Theo (13 page)

In his room now Theo walks toward the window facing the castle’s rear and the back lawn and the ocean. The man who invited him to the beach is at the rear lawn edge, a bundle of volleyball poles under his arms. One of the ladies carries the volleyball, throwing it up in the air and catching it, not throwing it straight but off to the side and too far in front so she has to chase it sometimes and it falls. Another man and lady walk behind them carrying a cooler between them; and the dogs trot behind, tails up, then they streak into the trees after something, not barking.

Theo thinks about cocoons, and his attic, and about its coolness in spite of being closest to the sun of all the rooms, and he wonders if he should stay here for a while. Theo sees Mingus and Gus and the Seal walking from the lawn to the terrace, Mingus with an arm draped over Gus’s shoulder. Maybe they’ll come to the beach. Theo’s actually scared of the ocean a little bit.

Colin is running toward the three men and suddenly throws himself at them sideways, bowling over the Seal and Gus but only staggering Mingus, who begins cursing at Colin, who lies on the ground under the others, laughing and groaning and hugging his ribs. Gus silently picks himself up while the Seal rolls onto his back and then onto his side and then leans up and folds his legs so he can use them to rise. He says nothing, at least yet.

From the mountaintop Theo hears only isolated Mingus words. Motherfucker more than once. Theo wants to know more about Mingus and about the things he makes. Mingus says the letters of the alphabet are vessels, they hold power. They sail.

Yeah, Mingus said to Theo, you are not a little kid. You understand.

Mingus says he’s the goose that laid the golden egg that everyone wants to steal, sometimes he says he’s getting bled dry by parasites. He can’t say much about his ideas or his costumes or his art pieces, because if he makes it too easy, the government will just kick down the doors and force him to work for them. He says art is in the shapes of things, and that the ancient people knew art was everyday life, not something sealed up in museums, which Mingus always calls mausoleums, guarded by pall bearers. Mingus said most artists, the ones in museums, are undertakers.

Nothing ever changes. Below, the grownups are wrestling. Gina sits on the terrace edge, legs crossed, feet bare, skirt rippling as if underwater. Gina’s hair blows sideways. She’s watching the men roll around on the hard lawn. Then she’s talking to the lady who was playing the drums, who’s striding at Gina from the house with arms crossed.

Theo moves from the window and walks the room fingering his cocoons – and thinks some look different. And in one of the last ones, near the door, something is moving. He almost drops it, it feels weird. It must be weird to have a baby inside you. He wonders why his mother and father still fight. He thought that when you lived apart things got better. His stomach hurts again.

Theo runs, out the door which he slams, and to the stairs and going too fast, almost falling on almost every step, he makes it to the first floor entrance hall breathless and dully headachy – he holds his arms in the air cheering to himself and yanks open the heavy double doors and is climbing over the car then remembers Colin and his mom saying stay away. He looks carefully around as he slides down the hot metal of the car sticking to it – ow ow ow – but the police are gone and no one else is there. Cicadas are loud and Theo watches a little bird, a sparrow or wren, the tiny bright-eyed kind grownups think is cute, erratically following a cicada in the air, the cicada making a sound different than the usual rising, rhythmic call from the trees, with this one now constant and lower-pitched, in a straight line rather than a curve up like the regular sound. The cicada jerks and flits and the bird follows fast right behind, doing everything the cicada does, and Theo realizes the bird’s trying to eat the cicada, and the cicada’s screaming.

He runs, around the house toward the people, hearing crickets now.

What happens if those different police show up, the school ones and the other ones. When will they come. Will they come while his dad is here. Theo’s thinking as he runs, stumbling but liking the air on his face. They don’t have to answer the door. Theo won’t anymore. He doesn’t want anything to happen to anyone.

Around the back of the house and people are wandering, sitting; two have arms around each other. There is the big wide two-person blue and yellow inflatable air mattress, blown up out on the grass now and Colin bends over it. Theo slows to a walk, sees Gus’s back disappearing into the house, and Mingus nowhere. Theo navigates, scuffing at the grass, to Colin, who’s straightening up. Colin flicks his eyes left then realizes it’s Theo, and holds his look, grinning as if he’s embarrassed.

