by John Irving
It looked less like an apartment where Mrs. Machado's children had grown up than a place where Mrs. Machado had just recently moved in. But they came there only for the purpose of having sex, and to have a quick shower. Jack didn't think to ask her where her children had slept. Or why she still called herself Mrs. Machado, or why the nameplate by the buzzer in the foyer of the building said M. Machado--as if the Mrs. were, or had permanently become, her first name. (Given her ex-husband's reported hostility, why was she still a Mrs. at all?)
It was these trysts in her apartment, in the less-than-fresh air of August, that finally took their toll on Jack--not the wrestling. He was tired all the time. Chenko was concerned that he had lost five pounds--his mother's response was that Jack should drink more milk--and his wet dreams, which had started that summer, suddenly stopped. (How could he have wet dreams when he was getting laid almost every day?)
Jack had other dreams instead--bad ones, as Leslie Oastler might have said. Moreover, he had taken it to heart when his mom told him he was too old to be in bed with her. He knew he wasn't welcome to crawl into bed with his mother and Mrs. Oastler, and if he could--albeit only occasionally--persuade his mom to get into his bed with him, she wouldn't stay long. Jack knew that Leslie would come and take her away.
Their "family dinners," which Emma spoke of with mounting scorn, were an exercise in awkwardness. Alice couldn't cook, Mrs. Oastler didn't like to eat, and Emma had put back on the weight she'd lost in California.
"What did you expect would happen to me in Georgian Bay?" Emma asked her mom. "Does anyone lose weight eating barbecue?" For dinner, they usually went to a Thai place or ordered takeout. As Emma put it: "In my mind, it always comes down to Thai or pizza."
"For God's sake, Emma," Mrs. Oastler would say. "Just have a salad."
It was over one such gastronomical event--takeout pizza and salad--that Alice and Leslie discussed the dilemma of delivering Jack to his new school in Maine. It seemed he had no certain means of getting there, nor was it an easy place to get to. The boy would fly to Boston and take a smaller plane to Portland; from Portland, one had to rent a car and drive, and Alice wasn't a driver. Mrs. Oastler could drive, but she was ill disposed to go to Maine.
"If Redding were on the coast, I'd consider it," Leslie said. But Redding, which was the name of the town and the all-boys' school, was in southwestern Maine--inland Maine, not coastal Maine. (There was, Jack would learn, a difference.)
"For Christ's sake, I've got my driver's license--I can take him," Emma said. But Emma, at seventeen, was too young to be permitted to rent a car in Portland--and even Emma agreed that Redding was far too long a drive from Toronto.
Emma was reading a Maine road map in lieu of eating her salad. "Redding is north of Welchville," she said. "It's south of Rumford, east of Bethel, west of Livermore Falls. God, it really is nowhere!"
"We could hire Peewee to go with him and be the driver," Mrs. Oastler proposed.
"Peewee is a Canadian citizen, but he was born in Jamaica," Alice pointed out. (Were the Americans touchy about foreign-born Canadians seeking entry into the United States?)
"Boris and Pavel could drive me," Jack suggested. "They're taxi drivers." They were also wrestlers, he was thinking. He knew he would be safe with them. But Boris and Pavel were not yet Canadian citizens; they had only recently applied for refugee status.
Chenko couldn't drive a car, and Krung, who drove wildly, was a scary-looking Thai with chevron-shaped blades tattooed on his cheeks. Given that the war in Vietnam had ended only a few years before, Leslie Oastler and Alice didn't think that U.S. Customs would look welcomingly upon Mr. Bangkok.
"Maybe Mrs. McQuat would take me," Jack suggested. His mother stiffened as if she'd been slapped.
"One shouldn't bother teachers in the summer," Mrs. Oastler said--mysteriously, it seemed to Jack. He sensed that his mom had other reasons for not considering The Gray Ghost; maybe Mrs. McQuat had made clear her disapproval of his mother's plans to send Jack away.
Miss Wurtz, Jack knew, spent part of her summer in Edmonton--not that he relished the prospect of The Wurtz delivering him to Redding. (The very journey itself would be dramatized, of that he had little doubt.)
"What about Mrs. Machado?" Alice asked. Only Emma noticed that this caused Jack to lose his appetite.
"I doubt she can drive," Leslie Oastler said dismissively. "That woman is so stupid--she can't put the laundry back in the right drawers."
"Don't you like the pizza, honey pie?"
