Altruistic Genie

“Do a kindness unto another person for a pain of equal and opposite proportion unto yourself.”

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Part 7

“Can I pick you up? I need to talk to someone.”

“I really need to finish this app. Can it wait til tomorrow?”

“No. This is more important.” His voice had a shaky urgency I couldn’t place to my own experience.

“Alright. Get here fast.” And he did. I got in his car ten minutes later, and he drove in what I thought was the direction to downtown. It didn’t matter. This was clearly a drive without equifinality.

“Whatsup, doc?”

He didn’t loosen his grip on the steering wheel. “I think my parents are gonna get a divorce.” My lips were shut because my tongue was tied. “I mean, I know they’ve been seeing a marriage counselor for awhile. But lately it’s been different. Worse.” His eyes were glued to the road.

I didn’t know whether to apologize, on behalf of who knows, the universe?, say it’ll get better, because how the hell did I know and who the hell was I to say that?, or to react with anger to the state of things, as I had known since second grade that there were few situations that anger helped. I decided at this point it was best to be interested, but from an objective distance. “Why do you think it got worse? Did anything change?”

“A few months ago, my dad stopped coming to dinner as much. I don’t really know if that’s related, he said he had to work. I know the kids always blame themselves, but I can’t help but wonder if I had been less focused on college apps… you know, talk to them more. We used to go out to dinner more often. I don’t know.”

“I don’t think it’s fair to blame yourself, man. It was probably a lot of things out of your control.”

“You’re right. And I did hear my mom say something about a ‘blonde bimbo’ on the phone the other day, and I can’t exactly blame myself for that.”

We were nearing Foster, and I wondered if Avery wanted to smoke tonight, a school night. I had sworn off the stuff until college apps were all done, anyways. I didn’t want to get rejected from a school and wonder if only I had worked a little harder, if only I had stayed sober. I wanted to do it right.

“Thanks for coming out with me tonight.” He pulled over at the top of the overlook.

“Of course dude, anytime.” He reached over to his glove box and opened it to reveal a pipe and weed. “I don’t really want to tonight, man, but you go ahead if you want to. I swore off it til I turn in all my apps in the middle of December.”

“Oh, right. OK.” His hand hesitated a second over my lap.

“Go ahead, really, I don’t care.” He pulled out the drugs and apparatus. “By the way, why’d you call me tonight? Did something happen?”

“You know how the Claremont-McKenna app is due tonight to be considered for the scholarship?” He talked while he ground the weed. “Well, I was ready to turn it in, I just needed to pay the application fee.” He packed his pipe. “So I go to my mom. She’s on her computer, and she asks me about something she was telling me about earlier, probably when I was finishing the app. Of course, I don’t know what she’s talking about, I probably mumbled something to get her off my back, but I wasn’t listening, I was focused on finishing the app.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“I would be too, dude. Go on.”

“She starts going into how I’m just like my dad and I never listen, and I’m trying to calm her down and get her to pay the fee, but she’s not listening to me. Finally she tells me to ‘ask my father’ to pay for it. So I call my dad but he doesn’t pick up. He texts me saying he’s in a meeting, can I talk to him in an hour. I tell him it’s important, it’s about college, but he doesn’t reply. Keep in mind it’s 8:30 p.m.”

“Tonight?”

“Tonight. So I wait an hour and call him, but he doesn’t pick up. Then I go ask my mom again, but she won’t even acknowledge me. I try my dad one last time but he still doesn’t pick up. He finally calls me back, but it’s 10:05.”

“So, what’s the problem? Pay it then.”

“The app was due at 10 p.m.” A big weight hits my chest. Claremont-McKenna was his dream school. He came back so happy from visiting. He said they put something in the water to keep everyone happy, it seemed almost cult-like. But he was into it.

“So you didn’t turn it in on time?”

“Nope. And I can’t go unless I get the merit scholarship. It’s too expensive.”

“And the one deadline for that was tonight?”

