by Dave King
Together we watch Nat climb into the boys’ old white van. He adjusts the radio and seat, then smiles at himself in the mirror and backs off without a glance. Ryan bends to pick a scab from his knee, and though I should scold him for the telephone nonsense, I’ve an impulse instead to put my arm around him. I’m too shy, though, to do either, and a minute later he shuffles away. I hear him gathering the pencils and returning the phone and the other stuff to the table, then he goes to the living room, and the television starts up.
I remain in the doorway, watching the fading light. The street fills with shadows, and at last the house opposite is a mere silhouette, sharp and black against a peacock sky. A squirrel scurries around my front yard, trying to accomplish something in the last of the day, and a car moves up the street, the driver reaching to flick on his headlights. The squirrel picks up something in its mouth and disappears under a shrub, and in one of the nearby houses I can hear women laughing. And I feel . . . what? Inconsequential, I suppose. This house is less cozy than it was at suppertime, and Nat really is an asshole.
9
OURS IS A DOMICILE of grown-ups. Even Nit and Nat, for all their slackerdom, maintain schedules and pay bills, and as Ryan sleepwalks from futon to TV, I wonder if we deliver what a kid needs to stay happy. I cast around for toys to make the environment fun, and on Friday, while he’s at school, I check his room. But I find only schoolbooks and clothes and shoes. Evidently, that embroidered suitcase was for strict necessities. I’m leaving the room when I spot a bright pink paw, half hidden by a pillow, and I picture some beloved floppy animal, threadbare and limp. But when I move the bedclothes, I see the thing isn’t Ryan’s at all, but mine: a stupid, plush Energizer Bunny I won in a street fair years ago and never thought of again. I figure if he’s dug this terrible item out, there must be other stuffed thingums he’s accustomed to sleeping with, and I begin to contemplate a supply run back to Sylvia’s. I wonder what kind of toys a nine-year-old plays with, and I imagine them scattered around my house. Erector sets, jigsaw puzzles, battery-operated racing cars. In the supermarket and out on the street, I’ve seen kids fooling with little handheld video gizmos, and I suppose they’re fun, but I wonder if anybody still plays Parcheesi or Risk. If we set up a board game on the parlor carpet, would it pass the time until Sylvia’s return? Sports equipment. Different clothes. A bike, a skateboard. He’ll appreciate the thoughtfulness.
I pick him up after school. The radio’s up loud, and we roar through the streets like a couple of teenagers. When a familiar song comes on, I even hum a little; that’s one thing I can still sort of do.
Ryan doesn’t ask where we’re going. He’s made only so-so progress at communicating with me, so I let him discover for himself what’s in store. Then a glimpse of her house, and my chest tightens. Propped on her bedroom sill is that souvenir costume doll from Honduras or wherever, and the silhouette speaks of the rushed tensions of her departure: Ryan disappearing inside, Sylvia reddening and saying, “Let’s just go.” And suddenly I feel a spasm of sympathy for Sylvia. I think how hard it must be, doing what she’s doing, and I consider how much she must truly love cocaine. For a moment, I recall those spectacular arcs of time when I was the solitary pinprick of sensation in the whole wide world, the one heroic lawbreaker in our dutiful universe. I remember the mingled glory and hostility that are just not possible to describe, and I think how long I’ve been away from those feelings. I know I’ve grown accustomed to believing I don’t miss them, and perhaps I don’t, but as I gaze at the back of Sylvia’s Honduran doll I have an instant of exquisite empathy for what she’s taken on. It’s not an interesting burden.
Ryan shoots a dark look from across the seat. “What are we doing here?” he says. The little putty house has a certain serenity, occupying its plot under the warm sun, and I think coming home should make him happy. But he says, “No way,” and pulls down his Indians cap.
On the stoop of the house next door, a sandy-haired kid in headphones is reading a comic book. I point a finger at the kid and say, “Cah,” by which I mean go on: say hello, and I believe Ryan understands. In a perfect world, he gets what I’m getting at.
But Ryan says, “It’s Fartin’ Martin, Howie,” and his tone’s so snotty that I give the seat a smack with my hand. He jumps at the noise, then his mouth sets. “I don’t think so.” This is his mom at her worst.
