Crazy

To: condorboy

Subject: ART!

Holy shit, Connor!

I just made the best art I’ve ever made in my whole life! Screw those stupid watercolors and wood prints I did this summer. Child’s play! Well, to be honest, I didn’t actually get to finish, and it doesn’t actually exist anymore, but the IDEA was awesome and that’s what really counts, right?

So my mom was pissing me off as usual because she was trying to convince me that being a business major is the only way to go, and I was like, “Do you even know who I am?” and she started complaining about how a degree in fine arts or creative writing is totally worthless, and then I said, “What about a double-major in fine arts and creative writing?” which I thought was pretty funny, but she started screaming about me not taking anything seriously, so I started screaming about her taking everything too seriously, and my dad was trying to calm us down, but neither of us ever takes him seriously, so she said, “Go to your room,” and Dad said, “What about dinner?” and I said, “I don’t need dinner,” and Mom said, “She doesn’t need dinner,” all at the same time. So I went up to my room and started kicking things and ripping up all the paper I could find, and that’s when I got my brilliant idea.

So I went into my mom’s office and found the files where she keeps all the bank statements and stock reports and every stupid piece of paper with dollar signs on it that she saves so lovingly, and I don’t think she ever saved a piece of my artwork like that, all the pictures I drew in kindergarten, the little crayon scribbles normal parents proudly display on the fridge or tuck away safely in a cherished box. Some parents have torn-out coloring-book pages; my mom has papers that tell her how much money she’s made, and she loves those things like they came from inside of her. So, naturally, I had to take them. I went through the whole room and found all the papers I could find, and I carried the big stack to my room and just started tearing everything up, all of it into little jagged pieces, and I think it took me hours, but when I was done I had a pile of fluffy white paper, and it looked so innocent like that, all torn up, like it never had the power it once did, like it could never have been so cruel. It was this brand-new soft thing, devoid of meaning, nothing but texture.

My mom was in bed, asleep, and my dad was in the den watching TV, so nobody noticed me take the blender from the kitchen. My music was so loud that nobody noticed the sound of the paper and water in the blender being turned into pulp. And the paper was transformed yet again; now it was a big lump of drenched, heavy mush, with this nice, sweet, earthy smell, and I wadded it up into balls and squeezed the water into my trash can; I squeezed with all the strength I could, all the energy that was sizzling inside me, and it made this gray chunky soup that almost looked delicious. Then I took the screen off my window and used my stupid Economics textbook to press the balls into the screen, squeezing the rest of the water into my carpet, the 100% wool top-of-the-line carpet my mom is so proud of, and I pressed and pressed until it was as dry as it could be, and I was just about to start sculpting with it, I was going to make a paper sculpture of my mom, I was going to let it dry and become hard and strong, and then I was going to spray it with a hose so it’d get mushy all over again and fall apart and my mom would be reduced to nothing; all her money would be shapeless, ugly mush.

That was the rest of my plan, anyway, but I never got to do it. Because of course my mom couldn’t sleep, because she was thinking about money, so she had to get up and go to her office, and what did she find but empty files and all her papers gone, so of course she freaked out, and of course she barged into my room and found me drenched and covered with pulp, and big puddles on the expensive carpet, and clumps of mush stuck in various places around the room, and she had a sort of meltdown while I just sat there trying to sculpt, and I thought for a second how thoughtful it was for her to come model for the sculpture, but then she tore wet paper out of my hand, grabbed everything she could find that I might want and threw it into the hallway. She was screaming her head off, all sorts of things coming out of her mouth, but the only thing I could really hear was “What the hell is wrong with you?” and that stuck with me for some reason because I was wondering the same thing myself.

So needless to say, I’m in trouble. I’m “grounded,” apparently, which is something new they’re trying out, and I don’t think they quite know how it works because they didn’t actually think to mention what I’m grounded from. My dad suggested I go to therapy, but that just started a new fight between them about my mom basically saying, “Oh yeah? Who exactly is going to pay for this therapy, huh? Not you, obviously, since you haven’t had a job in six months.” And then it wasn’t about me anymore. I’m not worried because I know they’d never make me go to a therapist. It would require too much work on their part to actually find one and make appointments and so on. So things will probably continue as normal, except they’ll probably give me the silent treatment for a while, which is perfectly fine with me.