Her showers were as long as an afternoon, it seemed to him as a child. Waiting for her forever while the water gurgled in the drain. A deep-throated sound you could hear from every corner of their place.
After he was done, as he washed his hands, the water abruptly ceased. He said something about dinner, turned off the taps. Just then she pulled back that wet drape. And all of her was revealed, bejeweled with droplets and mist. He stood there trapped, no chance to look away from her breasts dripping with water, her hair wet and dangling around her shoulders like seaweed; yet it was her face that seemed most bared. She measured his gaze with her eyes.
Jesus! Needless to say, he cut out of that steamy bathroom as fast as he could move. What did he do to deserve it? Watched TV that night without facing her. Didn’t even say good night.
Then his mind played with him, forced him from time to time to remember her that way, to focus on the smooth pink skin around her nipples or the sprinkling of hair at the top of her thighs. Felt like a sicko. Struggled to block it out, one half of his mind battling the other.
He could never be sure what in the world had possessed her to do that. A mother with bad motives is too frightening a monster. He would never let himself think it had been with purpose.
His best guess? She had a lot to live down, she did. Father blowing his brains out when she was a teenager, finding his corpse in the snow. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Try that on for size. Anyone think that’s an easy one to live with? She’d spaced out, that’s what happened. Forgot she was even naked. Forgot he was a boy rinsing the soap off his hands.
He sat straight up in his bed. The light on the table felt warm on his arm, and the digits in the old clock radio flipped. What if—what if. His thoughts took him down a rabbit hole to another world, where he discovered the man who was his father. Would it make a difference, to know? Of course it would, how could it not! For in this place, this world, his father beamed and was exceedingly glad to know him. And in this place the father rejoiced at knowing his son and deemed him worthy by dint of his quest. For in taking up this quest and finding him, the son hath proved himself a man. And as a man come to him, worthy of his love. Failing, ill, in poor health, he had a place for such a son. In the ruins of his life he hath need of this son. And in the ruins his need brought him great joy, for the son was not withholding in his love. The father then gave his son what the son did not even know he wished for, which was providing the world with his name. This is my son, he went and told the world. And you will accord my son what you have accorded me. . . . I must see him, Mac decided. I must know who he is.
9
“Seven children?” Mac said. “No way.”
With Carolyns telescope, he peered down at a slim and attractive woman with hips like a teenager’s, striding up the street. And yet Carolyn claimed she had borne from her body seven children.
“I saw it happen,” she said. “Every year, for seven years.”
“How old is she?”
“About thirty-five, but doesn’t she look great? That’s sixty-three months of pregnancy.”
“Hard to conceive. Or maybe should I say, believe.”
Carolyn pointed the instrument the other way. “The mailman’s coming.”
Mac bent over and squinted through the tube. The sight of a postman pushing his canvas cart reminded him of the letter he’d given Carolyn the week before, for her to address and put in the mail to Mr. William Galeotto.
“Still no reply to my note,” he mentioned. “You didn’t hear anything, did you?”
“No.”
“You mailed it, right?”
“Of course.”
“I wonder if he got it. I guess it’s still soon.” His excitement about contacting Galeotto had already spiked—as soon as he sealed up the envelope with a copy of the picture inside, he had reexperienced the dismal, groveling nature of his position. And yet.
That day, he had come prepared to the city with ropes and an old blanket, which had puddled up together on his backseat. Arriving at the Ware house, he removed them from the car in an updraft of jute particles and dust. And sneezed. The blanket was one he had held on to fiercely until he had seen it one day for the miserable thing it was—thin as paper, gray with grime and age. And then he had fully rejected his attachment to the blanket and abused it, relishing how the fibers weakened and broke down. Taking it, he spread it over the roof of his car, and he and Carolyn, who had been kissing under the fresco because he thought no one else was home, now found themselves struggling out the door with the bulky fold-up bed all over again.
“Careful,” Carolyn said. She was wearing a pair of gloves.
