supposed to know?
After dinner, I helped Fidel clear the table. While we were alone in the
kitchen, he complained. “You think they eat this shit at GD headquarters?”
He scraped his untouched chard loaf into the composter.
“I kind of liked the cornbread.”
“If only he’d buy meat once in a while, but he’s too cheap. Or doboys. Tree
says you bought her doboys.”
I told him to skip school sometime and we would go out for lunch; he
thought that was a great idea.
When we came back out, Mr. Joplin actually smiled at me. He had been
losing his edge all during dinner. Maybe chard agreed with him. He pulled a
pipe from his pocket, began stuffing something into it, and asked me if I
followed baseball. I told him no. Paintball? No. Basketball? I said I watched
dino fights sometimes.
“His pal is the dinosaur that goes to our school,” said Fidel.
“He may look like a dinosaur, but he’s really a boy,” said Mr. Joplin, as if making an important distinction. “The dinosaurs died out millions of years ago.”
“Humans aren’t allowed in dino fights,” I said, just to keep the conversation
going. “Only twanked dogs and horses and elephants.”
Silence. Mr. Joplin puffed on his pipe and then passed it to his wife. She
watched the glow in the bowl through half-lidded eyes as she inhaled. Fidel
caught me staring.
321
JAMES PATRICK KELLY
“What’s the matter? Don’t you get twisted?” He took the pipe in his turn.
I was so croggled I did not know what to say. Even the Marleys had switched
to THC inhalers. “But smoking is bad for you.” It smelled like a dirty sock
had caught fire.
“Hemp is ancient. Natural.” Mr. Joplin spoke in a clipped voice as if
swallowing his words. “Opens the mind to what’s real.” When he sighed,
smoke poured out of his nose. “We grow it ourselves, you know.”
I took the pipe when Tree offered it. Even before I brought the stem to my
mouth, the world tilted and I watched myself slide into what seemed very
much like a hallucination. Here I was sitting around naked, in the mall, with
a bunch of stiffs, smoking antique drugs. And I was enjoying myself. Incredible.
I inhaled and immediately the flash hit me; it was as if my brain were an
enormous bud, blooming inside my head.
“Good stuff.” I laughed smoke and then began coughing.
Fidel refilled my glass with ice water. “Have a sip, cashman.”
“Customer.” Tree pointed at the window.
“Leave!” Mr. Joplin waved impatiently at him. “Go away.” The man on the
screen knelt and turned over the price tag on a fern. “Damn.” He jerked his
uniform from the hook by the door, pulled on the khaki pants, and was
slithering into the shirt as he disappeared down the tunnel.
“So is Green Dream trying to break into the flash market too?” I handed
the pipe to Mrs. Joplin. There was a fleck of ash on her left breast.
“What we do back here is our business,” she said. “We work hard so we can
live the way we want.” Tree was studying her fingerprints. I realized I had said the wrong thing, so I shut up. Obviously, the Joplins were drifting from the
lifestyle taught at Green Dream Family Camp.
Fidel announced he was going to school tomorrow, and Mrs. Joplin told him
no, he could link to E-class as usual, and Fidel claimed he could not concentrate at home, and Mrs. Joplin said he was trying to get out of his chores. While they were arguing, Tree nudged my leg and shot me a let’s leave look. I nodded.
“Excuse us.” She pushed back her chair. “Mr. Boy has got to go home soon.”
Mrs. Joplin pointed for her to stay. “You wait until your father gets back,”
she said. “Tell me, Mr. Boy, have you lived in New Canaan long?”
“All my life,” I said.
“How old did you say you were?”
322
MR. BOY
“Mama, he’s twenty-five,” said Tree. “I told you.”
“And what do you do for a living?”
“Mama, you promised.”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m lucky, I guess. I don’t need to worry about money. If
you didn’t need to work, would you?”
“Everybody needs work to do,” Mrs. Joplin said. “Work makes us real.
Unless you have work to do and people who love you, you don’t exist.”
Talk about twentieth-century humanist goop! At another time in another
place, I probably would have snapped, but now the words would not come.
My brain had turned into a flower; all I could think were daisy thoughts. The
Joplins were such a strange combination of fast-forward and rewind. I could
not tell what they wanted from me.
“Seventeen dollars and ninety-nine cents,” said Mr. Joplin, returning from
the storefront. “What’s going on in here?” He glanced at his wife, and some
signal that I did not catch passed between them. He circled the table, came
up behind me, and laid his heavy hands on my shoulders. I shuddered; I
thought for a moment he meant to strangle me.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Peter,” he said. “Before you go, I have something
to say.”
“Daddy.”
Tree squirmed in her chair. Fidel looked uncomfortable too, as if he guessed
what was coming.
“Sure.” I did not have much choice.
The weight on my shoulders eased but did not entirely go away. “You should
feel the ache in this boy, Ladonna.”
“I know,” said Mrs. Joplin.
“Hard as plastic.” Mr. Joplin touched the muscles corded along my neck.
