Noodle Soup

Malachi had not seen his parents in over two weeks. In that time, he had started grad school, moved to an apartment in Morningside Heights, and started driving for Lyft.

His parents live in the South Slope in Brooklyn. A middle class neighborhood wedged in between high-end gentrification, low-income row houses, Salvadoran and Cambodian immigrant communities, two hospitals, and a sprinkling of cheap, trending rundown artist lofts.

His mother was in the kitchen.

Sit, Malachi, sit… I made noodle soup. You want?

No thanks, Ma, I ate already in the cafeteria.

You ate already? You can still have soup, no?

Ma…please.

Only a small bowl. You want some sriracha in it?

Sriracha? In noodle soup?

It’s miso brown rice ramen soup with vegan dumplings and organic greens. Your sister sent me her recipe from Mississippi. No more chicken for me. No more. You know what they do to those chickens? No? Well, don’t ask. You wouldn’t want to know. You shouldn’t know from such things.

Ma… I have decided not to go to the Cousins’ Club anymore.

And that is why?

Because I have no time and they’re a bunch of self-absorbed, uninformed, ultra-privileged, dolts.

What?  All of them? My sisters’ children? They have, all of a sudden, become a bunch of uninteresting, uninformed dolts?

Not all of a sudden. And no sriracha please.

Yes, okay, no sriracha. So, if not all of a sudden, then was it just slowly? Or was it at different rates? Maybe only one at a time? The boys first and then the girls? In size or in age order? Or just by IQ in descending order?

Ma… stop.

And you? By some benevolent narrowly focused gravitational wave of dark matter from deep in the ancient universe, you happily find yourself, through no effort of your own, to be singularly immune to this unexplained affliction of acquired familial self-absorbed ignorance?

Ma. I’m serious and you’re making fun of me.

I know I am, but I’m not doing it to hurt you. You are my boy, and I love you, and I love all of them too. I am making fun seriously.

Seriously?

Yes. Tell me one thing you feel they are so ignorant about.

It’s not one thing. It’s lots of things. I want to talk about Israel and Gaza. And nobody else wants to. That’s totally off limits. And it’s not just that I want to talk about it, I think we should do something to stop sending arms to fuel the war. That’s the most important thing, but it’s the same for other things: eroding democracy, immigration reform, affordable housing, inequality, microplastics, fascism, creeping autocracy, and the list goes on. And they want to talk about kimchi, Oscar nominations, Jon Stewart, or complaining about which is better, an EV or a hybrid or plug-ins that cost over 50 grand, which none of them could afford anyway. That is the entire depth and breadth of their conversations. They’re my cousins but…

But  what, they should organize an anti-war microplastics clean-up day in the Gowanus Canal?

Well, no. Not that but ignoring any responsibility for what any of us can to do to stop the world from falling apart. If we don’t do it, no one else will. There is no one else.

And you know they don’t want to talk about these things?

No. I don’t know, for sure. Maybe they do. I don’t know.

Hah! So, how can you be so sure you don’t want a little sriracha in the soup? One drop?

No, thank you.

I know how you’re feeling, Malachi. When I was a kid, we couldn’t talk about money, politics, or religion. That was the way it was. Maybe that’s what’s going on with them. I think you want your cousins who you have known all your life, and who you share your mitochondria and protoplasm with, to also want to think and talk about what you feel is so important. And you want them to do this all on their own and not because you tell them to, or you expect them to. Is that it?

I guess so.

Maybe what you want is asking too much of them.

Ma…stop. You’re making it sound like this is more about me than about them.

And you don’t see it that way?

I don’t think so.

It’s like when you were in junior high and you liked Rosemarie Stellutti, and you wanted her to know that without you having to tell her, and you also wanted her to tell you that she liked you too, taking a risk that you wouldn’t take, and you blamed her for it.

What are you talking about? I didn’t blame her. I just felt bad.

You want them to know what you are interested in, even though you won’t give them even the littlest of hints, or the tiniest of nudges to show them. Like sort of a little peck on the cheek you should have given Rosemarie before she started going out with Frankie Todaro. Am I wrong?

I don’t know.

Well, Malachi, I want you should try some sriracha in the noodle soup but imagine if I didn’t say anything and I just left it in the cupboard and just thought to myself about how much I wish you, all on your own, would want some. Right?

Yeah?

… and then if you left without trying it, I could think to myself, ‘what’s wrong with him that he hasn’t asked me if I have any sriracha to add to this delicious soup? How could he be such an uninformed dolt about how good sriracha can make the soup taste? He should know these things. What else doesn’t he know? And here I thought I knew him so well. I thought he was so much better than that.’ You see what I’m saying?

I guess. I know. It makes sense, but…

But what, eat the soup any way you want it.

… but Ma, you’re not listening to me. I’m not blaming them or anyone. I just don’t want to have to spend two hours every other Thursday night with them anymore! I just wanted to tell you how I feel. I just wanted you to listen. No lecture. I didn’t ask for that or for any of this. You hear something and you talk but you don’t listen. I don’t want soup. And no Dr. Phil high school quiz show psychoanalysis, no jokey stories, and no sriracha. I have to go. And, no, I don’t want any soup to take home with me on the subway.

No?

No.

Okay, nicht ist nicht. no is no. Come here give me a kiss.