I get out and take a breath. Ryan doesn’t look up. Is he going to just sit there? I can’t drag him to the house, but I’d expected him to hop out and gather his stuff. What’s the point in any other behavior? Looking up, I catch Fartin’ Martin eyeing us, so I walk the short distance to Sylvia’s mailbox, looking around at the grid of one-story box homes. With its flat streets and meager trees, this is not a neighborhood I’d care to live in, but today, as the bright sky arcs from rooftop to rooftop, it seems like a place where things aren’t too unpleasant. Across the street, two smaller kids shriek as they jump through a sprinkler, and in the yard beyond that a girl pumps furiously on a swing. A well-kept, tidy world, though Sylvia’s grass is shaggy.
Ryan doesn’t say anything when I open his door, and when I set the mail on his lap he looks away, barely budging. One of Sylvia’s tactics is the silent treatment, and I think if he starts this I’ll drive off and leave him to fend for himself. And I don’t know how a simple errand got so charged. Twenty minutes ago I felt generous, bombing through the bright streets, but now I wish I had five minutes—one minute—of clear speech to say we came here for him.
Ryan kicks the dashboard, interrupting my thoughts. He eyes me uncomfortably and wipes the scuff with his fingers. “Can we go now?” I frown at him—pushing my buttons, fella—then walk off, leaving his door open. I think I might as well run the mower around, and in the meantime Ryan can consider what he wants from this place. The house key, I remember, is under the flowerpot; I unlock the front door as an enticement.
I start in back, to put some distance between us, and when I push the mower around the house, the Fartin’ Martin family Rottweilers circle their chain-link enclosure. Sylvia’s property lines are planted with hedges of some translucent, weedy shrub, and in the yard behind, a man in a lawn chair is drinking a beer. The man waves as I start the back border. I nod, and he gets up and slips through the hedge, still carrying his can of beer. He’s about seventy, and I pause when he gets close, but I don’t stop the engine. I don’t want to encourage him.
“Where’s Syl?” the guy says. He’s dressed in sandals and one of those terry-cloth swim sets I used to give my dad for Father’s Day. He’s too polite to stare at my scar.
I cup two fingers behind an ear. There’s the noise of the machine and the barking dogs, so I make a hell-with-it gesture and start to move on, but the man leans closer. “Haven’t seen the boy around, either,” he shouts. “Little colored child. We’re wondering if everything’s okay.”
I point to the strip that leads from the back yard to the driveway. The guy stares blankly. I make a swooping motion over the house, but the old fellow doesn’t get it. “Look,” he says carefully, and sips his beer. “You know Sylvia, gal that lives here. The blonde, right?” I nod and push the mower forward, but he won’t go away. When I turn, he’s still there, scratching the frizzy chest hair in the V of his little jacket. He reaches out to pluck at my arm and says, “I could call the cops, you know,” then draws back suddenly, as if I’ve threatened him. His lips are white.
I take the guy’s elbow and lead him to the driveway. I don’t mind pulling harder than he likes. Ryan’s still slumped in my truck, but he sits up when I send the old guy ambling toward him; then the guy points to his forehead, and Ryan bats his hand away. They’re discussing my scar. I go back to work, and when the old man passes through again he stares like he’s onto something. Story of my life, these encounters.
I’m starting the front when the motor coughs and runs out of gas. Ryan looks up; he must think we’re taking off. I pantomime pouring and raise my eyebrows, but he only shr
ugs. I glare at him as I head for the garage. The gas can’s on a crappy, pieced-together workbench, and I have to move some old picture frames to get to it. But as I pick up the first one I realize it’s not a frame at all, but a painting on stretched canvas. I turn it around; it’s an art-school self-portrait from Sylvia’s college years.
The canvas has slackened, and the whole thing’s gotten grubby, but in an instant I recall a day when I was much worse off than I am now, though we still held out hope for a full recovery. A song we liked was playing in the art studio at the college, and as Sylvia held up one painting after another I decided she had a tendency to make herself homely, and she always got the mouth wrong; and I noted these observations to myself with the idea we’d talk about them once I could speak. Now I notice how the head’s a potato, and the shadows of the face are a dark, purplish green. I suspect by any objective criteria this isn’t an accomplished painting, but as I hold it before me I feel Sylvia’s gaze so completely that I put the thing down as fast as I can. I’m stumbling toward the driveway when I see a bat and ball inside the door.
