Theo (24 page)
Authors: Ed Taylor
You’re on private property without a warrant. I could have you arrested.
What’s your name, one asks smiling, pulling out a small notebook and flipping it open.
Dartagnan. And what’s your name.
Sergeant Rock.
The minders are whispering to Colin: Yeah I know, but I’m tired of being smart. It’s a heavy burden. So gentlemen. Do you have a warrant.
All stared at Colin now, who stood, lean and brown and round-bellied in a towel, sunglasses on his head and a bruise on his forehead, swaying, holding a black bottle.
You certainly do not have an invitation. Ergo, you are fucking trespassing. And carrying weapons. So according to New York law and the castle doctrine concerning home invasion, if I let off a few rounds to defend myself I would be within my rights.
There’s no castle doctrine in New York, asshole. That’s Montana.
Colin’s swigging, the minders stand blank-eyed with their sunglasses. So many people have those eyes. Theo’s not breathing.
Get the fuck off my property.
Are you the lease-holder.
No, I’m the most holder: Colin undoes the towel and there’s his penis, a skinny thing dangling out of a frizz of dark hair, and he’s grabbing it and waggling it. So bollocks to you all – the minders are pulling him back inside.
Two of the policemen start toward the door but the other one at the car calls out – come on. Stand down. Plus, witnesses.
Fuck these rich hippies. The not-fat one stands on a step staring down at Theo, off to the side of the curving stone, mossy and cracked and green-spotted. There’s a big spread of green moss like a seat on one stone block.
Let’s go.
Suddenly beside Theo is one – holding out a little card. Son, would you give this to – he winks, Theo can see, the skin scrunching up under his sunglasses on the left side of his face – your dad. Tell him we’re his biggest fans and we’ll be back.
Theo watches them as they move away crunching across the gravel, even their backs mad, Theo can tell from the necks and
the shoulders. They’re scanning the house and the windows as they walk, looking around at the lawn: Theo’s heart beats faster, looking too, hoping no one’s doing something bad they can see. One of them slaps the top of the car before getting in, then turns to look at Theo and makes a motion across his throat with a finger: Leaave the fucking kid alone, someone else says from the car.
Lots of people say they like his dad but don’t really. Theo realizes his heart is pounding as he watches the police car creep down the driveway slowly, low, full of men. The house: surrounded by dangerous creatures, hidden and not, who sit and wait for someone to come out, maybe for a drink at the watering hole, and then – snap. He runs in a circle, tilting his arms and wonders if he should try again to get Gus’s or Colin’s attention. Or his dad. Or Mingus. Someone to do something. Maybe Gus.
Gina’s suddenly in the door with two men and a lady, in bathing suits, except Gina. How many people live in his house, Theo wonders. A hundred. A million. A hotel. A hive. One man is holding a drum stick and scratching his chest with it, then twirling it, a propeller in his hand. Theo’s seen drummers do it.
How do you do that, Theo calls to him. Can you show me.
The man looks at Theo, and moves the stick through his fingers in a circle, his fingers rubber.
How do you do that. That’s cool.
The others stand in the door but the man walks squinting down the steps, a little unsteady, and lowers himself onto the stone wall like it’s a horse: C’m’ere.
Theo walks over, scratching his stomach. The man has a tattoo of a dragonfly on his shoulder and it has four green dots around it. What are the dots for, Theo asks, pointing.
My kids.
Where are they.
With their mother.
Where is she.
Either New Mexico or Portugal. Look here, little dude. Hold this for a minute: the man’s holding out the drum stick, and Theo takes it. The man says, here’s the spin. Lay it in your palm and hold your hand like this – his palm is up and flat.
The stick balances on Theo’s palm. Now, you – the man picks it from Theo’s palm, puts it on his, and then with a twitch it spins once. You start with your hand flat, and kind of flick your hand so it spins just above your hand. Then when you get that going, you do it with the hand up and down and you put enough spin on it that it doesn’t fall. So you do the flat thing first: the man puts the stick back in Theo’s hand. Give it a shot.
Theo twitches and the stick falls. Yeah, the man says. Gotta practice. Like playing. You gotta woodshed.
What’s that mean.
Gotta get out in that woodshed and practice. It’s what old guys used to call practicing.
