A Monkey's Nephew
Michael Chaney
Antoine Neff
stood at the back door eating an apple and watching his daughter through the
window. A black and white Border Collie sniffed at his legs. His daughter had
been escorted home by a boy from school whose jeans disgorged boxer shorts the
way a Pez dispenser releases candy. Antoine grunted. He took another bite of
his apple and gave them ten free seconds as he chewed.
During that time they could have done anything. They could have had sex, birthed a baby, starred in a TV show about their baby, gotten divorced, and sued the show. If they could have fit all that into those ten seconds, he would not have interfered with any of it. But now their grace period was over.
He opened the door. “Maria! Say goodbye and come inside.”
The dog ran into the backyard. His daughter looked embarrassed. Mr. Sagging-Pants gave a cool nod. Antoine threw his half eaten apple at the back fence. That startled the dog not Maria’s friend. He was already strutting down the street, the right side of his body seeming to be heavier than the left.
Once inside, Maria’s brown curls poured out of her wool hat onto her shoulders. “What’s wrong with you, Dad? Jeremy’s a nice guy.”
“I’m sure. Where’d he get his manners from, prison?”
She threw her coat onto a chair. “Jesus, Dad. He’s a poet and a math wiz.”
“And a boy scout, an astronaut, a devout Muslim…”
“Why don’t you like him? You don’t even know him. Is it because he’s black?” She put her hands on her hips like his ex-wife.
“You got me,” he chuckled. “I hate black people. I hated my mother. My grandfather, too.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That is it, isn’t it? You of all people. How can you be more black than me and so racist?”
“Feeling good about everybody won’t solve the real injustices of the world, Maria. That’s ideological false consciousness.”
She marched up the stairs, saying: “Go ahead, hide behind your big words.”
He let the dog back in. She lingered on the stairs, building something hurtful.
“Mom’s right. It’s so ironic. You are racist.”
Antoine shrugged. “You know what they say, white makes right.”
That may have been too much. She was the image of her mother. Dimples and blue eyes, only a few clues of mixed race: the curls, full lips, a broad nose—all features which Antoine feared boys like Sagging-Pants were only too eager to possess.
Seeing no significant reaction from her, Antoine patted the dog and started towards the study where deadlines loomed. His retreat triggered her reply.
“So why’d you marry her if she was too white for you?”
Antoine smiled. “Boredom. Desperation. Drunkenness… the usual reasons.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her that when it’s her time.”
“It’s good to know you two have such important things to talk about.”
“Damnit Dad! When did you become such an asshole?”
~ ~ ~
Antoine could recite his favorite Rainer Maria Rilke poems from memory by the age of ten. At eleven he could do it in the original. His teachers marveled at his cleverness. It was not every day a child from that neighborhood recited poetry in German.
“That’s racist,” his brother would say. “Why’s it gotta be a white man? Why not read poetry by somebody black?”
The next day Antoine performed the only poem he could think of by a black person worthy of the gifted and talented club of Fillmore Junior High.
“My Cherie Amor, belle comme un jour d'été. My Cherie Amor, Très éloignés, comme la Voie Lactée.”
Mr. Tosca asked many questions after the applause. “Did you translate the lyrics all by yourself?” “Are you sure you didn’t see it translated somewhere already?” Antoine explained how he used the dictionary from the library. Mr. Tosca said he wanted to see it.
“He’s probably gonna put it under some kind of glass case,” said his brother.
“You really think so?”
“Sure, stupid. Right after he kicks you out. You’re light-skinned. You get away with a lot, but you’ll learn.”
Although Mr. Tosca did not expel him, things were never the same after the day he brought in the dictionary and demonstrated for his once beloved teacher how he had looked up the words. They went over line by tedious line, word by sour word.
Tosca’s suspicions began a souring process that pickled the sweetness of his soul.
~ ~ ~
On the days that Antoine had Maria, he stopped working as the hour drew near for her to return home from school. Lately, his habit was to play digital hooky from his research and writing with online conversations.
Rebekka, 20 Yesterday, I went to protest neo-Nazis in Dresden. Almost 150 cops were there. Even as a black woman, I felt safe, strong in a sea of German protesters. Then a young blonde woman spit on me. She had a swastika tattooed on her arm.
