"Massah Kaplan! You gots to learn to take what you can git when you can git it!" the nurse told the swaddled newborn as she carted him back to the baby ward in his bassinette, unfed. My son, even then, seemed disappointed in his mother, gazing off into the distance, refusing eye-contact, wailing through his diaper change, and lastly refusing my proffered breast.
That is the scene I see behind yesterday's, when our son turned thirty-one. Happy Birthday, Abram, my shining, July 4th sparkster!
My husband had gone to the train station to pick him up, when I noticed the long awaited download of Abram's first song album had arrived via email. I wanted to hear the new songs during this brief alone time. As the song list appeared on the screen, I felt I was witnessing a birth, three years in gestation. We'd paid thousands of dollars in "doctors' bills" - the engineers' fees, the audio time, the producer, the album cover and the mastering. Now I was pushing a button to access my new grandchild - this long-promised ten song album, untitled, but with "Izaac" on the cover, after our son's middle name.
Song after song, Abram's breathy Tom Waitz/Captain Beefheart-meets-Regina-Spector voice sent rays of recognition and pain radiating through me - cut #3 - "Bourbon and Cocaine" describes blow by blow (excuse the pun) how to process cocaine on a mirrored surface and snort it off a sex partner's intimate parts. Cut #1 - "Grown-ass Little Boy" points the finger at his father for not having taught him how to be a man. Cut #10 is the cruelest cut of all: "Lampshade Blues" equates being sent away to a program for drug-abusing teens with our ancestors having been deported to death camps in WW II Europe. He might as well have titled the album: How to kill your parents in ten easy pieces.
The dog barked, announcing Abram's arrival, and I quickly shut down the computer. He couldn't help noticing the look on my face as I got up to hug him and wish him a Happy Birthday.
"Mom! I'm an artist and a writer, and all I was trying to do was craft a good song. Don't take it as autobiography - It's not about me!"
"My dad wasn't there, but he taught me to hustle"
"My mom was so sensitive she sent me away, but she taught me to feel, to feel, to feel...." These snatches of
syncopated, sock-it-to-me sorrowful irony swelled and reverberated like sloshing water on my brain.
"Oh, Mom! Were you listening to it on the computer? You should get Dad to play it for you on the good stereo speakers."
"Oh, I will!" I promise. "Congratulations, Abram. I hope you get a lot of great feedback. Your voice is unique.
I've never heard anything like it!" I say what is true, in bright tones that I hope mask the tough time I am having.
At dinner that evening I order lollipop lamb chops, medium rare. The family converses. Later, I look at my plate and at the prone carcasses spooning against one another there. Bits of pink flesh are still attached to the bones. I can't remember picking them up, tearing at the flesh with my teeth or the satisfaction of chewing and swallowing the meat. I only know I'm still hungry, aching for a sweet desert.
"To feel, to feel, to feel.... She taught me to..."
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