FRESH YARN presents: Large Charge of Completion... by Adam Paul

FRESH YARN presents:

Large Charge of Completion
By Adam Paul

At the front of Mr. Wellenwrighter's 2nd Grade class in 1974, Howie Kramer sits contentedly, a silver Hot Wheels car in his palm. I'm unable to see over his broad shoulders, so I have no idea what he's about to unleash for Show and Tell. Howie ceremonially lifts the car above his head, like a scene from Roots, declaring, "It's called the Large Charge." The toy car's lime-green plastic windows and lightning bolt decals catch the morning sunlight, temporarily blinding me with a flash.

Howie passes it around, cupping it in both hands for each of us to see, not touch. A gleaming wedge of futuristic power, the Large Charge is perhaps the most beautiful thing my seven-year old eyes have ever seen. The rear engine compartment flips up to reveal a sparkling motor and the mag wheels spin as only brand new Hot Wheels can spin, -- smoothly, -- its axle toy-factory-straight. None of my Hot Wheels spin that way anymore. Too much play inevitably scarred the wheels and bent that needle of an axle, rendering the cars useless. All of my Hot Wheels were up on tiny blocks.

I reach for the Large Charge, but Howie's big fat hands snap shut like a giant cartoon clam. I feel woozy. The room bends and wiggles for a moment as I begin to understand something I never understood before: without that car, I am incomplete.

Later that day, in the middle of a reading assignment, a howl erupts from the front of the classroom. Howie, red-faced and sobbing, screams that his car has been stolen. In a panic, he pushes his desk over, dumping its contents on the floor while the class looks on in horror. Through my corduroy pants pocket, the Large Charge feels cold. It sings my name, but I can't even touch it. Something's not right. Howie is leaping around his overturned desk like an unchained ape with snot dripping out of his nose. A troubling thought distracts me: "Who knew Howie was such a pussy?"

The bus ride home is endless. I don't dare remove the car from my pocket yet, not after the interrogation we all endured at the hands of Mr. Wellenwrighter. Normally the coolest teacher in school, Mr. Wellenwrighter had come unhinged over this missing car thing. He kept repeating something about integrity and honesty, that Nixon was the end of the line and he wouldn't let any of us turn out to be crooks. He made the class open their desks then walked slowly up and down the aisles with Howie -- who was still sobbing and shaking his head -- as every desk they passed (including mine) turned up car-less. When the bell rang, Mr. Wellenwrighter looked truly confused. "Go home," he muttered to all of us. We got on our respective busses. Mine takes too many turns, and I feel carsick.

I run into the house where my mother is sitting on the sofa watching a soap opera and talking on the telephone, painting her nails and finishing a cigarette. She's too absorbed to notice me, panting and pale, in the front hall. She and my father are getting divorced. A few weeks earlier I sat on the floor next to my parents' bed early in the morning before school, wondering where my father was. I was used to being an afterthought in my parents' eyes, as invisible as the plant in the living room that only gets watered when it disintegrates, but their physical absence was another thing entirely. Another thing to which I would grow accustomed. Barely awake, my mother held out the phone. "It's him," she mumbled.

"Hello?" I said.

"Hey, buddy," said my father's voice. He sounded tired. "I'm in the hospital."

"No you're not," I said.

"Yeah, I am."

"Are you sick?"

"I was in a car accident," he explained.

"Can I see you?" I ask.

"Pretty soon," he says. Then: "Your mother and I are getting a divorce."

"Can I see you?"

My father would remain in the hospital for three months. His Jaguar slammed into a bridge on an icy road. Another woman was in the car with him. It was a true penis car. A fire engine red E-Type Series III V-12 with the long front end and wire wheels. No older than myself, the car was already a classic. When it hit the bridge, the whole front end collapsed around my father, reducing the car's length by more than half. It was gone forever. And in many ways, so was he. Although he survived the crash, his mid-70's divorce heralded for him a prolific period of drugs and sex and parties that would leave very little room for me. But I was a smart little boy. I could see what was coming.

