A TALE OF TWO SEA BOYS

            “How is that Rachmaninoff piece coming, Gabriel?”

            Look up.  Look up from the New York Times, wouldya’? She never looks up at me. She never looks at me.

            “Do you think you will have it mastered in time for the concert?”

            She laughs. Of course she knows I will have it mastered in time. Of course she knows I will, because that’s what I do. I achieve. I overachieve. I play the hardest piece of piano music you can imagine. With my feet.

            “It says here that that play, that Jesus Christ Superstar play you and your father just saw, is one of the biggest hits of the season.”

I’ll tell you about superstars. I’m the superstar. Just try doing what I do. Just try getting through the day like me, without arms. With these ridiculous little flaps hanging off my shoulders. And nobody ever mentioning them. Nobody ever giving me any credit for brushing my teeth, for wiping my butt. That’s the way they wanted it, my parents, after the drugs for what, for nausea? My mother was nauseated and now I have no arms. But I’m normal, right? Let’s just treat him like he’s normal. You’re so smart, Gabriel. You can do anything. There’s nothing different about you, Gabriel. It’s all in your head.  

            “Oh, look at this,” she says, holding up the paper so she can read the bottom part, below the crease. I look up at her, thinking she’s going to turn the paper and show me. What is so thrilling? But, no, she doesn’t show me. She doesn’t look at me. She just keeps her eyes glued to that paper.

            And then I see it, the one thing each year she doesn’t want me to see. The ad, on the entire back page of the paper. The big top. The elephants. The trapeze. Yes, the circus is coming, and yes, I will try again, this year, to get them to take me. I am the only 15-year-old boy I know who has never been to the circus.

            “The circus is coming,” I say.

            She doesn’t answer.

            “I want to go,” I say.

“Hmmm?” she says. Pretend I don’t see his little flaps and they’re not there. Pretend I don’t hear him and he’ll go away. Pretend, pretend, pretend.

            “I want to go to the circus, and if you’re not going to take me, I’m going to go myself.” I’m 15 now. I don’t need my parents to take me to the circus. I don’t need my parents to protect me anymore.

            She turns the page and buries her face in it.

            “You know how we feel about that, Gabriel.”

            The sealboy. Dmitri Karakov. The youngest member of the Amazing Karakov Family. There’s a picture of him in the ad. See the Famous Sealboy. He rolls a barrel with his flippers while balancing a beach ball on his nose. I have every ad and article I have ever seen about him, since he — and I — were about seven. He is the only other one like me I know. He is the only other sealboy. I am a sealboy.

            “I am going to the circus,” I say, standing up from the table. Wanting to beat my fist on it for emphasis, but never, ever knowing that pleasure.

 ***

            We’re there. Row five. Seats one, two and three. They came. Of course they came. They are my parents. They love me. I know they love me. I know they just want what’s best for me. They say what would Helen Keller have become if she just thought of herself as a blind, deaf mute? What would FDR have become if he considered himself simply a cripple? You have a physical difference, Gabriel. That’s all. It’s just a difference. We all have differences. Some people have blue eyes, some have brown. Give me a fucking break. What’s the analogy, some people have arms, some people have flippers? Name me one other than me, other than the sealboy. Yes, I know there are others, I know there are hundreds, maybe thousands, but where are they? Locked away somewhere? You won’t be locked away, Gabriel, they say. You are so smart, so smart. You will be whatever you want to be. But what is so wrong with just admitting that I am a sealboy? Why can Dmitri Karakov’s family admit it?

            “I don’t like this one bit, you know,” my mother says, her eyes darting back and forth around the circus ring in front of us.

            “What’s the difference between Dmitri and his sister, Ana?” I ask. “See the pretty girl ride the ponies. See the sealboy balance the ball. Why is it not wrong for them to define her by her physical traits? Why is that not wrong?”

            “I’m . . . I’m not saying that’s right either,” my mother stammers. “I mean, no one should be defined by their physical traits.”

            “But why can’t you just admit I have a handicap?”

            “You are not a freak, Gabriel,” my father chimes in. My father who held his armless son in his big, strong arms and must have wondered why my mother couldn’t stand a little nausea.  Why couldn’t she stand a little nausea?

            “You think Dmitri is a freak?” I ask. Dmitri, who looks like me.

            “I think his family is treating him like a freak. And we would never do that with you,” he answers, swallowing hard. 

            “But don’t you think it’s a handicap to live a lie?” I ask. 

            “Watch your mouth,” my mother says. My mother, who can’t stand cursing. Who couldn’t stand nausea. I’m not judging. I’m not.

            “What do you want, Gabriel?” my father says, turning to me, glaring at me as the guy selling the snow cones goes by. I’d love a snow cone. I’d love to sit here at the circus and eat a snow cone without my parents having to hold it for me.

            “I would just like you to admit that maybe I would be happier if we didn’t have to pretend I wasn’t a sealboy. If you would just admit it, for once,” I say.

            “Don’t use that word,” my mother says. A curse word. Now sealboy is a curse word.

***

            “And now, welcome to the biggest show on Earth.”

            The lights go down and I see all those twinkling little flashlights across the arena, kids swinging them in little circles in front of their faces. Mine hangs from my neck and I move my shoulders back and forth to make it jiggle. I hold my breath through the trapeze artists, through the lion tamer, through Ana and the ponies. And then . . .

            “And now, the Famous Sealboy.”

            And there he is. In red pants and a matching red vest, the spotlights shining on his flippers as he rolls the barrel, hops on board and balances the beach ball. The audience applauds wildly and the Sealboy gets up on his feet, claps his flippers and barks. He actually barks. My father jumps out of his seat and grabs my mother’s arm.

            “Come on,” he says to me. “We’re going. We’re not staying for this crap.”

            “Watch your mouth.”

            “Shut up,” my father snaps back at her. “We’re getting the fuck out of here.”

            I want to stay in my seat and see the rest of the show. I want to go back stage and meet Dmitri, to slap flippers with him and say, “Hey, I know.  I know.” But I don’t. I follow my parents down the stairs, past the cotton candy, down the escalator, into the parking lot and into the car. We don’t talk. I know we will never talk about this day again.

***

The New York Times is on the kitchen table, open. My mother is slicing a bagel for me at the counter, looking out the window. I glance at the headline on the open page. Sealboy Commits Suicide. I sit down and read the story. Dmitri Karakov killed himself last night with a kitchen knife after his circus performance. He was found in the dressing room. He had written with lipstick on the mirror, “If you want to know how I did it, I used my feet.”

            I get up and go to the corner of the living room, where the baby grand piano stands. I sit on the bench and put my feet up on the black and white keys. I play Rachmaninoff. I do not bark.