Theo

by Ed Taylor

  Theo slips through the sand behind the dunes now, the sound muffled. Now there are birds and wind in the stiff branches of the trees at the back lawn’s edge, the trees old creatures ready to fight if they have to. Theo’s army – wait, I’ll go and check, this house looks deserted.

  There’s no one outside that Theo can see. He moves quietly, wanting to get inside the castle without the guards knowing. He moves along from chair to chair, toward the gazebo, which he runs up into keeping an eye out for the Seal, and is through and down the other side. Better to go in back or front. Back maybe; but they’ll be expecting that, it could be a trap, the glass doors are open and it’s dark inside. He’ll go to the front side; he slips carefully around the house’s right side, and flattens himself against the wall, inside the row of bristly green bushes, and moves to the gray corner and takes a quick look around: the front doors are open, folded inward; maybe another trap, the mouth. His mother’s car left with her. He has to be careful. Theo slips away from the bushes, where there are always sharp things and spiderwebs, which Theo hates. He likes spiders but hates the webs.

  The best strategy is to run fast up and roll, so he streaks up and in, the stones cold on his feet slapping, and he hits the black and white tiles and rolls to the side and knocks into the pieces of Colin’s big chessmen and makes a lot of noise, hitting a metal trashcan that had been a bishop’s head.

  Theo hears hooves clopping.

  A man on a horse emerges down the hall, the horse brown and the man with long hair and a suit with a big flower on the flap of the jacket. He is holding a black bottle, and has yellow gloves on. Theo notices the man’s feet in the stirrups are in sneakers. The man’s head is near the black ceiling.

  Is this Adrian’s house.

  Yes. Who are you.

  I’m a friend of his. You look like him – are you his son.

  Yes.

  Nice to meet you. My name’s Barry. I’m in the house up the road a couple of clicks. I heard he was camped here too. Where is he.

  He’s on the beach.

  Which way is that.

  It’s around the back of the house, where the ocean is.

  Ha. Right about that. What’s the best way to get there.

  Follow the hall to the kitchen and then go through the ballroom to the back lawn.

  Right then. Thanks, be seeing you. Hey, you want to ride out with me.

  The man smiles and looks kind of familiar. Theo figures, famous too. He doesn’t know where he would sit. Theo notices his big watch.

  What time is it.

  The man lifts his wrist: two-thirteen p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

  Um. I have to find my grandfather.

  Fair enough. Ah domanee, then.

  What.

  A domani. It’s Italian, it means may the force be with you.

  Okay.

  Theo had gone to this big deal New York premiere of Star Wars with his mother and some of her friends. They left before it was over to go to a party in a tall building next to Central Park, and then another party in a warehouse somewhere. Theo slept in the car with a minder, and woke up in a different hotel than the one they were living in. His dad was maybe on tour.

  Theo hopes the horse doesn’t poop in the house. The dogs do sometimes and Colin doesn’t notice. Gus sometimes does. Theo tries to clean it up. When do people learn to do it in bathrooms. Theo tried to remember: what was it like. How do you teach that.

  Theo’d learned to watch carefully where he walked, the outside was mined with it. Ladies would notice and say something, and sometimes Colin became agitated and did crazy cleaning with buckets of water and soap, just throwing it at stains and bad places and swirling mops and towels over floors or walls.

  Once in a while Theo came on Gus with sleeves rolled up and scrubbing at something that bothered him. He liked things shipshape, he said: But my back won’t let me do a lot of washing up.

  So it’s a good thing the house is dark, Theo thinks now. He hopes the horse hasn’t.

  But it has. In the room with the Christmas tree and all the presents. Even from across the room the air’s thick with it, a kind of green-brown odor, not like dog; or people. It’s a pile of black apples beside the presents. Theo wonders if the man did it on purpose. Sometimes his father’s friends do weird things and call them jokes.

