Before My Eyes by Caroline Bock Read Free Book Online

“Barkley, honey, time to get up. You okay in there? Mommy and Daddy have to get to work, but we want to make sure you’re going to be home tonight so we can talk.”
    Where else would I be?
    My father pops open his first diet soda of the day. He drinks diet soda all day. We all have our addictions. His addictions are diet soda and outsized adjectives.
    â€œI’m up. Getting ready for work,” I finally call out as I relock my desk drawer.
    â€œIs anything wrong, Barkley? Answer Mommy.”
    â€œNothing is wrong.”
    â€œSee, Kate, he’s up. He’s getting ready for work. And why are you talking to him like he’s a kid? I got to tell you,” and here he raises his voice so I know that he is really talking to me, “that’s an awesome young man in there. He spent his whole summer working. You think jobs like his, at the beach all summer, are easy jobs?”
    â€œNow you’re blaming me for making him work?”
    My mother pushed me to take this job after I was expelled from the community college. I wanted to join the army or navy. I found a recruitment center. They gave me a slew of tests. But they know nothing, the army. The navy. The Defense Department. The government of the United States. They told me I was unfit for service. I didn’t want to hear it—not from someone behind a desk—not from someone who never shot a gun.
    I plan to be a filmmaker now—to control the images and the sounds. I should dream big. Small men dream small. Be a famous director of superheroes, the next generation of a Batman or Superman or Ironman, and in my spare time advocate for the environment. In interviews, I will say that the reason I create is to save the world by any means possible. At that community college there was an intro to cinema studies class—and a waiting list for the class. I will not be wait-listed again.
    â€œI just think he’s plain old terrific,” says my father in too loud a voice. “And we should be telling him that. You hear me, Barkley?”
    More bangs on the bedroom door from my mother, wanting me to come out, to inspect me. I growl under my breath. The dank smell of sweat, skin cells, dying off, and saltwater comfort me.
    Her rapping stops as abruptly as it started.
    â€œI’m telling you, something’s wrong with our son, Dan. Why, all of a sudden, is he hanging out with that nephew of yours?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œYou know what I mean. And your father.”
    â€œYou worry too much, Kate.”
    â€œAnd what about your father?” I can detect everything: her shallow breaths, his thrumming reluctance against a can of soda, the whoosh of central air chemically scented with roses, and the sense that we may lose it all in a blink of an eye. “Have you done some more thinking about him?”
    â€œNo, he’s dead. And I have a lot more to worry about right now. I have that trip coming up to L.A., and I feel my whole job is riding on it. Can we look into this after Labor Day? Come up with a strategy?”
    â€œExactly, he’s dead,” she says. “Didn’t he kill himself with his hunting rifle?”
    â€œI don’t know, Kate. Nobody ever said. My mother wanted him buried in a church cemetery, and that couldn’t happen if it was a suicide.”
    â€œNobody ever said what it was. Dan, open your eyes, there’s history here. Your family’s. We need to look into this.”
    â€œI was never very good at history,” says my father, a lame joke.
    â€œAnd that nephew of yours. Jared. A pothead. I’ve smelled it on Jared, and so have you. So, what exactly am I missing? We have to face facts, maybe our son is into drugs. Maybe we have to consider that. What do you think of that? He’s very close to that nephew of yours.”
    Tell them that you abhor drugs. You do not pollute your body. You will not be found floating in the oceans of the world