“Ouch,” Mac said. The frame knocked him on the chin, and he protected his hands from the pinching, flapping legs.
“Are you sure he wants this?” she gasped from the other side.
“He’s waiting for it right now.”
“Maybe we should clean it up first.” In the light of day, the bed smelled mustier than he had noticed the night he met Carolyn.
“Where are you taking my bed?” came a fractious voice.
There stood Molly, squinting at them from the steps. He had not seen her since she returned from camp.
“We’re taking it to a boy Mac knows,” Carolyn replied.
“What kind of boy?”
Mac said, “Around your age.”
“What’s he want it for?”
Mac felt protective of Filipo’s modest wants. “This bed’s a curiosity, a tragic hero, a marvel of function and form; now but a simple soldier from the closets of time, and—we’ll see if he wants it or not.”
“He won’t.”
“It’s also the wave of the future,” proclaimed Mac. “I’ve found all my furniture in the garbage.”
“You have?” Carolyn said.
“Garbage reeks,” said Molly.
“Molly, want to come along?” Carolyn said.
“Is the boy going to be there?”
“He’s there.”
“Does he know about me?”
“How could he know about you?” Carolyn said.
“If he doesn’t now, he soon will,” Mac said.
The girl ran inside.
By the side of the car, Mac and Carolyn hoisted the fold-up bed into the air and, with some exaggerated grunts and laughs, pushed it onto the blanket on the roof. The net of wires that supported the mattress scraped through the blanket. With the frame in place, Mac began to weave the rope around it, as if stitching it on for good. He secured it through the open rear windows, ran another end from the rear bumper up the back of the car and around various brackets of the bed, and then cinched it around the base of the antenna in front. Then he tried rocking it. Tight.
“It’s good luck, this bed,” Mac said. “Imagine, it’s twenty years from now, and there are no political parties anymore, just a few huge corporations who battle it out. The ruling party is called Crockery Shed. When Crockery Shed is in power, everyone must buy all their household goods from their catalogs and stores. When inspectors go into rebel neighborhoods, they find homemade furniture and old hand-me-downs under counterfeit slipcovers, and the penalty is death. Miss, my question to you is, how do we avoid a future like this, and what would you do to prevent it?”
Carolyn began to speak like a Miss America contestant. “I would try to help educate the young on the dangers of rampant consumerism and corporate greed, despite the fact that I’m being sponsored by some of the biggest of them.”
“All the best to you, young lady.”
“Why, thank you.”
“By the way, at the party—that Freddie guy—that guy was seriously your old boyfriend?”
“Sort of, yes.”
“The Controller,” Mac said with some malice.
“He’s not that bad.”
“Kind of dorky How long were you an item?”
“Now you’re the jealous one?”
“Not at all. I can’t even imagine it.”
“Want some?” She produced a U-No bar from her purse and broke it in two. “I guess he was more like an escort. He’d take me to concerts and movies.”
Pods were falling into his hair from the tree. “He definitely didn’t seem like your type.”
“No such thing as a type.” She added, “For some reason, Dad doesn’t think you’re my type.”
“Damn. What did I do?”
“He liked Freddie, so go figure.”
“He’s mad I’m not related to the Wests on Green Street.”
“I’m telling you so that if he acts unfriendly, you won’t take it personally.”
“Wait. Of all things, shouldn’t I take this a little personally?”
“But I don’t care if he likes you or not.”
Molly emerged from the house just then—she had significantly upgraded her attire. She sported the latest faddish pants and a sky blue T-shirt studded with rhinestones that spelled out ICE QUEENacross her chest. For the benefit of Filipo? The girl climbed into the backseat on her knees and said, “This car is really dirty,” as she kicked away some rubbish to place her legs, and off they went.
Rounding the corner, they could see Alcatraz rising from the bay. “My camp was like a prison,” Molly said, “because it was on an island and we couldn’t escape. But I did sailing, and jewelry making, and archery and drama—and I met a girl from South Dakota, and she said where she lives there’s only twenty-two people in the whole town. Did you ever meet anyone from South Dakota?”