  Theo remembered when he and his father were checking into a hotel, and upstairs walking down the hall to the room they heard muffled screeches that got louder. His dad was walking very slowly, behind Theo and the minder, carrying his doctor’s bag, and his guitars and the luggage were in the elevator with a hotel guy and another minder, and Theo and Tony the minder reached the door and that was where the screeches and squawks were coming from. Tony frowned as he put the key in the door and put a hand on Theo’s shoulder and gently moved him back so he couldn’t see as Tony slowly swung the door open. Theo followed him in anyway.

  Birds blurred through the air, shrieking and chirping, perched on lamps and curtains and fluttering and fighting for high places to sit. Theo and Tony just stood for a few seconds looking around; a million of them, blurs.

  Adrian reached the room and frowned, then grinned. Then the phone started ringing and Tony picked it up and answered, and then he handed it to Adrian, who listened and burst out cursing and laughing, talked, hung up.

  Jimmy and Calvin. They paid the concierge five hundred to let them in and the birds cost them a thousand. Said I’m not worth it. Certainly correct on that. I like this, let’s leave ’em in here.

  So Adrian went to meet Jimmy and Calvin for a drink and Theo and the minder ordered room service and ate in the bedroom watching television while birds flew in and out and screeched and chattered. The TV had to be loud. The phone rang once, and the minder answered and said into the phone, Adrian wants the birds to stay.

  Other people are complaining about the noise, the minder said after hanging up.

  Will we get in trouble.

  The minder laughed and ruffled Theo’s hair. Why did adults always do that. They did the same thing to dogs and dogs didn’t like it either. No, the hotel will keep everyone happy – we’ll just have to pay more money. That’s the way the world works, my friend. The universal solvent is money, and there’s nothing you can throw it at that it can’t at least slow down enough to let people get out of the way, or just plain escape.

  The minder took a long drink from the tall glass of alcohol he was drinking and put it down, then stretched out on the huge shiny gray bed, on the other side of which Theo sat crosslegged, with a big black plate of French fries in front of him. He could see his face in it before ketchup. The minder still had his shoes on but fiddled for a minute and kicked them off onto the floor, startling a couple of small yellow birds. Maybe canaries.

  His dad came back the next night while Theo and the minder were having a pizza and watching television. The birds were pooping everywhere, and Theo draped a towel over his head while he sat and walked around. He kept thinking about the birds, about what would happen to them. Maybe they could just be released somewhere. Theo knew some were not from America – would they be okay.

  Dad, can we catch the birds and let them go outside, maybe in the park.

  Adrian lay on the floor, eyes closed, a dark acoustic in his hands, gray chalky drops all over it, trying to find the chords for the way things are, he said. Well, Adrian said, I suppose we have to do something, and that seems like a natural solution, doesn’t it. I’ll get Ira to come and clean up.

  Ira was Adrian’s manager, his personal manager. The band had managers but they were different. Everyone in the band had his own manager: the managers talked to each other when the band members didn’t want to talk to each other. That had happened a few times that Theo knew, because it meant Adrian snapped and snarled at everybody, even Theo. He got more upset than when he and Theo’s mom had arguments. Nothing bothered him like the band. Or sometimes if he was working on a song he got really angry, throwing things and yelling: once Adrian
yanked out a fistful of his hair and didn’t even notice. Theo saw bleeding scalp.

  Why do you get so mad, Theo asked once in Jamaica when his dad threw a bottle of alcohol across the sunny living room, and his mom screamed at his dad; she was nervous and jumpy that day, for a couple of days, and everything seemed to make her mad. Both of them spent a lot of time being angry on that trip, like a kind of hobby, something they chose to do, and other times, and it was hard to tell why they liked each other. The house in Jamaica had white walls and paintings on the walls, and wood everywhere, wood furniture and tables, and a lot of plants, and a saddle, on a sawhorse. One room in the house also had guns; lots of guns, pistols, on the wall, all kinds, old ones and new ones; his dad collected them. The room had a special lock that had numbers you had to know, a combination lock. Theo’s father would open the room and take Theo in and show him guns, just taking them off the wall and saying isn’t this a pretty one, and telling the history and facts about the guns from Germany and Czechoslovakia and Russia and England. There were empty places on the wall where guns used to be: Where is that one, Theo would ask. Closer to home, Adrian would say, I have to go places where the people aren’t very nice.

