“As he honey. As little as he. Of course you won’t. You’ll be as tall as your dad, or taller.”
“Is Mr. Lipsky rich?”
“Why do you ask that, baby?”
“Because he always wears those big sparkly rings.”
“Well, Roy, Mr. Lipsky is probably one of the wealthiest men in America.”
“How did he get so rich?”
“Oh, he has lots of different kinds of businesses, here and in Cuba. All over the world, maybe.”
“What kinds of businesses?”
“Lots of times he gives people money to start a business, and then they have to pay him back more than the amount he gave them or pay him part of what they earn for as long as the business lasts.”
“I guess he’s pretty smart.”
“Your dad thinks Mr. Lipsky is the smartest man he’s ever met.”
“I hope I’m smart.”
“You are, Roy. Don’t worry about being smart.”
“You know what, Mom?”
“What, baby?”
“I think if I had to choose one thing, to be tall or to be smart, I’d take smart.”
“You’ll be both, sweetheart, you won’t have to choose.”
“Do you know what Mr. Lipsky’s dog’s name is?”
“Sky something, isn’t it? Skylark, that’s it, like the Hoagy Carmichael song.”
“I bet he’s smart, too. A dog named Skylark would have to be very smart.”
Flamingos
MOM, AFTER I DIE I want to come back as a flamingo.”
“You won’t die for a very long time, Roy. It’s too soon to be thinking about it. But I’m not so sure that after people die they come back at all. How do you know about reincarnation? And why a flamingo?”
“How do I know about what?”
“Reincarnation. Like you said, some people believe that after they die they’ll return in a different form, as another person or even as an insect or animal.”
“Mammy Yerma told me it could happen.”
“Mammy Yerma usually knows what she’s talking about, but I’m not so sure about being reincarnated, even as a flamingo.”
“Flamingos are the most beautiful birds, like the ones around the pond at the racetrack in Hialeah. I’d like to be a dark pink flamingo with a really long, curvy neck.”
“They’re elegant birds, baby, that’s for sure.”
“If you could come back as an animal, Mom, what would you be?”
“A leopard, probably. Certainly a big cat of some kind, if I had a choice. Leopards are strong and fast and beautiful They climb trees, Roy, did you know that? Leopards are terrifically agile.”
“What’s agile?”
“They’re great leapers, with perfect balance. They can jump up in a tree and walk along a narrow limb better than the best acrobat. Another thing about leopards, I believe, is that they mate for life.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means once a male and female leopard start a family, they stay together until they die.”
“People do, too.”
“Yes, baby, some people do. But I think it’s harder for human beings to remain true to one another than it is for leopards.”
“Why?”
“Well, all animals have to worry about is getting food, protecting their young, and to avoid being eaten by bigger animals. Humans have much more to deal with, plus our brain is different. A leopard acts more on instinct, what he feels. A person uses his brain to reason, to decide what to do.”
“I’d like to be a leopard with a human brain. Then I could leap up in a tree and read a book and nobody would bother me because they’d be afraid.”
“Baby, are you getting hungry? We humans have to decide if we want to stop soon and eat.”
“A leopard would probably eat a flamingo, if he was hungry enough.”
“Maybe, but a skinny bird doesn’t make much of a meal, and I don’t think a leopard would want to mess with all of those feathers.”
“Mom, I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Now that’s something neither a leopard nor a flamingo would think twice about, fll stop at the next exit, I need to go, too.”
Wyoming
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE PLACE, MOM?”
“Oh, I have a lot of favorite places, Roy. Cuba, Jamaica, Mexico.”
“Is there a place that’s really perfect? Somewhere you’d go if you had to spend the rest of your life there and didn’t want anyone to find you?”
“How do you know that, baby?”
“Know what?”
“That sometimes I think about going someplace where nobody can find me.”
“Even me?”
“No, honey, not you. We’d be together, wherever it might be.”
“How about Wyoming?”
“Wyoming?”
“Have you ever been there?”
“Your dad and I were in Sun Valley once, but that’s in Idaho. No, Roy, I don’t think so. Why?”
“It’s really big there, with lots of room to run. I looked on a map, Wyoming’s probably a good place to have a dog.”
“I’m sure it is, baby. You’d like to have a dog, huh?”
“It wouldn’t have to be a big dog. Mom. Even a medium-size or small dog would be okay.”
“When I was a little girl we had a chow named Toy, a big black Chinese dog with a long purple tongue. Toy loved everyone in the family, especially me, and he would have defended us to the death. He was dangerous to anyone outside the house, and not only to people.
“One day Nanny found two dead cats hanging over the back fence in our yard. She didn’t know where they came from, and she buried them. The next day or the day after that, she found two or three more dead cats hanging over the fence. It turned out that Toy was killing the neighborhood cats and draping them over the fence to show us. After that, he had to wear a muzzle."
“What’s a muzzle?”
“A mask over his mouth, so he couldn’t bite. He was a great dog, though, to me. Toy loved the snow when we lived in Illinois. He loved to roll in it and sleep outside on the front porch in the winter. His long fur coat kept him warm.”