Prof. Nobel, 56 The omnipresence of the Nazi legacy.
Rebekka, 20 I was in shock. How could she be so full of hatred towards people she didn't know? I cried. Another woman put her arms around me and walked me home.
Wee Willie Winkie, 171 It’s 10pm. Do you know where your arms are?
Cindi, 18 Rebekka, I’m so sorry that happened to you. I was going to say you were probably a fake person (on account of the misspelled name) but I saw news footage from Dresden * which is in Germany * of that protest. I’m not sorry that I say stupid things. I’m not as old as the rest of you. I didn’t live through the World War or Vietnam, so history is not my strong soot.
A Monkey’s Nephew, 48 Clap. Clap. Clap. That’s me doing the very slow clap for you all, our latest contestants on a game show I like to call Pass the Pity, where we can feel bad about all the shit in the world while ensuring that none of it ever changes. Why? Cause shit won’t change just cause you feel bad about it. That’s ideological false consciousness.
Wee Willie Winkie, 171 You’re an asshole, dude. Show some respect. These people have been through some heavy stuff.
A Monkey’s Nephew, 48 This? Coming from someone whose moniker is a euphemism for a country-western penis?
Wee Willie Winkie, 171 Yeah, but I didn’t insult these people like you just did.
Tyrone, 37 Pot meet kettle. Monkey is chastising someone for having a dumb moniker.
A Monkey’s Nephew, 48 I wasn’t trying to insult anyone. Sometimes I feel insulted by other people’s pity of other people’s pain.
Jose, 21 Who’s down with OPP?
Cindi, 18 Yeah you know me (I heart that song!)
Tyrone, 37 A nice lady feels badly for a mistreated black. How does that insult you?
A Monkey’s Nephew, 48 That last comment has revealed you, Tyrone. This forum’s full of ironic monikers. But to an average racist, mine would *not* be one of them.
~ ~ ~
Antoine classified some of the more awkward dinners he had with his daughter as specimens of PDSD: post dramatic stress disorder. Tonight’s tension was catered by Giuseppe’s.
“Another slice?”
No answer. She was chewing angrily. He thought, this is what mad cow must look like in humans.
“Something funny, Dad?”
“Just thinking of something I read earlier.”
“Tell me about it,” she said reaching for another slice.
The Border Collie took up her vigilant perch beneath the dining room table.
“I’ve been keeping track of a digital art show for a review I’m writing. Anyways, a bunch of whack jobs post on the guestbook. Clowns, critics, clichés galore.”
“Go on,” she said.
He decided that for the next thirty seconds he would do anything she asked.
“There’s a one poster who is probably someone’s invention of a valley girl.”
She stopped chewing. “A what?”
“You know, 1980s stereotype? Privileged white girl? She speaks in a Californian accent, like Oh ma gahd, like gag me with a spoon.”
“That’s so gross.”
“I know. Can you imagine?”
“Is there supposed to be a suggestion of bulimia there?”
Antoine reflected on that. “I never thought of it that way before. I don’t know. Anyways, this one poster, Cindi, is someone’s failed version of a valley girl. Even the name is too perfect.”
“What’s your name?”
“A Monkey’s Nephew.”
She looked puzzled.
He explained. “It’s an inversion of the anecdote: well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”
She flicked a pepperoni to the dog. “That’s so random.”
“Right. Anyways, whoever the guy is behind Cindi, he’s overdoing the stupidity.”
She chewed more, cocking her curly head. “Like what? Give an example.”
“Okay, she said she visited the Sistine Chapel but wasn’t sure if she saw the famous fresco of Adam and God touching fingers because she forgot to look up.”
Maria looked unconvinced. “That all?”
“Okay,” he said. “So there’s this other poster who pretends to be god. The website includes ages next to names in posts and this guy typed in as many nines as the program would allow. For god’s age, you know? So this Cindi person said that she knew he was phony because she tried to call his cell phone number.”
“He gave his number?”
“No. All the nines, you know? Nine hundred and ninety-nine billion years old. The age of god. She thought that was a number and supposedly called it. As if anyone could be that dumb.”
