Make Believe

by Joanna Scott

  “Shhh!” There was that hiss of anger from Gran. Without another word she handed Bo an unwrapped chocolate cupcake, pinching the sides between her thumb and forefinger and setting it carefully on his accepting palm.

  This is the way to eat a cupcake: first you loosen the firm round top of chocolate frosting to separate it from the cake. You hold the frosting by an edge like a wet piece of paper. Then you lay it back down on the cupcake and with great care you rip one chocolate half away from the vanilla zigzag seam. You hold this piece of frosting near your mouth, seize it between your teeth, and with a quick lift of your head you toss it in the air and catch the piece on your tongue, where you let it sit and melt while you tear the other half of the chocolate frosting away from the vanilla seam. You swallow the syrup, and what hasn’t melted you chew slowly. Then you roll up the second piece of frosting between your hands, you pop it in your mouth like an M&M, you chew it twice and swallow it. You nibble the vanilla seam zig by zag.

  When you’re finished with the frosting you can go on to the cake itself. You hold it close to your lips and catch small pieces between your teeth, being careful not to break into the cream center. You can eat quickly now, nibbling away at the cake, reshaping the squat cylindrical cupcake into a ball the size of a walnut. At this point you must start licking to smooth the crumbs against the cream interior. As you lick you curl your tongue a little to draw the excess crumbs away. Soon the white cream will begin to show through the chocolate cake. Only when it is in danger of dripping from your fingers do you plop the cream filling into your mouth.

  “I’m thirsty!”

  “What’s that, eh?”

  “Now look what you’ve done, Bo. Woken up Sam…”

  “Someone say…”

  “Bo is asking for juice. You go back to sleep.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

  “Sorry, Pop.”

  “Mmm. That’s fine.”

  “Don’t forget my two dollars.”

  “Bo, let him sleep.”

  Pop yawned a yawn that seemed to lift Bo up and set him right down in the middle of the story of the three bears. Papa Bear was tired. Mama Bear was tired. But look — someone was sleeping in Baby Bear’s bed!

  “Morning,” Pop growled.

  “Take your juice, Bo. What do you say?”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Here’s what you shouldn’t do with a juice box: you shouldn’t press the sides with your fingers so that the juice shoots up like water from the spout of the whale.

  “I spilled my juice.”

  “You sure did. Here’s a paper towel. Now you be careful. We still have a long way to go.”

  Bo sipped through the straw. After a minute or so he tested the silence with a question: “When are we going to be there?” He thought silence would be his answer. But finally Pop said, “Not for a while.”

  Which reminded Bo that he had to pee. “I have to pee,” he said softly.

  “Figure we can drive for most of the day,” Pop said to Gran, “and then stop at a motel for the night, get a good rest.”

  “I have to pee.”

  “Make it to Charlotte, you think?”

  “We can try.”

  “I have to pee.”

  “Want me to drive now that it’s light?”

  “I’m fine for a while. Another cup of coffee would be nice.”

  “I have to pee!”

  “Why didn’t you say so, child!” Gran said. She got out and opened the rear door, unbuckled Bo and helped him on with his jacket. His sneakers made shallow prints in the snow. He walked in circles to make a figure-eight design. “Right in here.” Gran held his hand as he mounted the steps, then she struggled with the door, yanked it open, and they were greeted with such a stink that Bo tried to back down the steps and nearly slid off. “I’m not going in there,” he said.

  “Oh, it’s not so bad,” Gran insisted, holding the door open. Bo pinched his nostrils between his two forefingers and stepped onto the sticky metal floor. The lid of the toilet was open, revealing below the brown stew of shit and paper and cigarette butts. Bo saw in an instant his fate: falling forward, headfirst, plummeting from his sweet life into stinking death.

  “I don’t have to go anymore.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  So Gran helped him down, though this time she nearly lost her footing. As she swayed backward she managed to steady herself with a hand on Bo’s shoulder.

