Theo (12 page)

Theo feels Frieda’s weight, feels her stiffen as they get closer to people and – people start talking to Frieda.

There’s nothing to eat.

This is not a hotel, you simpering parasite.

For some reason the adults all laugh but Theo doesn’t know why.

My son and I are going to the beach.

Theo knows she’s forgotten already, knows that’s gone. His head aches a little in the brightness. She doesn’t like being alone, and being with him sometimes is like being alone to her, he’s not enough.

Mark, why don’t you bring the volleyball things.

Volleyball. Why don’t I just shoot myself instead.

Come on, it’ll be fun.

Compared to what.

Come on, if you want to eat, you must play for your supper.

I’ll play but I’m not moving.

Fine. You can hold the net up.

Theo and his mom are at the French doors entering the sound so loud it’s a thing to press into, making the air even thicker.

A lady plays Theo’s drums. She has on a shirt that says Bush Tetras.

Those are mine, Theo yells.

She stares at him, playing. Theo isn’t sure that she hears. Or that she actually sees him. When people play music they get lost sometimes. Theo likes playing music, but never gets lost.

Colin stares too, but grins. He ends the song he was playing and starts playing an old English song on the keyboard, switches to organ. Not God Save the Queen but that other one. Theo heard it at some party for somebody’s graduation at the Arts Club in Manhattan.

Frieda yells, it’s too crowded. We’re going to the beach. Did you shop yet.

No, Colin says, lowering the mix and volume. The lady on the drums moves one arm like a robot, beating a snare and kicking the base drum like a march. One two.

Haven’t had a chance.

The boy’s got nothing to eat – come on, man. You’re screwing up.

Fair enough, Colin yells, as Theo and his mom walk toward the kitchen and pantries. Colin reaches for a tall glass of beer perched on the keyboard.

Theo’s stomach hurts. Mom, I want to eat before we go to the beach. His head hurts and he feels angry.

Of course, darling. I will fix you something.

They enter the cool kitchen. Usually there is someone in here, staring into the refrigerator or shakily trying to light a burner and make something like tea, eating something out of a jar or can, smoking over coffee or a glass of something else.

Theo remembers opening the refrigerator earlier and so goes straight for the now quiet, open-doored pantry and the cans, while Frieda, cut loose, drifts like an unmoored boat along the cabinets, opening and staring, slowly.

Would you like some tuna, mom.

Sure, baby. She’s sitting now.

Theo’s out with two cans he found, and he goes to the drawer, yanks it open with a silvery sound, grabs out the heavy knife and begins stabbing at the cans. Stabbing feels good, but all he does is make a ragged hole in first one can lid, then the other. After widening, switching back and forth from can to can, he grabs two forks from the open drawer and walks to his mom and hands her a can and a fork and sits.

Thanks, baby.

Theo forks at the tuna, salty and pink. Water. Have to drink something or choke. Theo gets up and finds two glasses on the cluttered counter, now covered with plates and mugs and glasses and other things – a thesaurus and a crumpled T-shirt, empty cans – and fills the glasses and sets one down next to his mother’s can and then plops down again and goes at it.

Eat. Frieda, eat, please.

Yes, baby.

She pats his cheek and gets some tuna shakily on the fork and puts it into her mouth and chews.

Theo’s filling his mouth and chewing, and choking, and drinking water, and trying to swallow a wad of tuna, feeling like a boa, and shovels because he’s hungry.

His mom sits chewing her bite, slowly, music overflowing from the ballroom into the kitchen.

They are so awful together, Theo’s mom says.

Theo chewing, just keeps chewing. He drinks water. He bangs his can against the table to move the tuna from the edges to the center where the hole is, so he can get it.

That certainly makes you appreciate real music.

Theo’s finger is now inside sweeping up whatever the fork missed. He’s trying not to cut himself on the edges or the ragged burst of metal folded up from the can. Theo grabs the baton of biscuits that he carried in from outside in his pajama pocket and pulls more out, chewing and swallowing and drinking the last of his water and getting up and filling his glass again and drinking. Theo’s mother has not eaten more than the first bite, but is no longer chewing.

You want more, mom.

No thank you, darling, I am not hungry.

Have some more, he says, eating biscuits.

