Scary Costume***

***This post is not suitable for children or the delicately nurtured.

This is post 22 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here

The panic was real now. Scenes from the tape raced through her head. “Gregory?” she said, in her real voice. “Gregory, I’m really scared.”
Gregory didn’t appear to have heard. Evil Redneck placed the muzzle of the gun against her chest just at the base of the V-neck opening of her nightgown. “Now, little lady, ain’t nothin’ to be scared of. You just do exactly as ole G. W. says, and then you won’t have nothin’ to cry about, see?” His free hand caressed her hair, her face, and then slid down, coming to rest over the small curve of her right breast.
Chloe nodded assent, her mouth dry, her body tensing away from him. Looking into his eyes, she could see behind the mask of Evil Redneck the eagerness, the hungry need for her to do this. He gave an almost imperceptible nod, and she hesitantly resumed her role.

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Evil Redneck

This is post 21 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here

Evil Redneck interrupted her thoughts. “Just shut up and git the hell over here,” he said, spitting over the side of the recliner. Without removing his hand from the waistband of his pants, he added, “And bring me a beer whal yur at it.”
Now Chloe had a decision to make. She could be “Surrendered Christian Wife,” who believed that if Jesus could just show her the way to make her husband happy he would stop making his bizarre sexual demands. Or she could be “City Slicker Woman,” who defied Evil wherever it reared its ugly red neck. Although Are You an Emotional Junky? offered no advice on this head, she remembered the tape she had found and reasoned that a show of resistance might enhance his masculine triumph. She drew herself up, every inch a feminist.
“Who are you?” she said severely. “Get the hell out of my house, or I’ll call the police.” The dialogue was always stock, at the beginning.
Gregory rose and dug deep to scratch his balls, while stretching his free arm out and giving a loud, exaggerated yawn. “Go ahead and call, then,” he said, with a nasty smile. Casually he hooked the phone up with his free hand, and she saw that he must have unplugged it before starting the game. He threw it at her, and she caught it, feeling almost as stunned as her character. She had forgotten her cell in the SUV, which was at the garage again. The cordless was somewhere in the house, unless he had hidden it.
“Th-the beer’s in the kitchen,” she fake-stammered, putting the phone down on the vanity. “If you’ll just let me get my robe . . . “
“Oh no you don’t, Missy,” he said, and without breaking character, he drew a gun from the back of his jeans and, pointing it at her, began to advance.

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Too much JERRY SPRINGER

This is post 20 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here

A few nights later, when Chloe was sitting at a little gold dressing table her grandmother had given her, brushing her long auburn hair, she suddenly caught Gregory’s eye in the mirror and smiled. He gave her an evil, gap-toothed grin.
Her heart raced with surprised anticipation. “Have we been watching too much Jerry Springer again?” she asked, teasingly. Unless she missed her guess, they were about to play one of Gregory’s latest role-playing games, “Evil Redneck.” If she hadn’t found that tape, it wouldn’t bother her. She even used to enjoy his inventiveness.

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More Games, Less Fun

This is post 19 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

Once more, as in the early months of their relationship, Chloe dedicated herself to his fulfillment, and now as then he enjoyed this intensively in brief spurts, but he also found reasons to be away. He was beginning to realize that Chloe, like her mother, was driven by something he couldn’t understand, some fierce, quixotic determination to rewrite reality and make it come out “right.” A teleological distortion typical of the modern West, he thought, one that no amount of Tantric sex, or yoga, or chant (Tibetan or Gregorian) seemed to eradicate. The trouble was, he didn’t wish to be revised. She should accept him. Accept life.
So when he was home and she was there he teased and coaxed and bullied her out of her mission, made her forget he was her project and made her be someone or something else—even if it was just dessert. He believed she was grateful for this. Anyone should be grateful to be untrammeled, in flux, striking out moment by moment for freedom.
And gradually, he flattered himself, he had gotten her to go further, take more risks, release herself. Sometimes his plans were quite elaborate—the time he had broken into the house, for instance. As soon as she saw him she recognized him, of course, but the fear and surprise made her wild afterwards, the way he liked them.
He could hardly imagine her reaction to the gun.

