We hadn’t shown one another the letters she’d written us (nor would we ever), but when at last my father, after speaking the greatest number of consecutive words I’d heard from him in weeks, capped things off by mentioning books, I, through the slow-brained fog of my grief, couldn’t help but think that he, toward me, and through his own fog, was trying to reach out in a way that my mother had suggested in his letters, or at least in a way he must have thought she’d suggested. Maybe she’d told him, “Show an interest in the telling of stories,” or maybe she’d told him, “Let him see how you think,” or maybe she’d just said, “Talk to Belt more.”
So, “Let’s watch it,” I said. And “If we like it,” I added, in case my enthusiasm had sounded as inauthentic as it was, “we can watch the reruns when they come on in summer.”
“Good call,” he said. “That could work out good.” And he flipped to ABC, which was airing a teaser for that evening’s 20/20.
In the teaser, a Botimal is standing on a table while a boy in a faded Belinda Carlisle concert T, his eyes obscured by a thick black bar, stands behind the table and starts leaning forward, and the voiceover man says, “Next on 20/20. What is this strange, adorable creature? And what could drive a boy to end its life before a Midwestern audience of middle school children and their horrified parents? Stay tuned to find out at eleven Eastern, ten o’clock Central and Mountain time.”
“Hey, that’s a—wait. He say ‘end its life’?” my father said. “You know who that kid is?”
“I think so,” I said. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Miles. Miles? Not Miles. Niles.”
Though the censor box had done its face-concealing job well, I’d seen the same shirt on a boy called Niles who was in the Friends Study. Not a lot of junior high school–aged boys would admit to their Belinda Carlisle fandom, let alone be willing to advertise it, and so the odds that any boy, in February 1988, would be wearing such a shirt in the company of a Botimal and not be Niles…It had to be Niles.
“Sounds like a jagoff. He’s a pervert or what?” my father asked.
I had little idea what Niles was like. I’d seen him eat a couple of subs at lunch, but we hadn’t ever talked, and I’d never met his Botimal. I hadn’t even known he’d been assigned a Botimal; he wasn’t in my group, but James’s, Group 1.
Of course we stayed tuned once Sledge Hammer! ended (we agreed we’d watch it again in reruns, but weren’t ever able; the show got canceled), and after 20/20 aired the Sandburg Middle School Talent Show segment, my father threw the remote at the wall. “This fucking shitty world,” he said.
I didn’t understand his reaction at first. Niles had done a disturbing, disgusting thing and they’d put it on television, but all sorts of disturbing, disgusting things appeared on television, and most people watched them and found them entertaining—my father and I among those people—so…what? Why so upset? Did he think I was like Niles? Did he think I’d do to my Botimal what Niles had done?
“It’s a robot,” he said. “What do I care what you do to a robot? But I bet there’s some kids who know you have one, right?” he said. “You must’ve showed it to someone from school.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re mad about that?”
“I’m mad because Barbara Walters just told half the world that ‘these truly adorable little robots’ won’t be for sale at stores til spring, and that the only people who have them right now are a few ‘psychotically disturbed’ kids enrolled in the same study as the twisted fucking fruitcake they just showed tearing one in half on a stage. So you listen to me, now, okay? Listen. If anyone at school comes at you saying anything about you being in that study, or having something wrong with you, you have my permission—no. Not just my permission. You have my blessing—in fact, I’m instructing you…Look, you know how to punch. I’ve shown you how to punch. You break their nose. Immediately, Billy. Right on the spot. I don’t care if a teacher’s standing half a foot away. You put a stop to any talk about you right then and there, or you’re gonna have to deal with that shit for the rest of your life.”
“But—”
“But what if it’s a girl, right? Yeah. I know. It’s not so simple. If it’s a girl, you gotta break her boyfriend’s nose. If he isn’t right there, you tell her you’re going to, so everyone can hear, and, by God, you do it before the day’s done. And if she doesn’t have a boyfriend, you tell her you’re gonna break the nose of her best friend’s boyfriend, and then you go do it, and if anyone thinks twice about why, what they’ll think is her best friend’s boyfriend was cheating with the girl who tried to mess with you, see? They’ll think there was a reason you thought he was her boyfriend. That all the contingencies? That’s all of them. Yeah. No junior high girl who can’t land a boyfriend and doesn’t even have a friend who can land a boyfriend is ever gonna mess with you—that kind of girl can’t afford to be a bitch. So we straight on this or what?”
“Yes.” I said.
“Look at me, now. Look at your father. We see eye to eye?”
I said that we did, and I think I even meant it. I never found out, though; I never had cause to do as he’d instructed. The kids at Washington left me alone. I was sure they must have been talking about me—the motherless weirdo who’d murdered the swingsets and was now, officially, sick in the head—and I’d caught a few throwing sad glances my way, but except for a couple of fifth-grade girls who rode on my bus and asked to see Blank (I told them the truth, that I kept it at home, and they returned to their seats, spread the word to their friends), they all kept their distance. They didn’t talk to me, not a single one, not until just before the start of spring break, when Jonboat phoned to invite me to the compound and give him my advice on T-shirt design.
III
PORTFOLIO
On Private Viewing
Jonny Pellmore-Jason, Jr.
February 15, 2013
January Short Term Independent Study Essay
Mr. Hickey
Limited Copyright © Jonny Pellmore-Jason, Jr.
Some rights reserved. Only VERBATIM copies of this essay IN ITS ENTIRETY may be distributed, displayed, sold, or recited without prior permission of the the copyright holder.
Introduction
Private Viewing by Fondajane Henry (b. 1976) was the last important work of art of the twentieth century. It was performed just nine times over nine months (June 1999 to February 2000) for one viewer-participant at a time.