"Jack, please finish your milk--even if you're full. You have to stop losing weight," Alice said.
"If you don't want the rest of that pizza, I'll eat it," Emma said.
"What about that little faggot, your drama teacher?" Mrs. Oastler asked Jack. "What's his name?"
"Mr. Ramsey," Emma answered. "He's nice--he's a good guy! Don't call him a faggot."
"He is one, dear," Emma's mom told her. "I'm sure he's entirely safe," Leslie said to Alice. "If he'd so much as touched a boy at St. Hilda's, someone would have blown the whistle on him."
"What about not bothering teachers in the summer?" Jack asked.
"Mr. Ramsey wouldn't mind," Mrs. Oastler said. "He obviously worships the ground you walk on, Jack."
"Well, I don't know--" Alice began.
"You don't know what, Alice?" Leslie Oastler asked.
"It's just that he is a homosexual," Alice replied.
"It's not guys who are inclined to mess around with Jack," Emma observed.
"I like Mr. Ramsey--he would be fine," Jack said.
"If he can see over the steering wheel, baby cakes."
"I guess it wouldn't do any harm to ask him," Alice said. "Maybe Mr. Ramsey wants a tattoo."
"He's a teacher, Alice--he makes no money," Leslie told her. "Mr. Ramsey doesn't need a free tattoo; he needs money."
"Well--" Alice said.
When Alice and Mrs. Oastler went out to a movie, Emma was left to do the dishes and put Jack to bed. Emma ate the remaining pizza off everyone's plate. Jack understood why she was hungry--she hadn't touched her salad.
"Put on some music, honey pie."
Emma liked to sing when she was eating. She did her best Bob Dylan imitation with her mouth full. Jack put on the album called Another Side of Bob Dylan--loud, the way Emma liked it--and went upstairs to get ready for bed. Even with the water running in the bathroom sink, when he was brushing his teeth, he could hear Emma singing along with "Motorpsycho Nightmare." It must have put him in a mood.
When Jack undressed, he had a look at his penis, which was a little red and sore-looking. He thought of putting some moisturizer on it, but he was afraid the moisturizer would sting. He put on a clean pair of "summer pajamas"--his boxer shorts--and lay in bed waiting for Emma to come kiss him good night.
Jack was thinking that he missed saying prayers with Lottie. The only prayer he sometimes said by himself was the one he used to say with his mom, who had stopped saying prayers with him--another feature of his being too old, apparently. Besides, that familiar Scottish prayer seemed inappropriate--given his new life with Mrs. Machado. "The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended. Thank You for it." (Most nights, Jack didn't feel like thanking anyone for the day he'd had.)
As for Lottie, she'd sent the boy a postcard from Prince Edward Island; from the look of the fir trees, the gray rocks, the dark-blue ocean, you wouldn't know that anything was wrong.
"No, no, no, it ain't me, babe," Emma was singing. "It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe."
Jack was obsessing about Mr. Ramsey taking him to Maine, which also put him in a mood. He was feeling sorry for himself, which is fertile territory for bad dreams. The Bob Dylan album was still playing when he fell asleep. He imagined that his mother and Mrs. Oastler had returned from the movie before Emma had come upstairs to kiss him good night. He was lying there wondering if his mom or Emma would kiss him good night first, but of course it was a dream--he was only dreaming that he was lying in bed, awake.
Bob Dylan was still wailing away, or he was wailing away in Jack's dream. "Perhaps it's the color of the sun cut flat/An' cov'rin' the crossroads I'm standing at," Emma sang along with Bob. "Or maybe it's the weather or something like that,/But mama, you been on my mind." (There was an understatement!)
Someone came into Jack's bedroom. He opened his eyes to see if it was Emma or his mother, but it was Leslie Oastler and she was naked. She pulled back the covers and got into bed with him. Given how small she was, there was more room in the bed for her than there ever had been for Mrs. Machado--and Mrs. Oastler smelled better. She made a sound in the back of her throat, a kind of growl--as if she were feral, or as if she might bite. Her long, painted nails scratched Jack's chest; her nails skittered over his stomach. Her small, fast hand shot inside his boxers. One of her nails nicked his penis; she just happened to scratch him on a spot where the little guy was sore. Jack must have flinched.
"What's wrong--you don't like me?" Leslie whispered in his ear. Her small hand closed around his penis. He was paralyzed in Mrs. Oastler's clinging embrace.
