Theo

by Ed Taylor

  It’s like he’s under a spell. Did you do something to him, Theo says to the lady. She says, no, man, the world did.

  What does that mean.

  One day you’ll understand, when you’re older.

  Why does everyone always say that. I’m not a little kid.

  Come on, my friend: the bald man’s hand is on Theo’s shoulder. Theo looks at his dad’s hands, limp as empty gloves. They’re bony, spidery, crabby, like a skeleton, long fingers pointing down. Theo grabs one: it’s cool. Come on, dad, let’s get to bed. Theo didn’t know where he would take his father except away. The lady and the bald man both now have hands on Theo, gently but definitely there. Let him sit, Theo, he’s not ready to walk.

  Adrian’s squeezing: Mokay. Justresting. A minute. Ready to play. Off and on.

  Theo ducks away from the hands and runs for Gus: Gus. His grandfather. His dad is Gus’s son. He’ll want to help. Theo dodges people down the dark hall and the entrance hall is empty now, doors closed, sun from the side windows in white bars on the tile. What is happening. Theo grabs both doors and yanks, and the heavy wood swings inward. Outside, the policemen in suits lean against the black car. Where’s Gus.

  A black limousine’s nosing its way down the driveway, and past the policemen, who bend and stare into the limo’s tinted windows in back as it glides, hands on belts and waists like cowboys ready to draw. Theo sees Roger driving and smiling, and two other people, a man and a woman in sunglasses sitting beside him in the front. Roger’s got a beard now. He’s slowing the long car down until it’s stopped sideways near the steps. Maybe Roger can help.

  Roger opens the door and gets out, flashing his twisted smile at Theo. Roger’s wearing a floppy white hat like old men at the pier wear when they fish, and he’s in a blue suit with sneakers and no socks. He reaches for the rear door and opens it, and a man in a chauffeur’s uniform gets out, holding a black bottle of champagne by the neck. He’s wearing gloves.

  The man and the lady are still sitting in the front seat. They both yawn at the same time. Roger is walking up the steps, smiling, and he bends down and gives Theo a kiss. Hey, man. Can we come in.

  My dad’s sick or something. But they won’t let me help him.

  Roger has a funny expression, his face now cloudy: he’s angry. We’ll sort that out, don’t worry. He’ll be okay. I know what he’s got.

  Can you help him.

  Roger’s stopped listening: I brought some people. Roger’s mouth is funny: there’s something green on one of his front teeth.

  What’s the matter with your tooth.

  Roger smiled: It’s an emerald, but people just think I’ve got spinach on my tooth. I’m having it taken out next week.

  The man and the lady are standing behind Roger now, like ghosts, pale and dressed all in black, black suits with long sleeves. They look alike: both have yellow hair, slicked back. The police are staring.

  Who are they, Roger asks.

  I think they’re police or something. They talked to Gus.

  Roger looks at the starers and yawns again, shivering all over. Let’s get inside.

  The sunheated flags of the front steps are hot under Theo’s feet. The two ghosts are barefooted.

  These are my friends. Paolo and Giulia. A prince and princess.

  Really.

  Yeah – they come from a very old family that ruled one of the Italian kingdoms before the Risorgimento.

  What does that mean.

  Italy was once just a collection of individual kingdoms. It only became a country in the nineteenth century.

  They look alike.

  They’re twins. Andiamo.

  The man and lady glide up the steps, sniffing. They stop and smile down at Theo.

  Caro mio.

  The lady’s lips are very red and her skin so thin Theo sees veins in it. She sort of pats him while she looks into the house and moves up the steps.

  The man’s slipping off his sunglasses and looking around solemnly, and says, howdy, partner. He points a finger like a gun at Theo and follows the lady and Roger.

  Theo walks down the steps to the long car and shuts the doors. The police watch and smile at him, the way the kids in school smile right before they sneak up on someone to pull down his pants in front of a girl, or trip him onto asphalt. Theo runs up the steps and inside.

  Roger and the Italians melt into the dark hall, swallowed in people – Roger’s a sun and there are always planets circling around and around. The Italians are cats, sleepy and sleek and boneless, they move like smoke or water, they ripple. Theo’s standing, staring. Someone’s taking pictures. Someone’s always taking pictures but especially when Roger’s around.

  Theo: Roger’s calling back. Where’s Adrian.

  He’s sick.

  I know. Where is he. I need to talk to him.

  He needs rest.

  Theo hears Roger ask someone, who’s here. And a voice says names. The doors are open, and green and sun are the other way, and the house looks like a cave and all those people on their way into some dark place away from light, down a slope and Theo wants to go out, away from the cave, so he does. But he doesn’t know what to do. It’s afternoon. He’s tired of having to talk to adults; it feels like what a job is.

  Outside Theo sees the policemen at the car Roger left, their heads against the glass and hands blocking out the light: What are you looking at, Theo calls.

  One turns: Nothing, just looking. The others ignore Theo.

  Theo bounces down the steps, stands next to them. He notices small guns in brown holsters on two belts. One is fat and sweating a lot: Fuck off.

  It’s my house, Theo says, blushing.

  Fuck off yourself, you bullying cunt – Colin is in the door, flanked by two minders. When did they come. People are always appearing and disappearing. Magic tricks.

  You’re on private property without a warrant. I could have you arrested.

  What’s your name, one asks smiling, pulling out a small notebook and flipping it open.

  Dartagnan. And what’s your name.

  Sergeant Rock.

  The minders are whispering to Colin: Yeah I know, but I’m tired of being smart. It’s a heavy burden. So gentlemen. Do you have a warrant.

  All stared at Colin now, who stood, lean and brown and round-bellied in a towel, sunglasses on his head and a bruise on his forehead, swaying, holding a black bottle.

