Twisted Ones (7 page)

“What does that mean?” said Reggie.

“Oh,
you
know.” Mr. Danker opened the car door and got out. He said, “I won’t say ‘have a good time,’ because you won’t have a good time. Wait and see, Reggie. We’re a lot alike, you know. A lot alike!”

For the first time since he had ever thought of the possibility that Laura Lee might really be pregnant, Reginald Whittier, backing away from Whittier’s Wheel with Mr. Danker’s paunchy figure framed in the headlights, just hoped to God she was.

CHARLES BERREY

The Berrey family were on their way back to Reddton, New Jersey. Charles Berrey was curled up in the back seat of the car, pretending to be asleep, while his father and mother sat in front arguing. The car was passing through the Holland Tunnel, and the argument was so intense that neither bothered to turn down the radio. Charles made a face at the sound of the static, and buried his head in his arms.

Evelyn Berrey was saying, “Well, I simply won’t stand for it! We’re not going to lie to
Life
magazine!”

“They probably won’t even print it.”

“What do you mean they won’t print it? You know they’ll print it! ‘Quiz kid gets a B in English!’ I can see it now!”

“I didn’t tell Chuck to say that to the
Life
reporters. I told him to say it to Mr. Carter. We were going to spoof Mr. Carter, that’s all. It was his own idea to tell
Life.”

“A ‘B’ in English. English is Chuckles’ best subject!”

“Evelyn, it was Chuck’s own idea to say that to
Life.
Think of the kid, for God’s sake, instead of yourself all the time! Do you think he wants to be known as some kind of oddball genius?”

“He
is
a genius!”

“He is
not
a genius! He has a good memory, and that’s that!”

“I think you’re jealous of him, Howard Berrey.”

“That’s a laugh!”

“I think you’d have liked it if
Life
had interviewed
you
instead of Chuckles.”

“I’ve had my picture in the paper plenty of times. Pullenty of times!”

“Oh, sure! And I’m Princess Margaret.”

“Back at Mizzou it was Duke Berrey this and Duke Berrey that. Why, my mug was plastered all over the place!” Howard Berrey chuckled. “I used to get tired of seeing it.”

“Poor thing.”

“I actually did. After a while I even stopped clipping out the pieces on me. I remember mom got mad because I stopped sending them home. She said, ‘What do I have to do, take out a subscription to the Missouri papers myself?’” He laughed. “I told her, ‘What’s the matter, you don’t know what I look like by now?’” He took his right hand off the wheel, holding his thumb and his first finger wide apart. “She had a scrapbook this thick on me.”

“I’ll just bet there wasn’t any mention of your
grades.”

“Evelyn, what college did
you go
to, hmm?”

“I’m not pretending to be anything but what I am,” said his wife. “And I’m not forcing my son to lie about his school marks!”

“I never forced Chuck to do anything. I’ve never laid a hand on either of my kids, and you know damn well!”

“Knife collection! Baseball player when he grows up! Where’d he get that stuff?”

“Turn the radio off, for God’s sake! You always have the radio on, or the television going. How many times have I walked into empty rooms and found the radio on or the television going?”

“He hates his knife collection,” said Evelyn Berrey, pushing the radio’s “off” button as they drove out of the tunnel. “There’s one thing you can’t do, Howard—you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse!”

“Very witty, aren’t you, Evelyn? Very witty! I’m surprised
Life
didn’t interview
you.”

“I hope Paul Carter gives you a bonus for that free plug Chuckles gave Sterling.”

“What have you got against Mr. Carter, Evelyn?”

“It would take all night.”

“I respect Paul Carter.”

“Oh, don’t I
know
it!”

“He was very impressed with Chuck.”

“You should have made Chuckles tell him he
flunked
English! Maybe he’d have been all the more impressed!”

“You should have had all girls, Evelyn. You never understood Howie, and you don’t understand Chuck.”

“I don’t understand Howie?”

“You told me yourself—you just couldn’t figure out why Howie married that Italian.”

“I suppose
you
understand it, though.”

“You bet I do!”

“Would I be prying if I asked exactly why?”

“Because they’re good in bed, that’s why.”

“You don’t care what you say in front of your son, do you?”

“He’s asleep, Evelyn. Even geniuses need sleep.”