"No, I like you--it's just that my penis hurts," Jack tried to say, but the words wouldn't come. (In dreams, he was always tongue-tied--he could never speak.)
Jack could feel the little guy getting bigger in Leslie's hand. Mrs. Oastler's hand is no bigger than my own! he was thinking, while the music played. "It don't even matter to me where you're wakin' up tomorrow," Emma was singing, "but mama, you're just on my mind."
"Where Mister Penis is going, it won't hurt anymore," Mrs. Oastler whispered in Jack's ear.
But how did Leslie know about Mister Penis? the boy wondered--and how did she know his penis hurt, when he couldn't even talk? "What did you say?" Jack tried to ask her, but he couldn't hear his own words--only Mrs. Oastler, repeating herself.
Her voice had changed. It was definitely Leslie Oastler's hard, thin body that was grinding against Jack's, but her voice was Mrs. Machado's voice--or a perfect imitation. "Where Meester Penis ees going, eet won't hurt anymore." (Jack was surprised she didn't call him "dahleen.")
"Please don't. My penis really hurts. Please stop," Jack kept trying to say. But if he couldn't hear himself, how could Mrs. Oastler hear him? (He knew it was pointless to think that his mother might hear him, or that she would come save him if she did.)
If Bob Dylan ever stopped singing, maybe Emma would hear him and come to his rescue, Jack was thinking. He couldn't hear the music anymore, but this didn't necessarily mean that Bob had shut up. The way Leslie Oastler was breathing in his ear, Jack couldn't have heard Bob Dylan if Bob had been singing his brains out in the bedroom.
"You're forgetting to breathe again, baby cakes," Jack distinctly heard Emma say. He'd thought it was Mrs. Oastler who was kissing him, but it was Emma! "You can keep kissing me, but you gotta breathe, too."
"I was dreaming," he told her.
"You're telling me! You were pulling your pecker off, honey pie--I'm not surprised it hurts."
"Oh."
"Better show me the little guy, Jack," Emma said. "Let's see what's the matter."
"Nothing's the matter," he told her. (He was ashamed to let her see the damage.)
"Jack, it's me, for Christ's sake. I'm not going to hurt you." Both the bathroom light and the lamp on the night table were on. Emma took a good look at Mister Penis. "It's kind of sore-looking--it's all chafed!" she said.
"It's what?"
"Jesus, Jack, you've rubbed yourself raw! You gotta leave it alone for a night or two. When did this start?"
"I haven't been rubbing it," he told her.
"Don't bullshit me, baby cakes. You've been whacking off so much that the little guy looks positively abused!"
"What's 'whacking off'?"
"You clearly know what it is, Jack. You've been masturbating."
"What?"
"You've been giving yourself a hand job, Jack!"
"I didn't do it to myself," he said.
"Jack, you were doing it to yourself in your dream!" That was when Jack started to cry. He wanted Emma to believe him, but he didn't know how to tell her. "Don't cry, honey pie. We'll make it all better."
"How?"
"We'll put some moisturizer on it or something. Don't worry, Jack. This is what boys do--they beat off. I was wrong to think you were too young to be doing it."
"I'm not doing it!" Jack insisted. He had to shout because she'd gone across the hall into his mother's bathroom. She came back with some moisturizer. "Will it sting?" he asked her.
"Not this kind--only the kind with stuff in it stings."
"What stuff?"
"Chemicals," Emma said. "Perfume, unnatural shit, other stuff." She was rubbing the lotion on his penis; it didn't hurt, but he couldn't stop crying. "You gotta get hold of yourself, honey pie. Beating off is no big deal."
"I'm not beating off. It's Mrs. Machado," he told her.
Emma let go of the little guy in a hurry. "Mrs. Machado is touching you, Jack?"
"She does lots of things," Jack said. "She puts Mister Penis inside her."
"Mister Penis?"
"Mrs. Machado says Meester," he told Emma.
"She puts you inside her where, baby cakes? In her mouth?" Emma asked, before he could answer her.
"In her mouth, too," he said.
"Jack, what Mrs. Machado is doing is a crime!"
"A what?"
"It's wrong, honey pie. I don't mean you--you haven't done anything wrong. But she has."
"Please don't tell my mom," the boy said.
Emma put her arms around Jack and hugged him. "Honey pie," she whispered, "we have to stop Mrs. Machado from doing this. We have to stop her."
"You can stop her," Jack suggested. "I bet you could stop her."