  Just as they reached the rear bumper of the car he said, “I have to pee.” There was the laughter peeking through Gran’s angry eyes. “Here’s just fine,” she replied, bending down to unsnap his jeans. Bo, nearly bursting by then, peed into the fresh snow. He watched the stain splatter the white, then burn a hole to the grass beneath. He etched a zigzag line, dividing the snow in half. He smelled the faint heat of his own piss mixed in with the piney cold. He hoped Gran was watching him. He felt powerful, rugged, worthy of praise. But Gran was standing with her back toward him now as though to shield him. He was struggling to close his pants when Gran spoke. “You done?” she asked, bending down to help.

  Only when he was climbing into the car did he notice that a police car had pulled up behind them. He wished the policeman would turn on his siren and lights. His eyes were hidden by the rim of his hat, but Bo could see his lips set in such a way that showed he was waiting for trouble. The policeman should have known that trouble was somewhere ahead of them now. Or behind. Or both.

  “What did he say?” Pop asked as Gran buckled herself in.

  “Nothing. Just nodded when I waved. Now what are you worried about? No one will be missing us for hours still.”

  Pop turned the ignition, the engine churned, vroomed, and died. He swore. Gran didn’t tell him to watch his language. Pop made the engine vroom and sputter and knock. But it wasn’t the engine knocking, it was the policeman. Pop unrolled his window enough to frame the policeman’s face.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “A little trouble getting going, that’s all,” Pop said. Bo could tell from the scratch of Pop’s voice that he was trying to keep a secret. He started the car again and this time the engine sputtered, vroomed, and chugged steadily. “There we are,” he said, more relieved than he needed to be. “Thanks for your help, officer.”

  “But he didn’t help at all,” Bo said as Pop rolled up the window.

  “No he didn’t, did he?” Gran answered.

  They drove on. Bo wondered about Pop’s secret and the policeman’s curiosity. He blamed the policeman for poking his nose into nobody’s business — whatever that meant. Because of the policeman Gran had been distracted and Pop had had a little trouble getting going. At least they were driving toward sunrise. On either side of the car wooded bundles of land reminded Bo of dollops of cream filling covered with chocolate crumbs.

  “The Endless Mountains,” Pop said, reading a sign aloud.

  “The Endless Mountains,” Gran echoed with a whistle. “Why don’t we lose ourselves here? Take up in a little cabin in the Endless Mountains, spend our days eating peaches and fishing….”

  What were they talking about? The most Bo could make out was a hint of disappointment in their voices, as though they were remembering something they had lost, a favorite book, a picture, a jar they’d filled with pennies, four years’ worth of pennies, a penny for every day that Bo had been alive.

  What about his birthday? Tuesday was his birthday, and Uncle Al had promised to build him a sandbox. What about the sandbox? What about his army troop, his baseball mitt, his Matchbox cars? His grandparents were whispering now, and their voices were sand running through a crack in the sandbox Uncle Al had promised to build.

  “What about my two dollars!” Bo sobbed.

  “Oh, Mr. Macaroni, why are you, what’s, what do you, oh sweetpie, little angel…” Now their voices were water running into the tub. Everything was going to be a
ll right. Gran fished around in her wallet for two crisp bills. Pop sang a song about a red balloon. They all sang the ABC song. Then Pop started to tell a story about a puppy lost in the mountains. In the pocket of the door Bo found a paper clip. He straightened one side and chewed on the wire while he listened to the story. The puppy was lost in the Endless Mountains, it was winter, the puppy was hungry and cold and scared, and along came a grumpy old crow who said, Go ahead, eat my lunch, you need it more than I do.

  “Bo, what’s that in your mouth?” Gran had swiveled in the front seat and was trying to grab the end of the paper clip in her fingers.

  “Nothing.” Bo handed the paper clip to her, swishing his spit in his mouth so he wouldn’t lose the taste of metal. Gran started to tell him what he already knew — that it was wrong to chew on a paper clip — but she stopped because right then the car sputtered and coughed like it had when his grandfather had tried to get it going a few miles back, except that this time the engine didn’t settle into a steady chug. It simply stopped, and they glided out of the lane at an angle, Gran gripping the dash-board with both hands, Pop looking between the road ahead and the rearview mirror.

  They came to a stop on the highway’s gravel verge. For as long as it would have taken Bo to count to sixty three times, Pop kept turning the key in the ignition and nothing happened.

