These Things Happen (21 page)

   As I step into the hall and close the door he jumps on Wesley, slobbering, flinging gobs of it in the direction of Mrs. Lieber, widow, in 9-B. "Look at him," I say. "Like a cretin."

   "What's that?"

   The elevator comes; we get in. "It's the drooling," I say. " Which my mother would have said is
like a cretin.
A word that meant something once, but died. Or
passed
, as the ladies in my office say. Like you pass a test, or fail one. So does that suggest that death is a test now? Can you fail it? Can you retake it at a later date? Any thoughts?"

   "I don't have any, at the moment," he says. " Would it be okay if I thought about it?"

   "I'd be honored."

   We sink, slowly, past floors of patrons, mavens, reservation-makers. He doesn't look at me, but that doesn't mean I can't look at him. So I do, and have thoughts. The first: Lola's right; in these two months, since he's been gone, his face has picked his father's to resemble. The second: this boy, bruised and hungry, running all over town, is engaged in the act of meeting himself, and will never be easy to fool.

   The street, then; East End, the edge, the river right there. We walk a little, then cross for a look into Carl Schurz Park. I wonder if he remembers how I'd bring him here, as a kid, in his space suit; Lola's mother asked around this time what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he told her: w
eightless. W
ell, he's failed at that, fortunately.

   "Does Mom know I'm here?"

   "No."

   Branwell looks up to him, then to me, then back to him. He settles his ass on the sidewalk, as much as telling us that he's not going to walk or pee until Wesley speaks. "Look," I say, "you can talk, or not. That's up to you. But I can't keep you out more than three minutes; she'd never forgive me. So I won't waste time asking if you're all right. You look terrible. But you looked terrible earlier. You don't look
more
terrible, though. That's positive."

   He shrugs. "You can ask, if there's more you want to know."

   "You're all right, then? Not that I'm asking."

   He flushes, purple with grievance. "I'm
here
, aren't I?" He relents. "Sorry," he says.

   "For?" I don't want to specify; I'm intrigued to hear him.

   "For being that guy."

   "Is this an Internet thing?"

   He laughs; he actually laughs. "No! You know the Hall of Guys thing me and Theo have? That guy just then was Condescending Touchy Guy. They're
endemic
, one might say, especially at my school. And to answer your question: I'm okay. I guess."

   "Is your dad aware of that?"

   "No."

   "Does he know where you are?"

   "No."

   "What about George?"

   "What about him?"

"It seems to me he'd be just as concerned."

   He laughs, with a laugh I hope he hasn't earned yet in life, one that sees people as disappointments, pretty much, others and oneself.

   "I doubt that," he says.

   "Why?"

   He looks at me— straight at me, right in the eye— and laughs. "Are you serious?"

   "Are you?"

   "He hates me now. Wouldn't you?"

   There's a bench, worn smooth by decades of widows and nannies; I sit, and wonder if he will, if he'll remember it was ours for years, for the half hour most nights before dinner. We'd come down, with some leaky dog or other, and discuss the details of our days; he never didn't trust me; I always felt honored by that.

   "I think I probably wouldn't hate you," I say. " Maybe if you pushed and pushed and were even more obnoxious than you usually are. But even then, probably not. But that's just me."

   "Well, I would," he says quietly. Then he settles, weightless, on the bench; if God was out, after a nice dinner, with His own old dog at the Eighty-sixth Street corner, I'd wave to Him, in thanks. We're under the eye of a streetlight; in his fatigue and lostness I see the ways in which he's still like a bird, really, species
Boy urbanis
; he's smaller at night, on a bench, resting from the hard work of being a hormone vat, a cell divider, a gatherer of evidence against us. A bird, exactly. Which means: careful; be a nest, not an answer; don't risk crushing the forming, mysterious bones.

   "You want me to call them?" I say, after what I hope is a suitable silence.

   He turns to me, with a golf-ball right eye and a black-and-blue left one. He wants me to help, and he wants me to leave it alone, too. "Can I think about that?" he says.

