To Be Honest Page 4

  Mom replied immediately, “Well, Grammy certainly does a lot of hypocritical things.”

  Bubbe leaned forward and, in her abrasive depression-era Massachusetts Jewish accent, said, “Don’t tell him that! Michael should think his grandmother is the greatest person in the world.”

  Mom laughed grimly. “Believe me, Michael would notice on his own that my mother isn’t the greatest person in the world.”

  Bubbe’s face twisted into her most burning, condemnatory glare. She turned in my direction as if considering whether to somehow blame this conversation on me.

  Mom continued, “If Michael asks if Grammy is a hypocrite and I claim she isn’t, he’ll either stop trusting me or stop trusting himself. And I don’t like either of those outcomes.”

  Mom turned to Dad, hoping he’d defend her, but Dad only stared through the glass coffee table.

  During my first few years of school, I cried in class most days. When I was inevitably called a “crybaby,” I’d repeat what Dad had told me about how holding back crying was like holding back laughing and explain why crying should be considered normal, why it was much more embarrassing to hide your feelings or make fun of people who weren’t afraid to express their emotions. None of my classmates found these arguments convincing.

  One day, the boy who most often called other kids crybabies scraped his knee on the playground and fell to the blacktop crying himself. In my mind, this kid had already been the class’s biggest embarrassment for being so afraid of emotion that he had to make fun of anyone who showed it. But now, crying on the ground, he’d been exposed as a hypocrite too. I looked on the bright side, though: he’d learned the hard way to stop calling everybody crybabies.

  The boy’s knee still had a bandage taped over it when I next witnessed him call someone a crybaby. A classmate had tripped and started crying, and this boy stood over the fallen kid, chanting “Crybaby! Crybaby!”

  I approached and interrupted his chant. I tried Dad’s method, explaining by asking questions. “You cried when you scraped your knee,” I said. “Why didn’t you call yourself a crybaby?”

  His body flexed. I recognized this posture from angry fighting men on TV, and it struck me as very funny to see a little boy try it. “I’m not a crybaby!” he barked.

  “Everyone saw you cry,” I shrugged.

  “No, they didn’t!” he screamed. “I’m not a crybaby!” Then he took off running. “I’m telling,” he called back.

  I chased after him, explaining: “You call people tattletales too! You can’t call people tattletales if you tattle!”

  When he reached Mrs. Smith, he hugged her leg. “Michael called me a crybaby!”

  With this alleged non-crybaby clinging to her leg, his eyes wide and teary, Mrs. Smith bent down to reprimand me. “That’s not nice,” she said.

  “I’d never call someone a crybaby!” I told her. “I like crying. I cry every day. Crying is good. I was calling him a hypocrite.” Mrs. Smith hesitated, and I became concerned she might not know what the word meant. “He cries himself and then calls everybody crybabies. He’s a hypocrite.” Mrs. Smith squinted at me, still uncertain what to say. “I’m helping him. It’s hard to see if you’re a hypocrite without someone else pointing it out. It’s like telling him he has food in his teeth.”

  Mrs. Smith finally came up with a response. “Michael, how would you feel if someone called you a hypocrite?”

  “I would be glad they told me,” I said.

  Mrs. Smith shook her head, exhausted already. “‘Hypocrite’ is a mean word.”

  I laughed, “No, it isn’t! My dad calls me a hypocrite all the time!”

  Mrs. Smith recoiled and rose again to her full height. Then, without saying anything, she retreated with this boy following along, still clutching her pant leg. I took her walking away to mean that she’d again recognized I was right.

  When I boasted to Dad over the chessboard, he laughed, “What were you supposed to do? Not notice the contradiction? Ignore it? Cut him a break? Stay quiet?”*

  In the car on the way home from school each day, I’d tell Mom stories of all the lies and hypocrisies I’d witnessed.

  “Mrs. Smith made everyone shake hands after kickball to pretend to be good sports! And we played telephone and the other kids kept messing it up on purpose! And when I hurt myself on the playground, Mrs. Smith told me I was brave even though I didn’t do anything brave!”