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Rules of the Game

This is post 18 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

“Learning, not learning, reading, not reading,” Gregory was murmuring, rubbing her down to the rhythm of the words. “It’s all beside the point. That’s all just language for your statement of teaching philosophy. Sure. Tell them you’re for sharing authority in the classroom, generating enthusiasm through hands-on projects—don’t forget group work and self-directed learning. Go ahead. It’s just words, I’m telling you. The bottom line is, they win their game, you win yours. I guarantee you. Intelligent young woman like you, you get your degree, first thing you know you’ll be hired tenure track. You could even move into administration, eventually. Maybe you could even be a dean. Change things around a little. But first, you have to play the game, make that hege-money.”
He stopped massaging and peered round into her face again. She forced a smile at his little pun.
“I tell you what,” he said, encouraged. “Lizzy’s still on the computer. Let’s pop in a yoga CD and order some spinach pizza. I’ll open a bottle of Chardonnay—what do you say?”

Like a scarecrow, Scarecrow man can only feel secure in his
masculinity if others constantly and visibly react to it [Are You an
Emotional Junky?, page 152]. If you are committed to a relationship
with Scarecrow man and have taken the first steps toward setting
emotional dependence aside (see Chapter 4, above), you will have to
help him get off the emotional roller coaster with you. Build him up
whenever you can. Agree with him. Compliment him. Remember
that his greatest fear is that he is stuffed with nothing but straw and
reassure him at every turn.
At first this approach may seem “phony” or dishonest. But you
don’t need to lie, just highlight his good points. Start by making a list of
as many as you can think of on your own. . . . In the end, you will help
your man find his inner substance, his true self-worth. And your reward
will be a stable, healthy relationship.

“Yoga—that’s a great idea,” Chloe said warmly.
He did seem to brighten up. “Jazz, or guided meditation?”
“Why don’t you choose?”

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Unproductive Chloe

This is post 17 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

Gently Gregory pulled the curtain of reddish brown hair back from her face and kissed another tear as it fell. Chloe did not resist. “Chloe, honey, I told you before. It’s a business, pure and simple. That means, it’s a game. Like a computer game. All you have to do is figure out the rules and click the mouse the right way. And relax, for God’s sake.”
She turned and looked into his eyes. “You really think so?”
He held her gaze and ran a finger delicately along her jaw. “Look. The university needs to process as many students as possible without hiring extra staff. If you teach hard, and students drop or fail, you create a bottleneck in the system; you’re unproductive. Also, the students don’t like you. So what’s the solution? Come on, Chloe, you’re intelligent.”
Chloe hated when people called her smart. It reminded her of that thing her maternal grandfather used to always say: “If you’re so smart, why don’t you make more money?” Maybe that was why she’d never had a chance to get to know her mother’s family that well.
She took a deep breath and tried one more time to explain. “But then they won’t learn anything. I don’t want them to hate me, or hate reading, but how can they like reading if they’re not doing it?” She was crying harder.
Gregory massaged her shoulders. “Chloe—Chloe, Chloe, Chloe. Whoa. Slow down. You’re so tense.”
Maybe because people keep treating me like a horse, Chloe thought, remembering her boss’ clicking noises.

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Evaluation Aftermath

This is post 16 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

But she was not fine, she reflected. She was especially not fine after reading her evaluations. “If Miss Weems was bleeding by the side of the road, I would not stop to pick her up,” said one. “I would rather stay home and have Satan pull my toenails than come to this class,” read another. Of course they weren’t all like that, but those were the kind that stuck with her.

And that was how Gregory came to find her sitting depressed on the sofa when he got home. “Chloe?” he said, apprehensively. She had been acting odd lately (since she had discovered the tape, but she had not explained this to him). Probably that new Emotional Flunky book she had gotten, he thought, poisoning her mind against men. “Elizabeth said Mommy wasn’t feeling well. Anything I can do? Foot massage?”
Chloe hunched away from him, drawing her knees up.
Gregory was about to give it up as a case of hysteria, but his eye fell on the envelope with the evaluations. “Oh God, Chloe. Not that again.”
Chloe shrugged, and a tear rolled down her face.

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WWJD?

