“Hey Mom, can I—”
“What did that man want?”
“What man?”
She motioned toward the tent, but there was only a mass of backs, no one distinguishable. “The man you were just talking to.”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why were you talking to him?”
“He said hello, so I said hello back. You told me to be polite to people.”
“Is he the father of one of your friends?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I think so, ’cause he knew my name, except he called me David.”
“He knew your name?”
“Yeah, so?”
“What else did he say?”
“I don’t remember. Can I have six bucks to go on the bumper cars? Please.”
“The bumper cars don’t cost six dollars,” Simon said.
“Three rides do.”
Amy took two dollars from her pocketbook, and Davey grabbed them. “Thanks.”
“We’ll come watch you,” she said.
Davey twisted up his face in yet another expression of disgust. He seemed to have an endless variety of ways to show his revulsion. “Dad?”
Simon had thought about going on the ride as well, renewing their battle from last year when they rammed each other at every turn. This year, it seemed, Davey wanted to be on his own.
“How about we watch him get on,” Simon said to Amy, “and then we go away till he’s done?”
As Davey ran off a young man stepped in front of them. His face was unshaven and his curly hair spread wildly across his head. Amy grabbed Simon’s arm.
“Mr. Howe,” the fellow said, grinning now, which exposed two sharp canine teeth, as if they had been filed to a point. “It’s me, Randy—you know, the Hero of Dakin Road.”
“Right, Randy Caine,” Simon said, his body un-stiffening. “I didn’t recognize you from your mug shots.”
“Yeah, they never get my best side.”
Amy nudged him with her elbow. Of course he should introduce her, but to Randy Caine? If she never wanted to meet David the rapist, what would she think of Randy, the inveterate small-time troublemaker? “Amy, this is Randy Caine. He’s graced our pages a few times.”
She put out her hand, which seemed to take Randy by surprise. He wiped his right hand on the sleeve of his left arm and then took hers for a powerful shake.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Howe. Your husband, he always makes me look good.”
“That was a daring thing you did,” Simon said, “rescuing the girl from the fire. It deserved page one. Sorry we only had your mug shot on file.”
“That’s okay. Everybody says I’m like Superman or something. Feels funny, you know, being a hero.”
“It was a bit out of character.”
Amy looked over at him as if he was being rude, but Randy nodded amiably. “You won’t catch me doing nothing like that again. I mean, cops patting me on the back, people stopping to shake my hand. The next person comes up to me …”
“We all have our crosses to bear,” Simon said so Randy wouldn’t have to finish his threat, “for better or worse.”
“Definitely for worse,” Randy said and backed away into the crowd.
After the bumper cars, Davey coaxed them to the Hall of Mirrors. “Not me,” Amy said. “I don’t need to see myself coming and going.”
“Then you have to come with me, Dad.”
“I don’t know,” Simon said, feigning reluctance, and Davey grabbed his hand and pulled him to the entrance. The boy handed over two tickets and plunged ahead, banging hard into the first mirror he came to.
“Careful,” Simon said, “you’ll break the glass.”
“It’s unbreakable,” Davey said, punching at it to demonstrate. Then he reached up with his hands to cover his father’s face. “Close your eyes.”
“I’m not doing this with my eyes closed.”
“Just close them and spin around and then go through. I’m doing it, too.”
Simon closed his eyes and felt Davey’s small hands on his waist, turning him. After two revolutions he looked. His son was gone.
“Davey?” Simon turned about, groped the air ahead of him, touched glass, and turned again. “Where are you?”
The boy’s head stuck out sideways from the edge of the mirrors, as if floating. Hands came out, gripped the skinny neck. His tongue dropped from his mouth, his eyes widened, and then his head was yanked away.