He laughed. She chewed.
“I would have tried calling it, too.”
“Maria, it was comprised of something like twelve nines. Nothing but nines. There’s no way you would have confused it for a cell phone number.”
“I can imagine being sleepy or something and—”
“Never, Maria. Would never happen.”
“I use my cell automatically. I might have called without even thinking.”
Was it possible for her to be honest and undermining at the same time?
“Anything is possible, Dad. Only you don’t think so. You’re too judgmental.”
For the first time in years, he wanted a stiff drink.
~ ~ ~
Six years earlier, Antoine and Susan were celebrating their tenth anniversary. They were on a cruise in the Caribbean. It was Susan’s dream. To convince him, she used to brag about the tolerance Caribbean cruises showed to interracial couples.
“But we don’t even look like an interracial couple,” he protested. “Most people think I’m Italian.”
“You’ll love it. You’ll see. We might even meet some nice people.”
This was code for: “Please try not to be so anti-social on this occasion, too.” Susan thought his misanthropy was due to racially inflected anxiety. She was half right.
One night, after snorkeling for the first and last time in his life, Antoine drank too much in the ship’s lounge. He was never one for public dancing, but liquor made him limber. He danced so voluptuously that he got scolding looks from an elderly couple every time he did his spin move, which he punctuated with a loud clap above his head and a pelvic thrust in their direction. For some reason, their perceived disdain hit hard.
“What the fuck is your problem,” he said, jabbing a finger onto the old man’s forehead. “Haven’t you zombies ever seen a man dance before?”
He thought it was hilarious. But the old couple, the lounge full of their friends, the captain of the ship, and even his wife did not.
Susan refused to speak to him as they packed up their belongings. She remained mute the entire time they were being conducted to shore. It wasn’t until they checked into the hotel in St. Croix that she asked him about his preferences for the flight back.
During his silent treatment, Antoine hatched a plan. The next time he interacted with his wife he would start an argument. If done correctly, she would realize how rarely he showed anger towards her and appreciate what a good and peaceable husband he usually was.
After a dreary meal in crowded oyster bar, he initiated his plan.
“I think it’s funny that you spend our whole relationship overreacting to the way white people might mistreat us and the one time I am clearly the victim of racism, you hang me out to dry.”
He mistook her silence for solemnity and railed on. How could she stand by and allow him to be so maligned? Was she really so cold? Hadn’t she been fooling herself all these years with all of that smug liberalism? What kind of wife had she been to the father of her only child?
His high horse was swift and he rode it heedlessly. He thought his plan was working. He was certain he would wake up the next day to a scene of forgiveness and reconciliation. But Susan left the hotel in the middle of the night. She had returned to New York and met with a divorce attorney before he had gained enough clarity to ask the concierge about getting a flight back home.
Slightly drunken and crippled with anger, Antoine turned the key to the apartment he had shared with his wife and daughter for the past ten years. The sound of his bags hitting the bare wooden floor reverberated throughout the empty rooms.
~ ~ ~
Antoine went to the back yard to bring the dog back inside. He noticed a half-eaten apple rotting in the grass. It made him think of Maria’s silence at breakfast that morning, and then—speak of the devil.
They startled him. “What are you doing home so early?”
“What do you mean, Dad? I come home everyday at this time.”
Consulting his watch: “Where does the time go? Tempus fugit, as they say.”
“He must be nervous,” she said to Jeremy. “He’s speaking Latin.”
Antoine liked seeing her so cheerful. Today, Jeremy was less of a fashion victim. Antoine entertained one of those extreme wagers he was always concocting for himself in his head: If this kid doesn’t have any tattoos—no, better yet, if this kid doesn’t want any tattoos, he would be kind to him no matter what.
“Dad, this is Jeremy.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir.”
“Good to meet you, Jeremy.”
“Jeremy and I are in the same math class together.”
“Great. Great. Listen,” said Antoine, “maybe you can help me with something. I had a sort of argument with a colleague the other day.”
“Dad, you don’t have colleagues.”
