WHACKING OFF
389
and ketchup after school? Jack, come in here, I want you to hear
this," she calls to my father.
"I'm trying to move my bowels," he shouts. "Don't I have
enough trouble as it is without people screaming at me when I'm
trying to move my bowels?"
"You know what your son does after school, the 'A' student
here, who his own mother can't say poopie to anymore, he's such a
grown-up?
What do you think the grown-up does when nobody is
watching him?"
"Can I please be left alone, please?" my father cries. "Can I
have a little peace, please, so I can get something accomplished in
here?"
"Just wait till your father hears what you do, Alex, in defiance
of every health habit there could possibly be. Alex, answer me some–
thing. You're so smart, you know all the answers now, answer me
this. How do you think Sheldon Weiner gave himself colitis? Why
has that child spent half his life in hospitals?"
"Because he eats
chazerai."
"Don't you dare make fun of me!"
"All right, how
did
he get colitis?" I scream.
"Because he eats
chazerai!
But it's not a joke! Because to him
a meal is an Oh Henry bar washed down by a bottle of Pepsi.
Because his breakfast consists of, do you know what? The most im–
portant meal of the day- not according just to your mother, Alex,
but according to the highest nutritionists-and do you know what
that child eats?"
"A doughnut."
"A doughnut is right, Mr. Smart Guy, Mr. Adult. And
coffee,
Alex.
Coffee and a doughnut and on this a thirteen-year-old
pisherkeh
with half a stomach is supposed to start a day. But you, thank God,
have been brought up differently. You don't have a mother who
gallavants all over town like some names I could name, shopping
from morning till night. Alex, Alex, tell me, so it's not a mystery,
or maybe I'm just stupid-tell me, what are you trying to do, what
are you trying to prove, that you should stuff yourself with such
chazerai,
when you could come home to a poppyseed cookie and
a nice glass of milk? I want the truth from you. I wouldn't tell your
