Louds In The Cradle: Chapter 8
We'd left off with Lynn Senior trying to explain why he'd wanted to ease in to male bonding. We continue on with that part of the conversation with a concern of his.
"And of course, there was another thing I was worried about: finding your game easy to play. Now, I know that television teaches us that parents who don't 'get' a child's passions are innately bad at it but that leaves another peril on the cutting room floor: alienating a child because Mommy or Daddy say that something is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel."
Lincoln replied "Well, I know that now. You spent two days apologizing for that 'auto-pilot' comment when you handed me my butt on Muscle Frog five seconds after you first picked up the console."
"Well, I had to. Walking around with your foot in your mouth is kinda dang awkward, y'know. Also, it tracked that you'd get in another of your 'What's the use' moods again. That's a dangerous habit to get into, son. It always seems to lead to you taking a short-cut that doesn't work to get 'results' right now. Life doesn't have cheat codes, you see."
"That's why you dropped me off at the McBrides's the next day, isn't it? To 'cool me down' or something."
"Yeah. Also to take a bit of stock and try to figure out why it is that you spend a lot of time acting you'd rather bend the rules past the breaking point than exercise patience. You do have plenty of time to make your mark in this world….no matter how talented the freaks of nature that surround you are. Watching them succeed without breaking a sweat (or even a nail) shouldn't be used as an excuse to give up or game the system."
"And before any of you puff yourselves up, do remind yourselves that I did call most of you abnormal. It might be kind of cool to bask in your reflected glory but winning without really having to do anything makes normal people feel inadequate. It also does a number on the oldest sister who has to look out for you. I can get why Lincoln is racing around with blinkers on because I realize that I'd talked you into putting them on the day he was born. Don't know why the rest of you are walking around in the dark."
Luna stopped sulking about her mother's comment about her 'big secret' just long enough to ask "What do you mean by that?"
"What I mean is that it took me a while to figure out what saying "This is a big, big secret and you can't tell ANYONE or BAD things will happen" are going to do to small children. I just betcha it's never even occurred to you or your three oldest sisters to ask what you actually saw when we came home with him."
Ronnie Anne asked "What did happen? He said that he can't talk about it and that he got a C-minus for being vague about what happened on the day he was born but other than that, all I know is 'Lincoln had something deeply weird happen to him because he's a magnet for crazy nonsense.'"
"This doesn't leave this room BUT the most Homeland Security allows me to say is that God the Son would only get clearance to know about the big shot whose limo we'd flagged down if God the Father countersigned the order. The others seem to believe that aliens, mad scientists and the bad guy from Mann Versus Machine were all hanging around the day Lincoln was born and since they were tiny children told a big, big secret, they seem to have the idea that he has to be protected from himself or a vague mystical doom will descend upon the family. Granted, they're kind of onto something because if someone blabs, they get to spend a few years in Gitmo for violating the Espionage Act but it's not the comic book doom Lincoln was made to believe in."
"Heh. If Vanzilla hadn't decided to give out on me, he'd have been born in the hospital and we'd have called him Lucas or Leon or even Lyman like my cousin in Indiana. About the only person who'd be looking at him funny is Luan….and that because you can't tell a three year old that labs make mistakes too."