Pin (4 page)

His transparent body was soft as skin. All of the internal organs were different colors to correspond with a chart my father had on the wall beside Pin. Each organ was described in terms of its function. The printed matter was done in the same color as the organ. Every one of Pin's joints was movable. Even his diaphragm was movable.

My father used Pin not only when he explained parts of the body to children, but also when he explained ailments to adults. I never saw anyone come away without being fascinated by Pin. Why, the fingers of his hands were as long and as powerful looking as my father's.

Anyway, it was interesting to listen in when my father had these discussions with Pin. Pin was always careful about contradicting him. His tone of voice was always polite. In those days there wasn't the slightest trace of temper in his tone. He never raised his voice.

Occasionally, my father would stop in the middle of a discussion and stare at him. I'd wait with my little hands folded neatly in my lap, my breathing subdued, and look from him to Pin and back to him again. Pin never changed expression. The more I think about it, I don't see how my father could have
realized Pin was disagreeing. That's why I say my father was really out to convince himself. If he had doubts, he would assume Pin had them.

My father wouldn't talk to Pin much when adults were being treated, but he often did when he treated children. He'd look over at Pin propped up in the corner and he'd say, “Guess what we have here?” Pin would reply, “What?” The child's eyes would grow big, but my father wouldn't crack a smile. He was always serious, even when he talked to Pin in front of children. “We have a bad throat infection,” he'd answer, or he'd say, “Another stomach flu. It's a regular epidemic.”

One time when I was waiting for my father in the lobby, I had to go to the bathroom bad. He let me through the examination room just before a senior high-school girl, Maralyn Meyers, came in. I was in the bathroom so long, I guess my father forgot I was there. When I was finished, I opened the door slowly and looked out before walking back through the office. Maralyn Meyers was naked from the waist down and she was up on the examination table, her feet stuck in what I later found out were called stirrups. My father was giving her an internal examination, but I thought he was helping her because she had gotten the Need. Pin was sitting in his corner, just behind my father. He didn't say a word. He just sat gazing straight ahead. When he spotted me, a faint smile formed on his face and I was afraid he was going to laugh at me, so I closed the bathroom door and waited. When I opened it again, Maralyn was gone and my father was outside talking to Miss Sansodome, his secretary. I came out and walked over to the desk. I looked down and read the things my father had written about Maralyn
Meyers. I read them quickly, as much of it as I could make out.

“The doctor forgot about me in there, I guess,” I said to Pin.

“He's got a lot on his mind, Leon. You did the right thing waiting in the bathroom. It might have been embarrassing for Maralyn Meyers.”

“Maralyn Meyers is a pretty girl. I know a lot of boys like her.”

“I know;” Pin said. He was smiling for sure now. “I think too many boys like her or she likes too many boys.”

“You mean, she has the Need a lot?”

“Oh, a lot. But she's going to have to forget about the Need for a while. She has a broken ovary.”

“I know all about ovaries,” I said with some pride. “The doctor explained it all to Ursula and me.”

“I know,” Pin said. Just then my father reentered.

“Leon, what are you doing here now? I want you to wait outside or in the lobby.”

“I was in the bathroom and I came out to talk to Pin.”

“Well, forget about talking to Pin. I've got two more people to see yet.”

“OK,”

“Besides,” he said looking from Pin to me suspiciously, “I've told you before. I don't like you coming in here to talk to Pin.”

“You talk to him,” I said quickly. I said the same thing to him the last time he warned me about it.

“That's only out of habit, years of habit. For me it's one thing. The patients get a kick out of it. It relaxes them and it helps with the children who come in here, but with you …”

“It relaxes me too,” I said sullenly. “If it's all right
for you, it's all right for me,” I said again. I shot a glance at Pin. He was diplomatically quiet at these times, but I thought he was amused by my courage and quick mind. Not many people could stand up to my father, especially not my mother. All he'd have to do is glare at her and she'd shut up.

