Theo

by Ed Taylor

  His mom sits chewing her bite, slowly, music overflowing from the ballroom into the kitchen.

  They are so awful together, Theo’s mom says.

  Theo chewing, just keeps chewing. He drinks water. He bangs his can against the table to move the tuna from the edges to the center where the hole is, so he can get it.

  That certainly makes you appreciate real music.

  Theo’s finger is now inside sweeping up whatever the fork missed. He’s trying not to cut himself on the edges or the ragged burst of metal folded up from the can. Theo grabs the baton of biscuits that he carried in from outside in his pajama pocket and pulls more out, chewing and swallowing and drinking the last of his water and getting up and filling his glass again and drinking. Theo’s mother has not eaten more than the first bite, but is no longer chewing.

  You want more, mom.

  No thank you, darling, I am not hungry.

  Have some more, he says, eating biscuits.

  Baby, I think I will lie down for a while. This morning has taken a lot out of me. Why don’t you go down to the beach with Gus, he will go.

  Theo crams in biscuits and leaves them without chewing, lets them soften. Runs again out through the loud ballroom, where Colin plays with one hand and with the other holds the glass to his mouth, and out the doors.

  All the people are where they were, except the ones standing are now sitting or lying down. There is a pile of net and a volleyball, and poles on the grass beside the man who must be Mark.

  Hey man, where’s your mom at.

  She’s going to lie down.

  Too bad. Let’s go swim. Wash Manhattan off. Come with. We can play some volleyball.

  Theo knows a couple of these people, others are new. Several are unsteady, several look bored, several frown at him. Maybe it’s the sun and they’re only squinting. The ladies don’t seem to care. The sun is like the lights in Theo’s attic. It isn’t quite overhead but it’s close, so it’s – Theo assumes it’s near noon and he’s had some food. They’re staring at him, dully, flat-faced. One lady waves at a fly.

  Theo feels funny, says, I want to put on some different pants.

  Sure. We’ll wait.

  Gus or Colin or even sometimes his mother usually is present when he’s doing stuff with adults, but they think being there is enough and don’t notice weird things or people or bad stuff until it’s already happening. They’re like lifeguards who talk to girls instead of watching swimmers. He likes it when they let him go, but also feels funny about that sometimes; like the way the dogs sometimes look back to see if he’s watching when they run toward borders or edges or into the woods or toward the beach road.

  Theo’s scooting through the ballroom, awash in music still, the middle of something without words Theo doesn’t recognize, the woman staring ahead, Colin focused on the keyboard with both hands, and Theo shoots into the dark hall along the panels that should be doors but aren’t, to the main staircase curving up and he’s running jumping two steps at a time, from floor to floor to floor, sound now coming from each floor, voices and maybe radios, and what might be firecrackers on the third floor, loud sharp bangs from inside something metal – Theo remembers somewhere on the third level there’s a shiny silver garbage can Gus bought for the garbage men who pick up on the beach road. One of the people last weekend dragged it up here to tape record something. He had forgotten that until now. So many things and people disappear into rooms and he forgets about them.

  Theo’s puffing, at the mountain peak, moving through the door and up the narrow stairs weaving back and forth angling up to the attic. He pushes down on the handle to open the door and it creaks open. Theo shuts it behind him, making sure it clicks, before he takes off his pajamas and notices he’s sweaty. He rummages through clothes on the floor, looking for his Hawaii shorts, the ones he got last year when his mother and he visited his father on Kauai. Theo really liked those shorts: he saw surfers wearing them and liked the dolphin pictures. His mother and father fought a lot then. She threw things. She tried to cut his father with his father’s knife. Theo’s father always carried a knife. He had a lot of them. Sometimes he had a gun. Theo had found it once in a hotel room.

  Why do you have this.

  It was heavy. Theo had to hold it with both hands. His father was in bed. The door between rooms was open, and Theo and one of the minders had eaten pizza in Theo’s room and the minder left. Theo wandered around his father’s room picking stuff up. And there was a gun.

  Put that down, Theo. Don’t ever pick up a gun that ain’t yours.