   "Please," I say. "Cogitate. Hair won't grow on your palms, I promise. The night is ours."

   "Yours, maybe." He gets up; I can tell he hurts. And I think,
He's
responsible. He's learned that. He knows he exists in relation to others.
"We should go back," he says.

   In the elevator we're silent again, both fixed on the square foot of air in front of us. As the doors open, Mrs. Lieber, stung by Madoff but with, luckily, as she says herself, "a smart Jew lawyer for a son," stands draped in her doorway, eating, as always, from a greasy bag of
rugelach
; whatever's in it must be working, as she's going to be ninety-three. I retrobarbically injected stem cells behind her maculae, which were dystrophic; it was a big success, which I mostly did for the cost of parts. As Lola says, she died two years ago but sees better than ever.

   "So you're back," she says to Wesley. "We've missed you, in the elevator."

   He doesn't say whether he's back or not. " Thank you, Mrs. Lieber. I've missed you, too." And he means it; he was right when he insisted in the restaurant that he's always himself; he is, poor kid. He is.

   The old lady, sharp-eyed, extends the
rugelach
bag. "They're disappointing," she says, "but help yourself." He takes a couple, and she closes the door, choosing to forgo his pastry thoughts.

   "Anyway," he says, his eye on our open door.

   I say, "Anyway," too, but under my breath, to give him the space he needs. I don't have a claim, after all, or rights. He isn't real estate; he's a
boy
, and someone else's, even with the three thousand bowls of cereal I've seen him go through, the Great Lakes of juice, the apartment blocks of white boxes of We Deliver cold sesame noodles. But there are times, in the right light— so much, I've found, in my years with eyes, depends on the light— that he brings back pictures of my boy, David. Not the features, maybe, but the sense, of endlessly finding their way, choosing this, not choosing that, comparing maps of the forest; all ways seem equal until, one day, they're not. I must have been like that once, too. And now: here I am.

   He bites his nails, which he never does. "You must be hungry," I say.

   "Why do you say that?"

   "Your nails. You're eating them. Like a first course."

   " Really? I didn't even know." He puts his hands in his pockets. "Sorry."

   "No worries," I say, which, like
passed
, is big with my office ladies.

   He laughs when he hears this. "Mom totally hates that expression. She says things like that— really stupid, petty, tiny things— are the real marks of the end of Western civilization. Do you agree?"

   "Jesus! You
listen
? I just say yes to her stuff like that. It's easier. She's not looking for a conversation." I look back, over my shoulder; Lola, still poaching in the dark, steps in and out of view, wearing, for some reason, a single heel. She seems to sense me; does she sense Wesley, too?

   "Ben?" she says. " Would you call Kenny and George again?"

   "Sure, babe."

   " 'Babe,' " Wesley says in a whisper.

   "What about it?"

   "Dad and George don't call each other anything. Or anything like that, anyway. Why do you think that is?"

   He has more questions for me tonight than he has in years; I don't have answers for any of them, but I know, somehow, that it's all right. "Well, you're the one who's there," I say. "Do you have any thoughts?"

   He says something, but so quietly I can't quite hear. I have a pretty good idea what it is, though, which makes me wonder if I should ask him to repeat it.

   "It's nothing," he says, as if he knew this.

   "Okay, then."

   But it must not be, because he tells me now. "I said my thought was— it's
because
I'm there." He puts the uneaten
rugelach
in his pocket. "I should go in."

   Something tells me to keep him there, for a final moment. "I've been thinking," I say; I haven't, but the lie buys me a moment.

   "About?"

   Now, fortunately, a face shows up, like an e-mail, its own story attached. "My first cousin. Sanford."

   "The guy in Key West?"

   "Very good. With the bed and breakfast. When he was Theo's age," I say, "he and my Aunt Frances would dress up, have tea, and listen to songs from
Kiss Me Kate."

   "What's that?"

   "It doesn't matter."

   "I get told that a lot, it seems. All the time."

   "The point is that we had euphemisms, then. Which is something you say rather than saying the thing itself, because it might fuck it up for people if you
said
the thing itself."

