The Boy Who Never Grew Up (7 page)

There were some bins just inside the door filled with sound and light equipment. Beyond them an empty expanse of pavement until we arrived at the back of some standing sets. The overheads were on here. Sarge slipped through a gap between the sets into the brightness. I followed. We were in Badger Hayes’s living room. There was the big fireplace with the American eagle hanging over it. The two easy chairs, the sofa, the bookcases. There was the stairway leading upstairs to the bedrooms. The entry hall, where Badger’s dad always hung up his coat when he got home from the store, often hollering for Badger. Of course, it didn’t look like it did in the movies. It was smaller, and the stairway led to nowhere, and one wall was missing. That modern, big-screen TV and VCR certainly weren’t the property of the Hayes family. The place was also a complete mess. The coffee table was heaped with video games and candy wrappers and soda cans. A man’s sneakers and dirty socks were strewn around the floor.

The swinging doors into the kitchen didn’t go to the kitchen. The kitchen was across the stage with the other sets, all of them laid out in a big U like a cul-de-sac. The cheerful kitchen with its gleaming white appliances, where Badger’s mom gaily mopped the floor in her crisp housedress and pearls, hair perfectly coiffed. The garage door with the basketball hoop over it, where Badger and his pals played Horse. The master bedroom, its twin beds separated by the nightstand. And Badger’s own bedroom, with the bunk beds, Homewood High banner, framed photo of President Eisenhower, elaborate chemistry set. His guinea pig cages weren’t there, but a short, chubby woman in her late sixties was, busily picking up the dirty laundry that was heaped about.

“Now that there’s Bunny,” Sarge murmured to me under her breath. “She’s a real pistol. And she don’t take too well to outsiders. So tread lightly, if you know how.”

“I don’t.”

“I noticed.” She started over toward Matthew’s mother, calling out “How’s my Bunny-honey?!”

Bunny’s face lit up. “Charmaine!” She came over and hugged her tightly, her face disappearing into Sarge’s stomach. “How was the traffic?”

“Murder,” Sarge replied. “Say hey to Hoagy. He’s the writer helping Matthew with his book.”

Bunny peered up at me, eyes narrowed behind the oversized black spectacles she wore. “Hello,” she said, her voice guarded.

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Wax,” I said.

Bunny Wax was cute and cuddly and well under five feet tall in her white Reeboks. Daughter Shelley had inherited her size and shape, also her features and coloring, though Bunny’s hair was mostly white now. And she looked a lot feistier. Her chin was worn thrust forward. Her eyes were alert and shrewd. She wore a purple silk camp shirt, white sweatpants, and a ton of jewelry. Her earrings and two of her rings were jade. Her watch and her other rings were gold, as was her charm bracelet, a big, heavy affair made up of as many bunny rabbit charms as could possibly exist in the world. Whenever she moved it clanged around on her wrist like wind chimes.

She looked me over, her chubby little fists on her hips. She took her time doing it. “What’s with this ‘Mrs. Wax’ business?” she huffed. “You make me sound like some old lady. I’m Bunny.”

“Okay, Bunny.”

“That’s better.” She was starting to thaw a couple of degrees—until she caught sight of Lulu ambling over from the dining room. “All right, who let that mutt in here?”

Lulu let out a low moan. I assured her I could handle it. Then I turned to Bunny and said, “Lulu’s with me. And she is not a mutt.”

“Why is she with you?” Bunny demanded.

“We’re a team. We always work together.”

“I don’t understand that at all,” she fumed, dismissing the whole idea with a wave of her clanging wrist. “What kind of grown man takes his doggy with him to work?”

I tried again. “Ever see
Hondo
, the John Wayne movie? He played the tough, brooding loner with the savage dog, Sam, whom he refused to feed because he didn’t want Sam to ever become dependent on him.”

Bunny frowned. “Yes …?”

“Well, we’re not like that.”

“What are you, mister, a wisenheimer?” she snapped, glaring at me.

“I am not.”

“Better not be. I got no use for them. Never have.” She shot a glance at Sarge, then down at Lulu. “Is she at least paper trained?”

Lulu snuffled indignantly. She definitely wanted a piece of the old biddy now. I shrugged and let her have her. I’d done all I could.

Slowly, Lulu stalked over to her, Bunny watching her every move disapprovingly. When she arrived at Bunny’s Reeboks she gave her The Treatment. First, the look—her saddest, most mournful face. A definite ten on the hankie meter. Second, a slight whimper, more a catch in the throat really. Third, her knockout punch—she rolled over onto her back, landing directly on Bunny’s feet with a soft plop, paws in the air, tail thumping. The little ham overplayed it this time, if you ask me. Possibly it was the surroundings. No matter. The Treatment never fails.

