The Illusionist (24 page)

It's so still here. I can hear a faint crackling from inside the woodstove, the embers still lit even after all night. In the kitchen beyond, the dishes are stacked clean on the drainer, Bobby's toys picked up, put away for the night in his basket. There is the faint tick tick tick of the clock on the wall.

I walk over to Bobby's room and peer in. The little night light sends out a faint, warm glow into the room. I see Bobby is sleeping with his back to the door. The two of them, I think, the two I love most in the world, so still here under my protection.

Back in the main room, I sit down on the saggy couch. I'm wide awake, as if it's morning.

Then I hear a sound. I look up and Bobby's standing in the doorway to his room, rubbing his eyes.

“Why're you up, honey?”

But he only rubs his little fists into his eyes more fiercely, and I realize he's sleepwalking.

“Wanna go pee-pee?”

He nods, rubbing at his eyes now as if he's trying to gouge them out. I take his hand and lead him into the bathroom, unzip his sleeper pajamas, and stand over him while he aims in the bowl.

He does all this automatically, and then I pick him up and carry him back to bed, his head resting in the crook of my neck, fast asleep.

*  *  *

That night, the real snow came. A blinding blizzard, the air outside went solid white, so that you couldn't see in front of your eyes. A heavy wind was pushing behind the storm and it was impossible to leave, but we had enough wood stacked on the porch to last for months. We were trapped, warm and cosy.

In the early morning of the next day Mr. Jukowski drove up the hill and plowed us out. I could see him from the window up on his plow, red wool hat, face red too from the weather.

Midmorning I drove cautiously out to the Taponac convenience store on the Parkway to buy some food. The store had mostly canned goods, frozen pizza, supplies for campers. Everything was more expensive here, but I didn't want to go into town.

That night for dinner we had frozen pizza and leftover wine, which was sour, but went right through my body anyway. I wanted Bobby in bed, wanted him asleep so I could be alone with Dean. “It's late,” I said to Bobby.

“I don't wanna. . . .” Bobby said, knowing I meant it was time for bed.

“Look!” I cried. “Look at the snow!” I pointed to the window, trying to distract him. The flakes were falling again, harder. “You gotta go to sleep so you can get enough rest and play in the morning.”

“Not sleepy,” he said irritably, showing me he was sleepy.

“Let's have a bath. That'll help you sleep. . . . He doesn't get out enough,” I said to Dean. “He didn't get out today so he's not tired.”

After his bath, Bobby made me read to him,
Green Eggs and
Ham.
I recited the words of the book mechanically, knew them almost by heart. Felt guilty because reading to him should be a pleasure, but he was delaying me and I just wanted to finish it so I could be alone with Dean.

So I raced through the book, and when I finished, I slapped it shut, and led Bobby into his room. “You go to sleep now,” I said, firmly, almost cruelly, I realized. Usually I was not firm enough with Bobby, let him do almost whatever he wanted to do. But he knew I meant business now, and he went down without any more fuss.

When I went back into the main room, Dean was standing at his usual spot by the kitchen window, looking out. It was as if he was drawn to that window irresistibly, as if it was a magnet. But there was nothing there but the steady beat of snowflakes, all lit up near the house by the light from the window.

“Nobody can drive up on that road now,” Dean said. “He won't even be able to plow in the morning.”

“They always plow, not matter what.”

“Not if it keeps up like this.”

The TV was on. It was
Roseanne.
The voices were chattering, and every couple of minutes there was a splutter of laughter. I hated Roseanne, there was something crazy about her eyes.

A weather bulletin moved across the base of the screen. “Winter storm warning . . . accumulations up to twenty inches . . .”

Abruptly, he turned the TV off. “Can't take it anymore! I need a blunt,” he said.

“Make one for me,” I said. “I want one too.”

This was our language, the language we both understood. It was about sex, fuck me, let's have some dope and then we'll fuck.

He rolled the blunt, lit up, took a drag on it, then handed it to me. I moved close to him, bent down over him, and I ran the tip of my tongue along his lips, then down the side of his neck, tasting the salt of him, smelling the faint animal smell where his body's breath came up through the opening in his shirt.