  Why do you have that.

  The room was dark although it was afternoon. Rectangles of light around shapes of dark curtain. His dad’s voice came from somewhere on the bed. Then Theo saw arms, one, two. Three. One of his dad’s friends was here too. His dad had a lot of friends.

  I wish I didn’t have it, Theo. I need it sometimes. Sometimes I have to be in places that require a certain vigilance concerning personal safety, mate.

  Why.

  Comes with the job, my friend. Hand me a cigarette, darling.

  Theo started to move, but saw the arm swing toward the dark table beside the bed.

  Music is dangerous, Theo asked.

  Theo’s father’s laugh was really a cough. Well, yeah. It’s life or death on stage, to me. It’s funny because Alan always says he’s just trying not to screw up.

  Alan was the other guitar player. Theo liked Alan, who had two daughters. Alan lived in Ireland, Theo knew, and he had been to Alan’s house. It had a roof made of grass. Theo remembered swimming in the pool and watching his breath in the air because it was always frigid on the old sod, Alan said. Too feckin cold to swim in me own pool that cost a bloody fortune.

  You could break down and get it heated, you cheap bastard, Theo’s dad said, splayed out on a chaise, in long pants and no shirt, tapping ash on the concrete beside himself.

  And you could use an ashtray you unholy troglodyte.

  I bet Alan doesn’t have a gun, Theo said to his dad in the bed smoking, the cigarette’s red tip making shapes in the air.

  No, Alan stays on the sunny side of the street. He’s a banker at heart, he just wants his tea and a warm bed when he’s ready for it. We’re different, all of us. That’s what makes a good band. Otherwise it’s like rubbing two pieces of flannel together. No sparks.

  Is that why you and my mother fight.

  Theo’s dad exhaled a long time and the air got grayer. Theo, baby, I love your mother and she loves me. And we both love you. Your mother and I both feel things strongly, and sometimes it isn’t about being different. Sometimes it’s because you’re the same. Your mother and I are too much alike.

  Why is that bad.

  It’s bad if you don’t like yourself.

  You don’t like yourself.

  No, mate, sometimes I don’t. And your mother’s like me.

  I don’t understand.

  Bloody hell, Theo, none of us do. We just try to keep loving each other and make sure the work gets done and the bills are paid and the kids kept fed.

  The friend, Theo could see, was yawning, and she shook her head. She reached her arm out to peel back the sheets and Theo turned around and went through the suite door and closed it, his dad’s voice following him.

  Theo, give us a minute and we’ll get some breakfast, eh.

  It’s okay, I just had some pizza.

  Want to go to the studio.

  Sure, Theo said to the door as he closed it and made sure it clicked.

  In the bright attic Theo’s kicking through clothes like surf, stuff flying, looking for dolphins. His cocoons dangle, and his head’s full of things ready to hatch; he wonders if the ladies will wear bathing suits. He thinks this is not really a bathing suit group of people. Often the people who visit seem surprised there’s an outside and that it includes a beach. Theo strips down, noticing how white he is there. He wonders about girls. Theo sort of knows what’s under their underwear but not really. He
does know nothing dangles. But beyond that he’s not sure. He starts to get stiff and now must find something to hide it. Theo’s nervous. He doesn’t really know these people, but then he doesn’t know most of the people who flow in and out. The house is a hotel, except without maids or room service – he likes hotels better, sometimes. Light from the windows blurs and shimmers, everything a little melting – maybe his head’s not okay.

  He sees a flash of orange and blue and, standing again, kicks through stuff to a pile – score. Dolphin shorts. Theo slips into them, folding his erection in and adjusting for it. He might have to sit for a minute; so he plops and waits, then gets up and walks around talking.

  In the castle the wizard is trapped because the king wants him to find the crystal before he’ll let him go. He’s heard his dad and other people talk about crystal. But they stop when they know he hears, so he’s not sure what kind of crystals they’re talking about. Flake, brown, dosing. Theo hears words, a lot of words. Cocksucker. Fuck. Merck. Some of these he knows he’s not supposed to know, and he doesn’t know what they mean, not all of them, but he’s heard them. They come closest to magic words of any Theo knows, the way kids learn them; but grownups use them differently He wonders if Chinese people have them, too, or Africans.