  Why do you have to go places like that.

  I just do. No worries though. I take care of myself so I can be sure and take care of you, okay.

  Why would his dad have to go to bad places. Was he doing something bad. Could Theo help. Should he try to stop it, like with cigarettes. When do you stop trying to help people who need it.

  Adrian got up from the hotel floor, leaving the guitar and his alcohol, and wandered around the room for a minute staring up at the birds and brushing things off of tables with his arm; drink glasses, dishes, books, clothes, pizza boxes. Then he walked through the suite to the front door and kicked it open all the way, and walked back through the suite clapping his hands and saying, let’s go, let’s go. He entered the bedroom and picked up room service dish covers and began banging them like cymbals: Theo jumped.

  Dad, what are you doing.

  Solving the problem.

  Birds scattered and screeched and flew and bumped into things and found the door.

  What will happen to them.

  They’re free, that’s what’ll happen to them.

  Adrian stared at Theo, his eyes on Theo but not really, Theo knew – he was thinking about something else.

  They’ll be okay. And we’ll remember them, they’ll bloody live forever. We’ll burn bloody candles for them. Maybe heaven is just God remembering. Heaven: Adrian snorted, weaving a little.

  Ease up, Tony said, lying on a couch with his boots on, reading a magazine.

  Fuck you, Tony, don’t ever tell me what to do. Adrian pulled out a knife handle and flicked it open. He always carried a knife. He stood swaying beside the sofa staring at Tony, who stared up at Adrian.

  Suit yourself. His eyes flicked back to his magazine.

  Adrian in a weird looping blur that surprised Theo swept out his knife hand and caught the magazine and spun it flapping like a bird across the room. Tony rolled off the couch and knocked Adrian’s feet out from under him and Adrian fell forward still holding the knife, which stabbed into the carpet. Tony had pinned Adrian on his stomach, Adrian’s head mashed up against the bottom of the sofa, which was covered with flowers, pictures of roses on the fabric.

  Let’s take it easy now, just slow it down: Tony was talking, his arms pinning Adrian’s. Theo was able to speak again – but he didn’t know who to talk to. The word that came out was dad.

  Get off me you goddamn eunuch. You’re fired.

  You’re not going to do anything else –

  Yeah, yeah, just get off.

  Dad. Dad. What happened.

  Red on the carpet red hand prints.

  Cut myself thanks to James Bond. I should sue you. Maybe Lloyd’s will sue you.

  Sorry, Tony said, and in a quick motion was back on his feet and between Theo and Adrian, his big back there. Theo started toward Adrian but Tony stuck out an arm.

  Give him a minute, son. Hang on.

  Adrian glared up, staring at his right hand, bloody, poking at it with his left hand.

  I’ve had worse. Adrian struggled getting to his feet, and Theo ducked and ran the couple of steps and put his arms around Adrian to lift.

  Thanks, mate. I’m sorry for the mess.

  Once he was on his feet, Theo felt his dad lean down and kiss the top of his head, and then Adrian was walking through the outside door and gone, followed by another bird.

  Christ. Tony looked at his watch: Theo, lock the door and don’t open it. If you get room service just tell them to leave it outside and look through the peephole before you open the door – use a chair to stand on. I’ll be back.

  Tony was in the doorway saying this, a hand on the door frame, looking down the hall, then gone, closing the door.

  Tony came back when it was dark.

  Where’s my dad.

  He’s okay.

  But where is he.

  He went to visit some friends. Mark’s with him now.

  Aren’t you fired, Theo asked.

  Tony smiled: He didn’t mean it. He bought me a drink. He’s okay. Tony kicked off his cowboy boots and flopped onto the couch. Did anyone come by.

  Some people knocked but I didn’t know who they were.

  You didn’t open the door.

  No.

  Good man.