“Very funny,” Simon said. “Now stay where you are until I catch up.” He stepped forward carefully, hit glass, turned and hit glass again. Okay, this isn’t possible. There has to be a way forward. He reached ahead and touched glass, and when he did a man appeared there, but ahead or behind, Simon couldn’t tell. He thought about asking which way to go, or just following, but the person wasn’t moving. And which man would he ask from the dozens around him?
“Davey?” Simon said, then louder, “Davey?”
“Lose someone?” The voice sounded soothing, the god of the Hall of Mirrors checking in on his realm. But a god with a baseball cap pulled halfway down his face.
“Did a boy pass you?”
“A slender boy about ten or eleven, with sandy hair?”
Simon stared at the fractured images. “Yes.”
They smiled, a hundred smiling faces.
“I did see him. You’re very lucky to have a beautiful boy like that.”
Beautiful. Simon moved forward a few feet, banged into glass.
The man laughed. “Take your time,” he said, “and don’t trust your eyes.” Then he was gone.
The only image Simon could see now was his own, ten Simons, and when he moved a little, a hundred of them. All Simon. No Davey. “Davey!” he shouted. He began to rush ahead, sweeping the air, turning and turning until suddenly he found empty space. It was as if the maze had suddenly disappeared. There was only one way to go and he had found it, the magic path. Soon he heard sounds of the outside, the familiar organ music, and he felt fresh air in his face. In a few moments he was outside, standing behind the Hall of Mirrors, across from the Register Building. There was Davey, bent over tying his sneakers.
The boy looked up. “What took you so long?”
———
Simon didn’t tell Amy about the stranger in the Hall of Mirrors. What would he say, that a man in there spoke of Davey as a “beautiful boy”? She might get hysterical, if he could use that word, and not let their son out of her sight.
Simon steered them down the midway toward the exit. Halfway there he said, “That’s it for tonight, kiddo. Mom and I both have work tomorrow.”
“Just one more ride,” Davey said in his familiar pleading voice. No matter what the occasion, he always asked for once more.
Simon glanced at the amusements within eyeshot—the Ferris wheel, the Catapult, and just a little farther ahead, the Teacups, closest to the exit. “Okay, you can go on the Teacups once, then we leave.” He handed over two dollars and Davey ran ahead, with both of them keeping him in sight. When they reached the entrance the boy was already circling the ride, picking his seat. They saw him open the metal restraining door and climb in. In a moment, the Teacups began to move.
“I never liked this ride,” Amy said as she slipped her hand in Simon’s and leaned on the railing. “Too much bumping into people.”
“That’s the point,” he said, “bumping into your friends as hard as you can.”
They watched as the different-colored cups spun around on their axes, and the whole ride spun as well. It was dizzying to look at.
“I’ve lost track,” Amy said. “Which one is Davey in?”
Simon pointed to the left, but by the time she turned there, the car had rotated away. “The red one, I think, coming toward us.”
The red teacup spun in front of them, and there was Davey shouting at them, his face contorted into a crazy grin, his arms waving. Next to him, his mouth open as if frozen that way, was a man.
The teacup spun away.
Amy squeezed Simon’s arm. “Did you see him?”
“Yes,” Simon said, “he looked like he was having fun.”
“I meant the man. There’s a grown man riding the Teacups with Davey.”
They focused on the red cup, and when it came toward them again, only the back was visible, no faces. Amy pulled Simon sideways a few steps to get a better view, but in a moment it was gone.
The Teacups picked up speed. They flew around the circle and spun on their axes. Davey came into view again, this time flung toward the outside of the cup, pinned against the man, almost in his lap.
“Oh God.”
“He’s in plain view, Amy.”
In a minute the ride began to slow. Simon watched the red cup, trying to judge where it would stop, and moved counterclockwise around the railing to meet it. Just a few yards ahead of him Davey jumped to the ground. The man was just behind him.
“Davey?” Simon called, but the boy didn’t hear, or didn’t let on that he did. He walked with the man toward the exit on the far side of the ride, looking up once or twice, as if talking. When he passed through the gate he turned and came running toward them. “Can I do it again, Dad?”
