Middlesex

He bought a motorcycle. He started meditating. He claimed to understand 2001: A Space Odyssey, even the ending. But it wasn’t until Chapter Eleven descended into the basement to play Ping-Pong with Milton that I understood what was behind all this. We’d had a Ping-Pong table for years, but so far, no matter how much my brother or I practiced, we had never come close to beating Milton. Neither my new long reach nor Chapter Eleven’s beetle-browed concentration was sufficient to counter Milton’s wicked spin or his “killer shot” which left red marks on our chests, through our clothes. But that summer, something was different. When Milton used his extra-fast serve, Chapter Eleven returned it with a minimum of effort. When Milton employed the “English” he’d learned in the Navy, Chapter Eleven counter-spun. Even when Milton smashed a winner across the table, Chapter Eleven, with stupendous reflexes, sent it back where it came from. Milton began to sweat. His face turned red. Chapter Eleven remained cool. He had a strange, distracted look on his face. His pupils were dilated. “Go!” I cheered him on. “Beat Dad!” 12–12. 12–14. 14–15. 17–18. 18–21! Chapter Eleven had done it! He’d beaten Milton!

“I’m on acid,” he explained later.

“What?”

“Windowpane. Three hits.”

The drug had made everything seem as if it were happening in slow motion. Milton’s fastest serves, his most arching spin shots and smashes, seemed to float in the air.

LSD? Three hits? Chapter Eleven had been tripping the whole time! He had been tripping during dinner! “That was the hardest part,” he said. “I was watching dad carve the chicken and then it flapped its wings and flew away!”

“What’s the matter with that kid?” I heard my father ask my mother through the wall separating our rooms. “Now he’s talking about dropping out of engineering. Says it’s too boring.”

“It’s just a stage. It’ll pass.”

“It better.”

Shortly thereafter, Chapter Eleven had returned to college. He hadn’t come back for Thanksgiving. And so, as Christmas of ’73 approached, we all wondered what he would be like when we saw him again.

We quickly found out. As my father had feared, Chapter Eleven had scuttled his plans to become an engineer. Now, he informed us, he was majoring in anthropology.

As part of an assignment for one of his courses, Chapter Eleven conducted what he called “fieldwork” during most of that vacation. He carried a tape recorder around with him, recording everything we said. He took notes on our “ideation systems” and “rituals of kin bonding.” He said almost nothing himself, claiming that he didn’t want to influence the findings. Every now and then, however, while observing our extended family eat and joke and argue, Chapter Eleven would let out a laugh, a private Eureka that made him fall back in his chair and lift his Earth shoes off the floor. Then he would lean forward and begin writing madly in his notebook.

As I’ve mentioned, my brother didn’t pay much attention to me while we were growing up. That weekend, however, spurred on by his new mania for observation, Chapter Eleven took a new interest in me. On Friday afternoon while I was diligently doing some advance homework at the kitchen table, he came and sat down. He stared at me thoughtfully for a long time.

“Latin, huh? That what they’re teaching you in that school?”

“I like it.”

“You a necrophiliac?”

“A what?”

“That’s someone who gets off on dead people. Latin’s dead, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know some Latin.”

“You do?”

“Cunnilingus.”

“Don’t be gross.”

“Fellatio.”

“Ha ha.”

“Mons veneris.”

“I’m dying of laughter. You’re killing me. Look, I’m dead.”

Chapter Eleven was quiet for a while. I tried to go on studying but felt him staring at me. Finally, exasperated, I closed my book. “What are you looking at?” I said.

There was a pause characteristic of my brother. Behind his granny glasses his eyes looked bland, but the mind behind them was working things out.

“I’m looking at my little sister,” he said.

“Okay. You saw her. Now go.”

“I’m looking at my little sister and thinking she doesn’t look like my little sister anymore.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

Again the pause. “I don’t know,” said my brother. “I’m trying to figure it out.”

“Well, when you figure it out, let me know. Right now I’ve got stuff to do.”

On Saturday morning, Chapter Eleven’s girlfriend arrived. Meg Zemka was as small as my mother and as flat-chested as me. Her hair was a mousy brown, her teeth, owing to an impoverished childhood, not well cared for. She was a waif, an orphan, a runt, and six times as powerful as my brother.

“What are you studying up at college, Meg?” my father asked at dinner.

“Poli. sci.”

“That sounds interesting.”

“I doubt you’d like my emphasis. I’m a Marxist.”

“Oh, you are, are you?”

“You run a bunch of restaurants, right?”

“That’s right. Hercules Hot Dogs. Haven’t you ever had one? We’ll have to take you down to one of our stands.”

“Meg doesn’t eat meat,” my mother reminded.