Theo’s trying the spinning thing and it keeps falling, clanking on the stone. Then the man leans over and plucks it up and stands – get your own stick and get to that woodshed.
That is my stick. It’s from the ballroom, right.
The man looks at the stick and at Theo and flips it back. Fair enough, little man of the house. Guard your castle. Then the guy salutes.
Gina and the other man and lady have been talking on the other side of the steps: Theo, did you get something to eat – Gina’s hunched over, straddling the other sidewall, looking at him from behind shades.
Yeah.
Okay. Good. Are you having any fun.
That word hadn’t been in his mind for a while. I guess.
Do you like being tickled.
Grownups always act like he’s a toy they want to make squeak. They do the same thing with animals. Sometimes with other grownups. They think it’s funny.
No.
Well, then we’ll take that off the list. What do you like to do.
What does anyone like to do. Talking about it is dumb, like saying, do you like to breathe. Do you like to put food in your mouth and chew it. How about taking a step. Do you like to do that. How about taking another step. Do you like that. Do you.
Theo feels like he’s in the middle of something that’s in the middle of something else much bigger, and every time he finds his way out of the one thing he’s still stuck in something he can’t see the edges of, or the end of. Sometimes in school he would be jealous of the kids with a regular mom and dad and sometimes he thought that he was the lucky one. Right now he just wants to be alone, but then he’s sort of always alone. But how can you be alone in a herd of people, always milling around like cows, nosing at stuff and standing around, or taking stuff to make themselves drunk, and then they get mad or sad and want to hug you and cry over you.
I like Ike.
What. Gina’s looking at him. Did you say I like Ike.
Theo just stares at her.
Where’d you hear that.
School.
Gina laughs. How about school. Do you like school.
Some parts of it.
Like what.
I liked science. And drawing. Did you like school.
Gina’s not looking anymore. One of the men has his hand on her back and she’s bending away from it laughing, her chest sticking out. Theo stares. He knows what women look like underneath their clothes. He’s got to find something to do and not think about the dogs or Adrian or Frieda or Gus or school or. Sometimes Theo’s in the middle of an ocean and can’t see the shore. He’s a tiny boat and he wants to see land. The sun’s in his eyes, his hair’s in his eyes. The adults are rolling down the rock wall saying ow ow ow and falling off onto the gravel, and laughing. He never knows if he’s talking to the real person or if it’s the drug or the alcohol making them say what they say. And do what they do. It’s like they’re kidnapped, or they’re hostages. What are people like when they’re not pirates. What about people who aren’t ever pirates. Glue made kids in school really weird and their noses were snot faucets. They weren’t hard to avoid, at least, you could see it coming, their bodies signaling to the world, stay away; the way animals warn each other with stripes or a dance or a noise.
Theo is an animal, watching Gina and the other men and lady moving toward one of the big sea trees on the front lawn, the trees with bushy heads and big arms, old skin like elephants. Theo likes to be around the trees. He pats them and talks to them, and they click and sigh answers in wind.
Colin tried to grow two palm trees – our own little pleasant isle, and I’m Caliban, he said. He called Gus Prospero and thought that was funny, he always laughed when he did. But Gus didn’t. What’s the bloody joke, Gus would say. Colin would wave his bottle and walk away.
Colin planted the palms, or had them planted – men came and did it, weird old guys who looked at Theo funny and one had an eye that pointed the wrong way. Theo was glad when they finished – in the front lawn’s sunniest part so the palms leaned together in the grass between the legs of the driveway. The leaves hung brown and Theo wasn’t sure if they were dead. They were an X. X marks the spot, Colin said about them. Here there be treasure. Yonder be monsters. He waved at the house, after the planting men were gone and the trees, still green, clacked and whispered in the air above their heads. No coconuts or anything. Just long leaves with fringe, and circles of bark all the way up.
Will these trees be okay here.
As long as they can smell the ocean.
What about the snow.
They’ll adapt. You know how the zoo has polar bears, and it gets beastly hot in the summer. They adapt.
How do you know.
That’s how the world works, boyo.
The dinosaurs didn’t adapt.
Theo and Colin were walking back toward the house in the late afternoon. Theo worried about the trees.
Good point. Point for the con side. Five minutes for rebuttal.
