If Only You People Could Follow Directions: A Memoir by Jessica Hendry Nelson Read Free Book Online Page B

there.” Jordan sighs and wipes at his face.
    “I think I can do it,” he says gravely, “if you set up another line.”
    “This is not good,” I say, because that’s what I always say. Jordan gets up and heads toward the stairs.
    “Pean, it’s fine,” he says, because that’s what he always says. “Read me the last stanza.”
    We read our shitty poems and drink our shitty wine. We talk about our parents and how awful their drug problems are, and yet, how much we love them still, and we try to make sense of it all because now would be the time to do that. We think aloud, Now would be the time to do that one thing .
    “Let’s take a walk,” I say.
    “Pean,” he says, crying again. “I like girls and boys.”
    This crying is really getting to me. Here I am, and that sun, which isn’t here yet, could show up at any moment unannounced, as it tends to do. The world will start up its endless, painstaking rotations, and all the people will get out of bed. Rested and cogent, they will slip into their hot showers and later drink coffee with cream and head out into their driveways to start the car, to go to work or school, and here I haven’t even managed to finish my homework. I can’t even finish myhomework and the night has come to an end. Or it will end. And then there’s everything else to contend with.
    “Pean,” I say, because we are both “Pean,” short for “Peanut,” short for brevity’s sake, for the sake of time. “Pean, is that the sun? Please tell me that’s not the sun.”
    “That’s not the sun, Pean.” Jordan covers us with the blanket again. I throw my sock at the wall, which is covered in planks of synthetic wood. “Pean, did you hear what I said? Did you hear me, Pean?”
    “If you would just stop crying ,” I say, “we could have a rational conversation for once.”
    I am panicking. The television suddenly flickers and black lines begin to fall down the face of the screen before it all turns to fuzz. It’s muted, but still.
    “Oh my God,” I say. “Do you know what that means? It means it’s late, really late, and soon the sun will come up. I can’t bear to see the sun. God, I hate that fucking sun.”
    Jordan constructs another line on the table top.
    “We should go to an Al-Anon meeting!” he says suddenly, as if this would solve all of our problems.
    We’ve been to meetings before, doted on by forsaken wives clustering around us like mother bears. We couldn’t find our “higher power.” That was the problem. A heavyset woman named Sheryl once told us that if we couldn’t imagine anything larger than ourselves, we’ve got some real ego issues.
    “Well, you’re certainly larger than us,” Jordan had said, dropping the end of his cigarette into one of the Styrofoam cups set out for this purpose.
    It all seemed like faulty logic to me, but I didn’t say so aloud, and I think we both spent the better part of a month more insecure than ever. When my brother and I were kids and our father had started drinking again in earnest, my mother had us go to Alateen meetings. Even then we were cynical, willfully refusing to hold hands for the Lord’s Prayer. Eventually, the group leader asked our mother to send us to a different meeting, perhaps coupled with some quality talk therapy.
    “I know your kids are Jewish, Ms. Nelson,” she said, “but the Lord’s Prayer is for everyone , no matter what your higher power may be.”
    Well, that pissed her off, because when it came to religion, our family was about as faithful as a used-car salesman, so she knew we’d been giving this lady a line.
    “I’m not going to any more Al-Anon meetings,” I say. “I would like, however, to go for a fucking walk. I have to get out of this basement before the sun comes up.”
    This seems imperative to me now, as if I could somehow outfox the sun simply by getting there first. Jordan takes a final sip of wine before tucking into the fetal position and covering himself with the yellow