   "I think I sort of knew that," he says— without snottiness, I might add. He's not perfect, God knows; he can chase you with pins, stick you to cardboard, tear off your wings with questions, questions, and more; we saw that symptom today, floridly. But is it masking a snottiness disorder? No. I'm eminent in diagnosis. That's not Wesley.

   "And just maybe," I say, "in your generation— who are Martians to me, mostly, even you, sometimes— well, who knows? Maybe euphemisms will die off. Become unnecessary, that is. Like the golden toad. Or land lines. Or modern dance! And maybe, also—"

   But he's got to be someplace, even though I can tell he's still sifting the possibilities. "You had a point," he says. "Not that I'm opposed to your thinking. Philosophically. Some of it's fairly elegant, one might say. But—"

   "Here it is. My father, who appreciated language, took me aside once and said, 'Ben? Your cousin Sanford is a lovely, thoughtful boy. But he'll marry late.' "

   "So that would be the euphemism, in this case. For gayness."

   "A word we didn't even know," I say. "And now a boy can stand on a stage in school and make an announcement as to who he, fundamentally, essentially,
is
?"

   "You're leaving out a part," he says. "The part where he gets the shit kicked out of him, too."

   " Which is terrible. Which is because things happen slowly, in some species," I say. "In increments. With impediments. But they happen."

   "That's what my dad says."

   "Well, he knows a few things."

   "Do you think David would have done what Theo did?"

   I'm blinded, suddenly, by tears shoving their way, like New Yorkers, out of my eyes; I don't want him to see. "Who?" I say, although I know who.

   He laughs.
"David."

   "Oh, that David. You mean my dead gay son." Of all the questions he's thrown at me tonight this is the one I can answer. "I do," I say, grateful he's asked me. "He was brave. Like your friend."

   He seems satisfied with my answer. "Okay."

   "And like your dad."

   "I know he is," he says. "I know that."

   "And like you."

   
"Me?"
he says. "Why would you ever say that?"

   I look back, through the partly open door, to my slice of Lola.

   "I'm monopolizing," I say. "It's not fair."

   "I should probably go in, right?"

   
A nest
, I think;
not an answer.
"Up to you," I say, as my body moves, on its own, to a supper's aroma and the sight of my wife. "Up to you." I feel his hand on my arm then; it's been a long time since he's reached to me, for that, to keep me with him, to tell me one more interesting thing.

   " Where do I go?" he asks in a near whisper. " Where do I go?"

   Well, then! He's an audience plant, a ringer hired to make me, the Answer Man, look better than I am. I'm set, ready for words to pour from me like slobber from Branwell. "Well," I say. And what do I do but go blank! Words fail me, or I fail words; either way, one side's dead weight. But can I let him know that? I can't. I won't.
Dig,
then.
Find
something.

   "Yes?"

   "Tell me," I say. He nods, even though he put out the question, not me. "Do you need cab money?" Is this the best I can offer him? I was just about to be Shakespeare, or Shaw! And I remember, just after asking this, that the news hasn't broken yet; maybe he'll stay with us, where he can just walk through the door. And maybe he won't.

"No. I have a Metro Card. This is the last day, so I should use it."

   "You sure? It would be a loan." I try to pass him a twenty, but no go; he's got squirrel hands tonight, closed tight around acorns. "You could work it off, like with your phone bill, with George. You can do a corneal implant for me. They're not hard." He reaches out; I think maybe he's going to take the cash! He floats his hand in front of him, as if trying to decide a course for it. But he doesn't turn it for a pouring of coins; instead he lets it float on its own until it rests, which is at a soft place on my shoulder.

   "Hey, Ben?" he says.

   "Yeah?"

   "I'm glad Mom's got you."

   "Yeah?" I'm a Beatle tonight, all I can say is
yeah, yeah, yeah.

   I turn back, look through the door, past our rooms of books and dog toys and gift boxes of macaroons from Paris until I see her, my girl, glowing like just-found
afikomen
. She'll be wondering where I am. Supper's more than ready, surely; there will be enough for all if he wants to stay.