“A co-writer, Maria. Someone I’m writing a business manual with. Anyways, what’s important is that this person believes that it’s not professional for young people to show their tattoos at work. But I was like, What! That’s silly. If you got it, flaunt it, right? I mean good ink isn’t cheap, right?”
Jeremy kept smiling. “I suppose.”
“Dad, what’s come over you?”
“Jeremy sees my point.”
“Unless it’s a real professional job,” Jeremy said pointing for emphasis. “But you said a young person. I can’t imagine a young person being a judge or a doctor or an accountant or anything like that.”
“So let’s say, for the sake of argument,” said Antoine, “that it’s a sales associate at a department store. To show the tat or not? That is the question.”
Maria rubbed the dog’s head, looking suspiciously at her father.
Jeremy said, “then, I don’t think so.”
“Aha. I take it you speak from experience, right?”
“Why? If I say yes, are you going to turn around and say, ‘Hah! I caught you! I hate these punks today with their tattoos?’”
“Maria said you were good at math but she didn’t mention you doing voices.”
“I’m just playing, Mr. Neff. As a matter of fact, I do have a tattoo.”
Maria brightened. “You do?”
“It’s personal, but, hey, every tattoo is personal, right?”
Antoine nodded. “Let’s see it, Jeremy.” A moment of truth was at hand.
“It doesn’t say ‘insane thug posse’ or anything. But it does require explanation.” The boy pulled up the sleeve of his sweatshirt to reveal his arm. “I may not look it, but I’m a quarter Jewish. My great grandmother, my mom’s grandmother, she was real cool. I never met her, you know, but I like what I hear in the stories my mom and my grandmother tell about her. She was a survivor in the camps. She was younger than me when she got out of Auschwitz. When I turned sixteen, I got permission to get the same tattoo she had on her arm. We have a picture of it that used to give me nightmares when I was a little kid.”
Antoine looked away as Jeremy presented his arm.
“Jeremy,” Maria whispered. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s personal, like I said. That’s why I don’t like to show it. Not to most people. But I knew you and your dad would understand.”
When Antoine opened the back door for them all to go in, he kept it open longer than necessary, listening to the dog pawing across the linoleum and the teen-agers bustling in the kitchen, their backpacks dropping to the floor. Even though deadlines loomed in the study and getting to know these loud and frequently sullen young people would not be easy, he opened himself up to both the prospects and the risks.
During that time they could have done anything. They could have had sex, birthed a baby, starred in a TV show about their baby, gotten divorced, and sued the show. If they could have fit all that into those ten seconds, he would not have interfered with any of it. But now their grace period was over.
He opened the door. “Maria! Say goodbye and come inside.”
The dog ran into the backyard. His daughter looked embarrassed. Mr. Sagging-Pants gave a cool nod. Antoine threw his half eaten apple at the back fence. That startled the dog not Maria’s friend. He was already strutting down the street, the right side of his body seeming to be heavier than the left.
Once inside, Maria’s brown curls poured out of her wool hat onto her shoulders. “What’s wrong with you, Dad? Jeremy’s a nice guy.”
“I’m sure. Where’d he get his manners from, prison?”
She threw her coat onto a chair. “Jesus, Dad. He’s a poet and a math wiz.”
“And a boy scout, an astronaut, a devout Muslim…”
“Why don’t you like him? You don’t even know him. Is it because he’s black?” She put her hands on her hips like his ex-wife.
“You got me,” he chuckled. “I hate black people. I hated my mother. My grandfather, too.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That is it, isn’t it? You of all people. How can you be more black than me and so racist?”
“Feeling good about everybody won’t solve the real injustices of the world, Maria. That’s ideological false consciousness.”
She marched up the stairs, saying: “Go ahead, hide behind your big words.”
He let the dog back in. She lingered on the stairs, building something hurtful.
“Mom’s right. It’s so ironic. You are racist.”
Antoine shrugged. “You know what they say, white makes right.”
That may have been too much. She was the image of her mother. Dimples and blue eyes, only a few clues of mixed race: the curls, full lips, a broad nose—all features which Antoine feared boys like Sagging-Pants were only too eager to possess.
Seeing no significant reaction from her, Antoine patted the dog and started towards the study where deadlines loomed. His retreat triggered her reply.
