Roth, Marco (b. 1974)

The Scientists [excerpt in Harper's Magazine]

August 2012

"My father tried turning his thoughts into a substitute immune system."

My father tried turning his thoughts into a substitute immune system. Encounters with strangers, friends, and animals, undercooked or odd foods, these were threats to be anticipated. He wouldn't walk around the street wearing a surgical mask, but he often had a handkerchief and seemed to move as quickly as possible from our apartment to his car to his lab, each an enclosed and relatively safe space. I told myself that his need for mental discipline over his body explained why he'd turned down my requests for pets; why he'd abruptly stopped our wrestling pillow fights when I was seven and--by the time I was fourteen--had stopped touching me at all; why he disliked fish in any form; why the mention of any Third World country invoked a monologue on filth and disease and the perils of inadequate public sanitation, which he immediately made fun of himself for launching into. Quoting someone else, as usual, he'd end by saying that Americans like to confuse toilets and civilization.
(p. 12)

Body::Immune System

Reading

Marco Roth, "The Scientists" Harper's Magazine 325:1947 (August 2012): 11-14. <Link to harpers.org>

07/20/2012