This is post 15 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

Jeff tapped his pen on his books. “Freud . . . Isn’t he the guy who says everybody wants to sleep with their mother?”
“Yes. Good.”
“If you ask me, that’s just plain disgusting. I mean—come on.” He shook his head vigorously to clear it of such filth.
Chloe pondered the hopelessness of explaining psychoanalytic theory to someone who attributed mental illness to demonic possession. She was just about to try anyway when Jeff changed the subject. “Say, Miz Weems, are you related to that Dr. Weems who teaches the technical rottin’ class at night? ’Cause I’m takin’ that.”
Chloe smiled. “Yes. He’s my husband.”
“He is?” It was a carefully neutral tone, accompanied by a curious, penetrating gaze from the closely set hazel eyes. Then Jeff stood up, pushing his chair back into position with his usual methodical politeness. At the door he turned and looked back, fumbling in his shirt pocket with his free hand. “Listen, Miz Weems. I’m gonna give you my card. I know you say you don’t wanna get saved an’ all, and you know that bothers me—but I just want you to have it in case you ever need anything. Anything at all.”
Chloe rose and took it. “Jeffrey Morgan,” it read. “Youth Leader, Mountain View Baptist Church, Hardwater, GA.” Then his phone number and e-mail address, and WWJD (for “What would Jesus do?”) at the bottom.
“Thanks, Jeff,” she said, “but I’m really fine.”
“Well that’s good, Miz Weems. And thank you ma’am. You’ve been a big help.”
“Any time.”

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Disturbing Dreams

This is post 14 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

Today, after Chloe explained as tactfully as possible that Athena was a goddess (not a women), that Furies had only one “r,” and that perhaps Orestes and Apollo ought to come into the paper, too, even though neither was a women, Jeff said, “You know, this paper has really been tearin’ me up, Miz Weems. The night before it was due, after I finished rottin’ it, I went to bed kinda late, you know, and then I dreamed you called me about it in the middle of the night.”
“Really?”
“Yes ma’am. I was in bed, an’ everything.”
“What part of it did I want to talk to you about?”
He fingered his cross. “I don’t know. I guess you just wanted to be helpful. But it was pretty scary, too. In the dream, I mean.”
“Well, I try to be helpful, not scary. But whatever works.”
He patted her shoulder. “Oh, it was just the dream. I had another dream about you, too.”
“Oh?” queried Chloe. She felt relieved that her office mates were out.
“Yes ma’am, but in this one I was supposed to be having dinner with my fiancée at my parents’ house, you know? Only instead of Jennifer, it was you there, and you were really big.” He paused. “I guess that one was kinda disturbing too. Sorry.”
“Oh that’s all right, Jeff,” Chloe said lightly. “By the way, have you ever heard of Freud?”

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Jeff

This is post 13 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

It was not a great day. It took Chloe fifteen minutes to find how to turn on the wipers in the car she was borrowing while her SUV was at its home away from home, the service department of its dealership. Elizabeth cried all the way to Wee Care, and when Chloe, filled with guilt, asked if she missed her Mommy, Elizabeth informed her that the center did not have her favorite “Mall-Maze” computer game.
In her office hours, Chloe graded some rough drafts, the most interesting of which repeatedly made the point that in Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Athena was a “women” who had something to do with the “furries.” Chloe was furtively rereading the last pages of Are You an Emotional Junky? in preparation for picking up her evaluations from last quarter, when Jeff came in.
Jeff was a student in her class. Slight in stature and earnestly respectful in the way of many of the better brought up students, he stood out because of the size of the wooden cross around his neck. Although she and Jeff had agreed to disagree over the authorship and significance of the Old Testament, he had explained to her early on that when he was saved both Jesus and Bob, the leader of his youth group, had instructed him to read and enrich his mind as much as possible, so that, although he was concerned that Miz Weems was not saved, he took comfort in the knowledge that she was an instrument of God in his life.

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Chloe and the System

This is post 12 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

Nor was her course work a welcome diversion. She found that hegemonic power relations were not as spellbinding as they had seemed in the Senior Honors Seminar, yet concepts like beauty or truth were hopelessly naïve (or diabolically delusory) constructions of the power structure. She often worried that her own appreciation of these qualities was a craven capitulation to the system.
As Elizabeth grew older, Chloe’s bond with the child weakened. The girl was unquestionably bright, and Chloe did not want to hold her back, but she had a notion that the educational computer games Gregory brought her were not giving her the leg up they were supposed to deliver. While Gregory and the parents and staff at the Wee Care center marveled at Lizzy’s speed in negotiating mazes and memorizing catalogues of dinosaurs, Chloe worried about her inability to pay attention and her proclivity for uncontrollable tantrums. Weekends at the mall with Gregory’s mother did nothing to abate these behaviors or allay Chloe’s misgivings.