Hola compadre.

Theo continues toward Colin, looking. On the big ribbed mattress, which Theo likes because in shallow water it’s a horse or a shipwreck and requires gripping tightly to keep from
getting
bucked off, are a bucket and the two squash from the
refrigerator
, and a cucumber and two of the oranges – no, it’s lacrosse balls that one of the guests brought and juggled with once.

The two squash sit next to each other with the knob-sides out and below them is the bucket, on its side, propped on the wire handle. Then next to the bucket, the two balls and the cucumber propped up over them, sticking up. Theo gets the cucumber but not the bucket.

That’s dirty.

No, my friend, it’s art. I’m going to put this on a wedding dress and a tuxedo and show it in Soho. Or maybe a mattress.

What’s the bucket for.

Colin looked at Theo and said, let’s say it’s female parts.

A bucket.

Yeah. It’s a joke.

I don’t get it.

Right, young master sahr, there are just some things you’ve got to be a little older for. Not everything is for kids.

Can we go to the beach.

Absolutely, my friend. Let’s go. Let’s run.

Colin darts off, off balance, in long pants but no shirt. He is pouring sweat and his face is red. He’s weaving in circles, jogging.

Gina is standing up, her boots on the ground one up, one lying down. I’m coming too, but I’m not running.

They were watching Colin ahead, streaking toward the beach walkway.

There used to be a real walkway there but it’s gone, Theo says.

You mean like a boardwalk.

I found old pictures. Colin and Gus said famous people used to live here.

Do you remember any of the names Colin and Gus said.

Gina is wearing sunglasses. He has to hurry a little to keep up with her. But he doesn’t mind. He wants to tell her things.

Not really. They said a rat pack.

Ha. Really. Gina is smiling hugely. Your house has quite a pedigree. Do you like it.

It’s okay. I like it better than the last one.

Where was that.

I lived with Frieda in Manhattan. Before that in Connecticut and a lot of places. My dad thought it would be good to be away
from Manhattan. Gus and Colin are supposed to mind me. They’re also supposed to watch out for my mom. That’s what my dad said. He’s coming here. He’s going to make a record.

That’s cool. What’s he like. Does he hang out with you.

He’s usually busy. There’s always people talking to him or calling him. And he gets really tired. Sometimes he’s in bed for a whole day. Once he was in bed for three days.

Yeah, I’ll bet he gets tired. Do you like his music.

Most of it. He always takes me to shows and to recording things. Once when I was little I got to sit under the piano while they made a record. It felt really funny and he played me the record and you can hear me laughing. It’s near the end.

That’s kind of famous, did you know that. You’re famous, too.

Theo smiled, his face hot.

What’s your mom like.

Theo thinks about his mom. Frieda reminds him of an animal, protecting something. He’s not always sure what, but she gets really upset about things, and then can be really happy. She gets madder than his father, and she’s sick more than his dad. Sometimes she forgets she’s a mother, Theo thinks.

She gets mad a lot, but she’s funny too. She likes to go to parties. She usually takes me. She sings to me.

What does she sing.

She likes to sing old songs in German and French. She says they’re what her nannies sang to her when she was a little girl. She gets mad at my dad.

She does.

Yeah and he gets mad back at her. That’s why they don’t really live together. Frieda says she and my dad are like two tigers caged together. If the world let them have more room, they’d be fine.

Gina and Theo are among the dunes now. Dry sand on the wooden crossties squeaks under their feet.

Do you know my dad.

No. Only by reputation.

Is that good.

Yeah. Among musicians he’s a popular guy.

How did you meet my mom.

She was at the club last night. I realized I’d met her before. She is a really good connector. She’s always going, hey, you simply must hear this band, or you absolutely must see this painting, or you two absolutely must meet.

What do you play.

Didn’t we already have this conversation. She’s smiling.

I don’t remember what you said.

Keyboards.

Do you like the beach.

Yeah, I just never get to see it. I’m too broke.

Does it cost money to go.

It does if you don’t already have money.

I don’t understand.

It’s the way the world works. It’s only the poor people and the schmucks who pay for things.

What’s a schmuck.