“I haven't the time to discuss it now,” he said, turning me by the shoulder and heading me toward the door. I snapped my head to the right quickly.

“So long, Pin,” I said deliberately. My father's fingers tightened around the back of my neck. He surprised me with the pain.

“Wait outside,” he shouted.

I don't know why my father was so sensitive about my relationship with Pin, unless he was jealous of it. That might explain it. Now, in the beginning, he used to think Ursula's relationship with Pin was cute. She'd sit on Pin's lap and cuddle up to him, placing his right hand on her knees and his left on her shoulder. Once father found her asleep in Pin's lap like that. Occasionally he would threaten her at the dinner table and tell her if she didn't eat her vegetables, he would tell Pin not to ever talk to her again. He never told her it was silly to visit with Pin. He even came home on her birthday once with two gifts—one he said came from him, and the other he said came from Pin. Finally I asked him about it.

We were alone in the car, coming back from the office. He was his usual quiet self, thinking his thousand thoughts, as my mother used to say. Sometimes he'd pass a whole day without saying more than a few words to her. I looked in Rosenblatt's Department Store window and saw a naked manikin being dressed in a new outfit.

“How come you don't mind Ursula's talking to Pin, but you mind me?”

“Ursula's just a little girl. Little girls are always playing with dolls, talking to them and treating them like real people. They feed them, they clothe them, they sing to them. That's what it means to be a little girl.”

“I know lots of boys who play with dolls,” I said quickly, and I kept opening and closing my left hand. The fingers always got numb when my father, and, later, my mother, threatened my relationship with Pin. One time when my father bawled me out about it, I sat perfectly still, taking on Pin's posture and Pin's expression. I held my head just as stiffly and I didn't say a word to him, even when he asked me questions. After he left me, I remained that way for at least fifteen minutes, and when I did loosen up, it took almost an hour for me to get my hands warm again. My Uncle Hymie always said I was a stubborn child. Maybe that explains it. I don't like to think too much about it.

My father didn't like my analogy to little boys who played with dolls. “You're not a little boy,” he said, “you're a little man.” Sometimes I think he wanted me to skip childhood completely. Instead of giving me comic books, he gave me
Compton's Picture Encyclopedia.
Instead of giving me children's records, he brought home an album of beginner's French.

He was always trying to get me ahead. I found out he went to the school to request they give me tests to see if I couldn't be skipped a grade. He thought I scored high enough on the tests, but the principal didn't. He went to the board of education, but they
backed up the principal. Because of that and some other things he did, the teachers treated me like a freak. He didn't do any of this for Ursula. Ursula was just a normal little girl as far as he was concerned. He let her read nursery rhymes and didn't think it was necessary for her to get ahead. Any silly thing she did was all right. In fact, she was the one who gave Pin his name, according to my mother, and they found it amusing.

“The first time the doctor showed her the inside of his office and she met Pin, she baptized him Pinocchio.”

“I wouldn't want anybody calling me Pinocchio,” I said. I admit I was a little jealous. If I would have done it, they wouldn't have thought it amusing. I asked Pin about it once.

“Don't you mind Ursula calling you Pinocchio?”

“Well…”

“What if I called you Pinocchio?”

“It is somewhat unusual. I guess it's the kind of thing a silly little girl would think of.”

“I'm not going to call you Pinocchio. I'm going to call you Pin.”

“That's fine.”

“I'll tell Ursula to call you Pin, too,” I said.

Of course, Ursula did. She did most anything I told her to do, especially if I said Pin agreed. That was because she was much more dependent on me than I was on her. All I had to do was threaten to ignore her and she'd give in. For the longest time, we only had each other to play with. My father didn't want anyone in the house when he came home from work. He was adamant about that. There weren't many kids who really wanted to come to our house anyway. My mother was too discouraging and very
obvious about her displeasure if someone was brought home.