Colin bent over and made dinosaur noises and bit Theo on the arm, but not hard. Theo punched him and ran off into grass. Colin followed laughing and roaring. Theo ran heart pounding happy and scared of the dinosaur zigging and zagging and turning his head to see Colin’s back, him wandering away in the door’s direction and looking up at the sky. Theo kept running, pretending, hearing and feeling the thumps of something heavy chasing him until he slowed
and began walking, listening to his stomach growl. The trees browned up, stopped clacking, fronds got limp. Holes now where they were.
Gina and the men and the lady now sprawl in shade under the low front lawn trees, Gina waving Theo over. Theo thought about dinosaurs tall as the trees and how fast they could run. Or pirates. If they’re drunk all the time, how bad can they be. You can run away from a drunk person easily. Theo wonders if they have accidents when they sail, like drunk people in cars crashing into things. Adrian never drives anymore. Or not often. He says the label won’t let him, have to protect their investment, like me hands. Insured. Theo’s dad holds them up, blunt fingered.
Colin calls the house the rogues gallery. Theo’s not sure what a rogue is. Theo’s a bird and then nothing, he’s empty, and then chased by lions, he’s a zebra. Nobody’s going to catch him. Why do adults lie so much. Outside is hot plains, lions in the shade, and inside is weird caves, the rooms: you never know what is inside one.
Theo opened a door last week looking for Gus and there were two men and two ladies, no clothes, and the ladies were lying on their backs with glistening pools of what looked like wax on their stomachs. He froze, couldn’t breathe just stood there. The men were on their backs too, their penises raw looking and wet like sausages, not cooked. One of the ladies said, why don’t you close the door. She was smiling, wide-eyed.
Theo backed out, couldn’t think, his crotch throbbing, seeing everything still through the closed black door, the ladies with the pink eyes on their chests, the men with front
tails, handles. Stuff flows between them and babies happen. He wants to touch one, touch things. He’s seen his mother naked; when they’re in Europe they go to beaches where no one wears clothes. Theo does because he has to, he’s embarrassed.
Now Theo feels like he’s carrying something heavy all the time and he’s not strong enough, he needs to be older, bigger, for what they give him, the adults. Theo remembers India, Jamaica, Africa once: kids working, selling things, dirty, pushy. Girls with make-up. Theo on the lawn runs in a circle seeing clouds and sun and world and a plain with an antelope and people chasing, not natives but regular people, wearing regular clothes and carrying cameras and tape recorders, hundreds of them, thousands of people and they’re chasing just one antelope, a small one and it’s getting tired.
Theo runs back to the front door, up and in, the mouth of doors eating, swallowing him up – he’s in the throat of hall, smelling the sweet smell of smoking, the Jamaica smell, and he wants a job to do, someone to tell him something that needs attention – maybe Gus. Where’s Roger. Where’s his dad. What happened to the dogs.
The house now a place he doesn’t know, like when the snow blew in. He breathes deeply and follows the smell, a wolf. There are people in every room he slinks past, and noise, and music, and something breaking, always the sound of breaking glass. Every day something shatters.
Closed doors on the first floor. Theo grabs the long sideways handle and turns it down, like the handle on the toilet – the door swings and the room’s empty – the room where Colin keeps things. More things than usual now, instruments and amps; speakers. Mike stands. Equipment loaded in.
The wolf moves to the kitchen and there’s Leslie, saying to someone, I have staff coming in later.
The kitchen smells good, but Theo can’t say why; it’s a fat, complicated smell. Theo only smells it in restaurants. The wolf is hungry again – the food sits in shiny steel squares and Theo’s spooning more, and asking: Have you seen my grandfather.
What’s that, honey.
Theo wonders about the dogs again, thinks about Gus. They were going to build a dog house. Where’s Gus. Where is everyone.
Do you know my grandfather. Do you know where he is.
Sorry, honey, I don’t know which one he is.
What time is it.
It’s 4:30.
Shadows in the other big door, double wide for servants with carts, Colin says: Roger, without a shirt, and the Italian man and lady, they all look sleepy, or underwater, moving slower than everyone around them although they’re talking and laughing, and Roger’s gliding toward the food – I really want white ice cream, Roger says. That’s all I want.