The Ha-Ha

by Dave King

  In the shower, I wonder about Sylvia, who still hasn’t bailed on rehab. Last night, while we were out having pizza, she left a message on the answering machine, her voice so jovial that I was certain she was home and high. But after a burst of introduction—“Hi, boys, inmate seven here”—there came the long drawing of a breath, and like a kid calling home from camp, she launched into a description of some people she’s met there. She didn’t mention the grim scene of her departure. As the message rambled, I saw Ryan’s face darken, and I wondered how long before she asked about us; then she said, “Anyway, I sure do miss you, my big darling boy. A line of X’s and O’s to you from Mama, and a nice hug to Howie, too,” and clicked off. Is she supposed to enjoy it?

  I’m still not betting on Sylvia’s completing her treatment, and it would be easiest, certainly, to send Ryan home. I’d like to see Sylvia myself. But last night, in the pizzeria, a broadcast basketball game forestalled any talk, and I think he enjoys the rides in the truck. Perhaps Sylvia’s sticking to her project even goads me a little, because I consider what kind of parent she’s been and wonder what kind I’d be. I don’t want it said I do a bad job. So I hustle into the kitchen with shaving cream in my ears, and this time there’s a burner waiting. Ryan wanders in just as breakfast is ready—he’s got excellent timing—and he seems to take this as our customary morning scene. I wouldn’t mind his being a little impressed; I don’t picture Sylvia bothering with French toast.

  I make Laurel’s breakfast, too, but she eats at the counter, just as yesterday. It’s Ryan and me at the table again, and when the silence descends, my exasperation is like hives. Ryan digs in, clumsily shoveling with his left hand, getting stuff on his shirt, and today he forgets to compliment the food. We’re almost finished before he looks up. “Hey, is that guy—um, is Steve gonna come in again and get coffee?”

  I shrug. Nit’s not a topic I find worthy of discussion. I hand Ryan the dollar for his milk, and with a wave I say keep the change, yo. He falls quiet again. Ruby settles herself by his chair, looking up with cereal-bowl eyes, and glancing around sneakily, Ryan feeds her a bit of bacon behind Laurel’s back. The poor dog will fart all day, but Laurel’s decent enough not to scold us when she turns suddenly and asks about the phone.

  In this house, Nit and Nat have cells and private landlines, and Laurel uses her cell phone primarily. I don’t make phone calls, though I do have the answering machine; but only two people phone me, or maybe just one. Once in a while, Sister Amity will telephone from the convent, but Sylvia calls any time she’s got a problem, and if it weren’t for her, I’d have disconnected the service. And this is how she got me to take Ryan, of course. She called after midnight, sounding very strung out, and I came downstairs in my boxers and stood listening to her voice. Sylvia said her sister was bullying her into rehab: “She actually put me in a cold shower. Was anything ever so trite? And I really can’t take it when she lights into me like that, Howie. It’s not so easy to just go away when one has a child; you have to—But I was thinking, possibly, if you came over in the morning, we could, I don’t know, my mind just swings. But could you stop by anyway, maybe even just for moral support? Because she’s wearing down my resistance here—and oh, Christ, if I did go someplace I might just manage—” She sniffed loudly. “Though maybe it would do Ry-Ry some good to spend some time with a man. He sees an awful lot of me, and God knows I could use a break from him. And you’re so . . .” And in the morning, there I was, as she knew I would be. She was waiting on the stoop.

  Now, though, Laurel says, “Ryan, you know you can use the phone whenever you want. Did Howard tell you?”

  Of course I did. Last evening, after we listened to Sylvia’s odd, cheery message, I tapped the old yellow rotary phone with my finger. I took the envelope with her phone number from my wallet, but when I handed it to him he flung it toward the living room, where it slid under the couch. I suppose I looked thunderstruck, because he suddenly barked, “What?” and when I picked up the receiver he stomped upstairs. I found him curled up on the futon, and I squatted down, making the phone-receiver gesture. He gazed up with broad indifference. “What?” he repeated, a little less truculently, and when I stood to leave him he mumbled, “No, thank you.” This is exactly what he says now to Laurel.