“What happened to Toy?”
“He ran after a milk truck one day and was hit by a car and killed. This happened just after I went away to school. The deliveryman said that Toy was trying to bite him through the muzzle,”
“Does it snow in Wyoming?”
“Oh, yes, baby, it snows a lot in Wyoming. It gets very cold there.”
“Toy would have liked it.”
“I’m sure he would.”
“Mom, can we drive to Wyoming?”
“You mean now?”
“Uh-huh. Is it far?”
“Very far. We’re almost to Georgia.”
“Can we go someday?”
“Sure, Roy, well go.”
“We won’t tell anyone, right, Mom?”
“No, baby, nobody will know where we are.”
“And we’ll have a dog.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“From now on when anything bad happens, I'm going to think about Wyoming. Running with my dog.”
“It’s a good thing, baby. Everybody needs Wyoming,”
Saving the Planet
MOM, WHAT WOULD HAPPEN if there was no sun?”
“People couldn’t live, plants wouldn’t grow. The planet would freeze and become a gigantic ball of ice.”
“In school they said the earth is shaped like a pear, not round like a ball”
“So it would be a huge frozen pear spinning out of control The planets in our solar system revolve around the sun, Roy. If the sun burned out, Earth and Mars and Venus and Saturn and all the others would just be hurtling through space until they crashed into meteors or one another.”
“Will it ever happen?”
“What, baby?”
“That there won’t be any sun?”
“I don’t think so. Not in our lifetime, anyway. Oh
, Roy, look at the horses! Nothing is more beautiful than horses running in open country like that.”
“Dad’s never going to live with us again, is he?”
“I’m not sure, baby. We’ll have to wait and see. You’ll see your father, though, no matter what.”
“I know. Mom. I just hope you’re right about the sun not burning out.”
A Nice Day on the Ocean
YOU KNOW THAT FRIEND of Dad’s with one eye that’s always mostly closed?”
“Buzzy Shy. His real name is Enzo Buozzl What about him?”
“A waiter at the Saxony said Buzzy wanted to give him five dollars to let him kiss his fly/’
“Who told you that?”
“I heard him tell Eddie C”
“Heard who?”
“Freddy, the waken Why would Buzzy want to kiss Freddy’s fly?”
“Did Buzzy ever touch you, Roy?”
“He pinched me once on the cheek when I brought him a cigar Dad gave me to hand him. He gave me a quarter, then tried to pinch my face again, but I got away. It hurt.”
“Buzzy Shy is sick, baby. Stay away from him. Promise?”
“Promise. He doesn’t look sick.”
“The sickness is in his brain, so you can’t see it.”
“Eddie C. said for ten dollars Buzzy could kiss his ass and anything else.”
“Who’s Eddie C?”
“A lifeguard. I think at the Spearfish.”
“These aren’t nice boys, Roy. I don’t want you talking to them.”
“I wasn’t talking to them, Mom, I was listening.”
“Don’t listen to them, either. I’ll talk to your dad about it. I don’t want Buzzy Shy bothering you.”
“Dad and Buzzy are friends.”
“Not really. Buzzy helps out sometimes, that’s all.”
“How did his eye get like that?”
“He was a prizefighter. Somebody shut it for him.”
“Maybe his brain got hurt, too.”
“I don’t know, baby. He was probably born with the problem in his head. Don’t go near him again.”
“Mom?”
“Yes, baby?”
“I like the sky like this, when it’s really red with only a tiny yellow line under it.”
“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Tomorrow will be a nice day on the ocean,”
“Sailor’s Delight would be a good name for a red Popsicle, don’t you think, Mom?”
“Yes, Roy, I do. Remember to tell your dad. I’m sure he knows someone in the Popsicle business.’
Perfect Spanish
BEFORE YOU WERE BORN, I got very sick and your dad made me go to Cuba to recover. I stayed in a lovely house on a beach next to a lavish estate. It was a perfect cure for me, lying in the sun, without responsibilities,”
“Was Dad with you?”
“No, I was alone. There was a Chinese couple who took care of the house and me. Chang and Li were their names.”
“How long were you there?”
“Six weeks. I was so happy, just by myself, reading, resting, swimming in the Caribbean Sea, It really was the best time of my life. I never felt better, until, of course, I had to leave.”
“Why did you have to leave?”
“To make sure you were a healthy baby. I needed to be near my doctor, who was in Chicago.”
“The ground is so beautiful here, Mom. It looks like snow, but the air is very hot.”
“That’s cotton, baby. Cotton is the main crop in Alabama. The temperature doesn’t stay high long enough up north to grow it there. Also, the cost of labor is much cheaper in the South, and picking cotton is extremely labor-intensive.”
“What does that mean?”
“It takes a lot of people to handpick the buds. That’s why slaves were brought here from Africa, to work in the fields.”
“They didn’t want to come.”
