Theo

by Ed Taylor

  He’s sort of good at sports, but not great. He can add up numbers really fast. He learned how to play ‘Not Fade Away’ on the drums. If he played music his dad would notice. Maybe he can go to a music school or take lessons. Maybe he could ask his dad to teach him to play guitar. He likes to hear music. He likes to fish and throw things. Theo runs through the driveway gravel, hard on his feet, and onto the grass and around the end of the house toward the rear lawn and his ship, which he forgot about. Then he sees the dogs, under the hedge, on the left, three of them, all lying on their sides with their tongues out. Not panting, just. Eyes big and open. His heart swells open and he runs.

  Paz’s eye doesn’t move when Theo kneels and reaches under the stiff green bushes with the waxy leaves that Theo can’t remember the name of. He pulls on Paz, who’s limp and heavy, and pats her head, talks to her, dogs can’t understand or maybe they can, so he’s saying, what’s the matter, what’s happened to you, and Paz stares now ahead, tongue hanging out like meat half-swallowed, and her mouth’s frothy, foamy; Theo lifts a paw and it just drops. Her eye rolls slowly up at Theo; the skin over it that looks sort of like an eyebrow is droopy. Theo thinks of a whale’s eye looking at Paz, looking back at him; but she doesn’t really seem there, the eye’s just open.

  What did they eat. Theo remembers the man with his hand under the horse’s mouth and. What should he do. They need help but who. Maybe some water. What do you do – adults are supposed to know. Gus’s an adult – where’s Gus.

  Alex and Baron not moving – Theo puts his hands on their sides. Hearts beating hard and fast, like Theo’s. They’re all together. He feels Paz – her heart is pounding. What did they eat.

  Theo’s angry – he looks for the man. But what if it’s someone else. He’s mad. Maybe it’s the man and lady stealing. Theo’s been good all day all year a million years: he’s listened and done what he was told to do. He can’t think, but he sees clearly. Everyone. Everywhere.

  Theo hates them all, hates the stupid house. Maybe the catering lady can help. He runs.

  No one pays attention. Sometimes he knows people but not today. He’s an orphan. He has a grandfather but not here. The ballroom’s full of equipment and people smoking, waiting. Theo pounds toward the big kitchen and the catering lady and now an assistant maybe – another lady, younger than the main lady, wearing the same T-shirt and apron and both of them look very serious.

  The dogs are really sick. Something happened. We have to help them.

  Theo’s panting at the catering lady – he can’t remember her name. She looks down at him, a little annoyed.

  What’s wrong. What do you mean.

  I think somebody gave them something that made them sick.

  The lady’s frowning and making a face, then she looks at the big watch on her wrist. You should tell your father.

  I can’t – he’s busy.

  How about, um, Colin.

  I don’t know where he is.

  Are you sure they’re not just tired or. How do you know.

  They have foam. On their mouths. And they’re just lying there. Like when they’re sick, they try to hide, or they did something bad, they’re under the hedge. What if they die.

  Still frowning, she’s looking at him with her mouth funny: Annette, can you keep things going for a minute. Watch the pasta. I’ll be back. She sounds Australian, why didn’t he hear before.

  Are you from another country.

  She’s wiping her hands and saying, yes, honey, I’m from New Zealand. Okay, let’s take a look.

  Do you miss it.

  You’re a little gooney bird: she’s smiling as they walk fast, Theo’s in front of her like one of the dogs, hopping and anxious. Sometimes I do, yes. But I get back there twice a year at least, so I do see it enough to stave off the homesickness.

  Where does your son go to school.

  In New York.

  Where.

  Why do you want to know.

  Do you like cooking here.

  Yes I do – it’s my job to like it.

  But do you always. Lots of people don’t like their jobs. At least sometimes. My dad.

  What your dad does is not a job.

  He says it is. He says no one understands how hard it is.

  That could be. But you don’t want to tell the guy who’s out digging up a street that your job is tough, if your job is being a star.