  She comes over and leans on the table. “Because I was thinking your mom’d be pretty glad to hear from you. And I bet early in the morning’s a good time to reach her. Before they all get started with their day?”

  Ryan says nothing, and Laurel and I stare at him. I suppose he thinks we do nothing but stare. I think of his running inside at Sylvia’s departure, and I wonder how thoroughly he was briefed; it’s one of Syl’s tactics to leave things unstated. Ryan picks up his fork and scrapes the tines down the wooden tabletop, making four parallel grooves in the surface. “No, thank you,” he says aggressively.

  Laurel runs her fingers over the damage. The table has plenty of scratches already, so I can give this a pass; but when she clears her throat, Ryan jumps like he’s been shot. “Ry,” she starts, and he juts out his chin. I take the fork from his hand.

  Ruby grunts from under the table, then clacks to the screen door and whines at Puff, the ancient tomcat from next door. Laurel lets the dog out, and when she turns around I tap her arm and shrug. I don’t worship the telephone; in fact, I disdain it. Sylvia will survive without a call-back, I think; so I shrug again and gather our dishes.

  Laurel follows me to the sink. “Howard,” she says. “I’m sure you mean well, but you know I was raised to honor my elders.” The hell! Does she think I didn’t honor my parents just as much? I turn the faucet on loud and wave her to her simmering pots, and she leans closer. “We’ve got some discussing to do.” But I’m just the guardian, not the pastor or social worker, and there were times I waited plenty for Sylvia to contact me. And Ryan’s temporary here, so why sweat it? I hunker over the frying pan and refuse to look up, and Laurel steps off a little sulkily.

  When I was drafted, and then when I was sent overseas—and even when I first woke up wounded, so far from home and indescribably frightened and with the sense that my head had been caved in like a Ping-Pong ball—even then, the only philosophy I knew was to hope for the best. I believe I sustained that attitude my first years of being home, but as we head toward the school it seems a long time since I mustered much hopefulness. Then Ryan’s gone. He murmurs, “Bye, Howie,” and climbs from the truck to join the stream heading for the playground, and I notice several children wearing jackets and wonder if he’s dressed himself warmly enough.

  7

  I PULL OUT OF THE SCHOOL PARKING LOT and drive to my job, and as I move through the morning traffic I consider the time I’ve spent puttering around Sylvia’s life. For years, I’ve been the guy she calls when she’s in a pickle, and though Ryan’s often about, it’s always Sylvia absorbing my attention. And I have to ask myself if this is normal: should a live human being have made so little impact? I once heard his mother tell him to watch me working because someday he’d be the man of the house, but even then I didn’t pay him much heed.

  I try to remember what he was like at six: round face, soft Afro of hair. No sign of the lanky guy he is at nine. I think of a day several summers ago when Sylvia wanted a cat flap, and I took her back door off its hinges. I laid the door in the center of the kitchen and carefully installed a pre-made kitty entrance, and it took a long time because I didn’t want her to see me struggling with the instructions. I was seated on the linoleum, puzzling over diagrams, when Ryan, who must have been in about first grade, suddenly began reading aloud. He’d been sitting by me all along, while I ignored him, then with quiet seriousness he sounded out one word and the next. Remembering, I see myself turn gratefully, though I did nothing of the kind. Then Sylvia was in the kitchen, talking and talking while I was trying to listen! In high school, she was a quiet girl, and I took that for serenity, but now she fills up my conversational void. If she’s on anything extra, she chatter
s extra.

  I stop at a traffic circle, waiting to merge. On the curb ahead, a tall man in a ragged coat gestures at the traffic. I’ve seen this guy before. I once let him wipe my windshield, and he smeared it with something that was hell to get off, and Nit and Nat have made him the object of jokes. Now a spring breeze gusts at his long hair, and he waves a homemade sign over his head. Of course, I can’t decode the sign.

