Read Online The Child by Sarah Schulman - Free Book Online Page A

of him. I’m afraid he’s going to hit me.”
    “Are you talking about your husband or your son?”
    Stew laughed.
    “Why is he laughing, Doc?” Marty squirmed. “It’s not normal.” Marty stared at Stew. “What’s wrong with you? You think this is
a joke?” He pointed at his son and then looked up sideways at Wisotscky for approval. It was like Wisotscky was the daddy, and Marty, the little family tattletale.
    Carole put her hand on her father’s shoulder. She was behind him one thousand percent. “Go ahead, Daddy. Tell the doctor.”
    Actually, Wisotscky was not a doctor. He was a certified social worker. But he did not correct Mr. and Mrs. Mulcahey. It made his clients feel more secure in his office if they carried the illusion that he was an MD. Most of the people of Van Buren Township were not aware of the various possibilities within professional categories. Wisotscky softened his face into a more cinematically fatherly disposition. It was what everybody wanted him to be and helped encourage transference.
    “Are you feeling depressed, Stew? Tell me, because there are other alternatives.”
    “He’s not the only one.” Brigid gave a big gasp now and put her hand on her forehead. To Wisotscky she looked like the Irish washerwomen of his youth back in Ashtabula, Ohio.
    “What do you think is the solution? Mr. and Mrs. Mulcahey?”
    “Well, we’ve been talking it over.” Marty looked at his wife. “And we think he’d be better off in a juvenile home, some kind of reform school or military camp. Some place where he’d learn a lot of discipline, like I did in the army. I figure after a few weeks of that he’ll appreciate us more and will learn how to behave. Nothing permanent, Stewie. Just long enough to help.”
    Brigid nodded. “We both agree.”
    “We all agree.” Carole was the royal guard.
    “Stewie,” Brigid tried to smile. “It’s just temporary. I’m afraid,
Doctor, that he won’t understand. That he’ll grow to resent us.”
    “Mommy, I resent you already,” Carole said. “For not doing anything.”
    “Shut up.” Stew looked at the floor.
    Dan leaned toward Brigid compassionately. “Why do you let him talk to you that way?”
    “I can’t stop him.”
    “Tell me a little bit about yourself, Mrs. Mulcahey. What do you do for a living?”
    “I work at Soto’s Insurance.”
    “Like it?”
    “No.”
    “Have you thought about getting a new job?”
    “If I ever lost my job, I’d never find another. Who wants an old hag who doesn’t know computers? I hate computers. They’ve ruined everybody’s life.”
    Stew laughed. “I don’t feel sorry for you.”
    “Well, you should.”
    “Brigid, why should he feel sorry for you?”
    Mr. Mulcahey looked at his son. Wisotscky could tell that the father was nervous. “My wife and I had some problems. But now they’re straightened out.”
    “My father had a girlfriend.”
    Marty blew up. “You make everybody’s life miserable!” He looked around, humiliated. “You think I like sitting here? You think I like taking time off from work? You’re like a crazy, sick person. You are the problem. You are wrong, kid. You’re a wrong kid. You hear what I’m telling you? I don’t know what else to do.”

    Wisotscky let the requisite moment of silence pass and then did his thing.
    “Stew, it sounds like you’ve made your father pretty angry. Why do you think your father is so angry?”
    Stew was so angry he couldn’t talk. He pressed his teeth together ferociously in order to keep from saying anything that could be called inappropriate, thereby sealing the lid on the box he was backing into.
    Wisotscky noted repressed rage at father on his pad.
    Stew balled up his fists to keep from crying at his father’s comments. His position was untenable. There was a limit, Wisotscky knew, to how much Stew could keep under wraps. Eventually he would spill it. Perhaps a short visit to a juvenile detention facility would do the trick. Those