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Thespian Chloe

This is post 11 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

At home, things were not as cool as they were supposed to be. Gregory had rediscovered his mother. Self-begotten, self-created Romantic that he was, he had once scarcely acknowledged her existence, but now that she lived just over the border in North Carolina and was happy to take the baby any time, he resumed his former intimacy with her.
At the same time he had deepened his love of drama. If the house was empty and there was a note from Grandma on the table, Chloe never knew whether she would later appear as dessert, complete with whipped cream from a can and maraschino cherries, or as Mistress Chloe, the Coercer.

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Minnie Strator's World

This is post 10 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here. For more on Minnie Strator, go here.

From the outset, her teaching at North Central did not go well. Because she came from a good school and had an interest in the Renaissance, she was assigned to teach World Literature, a course everyone had to take, regardless of reading ability. Naturally, it was hard to compete with their pastors for authority when she taught the Bible. The head of the World Lit program, a balding man with a bureaucratic paunch and backside, explained to her that in the current political climate it would be best not to insist that no reputable scholars believed that Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament, but instead to emphasize that scholars’ opinions were only theories, subject to question like any others. “After all,” he said, smiling encouragingly, “Who among us can really be sure what is fact and what is fiction?”
The good thing about the Bible, though, was that some of the students had read it, whereas most of them would not or could not read anything else. There was the girl with the head injury who could not remember anything (“We are required to give our disabled students every opportunity—it’s the law,” said her boss, with saintly resignation). There were the hardworking, furrowed-brow sorts, who insisted they could read but just couldn’t string the words together. There were the cheerleaders, as Chloe called them, bright and happy until they got their first grade, after which they argued over every point taken off, nagged for extra credit, and relentlessly questioned her interpretation of the works. One of these broke down in the office Chloe shared with three other teaching assistants one day. “I wanted to be an English major!” she sobbed, “But I just can’t take all this readin’ an’ rottin’!”
There were decent students, too, whose strivings produced the occasional humorous gem: “Do you mean Keats is tryin’ to get into the urn?” “Couldn’t Gregor and the Samsas just sit down and talk it out, even if he is a cockroach?” And there were even a few good students—lonely and quiet.
The trouble was, at the end of each quarter the teaching evaluations were all that counted, which evoked rising levels of paranoia in Chloe. “Encourage them,” advised her boss. “You want them to enjoy literature, not hate it, don’t you? Well then. Lighten up! Go easy on ’em.”
“O. k.,” said Chloe doubtfully. She felt that not holding students accountable for understanding what they read was unlikely to inspire a love of literature.
The administrator made a clicking noise at her, as if she were a horse he was trying to speed along, and then pretended to shoot her with his index finger. “Don’t give up!” he said.

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New Life in Hardwater

This is post 9 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

All in all it was with relief that Gregory and Chloe began a new life in Hardwater, Georgia. Gregory was a natural at his new job, which was unchallenging, if uninteresting, and they found good daycare, so Chloe could pursue her doctorate in English at nearby North Central Georgia, even after the baby was born.
Indeed it was not until after the baby came that there were problems. It was not money. In addition to his job, Gregory occasionally taught an evening class in technical writing at the university. And with student labor, even the upkeep on their Victorian house was affordable.
No, it was a great, unhappy combination of things. First, Gregory knew that Chloe would not like to be one of those reactionary women like his mother, who put all of her own talents on hold and devoted herself to spoiling and domineering over her sons. Thank goodness liberated young women could now put all that in its proper place and contribute more pleasantly and productively to their families in the workplace and the bedroom.
Chloe, on the other hand, was surprised to find that she was intensely attached to her baby girl, whom they named Elizabeth, after Gregory’s mother and the great Renaissance English queen. Chloe was deeply impressed with the miracles of Elizabeth’s eating, sleeping and excreting, as well as the calm trust the infant early on displayed toward her mother, and the awesome responsibility that she, Chloe, had assumed. It was at this period that Chloe returned to her collegiate preoccupation with self-help literature. She began innocently enough, with parenting manuals, telling herself she could stop just as soon as she was sure she knew enough to be a good mom. But she soon learned from a number of sources that the father and the family’s situation were crucial to the child’s wellbeing, and this led her to question both her marriage and her career.