  The guy shouts at the driver before me, and I inch left to slip out of the lane. He spots me immediately. I glance at the traffic, and when I look again he’s marching toward me, chest out, like a soldier. I hit the accelerator, then somewhere a horn sounds. A Cadillac slams to a halt; someone calls me a dickwad. The ragged man’s face is giant now, and he squints at me, showing his teeth, and his large, dark pores. His dirtiness fills the open passenger window as I stomp on the gas. Then the face slides away.

  Later, mowing, I ponder Ryan’s refusal to telephone his mom, and with each turn of the John Deere his rebellion seems more bold. Perhaps it’s simply that I jump whenever Sylvia beckons, but suddenly what I take without question—the ups and downs, the sulks, casual affection, petty slights, delicious flirtation and lavishly bestowed favors that have been my lot since I returned from overseas—seems unsuited to the life of a child.

  I never objected to Sylvia’s getting high. I wouldn’t sully our togetherness with police work, and I think I assumed she was a good enough parent. Her kid went to school and was not obviously troubled, and Sylvia drew a paycheck and put meals on the table. So when things slipped, the change was gradual. Besides, I don’t like confrontation. I depended on some natural corrective, perhaps Syl’s own conscience or strength of character, to bring her back.

  I think of my dad, whose drinking didn’t start ’til I came home injured, but it distressed me anyway, even as I sought out medications of my own . . . and I was an adult! Abruptly, I picture the ragged man’s squinting face, and when I shake off that image it’s Sylvia who rises before me, the day of that cat flap. A little tense and frayed, as she often is, her voice and even the snap of her footsteps interrupting my concentration. I wish she’d shut up and let me listen! And I’m suddenly angry; three years later, I’m angry. I’m stunned by her failure to notice I can’t read!

  The motor noise hangs like a dome over the John Deere, and as I head for the ha-ha I contemplate life in that Silly Putty house. I picture the entry, with the living room straight ahead, and Sylvia’s stuff: the club chairs from her parents’ home and rows of framed photographs and knickknacks on every surface. A glimpse of green yard glows through a curtained window. But it’s all dark, as if no one’s home, and when I place Sylvia and Ryan in this environment, they fade like ghosts. What life might be like when I’m not there, I have no clue. And I’m on my way down before I realize what’s happened. I’ve missed my moment of floating! I mowed the ha-ha yesterday, too! How long have I been repeating work already done?

  What was I thinking while I was not paying attention? I was wondering what it’s like to be around her constantly. To be her kid, to have requirements and expectations for the future, to need her more than a wounded, full-grown ex-boyfriend could imagine. I was reliving Ryan’s determination as he worked at his reading; also his refusal to call Sylvia, the leap into the tetherball game, his cuddling Bindi and Ruby, and almost everything else. What this tells me about my own obligations I’m not at all sure, but as I cut back toward the garden shed I’m strangely unsettled.

  8

  FOUR DAYS NOW, and the fourth night. I’ve got a roasted chicken from the supermarket, plus frozen peas and small red potatoes. I seem to be caught in a loop of meals, but with a second mouth to feed, my customary shortcuts strike me as slop. Next time, I’ll roast the chicken myself. I heat a pan of water for the peas and another for the potatoes, and I think of the calm years before my mother died, and of longer ago, when there were three of us and I still spoke. When my family moved into this house, the place needed work, and for the first year we camped out. Our table was a pair of plywood-topped sawhorses adorned with my grandmother’s silver candlesticks; I thought it was cozy, and I’m glad now for the time we had. Tonight, of course, some sparkling dinnertime conversation would round out my chicken and vegetables, but certain things can’t be helped. Ryan barely speaks without cause, so it’s plan B: tray tables and TV.

  We’re not finished eating when the phone rings, and we both freeze. The actors in the broadcast go on reciting their scripted lines, while in the hallway Laurel’s voice says to leave a message. Then there’s Sylvia, and though I can’t make out what she’s saying, my blood rises just at the sound. I wave to Ryan to jump up and grab the phone, but he pretends not to notice. The television scene ends and a commercial begins, and Sylvia continues for another ten seconds. She blows three kisses and hangs up.