“They move undetected amongst us,” said Mac. He was feeling a little gloomy.
“Next summer if I don’t go to camp I want to go to Spain,” she went on. “Have you heard about the human pyramids? They have human pyramids, and that’s what I want to see. Oh, is it okay if I sleep over at Saki’s tonight?”
“She’s back?” said Carolyn.
“Yesterday. Oh, you know what? Brownie’s being put to sleep.”
“Poor Brownie!” Carolyn said. “A sweet old quarterhorse.”
“I don’t like Brownie anymore,” Molly said. “She always stops and dangles her lips.”
“You’d dangle your lips if you had a bit in your mouth,” Mac said.
“Omar never dangles anything,” declared Molly. “Omar is deluxe.”
They cruised down Franklin, jagging across Market into the Mission, the fold-up bed holding to the top of the car.
Molly said, “Is this boy, the boy for the bed, is he very, very poor?”
Mac flinched. “He’s doing all right.”
“Is he so poor he doesn’t have a bed?”
“He has other priorities.”
“This might not be a good idea,” Carolyn said, digging her hands into his ripped upholstery. “What if he gets his finger caught in it, like you did?”
“Hey, when you were planning to give it to the Goodwill, you didn’t seem to care who got their body parts severed.”
“You’re right; now, with a name and a face, I feel like it’s not good enough. Why don’t we buy him a bed?”
“No way.”
“This is the boy you’re teaching to read?”
“No!” Mac said. “He knows how to read. He’s learning to read literature.”
“Where is he from?” Molly asked.
It was starting to feel as if he was taking two corseted Victorians to view a wild man in a loincloth. “El Salvador. His father was a lawyer, part of the antigovernment insurgency in their civil war. Made some enemies, evidently. After everything settled down, when Filipo was a baby, his father went to work one day and never came back,” Mac said, his voice trailing off.
“Sounds like a movie,” Carolyn said.
“Well, it’s not a movie; it’s real.”
He double-parked in front of Filipo’s building, and they all piled out. Molly stood brushing her hair in the reflection she discovered in the car window. She had transformed herself from a tomboy into a girl who looked a lot more sophisticated than twelve. It was alarming how irksome he found her. He unknotted the rope and threw it back in the car, and he and Carolyn lifted the bed down. Carolyn still wore her gloves. They marched the bed across the sidewalk, and Mac buzzed the cage. In moments the door opened at the top, and Filipo came charging down, arms and legs flying in every direction. He threw open the metal door but frowned when he saw Mac’s companions.
“Filipo, this is my friend Carolyn—and her sister, Molly. I think you two are in the same grade.”
Molly stepped forward. “What school are you at?”
“César Chávez,” said Filipo.
“I’m at Sacred Heart,” she said. “It’s the best school in the city.”
Filipo shrugged. She was taunting him, or was it flirtation? It seemed hideous.
“Okay, Filipo, here it is,” Mac said. “Turn it into modern art if you want.”
Filipo moved stiffly. He grabbed the folded bed, testing its wheels.
“How’s it open?”
“Let’s take it up, I’ll show you,” Mac said. The daily throng pushed past on the sidewalk.
But Filipo was clever and dexterous, and moments later the latches had been sprung and the bed opened. The buttons on the ticking rolled around in their indentations like old-fashioned doll eyes.
Molly was adept in her annoying ways. She kicked off her sandals, climbed onto the mattress, and began to bounce. “Come on,” she said. Filipo watched her, rising and falling; Carolyn said, “Molly, get off!” But Molly had no intention of doing anything of the sort. “Try it,” she said, luring Filipo into her game. To Mac’s surprise, he removed his sneakers and joined her on the collapsible bed. With her long, flying hair and sparkling chest, she was stupefying him. And Mac imagined them falling down a long hole into an Eden where all things were equal, and where they would start over with nothing but their wits.
“Look at your socks!” she cried. There were holes in his heels, big as chestnuts. Mac felt a pang of embarrassment for the boy.