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Wedding and Honeymoon

This is post 8 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

Then she committed the supreme uncoolness of getting pregnant. Fortunately, Gregory was charmed by the notion of self-propagation, and by Chloe’s new vulnerability. By this time he was bored with academia and despaired of getting around to writing a book that would clinch tenure for him, so he had taken a lucrative job as a technical writer for a software company near Atlanta. Chloe was shocked at the easy way in which he threw over literature, but impressed by the sacrifice she knew he must be making. They were married by a Justice of the Peace and then went to a sophisticated party in the City, where Chloe knew no one and spent most of her time on the fire escape to avoid the thick pall of cigarette, cigar, and other smoke.
There was no time for a real honeymoon, and besides Chloe was beginning to feel sick a lot, so they stayed at a bed and breakfast near her parents’. Chloe’s mother was taken with Gregory, who displayed, in addition to his sculpted profile, a depth of commitment to anti-globalization and gay rights that Chloe had never imagined he possessed. Robert, who came out for dinner, distrusted Gregory, but then he distrusted straight men in general. Mr. Bennett, however, was, if possible, cooler than Gregory. Chloe had forewarned him about Gregory’s vegetarianism, which struck him as hypocritical, given the young man’s obvious fondness for leather. But Gregory’s view of Western Civilization as a blind alley of capitalist-imperialist exploitation, though predictable, was so repugnant that Bennett lowered himself far enough to ask which of the many pacifist and egalitarian alternative civilizations Gregory wished to belong to, whereupon the groom smiled tolerantly and murmured that such utopianism was merely the product of the cesspool from which it pretended to escape, and that he, like Foucault, favored random acts of subversion and rebellion. Bennett was on the point of heatedly suggesting that Gregory strike a blow for the cause by freeing himself from the bourgeois conventions of marriage and fatherhood forthwith, but he happened to catch sight of Chloe’s face silently appealing to him, and so contented himself with serving Gregory a very large steak and taking most of the bread and salad for himself (Robert never ate much at home).

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Femme Exotique

This is post 7 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

During this period, she did not read self-help books or take quizzes in magazines on her compatibility. She was deeply and amazingly happy for the first time in her life. The little college town was not very lively in the summer, but the few friends of hers who were there made excuses to come over and see “our” apartment, told her enviously how good she looked, angled for gory details about her relationship, and made bets with one another on how long it would last. Gregory wouldn’t hear of her getting a job, so she had plenty of time to meet with them and pursue her interest in the Renaissance while counting the days until graduate school.
Not everyone was so friendly. She was surprised to notice her philosophy professor frowning at her as they stood in line to see Femme Exotique at the summer film fest one evening. But she found that when she hitched Gregory’s leather jacket up around her shoulders and inhaled its rich aroma, no chill could touch her.

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Java Mill Flower

This is post 6 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

Gregory was relaxed. He wore jeans to class and asked all the students to call him by his first name. He was often seen biking around campus with an olive drab knapsack slung across his back. He kept his office hours at the Java Mill and sometimes met his classes there. Though not gifted as a lecturer, he had a knack for reading aloud with a quiet intensity that made him a natural in Romantic poetry classes, and when he looked into Chloe’s eyes and asked her how a poem made her feel, or whether she had noticed any hegemonic tendencies in a particular passage, she, like her classmates, felt exalted in the heady atmosphere of literary criticism.
Gregory had liked Chloe even though she was not a great scholar like her father or a flamboyant musical genius like her brother or a crusader for social justice like her mother. At the time she had never stopped to consider why Gregory liked her. He had simply plucked her from the obscurity of the Honors English Seminar and transplanted her to the hothouse of his digs above the Java Mill, where she bloomed exotically.
He found her enchanting. While the chief romance of his life was with himself, its dramatic impact depended on various supporting characters, of which she gradually became the principal. He was first attracted to her because she was beautiful but paid no attention to that. Indeed, she had an appealing way of excluding everything but himself from her attentions, without becoming either clingy or overbearing. She had what seemed to him an otherworldly quality, as if she had been born into the wrong century. When he was swept away by his passions and found it convenient to pay attention to her she focused on satisfying his desires with a calm intensity; when other matters arose to distract his courtship she turned quietly to her family, her books, or some other avenue whose charms were equally unfathomable to him.
On one occasion, directly after her graduation, during a period when he had been busy investigating the ontological possibilities of Hegel’s master-slave dialectic with an associate professor of philosophy, he learned that Chloe had actually gone off to Florence to study Italian Renaissance painting without so much as a by-your-leave. He believed himself in agonies. On her return he wrote to her at her parents’, lamenting his loneliness, and she came to visit. He then stopped calling the associate professor and several other female acquaintances. After a few weeks he allowed Chloe to answer the phone. This, they both understood, was tantamount to a commitment, and Gregory found that it had the added advantage of deflecting any expressions of annoyance from his former playmates. Chloe stayed.

