by Paul Theroux
‘Because of that,’ Millroy said, ‘it should be run by children. Real tinky-winky children.’
Expecting that he was handing me the job, I waited, smiling a little and trying to look capable and intelligent and bigger than I felt.
‘I am going to put children in charge,’ he said.
I am standing there waiting for the job.
‘And I’ll take a back seat,’ he said.
I am still standing there. Was he planning to give me this job? If so, he was going about it in the most roundabout way.
‘From now on we’re going to see children in front of that camera all the time. Children talking to children.’
‘Like what I was doing?’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Only more of it. Will you help me, sugar?’
That gave me the jolt I wanted and I said yes, sure, two or three times, blinking like mad.
But all he said was, ‘You’re going to find me the right youngsters.’
‘Find you the right youngsters?’
Find him the right youngsters?
‘To run the show,’ he said.
I almost cried. I said, ‘I wanted to run the show.’
He gave me his Uncle Dick grin. He said, ‘You’re going to run the youngsters.’
‘Mazzola thinks it’s a great idea,’ Otis Godberry said after the next day’s show in the Paradise Park studio.
We were waiting for Mr Mazzola and Miss Spitler to show up as they did every morning to make a comment on that day’s program.
‘And so do I – kids in charge, kids running the show, kids’ faces in the camera, goofing off.’
But even as he praised the scheme Millroy was frowning.
‘I think you have reservations,’ Millroy said, who could smell doubt as strongly as though it was a bucket of hot chicken wings.
Otis pinched a twist of his hair and fussed with it before he answered.
‘Not about that,’ Otis said. ‘But I was thinking that with all these new ideas and the rehearsal time and that, shouldn’t you be thinking about living up here in Boston?’
‘Can’t do it.’
Holding on to his twist of hair, Otis said, ‘That traveling back and forth must be real tiring.’
‘I have to go back to Buzzards Bay.’ Millroy was not moved. ‘To eat.’
‘I see.’
Even I knew that Otis did not see at all and that he was just pretending this made sense.
‘I need to get back to my trailer for so many things.’
‘Lots of business,’ Otis said, trying to help him out.
‘Not business,’ Millroy said. ‘But health issues. Nutrition and general hygiene.’ And then he laughed because it was all so obvious to him. ‘My kitchen is there, my bed is there’ – and he dropped his voice and became more serious – ‘my whole support system is there.’
‘Home sweet home,’ Otis said. He was still uncertain, and still held on to the twist of his hair that was now curled on his clumsy finger.
Millroy said, ‘These aren’t luxuries – these are necessities. And you want me to stay in Boston.’ He laughed again in a defiant way, as though Otis had been totally unreasonable. ‘Where would I eat?’
Millroy was so sure of himself that Otis agreed – to commute to Boston every day, over an hour up, the same down, longer on Fridays, much longer when there was an accident or a traffic jam, so that he could fire up his cooker and sleep on his bed-shelf and use his own hopper and bathtub – it made perfect sense.
When the other producers, Miss Spitler and Mr Mazzola, showed up, they said the children-in-charge idea was wonderful and how surprised and pleased they had been when they saw me on the show, working the Indian basket and talking to the other children.
‘I sometimes wonder what you’d do without your Alex,’ Mr Mazzola said.
‘I’d be lost,’ Millroy said.
He spoke with such force and feeling that he generated a warm silent cloud of embarrassment that just hung over us for a long moment.
‘We just have to find the rest of the children,’ Millroy said, breaking the silence. ‘And I have Alex working on that too.’
Feeling their eyes on me, I tried to look worthy and competent.
‘We don’t need more puppets,’ Millroy said, and his voice croaky and emotional – he was still getting over having said I’d be lost. ‘We need more food, more nutrition. We’ve got to go for health and happiness.’
They had blinked when he said More food, and now they were watching him closely. He knew he had made them curious.
‘Is this “Eat with Ernie” again?’ Mr Mazzola asked.
‘No. But I see bread being a very significant element in this show.’
Otis had not stopped blinking, trying to understand by repeating various words. He said, ‘Happiness.’ He said, ‘Bread.’
‘The bread of life,’ Millroy said. ‘I see fresh fruit – grapes, peaches, lemons, apples. I see mentions of ambrosia and nectar. Honey, of course. Nourishing soups. Nuts. Grains. Barleys.’
The three people watching him moved their mouths – not talking, but sort of tasting the food he mentioned. It was hard to tell whether they liked the taste – they were still staring and their tongues were swelling in their open mouths.
‘Pottage,’ Millroy said. ‘Figs.’
They were still staring.
‘Fitches,’ he said. ‘Or Vetches. Same thing.’
‘This is that old food show again,’ Mr Mazzola said in a warning voice.
‘No,’ Millroy said.
This seemed to surprise them, and they blinked again at him.
‘Because the show is staying Paradise Park,’ Miss Spider said. ‘Putting kids in charge is a good programming idea, but we’re keeping the format.’
‘As a celebration of life,’ Millroy said.
He did not smile. He turned slowly from them, moved his head and raised his eyes, leaning his whole body towards the window. They did the same, though more awkwardly. And I looked, too.
