The Heaven of Animals: Stories

by David James Poissant

  Those words, she’d glared them and stomped them and slung them with the slam of a shut door, but she’d never spoken them out loud.

  “Don’t threaten me,” I said.

  “It’s not a threat,” Joy said. “I’m serious as fuck.”

  “You can’t take my son from me.”

  “Don’t mess this up,” she said, “and I won’t.”

  I walked. Oh, that night, how I walked.

  . . .

  When I got back, Luke was in bed reading from a picture book called If It Runs on Rails. According to Joy’s parenting books, obsession was a common trait among the gifted. Obsession was not the word the books used, but obsession is what it amounted to, the tendency of the gifted to cling to things, to identify themselves as experts in a chosen field. Among the young, common interests included dinosaurs, horses, and space exploration. Luke’s thing was trains. He couldn’t get enough of them.

  I came in, and he sat up, his locomotive comforter bunching at his waist. He wore a Thomas the Tank Engine shirt.

  “Dad,” he said, “I bet you can’t guess the top speed of Japan’s fastest bullet train.”

  “Bet I can’t,” I said.

  “Come on,” Luke said. “Try.”

  “Hundred miles an hour.”

  “Ha! Try twice that.”

  I sat on the bed. Luke pulled the comforter aside and scuttled into my lap. “Look,” he said. He held out the book, and I took it. In the picture, a train traversed the Asian countryside. Trees traced the track. Mountains rose, majestic, in the distance. The train was a blue-gray blur. I admired the picture for what seemed an appropriate amount of time, then put the book down.

  “Listen,” I said, “I have good news. You know how Miss Morrell said you get to be in a special class?”

  Luke nodded.

  “Well, you get to be in a special club too.”

  “A club?” Luke said. He frowned and his brow furrowed. He had remarkably bushy eyebrows for a child. It was the single feature we shared, the thing picked out by anyone who saw a picture of me as a kid.

  “A special club,” I said. “With special kids like you. Kids from the neighborhood.”

  “Will Marcy Jenkins be there?” Luke said.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Because she kicks me,” Luke said. “On the bus.” He lifted the cuff of one pajama leg to show me his shin, the two green-brown bruises there.

  “Maybe she likes you,” I said. But the bruises, they looked fierce.

  “No,” Luke said. “I know what you’re talking about, but not Marcy. Marcy pretty much hates my guts. She calls me Butt-Face.”

  Bitch, I thought. I pictured a girl run over, pigtails flattened, face black with the latticework of fat school bus tires.

  I rubbed my son’s legs. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sure she won’t be there. This is a club for good kids, like you. So, what do you think? Want to give it a shot?”

  Luke thought it over. A night-light the shape of a steam engine dusted his face gold. He left my lap and crawled back under the covers.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll give it a shot.”

  “That’s my boy,” I said. I stood, then bent and kissed his forehead. “Good night.”

  “Oyasumi nasai,” Luke said.

  “What?” I said.

  “That’s how they say good night in Japan.”

  I moved to the doorway. I watched Luke for a minute, and, watching him, I saw him for the first time not as a father does but as another first grader might. He was puny, and his brown hair, cut in the shape of a bowl, stuck up in back. His front teeth betrayed a gap that would one day need braces. And his glasses, resting in their plastic case on his bedside table, were too big for his face.

  “Luke,” I said. “The kids at school, do many of them pick on you?”

  Luke studied the wall. He seemed to consider the question, then he turned his head, looked me in the eye, and said, “Yeah.”

  Before then, I hadn’t recognized it, the power of a single word to make you suddenly, unaccountably sad.

  “Everything’s going to get better,” I said. “No more bullies from here on out, I promise.”

  I was a liar. I was a man spinning promises from sadness, the kinds of promises life’s least likely to let you keep.

  . . .

  A week before Christmas found us shivering on the front stoop of the Tweeds’ massive brick house, Joy and me, Luke between. The purple wreath hung, as promised, from the ledge above the front door.

  “You know,” I said, running my hand along the ledge, “in England, they call this the portico.”