I’m not thinking of Ryan. For the moment, I’m blind to his existence. I’m no longer hoping to lure him out of the truck to gather the makings of a contented kid, and I’m not trying to be his friend. I’m just remembering his mom. And it’s not as though I swing well, but I do get a piece of it. With an unfamiliar aluminumy thuk! the ball binks over the hood of the truck, then slowly descends into the next lot.
In an instant, Fartin’ Martin is off his porch. He’s charging like a spaniel, but Ryan’s up and running, too. Fartin’ Martin’s chunkier and somewhat ungainly, and Ryan’s so swift that they reach the ball at the same time. But as Fartin’ Martin picks it up, Ryan cocks a fist under his nose. Fartin’ Martin drops the ball at their feet.
I let go of the bat. I run over and grab Ryan’s wrist, and I know I’ve got a hard grip, but I won’t stand for bullying. “Not,” I say and shake his hand. He pulls back, glaring furiously. I go on shaking, and I say, “Not!” again, louder, and then again. Shake and “Not!” Still he pulls, and I get in his face like a drill sergeant and say it again, or maybe several times, until I’m roaring. When I let go, he falls back on his butt.
He looks up. “You can’t do that,” he says. His eyes are watery, and there’s a darkness where I gripped his wrist. “You can’t—” But I’m at the end of my rope. I can’t what? I want to holler. I CAN’T WHAT? I’ve always—even before I was injured—hated all teasing and harassment, and if Ryan’s mother hasn’t schooled him in fair play, I sure as hell will! I give a pitiless look and gesture for him to get to his feet. He doesn’t move. I reach down to help him, but he pulls back his hand. “I’m telling my mom,” he says. “She’ll take me out of here.” Oh, yeah? You’re not even speaking to her.
Fartin’ Martin’s staring at me, his mouth open. When I’m flushed, my scar whitens to a puffy handprint, and I know it must look awful now. Still, I reach for his small, soft paw and offer it to Ryan, and he permits this without protest. I want the boys to make up like gentlemen, but neither one moves, and at last Fartin’ Martin withdraws his hand. Ryan says, “Cocksucker,” not loud, but loud enough. His lower jaw is out, and as he digs his fingers in the grass, my blood boils. Then, very deliberately, he tears out a fistful of lawn. “Baldy damn . . . asswipe dumb shit retard,” he says huskily, and flings the torn-up grass at my shoes.
I turn as fast as I can and march back to Sylvia’s yard. Across the street, the two neighbor kids are like wind-up toys, cavorting in their bubble of mist. My T-shirt is itchy and my lips parched, and I lean against the mower and pinch the bridge of my nose. The air around me is filled with hot, sparkling dots, and as I wait for Ryan to return to the truck, I find I’m panting. But the street has screeched to a halt, and he stays where he is. The dogs are still, the crickets absent; no wind plucks at the weedy shrubs. A trickle of perspiration slips down my nose, and as I peek through my fingers I see the two boys still standing together. Ryan’s tossing and absently catching the ball; he looks suddenly jaunty. I’m humbled to note he’s just a boy, and I’m grateful no harm’s done. But a moment later he starts back across the lawns and gives me a look of pure, boldest indignation. Then it rushes back: how we came here for him, how this is not my notion of fun. I don’t need it, I tell myself, and grip the mower handle with my fists. I don’t need Mr. Neighborhood Nosy or a nine-year-old with attitude or Fartin’ Martin’s fucking Rottweilers or pudgy Fartin’ Martin himself, and I don’t need to be called names. That’s not why I’m here, I think, not why I ever came home from a war. In an instant, I’m furious, and what small remorse I’d felt has fled. I watch him saunter toward the truck, and now I want to go home. But at the edge of the driveway, Ryan picks up the bat and smacks a nice, bouncing grounder across the two front yards.
Fartin’ Martin makes a leap and misses the catch. He lands on his belly, rolls over, and grapples for the ball, which comes to rest not far away. Ryan stares for a moment at this display, then calls out dryly, “Go on, man. Go get your glove. Grab one for me, too, while you’re at it, ’kay?” And the dogs once again take up their cry.