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Uncool

This is post 5 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

The tragedy of Chloe Bennett’s life was that she was not cool.
She had not been cool growing up, always with her nose in a book while her brother got all the attention as the musical genius of the family, and her acquaintances knew all the latest TV shows she was not allowed to watch.
She had not been cool at her fancy prep school, where she never had as much money as the other kids.
She had mostly not been cool in her small, Eastern college, where for some time she was known to be the only girl in her dorm who was still a virgin (the few boys who were kept this fact well hidden).
Then all that changed because Assistant Professor Gregory Weems took an interest in her.

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Wedding Indeed

This is post 4 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

Bennett got up mechanically and walked the dogs, though they didn’t really need it and would have preferred to remain snoozing in the sun. Gwen came in and was surprised when he immediately proposed a visit to Chloe.
“But we’ll see them at the wedding in a month, Ed.”
“Wedding?”
She gave him a look she reserved for his most feeble-minded utterances and spoke slowly. “Robert and Jack?”
“Oh. That. Yes. Sorry; I forgot.” Wedding indeed, he thought.

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Fun and Games

This is post 3 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

“But Daddy I—I accidentally found a videotape he had. It was secret. He hid it. Oh, Dad, I’m so worried. I just thought, you know, you might have some insight. You know, being a man.”
“A stag film?” Bennett permitted himself a smile. Perhaps there was more to Gregory than he had guessed.
“Well, it’s—it’s. . . . It’s kind of kinky, if you want to know.”
Bennett didn’t, but he didn’t remind her. He was becoming more impressed with his son-in-law by the minute.
“And there’s other things, Dad. This is so hard to talk about. He plays these—games. Sometimes I don’t really want to.”
Bennett sat upright in his chair. “Did he hurt you?” He’d break every bone in the punk’s body. Except the backbone—too hard to find.
“No, Daddy.” He could hear that she was smiling through her tears. “It’s not like that. I guess I’m—just being silly. Please don’t worry. And don’t tell Mom.”
“Believe me, I’m far too denial-avoidant.”
She laughed. “O. k. Daddy. Thank you. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
“Bye.”

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Scarecrow Man

This is post 2 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here.

“But Daddy, wait. That’s not why I called.”
The tears were back. Bennett waited helplessly.
“Just one second. It’s in Chapter Fifteen. Here it is: ‘The mismatch perversely sought out by the emotional junky may take one of several forms, according to which emotion she is most dependent on . . .’ blah, blah, blah—Here it is. ‘Scarecrow Man seems virile, capable, and in control. But that façade masks feelings of inadequacy, defensiveness, and a deep-seated fear of women.’ Does that sound like—anyone you know, Daddy?”
“Ray Bolger–Wizard of Oz?”
“Daddy, I’m serious—” The tears were upon them. “Daddy, have I ruined my life? Do you think that sounds like Gregory?”
“Honey! Sweetheart! Chloe, honey. Please don’t cry. Forget about that stupid book. Those pop psychologists are just like a newspaper horoscope. Think rationally, would you? This goes against my denial-avoidant grain to admit, but couldn’t that description fit about all the men you know?”
Sniffling. Then, hesitantly, “I guess so.”
“Well then. Feel better?”

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II

This is post 1 of Section II. To begin at the beginning, go here.