“Yeah. That’s why I called you.” He finally lit the packed bowl and brought it to his lips.

“Your mom was probably just taking out her anger at your dad on you. Your dad’s a workaholic.”

“Yeah.” The smell of burning herb was tempting, but I remembered my promise to myself.

“It sucks they put you in the middle of all this.”

We stayed up in that hill listening to music while he smoked for as long as he wanted before he drove me home and dropped me off.

☼☼☼☼☼ ຂຖຜຟຜຖຂສຫຂ ☼☼☼☼☼ ຂຖຜຟຜຖຂສຫຂ ☼☼☼☼☼

I wanted to help Avery, and I wanted to help him with a wish. But I wanted to be careful. The first thing I realized after he dropped me at home was that it was his parents that were bothering him, not being unable to attend Claremont-McKenna. The college app would probably have bothered me more than my parents’ fighting. Boy, I really was single-minded lately. The second thing I realized was that while it might help some things to wish for his dad to be more family oriented than work oriented, this wish probably wouldn’t fix the whole situation for my friend. It was just a symptom of a larger disease.
The disease was divorce or at least marriage instability. But before wishing it better, I wanted to be sure that the problem wouldn’t go away on its own. Sometimes it was easy to picture the worst-case scenario over the likely scenario, and I wanted to know that this wasn’t one of those cases and that the problem wouldn’t fix itself.

So I became more attentive of Avery, more aware of deviances from the norm, shifts from his baseline. I noticed when he got hot lunch because every day for the past two years of school his mom had packed something for him. I noticed when he had bags under his eye, as if he had been kept up by the sound of yelling, although perhaps he was just up late studying. I heard shivers in his voice, little hesitations which I read as a growing nervousness about the uncertainty of his near future.
A week later, I asked him how it was going at home because all throughout break and lunch he would clear his throat or sigh deeply as if he had something important, specific, to share. I could tell something was at the tip of his tongue.

“My dad moved out last night.” He said when I called him after school. “It was bad, it was really bad. A lot of yelling. My dad practically cracked the door from slamming it so hard. I stumbled through an apology, mixed with anger and remorse. You should have spared him that, I told myself. You should’ve made the wish right when he told you. “You have nothing to be sorry about,” he told me. But didn’t I, Avery? Didn’t I?

I ran up to my room, grabbed my lamp and rubbed it. Alejandro appeared on my bed, his head resting by its chin on his knit fingers. Recently, Alejandro had just appeared, solid, out of thin air. It was as if through our further acquaintance he didn’t need to transition through smoke into my space. It was maybe analogous to no longer knocking on a close friend’s door, just letting yourself in when you were invited, or no longer taking off your shoes in a close acquaintance’s house.

“I wish Avery’s parents didn’t get a divorce and stayed together happily.”

“It is done. It will happen in the best way possible.” He snapped his finger and snickered at me. “And you know, you didn’t need to come up here or rub the lamp. You can just say ‘I wish’ from wherever. Is that all?”

“Yes, you’re dismissed.” He disappeared.

☼☼☼☼☼ ຂຖຜຟຜຖຂສຫຂ ☼☼☼☼☼ ຂຖຜຟຜຖຂສຫຂ ☼☼☼☼☼

At the snap of Alejandro’s fingers, I expected the state of Avery’s parents’ relationship and my parents’ to swap. I thought Alejandro would alter the course of past events, like he did with Jason’s crash. Make my dad have missed family dinners for the past few months. Give my parents a marriage counselor. Make my dad moved out and Avery’s moved back in, having never moved out.

Alejandro did not meet my assumptions. This time my pain did not exactly mirror the object of the wish, instead it was a reversal. My dad was home for dinner that night, but he missed the next couple. Avery’s parents started to talk again; he told me he saw his mom laugh while on the phone with his dad. She told Avery for the first time she thought they could work it out.

