The Emerald Light in the Air (5 page)

It was Brahms. No, it wasn't. It was Sibelius. No, it was Robert Schumann. It was not Mendelssohn—that much was evident, even to Patrick. And it was not, on second thought, Schumann. It was Brahms. Roger had had a thing for Brahms.

Roger was looking toward them now, peering up the hundred feet of windowless tunnel that separated him from Patrick and Gregory. Even at this distance, Patrick, gazing back down the dirty white corridor, could see where Gregory had come by his big damp eyes.

Patrick and the three-eyed rabbit stood watching Roger watch them. Now and then, people wearing backpacks or maneuvering wheeled suitcases came between them. The oncoming people pressed down on Patrick and the boy, and Gregory wrapped his arms around Patrick's leg. What was interesting about this moment was the way in which Roger's playing produced an occasion for what felt to Patrick like a bond between the men—it was music for male affinity, for courtship, for sharing—and, furthermore, between the men and the boy. Would Roger understand this? Gregory's real parents, that early afternoon before the trip to visit the dying animals, were not Roger and Caroline, or even Patrick and Caroline, but Patrick and Roger.

“I guess we ought to say hello,” Patrick said to Gregory. “Come on, Bunny, let go of my leg.”

“Can't!”

“Yes, you can. Knock it off.” He had to reach down and pull the boy off him. He anticipated tears, but in fact he was the one who felt like crying. This feeling came on suddenly. He said, “I'm going to pick you up. You'll be safe and happy in the air! Are you ready to be happy?”

“Up!”

“Good boy. Let's say hi to your daddy, and after that we'll ride out to the zoo and see something tragic.”

Was he crazy? They'd never make their train this way. He knelt before the boy. Patrick held the journal in one hand. Now he reached behind Gregory, pressing the journal between his arm and Gregory's back. His other hand went beneath Gregory's arm. He got a grip on Gregory. He stood and brought the boy close to him, squeezing him with “Pond, with Mud.” He would have preferred to avoid carrying Gregory. Once up, the kid would be unwilling to go down. And lately he'd got heavy.

If only Caroline had been with them. On the other hand, though, maybe not. In truth, it occurred to him, he didn't want Caroline there at all.

“Wait a minute, hold on, wait a minute,” he said to the Funny Bunny. There was something Patrick had to get down in the work-in-progress, before he forgot. It was about Caroline. He pictured her dressed for the office, with her scarf knotted over the buttoned top button of her starched white shirt, noosing her neck. Why had Patrick never before considered that knotted scarf in relation to the death of love? The scarf produced such obvious imagery. Obvious? Not
too
obvious.

What to do? How to get words down on paper? If he lowered the Bunny to the ground, there could be a tantrum and the day would be ruined. On the other hand, were he to try to open the book and take out the pen—well, forget it, it was out of the question. Could he persuade Gregory to climb up and ride on his shoulders, and in this way free his hands? But he wouldn't have free hands, would he? He'd be holding Gregory's knees, restraining Gregory from kicking him in the chest with the heels of his little rubber sneakers.

He carried Gregory down the tiled hall, against the rush of people entering from the street. He felt afraid. Why, all of a sudden, was he so full of fear? He knew the answer. It was simple. He wasn't making his art. No, that wasn't the complete answer. The complete answer was that he was not an artist. He was a person who let language dissolve into nothingness. Did that qualify as an insight?

Walking along the train-station tunnel, the boy cradled in his arms, he felt as if he were pushing through music—as if the music from the violin had become resistant, like a substance.

“Hello!” Patrick said too loudly to the violinist. “Brahms!” he exclaimed. Why was he talking like the boy? What an idiot he was. He'd become submissive. The only way he could make things worse would be to pull dollar bills from his pocket and toss them into the violin case.

With one arm, he held Gregory. He dug deeply into his pants pocket. Money and old tissues were wadded in a ball in Patrick's pocket. He brought out a handful. There was no way for him to count the money. He held it up before his eyes. Twenties and fives.

“Gregory and I were on our way to the zoo! I took the day off. We thought we could maybe see a few wild animals before they have to quarantine them. That's a joke. I guess it's not funny.” And he said, “Right, Gregory? The zoo! Gregory, say hello to your father.” And with that he let a few bills flutter from his hand to the case on the ground. It was probably thirty or forty dollars.