  He says it’s like building a castle in a swamp.

  Hmm. People who build real houses might argue with him on what’s harder.

  Come on, we need to run

  They’re weaving through people on the lawn. Someone’s building something on the grass at the house’s other side: is it Mingus again. Maybe a spaceship. Theo points at the dogs, brown and black shapes under the dusty green leaves. No one else pays attention to Theo and the lady or to the dogs.

  Mingus is beside him suddenly, in his cape: where did he come from. The lady jumps. She doesn’t know Mingus. Mingus has on a knit hat with ear flaps and his lime wraparound sunglasses. Mingus is holding a spray can and one of the pitchforks from the gardener’s shed. There are other men behind him holding pitchforks and hoes and shovels. A couple are wrapped in towels. Mingus leans down to Theo and whispers: battle stations.

  What.

  Mingus, already gone, yells out, from the microcosm to the macrocosm, motherfucker, and lumbers forward with the pitchfork stuck out while the others start clanging their tools against each other, sort of fighting, except most of them are really just hitting their tools together and not really fighting. Mingus runs at one of the men holding a shovel and the man swings the shovel at the pitchfork. There’s a lot of clanging and they scatter like atoms, banging around between Theo and the hedge.

  Somebody’s going to get hurt: the lady is frowning. Theo’s just trying to run around them to the hedge, with the lady beside him.

  Maybe we should have brought some water.

  I got the equation, motherfucker – Mingus yells, running at two men halfheartedly banging rusty snow shovels who Theo dodges around.

  Now Theo’s skidding on his knees and he’s beside the dogs. Theo’s frantic, his mind everywhere. Why is he so helpless. Is being an adult just being old. Aren’t they supposed to be smart. The lady might help. The dogs look the same – their eyes are open.

  The lady is on her knees too, pushing her pink hair out of her eyes as she leans over, petting. She lifts a paw and lets it drop, lifts a head.

  All three of them at the same time, and they were okay earlier, no sign of anything wrong.

  No, they were fine.

  Well, it looks like they ate something bad.

  Like poison.

  Or it could be something that’s not really poison but just bad for animals.

  Like what. What do you mean.

  Maybe they found something they shouldn’t eat. There are a lot of people around here. Do you know all of them.

  I think my dad might.

  Theo thought of the robbers, and the man trying to feed the horse. Did his dad know them. What about the stuff others were doing. The only safe place was in his room. He should take the dogs to his room. How. Take them to the doctor. The vet. Where is a vet. He’s too young, how is he supposed to know.

  This one’s not doing too well, sweetie.

  Paz is shaking now – the littlest one. She’s just shaking. The lady has a hand on Paz, but then Paz tilts her head up, makes a noise. A moan, not like a dog. Her eyes are wild, wide. Then her head falls. The dirt gets dark under her, a spreading stain. The others pant. Eyes closed but breathing.

  Is she okay. What’s the matter.

  Oh, honey. I think she’s gone.

  You mean dead. Why don’t you just say it. I’m not a baby.

  I’m sorry. I know.

  Theo angry, angry at everyone, at everyone. Not the lady. But grownups – somebody did this to the dogs. He never made it back to his ship, or got a sword, or anything. Theo’s going to find the man who tried
to feed the horse.

  The lady strokes Paz, her apron dragging in the grass and dirt, her on her knees now leaning in, the other dogs, people voices, a seagull, splinters of light, Theo’s crying a little, his eyes are wet. She didn’t do anything to anybody and she’s dead. Petting.

  Laughing. Theo jumps and runs toward the laughers – shutup shutup shutup. They stare, making weird faces, he runs, where is the man who tried to do that to the horse. It was him: maybe he thought it would be funny. Theo thinks maybe adults forget, because that makes a lot of stuff they do easier, and what they see just becomes like images on a TV screen or movie screen, not people or animals or trees but things, like when you’re in a car – Theo’s dad said nothing outside is real, and so it’s easy to be mean in cars or dumb in cars. People forget the laws of physics, nothing’s real out there, it’s just another movie. Or like one of those mecha suits, Adrian said: like war of the worlds, feeble creatures in armor, that’s what we are.