“So why’d you marry her if she was too white for you?”
Antoine smiled. “Boredom. Desperation. Drunkenness… the usual reasons.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her that when it’s her time.”
“It’s good to know you two have such important things to talk about.”
“Damnit Dad! When did you become such an asshole?”
~ ~ ~
Antoine could recite his favorite Rainer Maria Rilke poems from memory by the age of ten. At eleven he could do it in the original. His teachers marveled at his cleverness. It was not every day a child from that neighborhood recited poetry in German.
“That’s racist,” his brother would say. “Why’s it gotta be a white man? Why not read poetry by somebody black?”
The next day Antoine performed the only poem he could think of by a black person worthy of the gifted and talented club of Fillmore Junior High.
“My Cherie Amor, belle comme un jour d'été. My Cherie Amor, Très éloignés, comme la Voie Lactée.”
Mr. Tosca asked many questions after the applause. “Did you translate the lyrics all by yourself?” “Are you sure you didn’t see it translated somewhere already?” Antoine explained how he used the dictionary from the library. Mr. Tosca said he wanted to see it.
“He’s probably gonna put it under some kind of glass case,” said his brother.
“You really think so?”
“Sure, stupid. Right after he kicks you out. You’re light-skinned. You get away with a lot, but you’ll learn.”
Although Mr. Tosca did not expel him, things were never the same after the day he brought in the dictionary and demonstrated for his once beloved teacher how he had looked up the words. They went over line by tedious line, word by sour word.
Tosca’s suspicions began a souring process that pickled the sweetness of his soul.
~ ~ ~
On the days that Antoine had Maria, he stopped working as the hour drew near for her to return home from school. Lately, his habit was to play digital hooky from his research and writing with online conversations.
Rebekka, 20 Yesterday, I went to protest neo-Nazis in Dresden. Almost 150 cops were there. Even as a black woman, I felt safe, strong in a sea of German protesters. Then a young blonde woman spit on me. She had a swastika tattooed on her arm.
Prof. Nobel, 56 The omnipresence of the Nazi legacy.
Rebekka, 20 I was in shock. How could she be so full of hatred towards people she didn't know? I cried. Another woman put her arms around me and walked me home.
Wee Willie Winkie, 171 It’s 10pm. Do you know where your arms are?
Cindi, 18 Rebekka, I’m so sorry that happened to you. I was going to say you were probably a fake person (on account of the misspelled name) but I saw news footage from Dresden * which is in Germany * of that protest. I’m not sorry that I say stupid things. I’m not as old as the rest of you. I didn’t live through the World War or Vietnam, so history is not my strong soot.
A Monkey’s Nephew, 48 Clap. Clap. Clap. That’s me doing the very slow clap for you all, our latest contestants on a game show I like to call Pass the Pity, where we can feel bad about all the shit in the world while ensuring that none of it ever changes. Why? Cause shit won’t change just cause you feel bad about it. That’s ideological false consciousness.
Wee Willie Winkie, 171 You’re an asshole, dude. Show some respect. These people have been through some heavy stuff.
A Monkey’s Nephew, 48 This? Coming from someone whose moniker is a euphemism for a country-western penis?
Wee Willie Winkie, 171 Yeah, but I didn’t insult these people like you just did.
Tyrone, 37 Pot meet kettle. Monkey is chastising someone for having a dumb moniker.
A Monkey’s Nephew, 48 I wasn’t trying to insult anyone. Sometimes I feel insulted by other people’s pity of other people’s pain.
Jose, 21 Who’s down with OPP?
Cindi, 18 Yeah you know me (I heart that song!)
Tyrone, 37 A nice lady feels badly for a mistreated black. How does that insult you?
A Monkey’s Nephew, 48 That last comment has revealed you, Tyrone. This forum’s full of ironic monikers. But to an average racist, mine would *not* be one of them.
~ ~ ~
Antoine classified some of the more awkward dinners he had with his daughter as specimens of PDSD: post dramatic stress disorder. Tonight’s tension was catered by Giuseppe’s.
“Another slice?”
No answer. She was chewing angrily. He thought, this is what mad cow must look like in humans.
“Something funny, Dad?”