• • •

Charles Berrey sat curled up in the corner of the back seat with his eyes shut. He wondered how his father knew that Howie’s wife was good in bed. At the same time, he was amazed to know that girls were bad in bed too. He had never thought of that before, and it posed an interesting problem. If girls did it too,
how
did they do it? Girls didn’t have anything to do it with, did they? Charles was sure of that. Maybe Italian girls did. Yet his father said that Italian girls were
good
in bed. Maybe all girls but Italian girls were made differently. None of it was logical…. Charles Berrey was bad in bed sometimes too … Often. In fact, if his father ever found out about him, it would be a catastrophe. He decided then and there never to do it again. There would have to be an oath on it, to make it real.

Charles Berrey often took oaths. Yesterday he had taken an oath on his mother’s eyesight that he would not set fire again to the grass around the trash can in the backyard. One of his weekly duties was to carry the trash out and burn it. Charles liked that duty. Fire was magic. Charles had read many myths about the origin of fire. His favorite was a Polynesian myth. There was a boy named Maui, whose grandmother was the goddess of fire. Maui asked her to make some fire, and when she did, she made so much that it came out of her fingers and her toes, and everything around her began to burn. The rain came finally and put the fire out, but there was still some left in the trees. According to the Polynesian myth, the fire left in the trees was the source for all of mankind.

When Charles burned the trash out behind his house, he liked to pretend about this myth. He took his squirt-gun with him, and after he set fire to the trash can, he touched a match to the grass around it. After the grass had burned a little while, he squirted water at it and put the fire out, but in the trash can, fire still raged. It was a game with him, but his mother said a grass fire could get out of control, and if he didn’t stop the game, she would never allow him to touch matches again. He knew the only way to make himself stop was to take an oath, which he had—yesterday afternoon. Now he would never do it again, or his mother would go blind.

Charles decided his new oath—the one about not being bad in bed anymore—would be an oath on his father’s life. He wished there were some way to tell his father his decision, to let his father know how much he wanted to please him, but there wasn’t any way to do it.

Charles Berrey wished too that his mother and father would stop quarreling. The trouble was, they were both right. His mother was right about Charles not liking his knife collection and not wanting to be a baseball player when he grew up. At the same time, his father was right about having had his picture in the newspapers when he was in college, and about Mr. Carter. Charles had liked Mr. Carter very much. And Mr. Carter had paid for everyone’s dinner in the restaurant.

When Mr. Carter said, “I just wish I could get
my
boy’s nose in a book!” Charles had beamed and looked at his father’s face to see his expression. It had surprised him that his father was not smiling, but frowning instead.

His father said: “Don’t get the wrong idea. Chuck’s not
all
books, you know!”

That was when Charles and his father spoofed Mr. Carter—told him about the “B” in English.

“Is
that
right!” said Mr. Carter.

“Yes, sir,” said Charles. He giggled, and then he noticed that his father smiled at last. Charles felt proud to be collaborating with him.

His mother said nothing, but her eyes were cold and angry.

“Well, now, nobody’s perfect,” said Mr. Carter, “A boy that got perfect grades and knew the answers to everything just wouldn’t be normal.”

“Last week,” Charles said, “When I had to name all the kings of Israel and Judah, I barely remembered Uzziah.”

That was an untruth. Charles Berrey would never forget Uzziah’s name. Uzziah had come down with leprosy for burning incense in the temple. Would Charles ever forget the picture in his mind of Uzziah standing with the burning taper, while the leprosy popped out on his forehead? What was it Charles’ mother always said?
Play with fire and you get burned, one way or the other.

“I didn’t know you almost forgot Uzziah, Chuck!” said his father, grinning down happily at him.

“What do you think I am, a brain or something?” Charles answered.

Everyone had a good laugh over that, everyone but Charles Berrey’s mother.

In June, when he took his tests, Charles decided, he would purposely answer some of the questions wrong. He sat in the booth of the restaurant poking at his ice cream with his spoon, no longer interested in dessert, thinking only that in June he would spoof them all! For some reason, his decision made him feel tired and no longer glad. He sighed and sat there, watching the chocolate melt on the spoon and dribble down into the dish. An infinitesimal part of Charles Berrey was protesting the way a dog who had been spanked for another dog’s mischef might protest, by cowering there in the corner, uncertain and sad, with something akin to anger stiffled deep inside of him—so deep that it would probably never be born at all.

