Make Believe

by Joanna Scott

  No, Marge hadn’t forgotten. Goddamn Tony. She’d felt so foolish then and would be happy to feel just as foolish again, if someone would only return her grandson.

  “Anyone home?”

  Marge rushed into the kitchen just as Mervin stepped in, broad moons of sweat darkening his T-shirt, Bo clinging to his back.

  “Oh!” Marge exclaimed, lunging for Bo, peeling him away from Mervin. Bo pushed out of her arms and ducked behind the island.

  “That’s right, tramp,” Mervin said. “Are you in for it now!” He raised himself onto the island, flattened his belly against the counter, kicked back his legs, and teetered with his head extended over the opposite edge so he could look down on Bo, who was cowering in the corner. “Hey you, tramp. Shall we tell them?”

  “Mervin came out of the woods by the quarry” — Ann was standing just outside the open door on the deck, smoking another cigarette — “and found him walking up along Webber Road. That’s over a mile from here. He sure knows how to get around!” She laughed with an irritating squeal, but behind the counter Marge heard Bo’s echoing laughter and felt all that she’d been feeling until then — the fear, the guilt, the irritation — softening into foolish relief.

  “Another happy ending!” Joe said.

  By the time Eddie arrived home Bo was watching television, Mervin and Ann had gone to visit a friend, and Joe Simmons was finishing his glass of lemonade, blinking his gray-blue eyes, pulling at his mustache and laughing at a joke he’d just told Marge. Joe Simmons the philanderer. He only made her feel more ridiculous in front of her husband, but she hardly minded. Embarrassment was a mild punishment for all she’d done wrong, and if Eddie didn’t return her smile it was because he had done nothing wrong and had no reason to waste even a fraction of his dignity on this ridiculous event.

  A happy ending to the hot, dry summer, as well as a beginning: the first rain in two months drenched the region the next day, refreshing the land and marking the turn toward colder weather, while Bo, having discovered the pleasure of flight, decided to repeat his journey not just once but over and over. Marge could lock the doors and windows, but still Bo managed to sneak away, running from the yard when she was gardening, through the garage when she was bringing in groceries, right out the front door when she was talking on the phone. Residents of Hadleyville soon became familiar with the sight of Bo trotting along the side of a road and made a game out of finding him. They competed to be the one who caught him and brought him home, and boasted of their rescues at every opportunity.

  And everyone laughed at Marge — a thick, hysterical lady who couldn’t keep track of a four-year-old child. Why, every time Bo was returned to her, Marge just felt sillier, and the more that people poked fun at her, the more convinced she became that she needn’t be so worried.

  Hi.

  Hi.

  Where you heading?

  Don’t know.

  You lost?

  Nope.

  Just walking?

  Yep.

  Scuff scuff scuff scuff.

  Nice day.

  Yep.

  Scuff scuff scuff scuff.

  You like to walk?

  Yep.

  Just for the hell of it, eh? Most kids will walk only if they’re walking somewhere. But you…

  Scuff scuff scuff scuff.

  Aren’t you scared? No one else around…

  Scuff scuff scuff scuff.

  I can bite your face off.

  Really?

  You better run for it, quick, quick, up here behind these bushes!

  Wait!

  Hurry, come on!

  What’s wrong? What are you running from?

  A car. Cars are to run from.

  Why?

  It’s gone now. Let’s go.

  Scuff scuff scuff scuff.

  Once I laughed from nothing.

  Really?

  Once I wished and a star fell out from crying. Ask me what I want.

  What do you want?

  I want to be back when I was. Poke your eyes out, yah! Deedle deedle pee pee pee. I used to believe in ghosts but now I believe you just stop crying. And every time a car comes I’m a wolf and hide in the bushes. There’s saying please, that’s good. Please play with me. You can be whatever you want.

  Scuff scuff scuff scuff.

  You hungry?

  Nope.

  Thirsty?

  Nope.

  Scuff scuff scuff scuff splash!

  That was a big fat puddle!

  Yes.

  I like puddles.

  Squish squish squish.