  Luke and Joy stared at me. Through the O in the wreath and a window in the door, I saw a fireplace and a fire and a number of people milling about, dressed up, drinks in hand. Joy licked her palm and smoothed Luke’s hair, running her thumb along the part. She wore her best coat and a dress she’d sworn wasn’t new but which I’d never seen before. I’d agreed to a blazer but drawn the line at a tie. Ties were for weddings or when someone died. Even at work I didn’t wear one.

  Before I could knock, the door opened to a tiled foyer and a wide staircase and a girl. Judging by the look on Luke’s face, I knew exactly which girl this was.

  Marcy Jenkins was not cute with blond pigtails. Marcy Jenkins was wide of body and forehead, a young linebacker in training. Her lips were puffy. Her eyes bulged. The gap between her teeth was more spacious than my son’s.

  I’d kept the secret of Marcy to myself. I’d told myself I didn’t want my wife to worry. But, Joy at my side, unalarmed and smiling at the bulldog-faced child, I knew the truth: Luke had given something to me and only me. And I didn’t want to share.

  Marcy smiled, performed a weird little curtsy, and said, “Hello, Luke.”

  Luke said nothing. He grabbed my pant leg.

  “Won’t you come in?” she said.

  We stepped inside.

  “You must be Samuel.” Devon Tweed stepped into the foyer, extending his hand.

  “Sam,” I said. Devon took my hand and crushed it between his two, pumping with zeal. He let go, helped Joy with her coat. His eyes lingered on her chest.

  “The children are on the second floor,” he said.

  And then Marcy was up the staircase, not waiting for Luke.

  Wide-eyed, my son stood at the bottom of the stairs. I crouched and pulled him toward me.

  Joy gave me a look. “He’s fine,” she said, then, turning to Luke: “Go upstairs, honey.”

  Slowly, pitifully, Luke mounted the staircase. At the top, his fingers gripped the banister. He watched us.

  “It’ll be okay,” I said. I hoped it would be okay, wanted it to be.

  Devon Tweed ushered us into the living room, where glasses were fitted into our hands, wine poured. Neighbors we’d never met gathered round, smiling, expectant. I’d imagined Joy at my side, us against them. But, soon, she was drifting, talking, as though we weren’t together, were, instead, two people who’d happened to arrive at the same time.

  “Thanks for having us,” I said at last, and the crowd nodded, a sea of khaki and Christmas-themed sweater vests. All of the holiday icons were in attendance: Frosty, bisected by buttons, top hat in hand; Rudolph, nose like an angry red pimple; and jolly Santa Claus, squat in his sleigh, a cadre of tired-looking reindeer braced to do his bidding.

  “We were so pleased to hear about Luke,” said a tall woman with stringy red hair. “I’ve been telling Frank,” she said, elbowing a man, presumably Frank, in the side, “that you live in the little house behind the River Run sign. But he didn’t believe me!”

  She laughed and another woman laughed, and Frank looked into his drink. Everyone seemed to search everyone else for the proper reaction. Then Joy smiled, raised her glass, and laughed, and everyone chuckled, smiled, exhaled. I chewed the inside of my cheek. I was already ready to leave. I wondered about these people, whether I’d ever interrupted their dinners, whether any had hung up on me. />
  The couples proceeded to introduce themselves. There were the Tweeds, Devon and Marie, and their dear friends the Martins, Judith and the aforementioned Frank. There were the Rays, Al and Debra, college professors both, and the Porters, Ted and Sue, the couple closest in age to Joy and myself. He was an electrical engineer. She was a baby engineer. She practically squealed this, patting her waist for a few laughs.

  Then there were the Jenkinses, Tag and Meredith. Like the offspring they’d spawned, they were large people. Big-hipped and pendulous of breast, Meredith Jenkins had half a sofa to herself. Her husband stood behind her. His hands draped her shoulders like steaks.

  “Our Marcy simply adores your boy,” Meredith said. “She’s been looking forward to this all week.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Joy said.

  Yelps and footfalls echoed from upstairs.

  “They have so much energy at this age,” Tag said, clapping a hand to his wife’s back.

  “I know,” Joy said. “Luke wakes up and hits the ground running. How he does it, I’ll never know.”

  Her words were stilted, not her own, like she was choosing each one with care.