I heard my mom mention a ‘blonde bimbo’ on the phone to her friends, and I wondered if the words were scripted, if the steps she took while on the phone were choreographed by the cosmos to the tune of the universe. I saw my dad’s face turn red and his fists clench as spittle flew out of his mouth, get carried by his loud voice to rest on my mom’s face. I wondered if he, too, felt tossed around like a Raggedy Anne doll salad, or if he, unlike me, felt complicit in his actions, complicit in his new anger towards my mom. I wondered what that felt like if that were the case.

I saw the core of my parents’ relationship disappear, not all at once, but like a lamp carried away until out of sight in the current of the creek behind my house. The only difference was I didn’t think my parents’ relationship would bounce back into place. In fact, I knew it wouldn’t because I was told as much by the man I tried to get rid of with the lamp I dropped in the creek.

I rubbed the lamp to call him to attention. “Why is this time different? Why didn’t you change the past this time?” I only realized I was raising my voice after I was already done talking.

“I operate under the principle of the path of least resistance.”

“What does that mean?”

“Some events, like your friend’s car crash, are one-time events. Others are caused by a cascade of tiny deteriorations. When it’s a big crack, it’s easy enough to plug, but when it’s a whole cascade, it’s easier to not try to fix all of them but instead to whisper suggestions of emotion into the hearts of a few key people, hints of care into their heads.”

“Oh. I understand, I guess.” I was sullen. I didn’t want to live through this anymore.

As if in response, he said, “Remember, I do it in the best way possible. Sometimes that means changing the past, sometimes that means altering the present to affect the future. Your parents jumped onto the course Avery’s parents were on at the point they were a few weeks ago. Avery’s parents are off the course now, headed towards the course your parents were on, lifelong marriage, a the point they were a few weeks ago. In other words, whatever happens to your parents now already happened or would’ve happened to Avery’s parents. Whatever happens to Avery’s parents already happened or would’ve happened to your parents.”

I gulped. “OK.” I dismissed him and he disappeared. I felt better, though. I trusted Alejandro, I really did.

☼☼☼☼☼ ຂຖຜຟຜຖຂສຫຂ ☼☼☼☼☼ ຂຖຜຟຜຖຂສຫຂ ☼☼☼☼☼

Even though after talking to Alejandro I knew the general trajectory, it was still painful to live. I was caught in the middle of it. I had it the worst. I felt shuttled back and forth between my parents who both tried to show me he or she was right and the other was wrong. My mom’s words filled my head, and I noticed what a truly horrible listener my dad was. When I was with my mom, I could only see her temper. After choosing sides and waffling between them, I soon decided that they were both wrong. I almost hated them both.

I wondered if Avery felt like this when both his parents were living together, if he also felt out of breath and like he wanted to get away. I wanted to know if, like me, he envisioned running out the door and up the hill by my house to the trail by the reservoir, the only place I could catch my breath, where I had wanted to live when I was younger, if only I had enough courage to run away. I wanted to know if Avery had felt that he would be happier had he had enough courage to run away. If Avery didn’t picture going there, I wanted to know where he dreamed of going and why.

I found out I was missing a financial aid form for a Boston school and that the absolute deadline was that night. I wouldn’t be able to attend if I didn’t get financial aid. I approached my mom to help me fill out the form. I would have filled it out myself, but I didn’t know where we kept our financial documents or how to read them.

I walked up to her while she was on her computer. “We’re missing a financial aid form.”

“Did you get dog food like I asked?” Her eyebrows were both raised up and tilted in, a position I recognized as a precursor to anger. I had the strange discomforting experience of hearing something after the fact. Several hours after the fact. She asked me to get dog food when I came home from school. I was lying in front of the heater working on notes for a college essay. I had even mumbled something in accordance to what my mom was saying.

“I’m sorry mom, I forgot. Can you please---”

“---forgot? Or did you not listen?” She muttered “just like his father” over her shoulder to the empty room.

“I was working on a college app. I’m sorry---”

“---You need to learn how to listen.” To herself: “they both do.”

“This is important, mom! The deadline’s tonight.”