‘Do you see what I see?’
The signs said Poppy’s Package Store and Discount Tires and Presto Copying and Dunkin Donuts.
‘The future,’ Millroy said.
‘What exactly are fitches?’ Mr Mazzola asked. ‘Kind of bird?’
‘“When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches?” ’ Otis quoted. ‘Isaiah.’
‘I love this man,’ Millroy said, and hugged him.
Mr Mazzola still did not know.
‘You sprinkle them on bread,’ Millroy said. ‘And the bread I suggest is the Ezekiel loaf. I just baked a batch. Tell them about it, Alex.’
I just smiled, because their own smiles were so bewildered, the sort of grin that said they did not have any idea.
‘I feel that including children in the show could be a huge success,’ Miss Spitler said.
‘Or chaos,’ Mr Mazzola said.
‘Maybe both,’ Millroy said, and now he was smiling at his watch. ‘Look at the time. I’m getting the grumbellies.’
‘So you’re heading back?’ Otis said, walking Millroy and me to the lobby. Millroy had his arm locked in a friendly way around Otis’s shoulder, his usual hug.
‘Correct,’ Millroy said.
‘Back to your kitchen.’
‘Food is so very important,’ Millroy said.
‘Sleep in your own bed kind of thing.’
‘And don’t forget my restroom.’
‘Got to keep clean.’
‘Clean outside and in,’ Millroy said.
This seemed to fluster Otis, and he wagged his head and made an anxious sound in his nose. But Millroy was smiling.
‘My tub, my shower-bath,’ Millroy said, and tightened his arm around Otis and looked him straight in the eye. ‘My hopper.’
Otis was trying to speak.
Otis opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out.
‘Guess my age. You’ll never get it,’ Millroy said. ‘I’m regular, Otis. If I wasn’t regular, you wouldn’t want me.’
After two tries, Otis said, ‘Anyway, your children-in-charge idea is just great.’
‘Children are the answer,’ Millroy said.
He was excited. He had gotten his way. When he was triumphant like this he seemed bewitched and brilliant.
‘Children are about seventy-five percent water, you know that, Otis? That’s more pure liquid than the average pina colada. You could drink most kids.’
Otis had gone mute again and seemed to have trouble breathing.
‘Just joking,’ Millroy said. ‘But the water content of a child is very important.’
‘Sure thing.’ That was what Otis’s mouth said, but his eyes said, Oh boy.
19
‘I am fed up to the roof of my mouth with those puppets,’ Millroy said on the puppets’ last day to Leo LaBlang, the floor manager. Millroy had – magically, right on the show – made the puppets collapse, and go limp and die.
Leo LaBlang was swinging some of the crumpled puppets in his hand, one bundle of Frawlies and one bundle of Mumbling Humptulips, to bury in the prop room.
‘I’m going to miss these characters.’
‘See? They subverted you!’ Millroy snatched them and tossed them aside. ‘I hate fake animals with silly faces and horrible costumes – mice especially. Mice should be naked. And by the way, who ever heard of a fat mouse? No talking animals. I want human spontaneity. Alex has found us some real people.’
He wanted cheerful children, boys or girls, it did not matter. If I liked them when I saw them in the audience he signed them up.
‘I want happy youngsters who know how to listen.’
On the next show there was Willie Webb, big for fifteen, baseball hat on sideways, smiling at Millroy and chiming in, saying things that Millroy repeated. Another happy echo was a twinkling little girl named Stacy. I had already had them in mind when I had seen them in the audience of the other shows. I wanted to impress Millroy with my brisk efficiency.
‘Type of youngster I look for is open to suggestions,’ Millroy said. ‘Almost inevitably they’ve been leaned on by a burger – parenthetically, which child hasn’t been? – but it would be kind of nifty if you found me a few more natural youngsters like these. And remember that health is more important than looks. No cutie-pies, please. I want human beings.’
Willie Webb had bright appreciative eyes and a good deep laugh, and when he wasn’t laughing he was listening and picking at his elbow.
‘Come here, son,’ Millroy had said, when I brought Willie to him, and he lifted Willie’s head gently by touching the boy’s chin, and he calmed the boy’s fearful upturned face by saying, ‘Listen. And look at my nose’ – and Millroy’s nose began to throb in a strange beaky way – ‘I need you to help me.’
The boy stood squarely on short reliable legs. He wore big sneakers and a sweat-shirt that was lettered Property of Tubman Junior High Athletic Dept. I liked the way his faded clothes fitted him. He had beautiful teeth and his posture, the way he stood and moved, made him seem strong. I had felt safe when he was seated near me, which was why I had picked him. He was so much bigger than me, and I had the idea that he was careless and happy.
Millroy held him motionless with his fingertips, touching the roundness of the boy’s shoulder. I knew that a surge of soothing energy was passing through those fingers to Willie Webb’s body. Millroy had touched me that way, with no other motive than kindness.
Certain animals I knew such as Yowie and Muttrix growled and grew calm when they were touched like that, and afterwards you saw them twitching and eager to please, like Willie just now.
‘You’re going to walk out there and take over.’
Millroy was speaking without moving his mouth, and it was as though his voice was coming from high above his head.