  Mom would laugh and tell me how right I was. “Nothing gets by you, Michael!”

  “Nothing gets by me,” I’d say.

  The fact that I could tell my parents all my experiences and observations made school’s daily injustices tolerable, even occasionally fun. In a tense moment of confrontation with a teacher or another child, I’d sometimes burst out laughing about what a funny story this would make.

  Mom and Dad mostly sided with me against the other kids and teachers, but that was only because they mostly thought I was right. When they thought I was being unfair, closed-minded, or hypocritical, they’d tell me that too. It was the criticism that convinced me they were really listening, that made me feel like I mattered. In my family, silence was suffering, confession was connection, and criticism was love.†

  Later that year, I experienced a kindergarten Christmas, everyone raving about Santa while I kept quiet about what I knew, an excruciating introduction to lies of omission. I’ve heard many describe the pulse pounding and cheek burning of sharing feelings, but it was the bottling up that made me ill. I dreaded the day that these kids would find out they’d been duped. I knew I couldn’t resist confessing that I’d been complicit, that I’d known all along.

  These kids didn’t figure out the truth about Santa for a few more years, a lifetime of holding my tongue. In the wake of the reveal, I witnessed no dramatic scenes, no displays of shame or anger at this betrayal. When I confessed that I’d always known the truth, the other kids lied and claimed they’d always known too. It was as if they cared less about the truth than about the communal experience they’d had with their friends and families. “It’s ridiculous,” I mumbled to myself, pacing the playground. “It’s ridiculous.”

  A Butt Show-Off

  When I was eight, Dad, Mom, and new baby Miriam sat in our backyard and listened while Josh, now four years old, told jokes. As he spoke, Josh danced around, his gangly limbs flailing in simultaneous multidirectional motion. Sometimes he’d pick up an inflatable rubber ball twice as big as his torso to bounce and punch and bump against his head. His “jokes” were meandering stories connected with “and then.” He’d slow down each time he said “and then” to give himself time to think of the next thing to say. It would be something like: “A penguin walked up to a duck and said he was thirsty. And then the duck gave him a cup of water. But it was ice! And then the penguin sucked the ice! And then …” He’d go on, reveling in the attention, until we stopped him.

  As we watched Josh’s experimental comedy routine, Mom laughed with him, happy to see him smiling with his deep dimples and his long-eyelashed eyes so joyful. I was also laughing, but mostly because I loved his misunderstandings about how jokes worked. Our laughter emboldened Josh to get louder and faster. Eventually, he was forgetting to take breaths, panting while he carried on.

  Dad laughed too, but behind it I could sense an impatient discomfort. Eventually, he broke down and interrupted. “Josh,” he said. “One thing you should know about jokes: they usually end!” Dad’s delivery didn’t read as mean; we all laughed and Josh laughed with us, though I’m not sure he knew he was being criticized. Dad made this a teaching moment: “The ending of a joke is called a punch line …”

  Josh interrupted by shouting “Punch line!” and punching the inflatable ball. Josh loved punching things. His favorite toy was a punchable balloon man.

  Dad laughed at Josh’s interpretation of the word, but continued to explain it. “A punch line is supposed to be so funny and surprising that it feels like a punch.”

  Josh ran off m
id-sentence to chase after the inflatable ball he’d just punched across the yard. Then he breathlessly asked Mom if he could go inside to punch the balloon man. This conversation had inspired him.

  “Let’s try making up a punch line,” Dad suggested, thinking he was inviting Josh to play a fun game. But Josh tensed as if he might erupt in rage or flop to the ground crying.

  I interrupted to explain in a different way. “Josh,” I said. “Here’s what you do. Whenever you want to end a joke, say, ‘I just flew in last night. And boy are my arms tired!’” Everyone laughed, including Josh, though I sensed he didn’t get the joke. “If you say you just flew here, they think you mean on a plane. But then when you say your arms are tired, they see that you meant you flew like a bird.” I mimed flying with my arms. “The joke is that no one flies with their arms!”

