Capital Punishment: The Cricket Chronicles
(Author’s note: Last week marked one year since I started this Substack, and I sincerely thank all of you for your kind words, time and attention. And because no good deed should go unpunished, I have a favor to ask. Two actual New York literary agents read a smattering of my scribbles and pronounced them good enough to try and sell to a publisher if only anyone knew who the hell I was, or am. So just for shits and giggles I’m going to try and increase my subscriber list, which is where you fine folks come in. If you enjoy reading these, and know of people you think might feel the same, please send them the link to my archive—https://jonathankronstadt.substack.com/archive—from which, if they like what they read, they can hit the “about” tab to subscribe. If for any reason, no matter how invalid or irrational, you don’t want to do this, please don’t. Thanks so much. And now, because I’m taking the week off, a historical piece from just inside the previous century.)
Our house has become death row for crickets. They’re in a tank in the basement, all 42 of them, gently chirping away their final hours, with no chance of a phone call from the governor. One of them actually escaped, but I don’t think its life expectancy is all that much better than the others’.
The crickets aren’t awaiting a merciful gassing or lethal injection. They’re going to get munched by one of a pair of fat-tailed geckos creeping about the aquarium in my daughter’s room. If that weren’t sad enough, prior to their execution they must be publicly humiliated by being plopped into a bag of neon white calcium powder (apparently geckos are prone to osteoporosis). Then they get tossed about like a Shake ‘n Bake chicken leg and dumped unceremoniously into the geckos’ lair. Any camouflage protection the formerly brown crickets were given by Mother Nature has been erased by the calcium powder, and with the aquarium floor covered in purple sand the poor things stick out like Charlton Heston at a Dead concert.
I am witness to this herpetological horror show because somebody I live with signed us up to gecko-sit for a week during summer vacation as part of a rotation of soon-to-be first-graders and their families. The geckos spent the school year in the classroom of a beloved teacher, so having them in my house makes me about as nervous as going to a job interview naked. And I’m convinced the geckos chances of survival are only slightly better than the crickets’. They’re spending the summer on some kind of reptile terror tour, careening weekly from one 6-year-old’s house to another. Eventually they’re going to land at a house where the host has an evil streak, a fully equipped science kit, and a yen to discover what fat-tailed geckos look like inside-out.
One of them can’t legitimately be called a fat-tailed gecko anymore, since this morning it ejected its tail while Alison was “holding” it. It came at the worst possible moment, of course, five minutes before we were to leave for the first day of gymnastics camp. I’m whipping around the house, searching for shoes and what’s left of my sanity when a wail comes from Alison’s room. This is what I imagine the seven hounds of hell sound like on a uniquely bad day. And it comes with a kicker: “Mommy, Daddy, the gecko’s tail fell off!”
I’ve seen Alison sad before. Marcel Marceau could take notes on Alison’s sad. Happily, she does happy even better. It took me a while, but I’ve come to embrace the emotional rollercoaster that is her life. I like to think that I’m good at finding joy in life’s simple pleasures, but she leaves me in her dust. One time we were in the Fort Lauderdale airport, our grandpa-visiting beach weekend cut short by an ear infection. She had to go to the bathroom, and wanted to go in the girls’. It made me nervous having her in there without me, but staying out of women’s bathrooms is a primary tenet of my personal ethos. So I’m standing as close as I can to being inside while still remaining technically outside, and for the better part of 10 minutes she’s in there serenading herself at the top of her lungs, which go way up. Women are exiting the bathroom grinning like schoolgirls. One even offers a reassuring, “She seems to be having a lovely time.” And she is. She’s stuck in a crummy airport for three hours with a fever and a throbbing left ear, and she’s doing a concert in the can—all original tunes, I might add. My memory, lame as it is, is jammed with moments like these—ones when her little body didn’t have a prayer of containing her joy. It spills out like lava from a hot fudge volcano, and her mother and I are sitting there with big bowls of vanilla.
But the gecko’s tail falling off launches a ballistic missile of sad from her silo. Her face falls, her body crumples, and it’s as if this is not only the most tragic event in human history, it’s the only tragic event in human history. She’s invested so much in this week of gecko guardianship. There’s the fact that these creatures came from Loriann’s room, which is the best place on Alison’s planet. There’s her burgeoning 6-year-old’s desire to be responsible and independent. And there’s the fact that she simply loves these geckos. She can’t have a cat (I’m allergic) or a dog (we can’t cope), so this is her first shot at caring for something with a pulse. Here’s all you need to know about how important the geckos are to her: Kirsten and Samantha—her American Girl dolls—have been left in the basement, unattended, since the geckos hit town. Kirsten and Samantha ruled the pre-gecko era, but now they’re yesterday’s news.
Today’s news, however, is now tail-less, and we’re in code red freak-out mode. While the disembodied tail is twitching away on the bed, either unnerved or perhaps buoyed by its newly independent status, I race downstairs to quick-surf the web. Fortunately I had bookmarked a gecko care page the day before. My modem senses the urgency of the moment and revs itself to at least 57k. The page comes up and informs me that fat-tailed geckos launch their tails when threatened by a predator or experiencing some other form of trauma. I’m stunned they’ve kept their tails this long. I race back upstairs with the news, which initially fails to calm the decidedly uncalm scene.
A few minutes later three of us—Alison, little brother Max, and I—are out the door. One of us is crying, but once again I misread the tears. I thought it was a combination of trauma at having been witness to and fear of being held responsible for the actual uncoupling of the tail. But the tears’ true source was pure, unadulterated sympathy. The gecko had lost its tail, and Alison felt this loss more deeply than perhaps even the gecko did.
A few familiar songs from the tape player and a short car ride helped her bounce back, as she always does with alarming speed. The news that a new tail would grow back sparked a spirited discussion over what it would look like, and while Alison and Max engaged in gecko punditry, I had a few moments to review the latest lesson in the emotional education I’m getting from my 50-pound guru.
I’ve learned to stop trying to cork her sadness, like some kind of tears goalie. And I’ve learned that not only can’t I protect her from the hurts that seem to grow as quickly as she does, there are times I shouldn’t even try. Kids like Alison have big, brightly colored emotional buttons that fairly scream out: “Push me!” She’s an easy target for more sophisticated kids—most with older siblings—who see a chain that big and can’t help yanking it. It’s painful to watch, and it goes against my instincts to not jump in, or to try and toughen her somehow for the coming storm. But after watching her live this way for six years, I wouldn’t change her if I could, and I can’t. Alison does what most people only dream of: she lives fully in the moment. Fortunately, I get to be there for a lot of them.