“Hello Daddy?”
The tearful voice. Why, why had he answered, Bennett wondered.
“How are you?”
Not so good since this call began—if anyone really wanted to know, he thought.
“Is Mom there?”
“No. She’s out at her PFLAG meeting, you know.” Worse luck.
“Good. I don’t want her to worry.”
No, just me, Bennett thought. I’m expendable.
Then, with false brightness, “Have you heard about this new book, ARE YOU AN EMOTIONAL JUNKY?”
Bennett made a faint sound somewhere between sighing and choking.
“Now, Daddy, I know you hate those kind of books, but you could learn something from them.”
“But Chloe, I have. I really have.”
“What?”
“I’ve learned that our culture is comprised of semi-literate, hopelessly narcissistic suckers for snake oil.”
“But see, that’s exactly what the book talks about, Daddy. Denial-avoidance. You’re like a—just a minute, page 73—here it is: ‘a thin sheet of ice over a molten sea of volcanic lava.’”
“Is that physically possible?”
“Well, that’s describing the anorexic woman’s father. But you can see the parallel, can’t you? And by the way, I’m not semi-literate, thank you very much.”
“Of course you’re not. I didn’t mean—“
“That’s another thing the book talks about. Page 45: ‘The oblique put-down, or “side-swiping.”’ Classic behavior for the denial-avoidant. As is denying the side-swipe when confronted.”
She was sounding a lot more cheerful. Bennett sighed heavily, then tried another tactic. “Just a minute, Fafnir,” he said, in an audible aside. “Chloe, this is all fascinating. I probably underestimated the volume. But I’m afraid you’ll have to read me the section on sarcasm later.” He raked his fingernails along the table next to the phone. “That’s Fafnir asking for a walk.”

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Happily Ever After

This is post 20 of Section I. To begin at the beginning, go here. "Little Gay Riding Hood" begins here.

“So the wolf tore off the cloak and ran off into the woods, where he met other wolves—”
(“One lovely one in particular,” interjected Robert.)
“—and fortunately the hunter and the ex-wife were quite ecologically minded, so the boy was still allowed to take walks in the woods with his father on weekends and holidays, and they all lived happily ever after.”
“Except for Little Gay Riding Hood’s parents.”
Jack sighed. “They were old by then, and couldn’t shake the idea that wolves were savage beasts. They always kept a spare hood tucked away and refused to take even one step off the path to meet their son. So you see, in some ways you’re very lucky in your folks. No cloaks.”
Robert rolled his eyes. “Let’s not talk about them. Why don’t you just show me what an alpha male you are?”
Jack gave a growl and playfully wrestled Robert down.

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Boy in the Hood No More

This is post 19 of Section I. To begin at the beginning, go here. "Little Gay Riding Hood" begins here.

“Then at last, Little Straight Riding Hood knew that he was really a wolf, and that the cloak had all along been to protect them from him, and he was wondering how to reveal all this to his wife, because it would devastate her, when she came home and said she’d been wanting to talk to him for some time.
“‘You know, you have big, pointy, hairy ears,” she said.
“‘Um,’ he said.
“‘And yellow, wandering eyes.’
“‘Um.’
“‘And a long bushy tail.’
“‘But it’s all the better to—’
“‘You’re a wolf,’ she interrupted. ‘And it IS all for the best, because I can’t tell you how guilty I have been about my feelings for this hunter I met. . . .’

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Little Gay Riding Hood

This is post 18 of Section I. To begin at the beginning, go here. "Little Gay Riding Hood" begins here.

“But the trouble was, around this time the boy had been growing, as boys will, and growing in a way that was quite alarming. The hood had definitely gotten too small, and he found he could see off the path again, and the longing to meet wolves grew so strong he couldn’t stand it. At last, some nights he began jumping out the window and running off pell-mell into the forest without his cloak, and in the morning he would wonder if he had dreamed his adventures or really had them, but he just pulled his cloak as far as he could over his face and set off on the straight and narrow path to work. He was used to it, and now his wife and child were depending on him.”
Robert nodded understandingly.
“So it went on,” Jack continued, “until one day when he was home alone with his little son the boy suddenly pushed back his father’s hood and said, ‘Daddy, you’re not like the other daddies.’
“‘Oh?’ said Little Straight Riding Hood, startled because the innocent was saying the truth he had always suspected. ‘In what way?’
“And the boy reflected, for he was not very old, and he said, ‘You have big, sad, wandering eyes.’
“‘ Nonsense, my boy. My eyes are just looking out for danger off the path and opportunities on it.’
“But the boy was not convinced, and he said,‘And your feet. You have quiet, graceful feet, and you’d rather go walking in the woods with me than play baseball at the park up the straight and narrow path, like the other boys’ fathers.’ And he added, for he was a kind boy and didn’t want to hurt his father’s feelings—‘But that’s o. k. I don’t like parks and baseball, anyway.’
“Little Straight Riding Hood was about to protest, but the boy had been thinking, and now he said, ‘And one more funny thing.’ The boy leaned close and whispered into his father’s big, hairy, pointy ear. ‘You have a long bushy tail! It kind of swings when you walk.’”
(Robert laughed.)

