The Ha-Ha

by Dave King

  I make a teeth-brushing gesture. He says, “Yeah, I did that.” I scrub my face with my hands, and he says, “Uh-huh.” At last, I pantomime soaping up all over, washing under my arms and behind my ears and scrubbing my back with a long-handled brush, and he smirks briefly, showing his big, square, nine-year-old’s teeth. But after this I have nothing to say. Laurel’s back at her stockpots, and Ryan watches me another minute, then frowns at the tabletop; and though I’m willing to move the conversation beyond hygiene, my mind’s a blank. When he doesn’t generate any remarks of his own, I begin scrambling eggs.

  I make breakfast for three and place the plates on the table. Laurel says, “Oh, Howard, mmm. Isn’t this a surprise,” but she takes hers to the counter so she can eat while working, and Ryan and I are left facing each other. The morning paper, which either Nit or Nat subscribes to, lies between us, but we don’t touch it, and as silence falls I’m reminded that in other homes people are discussing the day. When my mom was alive, she had a gift for keeping mealtime conversation flowing. She’d ask leading questions to which I’d respond with nods and gestures, and in this way we managed some subtle exchanges. Of course, a child can’t be expected to emcee in the same way, and as Ryan and I dig into our eggs, I suppose he’s discovering the burden of my dullness, and food alone isn’t enough to create cheer. This is why generally I eat by myself. I wonder what I’d say if I could speak with Ryan, but I can think of nothing, and as the passing moments get under my skin, I guess he wonders what his mother ever saw in me. With this, the quiet grows thunderous. Even the birds cease their outside twittering, the pots quit bubbling on the stove, and I begin to suspect I can’t do this for long. Laurel runs the tap briefly, and when the water stops I try not to listen to the scraping of forks.

  At last Ryan whispers, “This is good.” Maybe he means it, though for my own part I can’t agree. One thing I liked about the army was how everyone pitched in, and in boot camp I was considered a pretty good cook. But today, when I should be irreproachable, I’ve made the eggs too soft, and if I were alone I’d chuck it all in the garbage. I nod, though, at the show of politeness, and then we endure some more minutes of unease. Pushing my eggs around, I wonder if this would be easier with a chatty kid, and I try to remember if there are children in the nearby houses. But it’s been years since I paid any attention to the neighbors, and in my current mood I can’t think how I’d approach them. I watch Ryan wipe his mouth on the neck of his T-shirt, then he frowns, perhaps unconsciously. Well, I think, it’s no picnic for either of us.

  Laurel must sense the discomfort, because she turns now with exaggerated brightness. “Oh, I know, Ryan. What do y’all do for lunch?”

  He looks shiftily at her. “Nothing.”

  “I mean, does the school have like a hot plate you can buy, or does your mom make you something to take in a brown bag?”

  He weighs his response as Laurel and I stare at him. He looks invaded. “Usually I make like a sandwich. Or Mom does. Like peanut butter and jelly or . . . anything.” He shrugs fiercely. “Whatever.”

  “That your favorite, PB&J? Because I’ve got some nice ham and a little Havarti, or I could make up a batch of tuna. How’s any of that sound?” I shoot her a look, wondering what the hell happened to her reluctance to play mom, and she snaps back, “Well, I can make a sandwich, Howard,” then bends to rummage in a cupboard. “Drat! If I had a small thermos, I’d give you some soup. How ’bout cold soup? Do you like vichyssoise?”

  Ryan says yes to tuna, no to Laurel’s vichyssoise. “Want me to do the dishes?” he asks. I shake my head and hand him the funnies, just so I don’t have to wonder what he’s thinking, and when the plates are draining I lean over his shoulder in search of a strip that’s all pictures, no words. But the one I find isn’t very funny, and I don’t have the patience to work out the other captions.

  The staircase creaks, then Nit’s standing in the doorway. He’s barefoot, and his open bathrobe shows his bare chest and cotton briefs, which are ragged at the waist and look none too clean. He stares at Ryan a moment, then murmurs, “Fuck, man. Forgot you were here,” and turns on his heel. But a moment later he’s back. “Hey, anybody make coffee?” I step over and jerk his lapels closed. He barely notices, though he does fumble for the belt of his robe.

  Ryan watches Nit pour a mug of coffee and methodically dose it with five big spoonfuls of sugar; then he frowns primly at the tabletop. “Um, Howie,” he asks, “did Aunt Caroline give you money? Because—” He stops, and I suppose he remembers how I threw back those C-notes. “’Cause if I wanna get milk it costs sixty cents.”

