One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell [43]
The fight had gone out of James. “I don’t know,” he said. He slumped.
“What’s going on?” a voice asked. Mindy and James looked up. Their son, Sam, had come into the apartment and was standing in the door to Mindy’s office.
“We were just talking,” Mindy said.
“What about?” Sam asked.
“Your mother was on Snarker,” James said.
“I know.” Sam shrugged.
“Sit down,” James said. “How do you feel about it?”
“I don’t feel anything at all,” Sam said.
“You’re not feeling…traumatized?”
“No.”
“Your mother’s feelings are hurt.”
“That’s your generation. Kids my age don’t get hurt feelings. It’s just drama. Everyone’s on their own reality show. The more drama you have, the more people pay attention to you. That’s all.”
James and Mindy Gooch looked at each other, thinking the same thing: Their son was a genius! What other thirteen-year-old boy had such insights into the human condition?
“Enid Merle wants me to help her with her computer,” Sam said.
“No,” Mindy said.
“Why?”
“I’m angry at her.”
“Leave Sam out of it,” James said.
“Can I go?” Sam asked.
“Yes,” James said. When Sam left the room, he continued on his diatribe. “Reality TV, blogging, commentators, it’s the culture of the parasite.” Immediately, he wondered why he said these things. Why couldn’t he embrace the new? This new human being who was self-centered and rabidly consumerist?
Sam Gooch bore the harsh marks of budding adolescence and the scars of being a New York City kid. He wasn’t innocent. He’d stopped being innocent between the ages of two and four, when he was applauded for making adult remarks. Mindy would often repeat his remarks to her coworkers, followed by the tagline (always delivered with appropriate awe): “How could he know such things! He’s only [fill in the blank].”
Now, at thirteen, Sam also worried that he knew too much. Sometimes he felt world-weary and often wondered what would happen to him; certainly, things would happen to him, things happened to kids in New York City. But he also knew he didn’t have the same advantages as the other children with whom he consorted. He lived in one of the best buildings in the Village but in the worst apartment in that building; he wasn’t taken out of school to go to Kenya for three weeks; he’d never had a birthday party at the Chelsea Piers; he had never gone to see his father play lead guitar in a rock concert at Madison Square Garden. When Sam went out of town, it was always to stay at the country houses of kids with wealthier and more accomplished parents than his own. His dad urged him to go for the “experience,” clinging to the quaint notion that part of being a writer was about having all kinds of experiences in life, although his dad didn’t seem to have many experiences of his own. Now Sam had had some experiences he wished he hadn’t had, mostly concerning girls. They wanted something he didn’t know how to give. What they wanted, Sam suspected, was constant attention. When he went out of town to the country houses, the parents left the kids to their own devices. The boys posed and the girls acted crazy. At some point, there was crying. When he got home, he was exhausted, as if he’d lived two years in two days.
His mother would be waiting for him. After an hour or two would come the inevitable question: “Sam, did you write a thank-you note?” “No, Mom, it’s embarrassing.” “No one was ever embarrassed to get a thank-you note.” “I’m embarrassed to write one.” “Why?” “Because no one else has to write thank-you notes.” “They’re not as well brought up as you are, Sam. Someday you’ll see. Someone will remember that you wrote them a thank-you note and give you a job.” “I’m not going to work for anyone.” And then his mother would hug him. “You’re so smart, Sammy. You’re going to run the world someday.”
And so Sammy became a computer whiz, which impressed his parents and all other adults born before 1985. “Sam was on the Internet before he could talk!” his mother boasted.
At six, having been admitted to one of New York