“Ask your dad to help you since you’re so much like him.”

I called my dad, but I knew he wouldn’t pick up before I even started dialing. I sensed that I was only half in control. The universe was holding the strings.

I had been wrong earlier, when I thought I’d be more upset at having to cross a college off my list before I knew whether I would be accepted or rejected. I was shaken to my core knowing my parents cared more about petty arguments and one-upping or beating the other than they did about my future.
Avery’s parents moved back in together a few days later, so I knew before I got home from school my dad had already moved out or was moving out that night.

☼☼☼☼☼ ຂຖຜຟຜຖຂສຫຂ ☼☼☼☼☼ ຂຖຜຟຜຖຂສຫຂ ☼☼☼☼☼

I made the mistake Avery had avoided when he called me: I didn’t talk to anyone about what was happening, not even Nat.

It came out when I asked her if she would please order me a book for English. I couldn’t count on either of my parents to get it or to let me use a car to get it myself because they were clearly busy with their relationship, which by then was including lawyers. Nat had Amazon Prime, so it would get to her the next day and give me enough time to read it before class.

The book was Notes from the Underground, and I wanted to read it before class even though De Soto was neither my debate coach nor writing a recommendation letter because I knew she put a lot of work into the class or I didn’t want to disappoint her or some combination of the two. Nat said she’d buy it for me.
So it was surprising to me when, in Gov class the next day, she told me, “Sorry, I didn’t get the book.”

“Well, shit, Nat. I was really counting on you for that.”

“I’m sorry.” She said from her desk across the classroom.

“Come on. Now I won’t be able to read it!”

Then she said something that really bothered me. “I have a lot going on. You don’t know how hard my life is.” I rushed over to her.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I realized we hadn’t talked in a day or two. I continued because she didn’t know how hard my life was, I was sure of it. “What’s so hard about your life, huh? Washing your baby brother? Watching your little sister? You don’t know pain until you’ve walked around in my shoes.” I stopped because I noticed she was cowering away from me. I walked back to my desk.
After class, she didn’t even look at me, and she had the guy on the football team sitting next to her escort her from the room, which struck me as excessive. It still killed me, though, watching another guy eye me as they left together.

At break and through the next class, people asked me if it was true, if I “really threw a chair at Nat.” People said there was a warrant out for me for domestic abuse or assault. Somebody said sexual assault, but I thought he just had the rumor confused.

Whatever it was, it was clear Natalie was scared and uncomfortable. I didn’t think I’d get the chance to talk to her out of a structured context because when I went to where she and her friends usually ate lunch, she turned her back to me. Her friend Haley told me to go away and not text her for the rest of the day.

I set up an appointment with the school mediator. I wanted the chance to explain that I was mad, and what had been building up to make me explode like that. I wanted her to tell me what the deal was with the chair rumor and why she was so adamant about not talking to me. The mediation appointment was for the next day, during English class. It would be moderated by a therapist, not another high school student, which sometimes happened. I was glad.

I wished she would text me and tell me she still loved me, but I wasn’t too anxious. We’d be able to sort it all out with the mediated conversation.

During English, at the very beginning of the period when people were taking a reading quiz on Notes from the Underground, two call slips arrived for me and Nat. She seemed surprised. We walked in silence to our appointment.

The therapist-mediator opened the door expectantly, ushered us in, and seated us across from each other and her in two comfy chairs. The therapist was blonde and had a constant deer-in-the-headlights look. She was approximately 22, and I had trouble believing she had graduated college; if she didn’t I wanted to know how she was qualified to serve as a school shrink, and if she wasn’t, how she had gamed the system to be seated across from us. We all three stared at each other for a few seconds.

The blonde woman finally said, “Adam, you called this meeting, why don’t you go first.” She seemed happy to relinquish the floor as soon as possible. She pressed her back as far back against her chair as it would go, presumably to make herself appear as small as possible.

