Everything Happens Today by Jesse Browner Read Free Book Online Page B

was watching “The Joy of Painting,” and Wes sat beside her and watched for a few minutes. This obsession with “The Joy of Painting” had all started out as something of a family joke when Wes had come home from school one day to find Nora transfixed. For a while, they had made it a family tradition, poking fun at Bob Ross’s afro and his obsession with woodland creatures and his catchphrases. They’d gone around saying “It’s your world” and “beat the devil out of it,” and Wes had even begun calling Nora his “happy little cloud.” But then one day, after she’d taken to bed for good, his mother had explicitly asked Wes to find “Joy of Painting” on cable for her, and he’d tivo’d it, but by that point the show was only on once a week so he’d offered to find her some DVDs. In the end, though, it didn’t make a difference as she didn’t seem to mind watching the same limited number of episodes over and over again. She was often agitated, and it wasn’t always clear what she was agitated about, or even if she could see the television clearly, but there was something about Bob Ross’s gentle, monotonous diction that soothed her. Now it was just about the only thing she ever watched, along with “Gossip Girl,” about which she was almost as passionate as Nora. As a matter of fact, Wes himself was fascinated by Bob Ross and had even considered basing the protagonist of his first novel on him, although he was worried about lawsuits and might not take the risk.
    As he sat beside his mother watching Bob Ross patch together a vile Alaskan wilderness, Wes thought of the thousands of bland, cheerful housewives and retirees in their converted garage studios across the country, following Ross’s every move with their own fan brushes and alizarin crimsons, and he thought of his mother’s imprisonment in this room and her declining health. He was convinced that she would never have watched Bob Ross if she was healthy. It seemed so totally unfair, but then could you ever really say that one person was worth more than another, or that the people who painted along with Bob Ross were making better use of the comfort he offered than someone who lay in bed all day and watched the same 12-year-old rerun over and over again? Wes thought of that game children play with each other, maybe when they’re six or seven and first become aware of mortality and the ethical dimension of decision-making. “If someone comes with a gun and says he’ll kill your mother or your sister, who would you choose?” It was never about who you loved more; in fact, there was always a right answer. If the choice was between saving your mother or your sister, you saved your sister because she was younger and had more to live for; if the choice was between your mother or your sister and your dog, you saved the dog, because it was innocent and blameless, although a few forward-thinking kids saved the sister because it was a sign of mature selflessness to sacrifice your dog for a lesser, though human life. Wes had never really understood the pleasure of the game, because the real mystery, which you were supposed to ignore, was how this situation was supposed to have arisen. Wes was always distracted by the question of what kind of circumstances could drive a person to offer you such an option. Why would it ever be necessary for anyone to have to kill either your sister or your dog, and even if it were, why would they offer the choice to a six-year-old child? These side issues always spoiled whatever was supposed to be fun about the game, both for Wes and the other kid. Wes supposed that, like playing with dolls or in competitive games, children instinctively grasp the need to rehearse in safety the only dimly understood decisions they see their elders make, but it wasn’t until very recently, when it seemed as if his mother had finally gone