Bunny fell to her knees immediately. “Aw, I’m sorry, sweetheart. Bunny’s sorry, okay? She’s sorry.” She knelt there rubbing Lulu’s belly. To Lulu she said, “Such a little sweetheart.” To me she said, “Oy, yoy. What does she eat, dead fish?”

“Exclusively,” I replied. “They flop around if they’re still alive.”

“Have you thought about Milk Bones?” she asked. “I understand they’re very good for this sort of thing.”

“She won’t eat them.”

“Why not?”

“They’re for dogs.”

Bunny got up and finished tidying Badger’s room. “Sorry about all of this mess, Hoagy. I didn’t know we were having company until five minutes ago. At the last minute Matty tells me. Look at all of this, will you?” She scooped up a huge load of dirty T-shirts. “I’ll be up half the night washing it.” She carried it off to the living room and deposited it next to the front door to nowhere. Her purse was there.

I followed her. “You do his laundry?”

“You never stop being a mother,” she replied. “Not if your baby needs you.” She bustled over to the coffee table and started picking up the shoes and socks, humming.

I stood there a moment watching her. Then I turned to Sarge and said, “This is where he lives? He actually sleeps in Badger’s bed?”

She looked away uncomfortably. “I thought you knew.”

“I knew he was staying on the lot. I thought he had a suite of rooms or something.”

“He does, sort of.” She looked around at the sets. “Kind of strange though, I reckon.”

“You can forget the kind of. This is not good.” This was far from good. This was Dysfunction Junction. And welcome to it.

“He likes it here,” Sarge insisted. “Feels safe. The man’s hurting, like I told you.”

“You didn’t tell me how much. Nor did Shelley.”

“What did Shelley tell you?”

“That he’s tearing his hair out.”

“He is,” she affirmed. “Lookie, I got to leave you now. Shit to do. He’s in casting—be down in a minute. Just yell when you’re ready to leave for the hotel, okay?”

“Thanks for the lift—and the tour.” I looked around at the sets. “I think.”

She grinned at me. “No problem.” Then she yelled good-bye to Bunny and strode off into the darkness out beyond the lights, rump high, calf muscles rippling. A moment later the stage door slammed shut.

“Such a lovely girl,” observed Bunny, scooping wadded-up candy wrappers into a wastebasket. “Strong, smart, big-hearted. And carrying a torch for that bum. That convict. Poo.” She finished clearing the coffee table and wiped it off with a damp rag. “I usually make Matty a snack now. I’ll make you one, too. But you have to come help.”

“It’s a deal.”

The fridge in the Hayes’s kitchen was hooked up. Bunny pulled a carton of milk and a jar of Welch’s grape jelly from it. The Wonder bread and Skippy peanut butter, the chunky kind, were in the cupboard.

“You like crusts?” she asked. “Matt won’t eat his.”

“I will.”

“Good boy.”

“That’s what I tried to tell you.”

“Mothers have their own ways of finding these things out,” she said, going to work on the sandwiches.

Lulu ambled in after us and curled up under the kitchen table.

“Do you live here, too, Bunny?”

“Oh, heavens no. I have a place of my own.”

This I was glad to hear. “Whereabouts?”

“Bungalow C. The old writers’ court.”

“Oh.” Not that glad.

“I fixed it up real nice. Got my own Nordic Track, a washer-dryer combination. You’ll have to come visit me.” She cut my sandwich in half and put it on a plate and handed it to me. “Sit,” she commanded. I did. “You want Bosco in your milk?”

“No, thanks.” I bit into my sandwich. I hadn’t tasted Welch’s grape jelly since I was ten. It was so sweet I could practically feel the sugar dissolving my teeth.

She handed me my milk and sat across from me, watching me eat. “So you and Lulu go everywhere together, huh?”

“Like I said, we’re a team. For better or worse.”

“Have you considered an alternative form of companionship?”

“Such as?”

“A nice girl.”

“Tried it.”

She shook her index finger at me, her charm bracelet gonging. “You’re the one who’s always mixed up with Merilee Nash. Sure, I was just reading about you at the beauty parlor.”

“That’s me, all right.”

“So has she really dumped you for good this time?”

I sighed inwardly. “I’m really more interested in talking about Matthew and Pennyroyal.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Feh.”

“Feh?”

“I never liked her. Not from the get-go. It had nothing to do with her not being a Jewish girl, either. Religion has never been a big deal in our family. Not like with some families,” she added darkly, so darkly I couldn’t help but wonder about it. “I didn’t like her because she deceived him.”

