surprise and got the pen to make a couple scratches on the paper. But David was stronger; he gained control and began to pull the pen up from the paper. Suddenly, Barbara came to her husband’s aid and together both of them pushed their son’s hand down on the paper.
Sweat poured down David’s forehead and his arm muscles burned as he tried to keep the pen tip off the signature line.
“It’s not legal!” he protested, but his parents paid no attention.
David was out of shape; reading poetry to flowers was his only exercise. Still, he was able to summon one burst of adrenaline. He charged upwards with all his might, knocking his parents back. Something pulled the pen out of his hand. His head smacked into the linoleum floor and he felt suddenly nauseous.
Barbara screamed. David sat up and saw Max staggering against the kitchen table, a dazed look on his face. The pen was protruding out of his neck and a trickle of blood dribbled down from it.
“Now I don’t need your signature!” Max laughed victoriously. “You stabbed me in the throat! You’re a danger to yourself and others, particularly me!”
Max could still speak; David hadn’t hit the voice box. Maybe it had gone into the trachea this time. A successful tracheotomy.
Max grasped onto the pen, gritted his teeth, and pulled.
“Don’t pull it out!” David shouted. “It could be in an artery!”
“He’s right,” Barbara said. “It’s like a bullet. Sometimes it’s better to leave it in.”
“So I have to go through the rest of my life with a pen sticking out of my neck? Wearing turtlenecks?! Even in the summer?!!”
“We’ll get a doctor to do it,” Barbara said.
“Nonsense. I’ll do it myself. I’m a doctor.”
“You’re a dentist,” David pointed out.
“A dentist is a type of doctor. Same thing. I know what I’m doing. It’s like removing a tooth. I just need some Novocain.”
***
כ''ט בטבת תשס''ח
ירושלים
January 7, 2008
Jerusalem