‘“Hello, brothers and sisters, and welcome – it’s day one of Paradise Park!” And if you can’t remember that, you just look into the camera lens and read the words you see in the teleprompter.’
Willie’s eyes glistened and, although he was not saying a word, all that energy was making him tremble.
‘You’re not going to be nervous, because everyone is your friend. You’re going to hold your head up and keep your mouth open when you talk. “Let’s see what’s happening! Let’s feel good!” ’
Millroy’s fingers had drawn away and he held the boy by making his eyes tiny and intense, and encouraging Willie and filling him with strength. I knew how it felt. He had done it to me when we rehearsed my part in the show. And when he talked without moving his lips it was impossible to tell whether that hovering voice was something in your mind or his.
Willie’s face was blank and beautiful and he seemed to be purring through his chest like a cat as he listened. The boy did not blink at all.
And that same look, Willie’s holy shining face, came into the expression of Stacy, and lit up her teeth, as she put herself into Millroy’s hands to receive his instructions.
‘This is the way it should be,’ Millroy said afterwards in his Uncle Dick voice. ‘I hate puppets, and anyway, who needs them?’
The rehearsals these days were often better than the shows, funnier anyway, with lots of bread and beany food that Uncle Dick served.
I am so pleased that they always arrive here hungry.
And then he put Willie Webb and Stacy in charge and gave a long slow speech, and made faces, and encouraged them. They followed his suggestions and worked magic.
Everything is falling into place, was what he said to praise us. He seemed to be talking about something more important than this children’s show, something greater, as big as the world. Many times in the middle of the rehearsals he marveled in a low voice to me, I did not realize that it would happen this way. I had no plan, yet I was strong in my desire. I simply trusted that eventually my message would be delivered. I waited for a sign, because I did not know how to bring it about. And then I saw you in the audience. Everything since then has happened because of you.
He always knew I was thinking, I didn’t do a thing!
Because of what you are, he said. Who you are.
Today we were sitting on the old sofa that the puppeteers used to sit in with the Frawlies and the Humptulips and the rest of them in their laps. But all Millroy had in his lap were his hands.
‘This old basket has swallowed her up,’ Willie Webb was saying, as he removed the lid. ‘And in her place is an apple. Or is it two?’
Willie picked up the apple and massaged it and closed his hands around it and produced another one from nowhere.
‘They are born with amazing gifts. They can work real magic. But in the course of time they lose the knack, the gift vanishes, and they become dull and pedestrian.’
Watching Willie rehearse, he kept his hands upright in his lap like a pair of gremlins, and he conjured with his fingers.
‘If they start early enough kids can get mastery of three or four bodily functions. Think about it.’
‘Is that enough?’
‘It’s a good start,’ Millroy said.
Willie was crawling into the basket and saying, ‘I think I’ll go look for Stacy. So, Kayla, when you open the lid you might not see me, girl.’
‘Some people call it yoga, but no – it’s because I have always been a child,’ Millroy said to me.
And he winked and I knew he was half joking.
‘Which is why, when I first saw you alone sucking your thumb at my show at the Barnstable County Fair, I knew you hadn’t lost it. And you’re what? Fifteen?’
‘Fourteen.’ My birthday was next month.
‘Whatever,’ Millroy said, but looked signifi
cantly startled. ‘You don’t know how rare you are.’
‘Gone,’ Kayla said, as she raised the lid on the basket. ‘That boy is out of here.’
‘But like I say, I am a child myself,’ Millroy said, croaking and sounding as though he had a dry mouth.
He saw that I was distracted, looking at the Indian basket for signs of Willie Webb and Stacy. He sat forward on the sofa and raised his hands and said, ‘Take your places, people.’
His voice was even, and though it was not loud it was distinctly Uncle Dick speaking, audible all over the studio.
At the sound of those words, Willie and Stacy materialized, he from the basket, she from behind a screen, both of them on their feet, smiling, listening, ready to take another order.
‘This is good,’ Millroy said.
Willie Webb had fixed his eyes on a boy named Dedrick, who was fifteen or older, black like most of the others, with tight plumlike skin and tiny ears, and big spotty eyes, and a growly and breathless way of talking. He would be a useful one, I thought.
The music started. Willie and Stacy positioned themselves at the gates of Paradise Park, welcoming the other children in to play. The music was rumpty-tumpty-tiddly-ump, like staggering rabbits.
Millroy’s way of rehearsing was to make it a party – the food first, then letting them fool on their own and try out the props, and listen to the music, all the while rousing them with the intensity of his gaze, as though they were performing for him alone. Millroy asked me what I thought. I always said, ‘Sounds good,’ or made a suggestion. The minute I recommended Dedrick he was on the team. After this party, when they were relaxed and slightly tired, they would run through the show together, Millroy standing aside, and Willie and Stacy doing most of the talking.
‘You want me to read that again, Uncle Dick?’
‘Nope. That’s fine, Willie. If you memorize it you’ll sound like a robot. Keep it spontaneous. Don’t watch the clock.’
‘I can’t tell time anyway.’
By playing music and switching cameras, Millroy could always keep track of time, as one item glided into another.