“There’s deception in any relationship,” I observed. “Deception holds it together.”

“Trust holds it together,” Bunny argued, smacking the table with her little fist. “Marriage is a partnership. A man and a woman sharing together, building together. Matty and Penny, they never had that. She put a spell on him, is what she did. And poor Matty, he was helpless. He simply could not believe that someone that blond, that lovely—a cheerleader yet—would go out with him. And why shouldn’t she? Who wouldn’t go out with a nice Jewish boy who is bright and personable and worth four hundred million dollars?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Not that I ever said anything. He deserved to be happy. And she made him happy, while it suited her. Made him a lovely home, a beautiful child. But all along she was deceiving him. As soon as she got what she wanted, she took off. Stole his child. Broke his heart. A snake, that’s what she is.”

“Your son-in-law would like to see them patch it up.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Sheldon’s worried about what’ll happen to the studio. That’s his job. Mine is to worry about Matty. And for what she’s doing to him—the publicity, the sleeping around, the ugliness—she should be punished, not welcomed back. She should be made to suffer like he is.”

“You don’t think she’s suffering?”

“I think she’s having the time of her little life,” Bunny snapped angrily. “Believe me—Pennyroyal Brim is not the person she pretends to be.”

“Who among us is?”

“But she’ll get hers,” Bunny vowed. “You’ll see. She’ll get it. She’ll do it to herself or someone will do it to her.”

“Which would you prefer?”

“All I want is to see my Matty happy again.” She peered across the table at me. “And you, Hoagy? What is it you want?”

“I’d like to learn as much as I can about his boyhood,” I replied. “About his father—”

“What about him?” she demanded.

“Their relationship. I gather it wasn’t so terrific.”

She stuck out her lower lip, weighing this. “And what good will this do?”

“A lot of Matthew’s movies are about childhood. Yet audiences know very little about his own. They’re curious.” I sipped my milk. “It may also be good for him right now to do some looking back.”

She nodded, her eyes glinting at me. “If it means helping him, I’m all for it. But if it doesn’t …” She reached across the table and grabbed me by the wrist. She had a grip of iron. “You don’t want Bunny Wax for an enemy, mister. Believe me.”

“I believe you,” I assured her, watching the color drain from my hand.

She relaxed her grip. “Just so we understand each other,” she said, smiling.

“We do.”

“About what, Ma?”

We both looked up. Matthew was standing, or I should say lurking, there in the doorway.

One look at him and I knew just what Shelley and Sarge meant when they said that Matthew Wax was tearing his hair out.

I
T WAS QUITE SOME BALD PATCH. IT STARTED WHERE
his forelock should have been and it wandered all the way over behind his right ear. He was down to bare white scalp in many spots. A few thin, reddish brown tufts still clung to life in others. The rest of his hair was shaggy and unkempt. He looked like a kid who’d used his haircut money to buy comic books and then tried doing it himself—with his mom’s pinking shears.

“Just so you understand each other about what, Ma?” he repeated, tugging nervously at his ravaged forelock with his fingers.

“Nothing, sweetheart,” she replied, gazing up at him with a mixture of pride and awe. And maybe some fear. “Here’s your friend. Say hello.”

He loped over to me and stuck out his hand. “Glad you could make it,” he exclaimed, as we shook. “Stewart, right?”

“Make it Hoagy.”

“As in Carmichael?”

“As in the cheese steak.”

“Hey, I love cheese steaks!” He grinned at me happily. “Especially with tons of onions and hot peppers. Man, they’re great!”

“That they are.”

If this was Matthew Wax down, I didn’t think I wanted to be around him when he was up. He was a bundle of energy—an eager, boisterous, overgrown kid. He was uncommonly tall, seven or eight inches over six feet, and gawky of build, like a teenager who hasn’t filled in yet. His shoulders were narrow, his arms skinny and unusually long, so long that his hands hung nearly down to his knees. They were surprisingly small, delicate hands, and the backs were covered with freckles. So was his face. His skin was fair, almost pasty. He had a rabbit nose, pink and busy, and a jaw you could shovel snow with. He had shaved recently but not well. He wore glasses, thick ones with wire frames that had broken at the hinge and been Scotch-taped together. The eyes behind them were earnest and bright. He wore a faded Bedford Falls T-shirt, old jeans that were three inches too short for him, and a new pair of Air Jordans. He had huge feet. They made him look like a Great Dane puppy. It really was hard to believe he was thirty-eight. So much of him was kid. I would have said happy kid, too, if it weren’t for his hair. His hair made him look positively haunted.