Baby, I think I will lie down for a while. This morning has taken a lot out of me. Why don’t you go down to the beach with Gus, he will go.

Theo crams in biscuits and leaves them without chewing, lets them soften. Runs again out through the loud ballroom, where Colin plays with one hand and with the other holds the glass to his mouth, and out the doors.

All the people are where they were, except the ones standing are now sitting or lying down. There is a pile of net and a volleyball, and poles on the grass beside the man who must be Mark.

Hey man, where’s your mom at.

She’s going to lie down.

Too bad. Let’s go swim. Wash Manhattan off. Come with. We can play some volleyball.

Theo knows a couple of these people, others are new. Several are unsteady, several look bored, several frown at him. Maybe it’s the sun and they’re only squinting. The ladies don’t seem to care. The sun is like the lights in Theo’s attic. It isn’t quite overhead but it’s close, so it’s – Theo assumes it’s near noon and he’s had some food. They’re staring at him, dully, flat-faced. One lady waves at a fly.

Theo feels funny, says, I want to put on some different pants.

Sure. We’ll wait.

Gus or Colin or even sometimes his mother usually is present when he’s doing stuff with adults, but they think being there is enough and don’t notice weird things or people or bad stuff until it’s already happening. They’re like lifeguards who talk to girls instead of watching swimmers. He likes it when they let him go, but also feels funny about that sometimes; like the way the dogs sometimes look back to see if he’s watching when they run toward borders or edges or into the woods or toward the beach road.

Theo’s scooting through the ballroom, awash in music still, the middle of something without words Theo doesn’t recognize, the woman staring ahead, Colin focused on the keyboard with both hands, and Theo shoots into the dark hall along the panels that should be doors but aren’t, to the main staircase curving
up and he’s running jumping two steps at a time, from floor to floor to floor, sound now coming from each floor, voices and maybe radios, and what might be firecrackers on the third floor, loud sharp bangs from inside something metal – Theo remembers somewhere on the third level there’s a shiny silver garbage can Gus bought for the garbage men who pick up on the beach road. One of the people last weekend dragged it up here to tape record something. He had forgotten that until now. So many things and people disappear into rooms and he forgets about them.

Theo’s puffing, at the mountain peak, moving through the door and up the narrow stairs weaving back and forth angling up to the attic. He pushes down on the handle to open the door and it creaks open. Theo shuts it behind him, making sure it clicks, before he takes off his pajamas and notices he’s sweaty. He rummages through clothes on the floor, looking for his Hawaii shorts, the ones he got last year when his mother and he visited his father on Kauai. Theo really liked those shorts: he saw surfers wearing them and liked the dolphin pictures. His mother and father fought a lot then. She threw things. She tried to cut his father with his father’s knife. Theo’s father always carried a knife. He had a lot of them. Sometimes he had a gun. Theo had found it once in a hotel room.

Why do you have this.

It was heavy. Theo had to hold it with both hands. His father was in bed. The door between rooms was open, and Theo and one of the minders had eaten pizza in Theo’s room and the minder left. Theo wandered around his father’s room picking stuff up. And there was a gun.

Put that down, Theo. Don’t ever pick up a gun that ain’t yours.

Why do you have that.

The room was dark although it was afternoon. Rectangles of light around shapes of dark curtain. His dad’s voice came from somewhere on the bed. Then Theo saw arms, one, two. Three. One of his dad’s friends was here too. His dad had a lot of friends.

I wish I didn’t have it, Theo. I need it sometimes. Sometimes I have to be in places that require a certain vigilance concerning personal safety, mate.

Why.

Comes with the job, my friend. Hand me a cigarette, darling.

Theo started to move, but saw the arm swing toward the dark table beside the bed.

Music is dangerous, Theo asked.

Theo’s father’s laugh was really a cough. Well, yeah. It’s life or death on stage, to me. It’s funny because Alan always says he’s just trying not to screw up.

Alan was the other guitar player. Theo liked Alan, who had two daughters. Alan lived in Ireland, Theo knew, and he had been to Alan’s house. It had a roof made of grass. Theo remembered swimming in the pool and watching his breath in the air because it was always frigid on the old sod, Alan said. Too feckin cold to swim in me own pool that cost a bloody fortune.