  You’re sure you’re not lost?

  Nope.

  So you’re just going to keep on walking?

  Squish squish squish squish squiff squiff scuff scuff scuff.

  How long is forever?

  How long do you think it is?

  Not so long.

  Scuff scuff.

  You don’t want to fall and get all messed with blood. That happened to my knee once when Gran was making pancakes. I have a gran and a pop and a Josie. I tried to make Josie follow me but she just ran up a tree, stupid cat. My mama gave me Josie at the grocery store. Josie was a kitten in a box outside the grocery store and Mama picked her up and gave her to me. I remember that time when Josie was. Also other things.

  Like what?

  Scuff scuff scuff scuff.

  A penny, a penny! It’s mine, I saw it first, I want it, it’s mine!

  There’s a truck coming.

  Move out of there, I want my penny!

  A truck —

  Losers weepers penny, I got it, I got it!

  Officer Casella found him walking along North Lake after dark one day. Brain and Mary McCloud found him. Rosa Pascalli of Rosa’s Restaurant found him. Hilda Sagamore, Realtor for Gifferton County, found him. The Peach children found him. Archer Dodge, a technician for Safari Heating and Cooling, nearly hit him with his van. Lou Cisco found him. And a man who called himself Vincent found him and invited him into his car, but Bo ran the other way.

  There you are again.

  Scuff scuff scuff scuff.

  It’s almost nightfall. You don’t want to be out walking after dark, do you?

  Scuff scuff scuff scuff.

  Whatcha thinking about? Hmm?

  Nothing.

  That’s impossible. Thinking is always thinking about something.

  So what?

  Scuff scuff scuff.

  Da-da-da-da-da la. La. La.

  Scuff — La — scuff — La — scuff scuff scuff — La la la. Don’t you go, she yelled, she was so mad.

  Scuff scuff.

  Don’t you never go off with a stranger, she said, and he fell down and this monster came along crying and shot him in the head, pow, pow, pow!

  Scuff scuff.

  Don’t you never go off, she said, she was always saying it so he ran away and found a million dollars, a zillion million dollars, he just looked and found it in a pile on the ground and he picked it up and kept running and she yelled, Bo, Bo, get back here, Bo, you Bo, goddamn you, she was always yelling, yelling and brushing my hair and always saying don’t you go with a stranger no matter what, you hear?

  Dorrie Jelilian found him at the end of her driveway. Les Goodman spotted him walking along North Lake Road in the rain on a Friday morning. Three middle-school students chased him up Bacon Drive and lost him again along Amberton Road. Rebecca Horton, who lived alone with her two parakeets in a cottage by the lake, met up with Bo along North Lake Road when she was out for her evening walk. She found him again when she had climbed to Hightop Meadow to clip wildflowers. She found him a third time at the fork of North Lake and County Road #35.

  When Hugo Miranda, a driver for USA Mattress, saw him squatting on his haunches on the side of Route 62, he thought at first Bo was a big old woodchuck that had come up to the road to have a look around. Hugo would have driven right past, but Bo stood up as Hugo’s truck approached and then Hugo saw him clear as day. I
t looked to him as though the kid meant to dash out in front of the wheels, turn himself into roadkill and Hugo Miranda would be the one to blame. So Hugo veered toward the center line, made a wide screeching arc around Bo, and pulled up a hundred yards past him. Bo ran into the woods. Hugo jumped from the cab and ran after him. He would have lost him there in the thick undergrowth if Bo hadn’t given a fine little sneeze, achew! Hugo caught him by his collar and dragged him fighting and cursing all the way to his truck and took him straight to Joe Simmons, who called Eddie, who when he got to the station acted like he was claiming something he didn’t even want.

  The reason is I don’t know, maybe why not. I’m going to be a comedian when I grow up. Knock knock, who’s there, wolf, I mean cow, cows say moo not who. Pow pow, rat tat tat tat tat. I spy a white stripe. A little tree. A big tree. Pow pow pow! Did you know the most safetest place is the top of a big tree? Can wolves climb trees? Big fat stupid tree. I can skip — watch me, look at me, look! And stand on one foot. And hop on one foot counting one two three four five six seven. The highest I got once was twenty-two. Do you know me? Ya ya ya! Play with me, please, you can be whatever you want. I’ll be a wolf. You bad, get away! Once I was afraid of night but not now, I’m not afraid of nothing now, not even strangers.