I cleared my throat or sighed deeply. “My parents are getting divorced.” Nat made eye contact with me for what seemed like the first time all day or possible even since I had yelled at her the day before. “It started a few weeks ago, when my dad missed a family dinner or two more than usual. Then I heard my mom say something about a ‘blonde bimbo.’ Just a couple days ago, my dad moved out. That was a really bad night. A lot of yelling. My dad practically broke the front door slamming it on his way out.”

“Adam, I’m so sorry.” She let me continue.

“Two nights ago, he comes back home, saying he forgot something. My mom lets him in, and then he looks around a little bit but it becomes clear he wasn’t back for anything in particular. He just wanted to feel what it was like to be back, I guess. He doesn’t wanna leave. My mom threatens to call the cops and then he says, ‘This is my house, I’m paying the mortgage. You can’t make me leave. I have every right to come here and see my son if I want to.’ Getting used as a prop like that makes me uncomfortable, so I leave.” Nat nodded. “I go to my room, but I still hear a lot of yelling. And then a crash. The cops get there and take my dad away, and my mom says he’s in trouble for domestic abuse. Apparently he picked up a chair and threw it at the ground, and it hit my mom’s foot and lower leg. I wasn’t there, but I don’t think he was trying to hit her or anything. But that’s why it really bothered me when you said it was so hard to live your life, or whatever it was that you said. And that’s why I needed help getting the book. I can’t exactly ask my dad to get it, he’s still in custody, I think. I don’t know where his car is, neither does my mom.” My face was red or white. My eyes fogged up.

“Oh my God!”

“Thanks for sharing, Adam. Now I’d like you to tell us what you want Natalie to do or what you want from her.”

“Well, I guess I want to apologize for taking it out on her. And I want her to tell me what the deal is with the chair rumor? Some people think I threw a chair at you? And I want to know why you acted the way you did yesterday.”

“OK, Natalie, if you could try to address the things he mentioned. It’s your turn now. Tells us about your perspective.”

She leaned forward in her chair. “I’ve never seen you move that fast. You’ve never yelled at me before. I guess I’ve never seen you mad. It was scary, and it was doubly scary coming from you because you’re usually so calm. I didn’t think you were capable of it. About the chair thing, I did tell a few people it felt like you were about to throw a chair at me, but that’s it, I promise. People will run with whatever rumor they can. And it did, honestly, feel like you were about to throw a chair at me.” A tear fell down her cheek. “The way you moved, it reminded me of how my birth father moved before he hit my mom.” I knew she had a birth father, who was not the man she called dad, who had abandoned her and went back to Brazil, but I didn’t know about this. I wanted to know what it was like to experience that and why she felt the need to hide that experience from me. “But now I don’t think you were ever going to hit me.”

“Of course I wasn’t! I was just using the debate technique of stepping towards someone to have a larger presence.”

When satisfied that Natalie was finished talking, the therapist asked her what she wanted from me and what she wanted me to do.

“I want an apology. And a promise to never let anything bottle up like that again. Let me know what’s happening when it’s happening.” I apologized and made the promise, and we stood up and hugged.

The therapist let us go back to class but not before telling us “you guys are good friends. You really care about each other, I can tell.” We didn’t correct her and tell her that we were actually dating. We didn’t correct Nat’s parents, for that matter. We were content letting them believe I was her gay friend. I didn’t care, and Nat knew from prior experience with relationships that her parents generally gave her more freedom and didn’t watch her as carefully when she was single compared to when she was in a relationship. Apparently they watched her like a hawk when she had a boyfriend.

On the way back to class, she grabbed my hand and said, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“I was skeptical at first, but I’m glad you set that up. Thanks for putting in the effort.”

“Of course. No, Nat. Not at school.”

“Later, then. But seriously, let’s never do that again. I shouldn’t have avoided you like that. And don’t bottle up like that again, seriously.”

“I won’t. Let’s never fight like that again.”

“We won’t. And don’t worry. We can act better than how your parents are acting right now.”

For the first time in weeks, I thought tomorrow had the potential to be better than today.