You could break down and get it heated, you cheap bastard, Theo’s dad said, splayed out on a chaise, in long pants and no shirt, tapping ash on the concrete beside himself.

And you could use an ashtray you unholy troglodyte.

I bet Alan doesn’t have a gun, Theo said to his dad in the bed smoking, the cigarette’s red tip making shapes in the air.

No, Alan stays on the sunny side of the street. He’s a banker at heart, he just wants his tea and a warm bed when he’s ready for it. We’re different, all of us. That’s what makes a good band. Otherwise it’s like rubbing two pieces of flannel together. No sparks.

Is that why you and my mother fight.

Theo’s dad exhaled a long time and the air got grayer. Theo, baby, I love your mother and she loves me. And we both love you. Your mother and I both feel things strongly, and sometimes it isn’t about being different. Sometimes it’s because you’re the same. Your mother and I are too much alike.

Why is that bad.

It’s bad if you don’t like yourself.

You don’t like yourself.

No, mate, sometimes I don’t. And your mother’s like me.

I don’t understand.

Bloody hell, Theo, none of us do. We just try to keep loving each other and make sure the work gets done and the bills are paid and the kids kept fed.

The friend, Theo could see, was yawning, and she shook her head. She reached her arm out to peel back the sheets and Theo turned around and went through the suite door and closed it, his dad’s voice following him.

Theo, give us a minute and we’ll get some breakfast, eh.

It’s okay, I just had some pizza.

Want to go to the studio.

Sure, Theo said to the door as he closed it and made sure it clicked.

In the bright attic Theo’s kicking through clothes like surf, stuff flying, looking for dolphins. His cocoons dangle, and his head’s
full of things ready to hatch; he wonders if the ladies will wear bathing suits. He thinks this is not really a bathing suit group of people. Often the people who visit seem surprised there’s an outside and that it includes a beach. Theo strips down, noticing how white he is there. He wonders about girls. Theo sort of knows what’s under their underwear but not really. He does know nothing dangles. But beyond that he’s not sure. He starts to get stiff and now must find something to hide it. Theo’s nervous. He doesn’t really know these people, but then he doesn’t know most of the people who flow in and out. The house is a hotel, except without maids or room service – he likes hotels better, sometimes. Light from the windows blurs and shimmers, everything a little melting – maybe his head’s not okay.

He sees a flash of orange and blue and, standing again, kicks through stuff to a pile – score. Dolphin shorts. Theo slips into them, folding his erection in and adjusting for it. He might have to sit for a minute; so he plops and waits, then gets up and walks around talking.

In the castle the wizard is trapped because the king wants him to find the crystal before he’ll let him go
. He’s heard his dad and other people talk about crystal. But they stop when they know he hears, so he’s not sure what kind of crystals they’re talking about. Flake, brown, dosing. Theo hears words, a lot of words. Cocksucker. Fuck. Merck. Some of these he knows he’s not supposed to know, and he doesn’t know what they mean, not all of them, but he’s heard them. They come closest to magic words of any Theo knows, the way kids learn them; but grownups use them differently He wonders if Chinese people have them, too, or Africans.

Adrian and Frieda never told him not to use them. Don’t believe in censorship, mate, said Adrian. They’re just words. I
use them so I’m not going to tell you not to. Frieda said, that puritanical conventionality and fear of the body and even language about the body, I can’t do it. So sing out love, say what you want. You are free and beautiful. And everything about the body is beautiful. Shit and piss and blood and snot.

I think that stuff is gross.

Frieda and Adrian were lying on a bed, Theo doesn’t remember where, a hotel. He didn’t understand what they meant then, and they seemed drunk. He knew drunk.

His mother and father went to a party and he stayed behind with a minder. Theo and the minder ordered food and watched TV until it was dinner time, then they went to the hotel restaurant, although Theo wasn’t really hungry. The minder was, so Theo watched him smoke and drink glasses of alcohol, and eat. He was okay, but Theo couldn’t remember his name. He told jokes, and even tried to read a book to Theo, but it was a book for little kids and Theo didn’t really say anything to hurt the man’s feelings but it was boring. That was the last time Adrian and Frieda had lived together at the same time, when Theo had just turned nine.