Something Happened

by Джозеф Хеллер

  I thank God that he no longer seems to include me among the clouded swarms of demonic, treacherous, sneaky, heartless, creeping, climbing, crawling, brutal, blood-spilling, overtowering crooks, kidnappers, ghosts, and murderers that infiltrate his dreams (and mine) and of whom, just about all his small life, I understand now, he has been in such profound and enervating dread. (He sensed these malign phantoms and villains rather than saw them, he said when we brought him home from the hospital with his cut throat, but he could hear them also at the same time. Lying awake listening for noises, he would hear the same creaks and footfalls we all do; but he would imagine human beings coming to get him, scaling stone by stone the outside wall of our apartment building, boring downward from the roof toward his bedroom, descending from an opening in the sky to the sill of his fragile glass window. Their faces were hooded or shaped in shadows they carried with them like shawls.

  "Why didn't you call us?" I asked. "Why didn't you tell us, instead of trying to come into our room? We thought you were just lonely. Why didn't you call me instead of just lying there and being scared? I would have sat with you. Or Mommy."

  "You would have told me I was imagining it."

  "You were imagining it."

  "I hear animals too. That's why I didn't call you.")

  There was that one unreal period when he began to believe that I was not really me!

  (Who else I could be he was not able to say.)

  He began to suspect that I was no longer really me but someone vicious masquerading as me who had penetrated his household disguised as me in order to trick him and take him away from me. (Was he goading me? He was too small.) It was not possible to disprove him; every denial, every reference to reason and fact was part of the deception. Of course I would say everything I did say if he was right. I only proved him right. I could not prove I was me.

  "Why should I want to?" I asked. "Why should anybody want to?"

  "I don't know."

  "Why should I tell you I'm me if I'm not?"

  "To trick me."

  "Why would I want to do that?"

  "To take me away."

  "To where?"

  "Mommy too. To get me."

  "Why would we do that when we've already got you here with us now anyway, haven't we?"

  "I don't know."

  "Do you think we already did get you and took you away and brought you here?"

  "I don't know."

  "I guess we did do all that anyway, didn't we?"

  "I don't know."

  Now, at least, he does know I am me and feels a bit more secure about that. (Or else understands that it makes no difference, for, if I am not me, he has to adjust nonetheless to whoever else I am. He is in my clutches now, in either event, and must remain — no one will rescue him — until he grows old enough, if he survives, to go away. When my own tonsils were taken out I awoke in pain at night in a darkened hospital ward with no parents there and no nurses. Everything was dark. There was only darkness in that very strange place. I could make out forms. Nothing moved. And thirst. God — what thirst. I was racked with thirst. I felt I would die if nobody gave me water, and nobody did. Nothing was there, except the eerie outlines of other beds that might have been empty. Nobody came until morning. The night was endless. I knew it would never end.

  "Give him water," a doctor with a brown and gray mustache barked crossly at the nurses in the morning. "Give him water."

  That's the last I remember. They had forgotten.)

  I think he believes me now, more readily than he used to, I think he feels a little bit more at home with us, I think he trusts me more. (At least he knows now that I am me, although neither one of us is all that positive who that me we know I am is.) I think he does trust me more now, for he is not as submissive and dependent as he always used to be and has confidence enough sometimes (in me? Or in himself?) to say no to me, to refuse to do or say something he is asked to, although he is still extremely cautious about tempting anyone's wrath. He will not always give me answers about himself to questions I ask. He has never shown anger to me or my wife and hardly ever to my daughter. Is it possible he has never felt it? No. What does he do with the anger he feels? Ventilates it in dreams. And I'll bet he has been saving a lot of it up too, the way other kids accumulate comic books or bubble-gum cards. I'll bet he must hate me at times. (I think I would hate him.) I know he baits me on occasion, but usually as a lark, when we are feeling good toward each other.

  "I am going to give you something," he says to a kid in my presence, with a sidelong glance in my direction, "and you don't have to give me anything back. Okay?"

  (I suppress an outraged and admiring snort. I cannot believe that this impertinent little rogue of mine will really do what I sense he's going to.)

  "What?" The other little boy is not sure he has understood.

  "I am going to give you something," my boy repeats slowly, making certain I am attentive, "and you don't have to give me anything back. Okay? Something you want."

  "What is it?"

  "All right?"

  Dubiously, the other boy nods.

  "It's something you want."

  And, to the other boy's astonishment, my boy pushes upon him the nickel he has just wheedled from me to buy more gum.

  I am incredulous.