  Josh hopped up and down smiling and said the line cutely and we all applauded.*

  Not long after that, Dad mentioned to me over the chessboard that he’d tried to teach Josh to play chess. “He moved the pieces wherever he wanted!” Dad said, exasperated. “He just wanted to knock over the pieces.” Dad shook his head with bona fide anguish. “I told him I wouldn’t play chess with him if he was gonna throw the pieces, but he only laughed and got wilder.”

  I understood why this disturbed him. Josh wasn’t like the rest of us. I’d noticed it too. I didn’t know what happened when a younger brother didn’t match his family, but I imagined it wasn’t good.†

  When Josh went to kindergarten, he got along with the other kids, which was even more concerning. His friends would come over and run around in the yard with him, yapping and yelling incoherently like most children.

  In 1989, Dad got sick of driving more than an hour to and from work and we moved away from Claremont to the San Fernando Valley. I remember Mom hugging five-year-old Josh on the couch, comforting him as he cried about leaving behind his friends, listing the names of all the boys he’d miss. It struck me as ridiculous to have become attached to so many friends in half a year of kindergarten. I chalked it up to his having low standards.

  Josh and I joined a new school halfway through the year. Soon after we started there, Josh came home from first grade sobbing. He collapsed on the carpeted living room floor and told me the other kids had spread a rumor that he had a green butt.

  “I don’t have a green butt!” he cried from the carpet. “My butt isn’t green!”

  “You don’t have to convince me!” I said seriously. “Why would they think your butt was green? Maybe they saw a green tag on your pants or something and thought it was your butt? That’s pretty dumb, even for five-year-olds.”* Josh gazed up at me tearfully, in need of older-brother wisdom. “First of all,” I said. “You shouldn’t feel embarrassed. If you did have a green butt, they’d be wrong to make fun of it. It’s okay to be different.”

  Josh then burst into tears again, protesting that he didn’t have a green butt.

  I tried to calm him down with advice.† “Just bring them to the bathroom and show them your butt.” Josh wiped away a tear with a new sense of hope.

  When he came home from school the next day, he was crying again. “I told them to come to the bathroom!” Josh said. “But they wouldn’t go! They said I wanted to show them my green butt. They said I was a ‘butt show-off’!”

  I shook my head, disappointed in humanity. “You mean you tried to give them evidence and they refused to even look at it? It’s like they don’t want to be right! Like they don’t care what’s true!” Josh squinted, thinking his hardest; I imagined him considering whether he, himself, cared what was true. I wondered if he’d yet figured out that caring what was true meant not having friends.

  Josh asked Mom and Dad for clothes, shoes, and haircuts that matched the other kids’ at school. His speech took on an unfamiliar laid-back accent that bore no resemblance to our wordy, long-winded fast-talking. Both Mom and Dad referred to Josh’s friends as bad influences and worried about his wanting to do whatever his friends did.

  I remember Dad asking Josh, “If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?”

  Without hesitation, Josh said, “Yeah!”

  It soon became clear he’d imagined jumping off a cliff into a lake but, misunderstanding aside, Josh’s allegiance was clear.

  * I don’t think Mom and Dad could’ve hidden their emotions if they tried, but I also don’t think they tried.

  * It didn’t occur to me that while I’d spent the whole morning in a panic, these kids had enjoyed a regular day.

  † Both sides of my family line had been at war with “most people” for generations. We fought this war with full knowledge we’d lose. “Most people” had us surrounded.

  * Despite his gripes about listening to the same old lines recited ad nauseam, Dad used the word “ridiculous” in almost every conversation.

  * None of us remember the nurse’s appearance—those details were filtered out of the family retellings.

  † I’d soon grow accustomed to this reaction. I had a talent for unintentionally inventing new genres of rudeness.

  * It didn’t occur to me that she might recite this line to everyone, even to cowards.

