T A B L E__T A L K Do you volunteer in your kids' classes or coach one of their teams? Do you have time? Share your tales in the Mothers area of Table Talk. - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Who needs dad?
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+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + A little over a year ago, our family did a rather difficult thing. Having spent our whole lives (42 years, in my case) in the state of New Hampshire -- and ready to broaden our horizons -- we packed up our essential belongings, sold the rest at a yard sale (along with our six-bedroom Victorian house) and moved to a town in Northern California we'd picked for no other reason than because a lot of people told me this would be a great place to live. I don't think I fully acknowledged at the time what a traumatic event this was for all of us. The fact that I'd wanted this move didn't change the deep sense of loss I felt, and continue to feel, at having left behind virtually my whole history and nearly everything I held dear, excepting my family and our dog. But in those first weeks and months after the move, I was just so busy unpacking boxes and applying for earthquake insurance and a California driver's license -- so busy making sure my children were OK, above all -- I didn't even let myself feel any of this. I was numb, actually. For me, as a rule, no day is complete without a little crying over something. But for two months, during the period when we were dismantling our life in New Hampshire and the period that we were setting up our new life in California, I never shed a tear. In the months that have followed, my sons have made lots of friends. So have I. But back when we first got here, I found myself spending a lot more time with my sons than a parent of teenage boys generally would, and going to places not usually frequented by 43-year-old mothers. One such place -- which my boys consider one of the best places on earth -- is a spot near Fisherman's Wharf known as Q-Zar. The idea at Q-Zar is that you pay $7 and they bring you into a room with a bunch of other people, mostly boys around my sons' ages (early teens), where you're put on one of two teams and equipped with Day-glo plastic shields and a gun that looks roughly like an Uzi. After an orientation lecture, you enter into a dark maze of a room with all these other players. You activate your gun by setting it onto a machine that sends some kind of charge through it. Then you set off into the maze, with the purpose of shooting laser rays at players on the opposing team, racking up points and trying to avoid getting shot yourself. You know every time you're shot because the front panel on your shield starts to vibrate and glow. I knew the instant I set foot in the place that I was going to hate it. The room was very dark, number one, and smelled of french fries. Loud music playing and flashing lights -- I could feel the beginnings of a headache. I was placed on a team with a bunch of boys who had all come together -- a birthday party, most likely, of roughly 7- or 8-year-olds. Not only was I older than anybody else in the room by about a quarter century, I was the only woman. Something happens when you place a gun in the hands of a boy. Even a toy gun at a Q-Zar arcade. So rather than try to energize my gun ahead of my young and bloodthirsty teammates, I let them race past me when it was time to commence the game, figuring I'd go at my own slower pace. But when the time came to set my gun down on the energizer, a disturbing event occurred: The gun wouldn't energize. I tried repeatedly to get it to light up, but without success. I stood there for several minutes, feeling increasing frustration as other players now swarmed around, zapping wildly. My shield wouldn't stop vibrating. The music throbbed, or maybe it was my head. Now my teammates were returning to the energizer themselves to re-energize their guns, and there I was, still standing over the machine trying to get my gun to work. Precious minutes passed. My teammates were getting upset with me. One of them actually slammed his gun on my wrist. Another pushed me aside. "Hey Mom," a voice called out to me. I turned around, only to see the just-barely familiar face of my younger son, with a gun barrel pointed squarely at my shield. Bang. Now here is the part that's difficult to tell. I fell apart. I stood there, my heart pounding under my vibrating shield. I felt panic and self-pity and a desperate need to get out of this place, fast. And for some reason, at that moment, I thought about a certain waterfall in New Hampshire, just down the road from a house we used to live in, where I'd take walks with my children, and a stream flowing into it, where we used to sail paper boats. In the hallway -- still holding onto my gun -- I was met by the young manager of the Q-Zar establishment. "There must be something wrong with your gun," she told me. "We'll get you another one." "I want my money back," I wept. And then I am ashamed to say I let loose with an explosion of rage. "We'll let you play another game," the manager said, but that was the last thing I wanted now. "I want my money back," I said again. Not that this was really about money, of course. "OK," the manager said. She handed me my money. Once I started crying, I couldn't stop. Once I started crying, in fact, the tears came harder, to the point where my whole body was shaking, as if I'd I'd been facing a firing squad, not a bunch of 7-year-olds with laser zappers. I wept so hard I couldn't speak. It wasn't just the gunfire anymore that I was crying about. Suddenly my whole life swirled around me: the unfamiliar California freeways; the iris bulbs I'd had to dig up and give to friends; the goldfish in my goldfish pond; my sons' trampoline, back at our old house, that was always filled with jumping kids; my neighbor, Nancy, coming across the street on summer evenings for pie. I didn't talk about any of this to the manager of Q-Zar, of course. I just yelled about my malfunctioning gun and demanded a refund. Amazingly enough, though I'd just finished berating her for the incompetence of her whole operation, the young manager of the Q-Zar arcade put an arm around my shoulder. "Come into my office," she said. "I'll get you some water." For the next 20 minutes -- the duration of a Q-Zar game -- I sat there with the muffled sound of gunfire and rap music coming through the walls, drinking my water and talking to Melissa Lim, age 23. We talked about California and single parenthood, love, friends, fog on the Golden Gate Bridge, love affairs, breakups, houses, gardens, moving. "I've actually been happy here," I told Melissa Lim. "It's just that everything's so different." After a while, when I was calm again, Melissa mentioned that today was a two-for-one day at Q-Zar, which meant my sons would be getting a second game. "I want you to go back in there and play this time," she said. "I know you can do it. I'll help you." She led me into the gun room in advance and picked out what she said was the best gun. She helped me on with my shield. We energized the gun together. No problem. Round 2 began. I won't say I got hooked on Q-Zar, but this time I had a perfectly fine time playing. Charlie and Willy, who were totally into the game, had noticed my absence during the first round, but chalked the whole thing up to what they consider the occasional mystery and incomprehensibility of all mothers' behavior. Although it had been a couple of months since I'd cried -- a mysterious occurrence in itself -- they had seen me cry often enough that the sight doesn't alarm them any more than the sight of clouds passing over the sun and momentarily darkening the sky. "I bet I'm the only kid whose mother ever had a nervous breakdown at Q-Zar," Willy said as we were leaving. Perhaps he's right. But only, as I told him, because most of the other mothers know enough not to go there in the first place. "I know, I know," he said, anticipating the speech that would come next. "How many other mothers do we see driving around California with New Hampshire license plates ..." One less than there used to be. I replaced my "Live Free or Die"
plates the next morning.
Joyce Maynard is a commentator for National Public Radio. Her most recent novel is "Where Love Goes" (Vintage paperback). |
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