“Just thinking of something I read earlier.”
“Tell me about it,” she said reaching for another slice.
The Border Collie took up her vigilant perch beneath the dining room table.
“I’ve been keeping track of a digital art show for a review I’m writing. Anyways, a bunch of whack jobs post on the guestbook. Clowns, critics, clichés galore.”
“Go on,” she said.
He decided that for the next thirty seconds he would do anything she asked.
“There’s a one poster who is probably someone’s invention of a valley girl.”
She stopped chewing. “A what?”
“You know, 1980s stereotype? Privileged white girl? She speaks in a Californian accent, like Oh ma gahd, like gag me with a spoon.”
“That’s so gross.”
“I know. Can you imagine?”
“Is there supposed to be a suggestion of bulimia there?”
Antoine reflected on that. “I never thought of it that way before. I don’t know. Anyways, this one poster, Cindi, is someone’s failed version of a valley girl. Even the name is too perfect.”
“What’s your name?”
“A Monkey’s Nephew.”
She looked puzzled.
He explained. “It’s an inversion of the anecdote: well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”
She flicked a pepperoni to the dog. “That’s so random.”
“Right. Anyways, whoever the guy is behind Cindi, he’s overdoing the stupidity.”
She chewed more, cocking her curly head. “Like what? Give an example.”
“Okay, she said she visited the Sistine Chapel but wasn’t sure if she saw the famous fresco of Adam and God touching fingers because she forgot to look up.”
Maria looked unconvinced. “That all?”
“Okay,” he said. “So there’s this other poster who pretends to be god. The website includes ages next to names in posts and this guy typed in as many nines as the program would allow. For god’s age, you know? So this Cindi person said that she knew he was phony because she tried to call his cell phone number.”
“He gave his number?”
“No. All the nines, you know? Nine hundred and ninety-nine billion years old. The age of god. She thought that was a number and supposedly called it. As if anyone could be that dumb.”
He laughed. She chewed.
“I would have tried calling it, too.”
“Maria, it was comprised of something like twelve nines. Nothing but nines. There’s no way you would have confused it for a cell phone number.”
“I can imagine being sleepy or something and—”
“Never, Maria. Would never happen.”
“I use my cell automatically. I might have called without even thinking.”
Was it possible for her to be honest and undermining at the same time?
“Anything is possible, Dad. Only you don’t think so. You’re too judgmental.”
For the first time in years, he wanted a stiff drink.
~ ~ ~
Six years earlier, Antoine and Susan were celebrating their tenth anniversary. They were on a cruise in the Caribbean. It was Susan’s dream. To convince him, she used to brag about the tolerance Caribbean cruises showed to interracial couples.
“But we don’t even look like an interracial couple,” he protested. “Most people think I’m Italian.”
“You’ll love it. You’ll see. We might even meet some nice people.”
This was code for: “Please try not to be so anti-social on this occasion, too.” Susan thought his misanthropy was due to racially inflected anxiety. She was half right.
One night, after snorkeling for the first and last time in his life, Antoine drank too much in the ship’s lounge. He was never one for public dancing, but liquor made him limber. He danced so voluptuously that he got scolding looks from an elderly couple every time he did his spin move, which he punctuated with a loud clap above his head and a pelvic thrust in their direction. For some reason, their perceived disdain hit hard.
“What the fuck is your problem,” he said, jabbing a finger onto the old man’s forehead. “Haven’t you zombies ever seen a man dance before?”
He thought it was hilarious. But the old couple, the lounge full of their friends, the captain of the ship, and even his wife did not.
Susan refused to speak to him as they packed up their belongings. She remained mute the entire time they were being conducted to shore. It wasn’t until they checked into the hotel in St. Croix that she asked him about his preferences for the flight back.
During his silent treatment, Antoine hatched a plan. The next time he interacted with his wife he would start an argument. If done correctly, she would realize how rarely he showed anger towards her and appreciate what a good and peaceable husband he usually was.
After a dreary meal in crowded oyster bar, he initiated his plan.
“I think it’s funny that you spend our whole relationship overreacting to the way white people might mistreat us and the one time I am clearly the victim of racism, you hang me out to dry.”
