Only Children (36 page)

He walked out. Eric looked stupidly at the door and, after a few moments, turned back to check on Joe’s reaction. Joe pretended nothing had happened. The owl was still on his perch, talking in a pompous mumble, apparently unmoved.

Sammy and Joe had had many terrible fights. Eric and Sammy had often screamed at each other. But no one ever walked out, or was asked to, for that matter. Sammy spoke his contempt for Eric with thorough conviction. He hadn’t meant his words simply to hurt; he believed them.

“It’s Fred Tatter again,” Irene said.

So I was just a nice schmuck, an errand boy. And now I’m a fool.

Eric took the call.

“Well?” said Fred. “The market’s open. You said you’d call back.”

“I can’t recommend it, Fred.”

“What about two thousand shares?”

“Okay, if you want.” Eric hated him, this fool whom he had tried to protect. What did it get him? Nothing but the misery of truth. “I’ll call you back with the price.”

Eric placed the order, then sat back in his chair, his eyes closed, and waited for a confirmation. Errand boy. Eric the great stock picker. He tried to tune the words out. Errand boy. But they had music in them—Schmuck! Errand boy!—a persistent, irritating jingle that couldn’t be forgotten.

B
IG BOY
. Big boy. Big boy.

Byron sucked on his soft thumb, washing it with his saliva. He ironed the liquids back into the mushy skin, pressing them out with his tongue and the roof of his mouth. Up and down, trailing his teeth on the knuckle’s hard bump. First cool, then hotter inside, soft on top, hard on bottom.

Big boy!

Mommy pulled him through the lobby. He swung on her hand, felt himself bottomless, heavy, but loose anyway, free in the world tied to the mommy swing.

“Are you tired?” Mommy’s dark, dark face stopped the easy, loose world.

“Tire?”

“Tired. You’re sucking your thumb. Do you need a nap?”

“No!” Angry Mommy wants me away. Look—behind the leaves. A man.

“Hello, Beerun!”

It was Jesus, the doorman. Peeking through the leaves.

“Hello, Beerun!”

Byron scurried across the forest floor to catch the lion Jesus.

“Can’t catch me, Beerun!” Jesus hopped back and forth around the plant, the gold buttons of his blue suit rattling, his feet dancing on the grass floor.

So funny! The green world shook, tables, chairs, all hopping around the lion Jesus. He pawed the air and meowed. “I kratch you, Beerun. I kratch you,” Jesus said as Byron dived for his silky pants. “Oh, no!” Jesus said. Big boy had caught him. Big boy had won.

“Byron, the elevator’s here.”

“Okay. Up now, Beerun. You big boy,” Jesus said, lifting him up from the green rug. “Go catch your mommy.”

“Rrrrr,” Byron said, and grabbed Jesus’s legs again.

“No, no, big boy Beerun. Your mommy’s waiting.” Jesus’s hands pushed him gently toward Mommy. Byron paused and looked at Mommy’s body, tilted sideways, holding up the elevator switch.

“Can’t catch me!” Byron sang and ran, his hair floating, big boy on the fly. “Can’t catch me! Can’t catch me!” He ran into the gold box and looked up at the lighted numbers. Home was six. He jumped at the buttons. Press the button—see the light.

“What are you doing?”

“Want to press, want to press, want to press.”

“I told you. You only have to say things once!”

Big boy jump. Couldn’t. Mommy hands could. “Lift me, lift—” only once, say only once.

“Okay, okay.”

Press and light. “Six!” he called to the light. “We’re home!” he called to Mommy. “Can we play?”

“We’re in the elevator.”

“I know, I know—”

“Byron!”

“I know,” he mumbled. “Can we play in my room?”

“I have to go to work. Francine will play with you.”

“I hate Francine.”

“You do not!”

“Francine fat!”

“Bryon! Don’t you dare say that to her! That hurts people’s feelings.”

“Fat, fat, fat.” The elevator doors opened. Byron ran out. “Francine fat!” he shouted at the tall wall door with the symbol of home—6A.

Diane grabbed him by the elbow. The floor fell away. “Stop it!” she yelled.

Home—6A—jumped. “I’m not bad!” he answered, once the 6A stayed still.

“Stop it! I can’t stand it when you’re like this!”

“You don’t love me,” big boy called up to her, to the dark face.

“I don’t love you when you act like a brat!”

Brat is bad. Not bad. “I’m not!”

“You are! I don’t love a brat. I love a boy who is good.”