  Theo didn’t see his dad again on that trip. Tony took Theo in the car back to his mother’s hotel in Chelsea and handed him over on a bright afternoon. Frieda was sleepy, Theo remembered.

  Now in the Christmas present room, gloomy even in the daytime, Theo wonders if a grownup will notice the horse stuff and clean it up or if he will have to. Heat makes the smell heavier, you can almost see it. Theo looks at the presents and thinks they look like something laid in a pile by a big animal. Theo hums a song, one he heard on his radio, don’t you want me baby, don’t you want me. He remembers the band is called Human League.

  His dad hates that kind of music because of the synthesizers, and for other reasons, too, but Theo stopped listening to why he didn’t like it. Theo likes the song.

  Theo keeps humming and rips into shiny paper but gets hung up on ribbon, and starts hitting the gift on the floor. Then he stops. Theo fingers off the ribbon and finishes: whatever it is, is in pieces of glass and glitter.

  Theo picks up another one, long and slender, flat, not square, in paisley paper – he knows paisley from India. Very light. No sound – he rips in and opens, and it’s a feather; two feathers, nestled in tissue, white with gold glitter and gold veins, the feathers long, black and blue and green, with eyes at the end. A peacock; he knows peacocks. What kind of a present is that. Theo tips up the box, black in the black of the room, he sees nothing, but an envelope slips out, heavy as the feather, cream-colored with gold ink, curly handwriting that says Theo.

  Theo tears into the envelope, and unfolds a note – from Gram and Vida. ‘Theo – we know you like birds so, when you’re ready, we’ve got a peahen and a peacock for you. They make good guard animals, and when you need to wake your dad up, they are loud enough to do the job! Love and kisses from your friends Gram and Vida.’ And then below the printing is ink that’s maybe initials, and a heart.

  Theo doesn’t know who Gram and Vida are. But peacocks are cool. What do you feed them. Where would they sleep. If they build nests how do they get their tails into the nest. What do their babies look like.

  Theo drops the feathers and looks at the other presents, the tree glittering alive in the dark and he wonders how grownups think. He starts to hum again, and stands up and wades into the presents like water, moving them around with his legs, and then he falls onto his back like he’s been shot – ow, box corners hurt; dumb. Theo thinks about other kids, remembers Morocco and India and the kids there, asking for money on the street. He remembers seeing them from cars, playing soccer with a rolled-up ball of cloth that
had string or rope around it; it had sleeves hanging off like a little round person getting kicked around. They yelled and smiled. He wonders if Gram and Vida are a man and woman. Do they have kids. Theo wants to talk to somebody.

  Theo’s up and humming, out of the dark room and winding his way through the secret passage toward the wizard. He must defeat the snake-dragon, and he’s got to find the golden knife with the poison blade. Only he can find it. He’s in the kitchen and there’s the lady – the food lady in an apron, with pink, and she’s tall. The kitchen smells funny. Theo realizes it’s cooking – shiny steel pots cover the stove.

  She notices him and smiles – Hello.

  Hello, Theo says. Is this your job.

  Yes. I am a chef.

  I thought chefs were men.

  No – chefs are women, too. I go to people’s houses and cook for them.

  What are you making.

  A meal for everyone.

  Is it lunch.

  It’s just a meal – I give people different options so whatever they feel like eating, whether it’s something light or something more filling, they have a choice. I make things that are good any time.

  Okay. Can I ask you a question.

  Sure, honey. She was stirring, moving from pot to pot.

  Theo doesn’t know her and doesn’t think his father knows her, so it isn’t like she’s a friend. He cannot remember the last time he was somewhere where there were more kids than adults. He wonders if people from other countries feel this way when they’re in America. Except he does speak the language at least.

  Can alcohol make you sick or die. Not like just being drunk. I know about that.

  The lady turns to look at him holding a big spoon. It’s shiny and has a yellow handle. It’s new looking.

  I have a son who’s about your age. Are you ten.

  Yeah.

  She turns back around to the pots, pushing the back of her hand against her forehead to move some pink hair out of the way.