  Adrian and Frieda never told him not to use them. Don’t believe in censorship, mate, said Adrian. They’re just words. I use them so I’m not going to tell you not to. Frieda said, that puritanical conventionality and fear of the body and even language about the body, I can’t do it. So sing out love, say what you want. You are free and beautiful. And everything about the body is beautiful. Shit and piss and blood and snot.

  I think that stuff is gross.

  Frieda and Adrian were lying on a bed, Theo doesn’t remember where, a hotel. He didn’t understand what they meant then, and they seemed drunk. He knew drunk.

  His mother and father went to a party and he stayed behind with a minder. Theo and the minder ordered food and watched TV until it was dinner time, then they went to the hotel restaurant, although Theo wasn’t really hungry. The minder was, so Theo watched him smoke and drink glasses of alcohol, and eat. He was okay, but Theo couldn’t remember his name. He told jokes, and even tried to read a book to Theo, but it was a book for little kids and Theo didn’t really say anything to hurt the man’s feelings but it was boring. That was the last time Adrian and Frieda had lived together at the same time, when Theo had just turned nine.

  In his room now Theo walks toward the window facing the castle’s rear and the back lawn and the ocean. The man who invited him to the beach is at the rear lawn edge, a bundle of volleyball poles under his arms. One of the ladies carries the volleyball, throwing it up in the air and catching it, not throwing it straight but off to the side and too far in front so she has to chase it sometimes and it falls. Another man and lady walk behind them carrying a cooler between them; and the dogs trot behind, tails up, then they streak into the trees after something, not barking.

  Theo thinks about cocoons, and his attic, and about its coolness in spite of being closest to the sun of all the rooms, and he wonders if he should stay here for a while. Theo sees Mingus and Gus and the Seal walking from the lawn to the terrace, Mingus with an arm draped over Gus’s shoulder. Maybe they’ll come to the beach. Theo’s actually scared of the ocean a little bit.

  Colin is running toward the three men and suddenly throws himself at them sideways, bowling over the Seal and Gus but only staggering Mingus, who begins cursing at Colin, who lies on the ground under the others, laughing and groaning and hugging his ribs. Gus silently picks himself up while the Seal rolls onto his back and then onto his side and then leans up and folds his legs so he can use them to rise. He says nothing, at least yet.

  From the mountaintop Theo hears only isolated Mingus words. Motherfucker more than once. Theo wants to know more about Mingus and about the things he makes. Mingus says the letters of the alphabet are vessels, they hold power. They sail.

  Yeah, Mingus said to Theo, you are not a little kid. You understand.

  Mingus says he’s the goose that laid the golden egg that everyone wants to steal, sometimes he says he’s getting bled dry by parasites. He can’t say much about his ideas or his costumes or his art pieces, because if he makes it too easy, the government will just kick down the doors and force him to work for them. He says art is in the shapes of things, and that the ancient people knew art was everyday life, not something sealed up in museums, which Mingus always calls mausoleums, guarded by pall bearers. Mingus said most artists, the ones in museums, are undertakers.

  Nothing ever changes. Below, the grownups are wrestling. Gina sits on the terrace edge, legs crossed, feet bare, skirt rippling as if underwater. Gina’s hair blows sideways. She’s watching the men roll around on the hard lawn. Then she’s talking to the lady who was playing the drums, who’s striding at Gina from the house with arms crossed.

  Theo moves from the window and walks the room fingering his cocoons – and thinks some look different. And in one of the last ones, near the door, something is moving. He almost drops it, it feels weird. It must be weird to have a baby inside you. He wonders why his mother and father still fight. He thought that when you lived apart things got better. His stomach hurts again.