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Little Straight Riding Hood

This is post 17 of Section I. To begin at the beginning, go here.

“Once upon a time,” Jack began, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his chin on them, “there was a boy who wanted to pick flowers and meet wolves. This was obviously very dangerous, so his mother put a hood on him. With the hood on, it was harder for him to see anything but the path in front of him, which went straight back and forth from his house to church and school, and so he stayed on the path, and everyone got to calling him, ‘Little Straight Riding Hood.’
“The only trouble was that the boy was desperately unhappy, but after a while he’d worn the hood so long that he’d practically forgotten what flowers looked like, and he’d never been able to meet any wolves, anyway.”
“Poor little boy,” said Robert, and they held hands under the duvet.

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Bedtime Story

This is post 16 of Section I. To begin at the beginning, go here.

“On the other hand,” Jack mused, as they headed to bed, “there’s something to be said for a life of private rectitude, isn’t there? The whole Martha/Mary thing?”
Robert kissed him and rumpled his hair. “I wouldn’t know. You’re the soul of rectitude, why don’t you tell me? I’m in the mood for a story.”
Jack said good night to Stephen, who was reading in bed, and a few minutes later he and Robert were huddled together under the duvet. “Well?” Robert asked.
Jack cleared his throat. “I shall tell you the story of Little Gay Riding Hood.”
“Oh goody,” said Robert, and pulled the covers up cozily.

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Shock and Awe in Academe

This is post 15 of Section I. To begin at the beginning, go here.

Jack felt Robert’s questioning gaze on him as he rinsed the silver. Absently, he held out a handful of forks to be dried. “He doesn’t just study things, he lives them. Like Horace’s pastoral retreat. He told me some pretty intimate details, too. Did you know he always associates your mother with the Schubert Cello Quintet?”
Robert waved the dishtowel to quash him. “Please. Too much information. Did he also tell you he hasn’t had a real experience in about thirty years? Tonight might be as close as he’ll ever come. He takes pastoral retreating entirely too far, if you ask me.”
Jack shrugged. “Who can plumb the depths? Perhaps one day he’ll shock the world.”
Robert laughed. “Something like you did, you mean? Secret life and all that? Not a chance. Besides, Mom handles the shock and awe department. Beefy administrators quail before her. ‘Yes, Ms. Bennett, of course I can see that fifty mature women performing a nude sit-in at the library would detract from the academic mission. . . . I will look into the possibilities personally at tomorrow’s meeting—Oh? You’ve already spoken with the Provost? Well then, I think I can promise you, madam, that library privileges will be extended to Independent Scholars—no need to—er—disrobe.’”
Jack laughed. “She didn’t.”
“No, they backed down,” said Robert, starting the dishwasher. “Because she would have.”

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Cleaning Up

This is post 14 of Section I. To begin at the beginning, go here.

Robert closed the door and stood with his back against it. “Are they really gone?”
“Yes, chéri.” Jack was gathering coasters from the trunk table.
Robert came into the living room and regarded him narrowly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you enjoyed yourself.”
“It’s a thing called happiness. You should try it sometime.”
“Right. Which bottle would you recommend?” Robert rattled gin, vermouth, and his Curaçao back into the bar.
Jack breezed by with the remains of the cheese tray in his hands. “Oh—‘Gin was mother’s milk to me,’” he quoted, in the refined accents of Shaw’s heroine.
“O. k. Mrs. Tanqueray. Speaking of whom, can you tolerate my connections?”
“I found them wholly unobjectionable, my dear. It was actually a pleasure to meet a man like your father.”

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End of the Evening

This is post 13 of Section I. To begin at the beginning, go here.

“Well I guess we’ll all agree to disagree then,” said Gwen, with unnecessary primness, Bennett thought. He could tell she thought he’d had too much to drink.
“Sure,” Robert said, relaxing. “We do. All the time.” He reached out and held Jack’s hand for a moment. “Just like you and Dad.”
Bennett felt a squirming need to leave the room, but Gwen put her hand on his knee under the table and smiled at him. “Sounds like a partnership to me.”

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