A schmuck is a, um. A schmuck is someone who doesn’t know he’s a schmuck.

What.

Sorry. Never mind.

Am I a schmuck.

She stops and stares at Theo, wrinkling up nose and mouth, one hand on her hip. Then she stares back where they came from, at the top of the house visible over the dunes. Then she
puts a finger to her mouth and goes: Hmmm, I do not think you qualify as a schmuck.

Alright, Theo says, and starts running on the squeaking sand through the last few feet of dune and down onto the beach, wide and dry, tide still out, his head ringing so that he shakes it, a dog. Sun on sand hurts eyes.

Ahead he can see the volleyball stuff up, a few people from other houses. The volleyball people don’t look like the ones from the other houses. They’re animals in fur when it’s hot. They’re from a cold place; Theo watches them in their long pants. Now one man is taking off pants, hopping on one leg, and he’s in his underwear. Boxer shorts. He’s very white. The others don’t say anything, just plop on sand with no towels or blankets or chairs or anything. Just the cooler. Coolers.

Scattered up and down the beach are colonies of sitters under striped umbrellas or tents. Air ripples and shimmers, and people walk on wavy legs and a golden retriever has none at all, just brown gliding over wavy air.

The man in the boxers is thumping his chest with his fists, and the others on the sand are pushing onto feet as Theo slogs toward them through snow. He twists around to see Gina – smiling and stripping off her T-shirt on her skinny white chest and a black brassiere. Theo knows about brassieres but tries not to. But he can’t help it, he’s looking. Her chest in the bra, it’s bouncing a little as she walks.

Theo turns and the other ladies are tugging up shirts. One has on a flesh-colored brassiere so it sort of looks like she’s naked and one has on some other kind of chest underwear that Theo doesn’t know. He stops looking.

One of the men flips up the cooler lid and pulls out bottles and passes them around. Theo can hear the hiss of the tops
being twisted off and the men throw the caps at each other and all tip them up and drink at the same time.

The man who carried the equipment, Mark, gets onto his feet but he’s weaving a little.

Full contact. Shirts and skins. Mark grins.

Hey, we’re in too. Let’s put some money down on this contest.

Colin’s voice cuts even through the beach wind. Behind him on one side is Mingus and on the other, the Seal. Further back, Theo sees Gus, carrying a folding chair.

Theo wants to swim. He doesn’t want to play volleyball; the grownups mostly aren’t noticing him, except for the ones who have to, Gus and Colin, and Colin seems wobbly. Gus is planting an umbrella, stabbing over and over at the sand until he stops, then shakes the umbrella. He opens his wooden chair by flipping it, and then lowers himself into it, one of the sling chairs, and Gus looks like a baby in a cradle, his legs barely on the sand and him sunk into the cloth with a floppy hat like babies wear and sunglasses. And he has his bottle.

Even Gina’s not paying attention to Theo. They just want to meet his dad. Or sometimes his mom, but a lot of the time that’s just to meet his dad, too. To talk to his dad or give something to him. Or to ask his dad for something.

Stay where I can see you, okay, mate: Gus is talking, his voice thin on the wind, to him. Theo just walks ahead, toward the water, not looking back.

Theo’s chest hurts. Somebody slams into him from behind, and he spills forward, half turning as he falls, his head feeling cracked, a sharp pain in a line, but then it dulls and disappears. One of the men he doesn’t know, with no shirt and bumps on his chest and shoulders and back, is sitting on him, the man’s
arms holding Theo’s shoulders down. Theo is mad and pushes at him.

Get off me.

Didn’t want you to feel left out.

Theo’s hair on the left side is crusted with sand, and there’s sand in his eyes and nose and on his lips.

Left out of what, being stupid, Theo asks, straining but the man grins, pushes, sits; he lets Theo struggle for a while that feels like forever, sun knifing into Theo’s eyes.

Get off.

Theo’s feeling smothered, a little panicky, frantic; trapped. In the middle of everybody and everything still alone. No one home. The staring man with hands on Theo grins then springs up and spins away, back toward the others. Theo pushes up fast and kicks sand toward the man’s back, the sand not even close and the man turning once to look back, pointing at his eyes with two fingers then pointing the forked fingers at Theo.