“Who was that in the car with you?” Simon said.
Davey glanced back. “I don’t know, some man.”
“Did he touch you?”
“Touch me?”
“It looked like he was touching you,” Amy said, coming up behind them.
“It’s the Teacups, Mom. You can’t help touching people.”
“Did he say anything?”
“I don’t know, he was yelling like me. Everybody was yelling. Can’t I ride again, Mom?”
“We’re going home,” she said, taking Davey’s hand.
He yanked it away. “What are you doing?”
“It’s time to go,” Simon said, giving their son a little shove.
He leans against the back of the sausage truck, inhaling the smell of cooked meats as he watches the front gate. He doesn’t need to hide. Paul Chambers doesn’t really exist, and no one would recognize him as Paul Walker even if they had been in the same class or lived on the same street. His face has filled out like the rest of him, and his hair receded. He doesn’t wear glasses anymore. He does have a thin mustache and one slightly drooping eyelid, as if he has recovered only partially from an early-age stroke. Altogether unrecognizable, he’s sure. And unexpected. It wouldn’t occur to anyone to ask, What do you think Paul Walker is up to these days? No one would wonder if he were in Red Paint. No one would care.
An hour passes as it does when one is waiting, agonizingly slowly. That’s how it was waiting for Jean at this same spot the summer after junior year. He was sure that she wouldn’t come, sure that he had misinterpreted her mumbled assent to meet him at seven at the carnival. And then there she was, fifteen minutes late, in a sleeveless dress that billowed out from her legs at the slightest breeze. He wanted to stroll arm in arm with her down the midway, but she said she felt out of place with all the other girls in shorts. He steered her to the dimly lit outer path, the back side of the amusements, wondering if she just didn’t want to be seen with him. He had money and offered her ice cream or a lobster sandwich or soda. She said no thanks to everything. She did agree to a ride and chose the Ferris wheel. Their car stopped at the very top, and from there they gazed over the lights of Red Paint, trying to pick out their own houses. As she looked over the side he put his hand on her knee, just below the hem of her dress. He moved his fingers a little, then the wheel moved again.
He feels foolish waiting now. Perhaps they arrived early and were already wandering the grounds. They could be coming on one of the other two nights of the carnival. Just as he pushes himself away from the truck he spots Simon walking through the gate, his wife by his side. A minute or two later and he would have missed them. Is this how finely God plans things, everything happening just in time?
They’re holding hands, an intimate act. Palms pressed against each other. Fingers intertwined. We belong to each other. That’s what holding hands announces to the world. We have each other to go home with and hold and kiss. Who do you have?
“Come on, Davey,” Simon calls over his shoulder, and the boy runs the few yards to catch up, an obedient son. Davey.
Paul bends over as if to wipe something off his shoe as they pass him by. Then he follows them down the midway a few steps behind, plenty of people in between.
He has always loved the Hall of Mirrors, the feeling that one could dissolve into them, linger there and watch, then reappear at will. Or not reappear at all. He stares into the mirror now, hands on his hips, and it stares back, blank. Perhaps just a faint outline of where a body should be, the hint of presence, the impression of a form just passing through. He hears footsteps, stands still, waits. Then a voice making a kind of whacking sound. In a moment the boy turns the corner, his eyes closed, punching ahead of himself. His small fist lands in Paul’s belly, and his eyes flash open. “Sorry mister, I didn’t mean to hit you.”
“It’s okay,” Paul says, letting his hand fall reassuringly on the boy’s shoulder. “I used to do this with my eyes closed, too, when I was your age. I guess there are two of us who know the trick.”
“The trick?”
“With your eyes closed the mirrors can’t fool you.”
Davey squints up at him, the beginning of farsightedness. “Didn’t I see you before?”
“Maybe. I’ve been around the carnival all night.”