  "Now, Daddy," he starts right in the instant we are alone, with his clenched hands on his hips and his head cocked to one side indignantly, in perfect imitation of me, then shakes a finger at me, again in extravagant mimicry, and launches into talk too rapid for me to interrupt. "I want you to behave and listen to me so you don't do or say anything to embarrass me here because you don't understand and I am the boss and I don't want you to and I will punish you if you do and punish you if you don't do what I want you to so you better not or I will smack you too and no television for a week because I say so do you hear and is that clear? You're laughing!" he explodes with a grin. "I can see you're laughing, Daddy, and I don't want you to pretend you're not and make believe you're angry at what I did and then forget you're making believe and really get angry. You do that sometimes you know, Daddy. Don't you?"

  "Are you finished?" I ask, with my hands still on my hips. "That's a mighty long speech for a little piss-ass like you who sometimes hardly talks at all."

  "Are you mad?" he inquires uneasily.

  "No, I'm glad. But do you think just because you made me laugh I'm going to let you get away with what you did?"

  "It was mine."

  "It was mine before I gave it to you."

  "It was mine after you gave it to me. Don't embarrass me in public."

  "Are you imitating me again? Don't think you can get away with that forever."

  "We're in public, aren't we? I don't want you to do anything that will make people stop and listen."

  "I'm not doing anything at all but listening to you."

  "You're standing."

  "So are you."

  "With your hands on your hips, just like an actor on television. Let's walk. Let's walk, I said."

  "Now you're like an actor on television, shaking your finger at me."

  "You're embarrassing me," he charges.

  "No, I'm not."

  "But you're going to," he predicts, "aren't you?"

  "Why should I embarrass you?"

  "Are you going to yell at me?"

  "Am I yelling at you?"

  "Are you going to be mad?"

  "Am I mad?"

  "You are embarrassing me," he accuses triumphantly. "You're being sarcastic."

  "Big shot!" I tell him sarcastically. "You don't even know what embarrass means."

  "Yes, I do. And I know what sarcastic means. It means when you're doing something I don't want you to do."

  "I'm not doing anything you don't want me to do. I'm not doing anything at all but standing here, so how can I be embarrassing you?"

  "You're asking me questions, aren't you? Why do you keep asking me questions?"

  "Why don't you ans
wer them?"

  "I'm going to tell Mommy," he threatens. "I'm going to tell Mommy you drank whiskey."

  "She won't believe you. She'll know it's a lie."

  "How come?"

  "Your nose will grow."

  "How come?"

  "A person's nose grows when he tells a lie."

  "Then your nose is growing," he counters. "Because that's a lie."

  "Then why would my nose be growing if it's a lie?"

  "I'm going to sock you one, Daddy," he squeals in frustration, as he feels himself outsmarted.

  "Why are you twisting around so much? Stand still."

  "I think I'm nervous," he guesses.

  "Do you have to pee? Then why are you picking at your pecker?"

  "I don't like that."

  (He stops picking at his pecker. I'm sorry I said it.)

  "She'll smell my breath," I resume, to change that subject. "She won't smell whiskey, and that's how she'll know you're lying."

  "I'm going to kick you," he says. "I think I'm going to kick you in the shins."

  "Why?" I ask in surprise.

  "Because," he says. "Because whenever I kick you in the shins or sock you one you begin wrestling with me and we laugh a lot, so I think I'll do it to make you laugh a lot."

  "I'll kick your ass."

  "I'm going to tell Mommy you said a dirty word to me."

  "So what? I say dirty words to her."

  "She doesn't like it. She'll fight with you."

  "We don't fight."

  "You fight a lot. She'll smack you."

  "She doesn't smack me."

  "She cries."

  "No, she doesn't."

  "Sometimes she does."

  "You talk too much. And notice too much. Sometimes you get them all mixed up."

  "I wish I knew somebody who could beat you up," he tells me, kidding.

  "Why?"

  "I'm going to call a cop."

  "Why?"

  "To smack you."

  "He's not allowed to."

  "You smack me."

  "I'm allowed to. And I don't smack you."

  "You used to."

  "I did not. In your whole life I bet I never smacked you once."

  "Once you did. When I was little. I remember."

  "If I did, I'm sorry. But I don't think I did. I don't smack you now. Do I?"

  "You're going to. Aren't you?"

  "For what?"

  "You know."

  "I'm not."

  "You promise?"

  "I promise."

  "You promise you won't smack me?"

  "I promise."

  "You really promise you won't smack me?"

  "I promise. I won't smack you. Don't you believe me?"

  "I believe you," he says.

  And wham — he kicks me in the shin!