  Star Dayton, a nursery school teacher, found Bo at the edge of the grocery store parking lot. Carol Clack was waiting for her car-pool ride at the intersection of North Lake and Main, pouring out the remnants of her diet Coke, when Bo walked by. Joe Simmons found Bo when he was responding to a fire alarm. Marilyn Cady-Shearing and her teenage son Andrew caught Bo around suppertime on a Friday when he was trotting across their backyard toward a rusty old set of monkey bars.

  Rebecca Horton found Bo a fourth time one day at the end of September when she’d walked up her driveway in her slippers and bathrobe to check her mailbox. She was a woman who liked to characterize herself as broad awake, despite her frail health. And even though she hadn’t had her eyesight checked in seven long years, she didn’t fail to notice Bo whenever he happened to be near.

  Bo was staring at the ground as he shuffled through the grassy ditch. Rebecca Horton called a sharp “Hey there!” He turned and would have run away but fortunately she dropped a magazine and he climbed out of the ditch to pick it up for her. They talked for a few minutes. Rebecca invited him into her house to meet her parakeets and have some cookies. Bo willingly gave her his hand and would have accompanied her but just then Eddie pulled up in his car. He thanked Rebecca kindly for her help, though as she would tell her sister on the phone later that night there was no kindness in his voice nor in his arms when he restrained the boy and carried him to his car.

  “So you see how it is in this lake country?” Rebecca Horton said to her sister. “There are those of us who have come here to die, and those of us who would risk everything to escape it.”

  You have to do what I do. Push the blanket down and put your foot on the floor and then the other foot. Step but the door doesn’t move so turn the lock because there is always a lock on the inside and I already figured out how. Step until you come to the stair and then step down one at a time no jumping or you’ll get it. Follow me. Put on your boots because you don’t have to know how to tie them, they aren’t tied boots. Go to the front door because there is two locks on the inside and you need a chair and can reach the high one and then the other. Open the door after me. Come on. Pretend you are made of nothing. Now run, run, come on, follow me. When Eddie finds you will he be mad, you can bite his face off and stay running, that way you won’t get cold.

  Now you know how. Then when someone says you got to go back you can do it all over.

  So it became what he did, what he was known for, the expertise that made him famous in the community. “Ain’t for nothing Jenny called you Hobo,” Ann joked. “Tony would be proud.” Bo didn’t know Tony but Ann said that once in a while, every few years or so, he wandered down to Hadleyville to borrow money from Marge. Next time Tony visited, Ann would introduce him to Bo. “You’ll hit it off,” she promised. “Two peas in a pod.”

  Ann had gone to live with Mervin, who was teaching Bo to play the drums. Bo stayed with them on days when Marge went out to lunch with her friends. It never occurred to him to run away from Ann and Mervin. Only from Marge and Eddie. Bo kept running away from Marge and Eddie because he understood it to be a wonderful game that he would win no matter what. Even when he was caught and brought back. Even when Eddie dug in his fingers and tried to rip the skin from his shoulders. The harder Eddie dug, the more points Bo gained against him.

  And then the crisp splendor of late autumn disappeared into the bottomless hole of wintery cold, and Bo felt less inclined to jump into that hole. Instead he watched TV and pretended to be a wolf pretending to be a boy, and Marge brought him a cup of hot chocolate. In Bo’s make-believe, Marge didn’t exist. Only Eddie existed, and Bo with a subtle effort tried to provoke the great battle between them that would lead to Eddie’s absence. Sooner or later Eddie would have to go away. Bo had given him plenty of opportunity to learn how to escape with his own example. But the difference would be in the way people responded when they saw Eddie running along the street. No one would stop him and bring him home like they did with Bo, and Eddie would just keep running.