  Finally Pop said, “I’ll tell you, this whole journey is starting to seem doom—”

  “Don’t you say it!” Gran interrupted.

  They discussed their predicament in low voices while Bo stared out the window at the steep slope of woods rising high above his head. He knew what his grandparents would do even before they’d made a decision — they’d walk together to the exit ramp up ahead, salt and pebbles crunching beneath their shoes, the cars shooshing past. Pop wanted to leave Gran and Bo in the car while he fetched help, but Gran wanted to stay together. Bo agreed with Gran, though for his own reasons — he wanted to make more footprints in the snow and climb to the top of the slope and surf back down on his belly. He concentrated hard, trying to influence the conversation with his thoughts. Walk, walk, walk, he thought.

  “Let’s walk then,” Pop said.

  So Gran let herself out of the car, opened Bo’s door, and zipped his jacket again. She helped him push his thumbs into his blue mittens. She gripped his left hand tightly. Pop came around the side of the car, his weak leg dragging slightly, making a little furrow in the snow with each step. Bo walked ahead with his grandma and Pop followed a few steps behind. Once every half minute or so a car or truck sped past, sucking the fresh air along and leaving behind the stink of exhaust. No one stopped to offer them a ride.

  The old crow fed the puppy with pickings from roadkill. The crow complained plenty about his charge, but really he was proud. And the way it was up there in the mountains, with just one strip of highway making fresh roadkill, there wasn’t enough food to go around. The crow grew thin, the puppy grew fat. Then the other crows found out that the old crow had been sharing food with a dog. They didn’t like this, let me tell you. So they roosted in the trees around the old crow’s nest, and when the old crow flew out one morning to go check the highway, they came at him all at once, cawing and pecking something horrible.

  Aw, cut it out now.

  Think of this: people have walked barefoot through the snow. They have carried babies through the snow. They have bled to death in the snow. They have frozen to death in the snow. If only all of history could be told….

  Still no one stopped to offer them a ride.

  Pop dragged his weak leg, Gran’s lips were chapped, but Bo kept skipping along, happy to be leaving footprints on a mountainside in the middle of nowhere. What did he care about the people in passing cars? What did the people care about him?

  They reached the exit ramp after half an hour of walking. It started to snow again, needle-sharp snow that blew at a slant into their faces. Luckily there was a gas station at the end of the ramp. Gran carried Bo for the last couple of hundred yards, then set him down in the empty lot of the gas station. The windows were covered with plywood, and the pumps had no hoses. Pop found a pay phone around the side of the station but the phone had been ripped from the box, leaving the metal cord to flop and shiver in the gusting wind.

  Gran opened her shin-length wool coat, lifted Bo inside, and buttoned her coat back around him. He squeezed his legs around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder. Through squinting eyes he watched the snow.

  “If we hadn’t…” Pop let his voice drift off until there was nothing but the gusting wind and the wet shoosh of traffic in the distance.

  “Go ahead, blame me,” Gran said stiffly.

  “I’m not —”

  “You’re thinking it.”

  Their voices were as cold and sharp as the snow. Stop it, Bo thought.

  “We keep on walking then.”

  “Walking where?”

  Pop didn’t answer. They started walking side by side across the parking lot, Bo still propped in the hammock of Gran’s hands, still gripping her soft hips with his thighs. They walked and walked. The wind died, and the snowflakes turned thick and light, feathery puffs of white that sparkled when the sun found a band of clear sky between a ridge and the clouds. They walked close to the divider of the empty road. Gran sang, “You set me down, sweet Lord, on a pile of bones, we passed them round, sweet Lord, that pile of bones … dry bones … dry bones.” After she finished the song they walked in silence. Finally they came to a ramshackle trailer with white siding streaked with rust and a thin stream of smoke rising from the stovepipe. A skinny calico cat leaped onto an overturned pail and perched there, staring at Bo with quizzical green eyes. Bo stared back. Pop went up to the door and knocked while Gran and Bo waited a few feet away. No one answered. Pop knocked again. A white sheet serving as a curtain was pulled back from the window, and a woman’s face appeared. She shook her head, motioned to them to go away. Pop banged the side of his fist against the door.