  “He looks like you, you know,” Devon said. “Luke has your eyes.” Joy’s wineglass was half full, but he topped it off. He smiled at her.

  Joy smiled back. “That’s a lovely Picasso,” she said, pointing to a print on the wall. Lovely, a word I’d never heard pass her lips. These people aren’t us, I wanted to say, but Joy needed this, their validation, that and whatever she thought they could do for Luke.

  “Oh, thank you,” Marie Tweed said. “Devon picked that up in Florence, was it?”

  “Paris,” Devon said, and Marie said, “Of course.”

  “You like art?” Devon asked.

  Joy sipped her wine. “I’m a painter,” she said.

  I laughed. This got everyone’s attention, which, once I had, I didn’t know what to do with. Had Joy said, “You know, I do a little painting,” or, “I used to paint,” I would have smiled, nodded, let it go. But I’d lost it. I had no patience left for Joy and her art degree or the Gentleman Tweed and his wandering eyes, no patience left for the promise I’d made not to mess tonight up. I shrugged off my blazer.

  “Joy sells makeup,” I said.

  “Of course,” Meredith said. “I knew I recognized you. Lenox, right? I bought blush from you once. Only, when I got home, the color was all wrong.”

  “Too funny,” Marie said, but you could tell she didn’t think it was. Her party was in danger, the mood souring.

  Joy didn’t find it funny either. Across the room, she shot hot, eat-shit daggers at me from her eyes.

  The upstairs, I noticed, had grown suspiciously quiet.

  “Well,” Devon said, turning to Joy, “I think I speak for all of us when I say that we’d love to see your work sometime.” He offered more wine, but Joy’s glass remained impossibly full. She was being extra-careful. Two drinks, and she got giggly. I drained my glass, moved between my wife and Devon. I pulled the wine from the man’s hand, filled my glass, then handed back the empty bottle.

  A door opened, and from the kitchen emerged a woman I hadn’t seen. She was dressed in gray, not quite a uniform, but not normal clothes either. She whispered into Marie Tweed’s ear.

  “Oh,” Marie said. “The children’s dinner is ready. Darling, can you call them?”

  Devon moved to the bottom of the stairs and called up for the kids.

  We all listened, heard quiet, then a laugh.

  “I’ll check on them,” Devon said.

  “Let me,” I said, and, before anyone could argue, I started up the stairs, legs wobbly with wine.

  At the landing, Luke’s T-shirt and red caboose sweater lay tangled. I followed a hallway toward the sound of laughter and found Luke’s pants folded neatly on the floor. At the end of the hall, I opened a door to the Tweeds’ bedroom. The room was enormous. A wide canopy bed stood against one wall. Along other walls towered mahogany dressers and a chest of drawers. This wasn’t the IKEA assemble-yourself set that Joy and I had saved up for or even something more expensive, say Ethan Allen. The furniture looked one-of-a-kind, probably imported from France along with the Picasso print.

  I heard whispers. There were two doors. The first opened to a walk-in closet and a row of suit coats arranged by shade. Racks of many-colored sweaters scaled the walls. Leather shoes lined the floor.

  The second door opened to the master bathroom, its marble floor and claw-foot tub, and to Luke. He stood on the lid of the toilet seat, arms at his sides. He was in his underwear. A thick coat of red lipstick streaked his face. Two crimson ovals encircled his nipples. Ribbons of toilet paper ringed his chest and circled his legs. The gifted and talented children of River Run Heights crowded around him, hushed now that I’d entered the room.

  Luke saw me and he did not cry. Except for Marcy, the children looked terrified. Marcy met my eyes, then held my gaze with steely determination. The others ran from the room. Luke didn’t move. Marcy stood her ground.

  I knelt, grabbed the girl, and pulled her to me. I held her by the arms and squeezed too hard. I pictured welts rising to the skin’s surface, bruises taking shape before morning.

  She was a child and it was unforgivable, and I didn’t care.

  Marcy’s eyes widened. She looked down.

  “Look at me,” I said, and she did. “Get. My. Son’s. Clothes.” I let go. “Now!”