“You get too hard, you snap.” He set his thumbs at the base of my skull and
kneaded with an easy circular motion. “Your body isn’t some machine that
you’ve downloaded into. It’s alive. Real. You have to learn to listen to it. That’s why we smoke. Hear these muscles? They’re screaming.” He let his hand slide
down my shoulders. “Now listen.” His fingertips probed along my upper spine.
“Hear that? Your muscles stay tense because you don’t trust anyone. You always
have to be ready to take a hit, and you can’t tell where it’s coming from. You’re rigid and angry and scared. Reality . . . your body is speaking to you.”
323
JAMES PATRICK KELLY
His voice was as big and warm as his hands. Tree was giving him a look
that could boil water, but the way he touched me made too much sense to
resist.
“We don’t mind helping you ease the strain. That’s the way Mrs. Joplin and I
are. That’s the way we brought the kids up. But first you have to admit you’re
hurting. And then you have to respect us enough to take what we have to give.
I don’t feel that in you, Peter. You’re not ready to give up your pain. You just want us poor stiffs to admire how hard it’s made you. We haven’t got time for that kind of shit, okay? You learn to listen to yourself and you’ll be welcome around here.
We’ll even call you Mr. Boy, even though it’s a damn stupid name.”
No one spoke for a moment.
“Sorry, Tree,” he said. “We’ve embarrassed you again. But we love you, so
you’re stuck with us.” I could feel it in his hands when he chuckled. “I suppose I do get carried away sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” said Fidel. Tree just smoldered.
“It’s late,” said Mrs. Joplin. “Let him go now, Jamaal. His mama’s sending a
car over.”
Mr. Joplin stepped back, and I almost fell off my chair from leaning against
him. I stood, shakily. “Thanks for dinner.”
Tree stalked through the greenhouse to the rear exit, her hairworks
glittering against her bare back. I had to trot to keep up with her. There was
no car in sight, so we waited at the doorway and I put on my clothes.
“I can’t take much more of this.” She stared through the little wire-glass
window in the door, like a prisoner plotting her escape. “I mean, he’s not a
psychologist or a great philosopher or whatever the hell he thinks he is. He’s
just a pompous mall drone.”
“He’s not that bad.” Actually, I understood what her father had said to me;
it was scary. “I like your family.”
“You don’t have to live with them!” She kept watching at the door. “They
promised they’d behave with you; I should have known better. This happens
every time I bring someone home.” She puffed an imaginary pipe, imitating
her father. “Think what you’re doing to yourself, you poor fool, and say, isn’t it just too bad about modern life? Love, love, love— fuck!” She turned to me.
“I’m sick of it. People are going to think I’m as sappy and thickheaded as my
parents.”
324
MR. BOY
“I don’t.”
“You’re lucky. You’re rich and your mom leaves you alone. You’re New
Canaan. My folks are Elkhart, Indiana.”
“Being New Canaan is nothing to brag about. So what are you?”
“Not a Joplin.” She shook her head. “Not much longer, anyway; I’m
eighteen in February. I think your car’s here.” She held out her arms and
hugged me good-bye. “Sorry you had to sit through that. Don’t drop me,
okay? I like you, Mr. Boy.” She did not let go for a while.
Dropping her had never occurred to me; I was not thinking of anything at
all except the silkiness of her skin, the warmth of her body. Her breath
whispered through my hair and her nipples brushed my ribs and then she
kissed me. Just on the cheek, but the damage was done. I was stunted. I was
not supposed to feel this way about anyone.
Comrade was waiting in the backseat. We rode home in silence; I had
nothing to say to him. He would not understand—none of my friends would.
They would warn me that all she wanted was to spend some of my money. Or
they would make bad jokes about the nudity or the Joplins’ mushy realism.
No way I could explain the innocence of the way they touched one another.
The old man did what to you? Yeah, and if I wanted a hug at home who was I supposed to ask? Comrade? Lovey? The greeter? Was I supposed to climb up
to the head and fall asleep against Mom’s doorbone, waiting for it to open,
like I used to do when I was really a kid?
The greeter was her usual nonstick self when I got home. She was so glad
to see me and she wanted to know where I had been and if I had a good time
and if I wanted Cook to make me a snack? Around. Yes. No.
She said the bank had called about some problem with one of the cash
cards she had given me, a security glitch that they had taken care of and were
very sorry about. Did I know about it and did I need a new card and would
twenty thousand be enough? Yes. Please. Thanks.
And that was it. I found myself resenting Mom because she did not have to
care about losing sixteen or twenty or fifty thousand dollars. And she had
reminded me of my problems when all I wanted to think of was Tree. She was
no help to me, never had been. I had things so twisted around that I almost
told her about Montross myself, just to get a reaction. Here some guy had
tapped our files and threatened my life, and she asked if I wanted a snack.
325
JAMES PATRICK KELLY
Why keep me around if she was going to pay so little attention? I wanted to
shock her, to make her take me seriously.