“No, baby, they didn’t,”
“There aren’t slaves now, though, right?”
“Not officially, no. But too many people still live almost the same way as they did a hundred or more years ago. There’s no work here, really, except in the cottonfields, and it doesn’t pay much. The difference between then and now is that people are free to come and go, they’re not owned by another person.”
“I wouldn’t like to be owned by someone.”
“Nobody does. Slavery is against the law in the United States, but it still exists in some parts of the world.”
“Let’s not go there.”
“We won’t, Roy, I promise.”
“Were there slaves in Cuba?”
“At one time, yes.”
“Were there slaves when you were there before I was born?”
“No, baby, that was only a few years ago.”
“Chang and Li weren’t slaves, right?”
“Certainly not. They were caretakers of the property. Chang and Li were very happy to be working there. They were wonderful people and very kind to me.”
“How did they get from China to Cuba?”
“I don’t know. By boat, probably. Or maybe their parents came from China and Chang and Li were born in Cuba. They spoke perfect Spanish,
“Roy?”
“Yeah, Mom?’
“Are you all right?”
“I’m okay.”
“Something’s bothering you, I can tell. What is it?”.
“I think I'd like to learn to speak perfect Spanish.”
“You can, baby. You can start taking Spanish lessons whenever you want.”
“Mom?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I bet the slaves didn’t think the cotton fields were so beautiful”.
Seconds
ARE WE GOING TO SEE Pops and Nanny soon?”
“Yes, baby, we’ll be in New Orleans for three or four days, then we’ll go to Miami. I don’t know if Pops will be there, but Nanny will.”
“Why isn’t Pops there so much?”
“I never told you this before, but I think you’re old enough now to understand. Pops and Nanny haven’t always been together. There was a time when I was a girl—more than ten years, in fact—when they were each married to another person.”
“Who were they married to?”
“Nanny’s husband was a man named Tim O’Malley. His family was in the trucking business in Chicago. Pops married a woman named Sally Price, and they lived in Kansas City, i used to go down on the train and visit them there. This was from when I was the age you are now until I went away to college.”
“Why did they marry other people?”
“In those days Pops was a traveling salesman for a shoe company, and Kansas City was part of his territory. Sally was a girlfriend of his for a couple of years before Pops and Nanny got divorced. When he decided to spend more time with Sally than with Nanny, my mother divorced him and she married O’Malley, who’d always liked hen”
“So O’Malley was like your other father.”
“In a way, but we were never close. I lived most of the time at boarding school, Our Lady of Angelic Desire, so I didn’t really see him so much. He died suddenly of a heart attack ten years to the day after he and your grandmother were married.”
“How did she and Pops get back together?”
“Pops had divorced Sally two years before O’Malley’s death and moved back to Illinois. He always loved my mother and would stand across the street sometimes to watch her come out of our house and get in her car and drive away. Pops wanted Nanny back, and after O’Malley was gone, she agreed to remarry him,”
“I bet you were happy.”
“No, I wasn’t particularly happy, because I didn’t completely understand why Pops had left in the first place. O’Malley was nothing special to me, and he wasn’t as smart or funny or handsome as my father, but my mother blamed Pops for their separation and I guess I took her side, right or wrong.
I don’t feel the same way now. It’s difficult to know what really goes on between people in a marriage, and I don’t think anyone other than those two people can understand, including their children.”
“What about you and Dad?”
“What about us, Roy?”
“You’re divorced but you’re still friends, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes, baby, your dad and I are very good friends. We’re better friends now than when we were married.”
“And you both love me.”
“Of course, baby. Both your dad and I would do anything for you.”
“It’s okay with me that you and Dad don’t live together, but sometimes I get afraid that I won’t see him anymore.”
“You can see your dad whenever you like. When we get to the hotel in New Orleans, we’ll call him, okay? I think he’s in Las Vegas now. Maybe he can come to see us before he goes back to Chicago.”
“Yeah, Mom, let’s call him. Remember the last time we were with him in New Orleans and he ate too many oysters and got so sick?”
“We’ll make sure he doesn’t eat oysters this time, don’t worry. Try to sleep a little now, baby. I’ll wake you up when we get there.”
Roy’s World
REMEMBER THE TIME YOU CAUGHT a barracuda and brought it back to the hotel and asked Pete the chef to cook it for you?”
“It was the first fish I ever caught. I was out with Uncle Jack on Captain Jimmy’s boat, fishing for grouper, but a ‘cuda took my mullet.”
“Pete thought you were so cute, bringing the barracuda wrapped in newspaper into the kitchen. You were only five then.”
“He told me that barracudas aren’t good eating, so he made me a kingfish instead.”
“Grilled in butter and garlic.”
“And he said he wouldn’t charge us for it since I’d brought him a fish to trade.”
“You really love your Uncle Jack, don’t you, baby?”
“He’s a great fisherman, and he knows everything about boats.”
“You know he was a commander in the navy?”
“Sure, he told me about how he built bridges and navy bases in the Pacific during the war.”
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