10
RYAN SAYS NOTHING ON the way home. I don’t like this, but I’m not speaking to him either, whether he realizes it or not. When we pull into my driveway, I hop from the truck and go inside without another look. I take a long shower, then shut myself in my bedroom and lie down on the bed. When I wake, the room is dark, and it takes a moment to realize it’s evening, not early morning. My window glows with the last tone before black, and as I pull into consciousness, I hear my neighbor yelling at his wife. My own house is still. I stretch a little, running a hand over my torso, and tug gently at the hair on my belly. I’m just drifting off again when I remember Ryan, who’d slipped utterly from my mind.
Downstairs, the parlor’s dark. The kitchen lights are on, but no one’s around. Dishes are stacked in the drainer, and a rock magazine lies open on the table. I go back upstairs and peer into Ryan’s room, flicking his light on, then off. He’s not there. I glance in the bathroom, and because Laurel’s door is open I look there, too, then continue up to the boys’ floor, where I never go. Ruby greets me on the landing, sniffs the hem of my robe, and pads into Nit’s room, where a desk lamp shines dimly on the unmade bed. But that means nothing; Nit never turned off a light or made a bed in his life. A shabby, rose-colored wing chair sits in one corner, with a pile of papers on the seat and a pair of white u-trou clinging to an armrest. Ruby settles on the nest of papers, grunting expectantly, but I cross the landing to knock on Nat’s closed door. No answer. I knock again, then peek in; Ryan’s not there. He’s not in the cupola, either, nor in the boys’ grubby third-floor john, and by the time I’m heading back down the stairs I’ve gotten anxious.
In the guest room, I stare at the pink Energizer Bunny as if Ryan might suddenly step from its skin. I look in my own room, where my own body-shaped indentation still wrinkles the quilt. Then a glance at the darkened parlor, then the kitchen again. The dining room—a place I haven’t looked . . . and the cellar. By the third step I know I won’t find him here, but I charge down anyway and peer behind the furnace. No.
The cellar door faces the door to the yard, and I run back up the stairs and burst onto the back stoop. The sky’s now fully dark, with a few stars and a lopsided moon, and the next street over seems very far away. A river of contiguous back yards courses darkly between the lit-up houses, eddying in deep shadows around shrubs and swing sets, but hitching my robe around me, I wade right in. I know if I could only call out, he might respond to my panic; but of course I can’t do that, so I begin with my own yard: the tack room and long grass behind the stable; the catalpa, with two woody lilacs clumped at its base. Just over the property line stands a weeping willow, its branches like beaded curtains. I slip in and out of the dank room they define. Then I really set off, moving back yard to back yard, checking clubhouses and plastic pools and stumbling over scooters and do
g toys in my way. Three houses down, I snag my shin on a croquet wicket and almost fall, and at the house after that a voice calls out, “Hello?” Turning, I see figures on a back stoop, with two red dots of cigarettes. I wave silently and keep going. But a yard or two later I wish I’d stopped. I could have made myself understood, I think, though I press on anyway, pausing at each playhouse, stable, and garden shed, then finally running headlong toward the apricot glow of the main boulevard.
Here I stop. Cars are speeding in both directions, so I can’t continue in the same furious fashion, and anyway, I’m faced with more choices than I can weigh. I don’t know which direction Ryan would have turned if he got this far, and I don’t even know if he came here at all. Staring into the headlights, I’m considering my next move when a teenager leans from a passing car and yells, “Aaayaaaaah!”—whether at me or the glory of night, I’m not sure. Looking down, I see I’m still in my boxers and robe. I’ve lost the belt to the robe, and I’m barefoot.
At the corner of my own street, the moonlight’s eclipsed by the canopy of elms. I turn toward home, and though I ought to keep running I’m suddenly exhausted, so I pad along as briskly as I can manage. The old slate sidewalk feels good on my feet. I try to think clearly, to decide if Ryan’s run off or is simply hiding, if he has a destination in mind and what it might be. Would he go back to Sylvia’s place? I don’t know enough to be sure. Try for Caroline’s, in Chicago? I can’t remember if I saved that business card or tossed it to the ground with her money, and I have a sudden flash of shouting “Not” at her over the phone. But it’s funny what you can do when the options are limited. When my father was dying, I dialed 911 and howled into the receiver, and an ambulance arrived in no time at all. With this, though, I hope I’m jumping the gun—the boy’s not missing, merely misplaced. Still, I pick up the pace.