did I tell you, we’re getting married next week?” Now his head is starting to ache.
“OK, OK, forget I said anything.” Clark waves himself from the room.
Robin whips his head around to Dorothy. “God, I hate when he says that. He knows she’s not my girlfriend. I’m immature enough to have a girl just be a friend, you know.”
“You mean mature, dear. Not immature.”
“That’s what I said.”
“No, that’s not what you said.”
“I know what I said, Mom. I’m the one who said it.”
Dorothy glares at him. “When you make a mistake you ought to be big enough to admit it.”
Robin kicks back his chair and stands up. He raises his voice. “Why are you all of a sudden on my case?”
“You really are watching too much television,” she says angrily. “‘On my case.’ Is that another thing from the Fonz?”
“It happens to be from Welcome Back, Kotter,” Robin barks back.
“Another wellspring of culture.” Dorothy points a finger at Robin, her voice raised. “This is your notice: there will be far less TV watching now that school is starting.”
Robin begins walking from the room, twisting sideways as he steps past her. “I could care less.”
As he makes his way across the living room floor, his mother shouts, “The phrase is, I couldn’t care less.” He stamps his feet on every step toward his bedroom. His mother’s irritated shout follows him, echoing through the house. “Did you hear me, Robin? I couldn’t care less.”
A half hour later, Robin is sitting on the roof outside his bedroom window—his head pounding as he comes down off the high of the drive-in and the buzzing chaos in the kitchen. He stares across the lawn to the Spicers’ house. On the top floor, a gable juts out, with a dormer window that leads to the attic. Todd has claimed this space for his bedroom. Robin tries to discern Todd in the shadows swimming behind the curtains.
“Mind if I join you?”
He jumps at the sound of his father’s voice. Clark’s already making his way onto the roof, squeezing his lanky frame through Robin’s bedroom window. Robin doesn’t answer the question, because he does mind. He minds very much when anyone, even Jackson, climbs out onto this little patch of shingles. It’s like having someone break into his clubhouse.
“Tight squeeze,” Clark says, landing awkwardly on the roof. “Good thing I’m jogging. Working off that spare tire.” He pats his stomach, a gentle curve under his tank top. “Yessiree, Buck.”
Yessiree, Buck—it’s right up there with “accident, my elbow.” Where does his father come up with this stuff? And what’s he doing out here anyway? Robin stares straight ahead; the less he says, the sooner his father will leave.
“Thirty-seven years old, sitting at a desk all day. Walking to the train was about the most exercise—”
“Jogging’s boring,” Robin interrupts. “Just the same thing over and over.”
“You have to admit, it’s getting very popular. When your uncle Stan and I are out at the track the place is packed. There’s plenty of teenagers there, too. You should come along.”
Robin rolls his eyes. Is that what this is about? Cornering him on the roof for an athletic pep talk? “Maybe you can get Jackson to jog with you,” he says, effectively stalling the conversation. The easiest way to derail his father’s expectations is to shift them onto Jackson. It’s always been this way. Robin only lasted a year in Cub Scouts before it became clear to everyone involved that it wasn’t for him; the only thing worse than his father’s silent disappointment was the prospect of another season of Pinewood Derbies and Wilderness Camp-o-rees. Jackson does all that stuff willingly. And Robin sees the way Jackson brings out something vibrant in his father: they’re hosing down the car in the driveway and next thing you know there’s a swell of playful shouting and a water fight going on. Or they’re watching a Giants game on TV and tossing popcorn in the air for some last minute touchdown, or wrestling in the backyard as if they’re both eleven years old. Every now and then Clark still tosses a ball Robin’s way, at which point Robin tosses it to Jackson and leaves.
Clark clears his throat. “OK, look. Forget what I said before. In the kitchen. About Victoria. That was just teasing, but now you’re mad.” Robin bites his lower lip and doesn’t reply. Clark continues, quickly. “Serves me right, butting in like that. That’s the kind of stuff you don’t need, I know. I know, I know. My father was pushing girlfriends at me for years before I was interested, and here I am doing the same thing to you and you’re only fourteen!”
“I’m thirteen,” Robin says.
“I didn’t really get serious about girls until your mother. Or just before your mother.” He slaps the heel of his palm hard against his forehead. “Geez.”
Robin smiles despite himself. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“No, this is important. You’re going off to high school tomorrow. So, you know, just as a reminder—if you have any questions, the man-to-man type, just ask. I know you and your mother are closer, but feel free, don’t be shy—” He pauses. “So what do you say?”
What am I supposed to say? Robin wonders. A tinge of panic sends his leg bouncing. He is keenly aware of his father’s impatient breathing, his father next to him, just waiting. Robin finally blurts out, “I know about the facts of life. That’s what they teach us in health.”
“Oh, of course, right. That’s great.” Clark falls silent; Robin can’t be sure if his father is relieved or disappointed to close the discussion. After a moment, Clark says, “I’d like to get a bigger house,” with such certainty it seems to be the solution to all his worries. “If we had a bigger house you could have your own room. A young man should have his own room. I’ve been meaning to build the swimming pool, too, but maybe we should just knock down the living room wall and build an extra bedroom into the backyard.” He opens his arms wide, as if the land below stretched out for acres.
Robin nods, trying to keep up. “Jackson probably wants a swimming pool more than he wants his own room,” he says, but his father keeps talking, almost over his words.
“When you’re young you don’t really know what you’ll need when you’re older, or even who you’ll be. My father used to tell me, if you want to be a man at night, you have to be a man in the morning. I didn’t realize he meant six A.M., every morning, on the train, off to work. You probably don’t know this, but I didn’t expect to be in sales. I liked science in school. I wanted to work for the space program. I never thought I’d have a teenage son—I just thought about having little kids, if I even thought about it at all. Not kids with growing pains.”
Clark drops his head in his hands. Robin is speechless with discomfort. It’s like one of those moments when his father comes out of the bathroom and the ripe stench of his shit floats out into the hallway after him—you want to ignore it, but it’s right there in your face. You can only pretend to ignore it, just like he can only pretend his father isn’t slipping into some kind of—what’s it called?—midlife crisis before his eyes.
“Uh, I’ll be OK, Dad,” he says at last.
“Yeah, you will. You’ll be a lady-killer, and a big success. All in good time.” He rises, brushing dirt from his bare legs. Robin’s eyes glance at his father’s running shorts, bunched up to reveal the lopsided package of his genitals. Does his father wear underwear under those shorts? Maybe, Robin thinks with some discomfort, maybe he wears one of those supporter things—a jock strap. It’s embarrassing to think about his father this way, even though that’s kind of what his father was referring to: his thing. If you have any questions about your thing, you can ask me, man to man. Without thinking, he moves his eyes back to Todd’s window, where