  On Thanksgiving Day Bo knocked over the gravy boat, but Eddie hadn’t come into the room yet and as Marge mopped up the mess she insisted to Bo that the accident remain “our little secret.” So instead Bo begged a piece of bubble gum from Mervin and blew a bubble — his biggest ever! — while Eddie was saying grace. Bang! Eddie ignored him. Bo stirred his milk with the tip of the drumstick, which earned nothing but humiliating laughter, so he propped a wad of stuffing on the end of his fork and catapulted it over to Mervin’s side of the table. That was enough for Marge, but instead of taking Bo upstairs herself as she’d done before, she asked Eddie to do this service instead, a request met by a potent silence. Eddie just stared at his meal, and the rest of the family stared at Eddie. Finally Ann said, “I’ll —” but Eddie immediately slid out of his chair while Bo slid further into his, came around the side of the table, and lifted Bo up by his wrists.

  Was this it? Bo wondered. The battle of battles? He squirmed, twisted to free himself from Eddie’s grip, heard Ann yelling something, and watched the blur of his aunt as she jumped from her chair and ran at Eddie, though what she did to him Bo couldn’t see; he just felt Eddie jerk forward and himself slip out of Eddie’s grasp back into his seat.

  By then Marge had joined in shouting, and there was too much noise even for Bo; he slid further down, out of his chair and beneath the table, a space where he felt immediately safe, a den sealed off from the fray by walls of white linen. The only set of legs remaining at the table belonged to Mervin, who sat quietly, his knees wide apart and his feet propped on the gray rubber heels of his sneakers.

  Crack and crash of voices, squeals, storm of adults raging with words that sounded oddly pleasant to Bo when he covered his ears with his hands. He tried flapping his hands open and closed, enjoyed the broken sound for a minute, then pulled his hands away altogether, for by then the roar of argument, still loud, had lost all meaning, and Bo listened to it as he might have listened to a gusting wind, thrilled by the power of nature and pleased to have found shelter.

  He lightly touched the tip of Mervin’s sneaker and when nothing happened Bo lifted the end of one lace and gently pulled. He kept pulling until one side of the bow was loose, then pulled out the other lace and with the wedge of his finger he separated the laces. When he’d finished with the right sneaker he moved to the left, pulled one lace from its knot and was about to start on the other lace when Mervin suddenly shifted his legs. The roar of argument continued, Mervin’s feet settled flat on the rug, and Bo tried to pull loose the one remaining bow. But every time he reached for the lace Mervin tapped that one foot nervously, and Bo had to wait until he settled again. Finally he caught the plastic-coated tip of the lace b
etween his thumb and forefinger and managed to pull it just as Mervin pivoted his legs around to the side of the chair and stood up. Bo barely managed to contain his laughter as he watched that pair of sneakers march, laces dragging, across the floor behind Aunt Ann’s stomping boots, into the living room and straight out the front door, which closed magically, on its own, with the sound of a snap unsnapping.

  He noticed the argument had stopped only when he heard the clinking of dishes and silverware, noises that were soothing and distinct, like notes tapped out on a piano. No one was talking, and Bo couldn’t be sure who was left in the room. He waited for someone to look under the table, kept waiting until the only sounds he heard came from far off in the kitchen. He felt himself growing sleepy so he lay on his side, curled his legs beneath his chin, and waited for someone to come find him, doubting more with every minute that anyone would ever find him in such a secret place.

  When he reached his arm out to pull Josie’s warm body next to him she was amazingly there, and this increased his pleasure until he felt happy enough to sleep. Sliding into sleep inside a secret cave was nearly as enjoyable as kicking along the side of a road. Scuff scuff scuff. He didn’t have to leave the house to disappear. He could come here and drift on a linen raft across the wooden water.

  Twenty-two, twenty-nine, twenty billion belly buttons bump bump bump, loodle lee, loodle lie. Shut your mouth! It’s scary over there so shut up. Go when they aren’t looking. You know just because how it is and when you taked things they will get you so go before they can. Go go go go go. Go go go go go.