Free The Ask by Sam Lipsyte

cheek meat, but he survived. After that he started going to this megachurch in Connecticut. We don’t talk much.” I hoisted Bernie to my shoulders, carried him across the street.
    “Daddy?”
    “Yeah, Bern.”
    “Is Nick bad?”
    “No, I don’t think he’s bad.”
    “Is he sad?”
    “Maybe he’s a little sad.”
    “Is he angry?”
    “He might be a little angry.”
    “I bit Aiden’s winky and mashed his face.”
    “Yeah, Bern, I saw. Why do you think you did that?”
    “I wanted to.”
    “Why do you think you wanted to?”
    “I didn’t want him to have his train.”
    “Was it his train?”
    “Yeah.”
    “‘Did he share it with you?”
    “Yes.”
    “So, what was the problem?”
    “He had it.”
    “Okay, Bern. Maybe you should have been happy he was sharing it with you, though. That was nice, wasn’t it?”
    “Yes.”
    “So, do you think it was right to bite and mash?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “I wanted to.”
    “You baffle me, Bern.”
    “What’s baffle? Like waffle?”
    “It sounds a little like ‘waffle,’ doesn’t it? You’ve got a good ear. But baffle means I don’t know why you bit and mashed Aiden.”
    “I told you why.”
    “I know, you wanted to.”
    “Daddy?”
    “Yes?”
    “What’s depressive?”
    “Who called you depressive? Nick?”
    “Nobody.”
    “Bernie, tell me. Who called you depressive? One of the older boys?”
    These poor kids, they gleaned these terms at random, overheard them from afternoon TV, dinner chat. Or else the language of pathology was affixed to them by some shrink Mengele eager to stuff them with Ritalin and Zoloft.
    “Who said you were depressive, Bernie?”
    “Nobody, Daddy.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “You’re the depressive, Daddy. Mommy said. On the phone with Paul.”
    “Who’s Paul?”
    “Paul from work. He’s an artist.”
    Paul did design for Maura’s firm. Some animation websites also featured his cartoons. I’d met him in midtown once, when I picked up Maura for her birthday dinner. He seemed pleasant, if not a little bland, a tan, lanky guy who wore expensive vintage clothing. I’d kept waiting for Maura to tell me he was gay—she’d declared herself a devoted fag hag when we started dating, said it might even interfere with her quest for heterosexual companionship—but she’d never said anything about Paul’s preference. I knew better than to ask.
    “Right,” I said. “Paul from work.”
    “Paul is going to make me a whole little movie of superheroes. On his computer. That’s what Mommy said. Are you a pansy, Daddy?”
    “Wait,” I said. “Did Mommy say ‘depressive,’ or ‘pansy’?”
    “What’s a pansy?”
    “It’s a flower, Bernie.”
    “I love flowers. I pick them for Mommy but she gets mad because other people need to enjoy them.”
    “That’s right. Mommy’s right.”
    “You’re a nice pansy, Daddy.”
    “Thank you, Bernie.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    *
    Most nights after dinner Bernie and I retired to his room to play guys. We’d each grip one of his grotesquely proportioned action mutants, bash them together, growl.
    “I will defeat you and meal you, Wolfsquid, Scourge of Decency,” I might say.
    But now Bernie appeared at the threshold of a new phase. The last time I had offered up my services, he shrugged.
    “I just want to go to my room and unwind,” he said.
    Later I went in to tell him a story. He’d become critical of the saccharine bent of my bedtime sagas.
    “Don’t forget the evil,” he said now.
    I worked up some woods for him, some trolls, some berry-picking children. I put the evil in there. Finally a hippo ex machina rescued the children from the castle of the Lanky Animator.
    Soon Bernie was asleep, or down, in the parlance of our suffering set.
    We cooked pork chops from the corner butcher. Maura patted the meat with a Cajun rub. I made the salad, stirred in the vinaigrette. This was our time. The sacred hour of our sacred institution.I sipped some sour Malbec