The basement of my house is cool, damp and dark. I pull the Large Charge out of my pocket, but something's very wrong. The chrome is a matte grey, the lightning bolt decal is scratched off in some places and when I roll it over my palm I can feel the axle is bent. How? How can this be? At school it was perfect. But alone in my home, as I kneel in prayer to it on the basement floor, it might as well be a car I already have. A worthless piece of metal and plastic that leaves me unfinished. It's not enough, this Hot Wheels car. It's not enough for me. I'm not enough for me. I'm not enough. I get that carsick feeling again, then throw up on the floor.

At school the next day, I deftly slip the car back into Howie's desk without being noticed. Second graders are so easy. I'm the last person they'd suspect would steal anything. I'm a good little Jewish boy who keeps to himself and does his assignments. Hardly there at all. No one knows about my father's accident. Everything seems just fine. I could have kept the car and no one would have known better, but that thing was a mirror of my emptiness now, a tin reminder of who I wasn't that I couldn't afford to have around.

Not if I was going to pretend to be enough.

Thirty years later in Los Angeles, I'm surfing eBay for a new cell phone. My Razr cell phone is scratched and dented, so I'm giving it to my father, who's a little banged up himself in an assisted living home in Phoenix. He'd been in many car accidents since the one in 1974, but the last one broke his neck. That was after he'd had a stroke induced by his decades-long use of cocaine. The cell phone got dinged when I dropped it the day I bought it. For weeks I'd been coveting the supercool phone, after a friend let me check his out. The phone's shiny finish flashed in the sun, blinding me through my Oliver People's sunglasses. The glasses have a perpetually loose screw on the right stem and a slight scratch on one of the lenses. After seeing them in a movie, I used two credit cards to pay for them. I hated them now for their flaws, and remembered that as I took them off to examine my friend's phone more closely. It was dense, smooth, sleek. When he wasn't looking, I slipped it in my pocket. My legs went rubbery. I remembered from a college course that the ancient Greeks believed the humors of the body could be read outwardly. Thus, the feeling of envy drained one of the blood humor, causing a person to appear pale -- the Greek word for which was Khloros, which also was the word for green. Thus "Green with envy," and thus my weak constitution whenever I was close to becoming complete. My therapist reminded me that just because the Greeks believed it doesn't make it so. He also told me that I was enough, but I didn't believe him.

As I was saying goodbye to my friend, he asked for his phone back, pointing at my pocket.
"Aaaaah! You got me!" I joked. "I didn't think you saw that!"

I handed it back, then raced to the phone store. Then I dropped mine in the parking lot as soon as I got it out of the box.

So it's dented. And my sunglasses are fucked up. And no one on eBay is listing the new phone I want.

I keep surfing, searching for just the right key to unlock the empty vacuum of a room inside me. Long drained of air, of life, of blood. Drained of whatever humor envy consumes. And if I can find that key -- the thing that will complete me -- all that air and life and blood will come rushing back in.

On eBay, the 1974 Hot Wheels Large Charge lists for only $6.80 and I'm already feeling dizzy over it. I type in a $10 offer but stop just short of hitting the "bid now" button when my phone rings.

"Hey, buddy," my father says. The stroke has slurred his speech and his mind. He's like a 64-year-old child. He calls several times a week to complain about the assisted living home, the nurses that are rude to him, his lack of money. Sometimes I pick up, sometimes I don't. "I'm just calling to say Hi," he says.

"Oh. Hi," I reply.

"I had a dream about you last night," he says. "But you were a boy in it."

"Yeah?" I ask

"Yeah. You were a cute kid."

There's silence for a moment as I wait for him to tell me what's wrong with his day, what's incomplete for him. But it sounds like he's just smiling on the other end of the line. I'm suddenly very uncomfortable. When we're talking, we're playing our distant detached roles, as we have for three decades. When there's silence, the masks come off and we're terribly exposed with all our unforgivable flaws. What do I say, what do I do? Click "bid now," that's what, reach for the mouse -- but my father's cough breaks the unbearable silence, stopping my hand.

And then, he says really the most beautiful thing my 38-year-old ears have ever heard. "Can I see you?"