  They were in the back of a car in Los Angeles in the biggest car sea Theo’d seen, lane after lane of cars in long shimmering snakes of metal, slowing and stopping then wriggling forward, with twitches rippling from stops ahead, the red lights like flaring eyes. The weird green puffs of palm trees like frozen explosions above the beat-up concrete barriers along the highway, dry brown hills and dipping machines like dinosaurs drinking – his father said they were pumping oil – and motorcycles riding between the cars, going even faster – just crack your door and they’re dead, Adrian said as a motorcycle blurred past – or if your arm’s out the window it’s on the pavement like meat off a truck. Adrian’s drinking a beer, slouched against the door holding his stomach.

  Shivering. His dad was sick. They were going to get medicine. Except it wasn’t a regular drug store – his dad sometimes called them chemists, that’s what they were in England. They went to a building of apartments, with big black trash bags out front leaking stuff dogs were licking. There was a couch and men sitting on it, their knees as high as their heads, staring. The driver and the minder got out, unbuttoning their coats. His dad’s eyes were closed: Sorry, mate. Not a very pretty sight, am I. There were the big puffs of palm trees, and graffiti on everything. Pink and green and blue houses, iron bars. Cars without wheels.

  It’s okay. Everybody gets sick sometimes.

  Yeah. His dad started crying.

  Maybe we should go to the doctor. Theo’s heart beat faster – was there something in the car that could help: Do you want a pillow or something dad.

  Don’t you worry. I never want you to worry about me, okay. I will never.

  Never what.

  Nothing, love. Let me just rest, eh.

  Where is the doctor. Is this his house.

  Doctors can be ladies too.

  Is this her house.

  Yes. No more questions.

  Theo’s father was very white. Theo wondered if people got whiter before they died. Maybe the blood goes back inside to help. His heart beat like the birds he held in his hands sometimes.

  Where’s my mother.

  Don’t know.

  Why.

  His father just held up a hand, his face in the dark car glowing around the sunglasses because of the white and the sweat. The car was running and the air conditioning was on. Maybe Theo could make it colder.

  Do you want me to make the AC colder.

  Theo’s father shook his head. Where the fuck are they.

  I don’t know.

  Theo’s father gritted his teeth. I know. Just talking out loud.

  I thought talking hurt.

  It does.

  Theo patted his father’s thin leg because he’d seen his mother do it. He didn’t know what else to do.

  She was the littlest one. She liked it if you just rubbed her ears. She would close her eyes if you scratched her throat. She was scared of seagulls. When she was really excited her lips would lift from her teeth like she was snarling, but it was just happiness, like when she saw Theo again after he’d been gone awhile. She waited outside his door every morning.

  Theo runs, angry and angrier, like running built up a charge. The more he remembers her the madder he becomes. Anger, red and yellow, everywhere, and in the stupid faces looking at him. Dumb and mean and rude. Hurt someone. Make someone pay attention to her. She’s not invisible.

  The cooking lady yells something at his back. What about the other dogs, Theo thinks suddenly: he shouldn’t leave them, but he can’t stop: he zags to the house through people, ladies without shirts on and people dancing now around a tape player, and some people hold sparklers although it’s sunny and yellow, that’s stupid, he’s swooping like a bird into the house through the big glass doors smeary and dirty, flaking paint on the terrace like fake snow in a movie, it’s all fake, these people aren’t friends, he has no family, only minders, even dad and mom just mind him and then go away and leave him with other minders, do other kids think this. Theo doesn’t want to think at all.

  Blurs, walls, halls, stairs, he’s slamming open doors unless they’re locked, looking. He must tell his dad but he’s not in the room, neither is Roger, just people falling all over the furniture and smoke and music, a cave of sleepers waiting for something. What. His dad probably. Everyone woke up when Adrian was around. And Roger. Don’t people have things to do. Where is the man who fed the horse. Theo’s going to find him. Then what.