But I did not know how.
The roombrain woke me. “Stennie’s calling.”
“Mmm.”
“Talk to me, Mr. Party Boy.” A window opened; he was in his car. “You dead
or alive?”
“Asleep.” I rolled over. “Time is it?”
“Ten-thirty and I’m bored. Want me to come get you now, or should I meet
you there?”
“Wha . . . ?”
“Happy’s. Don’t tell me you forgot. They’re doing a piano.”
“Who cares?” I crawled out of bed and slouched into the bathroom.
“She says she’s asking Tree Joplin,” Stennie called after me.
“Asking her what?” I came out.
“To the party.”
“Is she going?”
“She’s your cush.” He gave me a toothy smile. “Call back when you’re
ready. Later.” He faded.
“She left a message,” said the roombrain. “Half-hour ago.”
“Tree? You got me up for Stennie and not for her?”
“He’s on the list, she’s not. Happy called, too.”
“Comrade should’ve told you. Where is he?” Now I was grouchy. “She’s on
the list, okay? Give me playback.”
Tree seemed pleased with herself. “Hi, this is me. I got myself invited to a
smash party this afternoon. You want to go?” She faded.
“That’s all? Call her!”
“Both her numbers are busy; I’ll set redial. I found Comrade; he’s on
another line. You want Happy’s message?”
“No. Yes.”
“You promised, Mr. Boy.” Happy giggled. “Look, you really, really don’t
want to miss this. Stennie’s coming, and he said I should ask Joplin if I wanted you here. So you’ve got no excuse.”
326
MR. BOY
Someone tugged at her. “Stop that! Sorry, I’m being molested by a thick . . .”
She batted at her assailant. “Mr. Boy, did I tell you that this Japanese reporter is coming to shoot a vid? What?” She turned off camera. “Sure, just like on
the Nature Channel. Wildlife of America. We’re all going to be famous. In Japan! This is history, Mr. Boy. And you’re . . .”
Her face froze as the redial program finally linked to the Green Dream. The
roombrain brought Tree up in a new window. “Oh, hi,” she said. “You rich
boys sleep late.”
“What’s this about Happy’s?”
“She invited me.” Tree was recharging her hairworks with a red brush. “I
said yes. Something wrong?”
Comrade slipped into the room; I shushed him. “You sure you want to go
to a smash party? Sometimes they get a little crazy.”
She aimed the brush at me. “You’ve been to smash parties before. You
survived.”
“Sure, but . . .”
“Well, I haven’t. All I know is that everybody at school is talking about this
one, and I want to see what it’s about.”
“You tell your parents you’re going?”
“Are you kidding? They’d just say it was too dangerous. What’s the matter,
Mr. Boy, are you scared? Come on, it’ll be extreme.”
“She’s right. You should go,” said Comrade.
“Is that Comrade?” Tree said. “You tell him, Comrade!”
I glared at him. “Okay, okay, I guess I’m outnumbered. Stennie said he�
�d
drive. You want us to pick you up?”
She did.
I flew at Comrade as soon as Tree faded. “Don’t you ever do that again!” I
shoved him, and he bumped up against the wall. “I ought to throw you to
Montross.”
“You know, I just finished chatting with him.” Comrade stayed calm and
made no move to defend himself. “He wants to meet—the three of us, face
to face. He suggested Happy’s.”
“He suggested . . . I told you not to talk to him.”
“I know.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I think we should do it.”
“Who gave you permission to think?”
327
JAMES PATRICK KELLY
“You did. What if we give him the picture back and open our files and then
I grovel, say I’m sorry, it’ll never happen again, blah, blah, blah. Maybe we can even buy him off. What have we got to lose?”
“You can’t bribe software. And what if he decides to snatch us?” I told
Comrade about the gypsy with the penlight. “You want Tree mixed up in this?”
All the expression drained from his face. He did not say anything at first,
but I had watched his subroutines long enough to know that when he looked
this blank, he was shaken. “So we take a risk, maybe we can get it over with,”
he said. “He’s not interested in Tree, and I won’t let anything happen to you.
Why do you think your mom bought me?”
Happy Lurdane lived on the former estate of Philip Johnson, a notorious
twentieth-century architect. In his will Johnson had arranged to turn his
compound into the Philip Johnson Memorial Museum, but after he died his
work went out of fashion. The glass skyscrapers in the cities did not age well; they started to fall apart or were torn down because they wasted energy.
Nobody visited the museum, and it went bankrupt. The Lurdanes had bought
the property and made some changes.
Johnson had designed all the odd little buildings on the estate himself. The
main house was a shoebox of glass with no inside walls; near it stood a
windowless brick guest house. On a pond below was a dock that looked like
a Greek temple. Past the circular swimming pool near the houses were two
galleries that had once held Johnson’s art collection, long since sold off. In
Johnson’s day, the scattered buildings had been connected only by paths,
which made the compound impossible in the frosty Connecticut winters.
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