Spanking Shakespeare by Jake Wizner Read Free Book Online Page A

it’s totally inappropriate.”
    “I don’t think it’s funny at all,” my mother snaps.
    “See, this is why I never show you any of my work,” I say. “All you do is criticize.”
    My mom grabs the essay. “What do you expect when you write something like this?”

    College Essay
First Draft
    You think I’ve got it easy just because I’m a white, upper-middle-class Jew from New York? You think just because I seem to have had every advantage in life, I don’t understand true hardship? Let me assure you, I know what it means to suffer. I know what it means to feel pain.
    I still have vivid memories of the time my father got my puppy drunk and laughed when she threw up all over the living room floor. Not to be outdone, my mother later blackmailed me into giving the dog away by moving out of the house and refusing to return until the dog was gone. My father forced me to go to a baseball game, where I got smashed in the face by a ball, and my mother sent me off alone to visit my mentally unstable grandmother, who had already been hospitalized for mental illness seventeen times.
    Do I sound like I’m complaining? Let me tell you about a typical dinner in my house. My father is drunk, of course, and my mother is venting her frustration in a passive-aggressive way that is making my father more and more irritated.
    My mother is on a diet, so she has crackers and low-fat cottage cheese on her plate, but she keeps reaching over and taking bites of my father’s food.
    “Here,” my father says, handing her his plate. “Just take it.”
    “Why are you so hostile?” my mother says. “I just wanted a bite.”
    “You’ve been picking at my plate since we sat down. All you ever do is pick, pick, pick.”
    “You have some real anger issues, don’t you?”
    My brother seems to be enjoying this little drama, but it is making me insane. “Enough already,” I say. “Can we please eat dinner in peace for once?”
    “There’s no need to be scared, Shakespeare,” my mother says. “A little conflict is healthy for a relationship. I wish you wouldn’t suppress your feelings so much. Maybe therapy would—”
    “I’m not going to therapy.”
    “It could really help you, Shakespeare.”
    “He needs a lot of help,” my brother says. “You should see how antisocial he is at school.”
    “What the fuck’s your problem?”
    “You see?” my brother says. “Look how much pent-up anger he has.”
    He’s right, you know. I do have a lot of pent-up anger. If I don’t get out of my house soon, I’m likely to let all my grievances and resentments build up until they explode in some cataclysmic display of bloodshed and violence.
    College is my only hope.

    “Do you really feel this way?” my mother asks, this time with more concern than anger.
    “It’s a joke. It’s supposed to be funny.”
    My mother seems deeply troubled, and I can’t hold out any longer.
    “I’m just messing with you. This isn’t my real college essay. It’s just an assignment for school.”
    “What?” My mother seems momentarily confused. “What kind of assignment? You turned this in?”
    “You know,” my father says, “I had totally forgotten about getting the dog drunk. That was pretty funny.”
    My mother gives me a stern look. “You can’t joke about these things, Shakespeare. Kids are getting expelled for threatening violence.”
    “My teacher gave me an A,” I lie. “He read it to the class.”
    “He read it to the class? David, did you hear that?” My mother is screaming now. “Oh my God, what are people going to think?”
    “I kinda miss that dog,” my father says.
    My brother enters the room. “What’s going on?” he asks. “Mom, what are you screaming about?”
    “Nothing,” my mother says, regaining her composure. “Go wash up for dinner.”
    We sit down to eat, and my mother asks my father to fix her a stiff drink. I notice she makes a pointed effort not to touch the food on his plate during the