The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [115]
A few weeks after the incident in the supermarket, Buster came home from school to find his parents blasting thrash metal and dancing so furiously that it was as embarrassing to Buster as if he’d walked in on them having sex. “Buster!” they both shouted over the music when they saw him standing in the hallway. His mother walked over and then led him into the living room. The table was covered with candy bars. This was how his parents celebrated, loud music and sugar. Buster knew something was going to happen, and he simply waited for his parents to show him how he fit into the dangerously unstable structure they had finally designed.
“Look at this,” his father said when things had calmed down. Buster sat between his parents on the sofa, eating his third candy bar, this one filled, somehow, with two different consistencies of caramel. His parents handed him an article from the New York Times titled “Burning Down the House.” In the photo that accompanied the article, there was a close-up of a man holding a lit match while standing on the doorstep of a house. It seemed that the man, a performance artist named Daniel Harn, intended to burn down his house and everything in it, a statement regarding materialism and the cruelty of nature. His house, all the memories inside of it, would be reduced to ash, all in the name of art.
“We’re going to burn our house down?” Buster said.
“No,” shouted his father. “Jesus, no. I would never steal another artist’s idea. Especially one this bad.”
“Buster,” his mother began, “this Harn character is trying to create this spectacle, but it’s as dull as any typical piece of art. He’s telling everyone about it in advance. He’s inviting an audience to come to upstate New York with the understanding that they will see his house burn down. He’s telling them what to think about it before it happens.”
“That’s not art,” his father continued. “It’s an art show. The work has already been done.”
“So, will we put out the fire?” Buster asked.
“That’s not bad,” his mother admitted, “but we have a better idea.”
“Much, much, much better,” his father said, sugar high, starting to laugh. Then his mother started to laugh. And they were laughing with such vigor, so genuinely moved, that Buster tried it out, to see what it felt like. He laughed and laughed and, though he did not yet know what the joke was, he hoped it would be worth the effort he’d already put into enjoying it.
During their next phone call, Buster told Annie about the proposed Fang performance, the burning house, their parents’ plan.
“You don’t have to do what they tell you to do,” she reminded him.
“You don’t have to do what they tell you to do,” he replied. “I still have to live with them. And I want to do it. At least this way, I’m part of it. They have some affection for me. If not, I’m just this guy in their house.”
“That’s not how people are supposed to feel about their children.”
“I’m just taking pictures anyways,” he continued. “I am in no danger of getting arrested.”
“Be careful,” she told him.
“It won’t be the same without you,” he said.
“It will be,” she replied. “It will be as awful as it always is.” Neither one of them spoke for a few seconds, and then Annie said, “I am finding myself wishing I was there, all of a sudden.” She hung up the phone, as if she did not want to discuss that feeling any further, and Buster was left on the other end of the line, still holding the phone to his ear, thinking that if he listened hard enough he could still hear his sister in Los Angeles, rehearsing her lines, clearly enunciating every syllable.
Three weeks later, Buster was in Woodstock, New York, wishing he’d brought a heavier coat, holding a Leica R4 camera that he wasn’t quite sure how to operate, waiting for some guy to burn down his house. He was sitting with about eighty to one hundred other people, folding chairs set up a safe distance from the house, the youngest person by far in the audience. There seemed to be a mix of New York artist types and