  I do the dishes and put away the tray tables. Laurel’s kept a low profile since we disagreed about the phone calls, and tonight she’s off again with friends. But she asked Ryan to give Ruby her supper, and this he does, squatting by the bowl as the little dog grunts and gobbles. Nit and Nat appear out of nowhere, take beers from the refrigerator, and disappear in different directions; Ryan returns to the parlor. He’s flipping channels when I beckon him to the entrance hall, where my answering machine sits in an alcove by the stairs. Sylvia called last night, too, so that’s three days of phone messages! Laurel’s right: this has gone on long enough.

  He frowns at the floor, hands in the pockets of his shorts. I tap the phone machine, and he looks up as if I’ve scolded him. But at last he touches a button, and we hear what we couldn’t discern before. Sylvia’s getting used to her surroundings, she says, and she hopes Ryan’s happy, too. “But I haven’t heard from you, my mean, mean guy. I kind of expected you’d give Mama a call by now. If you’re having trouble getting through, just tell them you’re Sylvia’s little boy and it’s an emergency. Even if it’s not, okay? And something’s happening in a couple weeks that you have to come to, but I’ll tell you about it when we talk. So call me, Ryan honey. Remember how lonely it is for me here. Love to Howie.” Then the kisses.

  Ryan stands motionless through Sylvia’s discourse. I’ve taken a seat on the stairs, and when she’s finished, I’m breathless with the wish to see her. Then he sighs loudly, and I suppose he’s embarrassed by his neglect. I point to Sylvia’s number, which I’ve propped by the phone. He doesn’t budge, so I hand it to him; he shoves my hand away. “Howie!”

  I lean over the banister and turn the phone so I can see it. Enough foolishness! I pick up the mouthpiece and jab at the rotary, dialing the number I’ve memorized with some effort. I place the mouthpiece by Ryan’s head. He struggles against me, but I hold his face to the phone, and if I’m a little rough, that’s not important. He should be grateful he can use a phone.

  I hear rings, then the hum of a voice. I loosen my hold on him and nod encouragingly. Ask for her! Ryan opens his mouth but says nothing, and when the receiver-voice hums again he takes a breath and shouts, “Abalabalalalabalaba-ba-ba!” Jumping back out of my grasp, he hollers more nonsense while I grapple at him through the banister. And though Sylvia’s name is beyond my capability, I’m trying to speak when he tugs at the phone cord. The receiver slips from my hand and knocks a cup of pens and pencils to the ground. Another jerk, and the phone flies from the table, sweeping the answering machine with it. The receiver falls heavily, and the disconnect recording begins.

  I don’t know how this would play out if we weren’t interrupted, but I’m reaching for Ryan’s hair when Nat clunks down the stairs. “Making crank calls, little spaceman? Time-honored American pastime.”

  I swivel my butt to let Nat pass, then pant at him as he does so. His long hair is damp but carefully combed, and he’s wearing a loose tie-dyed shirt, like a fashionable hippie. He surveys the downed telephone and scattered pencils, then tugs at an earring. “Pick up your toys when you’re done.”

  “I’m not playing,” says Ryan. He looks Nat
up and down. “Are you going on a date?”

  “A date? I should be so lucky. Just a couple guys I know, their band’s playing. Though hopefully it’s not just guys.” He grins wolfishly, smoothing his shirttail. Not a care in the fucking world. “Hey, chief. Maybe we oughta go out sometime,” he tells Ryan. “Coupla lonely bachelors living in one house, hell. We might round up some fun. Grab a few beers, cruise chicks. You, me, Stevie . . .” He scratches his ear, adding, “Howard, man, you can come too, ’f you got the time.” Then his eyes flicker back to Ryan. “Awright, buddy?”

  Ryan nods slowly. This may be the first time Nat’s addressed him directly, and he seems to be contemplating his response. But the moment’s already over. Nat says, “Grrrr,” and claps Ryan on the shoulder, then takes off, leaving the screen door open. A fly buzzes in; I step over and shut the screen, and Ryan comes and stands beside me. He’s as close as he can get to my body without touching.