  In an instant, Laurel’s reaching for her purse, and I’m digging for pocket change. But it’s Nit, the jerk, who beats us to the punch. With a flourish, he drops a crumpled bill to the tabletop, just like a magician producing a dove from thin air. “Keep the change, yo,” he says, then he yawns and slurps at the rim of his mug. I could strangle him, but he’s already shuffling toward his own dank lair. And what kind of knucklehead keeps money in a bathrobe?

  Ryan slings on a backpack, and I take him to school. Halfway across the city I turn the radio on, and he taps his feet and looks marginally less glum. We pull up to a one-story building with long classroom wings and a blacktopped playground, and as I put the truck in park he says, “Where should I, um . . .” He trails off, then says, “Oh,” and stares up past the curved bill of that cap. I raise my eyebrows. In a small voice he asks, “How do I get home?”

  I’ll pick him up, of course. Could he imagine otherwise? I pat my chest, then tap the steering wheel, and to be extra clear I wave a finger at the ground. Ryan nods doubtfully. I snap my fingers, and when his head jerks up, I point to my wrist. Though it takes a minute, he says, “Well, the bell’s at two-fifty . . .” Gazing bleakly at the glove box, he adds, “Because I don’t think I can take the bus.”

  I pat the steering wheel again: I’ll be here. But Ryan’s staring at the glove box; he doesn’t realize he has to look at me when we talk. “I mean—” he murmurs, and he’s forlorn in his uncertainty, “I don’t think these buses go over where you live.” I remember an old joke about people who live out where the buses don’t run, and I don’t know if those stranded souls are me or him or both of us together, but of course all jokes are beyond my command. So I tap his visor to get his attention, then point again to my chest.

  At last, he shuts the door slowly, without saying goodbye. A girl and two boys have stopped to peer at us, and the girl stares through the windshield at my scar. Ryan walks toward them and slaps palms with the boys, and a moment later they all take off running. I watch him barrel toward a tetherball game at the corner of the playground, raising his arms as he approaches the blacktop. He drops his backpack at the edge of the turf, then leaps right up and into the game, swatting the ball from the players. His T-shirt flies up, revealing a long, brown belly. As he returns to earth, a kid shoves him, and to my astonishment Ryan laughs, his mouth hugely wide. Then the game resumes, with Ryan at the back of the line.

  I head off to my job, not sure how to take this, but for the moment I’m relieved to be free of him, too.

  5

  THE CONVENT WHERE I WORK lies on a beautiful stretch just east of the interstate. There’s a stone wall with iron gates bordering a residential area, then a curving drive and a large structure that looks like a VA hospital done up in Gothic garb. The nuns have made a conference center within the big building, but no school or hospital, no vegetable garden or bread bakery or any other amenities of a self-sufficient community. But self-sufficiency may not be these nuns’ thing; besides me, they have a gardener to take care of the Contemplation Garden and the flower beds and a bus driver named Alain to shuttle them downtown on a regular schedule.

  Alain is just pulling out when I arrive, and Sister Amity is watching Robin, the gardener, poke pine bark under some rhododendrons. I’m earlier than usual—Ryan’s school starts at eight-ten—but even so, Sister Amity gives me the hawk eye. “I expecte
d you yesterday, Howard. The grass in the Long Field is quite overgrown.” She’s a short, square-faced woman of about forty and far more vigorous than her life requires. Tapping her fingers on the hood of my truck, she sings, “Lots to do, now that spring’s here.”

  I don’t bother telling her something came up. I gave up explaining years ago. But the Long Field looks fine to me, and in confirmation, Robin rolls her eyes. “I know it’s easy for you to lose track of things, but we mustn’t let nature get too firm a hold,” Sister Amity says with a grin, and I clench my fists under my overall bib. “After the mowing, I want you to come around the side, please, and have another look at the novices’ shower drains. Though I’m sure it’s just hair.” She grins again and strides off, pumping her arms, and I go the other way to get out the John Deere.