As I licked him, “Oh God,” he said. “This is what gets me about you. Nobody else would know you're hot like this.”

I giggled, slurring it at the end. I was standing over him now, he was kissing my breasts through my T-shirt, sucking on my nipples.

“Ummmm,” I said. “Nurse me, nurse me.”

He pulled on my nipples with his teeth, making a vacuum with his lips, hurting me. “I'm gonna draw milk,” he said, through his teeth. He buried his face between my breasts, and I was burning now.

I came to consciousness a moment, glanced at Bobby's door. He saw my look. “He's asleep,” he said.

Then, in the little bedroom, can't get my pants off quick enough. He arches over me, wants to watch my face while he's got his hand inside me, wants to see me go out of control, that's his thrill. Likes to watch me, reaching his hand, his whole fist practically, deep, deep inside me.

Then, we're finished. Resting, I turn my face to him. “Now you,” I say.

His hands fly to his chest. But I pin his arms back at the elbows, and when I release him, he folds them back again over his chest. I force them open again, and down flat along the side of his body.

I lift his T-shirt. His flat breasts are exposed, I can see the silky skin shining and I wet the nipples with my tongue.

At first, he's reluctant. Then his chin starts to move, side to side.

“Oh baby,” I say, “trust me . . . trust me . . . I love you. . . . I love you—whatever you are. . . .” Wetting the smooth skin of his breasts with my tongue, circling his nipples.

His thin thighs are locked tight together. “You've never known anyone you can trust like me, baby,” I murmur. “I know everything . . . yes, I do, I do . . . I
am
you. We're the same, you don't need to be afraid. . . .”

And now in the dark, my hand's going slowly down his belly, as
light as I can make it so he won't notice, toward the mound of his crotch. His legs are still locked tight. “Let me try,” I say. “Trust me,” I say. “It's our secret. We got nothing to lose, baby. Have we? We got nowhere to go but up, huh?” And I slip my hand into his jeans, and force my fingers between his legs.

This time he doesn't squeeze his legs together like he usually does, but I can't get my hand in all the way because of his jeans, the space is too tight. Pulling my hand out for a moment, I unzip his fly and he doesn't resist. And then—my fingers find him there—warm and wet and thick.

His legs relax and his thighs spread apart wider and wider and I pull the jeans down at the waist, then his Jockeys. I try to keep my fingers inside him while I do it because I'm afraid if I take them out he'll forget how good it feels and he'll close his legs up tight again. He's not wearing shoes, so it all comes right off. I'm a mother, I know how to do this, I'm used to it. Now in the dark, I can just see his dark mound, but I can't tell what it is—male . . . female. . . .

Slowly, I lower myself down between his parted legs, slowly so he almost won't realize what I'm doing, and I move my face into his warm center. He lets me find him. And he lets me taste him. He's all fresh there, like cucumbers, a little salt. He lets me find the little knob with the tip of my tongue. “See, it doesn't hurt,” I say. My voice is soothing, like he's my baby, don't frighten him. “Nobody'll know. . . . You deserve it. . . . Don't be scared. . . . Don't be afraid, baby. Don't be afraid. . . .” And soon our bodies are all tangled up together, and inseparable, and we can no longer tell where one of us begins and the other ends, we thrash wildly, each of us selfishly wanting it, and wanting to give it to the other at the same time and it is like we are fighting, between love and greed and love again.

Afterward, he lay on his back, not moving, eyes wide open. I could see a beam of light from the other room in his eyes. It was as if he were suddenly grief-stricken.

I nestled down against his side, making myself smaller so I was looking up at his face.

“Never happened before?” I asked. “Happy New Year,” I said.

He didn't answer.

“Well,” I said. “I'm glad it was me.”

*  *  *

Next day, we woke up late because Bobby didn't come in to get us till eight. It was still snowing out, and almost dark, as if it were the late afternoon, not the morning. The heavy atmosphere must have made Bobby sleep too.

Dean sat up in bed and knelt on the mattress at the window, springs creaking, peering out the window in his boxers and T-shirt. “Did he plow?” he asked.