"Yes, I bet I could," Emma said darkly.
"Don't go!" he begged her. He held her as tightly as he could. He knew she could hold him much tighter, but Emma went on holding him as before. She rubbed his back, between his shoulders, and she kissed his eyelids, which were still wet from crying, and she kissed his ears.
"I've got you, baby cakes. You just go to sleep, Jack. I'm not going anywhere."
He fell into one of those dreamless sleeps, so deep he almost didn't wake up for the argument. "He had a nightmare, for Christ's sake," Jack heard Emma saying. "I was just holding him until he went to sleep. I fell asleep, too. What do you think I was doing? Fucking him with all my clothes on?"
"You shouldn't be in bed with Jack, Emma," Mrs. Oastler was saying. "You were under the covers, not to put too fine a point on it."
"I think it's all right. I think Jack is fine," Alice was saying.
"Oh, you think he's fine. Well, I'm so fucking relieved to hear that!" Emma shouted.
"Don't you use that tone of voice with Alice, Emma," Mrs. Oastler said.
"Jack, are you awake?" Emma asked.
"I guess so," he said.
"You have any bad dreams, you just let me know," Emma told him. "You know where to find me."
"Thank you!" Jack called after her as she was leaving.
"Emma--" Mrs. Oastler started to say.
"Let her go, Leslie," Alice said. "I can tell that nothing happened."
"Are you sure you're okay, Jack?" Leslie asked.
"Sure I'm sure. I'm okay," he told her. Jack looked at his mom as if she were his audience of one, although he knew that she wasn't. "Nothing at all has happened," he told her. Miss Wurtz would have approved of the boy's enunciation. To Jack's surprise, the lie was as simple to say as any line he'd ever delivered; for the first time, lying to his mother was actually easy to do.
Jack could hear Mrs. Oastler going down the hall. He heard the door to Emma's room slam shut long before Leslie got there. He knew that his mom and Mrs. Oastler had made Emma madder than they made him, which was pretty mad--all things considered.
Jack smiled when his mother kissed him good night. He knew which of his smiles his mom liked best, and he gave it to her. He was tir
ed and upset, but somehow he knew he would have a good night's sleep. Mrs. Machado would meet her match in Emma Oastler--of that Jack had no doubt.
The following morning, Emma woke Jack before her mom was up. (Jack's mother was never up in the morning; Mrs. Oastler always drove him to the Bathurst Street gym.) The boy usually got up and fixed himself a bowl of cereal or a piece of toast, and he drank a glass of milk and a glass of orange juice--by which time Leslie had come downstairs and made herself some coffee.
Mrs. Oastler was friendly to Jack in the mornings, but she wasn't talkative. She smoothed the boy's hair or patted the back of his neck with her hand, and she made him a sandwich for his lunch, which also included an apple and some cookies--especially if Leslie wanted to keep the cookies away from Emma.
But on this mid-August morning, Jack woke up with the ceiling fan going full speed. He saw Emma stuffing a pair of her shorts and socks and a T-shirt into his gym bag, where he carried his wrestling gear. "We're getting to the gym early today, baby cakes. I'm your new workout partner, from now on. But I want to go over some moves with Wolf-Head before we start."
"With Chenko?" Jack asked her.
"Yeah, with Wolf-Head," Emma said.
"But why do we have to be early?" he asked.
"Because I'm a big girl, honey pie. Big girls gotta warm up."
"Oh."
There was already a note on the kitchen table when they padded downstairs in their bare feet--they were trying to be as quiet as they could. Emma must have written the note the night before. ("I'm taking Jack to the gym," or a message to that effect.)
Emma and Jack walked to Forest Hill Village and had breakfast in a coffee shop on Spadina. He had a scone with raisins in it, and his usual glass of milk and glass of orange juice. Emma just had coffee, and a big bite of Jack's scone.
They cut over to St. Clair and he pointed out the dirty, dark-brown apartment building where Mrs. Machado lived. He was a little afraid of how purposefully Emma kept walking; it wasn't like her to not say anything. She seemed so angry that Jack thought he should tell her a nice story about Mrs. Machado--something sympathetic. To his shame, he basically liked Mrs. Machado. (He would recognize only later that this was part of the problem.)
"Mrs. Machado has to keep changing the locks on her apartment door, because her ex-husband keeps breaking in," Jack told Emma.
"Did you see the new locks?" Emma asked.