The 6A dripped, the floor got big. Mommy’s hand felt hard. Not bad. Too big for the bad. His face got squeezed and hurt. He cried.

“Oh, no,” Francine’s voice said. She was fat and big in the home door. “What’s all the crying? You hurt yourself?”

“I have to go, Francine,” Mommy said. “He needs a nap.”

“Don’t! Don’t need!” The squeezing face hurt more. Mommy don’t love me.

“Now, Byron,” Fat Francine said. “Don’t cry. Babies cry. Big boys don’t.”

Big boy. Big boy. Big boy not bad.

“Good-bye,” Mommy said. The dark face came at him, a shadow sun darkening the squeezed hurt.

“No!” he cried, and turned into Francine’s big warm fat.

“Byron! You bad boy. Give your mommy a kiss.”

“Forget it,” Mommy said, and the shadow went away.

Big boy run, big boy sleep. Big boy bad.

I
AM DADDY’S
head. I am his hair. His eyes. His ears. His nose. His mouth. I walk on Daddy’s head. Walk through the sky. Walk through signs.

“Don’t pull on my hair, Luke.” Daddy’s forehead rolled up and under his hand.

“Okay.” Luke made his hand flat and felt the rumpled skin.

“Duck,” Daddy said.

The building cover moved at his eyes. He felt himself lowered; he put his head next to Daddy’s. The sun went dark for a moment and then he was going up again, up again to the windows, above the grown-up heads, big and bigger in the world.

“That was a low awning,” Daddy said.

“Why?”

“Didn’t you see how low it was?”

“Why low?”

“Compared to the others, it was low.”

“No, no.” Luke wanted to burst out of words, to yell. “Why make it low?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.”

Luke felt the inside jail open and laughed away the worry. “You didn’t!”

“No, I didn’t.” Daddy’s hand went around crazily to pat Luke’s back. “I don’t know why they made that one so low. Maybe the only place to attach it—do you know what ‘attach’ means?”

“No.”

“Like glue. Sticking something to something.”

Daddy was happy. Luke patted the hard ball of Daddy’s head to feel his happiness.

“Anyway, maybe the only place to attach it was low.”

“I see.” He felt the wet air and the dry light. The song played in his ear: “I like you just the way you are. Not the clothes you wear.”

“Is this your neighborhood, Luke?” Daddy said with happiness in his voice.

“What?”

“Welcome to your neighborhood, right?” Daddy said with laughter in his happiness. “This is your neighborhood. Mr. Rogers has his neighborhood and this is yours.”

The worry was back, confused sound and dark light. “What?”

“Do you know what ‘neighborhood’ means?”

He put his hand on Daddy’s fur and grasped it to hold on, hold on to the big and bigger world. “No,” he said, and wished he could pull the hair.

“It means the place right around where you live, the stores, the park, these streets. And ‘neighbor’ is someone who lives right around where you live. In the same building, or one nearby.”

The air was wet again on his face, the light dry and warm. “I see,” he said, and then watched the people, the stores, and, ahead, the wonderful and terrible prospect of the trees and grass of the park. They belonged to Luke now, like his toys, his room, his bed. “This is my neighborhood,” Luke sang. “Welcome to my neighborhood.” He laughed.

Daddy’s happy head bucked under his hand. “That’s right, Luke.”

A
S ERIC
approached the playground gate, he felt more in control than usual, because he had been so clever at wooing Luke to the park. When Eric first made the suggestion they go to Washington Square Park—he wanted Nina to sleep late, undisturbed by their noise in the living room—Luke had lowered his head, his bright blue eyes darkening as if the source of their energy were on the blink. Eric said, “We’ll go to the park, I’ll put you on the swing until you’re tired of that, then I’ll catch you going down the slide—”

“I don’t want to slide,” Luke mumbled, afraid of both the slide and of Eric’s attempts to get him over the fear.

“Okay, we’ll build a sand castle together. Then we’ll come home for lunch with Mommy.”

It had worked. For the first time in a month since an incident with a brat who took Luke’s shovel, Luke agreed to go to the park with Eric. Eric knew now he had been wrong to lecture Luke to make a more vigorous defense of his possessions, that his speech had backfired, increasing Luke’s fear of the random world. Luke didn’t want to order the mess himself; he wanted it made safe.