Evelyn and Howard Berrey argued all the way from the Holland Tunnel to Reddton. Charles feigned sleep so well that when they reached the bungalow on Almanac Drive, his foot was actually asleep from staying in one position so long. He shook it and squeezed his toes inside his shoes, and when he got out of the back seat, he stumbled into his father.

“I beg your pardon,” he said.

“Just say you’re
sorry
, Chuck!” his father snapped.

“Yes, sir.”

“Leave him alone, Howard! You make me sick!” said his mother, slamming the car door.

“Oh, shut your yap, Evelyn!”

“I’ll shut mine when you shut yours!”

“You’re asking for it, Evelyn! You’ve been asking for it all night!”

“You make me sick! Come on, Chuckles,” said his mother, putting her arm around the boy’s shoulder.

“That’s right, come to mommy, Chuckles,” said Howard Berrey in an angry, mock falsetto.

Charles tried to laugh at the way his father imitated his mother, but he was a little afraid now. He had only seen his father strike her once, but he knew that it had happened other times too. Sometimes during the night he woke up and heard his mother crying: “Don’t hit me, Howard!” and invariably after she said that, there would be a crash, and Charles’ room would seem to vibrate with the noise of it.

The one time he had actually seen it happen, he had never forgotten. They had all gone on a picnic near Palisades. Charles was coming back from a walk by himself, with a butterfly caught in his hand. It was a zebra swallowtail, the kind with the largest tail of any native species. He was sure it was a zebra, even though he knew they were more common to the Southeast. He was running to show them, the excitement mounting as he drew near the spot in the woods where they were preparing lunch. Just as he came to a point where he had a glimpse of them, standing there in the clearing, he opened his mouth to shout: “Look what I found!” but he never got the words out. His father had reached out and hit his mother across the face with the palm of his hand. The blow had sent her sprawling to the ground. Charles stood dead still, staring. The first thing he saw was his mother’s face—the expression there. It was peculiar, all squeezed up. He had never seen her cry before, and it took him a moment to realize that was what she was doing—crying. When he looked down at the rest of her, he saw her skirt up above her knees, saw the flaccid white flesh of her thigh, and there against the white, a trickle of red blood, and her gartar holding her stocking. He turned and darted back behind the tree where they couldn’t see him, and he stood there for a moment with his heart pounding wildly under his sweater. After some slow seconds, he realized that the inevitable had happened. He had wet his pants. He stood there with his fists clenched, hating himself, afraid of what his father would do to him when he found out, and a few slow seconds later, when he looked down at his hand, he saw that he had killed the zebra swallowtail.

Charles never told them about the zebra, nor about what he had seen. He sneaked away from there and scampered down the rocks to the water, and then he sat in the water. Later, he told his mother he had slipped and fell into it, and that was why he was all wet. When his mother began to scold him for it, his father said: “Let the boy alone. All boys do that!”

• • •

Inside the house, that night at the end of May, Charles and his mother had milk and cookies in the kitchen, while his father put the car in the garage.

“You’re sleepy, aren’t you, Chuckles?” said Mrs. Berrey.

“Please don’t call me Chuckles.”

“I’ve always called you Chuckles, darling. Don’t you like me to have a special name for my big boy?”

“It’s a preposterous name.”

“Oh, it
is,
is it?” his mother laughed. “Do you want to ‘iterate that?”

“Reiterate,” said Charles Berrey giggling.

“Maybe I’ll call you Mr. Iterate instead.”

Charles laughed so hard he almost choked on his milk.

“That’s what I’ll call you, Mr. Iterate.”

“I’ll call you Mrs. Amphigoric then!”

“Mrs. what?”

“That means meaningless.”

“Figorick! Where do you pick up those words, hmmm?” She pinched his cheek. “Did you swallow the dictionary?”

“I masticated it,” said Charles.

Mrs. Berrey’s smile faded. “What did you say?” she said.

“I masticated it.”

“All right, that’s enough play for tonight,” his mother said somewhat coolly. “That’s enough for tonight.”

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“Go to bed, Chuckles. Hurry now!”

“I will,” he said, finishing his milk, puzzled at her sudden change of mood.