Could anything have been meaner? Could he have been more cruel? Here was a demonstration of the power of a weak man over a weaker man. And there was more to come, when he shoved the money and the tissues back into his pocket and said, “Can I buy you a drink?” Patrick understood that he was not so much abusing the other man as punishing himself; they would drink together, the two men, and Patrick would buy, and he would get drunk enough to give himself credit for being a generous person. Later in the day, Roger might get up his nerve and punch him; but if he did he might injure his hand and be unable to play the violin for a while, and Patrick would be obliged to help him with a loan. There was no end to it.

“Drink?” the violinist said. Immediately he stopped playing and knelt to stow away his violin. He took care securing it in the case, but was speedy nonetheless. He needs a drink, Patrick thought. Patrick felt misgivings as he watched the violin-case lid come down over money that had recently been his. Roger snapped the case shut and stood up, and, a moment later, Gregory and his two fathers set out to waste the day sitting on stools in a dark train-station bar, a place off to the side, away from the sunlight, and populated with men who leaned down hard and unspeaking over their glasses.

There was no music in the bar. The place looked to Patrick as if it had been neglected by the architects who had recently completed the renovation of the train station. Had they forgotten about it? It had a linoleum floor and, in keeping with the historical standards for furnishings in these sorts of haunts, red vinyl booths, and walls painted a dark shade down low, toward the floor, and a lighter color up above. The ceiling was yellowing; certainly in another age, the seventies most likely, it had been white. All those burning cigarettes. All those people coughing themselves to death. Patrick imagined the dark bar full of coughers. There was something about the smell in the place, too. It smelled to Patrick like a hospital, or, faintly, like Roger, except saltier. This bar off to the side of the concourse was all that was left of the old train station; it reminded Patrick of the periods in modern literature when a decline in civilization is evident in the works of the poets. But when he thought about this he could not dream up any original lines that did not refer to cigarettes, or to the fact that lit cigarettes held in the air by drunks in dark rooms become little galaxies, spiraling.

Roger threw his violin case on the bar. This was a powerful move on his part. It showed that he had confidence in what he trusted (the hard case) to protect what he needed (the fragile violin) in order to maintain for himself some small place in which he could be a—what? A man in the world.

Patrick settled Gregory on a stool. Then, in an imitation of Roger's confidence, he threw “Pond, with Mud” on the bar. This was a cavalier and companionable gesture. There would be time later to compose formal impressions regarding the experience of chucking his literary work around. In the meantime, he felt in his coat pocket for the fountain pen. There it was, clipped to the pocket's lining.

The bartender came over. Roger asked for a beer.

“Sure thing, Roger,” the bartender said to him. “How's it going today?”

“Money!”

“Good for you.”

This short conversation emboldened Patrick to order a drink suitable for the occasion. What
was
the occasion? And never mind that Scotch had been his father's drink. In memory, Patrick could see the old man with a drink in his hand, inhaling from his cigarette in the night. Frankly, there came a point in each and every day when Patrick saw this image of his father.

“May I have a Scotch and soda?”

“Anything for the little guy?” the bartender asked, and, for a moment, Patrick was not sure what the man was talking about. He thought the bartender was referring to him—to Patrick. Little guy? Patrick caught on and said, “I'm carrying juice.”

He hauled the juice out of his coat pocket. He shook the bottle. He reached back into his pocket, got the miniature straw, and wiped it with a bar napkin. While wiping, he said, “Roger, I like your playing.” Where were those drinks? Patrick looked at Gregory and said, “How are you doing on that stool, Bunny? Comfortable? We can move over to a booth as soon as one opens up. Please don't cry.”

“Bunny?” This from Roger.

“We call him that. Actually, we don't call him that. I call him that. Right, Bunny? Are you my Funny Bunny?” Patrick had the juice ready. He held the bottle for Gregory to drink. Gregory, somehow managing to keep his balance on the elevated barstool, leaned over between the two men, took the straw expertly in his mouth, and, with his hair falling forward over his ears, hiding his face, began to suck.

Patrick said, “Yeah, good boy.”

“Yeah! Boy,” Roger exclaimed. Who was submissive now?

