Entry 2
and the whole mess of roads we're now on."
The liquid crystal on the wall illuminated a few bars and blacked out a few more in the blink of an eye, reading 10:00, and telling Arnold that he was to close down shop. After 15 months working at the AM/PM Arnold had not tired of his job, and found some satisfaction in the fact that his parents were more weary of his work than he was.
He returned home to a freshly made dinner over which his mother, a pointed steeple of a woman, hovered expectantly. His father had gone to bed, as was his custom, so that he could rise at 6 without having to caffinate himself. Tonight was tacos, which his mother had made exactly how he liked them; extra cheese, no tomatoes. She sat with him at the table, although he didn’t talk with her beyond a few grunts, yeahs, and oks. When he was finished, he got up from the table and went upstairs, leaving the dishes for her.
Arnold was fiercely independent. After 22 years in the same house he had resolved to expand his grasp of the world beyond the walls of his room. His eyes held a dim fire behind his black horn-rimmed glasses, which were the most distinguishing feature on his face. He filled his shelves with literature from every “great books” collection he could find. Presently, he was working on the complete Penguin Classics Library, although the AM/PM hardly payed enough for it.
By the time Arnold got up in the morning it was nearer to 10 than to breakfast. His mother tried making breakfast for both Arnold and his father in the past, but eventually told Arnold that unless he woke up earlier she didn’t have time to cook twice, both for him and his father. Arnold told her that he understood and just skipped breakfast from that point forward. His mother urged him, practically every morning, to fix something for himself, but he told her he wasn’t hungry, and that she didn’t have to tell him what to do.
He stumbled downstairs and read the newspaper. This particular morning he was slightly hungry, even though he gorged himself on tacos the night before, and grazed on tortilla chips while reading. His mother, bustling around the house doing nothing in particular, chastised him each time she passed for not choosing something healthier for breakfast.
“Mother, this is what I want. You don’t have to tell me what to do,” he assured her.
“You should eat better. You really should, and breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” she chided back.
“This isn’t breakfast, it is a snack. I don’t eat breakfast,” Arnold reminded her.
“That’s even worse than eating chips for breakfast!” His mother stopped moving around and stood over him, hands on hips.
“Would you please not look down at me like that? I’ll put the chips away, if you like.”
“No, I’ll do it for you,” she said, taking the bag, sealing it, and stuffing it away in a cupboard. This particularly irked Arnold. With a slight huff, he grabbed the unread sections of the newspaper and took them to his room.
“Remember to bring those back down when you’re done!” his mother called out after him, and he grunted assent. Arnold knew that he wouldn’t.
Arnold went to work later in the day, and afterwards returned to home to a hot meal waiting for him. Again, he said almost nothing to his mother while he ate, although she patiently waited for him and watched each bite, a veritable St. Patience. He didn’t respond to her presence. With a muffled “thank you” he stood up to leave.
“Arnie,” she said, stopping him with a twinge of exasperation at the sound of the childish name, “are you going with your father and I to church tomorrow?”
With some restraint holding back his throbbing resentment from the use of the name that he knows that she knows he hates, he told her the same thing he always did when she asked that question, “mother, I haven’t gone to church with you in almost 4 years. I’m not going to start now, and if I were, I would go myself.”
She looked at the floor. “That’s fine,” she said, not raising her voice. Arnold retired to his room.
The next morning Arnold slept in a little, and didn’t wake until 10:35. He stumbled downstairs and, with some surprise, found his parents sitting there.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at church?” He asked.
His father, who Arnold hadn’t seen due to their work schedules in about 11 days, folded his hands calmly on the table.
“Your mother and I,” he said, cooly, “want to talk to you about something.”
Arnold knew what this was about. Yearly, at what he assumed was his father’s insistence, they sat him down to talk about his plans for the future. Arnold wasn’t in the mood.
“Well, what is it?” He asked, not coming closer, and avoiding sitting down.
“Maybe you want to sit down, honey,” his mother suggested. Arnold didn’t move.
“Your mother and I are worried about your future,” his father said. Arnold was not worried about his future. He didn’t see that he had one, at least not in the sense that they wanted.. “She and I think,” he continued, “that it might be time for you to move out.”
He expected his mother to start crying at this moment, but she showed no emotion outside of a slight sniffle. Arnold responded with visible annoyance, “father, we’ve talked about this before. I simply don’t make enough to afford rent. It just makes more sense economically to stay here.”
“Son,” he said, “your mother and I think that you should put your degree to use and get some other job, something with a little better pay, so that you can afford a place.”
Arnold had a two year Associate’s degree in business systems or systems accounting or basic supervisory networking or something like that. Arnold didn’t remember what it was in, exactly, only that some counselor had told him that it would be useful in the job market.
“I don’t think this is the time,” Arnold told them, inching away.
“Son, your mother and I,” and Arnold’s mother gave a pointed look at him for continually including her in all these statements, “would really like to see you do something with your life, turn it around, something. You know, we won’t be around forever. Your mother is getting a little older, I will be retiring soon, and, well, we’d like to head into our old age having sent our only son well off into the world.” His father tilted back in his chair, pleased that he had put his sentiment so well.
