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Italian ancestors. Life was governed by polar opposites, I decided, as proved by the stark contrast between the Shit House and the Whitney mansion. Things and people were either perfectly bad, or perfectly good, and when life didn’t obey this black-or-white rule, when things or people were complex or contradictory, I pretended otherwise. I turned every defeat into a disaster, every success into an epic triumph, and separated all people into heroes or villains. Unable to bear ambiguity, I built a barricade of delusions against it.

    My other delusions were more obvious and therefore more troubling to my mother. I became extravagantly superstitious, collecting phobias as other boys collected baseball cards. I avoided ladders and black cats, threw salt over my shoulder, knocked on wood, held my breath walking past cemeteries. So determined was I not to step on a crack, for fear of breaking my mother’s back, that I weaved down the sidewalk like a drunk. I spoke “magic” words three times to ward off dangers, and watched for signs and omens from on high. While listening for my father’s voice I also listened for the voice of the universe. I communed with rocks and trees and inanimate objects, especially the T-Bird. Like a horse whisperer I petted its dashboard and begged it to keep running. If the T-Bird broke down, I worried, my mother would break down. Irrational fears hounded me, and the worst was the fear of being the last one to fall asleep in Grandpa’s house. If everyone but me was asleep, I felt unbearably alone, and my limbs went cold and rigid. It may have had something to do with the absence of all voices. When I confided this fear to my cousin Sheryl, five years older than I, she put her arm around me and said the perfect thing. “Even if we’re all asleep you can be sure Uncle Charlie and everyone down at Dickens will be awake.”

    My mother hoped I’d outgrow my odd behavior. Instead I grew worse, and when I began throwing tantrums she took me to a child psychiatrist.

    “What’s the boy’s name?” the psychiatrist asked as my mother and I settled into chairs across from his desk. He was jotting notes on a legal pad.

    “JR,” my mother said.

    “His real name.”

    “JR.”

    “Those are his initials, no?”

    “No.”

    “Well.” The psychiatrist dropped his legal pad on his desk. “There’s your answer.”

    “Pardon?” my mother said.

    “The boy is obviously suffering an identity crisis. He has no identity, which causes rage. Give him a name—a
proper
name—and you’ll have no more tantrums.”

    Rising, my mother told me to put my jacket back on, we were leaving. She then gave the psychiatrist a look that could have cracked Shelter Rock in two and in measured tones informed him that seven-year-olds do not suffer identity crises. Driving back to Grandpa’s she gripped the steering wheel tightly and ran through her repertoire in three-quarter time. Suddenly she stopped singing. She asked what I thought of the doctor’s remarks. Did I dislike my name? Did I suffer from an identity crisis? Was something or someone causing me to feel—rage?

    I peeled my eyes from the mansions flying by, turned slowly from the window to my mother, and gave her my own blank face.

     

 

    four
| GRANDPA

    I T HIT ME ONE DAY. I REALIZED THAT MY MOTHER WASN’T offended so much by Grandpa’s house as by its owner. The needed repairs saddened her because they reminded her of the man who refused to make them. Catching her glance in Grandpa’s direction, then seeing her sink into a bottomless gloom, I got it, though I assumed her problem with Grandpa had something to do with how he looked.

    Along with his house, Grandpa let himself go to pot. He wore pants with patches, shoes with holes, shirts wet with his saliva and leavings from his breakfast, and he went days without combing his hair or putting in his teeth or bathing. He used and reused his razor so many times that his cheeks looked as if