The drinks came, and Patrick put his money on the bar. Roger got his beer, and Patrick his Scotch; Gregory worked on his miniature juice; the three of them drank together. It was a moment of harmony produced—in that cosmic darkness that made the forlorn station bar a place apart from the world—by alcohol, the absence of women, and, Patrick thought, love.

“Shall we have another?” he asked.

“Another,” Roger answered.

“Here's to being here,” Patrick said, hoisting his glass; and he had the feeling, as he made this toast, that there were all manner of things he wanted to say (and had for some time
needed
to say, now that he thought about it) to Roger. For instance, Patrick suddenly couldn't wait to assure Roger that he and Caroline had been very upset when they'd discovered that he had lost his job teaching at the conservatory. But how to say this in words that would not be hurtful to the man's pride? Also, was it a good idea for Patrick to let the deposed husband know that Caroline still cared for him? Was it wise for Patrick to mention Caroline at all? He felt himself on the verge of telling Roger that he was sure that he, Patrick, might be able to persuade Caroline to overlook a few of those child-custody legalities. Bury the ax. No one ever need raise his arm and strike anyone in anger again. Roger could drop by Patrick and Caroline's apartment, have a beer or a glass of wine, play a lullaby on his fiddle, and hold his son for a few minutes. Roger didn't look like a person who wanted to hurt a little boy. Did he?

It wasn't Patrick's place to make promises to Roger. It wasn't his place to say anything to Roger.

Nonetheless he said, “Do you want to hold him?”

Patrick drank from his drink. In that instant, he felt at peace with himself—he could understand drinking. Caroline did not like Patrick to drink. Correction: Caroline didn't like him to drink
too much
. It occurred to him then that the anniversary of their engagement was coming up in three days. Jesus! He had to think about a present.

The train-station bar was emptying. Patrick supposed that the men in the bar were leaving to catch trains to the suburbs. Either that or heading back to their jobs. Every now and then, the door to the bar would open, and light would flood in, briefly. The person leaving might stand silhouetted in this bright light, waving a hand at the drinkers left behind.

“So long. See you tomorrow,” the bartender called toward the door as it closed. The light disappeared, and the bartender brought Patrick and Roger one beer and one Scotch. He counted out money from the pile in front of Patrick. The money was wet, and there was tissue paper mixed with it.

“Do you want to hold him?” Patrick asked Roger again. “It's all right if you don't feel like it.”

“No,” Roger said to him.

“No? You don't? Or you do? Want to hold the Bunny?”

The bartender came back carrying change. He put the change on the bar. “Will you be wanting anything for your little boy? Will you be wanting a glass of milk?”

Was the bartender addressing Patrick? Or Roger? Gregory had stopped drinking from the juice bottle and was leaning over against the rounded edge of the bar, his head pillowed on arms crossed beneath him, in the manner, and with the posture, of a child slumbering at a school desk. His eyes were closed. The juice was empty.

“He's doing fine, we're all fine, we're great, thank you,” Patrick said. Patrick was drunk. Being drunk, he wondered why he was not more often drunk. Was that right? Grammatically speaking? Not more often drunk?

“You let me know,” the bartender said.

To Roger, Patrick said, “Gregory is tired. We should let him rest a minute. You can hold him later.”

Gregory's real father had already finished his beer, Patrick noticed. How many did that make? In all? As for Patrick, he was not, when he spoke, slurring his words, though he feared he might slur his words were he not careful not to. Something like that. Between the two men, the boy slept. These two grown men gazed at each other through the dark, across the boy; and Patrick found himself wondering how old Roger was. Caroline had told him, but he couldn't remember. In Roger's eyes, Patrick saw the boy's eyes. Roger's face might or might not have been a predictor of the face Gregory would one day show to the world. Roger was unshaven, with hair growing down his neck, past the top of his shirt collar, which was unbuttoned to the third button, and lay open beneath the pea-green coat that needed cleaning, and which was either too large or too small for Roger—it was hard for Patrick to say which. The effect was tacky. No, “tacky” wasn't the right word. Roger's chest was white and skinny, the chest of a man who'd begun drinking before he was a man. And the tip of his nose was red—a red nose! Like Gregory, Roger had a rashy mouth. Whiskers went this way and that. His hair looked lifeless.