Davey takes a step, bumps into the glass hard, laughs, and then makes faces at himself. In the mirror a dozen boys are grinning madly.
A white ball of fur lay sprawled across the breakfast table, basking in the slanting light from the bay window. Amy sat on the bench, stroking Casper’s head with one hand and holding a book in the other. Simon dropped a yellow legal pad on the table and slipped in on the opposite side. He poked the cat in the rear a few times with his pen. No response. “I gather we’ve given up trying to keep Casper off our eating surfaces.”
“She does it all day when we’re not here, so why bother?” Amy turned back to a bookmarked page. “What do you think of this? ‘People only grow around sadness.’ ”
“Sounds right, I guess. Who said it?” Amy held up the book:—Semrad: The Heart of a Therapist. He figured that he was supposed to know who Semrad was. She had probably mentioned him dozens of times.
“He mentored a generation of therapists in how to connect to their patients with their heart, not just their heads. But I think he got it backward. People don’t grow when they’re sad, they’re too busy being sad. The same if people are angry or depressed or in pain—they get trapped in these emotions.”
“You’re disagreeing with the eminent Semrad?”
“Daring, aren’t I?”
Simon wrote on his pad, and Amy let her book close over her finger. “Doing your column?”
“I’m taking to heart your suggestion that the postcard sender is a threat and making a list of all the people who might want to fold, spindle, or mutilate me.” He scribbled a name, and Amy leaned across the table to see.
“Who’s Ray Jefferson?”
“My first roommate after college. I told him he had to move out after his year was up.”
“Why did you do that?”
Simon tried to project back to his former self. “He seemed fake to me. He’d say things like, ‘I love the smell of winter, don’t you?’ and ‘Making music is like making love’—that’s another one. He was pretending to be sensitive.”
“Maybe he thought you’d like that about him.”
“Why would I care how sensitive he was?”
Amy shrugged. “Sensitivity is one of those positive qualities a person can have.”
“Not to a twenty-two-year-old male it isn’t.”
“Wait—he wasn’t gay, was he?”
“No, I didn’t kick him out because he was gay or I thought he was gay, if that’s what you
’re asking.”
“So how did he react?”
Simon remembered the expression on Ray’s face, a strange mixture of embarrassment and disbelief with a dose of hatred. “He said he’d fall apart if I kicked him out, and I guess he did for a while, with cocaine, went to jail for eighteen months. I can imagine him blaming me.”
Amy reached her hand to stroke Casper, and the cat stretched out, exposing her belly. “You think twenty years later he’d still be blaming you?”
“I don’t know,” Simon said. “He was the kind to carry a grudge.”
When Simon called Davey for dinner, the boy came rushing down the steps as always, one misstep away from plunging headlong into the front door. At the bottom he grabbed the post to turn into the hallway, and Simon saw a thin metal handle jutting from his back pocket. “Hold on, what’s that?”
Davey twisted around to see. “What?”
“Is that a knife?”
He pulled it out. “No, it’s a letter opener.”
“A letter opener is a knife.”
The boy rubbed his finger along the blade. “Not when it’s this crappy. It couldn’t cut soup.”
Simon put out his palm, and Davey handed it over, blade first. “Why did you take this off my bureau?”
“Why would I take your stupid old letter opener?”
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
“I found it on the stairs, okay? It was sticking out from the rug.” He pointed to the spot. “You shouldn’t leave your knife lying around like that, Dad, ’cause I could have stepped on it with my bare feet and got lockjaw.”
“I didn’t leave it on the steps, Davey.”
“Does your jaw really lock when you get lockjaw?”
“It can, if you don’t get a tetanus shot.”
“Then I better eat dinner fast.” He started for the kitchen.
“Wait, you didn’t take this out anywhere, did you?”
Davey hesitated. “Not really.”
“What does that mean?”
“I put the knife in my pocket and kind of forgot it was there when I went to Kenny’s.”
Reunion at Red Paint Bay Page 8