The Wisdom of Perversity Read Online Free PDF Page A

go viral, when they should just shut up. Force the prosecution to prove its case.”
    â€œBut doesn’t this Rydel guy have a big reputation to defend? He’s a big honcho at Huck Finn and he owns some kind of university . . .”
    â€œNot a real university.” Gary’s voice was steeped in the contempt he felt whenever anyone got a fact wrong, his dismissive tone implying they would never recover their credibility with him. “It’s a so-called broadcasting academy, claiming to teach technical jobs in TV and radio. Their students are poor, mostly minorities, who are set up with federal school loans to pay for these basically worthless degrees.”
    â€œHow do you know they’re worthless?” Zack said. “’Cause it isn’t Harvard?”
    â€œNo. I know because I check my facts before I make an assertion. Less than ten percent of the academy’s graduates get jobs in radio or TV, and they’re saddled with loans that either they or we—the taxpayers—end up paying. This semi-scam has made Sam Rydel a fortune. He’s worth something like thirty million. That’s the real scandal. But nobody’s covering that. Instead the media is obsessed with whether or not Rydel had sex with boys. Anyway, my point is that although Rydel has a perfect right to answer the bloggers, don’t misunderstand me on that score—”
    â€œScore?” Zack interrupted. He winked at his mother. “Who’s keeping score? Oh, it’s you, right, Dad? You’re the scorekeeper in chief.”
    Zack was pressing his luck, Julie thought, though she was sympathetic to his plight. Something ought to be done to silence Gary’s nagging of Zack because the son didn’t share his father’s strengths (or his weaknesses, she might one day be forced to point out) and wasn’t interested in winning the same battles (or suffering the same defeats, she might one day need to remind her husband). Still, she felt he was pressing his luck. To pacify Zack, she patted his forearm.
    â€œOkay, smart-ass.” Gary tilted back in his chair, chewing double-time. “You asked about my next column. Why ask if you don’t give a fuck about the answer?”
    â€œGary, please . . .” Julie said.
    â€œWhat? He can make fun of me and my work and I’ve got to fucking like it?”
    â€œYour language. We shouldn’t be cursing each other over breakfast.”
    Gary stood up. His shirt was a size too small. His breasts appeared to be almost as large as hers, at least a B cup. She looked away. “He’s fifteen! You think he doesn’t know them?” Gary spat them at Zack: “Shit. Fuck. Cock. Cunt. Asshole. Motherfucker. Anything you haven’t heard before?”
    Zack’s grin became a wince. “No.”
    â€œThen we’re clear on that
score
! Thanks for breakfast,” he tossed at Julie, storming off in the direction of his study.
    Her son lowered his head, hair shading pain. “Zack,” she called into the cave of his unhappiness. Her boy meant well. Sure, he had provoked Gary, but look at him blinking back humiliation, full of regret. “Zack, you know what? You know what the problem is?”
    â€œWhat?” he mumbled.
    â€œYour father is very proud of you. That’s the problem.”
    Zack straightened, pushing back his hair, exposing a high brow as impressive as his father’s. Big Brain, she had nicknamed the skinny twenty-four-year-old Gary when they first met, for his shining forehead and the intensity of his debating skills. Zack didn’t have his father’s energy. He was dreamy and contemplative.
Like me.
“What are you talking about, Mom?”
    â€œThat’s why he’s so hard on you. He’s as proud of you as he is of himself so he isn’t careful about your feelings—because he thinks they’re his feelings.” She wasn’t sure she had made sense.