“Don’t worry, you’re sending me off fine,” he told them, absentmindedly taking off his glasses and cleaning them with his shirt. Arnold had never felt so enlightened, independent, and unique as he had in the past month. He filled his time with reading and working, he liked what he was doing, and he was happy. He didn’t see why his father (as he knew it was all his idea in the first place) was so anxious to get him out.
Arnold’s mother cut in politely, “we’re going to miss the late mass if we don’t go now.” Arnold’s father nodded, then turned to Arnold, who had started to walk back to his room.
“Son, we’d like if you would go with us to church,” he said to him.
Arnold had never been asked this by his father, only his mother. “I’ll tell you the same thing I tell mother: I haven’t gone to church with you in 4 years...”
His father cut him off. “We know that, son. We would like you to go today.”
“Thanks, but I’m not interested,” he said, waving them off.
“Then we’re telling you,” his father continued, stern now, “that you’re coming with us to church. Get dressed, we’re leaving in 5 minutes.”
Arnold was stunned with righteous indignation. His mother, he knew, had never respected his individuality, his freedom from their old conventions, but his father had never pressed him like this before. Arnold didn’t react immediately, but after a time turned to his father, looked him in the eye, and then shuffled off to his room. He changed quickly.
They went to church, and Arnold was silent. He didn’t sing, he didn’t pray, he didn’t participate in the service in anyway outside of standing and sitting, he simply hid behind the thick black frames perched on his nose with a scowl. Observers might have described Arnold’s expression throughout as “brooding.” Arnold’s mother didn’t seem to notice, she was happy just to have him there, and sang with extra bravado.
After church, Arnold’s father suggested they go out for lunch.
“That is a fantastic idea!” his mother squealed, “We haven’t been out to eat, the three of us, for, wow, for ages!”
Arnold did not think it was a fantastic idea. He did not want to go. He stayed silent.
“I know an Italian place down the street here, we’ll just take a walk instead of bothering with the car,” Arnold’s father said.
Their church was at the far end of the old town center, a small commercial area filled with quaint shops and old-fashioned trattorias. They sauntered along the cobblestone path as a rather motley crew, Arnold dragging his feet sulkily,his father with a stern calm, and his mother bubbling with delight.
They stopped in front of a shop as his mother admired some candles through the window. Without prompt, Arnold’s father breached the dreaded subject again.
“Maybe you could apply at the advertising firm down the street from the house. I heard the were hiring.”
Arnold started at him in blank disbelief. “I thought we had already talked about this,” he said, blankly.
His father seemed astonished with his response. “We didn’t even scratch the surface!” he exclaimed. Arnold’s mother began to scrutinize a sidewalk flower seller’s goods with unusual tenacity.
“Son, we love you, and that’s why you’re getting a job,” Arnold’s father said, with a faltering resolve that Arnold knew he could break.
“You know that I’m still getting on my feet, testing the water,” he said. “Just a little more time at home and I’ll be ready.”
“You can stay at home as long as you’d like, but then you’ll need to, uh, pay rent,” his father shot back, trailing off slightly at the end of his sentence.
Arnold choked a little. “Rent?” he asked, with more than just a hint of surprise in his voice.
“Yes,” his father said, “and your mother is not going to be cooking or cleaning for you anymore.” His mother snapped her head to look at him with a visible expression of hurt that she would have that taken from her.
Arnold felt a slow bubbling in his breast. “What? Why?” he said.
“Your mother and I have done everything for you, son, and you need to do it for yourself, for once,” his father said, showing none of the same discontent that both Arnold and his mother were now showing.
“I do everything myself. I’m my own person! I’m not paying rent! I’m your son!” Arnold didn’t quite know what he was saying.
“Maybe I would still cook for him sometimes, and I have to do his laundry, he doesn’t know how to...” his mother said, leaning against his father’s arm as if supporting herself against it, as if he were a flying buttress against her.
“I don’t think so,” his father said, not looking at her or Arnold. “No, definitely not.”
Arnold sputtered some more.
“You know, when you decided to go to college, your mother had to sell her entire collection of angel doll collectibles. And I had to work an extra 5
hours a week at the office,” his father said with an air of reminisce.
“I didn’t decide to go to college,” he said, his voice rising, “you told me I was going! You’ve never let me be my whole life!”
“Dear,” his mother said, “your father and I have given so much to help you get where you are...”
“You’re such a fucking martyr!” He said, near screaming. “You’ve given it all up for me, right? But what about me? What about what I wanted?”
His mother stared blankly. His father blinked rapidly. Arnold was breathing heavily.
People were staring by now, and tears were in Arnold’s mother’s eyes. His father was more stoic now than ever before, and he walked with resolve and calm towards the trattoria that was their destination. His mother followed at his arm, wiping away tears and sniffling in as casual and distinguished a way as possible.
Arnold sunk into a nearby bench, shoulders hunched, features drawn, hands folded. He was too proud to cry. He absent mindedly picked away an old, loose cobblestone at this feet, and found dry, dead soil beneath. He dug his toe into it without force or conviction. Church bells chimed. He felt something on his hand and realized that it was a few tears, freshly fallen from the eyes behind his glasses.
Arnold’s parents enjoyed an understated Italian lunch, but Arnold did not enjoy it with them. He never returned home. He never saw his parents again.