  I leap a mile into the air, howling with surprise, and I know I must look funny as hell to him as I go hopping around in outrage, stroking and fanning my stinging leg. He does not laugh immediately: he frowns instead, wondering, I guess, if he has perhaps gone too far and is now in trouble, until he sees and hears me guffaw and understands that I am neither hurt nor displeased. Then his own face opens radiantly in a sunburst of relief and he begins laughing in exultation. I exaggerate all my own comic motions in order to keep him laughing and then to trap him with a sneak attack. He is doubled over in quaking merriment, clutching his belly and gulping and sighing helplessly, and all at once I am upon him: I hurl myself at him while he is bent over laughing, and we fall to the ground wrestling. It is not much of a match. At the beginning, I tickle his ribs to keep him giggling and gasping for air and render him defenseless. We grapple awhile until I grow winded, and then I turn limp to allow him to pin me. I am out of breath, and the match is his if he wants it. But he isn't satisfied. He grows cocky and careless: he wishes to savor his victory; and instead of pinning me, he elects to experiment in torturing me with some useless armlocks and toeholds. My breath is back, I decide to teach him a lesson (another lesson. The subject of this lesson, I suppose, is that one should strike while the iron is hot. The truly disgusting thing about all these platitudinous lessons for getting ahead is that sooner or later they all turn out to be true). So, while my boy is fiddling tranquilly with my fingers, my toes, and my foot, not certain really what to do with any of them, I bunch my muscles treacherously, fill my lungs for the effort, and, in one brief and explosive heave, flip him up and over and around down into the sand. He whoops in fearful, thrilled excitement at my new determination, and he kicks and twists and elbows wildly with joy, a lithe, laughing, healthy little animal trying energetically to fight and wiggle free as I swarm down upon him. (Now I cannot let him win; if I do, he'll know it's only because I did let him, and then he'll know that he has lost.) It is no contest at all now that I have my wind back and am going about it in earnest. I employ my greater bulk (much of it solid flab, ha, ha) to force him down into place. It is relatively easy for me to grasp both his wrists in one of my hands, to immobilize his legs beneath the pressing weight of my own and end his kicking. In just a few more seconds it is over; and he gives up. I have him nailed to the ground in a regulation pin. We stare at each other smiling, our faces inches apart.

  "I win," he jokes.

  "Then let me up," I joke back.

  "Only if you surrender," he says.

  "I surrender," I reply.

  "Then I'll let you up," he says.

  I let him go and we rise slowly, breathing hard and feeling close to each other.

  "You know, Daddy," he starts right in with pious gravity, trying to divert me, assuming an owlish and censorious expression as austerely as a judge, "I really did win, because you threw sand in my eyes and tickled me and that's not allowed."

  "I did not," I retort fliply.

  "Did you tickle me? You liar."

  "That's allowed. You can tickle."

  "You don't laugh."

  "You don't know how to tickle."

  "That's why it's not fair."

  "It is fair. And furthermore," I continue, "I didn't throw sand."

  "I can say you did."

  "And did you know, by the way, that it's a lovely day today because the sun is shining and the bay is calm and blue, and there are nine or seven planets —»

  "Nine."

  "— of which Mercury is the closest to the sun and.»

  "Pluto."

  ". Pluto is the farthest?"

  "Did you hear about the homosexual astronauts?" he asks.

  "Yes. They went to Uranus. And if, as they say, there are seven days in each week and fifty-two weeks in each year, how come there are three hundred and sixty-five days in the year instead of three hundred and sixty-four?"

  He pauses to calculate. "How come?" he queries. "I never thought about that."

  "I don't know. I never thought about it either."

  "Is that what you want to talk about now?" he asks disconsolately.

  "No. But if you want to stall, I'll stall along with you. You're not fooling me."

  "I'm going to tell Mommy," he threatens again. "I'm going to tell Mommy you threw sand in my eyes."

  "I'm going to tell her," I rejoin.

  "Are you?" His manner turns solemn.

  "What?"

  "Going to tell her?"

  "What?"

  "You know."

  "What?"

  "What I did."

  "Did you do something?" I inquire with airy candor.

  "You know."

  "I can't remember."

  "What I gave away."

  "Did you give something away?"

  "Daddy, you know I gave a nickel away."

  "When? You give a lot of nickels away."

  "Just before. When you were right here."

  "Why?"

  "You won't know."

  "Tell me why. How do you know?"

  "You'll get angry and start yelling or begin to tease me or make fun of me."

  "I won't. I promise."


  "I wanted to," he states simply.

  "That's no answer."

  "I knew you'd say that."

  "I knew you'd say that."

  "I said you wouldn't understand."

  "He didn't ask you for it," I argue. "He couldn't believe his eyes when you gave it to him. I don't think you even knew him that long. I'll bet you don't even like him that much. Do you?"

  "You're getting angry," he sulks. "I knew you would."

  "I'm not."

  "You're starting to yell, aren't you?"

  "I'm just raising my voice."

  "You see?"

  "You're faking," I charge, and give him a tickling poke in the ribs. "And I know you're faking, so stop faking and trying to pretend you can fool me. Answer."

  He grins sheepishly, exposed and pleased. "I don't know. I don't know if I like him or not. I only met him yesterday."

  "See? I'm smart. Then why? You know what I mean. Why did you give your money to him?"