  A gun. On the table. It’s candy. Made of chocolate. Breaks under his hand, brown. Did he just imagine it. Where’s the gun now. It’s dark. The table’s dark. It’s a stale soft pretzel. It’s too dark to see. Is he crazy. Theo keeps running, out of the mostly empty room. A lot of empty rooms, or ones he and Gus and Colin once used or stayed in and moved from. Colin calls it the frontier effect, just keep moving West, it’s the American way, or used to be: got problems, just pick up and go till you come to where nobody knows you and start over. That’s what made America so crazy, Colin says, running out of places to escape. People had to stay put and they got cranky about it.

  Is that true.

  Theo and Colin one cold night, reading by a camping lantern and some candles stuck in a chandelier using the big A of a wooden stepladder: Gus was in his room that night, wrapped in blankets in a chair, watching his television – it was Wheel of Fortune time and nothing interrupted that.

  Read the history. When the frontier closed at the end of the nineteenth century, when everybody got to the water’s edge and said, nowhere else to go, pardner; America started taking over other places: the Sandwich Islands, the Philippines, Cuba.

  Theo looked up – Colin wore two coats and on his head a towel with a headband, and long black ladies gloves and a kilt with pants underneath: Christ, I’m glad no Scotsman’s here to see this desecration.

  I never heard of that. What are the Sandwich Islands.

  That’s Hawaii now. Back then it was a kingdom, ruled by a queen. American businessmen and the government staged a coup and got rid of her, and parked their dimpled rumps on the throne.

  How do you know all this.

  My son – Colin touched his nose – I am wise in all manner of ways. I got A levels in everything at school. Almost was an Old Boy.

  What does that mean.

  Just means I missed out on the chance to be a contender, instead of what I am now, which is, let us face it, a bum. You’re my brother, you should have looked out for me.

  Theo’d learned a long time ago when to just skip things, but sometimes he still asked when he sort of forgot not to.

  My dad doesn’t think you’re nobody.

  Well, I’ve got everyone fooled. Voilà – c’est un coup de maître.

  Colin stood up from the thing he was working on, which was supposed to be a table, made of thick slabs of heavy dark wood planks that he’d found in the basement along with stacks of heavy brown doors; the table covered with a layer of nails he’d hammered into it like tiny silver toadstools, the little round heads, many bent, or like silver worms crawling from the brown
ground.

  Theo shivered: It’s cold.

  Let’s make a fire.

  Okay.

  You start.

  Okay.

  Theo crawled to the pile of broken furniture in the corner of the room, across the frozen tundra, in the dark with bears out there, have to get the fire going – the parquet hard on his elbows and knees even through layers of pants and coat. He reached the pile: chunks of slag Colin called it, culled from around the house and stacked on a rusted red-brown Radio Flyer wagon, from the basement also, so it could be rolled from room to room. Theo banged down a few sticks, still with metal on their feet, table and chair legs with curly wood parts and insides white as bread. He pushed the sticks in front of him as he crawled back to the fire pit while Colin sang a song about Cape Cod girls, something something don’t use no combs, they comb their hair with the codfish bones.

  Why didn’t you just roll the slag wag over here.

  I was playing.

  Okay then, soldier, let’s bivouac and reconnoiter.

  Theo stacked the pieces in an X in the firepit, a ring of bricks filled with sand. Overhead hung a beach umbrella minus its pole and covered with aluminum foil, with a Chinese dragon costume meant for a parade with its mouth stretched from the umbrella hole made with garden shears and a box cutter to a closed window above which the dragon’s tail dangled. Colin and Theo had spent a fall day putting this together – you know the story of the ant and the grasshopper, right, Colin said then. We’ll be prepared, while the grasshopper who’s living on brandy and screenplays right now will be out in the cold. Colin thought it was funny that the dragon would inhale fire, instead of breathing it out.