  She didn’t run. With whatever remained of her dignity, Marcy left the room at an ordinary pace. She appeared a minute later with Luke’s clothes, set them at my feet, turned, and walked away without a word. I shut the bathroom door, then turned to face my son.

  He’d begun to shiver. A strip of toilet paper, torn, fluttered from the elastic waistband of his underwear.

  “You said she wouldn’t be here,” he said.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “When I asked, you didn’t really know if she’d be here. You shouldn’t have said when you didn’t know.”

  I nodded. “You’re right.”

  He held out his hands, and I took him into my arms. I pulled the toilet paper from him. I wetted a washcloth with warm water and wiped the lipstick from his mouth. It was only when I dabbed at the red circles on his chest that Luke began to cry.

  It took a long time. When I was done, Luke’s face and chest were raw, smeared pink, and the washcloth was ruined. I dropped it into a ceramic trashcan. Luke covered his face and cried, quietly, into his hands. The lipstick lay on the floor, its tip ground into the tile like an accusation. I threw the lipstick away and rubbed the tile with a tissue until it came clean. Marie Tweed’s makeup case stood open, and I shut it. The toilet paper was bundled and flushed, the roll returned to its tube on the wall. I tried to make it like we were never there.

  Luke stopped crying and I helped him dress. He held the sleeves of his shirt while I fitted his sweater over his head. He sat very still while I tied his shoes. Then he took my hand and we made our way downstairs and out the front door.

  We were two houses down when Joy caught up to us on the sidewalk.

  “What’s going on?” she said.

  I looked at Luke. His expression was not unlike Marcy’s moments before I’d come to my senses and relaxed my grip on her arms. He let go of my hand.

  “Luke was ready to go,” I said. “That’s all.”

  Joy studied us, then squatted so that she and Luke were eye-to-eye. “Honey?” she said.

  Luke was mute. She ran two fingers over the boy’s brow. He flinched, took my hand again. Joy stood. She watched me for a long time, recording the moment for later when she’d say, I could have used your help back there, you know?

  I knew then that she’d made up her mind, made it up even before buying the dress she now smoothed against her hips. I knew then I’d sent my son upstairs for nothing.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’m going back for our coats. And to tell the Tweeds that we had a nice time.
And to apologize.” She turned and marched up the sidewalk. Every few steps, she paused, then shuffled over a patch of ice.

  Luke still held my hand. Wordlessly, we turned and walked home.

  . . .

  That evening, getting ready for sleep, Joy let me have it. I sat on the edge of the bathtub. Joy stood at the sink, face pasty with cold cream, a towel curled on her head like a shell.

  “We’ll be lucky if those people ever ask us back, the way you two took off,” she said. “I was mortified.”

  “Is this about you or Luke?” It had been a long day. I wanted the fight over, even if that meant making Joy cry to end it.

  “I mean it,” she said. “I refuse to let you screw up our son. You think you know what’s best for him, but you don’t. You don’t listen to the experts, and you certainly don’t listen to me. You haven’t cracked one book I bought.”

  Untrue. One, I’d read cover to cover, but I let it go. I’d lost interest in defending myself.

  “You said you’d take those books back,” I said.

  “No,” Joy said. “You said I’d take those books back. I agreed to no such thing.”

  I couldn’t shake it, the thought of Luke perched on the toilet, his nipples, the lipstick. All of it my fault.

  Joy pulled a pair of tweezers from a drawer. Staring into the mirror above the sink, she brought the tweezers to her face and pulled a single, creamy hair from the center of her chin.

  She watched my reflection in the mirror.

  “One thing,” she said. “I asked you for one thing, and not even for me. For Luke!”

  They say a relationship is over when one person walks out. Maybe not the first time, but well before the last. You interrupt fights with a door in the face, with keys in the ignition or a walk around the block, and you call it blowing off steam. And, though you don’t know it yet, you’re walking out on more than the moment. You’re walking out on your marriage.

  This was what I was thinking as I stood and moved to the door. Months, I’d walked out on our arguments. Months, I’d imagined the man Joy saw in me, a noble man working hard not to lose his temper, when all she’d seen was her husband hurrying away.

  I turned and walked to her.

  “Okay,” I said. “Do me.”