The Uninnocent by Bradford Morrow

Author:Bradford Morrow
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781605982656
Publisher: Pegasus
Published: 2011-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

ALL THE THINGS THAT ARE WRONG WITH ME

AS YOU KNOW, we were each told to write an honest essay about the things that are wrong with us, and this one is mine. Having read over my charming masterpiece, I wouldn’t wish the life it sketches on my worst enemy, of which I have more than my share. We were instructed by our therapist, Bruce—I doubt that’s his real name—to explore what each of us considers our worst personal failings, and if possible identify the genesis, as Bruce put it, of these vices, taking care not to allow ourselves to vent animosity toward others in the group or toward those who had been the bane of our lives over the years. I can’t have been alone in considering this a damn tough assignment, but I have done my best. Looking back, the hardest part of fulfilling the task at hand was to limit the essay to only seven things wrong with me. My original list, probably like yours, ran into the hundreds. Narrowing it down was a frustrating job, but I suspect this was the idea. Reverse psychology, they used to call it, the counterintuitive approach. By processing just seven of our faults, one each day of the week, we’d recognize that these were merely the tip of the iceberg in the overall scheme of faults, and also discover, by thinking about it so thoroughly, some glimpses of the possible good that lurked in each of our rotten hearts. I’m sure this has been a learning experience for the rest of you, too.

By way of introduction, my father was Bill. My mother is Irene. My sister was Christy and my other sister is Jocelyn. My one grandmother is Honey and my two grandfathers are Wilfred and Paul. My dead grandmother I never met, her name was Nancy, though my family rarely spoke about her because they say she wasn’t nice and made a calculated marriage with my grandfather Paul, who is a heart specialist and the one success story in our otherwise pathetic gang. There is an uncle named Hamp, which is short for Hampton, and he is a crabby old drummer in a dated lounge act heard every Monday and Thursday down in Staten Island somewhere. I had an Aunt Janice and Uncle Arnie at one point, but they disavowed me, as have my cousin Bill and another cousin I never met, whose name is Claudia to the best of my knowledge. To clarify, Christy is dead and her widower is serving three consecutive life sentences for the murder of her half-wit boyfriend, Bill—yes, a ton of Bills in my life—Bill’s stepmother, Addie, and my older sister herself. Hanged them in the garage. For the record, if you’re taking notes, my name is John.

My father, first. We never got along and the fault must lie with me, because he was such a stellar human being, just ask him yourself. He tried hard to be the perfect dad, but I couldn’t get with the program.

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