Eric forced himself to talk in a cheerful, hearty voice while he carried Luke to the park on his shoulders, obliged to push the stroller with only one hand, the other grasping Luke’s plump, dangling leg. The sharp edge of Luke’s heels bruised Eric’s chest, Eric’s hand cramped from the tight grip he had to maintain on the stroller handle in order to steer straight, and his neck felt permanently dented by the relentless weight of Luke’s behind. But it had been worth it. When Luke began to sing the theme song of his favorite television show,
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
, Eric hit upon the idea of explaining to Luke that the park and the streets and the strange people around them were Luke’s neighbors. This worked too. Luke arrived at the playground singing. He moved eagerly toward the swing area and, once on, asked to be pushed faster.

“How fast?” Eric asked.

“To the moon!” Luke answered.

“That’s fast,” Eric said, and sighed with relief.

Eric made his hand into a metronome and watched the back of his son loom and then recede. He listened to two mothers chat about their children’s moods and sleep habits as if their kids weren’t right there, swinging in the air. What do they think? Eric wondered. That the rush of wind in their children’s ears makes them deaf? He remembered his mother’s dismaying habit of discussing his school problems with her friends while he and his buddies played at their feet. Miriam insisted to Eric that he shouldn’t worry about his academic difficulties, but she talked of nothing else with her friends.

Well, that was all part of the garbage of his past, mistakes that he wasn’t going to repeat.

“Luke! Luke! Luke!” a sandy-haired two-year-old stood on a bench outside the swing area. He waved his fat little hands in the air, his broad mouth revealing a row of widely spaced teeth.

“Who’s that?” Eric asked.

“Oh,” Luke said, a touch of worry and excitement in his tone. “That’s Byerun.”

“Brian?”

“Bye! Run!” Luke’s voice was at once loud and restrained, like someone shouting through a closed door.

“Oh, Byron.” That was Luke’s friend, Eric realized, introduced to Luke by his soon-to-be-baby-sitter Pearl.

“Hello, Luke! Play with me! Luke! Play with me!” Byron jumped up and down on the bench joyfully. He looked so open, this kid with his tousled hair, big smile, and pug nose. Byron’s body, smaller and leaner than Luke’s, seemed to quake with energy. His presence was the ideal of boyhood: electric and sunny. Even the playground adults, battered daily by the happiness of children, took notice of Byron and smiled at his enthusiasm.

All at once, Eric felt afraid of Byron, envious of his parents, and proud of the fact that Luke was the focus of his attentions. “Do you want to get out of the swing?” he asked.

“Yes,” Luke mumbled, very low, ducking as he answered, as if he expected a refusal to be hurled at him.

He’s never been refused anything. Why is he so timid? Eric punched himself with the question.

“Play with me, Luke!” the happy Byron called. “Play with me!” Byron yearned.

Behind him, a dark Jewish yuppie appeared. She was dressed in L. L. Bean clothes and, at first glance, looked nothing like her son. Her hair was black and straight, and her deep-set eyes hid in a cave made darker by wide black circles of fatigue. Her face was long and dour, her mouth closed, her body still and enervated. But she had Byron’s bold look as she took in Eric and Luke, and when she spoke, she had Byron’s loud, confident tone: “Are you Luke?”

“That’s Luke!” Byron said. “Play with me, Luke! Play with me!”

“Yes.” Eric answered Byron’s mother for Luke, afraid that Luke would never do so. Eric hurried to get Luke out of the swing, influenced by Byron’s repeated chants. “I’m his daddy.”

“I’ve heard so much about Luke. My name is Diane.”

“Hi, I’m Eric.” Eric’s hands encased the box of Luke’s chest to lift up Luke, out of the swing, over the fence, down next to his friend. Eric could feel his son’s heart beat with the excitement of this encounter. That was a terrible relief—to know there was someone else Luke wanted to be with, that he had not inherited his mother’s hermitlike disdain for friendship—but there was also loss, both of his son and of control. He was letting the fluttering bird go, but to what?

Byron took Luke by the hand, like a lover, like a parent, and pulled him toward the sandbox. “We play, Luke,” Byron said.

And Luke spoke instantly, clearly and confidently as he would at home.“I have a shovel. And a pail. Daddy, can I have my shovel and pail?”

“Here they are,” Eric said.

“You speak so well,” Diane said to Luke, her compliment aggressive, almost acquisitive.

“I do too!” Byron said.

Luke, of course, lowered his head, away from the blinding light of being addressed by a stranger. “Come on,” Luke said to Byron.

Byron violently took Luke at his word. He grabbed Luke’s hand and hopped across the playground toward the sandbox. Byron pulled Luke so hard that he fell, nosing forward into sand like a helpless puppet.

Eric jumped forward. “Byron!” Diane called. “Don’t pull him like that!”