  Whatever the nuns’ place in the world at large, their little spot of terra firma is extraordinarily pretty. The south acreage, especially, is a delicate arrangement of trees and hedges placed just as you’d arrange them if you were laying out a model train set. A slate walk leads from the main building to an enclosure of cedars, and inside the enclosure six iron benches stand surrounded by ferns, hostas, and clumps of aromatic herbs. This is the Contemplation Garden, which is open to the public and locally celebrated; it’s a place all of us were taken as schoolkids. I rarely go there—I already have all the contemplation I need—but when I do, I’m amazed by how lovely it is and by how much Robin accomplishes with a small range of plain green plants. Beyond the Contemplation Garden, the property rolls on for eight or ten acres, all filled with surprises. There’s a small chapel in a stand of willows; three isolation cabins used only in the summer months; and at the foot of the Long Field a bit of stream that runs prettily through a woods, then disappears under an arch in the stone wall. But my favorite area is on the north side, behind the main building. Tucked in a crux between two ivy-covered walls is a sitting area where small white stones surround an oblong reflecting pool filled with carp. This is the nuns’ private refuge, only steps from their living quarters, and often, as I’m heading to the garden shed, I see the cook, Sister Margaret, leafing through recipe books or her missal as she catches the sun. I could imagine bringing a book here myself if reading weren’t so difficult for me. It’s a spot that seems always to be sheltered from the breeze, and in winter it’s where the snow melts first, with a bundled-up Sister Margaret the first sign of spring. Beyond this lies the garden shed and an open lawn, then a row of pines and a stone wall, with the subdivision beyond.

  Only one thing belies the sense of a landscaped Arden, and that’s the interstate, which curves quite close to the big main building. On days when the wind is right, you can hear the highway from the little sitting area, and the whoosh of cars makes a sound like the roar of surf, though the coast is a thousand miles away. But the wave sound is the sole hint of traffic; where it passes the convent, the road cuts a trough through the grassland, and in the days before I was on the scene, the nuns had a steep, grassy berm built at the edge of the trough. It’s a clever device which creates an optical illusion: from the main convent building, the land seems to roll on without interruption, and if you don’t go right up to it, you can’t tell there’s a roadway there. Sister Amity pointed this out to me the first time I came to mow; she called it a “ha-ha,” and I didn’t have a clue what it was she meant. “Mind the ha-ha, Howard,” she said. “It’s too steep for the riding mower. You’ll want the push one.” And only when I was actually crossing the berm and felt the uneasy grip of the wheels on the incline did I climb down and see the railroad ties and steel reinforcement that had been used to create a retaining wall. I looked down at the curve of little whizzing cars, as dizzying and seductive as a cartoon of vertigo, and only then did I realize that this—this small trick of landscape—was what she called a ha-ha.

  The most ethereal moments of my life were the seconds before I crashed down on my head. I’d been overseas exactly sixteen days, and we were climbing through a rocky, forested area, the little lieutenant on point, me and Rimet following too close behind because the three of us were chatting and we were all a little stoned. And the lieutenant stepped on a mine and blew us all sky-high. The lieutenant died instantly, whether from burns or shrapnel or surprise I’ll never know. Rimet got burns and a broken shoulder, but escaped serious injury by landing on me; I managed not to die. And though I still have trouble with just what I was telling the LT that was so damned important, and though there are weeks after my fall of which I have no solid memories, only pain, I remember the floating feeling as the ground fell away. The orange dust grew warm around me and filled recognizably with bits of life: the lieutenant’s netted helmet, a few leaves clinging to its brim; a spray of pebbles, like an asteroid belt. Rimet, a shadow through the golden haze, waved loosely like a beauty queen as he tumbled toward me, head over heels, and above us I could see the forest canopy and blue tropical sky, untouched by all the bright, warm dust that was raising me up. Then one more moment of astronautical weightlessness, like a scrap of dream in the instant before waking, and the brightness flared out. I remember turning, lithe as a gymnast, and snapping a palm frond with my face, and as the sky clouded over, I suddenly touched down.

  I think of this each time I take the mower up the ha-ha; it’s the sudden infirmity as the big John Deere loses its purchase, the heedless ribbon of traffic below. Mowing the slope sends a clear wind blowing around in my skull, and as I hover at the edge of imbalance there are moments when my old eighteen-year-old self is still practically within reach—as though all the years since were no more than a blink. And it matters nothing the risk to me or the John Deere; we might both tumble to oblivion for all I care. But that high, weightless moment! That long shiver of sensation! This is my break in the succession of unvaried days, and I save it for last as a kind of treat. And often, as I edge further up the incline than is technically safe, Sister Amity will come out the back door of the convent and begin yelling.

