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Charge of Completetion PAGE
TWO: Not if I was going to pretend to be enough. Thirty years later in Los Angeles, I'm surfing eBay for a new cell phone. My Razr cell phone is scratched and dented, so I'm giving it to my father, who's a little banged up himself in an assisted living home in Phoenix. He'd been in many car accidents since the one in 1974, but the last one broke his neck. That was after he'd had a stroke induced by his decades-long use of cocaine. The cell phone got dinged when I dropped it the day I bought it. For weeks I'd been coveting the supercool phone, after a friend let me check his out. The phone's shiny finish flashed in the sun, blinding me through my Oliver People's sunglasses. The glasses have a perpetually loose screw on the right stem and a slight scratch on one of the lenses. After seeing them in a movie, I used two credit cards to pay for them. I hated them now for their flaws, and remembered that as I took them off to examine my friend's phone more closely. It was dense, smooth, sleek. When he wasn't looking, I slipped it in my pocket. My legs went rubbery. I remembered from a college course that the ancient Greeks believed the humors of the body could be read outwardly. Thus, the feeling of envy drained one of the blood humor, causing a person to appear pale -- the Greek word for which was Khloros, which also was the word for green. Thus "Green with envy," and thus my weak constitution whenever I was close to becoming complete. My therapist reminded me that just because the Greeks believed it doesn't make it so. He also told me that I was enough, but I didn't believe him. As
I was saying goodbye to my friend, he asked for his phone back,
pointing at my pocket. I handed it back, then raced to the phone store. Then I dropped mine in the parking lot as soon as I got it out of the box. So it's dented. And my sunglasses are fucked up. And no one on eBay is listing the new phone I want. I keep surfing, searching for just the right key to unlock the empty vacuum of a room inside me. Long drained of air, of life, of blood. Drained of whatever humor envy consumes. And if I can find that key -- the thing that will complete me -- all that air and life and blood will come rushing back in. On eBay, the 1974 Hot Wheels Large Charge lists for only $6.80 and I'm already feeling dizzy over it. I type in a $10 offer but stop just short of hitting the "bid now" button when my phone rings. "Hey,
buddy," my father says. The stroke has slurred his speech and
his mind. He's like a 64-year-old child. He calls several times
a week to complain about the assisted living home, the nurses that
are rude to him, his lack of money. Sometimes I pick up, sometimes
I don't. "I'm just calling to say Hi," he says. And then, he says really the most beautiful thing my 38-year-old ears have ever heard. "Can I see you?"
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At
school the next day, I deftly slip the car back into Howie's desk
without being noticed. Second graders are so easy. I'm the last
person they'd suspect would steal anything. I'm a good little Jewish
boy who keeps to himself and does his assignments. Hardly there
at all. No one knows about my father's accident. Everything seems
just fine. I could have kept the car and no one would have known
better, but that thing was a mirror of my emptiness now, a tin reminder
of who I wasn't that I couldn't afford to have around. 