  † In that moment, I was impressed by my parents’ wisdom, but now, I doubt these conclusions. After all, some kids panic over shots no matter how much you warn them. Many find true comfort in untrue kindness. Many kids would have loved the nurse’s compliment even if they knew she said it to everyone.

  † She wasn’t exactly wrong.

  * This conversation between my parents would play out over and over throughout my childhood with barely different situations and details. My childhood is easy to remember because of its redundancy.

  † This line is a favorite for jerks who just want to be insulting. Most who use it have no actual interest in honesty. My family spoke aloud as many thoughts and feelings as we could, literally just being honest.

  * The way Dad talked, you’d think the whole world was furious at him for his taste in candy. I don’t know what personal experience gave him this idea.

  * It cracks me up that Dad had to rack his brain for a game to play with a four-year-old; he didn’t even think of catch or hide-and-seek.

  † To this day, I’m still impressed with my memory for dialogue and bothered by how little I remember about everything else.

  * Dad often imbued common words with his own personal definitions.

  † Luckily, he’d tell it to me over and over my whole childhood.

  * Grammy so hated being Jewish that she demanded Pa change his last name. Pa’s brothers’ wives joined Grammy in insisting that Pitkowski was too Jewish. But they couldn’t agree on an alternative so the three brothers ended up with different last names: Pitt, Powell, and Powers. Mom grew up as a Powers, passing as Christian, and celebrating Christmas. Now, Grammy resented Mom raising me Jewish, denying her Christmas with her grandson.

  † The real question was: What kind of grandmother can’t be trusted to be left alone with her grandson?

  * I know now that “trust” doesn’t only refer to believing that someone would tell the truth. It also means certainty of support, that someone would have your back. Grammy couldn’t trust me; I’d criticize her, expose her lies. I had no loyalty to her, only to the truth.

  * Unaccustomed to indirect communication and implied demands, I took this question literally. I thought she genuinely wanted to know why I preferred to play by myself.

  * This particular look was one I’d soon encounter regularly. First, it expressed surprise—she’d misread me as a sensitive child left out by meaner kids. Second, it showed anger—not about my obnoxious dismissal of the other boys, but about my judging and mocking her. I’d imagine that adults would shrug off accusations from children, but I found the opposite. There’s a special fury grown-ups feel when shamed by kids.

  * Yes, that’s exactly what I was supposed to do.

  * Yes, any of those responses would have been fine.

  �
� This is the brain I’m working with here.

  * For the next year or two, Josh would tell a joke, watching for my signal. Then he’d blush and say he just flew in and his arms were tired.

  † For our whole childhoods, when Dad described us to other people, he’d say, “Michael’s a writer and Josh has great hand–eye coordination.”

  * At age nine, I still naively took a lot at face value.

  † I must note here that I was genuinely trying to help; the worst possible advice was the best I had to offer.

  Chapter 2

  My Miseducation

  In the San Fernando Valley, Dad and I found a new weekend activity: walking miles to and from synagogue. On Saturday mornings, I’d put on a little black suit and a yarmulke for the epic sweaty pilgrimage in the Los Angeles heat, following Dad through the suburban neighborhoods of Granada Hills, an area usually driven past, traversed only by dog owners. I was unaccustomed to long walks, so my legs ached and burned, each step harder than the last, but the physical discomfort was worth it for Dad’s games.

  Dad would point at billboards we passed, inviting me to analyze how each ad aimed to trick us into spending money. It was during this game that he explained to me that stores priced everything to end at ninety-nine cents to trick people into feeling they were spending less. I asked Dad who would be stupid enough to fall for that. He answered, “Most people.”

  Another game we’d play involved my guessing how various things worked and seeing how close I could get. Once, Dad asked me to guess the job of the person who made the most money from my favorite cereal, Frosted Flakes. I guessed the cook who invented the flake. Dad explained that it was the investor, a job I’d never heard of; the investor always made more money than the workers, even though it was the workers who invented the flake and drew the tiger and wrote the slogan and played the tiger’s voice. After that, when I heard the tiger say, “They’re grrrrreat!” it no longer felt great.