“Okay, come on, let’s take it up,” Mac said impatiently.
Despite his socks, Filipo bounced with daring, higher and higher. The bed rocked and groaned dangerously.
“Hey,” Mac shouted. “You want to break it?”
Molly said, “It’s for hunchbacks! We only used it when hunchbacks slept over!”
The bed creaked and gyrated; Mac and Carolyn took a few steps back.
“We’re witnessing a strange ritual,” said Mac.
“Yes. Bizarre.”
“Baseball?” Molly was saying, her face flushed.
“Nope,” Filipo gasped.
“Soccer?”
“Yes. And I’m good.”
“Horses?”
“Nice animals.”
“Have a blog?” she asked.
“No way!”
“What’s your . . . address?”
“Yeah, I got one.”
“I have a bunch . . . some for real letters, some for fake ones.”
Mac said, “This is progressing rapidly.”
“Very,” said Carolyn.
“Mac. Remember that game, we say words we hate?” Filipo called.
“I’ll . . . tell you one,” huffed Molly. “Girl.”
“Girl’s not bad,” said Filipo.
“How would you like to be called a gurl?”
“I don’t. . . like meal” said Filipo, flying in the air.
“What’s wrong with meal?” asked Mac.
“The next meal,” said Filipo. “Sounds . . . foul.”
“I’m not crazy about colloidal” Mac threw in.
Carolyn said, “I hate people. I hate the way it sounds, I even hate how it’s spelled.”
“Very revealing,” Mac said.
“Where’d . . . you . . . watch . . . the fireworks?” Molly was heard to say.
“Up,” panted Filipo. “The . . . hill.”
“We had . . . fireworks at camp. You know . . . the ones . . . that look . . . like sperm?”
“No.”
“They have . . . little tails, and they fly . . . around in the sky . . . all weird . . . and going crazy . . . like sperm.”
“I’ve never seen that flying in the sky,” said Filipo, slowing down.
Mac heard the girl laugh wickedly as Filipo sat down and reached for his shoes. “I don’t need someone’s old bed,” he said.
“No, wait,” Mac said. “I’ll help you fix it up, it’s going to be good.”
Molly climbed down, too, and groped for her sandals with her prehensile toes.
“Nice going,” Mac said.
“What’s going on?” Carolyn was saying to her sister.
Mac and Filipo latched up the bed, then Filipo started forcing it down the sidewalk.
“What are you doing?” said Mac.
A big, fat receptacle for all things rotten and discarded sat in the alley between Filipo’s building and the next one, and Filipo was making a beeline for it with the movable bed. “Hey, wait,” called Mac.
“I don’t want it,” Filipo said. “Understand?”
“Yeah, but—” He watched as the boy pressed the bed against the side of the dumpster and, using it as a fulcrum, tipped the bed up and into it. It fell down onto a rancid carpet of plastic bags and other stinking mulch, casters facing the sky like the stiffened feet of an animal well into rigor mortis. So long, ye bountiful fold-up bed.
“Filipo.” Mac looked back at Carolyn and her sister. “I know it’s hard to believe, but in some sick and twisted way I think she was trying to make friends.”
“No. Don’t think so.”
“Is it because you think she’s pretty?”
“She’s pretty, but she started talking about sperm.”
“That’s what did it?”
“I don’t know her good enough to talk about sperm,” Filipo said. “Even if I knew her, it’s the last thing I’d want to talk about.” He wiped his hands off on his shirt. “We gonna meet Saturday?”
“Yeah, we’re going to meet.”
“I need some new books.”
Carolyn and Molly were sitting on the hood of his car, indolent as cats. As he and Filipo came back that way, Mac saw the two as through Filipo’s eyes—haughty and advantaged and untouchable. He felt a hopeless pain in his stomach.
Opening the cage, Filipo slipped back inside. Then he turned to Mac. “Dump her, before she dumps you!” he whispered, hurrying up the steps.
MacGregor Tells the World Page 13