  I look up. I can read her lips mouthing my name, and I wave back cheerfully, just to get her goat. Then the blade strikes a rock, and the whole apparatus quivers on three wheels for an instant, and the instant stretches out forever. For a moment, I’m just a fresh-faced, unshaven American kid taking a hike on foreign soil with two guys I barely know. We’re chatting, which is something I’ll never do again, and I’ve got Sylvia’s school photo in a plastic sleeve in my breast pocket. The LT’s interested in botany; he’s been making little drawings of the flowers we pass, and I’m still too green to resent his lack of vigilance. I’m thinking we have a year together and might become friends. I could use a buddy. And in spite of the gun and ammo belt and heavy boots, I feel weightless and even happy, and if it weren’t against regulations, I might start singing. Then the air turns bright.

  I bring my hands back to the wheel and turn downhill. I’m nonchalant about the danger, but I can’t help flinching, and Sister Amity begins to run. She crosses the lawn with her skirt held high, like the granny in some old-time tale. I stop the motor and climb down, and Sister Amity scolds, “You can’t take the ha-ha like that, Howard! I’ve told you before! Now come inside and wipe that smirk off your face. No more mowing for you today. I don’t know what you think is so funny!”

  I go inside, and Sister Margaret gives me lunch, as she does whenever I work past noon. Sister Amity takes me to the drains that are running slow, and I unscrew the grates and dig out several handfuls of hair and a tampon, and as I’m wrapping the mess in newspaper, Sister Amity pretends I don’t know what the tampon is. Then she accompanies me outside.

  There’s more mowing yet, plus Weedwacking and trimming, but I leave them for tomorrow, just to occupy another day. Usually, this would be the end of my shift and I’d head home, but now I have Ryan to think about, and I’m closer to Sylvia’s neighborhood than my own. So I help Robin with the pine bark for an hour or so, and at two-thirty I zip down the interstate to Ryan’s school. For a few hours, I’ve succeeded in forgetting he e
xists at all.

  6

  IN MY DARKEST DAYS, after I quit speech therapy, the two poles of my life were wasted and hung over. It wasn’t always possible to score hallucinogens or other exotics, but hash and Jack Daniel’s I could easily acquire, and under the influence of those anesthetics I learned that the whole world was as damaged as I was, and I began cruising streetwalkers. There were times I was so wrecked I could barely get hard, but you don’t have to be a hundred percent erect for a blow job—or even alert. Occasionally, when my dick finally spasmed into whatever mouth I’d purchased for the night, I couldn’t be certain if I was coming or pissing.

  If I could, though, I preferred to fuck them, either in the back of my dad’s car or in some apartment or motel room they took me to. But the working girls saw me as a dubious character, so it was largely open-air action. I remember once fucking a blonde girl in a parking lot behind a 7-Eleven, and I had to stop in the middle to throw up. The girl was leaning on a pipe railing at the side of a loading dock, and I was behind her with my hand tight across her mouth, pumping away, and I pulled out abruptly and heaved on the asphalt. She jumped aside with a squeal, and I stumbled forward, clutching my gut, the clump of my pants as constraining as shackles. I even dragged my trousers in the puke. On the street beyond the store a car sped past, playing “Compared to What” very loud on its radio, and I plunked my bare ass on the concrete steps of the loading dock, spread my thighs as wide as my dropped trousers would allow, and waved my dick at the girl, just to see if she’d carry on. And she must have been terribly hard up that night, or she’d have told me to go to hell. But she knelt down and finished me off. When I was ready to come, I touched her spiky shag with my fingers, and with all the tenderness I had left I wished this was my blonde, the long tresses of her girlhood cropped cute and close while I was a fighting man overseas. The girl I dreamed of was the girl who responded—not to my cock, but to me—and who above all stayed loyal, no matter what I’d become. With this, I came hard and bucking, then fell back across the concrete and passed out cold. When I awoke, I couldn’t tell how much time had elapsed. My pants were still around my ankles, and my wallet was several feet away, emptied of money. I stood up and covered myself, then picked up the wallet and drove until dawn, searching for the restitution not of my cash but of my chances. But that was long ago, and I remember it with grief. Now, of course, my best friend is my right hand, and my sex life occurs in the five minutes before rising. At the first hint of consciousness I roll over and get started; then I remember Ryan, and I can’t continue.