“You'll have to take off your shoes and leave them by the door there,” she'd say. “Don't run your hands on the walls like kids are always doing. I don't need the hours of work to take off the greasy prints. And anything you take out to play with must be put back immediately afterward. I'm not going to go about picking up after you kids.”

She looked at them with such a wild-eyed rage that most anyone who stepped in our door was eager to get back out. I suppose my father should have paid more attention to her problems. He was so wrapped up in himself and his work, though; he just ignored it. She could be on her hands and knees scrubbing the same spot on the tiles in the entranceway and he'd walk in, hang up his coat, take the paper and sit down in the living room. Once she rubbed the inside of a window so hard she pushed it right out of the frame, splattering glass on the ground outside. A jagged edge cut her arm and he put in a few stitches, treating her just as though she were any patient off the street.

When I was older, I asked him about her. “Don't you think there's something wrong with Mom? I mean the way she cleans, the time she spends boiling the silverware and everything?”

My father didn't respond. He turned the page of his magazine as though I hadn't even spoken. I deliberately stood there in front of him, waiting. I would make him recognize me, make him consider my question. After a while he did look up.

“Why don't you ask Pin about it?” he said, looking at the magazine again. I was stunned. I blushed and felt ridiculous. That was cruel, I
thought, that was damn cruel. It was my mother, his wife. Didn't he care?

I gave up, and I gave up on bringing anyone home with me too. Ursula avoided it for the longest time as well; and when you don't invite kids to your house, they don't invite you to theirs. That was why we spent so much time down at my father's office. It was the only real opportunity we had to meet other kids after school and on weekends, even though those kids were suffering from colds or the flu or whatever. Ursula did have a girl friend over once, Miriam Cohen, but Miriam's mother never let her come again.

Ursula had spent four days whining and crying until my mother gave in and permitted her to invite Miriam over.

“I want promises. I want things kept clean. I want things picked up. I don't want anyone here who's getting a cold or who isn't clean.”

“Why don't we just sterilize her at the door,” I said. My mother slapped me across the face. She rarely struck either of us, so it was quite a shock, even though it only stung for a moment. My mother's hands were boney and worn looking probably from handling all that detergent. It was like being struck by a skeleton. Ursula thought I ruined it for her, but my mother pulled her hand to herself and turned to Ursula.

“Remember what I told you,” she said, which was her way of saying, “All right.”

Miriam came on a Saturday morning. Her father drove her over. I was sitting in my room looking out the window when she got out of the car. Miriam was a tall, thin girl with dark brown hair cut short. Her
mouth drooped a little at the corners, giving her an habitually sad expression. I think she was an unhappy girl anyway. She was all legs and had a tiny pouch of a belly that sagged and protruded when she wore those tight-fitting slacks girls were wearing. Her complexion was a sickly looking white. I diagnosed her as anemic, but Pin didn't think it was necessarily true.

Some of the girls in Ursula's class, including Ursula, had already started developing breasts, but one look at Miriam Cohen would tell you that this girl was going to be a late bloomer. I knew why Ursula liked her. It was because no one else paid any attention to her and she was grateful for Ursula's attention. If Ursula didn't sit with her in the cafeteria during lunch, no one did.

As soon as Miriam entered the house, my mother was at the door warning both of them to stay in Ursula's room and be sure not to disturb anything in any of the other rooms. She told them that if they wanted to, they could come down for cookies and milk in about an hour. I was surprised at that because she hated it when Ursula and I ate cookies. We'd drop too many crumbs about. I used to eat cookies over the sink and then run the water to wash the sides down with a sponge.

Actually, my mother's cleaning energy was a phenomenon. She was such a thin, fragile-looking woman. She surely burned a day's calories merely worrying about the house. The furniture was kept spotlessly clean because she kept plastic covers draped over the chairs and the couches most of the day. I hated sitting on them. We rarely ate in the dining room. She claimed that was for special
occasions. My father didn't seem to mind. I often wondered how they ever made love. Pin said she washed his prick down with Spic and Span. It was one of the funniest things Pin ever said.