Free My Sister, My Love by Joyce Carol Oates

possibly a very small fraction. All others may skim and skip to the paragraph beginning “Quakers—so much more sane, like ourselves!”

GOLD MEDAL GYM & HEALTH CLUB I
    “WHO’S COMPLAINING?” WAS A FAVORED DADDY-SAYING IN THE RAMPIKE household. Also “What’s the deal?”—“What’s the problem?”—“What’s the bottom line?” With cheery vehemence Daddy pronounced “No problem!”—“Case closed!”—“ Fin-it-to ” and “ Batta! ” and “Mission accomplished!”—“ Homo homin lupus! ” Childish fears and tears and terrors were handily banished by a snap of Daddy’s fingers for Daddy had a saying, or a snappy comeback, for any situation: “Stay the course!” (Daddy had been a cadet at Bleak Mountain Military Academy in Gallowsville, Pennsylvania, as a boy)—“Cut your losses!” (Daddy had quit Bleak Mountain after two years)—“Never say never!” (Daddy had been a much-lauded athlete through high school and college)—“Don’t pour money down a rat hole!” (the essence of financial wisdom, acquired by Daddy from his manufacturer-financier father). For a youngish guy Bix Rampike had already acquired enough world-wisdom to stuff a Grand Canyon of Chinese fortune cookies.
    I loved him. I was in terror of him.
    Like Mummy. (Too much like Mummy!) For even as you recoiled in hurt, indignation, utter disgust, you could not help but love Bix Rampike, like a kicked, craven puppy, and want Bix Rampike to love you.
    Daddy was one of those tall seemingly clumsy/alert and “competitive” alpha males with a shaggy-bison head, battered-handsome face, soulful brown eyes that exuded sympathy, sincerity. Big, breezy, affable, and shrewd, he was immensely attractive to both men and women. (Are you thinking of Bill Clinton? Bix Rampike was Slick Willy with a soupçon of Ronald Reagan. Politically, Daddy was all-Reagan.) His skin was ruddyas if pumped with blood and his teeth were large and chunky and frequently bared in a happy carnivore smile. The soulful eyes were “empathetic”—think of that fat juicy water spider that fixes his gaze upon the paralyzed pond frog as by slow inexorable “utterly natural” degrees he sucks the life out of the pond frog: “empathetic.” You could feel, no matter who you were, Bix’s height or shorter, dazzling beauty or frump, Fair Hills (male) VIP, chic caterer’s assistant in black miniskirt or just another of the sturdy-bosomed Marias everyone in Fair Hills employed/complained about; you could feel, even if you were Bix Rampike’s runtson, that Bix Rampike peered into your very soul, and “engaged with” you. Only you.
    Except that, let’s be frank: in a crowded room, as in the vast spaces of life, there are so very many yous to be acknowledged, how could Bix Rampike be expected to remember you all?
    Way I see it, son: buck up.
    Stay the course, never say never, recall that Daddy loves you and that is the bottom line, Amen.
    Your mother has shown me, son. The videotape.
    It has been destroyed, son. For your protection. Only know: God will forgive.
     
    NO. THIS IS NOT WHAT I WANT. READER, DELETE THIS. READER DELETE this. Emergency tabbouleh rasa * here!
     
    FAST-FORWARD AND FREEZE AT: BRUCE “BIX” RAMPIKE AS A YOUNGISH suburban dad of thirty-three. The year is 1993. Skyler is six years old and walks (my God, look!) without the slightest suggestion of a limp nor does he wince with pain, or, as he walks, stoically suppress awince of pain. Here is a naively happy little boy, you would reasonably think: but you are wrong.
    “Sky-boy? Son?”—here comes Daddy striding into the family room with a big-toothy-Daddy smile, slapping his khaki pants with the flats of his hands, in excess-Daddy-exuberance; unless maybe it’s Skyler’s room, upstairs; must be a Saturday since there seems to be no school and Daddy isn’t at work or away for the weekend, as Daddy so frequently is; and Skyler is furtively hunched on the edge of his bed (on the pale blue