I had never seen Dean completely naked, except in total darkness. “Wouldn't do any good if he did,” I said. “It just keeps coming. He's probably waiting till it stops. Nobody could get up that road. My dad couldn't get up here.”

“We've hardly got any food left. We've got a can of pork and beans. Maybe enough milk for one more day.”

“We don't need milk,” he said.

“He needs milk,” I said. “What should we do?”

He didn't answer, but gazed out as if he were transfixed by the snow.

“Maybe I could walk to the convenience store,” I said, thinking of Bobby's milk.

“Four miles! You're gonna walk four miles?”

I was too scared to walk through the snow, he was right.

“We'll be okay. It's good,” he said tensely, as if trying to reassure himself.

*  *  *

It was hot inside the house, there was no air in this small space. Bobby was at the front door, tugging on the doorknob. “Out,” Bobby said. “Out . . .”

“We can't go out, honey,” I told him. “It's too cold outside.”

“I wanna go outside” His lower lip trembled, he was going to cry. So I pulled on his snowsuit, and his mittens and scarf, and opened the door for him. “Stay on the porch where I can see you.”

I positioned myself at the window so I could watch Bobby tottering around. The snow was so thick it was impossible to see beyond a few feet from the house. I could just discern his little blue snowsuited body through the flakes raining in on the porch, the wind buffeting him and whirling him around. Then I saw him start to cry, and he was at the door again, trying to get back in. “Wind hurt, wind hurt,” he cried when I let him in. Usually, Bobby loved to play in the snow, but today it was too rough even for him. But even just five minutes with him outside was a respite for me.

After lunch, at one o'clock, I tried to put him down, but he started crying. “I no wan nap. No!” He threw his Barney on the floor and I walked out of the room, shutting the door behind me, needing to be away from him.

I could hear him screaming. “Maaaaaa . . .” He could outscream me when he wanted to. He was perverse that way. Sometimes he'd just accelerate, push me further and further as if he were going out of control because I was out of control.

I sat down opposite Dean at the round table, trying to ignore Bobby's crying in the other room. I could see a frown of annoyance on Dean's face.

After a few minutes of the crying, Dean said, “I can't take it! Can't you make him shuddup?” The word “shuddup” made me wince, its brutal shortness, the coldness of it, the distance that Dean really felt from Bobby. Made me realize Dean did not love Bobby absolutely, the way I, his mother, did. To Dean, finally, Bobby was just another person.

That was the difference—I was always Bobby's mother, but Dean was the visitor. It was finally necessary that only
my
patience be infinite. “It's hard when he can't go out,” I said. “He hasn't had any fresh air or exercise.”

He stood up suddenly, paced around the room. “I'm goin' fuckin' crazy here!” But I said nothing, just watched, holding myself still.

I saw him go to his jacket, rummage around in the inside pocket where he kept the dope. He tore the little plastic bag out of the pocket. Only a few grains left.

“Shit. Fuck, I'm all out.”

*  *  *

At 5
P.M.,
I noticed Bobby's nose was running, his cheeks were red. His head was all hot. I found the thermometer and took his temperature. “It's a hundred,” I said to Dean.

Dean looked at Bobby and frowned. Now he seemed genuinely worried. “We ought to take him to the doctor,” he said.

“We can't drive through this. I don't want to take him out.”

“Maybe just give him the mask anyway,” Dean said.

“Try and prevent it,” I agreed. I plugged the Pulmo-Aide into the wall. “Sit on Mommy's lap,” I instructed Bobby.

The machine started up. Bobby lay against me, the mask over his face, holding his
Green Eggs and Ham
while the machine went whoosh-whoosh-whoosh. As he inhaled the medicine, I lay my palm against his chest and I could feel his little heart beat, thump thump thump. The rapidity of it always frightened me, but Dr. Vakil had told me not to worry, a child's heart can beat much faster even than an adult's and it will still be okay.

*  *  *

That night, Dean and I didn't make love. Perhaps it was because we were both so worried, listening for Bobby to cough. It seemed as if I didn't fall asleep for hours, tossing and turning. I found it hard to go to sleep now without making love.