Madame X - Wilder Jasinda - Страница 16

You shrug. “This book. It’s a social experiment. There’s a teacher, and a student. The teacher asks questions, and if there’s a wrong answer the teacher shocks the student with an electric shock machine. Or something like that.”

“You gathered that from the little bit you just read?”

You grin at me. “Oh, no. I took a psychology class in college, and we studied this book. It was a while ago, so I don’t really remember a lot about it, but I remember even then thinking how fucked up the experiment was. The results though, that stuck with me. Obedience is a social construct. So is authority of one person over another. It’s . . . something we agree on, allow ourselves to go along with, even if it’s detrimental to our well-being. We agree to give someone else authority over us. Or, vice versa, we take power, authority, or whatever, and use it, even if it goes against our morals in some other way. It’s messed up. Shows how dependent we are on social constructs, even though by and large we don’t even realize what’s happening, what we’re doing.”

“Aren’t social constructs like that what compose the very fabric of society, though?”

You nod. “Yeah, for sure. But when you become aware of them, even briefly, it can mess with your head. I went around questioning everything after we studied that book. Every interaction, I looked at like it was something new. Like when you say a word so many times it loses its meaning, you know?”

“Semantic satiation,” I say.

“Yeah, that. Eventually I went back to normal, stopped thinking about things quite so objectively. But for weeks, it was fucking weird. You realize the little tacit agreements we make without realizing it, you know?”

I shake my head. I follow intellectually, but in practice? No. My experience is more . . . limited. “Let’s pretend I don’t know, Jonathan. What do you mean?”

“Well, in terms of obedience and authority . . . we give people authority over us. Why do I let you boss me around? Why do I come back here week after week, let you say the things you say to me, let you tell me what to say and how to act and how to dress, when I know nothing about you? We aren’t friends, we aren’t involved like in a relationship, I personally am not even paying you. Yet here I am. Why?”

“Your father.”

“Exactly. But I hate my father. I really do, X. So why am I here?”

“Because he holds control over something you want.”

“Right. Exactly. Money. The future of the company. I sacrificed my childhood for his company. My father sacrificed my childhood for the company. He was never home, and when he was, he was in his office, working. I was always expected to excel, to be the best. To get the grades so I could go to the Ivy League school, so I could get the degree that would tell him I’ve earned the right to inherit the company. So I did all that, and yet I don’t get to just . . . take over. Or even start near the top. No, I’ve got to start at the bottom, as an apprentice. Sure, I get it. Work for it, learn the business from the bottom up. Sure. Great. But I went to work with him every weekend, X. Every fucking weekend. I didn’t play with my friends, I didn’t play sports or video games or go the park or ride my bike. I went to the office with him and watched him work. ‘It’ll all be yours someday, Jonathan,’ he’d say. ‘So pay attention.’ I paid attention. I know every contact, every account. I know it all. I’m ready. But he still holds out. Makes it impossible for me to move up. Promotes other guys over me when by all objective standards I’m the more qualified, son of the company president or not. He makes me come here and do this with you, because apparently I’m not man enough, either. Which, obviously, means letting some stuck-up bitch boss me around and insult me.” You glance at me, cringing. “Sorry. I’m just—”

“It’s fine, Jonathan. I’ll let it go, this once. And besides, I am a bit of a bitch, but then, I’m paid to be, aren’t I?”

You totally ignore the fact that I’ve spoken. “But the point is, I do it because I still keep hoping I’ll be good enough. I give him the power over me, because I want what he has. I want what’s mine.” You duck your head, briefly, and then glance at me, your eyes perhaps a bit too sharp, a bit too knowing. “We all have a motivation for letting others control us, though, don’t we?”

“Why, Jonathan . . . I barely recognize you, right now. Such introspection is unlike you.” I must keep the conversation focused on you.

In my current circumstances, I dare not allow this line of discussion to become focused on me. That would be . . . very bad.

“I’m a rich asshole, X. I get that. I own it, and I’m not going to apologize for it. I was given everything I ever wanted, and then some. Except now that I’ve done everything asked of me to take my place at his side in running the company, now . . . I’m still not good enough. I wasn’t good enough for him to want to spend time with me as a kid, so I went to work with him, hoping he’d notice me. He never did. I think he never will. But I still give him authority over me.”

“Where is all this coming from, Jonathan?” Against all reason, I find myself thinking that just maybe there might be a decent person under the skin of the rich asshole.

You shrug. “He told me if I did this, came here and let you teach me or whatever, he’d make me junior VP of operations. So I’m here. I’m trying.”

“Indeed you are. And making good progress, too. We’re actually holding a worthwhile conversation, and that’s improvement indeed.”

“Yeah, well. The nasty, contrary old fuck just gave Eric Benson that position, even though he outright promised it to me. We still have, what, three more weeks of this? And he gave it to Eric fucking Benson. Benson is a fucking tool. A goddamn sycophantic suck-up prick. Never has any ideas of his own, he just goes along with everyone else and kisses ass and flashes that stupid grin of his with those stupid cheap-ass veneers. Fucking asshole.”

I do not know what to say to you. It is not my job to be your confidant, your confessor, your shoulder to cry on, or your friend with whom to commiserate. It is my job to make you less of an asshole.

“When is enough enough, Jonathan?”

You glance at me with miserable eyes. “What?”

“How much is enough? How long will you tilt at the windmill?”

You groan in frustration, lean back, and run your hands through your hair. “Gah. Enough with the fucking riddles, X.”

“It’s not a riddle, it’s an allusion. It’s from Don Quixote.”

“I know who fucking Don Quixote is, X. I did go to fucking Yale, you know.”

I did know that, and I didn’t go to Yale, or anywhere else. I don’t say that, though. You don’t need my superiority right now. You need a nudge in the right direction.

“If you know who Don Quixote is, then what is it I’m trying to tell you, do you think?”

You frown at me, and I can see you thinking. “Stop tilting at windmills.”

“What did Don Quixote think the windmills were?” I ask.

“Giants.”

“Correct. But what do you think his greatest failing was?”

“Thinking the windmills were giants.”

“Wrong. Thinking he could slay them even if those windmills had been real giants. He’d have been squashed like a mosquito.”

“And you think I’m not only tilting at windmills, but at a giant I can’t slay in the first place.”

I remain silent. You must work some things out for yourself.

“What am I not doing right, though? What’s wrong with me that he can’t just—just—”

“Jonathan,” I scold.

“What?”

“Stop whining and think.”

You glare at me, but, to your credit, you don’t lash out at me. Instead, you rise and pace to the window. My window, the one at which I stand and watch the passersby so far beneath and imagine stories for them.