  “Stop it, Sam!” Gran shouted — “Get back here!” — in the voice she usually saved for children.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Pop said as they set off walking again. “Welcome to the heartland.” They moved to the side of the road when a pickup truck drove past. The tip of Bo’s nose was cold; his ears were cold inside his hood; he was tired just thinking about how tired his grandparents must have been. He had two dollars in his pocket — maybe this would help.

  “I have two dollars,” he offered. No one answered. He rested his chin back on his grandmother’s shoulder and remembered the face of the woman in the trailer window. But his memories got mixed up, and what he remembered was the splotched face of the cat staring out from inside the trailer.

  “Try this one, sweetpie,” Gran said after a few minutes. “Say there’s a narrow pipe that goes down about a foot into the ground. Say you drop a Ping-Pong ball into the pipe. You can see the ball at the bottom of the pipe but you can’t reach it. Say all you got to work with is a piece of string, a magnet, a cardboard box, and a gallon of apple juice. Tell me how you’re going to get that Ping-Pong ball out.”

  Bo thought hard, trying to imagine how he could make a hook with the string or fashion a little scoop with the cardboard to scoop up the Ping-Pong ball.

  “Well?” Gran said.

  “Call for help?” Bo proposed.

  “Nope. There’s no one around to hear you. You got to figure it out for yourself.”

  “I’m stumped,” Pop said.

  A magnet, a cardboard box, a piece of string, and apple juice. Bo kept reciting the list to himself as he stared over Gran’s shoulder at the road. A magnet, a cardboard box, a piece of string, a car, and apple juice. A magnet, a police car, a piece of string. A policeman and a Ping-Pong ball.

  “You in trouble, folks?” The policeman, the same one they’d met back at the rest stop, drove slowly along beside them.

  “It looks that way, doesn’t it?” By answering a question with a question, Pop was tak
ing a risk — even Bo sensed this.

  “I’d say so,” the trooper replied flatly. “You want a lift?”

  “That would suit us fine, officer,” Gran said. “We’ve tired ourselves out in your hills here.”

  “So you have. Where you from?”

  Inside the car Bo settled between his grandparents on the backseat. He listened to the crackle of voices, watched, delighted, as the trooper picked up his radio and spread the news of their adventure around the world, struggled to keep his one wish to himself, hugged himself to keep the wish inside, and then heard in astonishment his own voice burst, interrupting the grown-up conversation, “Can you do the siren?” He looked in fear at Gran, wondering what his punishment would be, but she was laughing, they were all laughing.

  “Listen to this,” the trooper said, clicking a switch on the dashboard. The wail came from far away, from outside the car and above the clouds, from another time, a time before. What Bo heard he’d heard before. He’d sat here in this police car between his grandparents; he’d listened to a siren and wondered what would happen next. Which meant that what would happen next had already happened before. He tried to remember the outcome of this adventure, squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to squeeze the memory to the front of his mind, but all he could come up with was the feeling of the same thing happening twice. No, it was the feeling of forgetting. Having known something once, he’d forgotten it and could do no more than remember the forgetting.

  The trooper shut off the siren and with a quick series of turns and back-ups pointed the car in the opposite direction. There was talk among the grown-ups about local garages and motels. Lies were told, deceptions spun with fancy words — investigating some retirement communities was the phrase Gran used to explain why they happened to be passing through the Endless Mountains. Pop tossed in terms like fuel pump and spark plug and tugged the lobe of Bo’s ear as though to say, You’re in on this, too, Mr. Macaroni! At some point he managed to throw in a story, the factual kind, that added up to this: in the town where Pop grew up a man named John Humphrey Noyes lived maybe one hundred or even two hundred years ago. Had the officer ever heard of him? No, the officer hadn’t. Well, John Humphrey Noyes was a respected leader in the town. He was known for making changes, and the change he became famous for was abolishing money altogether — for five long years, the town carried on business without any money. For five long years, there was no private property (Pop tugged again on Bo’s ear, but by this time in the story Bo’s comprehension had fallen far behind) and no need for competition.