He mistook her silence for solemnity and railed on. How could she stand by and allow him to be so maligned? Was she really so cold? Hadn’t she been fooling herself all these years with all of that smug liberalism? What kind of wife had she been to the father of her only child?
His high horse was swift and he rode it heedlessly. He thought his plan was working. He was certain he would wake up the next day to a scene of forgiveness and reconciliation. But Susan left the hotel in the middle of the night. She had returned to New York and met with a divorce attorney before he had gained enough clarity to ask the concierge about getting a flight back home.
Slightly drunken and crippled with anger, Antoine turned the key to the apartment he had shared with his wife and daughter for the past ten years. The sound of his bags hitting the bare wooden floor reverberated throughout the empty rooms.
~ ~ ~
Antoine went to the back yard to bring the dog back inside. He noticed a half-eaten apple rotting in the grass. It made him think of Maria’s silence at breakfast that morning, and then—speak of the devil.
They startled him. “What are you doing home so early?”
“What do you mean, Dad? I come home everyday at this time.”
Consulting his watch: “Where does the time go? Tempus fugit, as they say.”
“He must be nervous,” she said to Jeremy. “He’s speaking Latin.”
Antoine liked seeing her so cheerful. Today, Jeremy was less of a fashion victim. Antoine entertained one of those extreme wagers he was always concocting for himself in his head: If this kid doesn’t have any tattoos—no, better yet, if this kid doesn’t want any tattoos, he would be kind to him no matter what.
“Dad, this is Jeremy.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir.”
“Good to meet you, Jeremy.”
“Jeremy and I are in the same math class together.”
“Great. Great. Listen,” said Antoine, “maybe you can help me with something. I had a sort of argument with a colleague the other day.”
“Dad, you don’t have colleagues.”
“A co-writer, Maria. Someone I’m writing a business manual with. Anyways, what’s important is that this person believes that it’s not professional for young people to show their tattoos at work. But I was like, What! That’s silly. If you got it, flaunt it, right? I mean good ink isn’t cheap, right?”
Jeremy kept smiling. “I suppose.”
“Dad, what’s come over you?”
“Jeremy sees my point.”
“Unless it’s a real professional job,” Jeremy said pointing for emphasis. “But you said a young person. I can’t imagine a young person being a judge or a doctor or an accountant or anything like that.”
“So let’s say, for the sake of argument,” said Antoine, “that it’s a sales associate at a department store. To show the tat or not? That is the question.”
Maria rubbed the dog’s head, looking suspiciously at her father.
Jeremy said, “then, I don’t think so.”
“Aha. I take it you speak from experience, right?”
“Why? If I say yes, are you going to turn around and say, ‘Hah! I caught you! I hate these punks today with their tattoos?’”
“Maria said you were good at math but she didn’t mention you doing voices.”
“I’m just playing, Mr. Neff. As a matter of fact, I do have a tattoo.”
Maria brightened. “You do?”
“It’s personal, but, hey, every tattoo is personal, right?”
Antoine nodded. “Let’s see it, Jeremy.” A moment of truth was at hand.
“It doesn’t say ‘insane thug posse’ or anything. But it does require explanation.” The boy pulled up the sleeve of his sweatshirt to reveal his arm. “I may not look it, but I’m a quarter Jewish. My great grandmother, my mom’s grandmother, she was real cool. I never met her, you know, but I like what I hear in the stories my mom and my grandmother tell about her. She was a survivor in the camps. She was younger than me when she got out of Auschwitz. When I turned sixteen, I got permission to get the same tattoo she had on her arm. We have a picture of it that used to give me nightmares when I was a little kid.”
Antoine looked away as Jeremy presented his arm.
“Jeremy,” Maria whispered. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s personal, like I said. That’s why I don’t like to show it. Not to most people. But I knew you and your dad would understand.”
When Antoine opened the back door for them all to go in, he kept it open longer than necessary, listening to the dog pawing across the linoleum and the teen-agers bustling in the kitchen, their backpacks dropping to the floor. Even though deadlines loomed in the study and getting to know these loud and frequently sullen young people would not be easy, he opened himself up to both the prospects and the risks.