  Theo runs, out the door which he slams, and to the stairs and going too fast, almost falling on almost every step, he makes it to the first floor entrance hall breathless and dully headachy – he holds his arms in the air cheering to himself and yanks open the heavy double doors and is climbing over the car then remembers Colin and his mom saying stay away. He looks carefully around as he slides down the hot metal of the car sticking to it – ow ow ow – but the police are gone and no one else is there. Cicadas are loud and Theo watches a little bird, a sparrow or wren, the tiny bright-eyed kind grownups think is cute, erratically following a cicada in the air, the cicada making a sound different than the usual rising, rhythmic call from the trees, with this one now constant and lower-pitched, in a straight line rather than a curve up like the regular sound. The cicada jerks and flits and the bird follows fast right behind, doing everything the cicada does, and Theo realizes the bird’s trying to eat the cicada, and the cicada’s screaming.

  He runs, around the house toward the people, hearing crickets now.

  What happens if those different police show up, the school ones and the other ones. When will they come. Will they come while his dad is here. Theo’s thinking as he runs, stumbling but liking the air on his face. They don’t have to answer the door. Theo won’t anymore. He doesn’t want anything to happen to anyone.

  Around the back of the house and people are wandering, sitting; two have arms around each other. There is the big wide two-person blue and yellow inflatable air mattress, blown up out on the grass now and Colin bends over it. Theo slows to a walk, sees Gus’s back disappearing into the house, and Mingus nowhere. Theo navigates, scuffing at the grass, to Colin, who’s straightening up. Colin flicks his eyes left then realizes it’s Theo, and holds his look, grinning as if he’s embarrassed.

  Hola compadre.

  Theo continues toward Colin, looking. On the big ribbed mattress, which Theo likes because in shallow water it’s a horse or a shipwreck and requires gripping tightly to keep from getting bucked off, are a bucket and the two squash from the refrigerator, and a cucumber and two of the oranges – no, it’s lacrosse balls that one of the guests brought and juggled with once.

  The two squash sit next to each other with the knob-sides out and below them is the bucket, on its side, propped on the wire handle. Then next to the bucket, the two balls and the cucumber propped up over them, sticking up. Theo gets the cucumber but not the bucket.

  That’s dirty.

  No, my friend, it’s art. I’m going to put this on a wedding dress and a tuxedo and show it in Soho. Or maybe a mattress.

  What’s the bucket for.

  Colin looked at Theo and said, let’s say it’s female parts.

 
A bucket.

  Yeah. It’s a joke.

  I don’t get it.

  Right, young master sahr, there are just some things you’ve got to be a little older for. Not everything is for kids.

  Can we go to the beach.

  Absolutely, my friend. Let’s go. Let’s run.

  Colin darts off, off balance, in long pants but no shirt. He is pouring sweat and his face is red. He’s weaving in circles, jogging.

  Gina is standing up, her boots on the ground one up, one lying down. I’m coming too, but I’m not running.

  They were watching Colin ahead, streaking toward the beach walkway.

  There used to be a real walkway there but it’s gone, Theo says.

  You mean like a boardwalk.

  I found old pictures. Colin and Gus said famous people used to live here.

  Do you remember any of the names Colin and Gus said.

  Gina is wearing sunglasses. He has to hurry a little to keep up with her. But he doesn’t mind. He wants to tell her things.

  Not really. They said a rat pack.

  Ha. Really. Gina is smiling hugely. Your house has quite a pedigree. Do you like it.

  It’s okay. I like it better than the last one.

  Where was that.

  I lived with Frieda in Manhattan. Before that in Connecticut and a lot of places. My dad thought it would be good to be away from Manhattan. Gus and Colin are supposed to mind me. They’re also supposed to watch out for my mom. That’s what my dad said. He’s coming here. He’s going to make a record.

  That’s cool. What’s he like. Does he hang out with you.

  He’s usually busy. There’s always people talking to him or calling him. And he gets really tired. Sometimes he’s in bed for a whole day. Once he was in bed for three days.

  Yeah, I’ll bet he gets tired. Do you like his music.

  Most of it. He always takes me to shows and to recording things. Once when I was little I got to sit under the piano while they made a record. It felt really funny and he played me the record and you can hear me laughing. It’s near the end.