  You certainly do not have an invitation. Ergo, you are fucking trespassing. And carrying weapons. So according to New York law and the castle doctrine concerning home invasion, if I let off a few rounds to defend myself I would be within my rights.

  There’s no castle doctrine in New York, asshole. That’s Montana.

  Colin’s swigging, the minders stand blank-eyed with their sunglasses. So many people have those eyes. Theo’s not breathing.

  Get the fuck off my property.

  Are you the lease-holder.

  No, I’m the most holder: Colin undoes the towel and there’s his penis, a skinny thing dangling out of a frizz of dark hair, and he’s grabbing it and waggling it. So bollocks to you all – the minders are pulling him back inside.

  Two of the policemen start toward the door but the other one at the car calls out – come on. Stand down. Plus, witnesses.

  Fuck these rich hippies. The not-fat one stands on a step staring down at Theo, off to the side of the curving stone, mossy and cracked and green-spotted. There’s a big spread of green moss like a seat on one stone block.

  Let’s go.

  Suddenly beside Theo is one – holding out a little card. Son, would you give this to – he winks, Theo can see, the skin scrunching up under his sunglasses on the left side of his face – your dad. Tell him we’re his biggest fans and we’ll be back.

  Theo watches them as they move away crunching across the gravel, even their backs mad, Theo can tell from the necks and the shoulders. They’re scanning the house and the windows as they walk, looking around at the lawn: Theo’s
heart beats faster, looking too, hoping no one’s doing something bad they can see. One of them slaps the top of the car before getting in, then turns to look at Theo and makes a motion across his throat with a finger: Leaave the fucking kid alone, someone else says from the car.

  Lots of people say they like his dad but don’t really. Theo realizes his heart is pounding as he watches the police car creep down the driveway slowly, low, full of men. The house: surrounded by dangerous creatures, hidden and not, who sit and wait for someone to come out, maybe for a drink at the watering hole, and then – snap. He runs in a circle, tilting his arms and wonders if he should try again to get Gus’s or Colin’s attention. Or his dad. Or Mingus. Someone to do something. Maybe Gus.

  Gina’s suddenly in the door with two men and a lady, in bathing suits, except Gina. How many people live in his house, Theo wonders. A hundred. A million. A hotel. A hive. One man is holding a drum stick and scratching his chest with it, then twirling it, a propeller in his hand. Theo’s seen drummers do it.

  How do you do that, Theo calls to him. Can you show me.

  The man looks at Theo, and moves the stick through his fingers in a circle, his fingers rubber.

  How do you do that. That’s cool.

  The others stand in the door but the man walks squinting down the steps, a little unsteady, and lowers himself onto the stone wall like it’s a horse: C’m’ere.

  Theo walks over, scratching his stomach. The man has a tattoo of a dragonfly on his shoulder and it has four green dots around it. What are the dots for, Theo asks, pointing.

  My kids.

  Where are they.

  With their mother.

  Where is she.

  Either New Mexico or Portugal. Look here, little dude. Hold this for a minute: the man’s holding out the drum stick, and Theo takes it. The man says, here’s the spin. Lay it in your palm and hold your hand like this – his palm is up and flat.

  The stick balances on Theo’s palm. Now, you – the man picks it from Theo’s palm, puts it on his, and then with a twitch it spins once. You start with your hand flat, and kind of flick your hand so it spins just above your hand. Then when you get that going, you do it with the hand up and down and you put enough spin on it that it doesn’t fall. So you do the flat thing first: the man puts the stick back in Theo’s hand. Give it a shot.

  Theo twitches and the stick falls. Yeah, the man says. Gotta practice. Like playing. You gotta woodshed.

  What’s that mean.

  Gotta get out in that woodshed and practice. It’s what old guys used to call practicing.

  Theo’s trying the spinning thing and it keeps falling, clanking on the stone. Then the man leans over and plucks it up and stands – get your own stick and get to that woodshed.

  That is my stick. It’s from the ballroom, right.

  The man looks at the stick and at Theo and flips it back. Fair enough, little man of the house. Guard your castle. Then the guy salutes.

  Gina and the other man and lady have been talking on the other side of the steps: Theo, did you get something to eat – Gina’s hunched over, straddling the other sidewall, looking at him from behind shades.

  Yeah.

  Okay. Good. Are you having any fun.

  That word hadn’t been in his mind for a while. I guess.

  Do you like being tickled.

  Grownups always act like he’s a toy they want to make squeak. They do the same thing with animals. Sometimes with other grownups. They think it’s funny.

  No.

  Well, then we’ll take that off the list. What do you like to do.

  What does anyone like to do. Talking about it is dumb, like saying, do you like to breathe. Do you like to put food in your mouth and chew it. How about taking a step. Do you like to do that. How about taking another step. Do you like that. Do you.

  Theo feels like he’s in the middle of something that’s in the middle of something else much bigger, and every time he finds his way out of the one thing he’s still stuck in something he can’t see the edges of, or the end of. Sometimes in school he would be jealous of the kids with a regular mom and dad and sometimes he thought that he was the lucky one. Right now he just wants to be alone, but then he’s sort of always alone. But how can you be alone in a herd of people, always milling around like cows, nosing at stuff and standing around, or taking stuff to make themselves drunk, and then they get mad or sad and want to hug you and cry over you.

  I like Ike.

  What. Gina’s looking at him. Did you say I like Ike.

  Theo just stares at her.

  Where’d you hear that.

  School.

  Gina laughs. How about school. Do you like school.

  Some parts of it.

  Like what.

  I liked science. And drawing. Did you like school.

  Gina’s not looking anymore. One of the men has his hand on her back and she’s bending away from it laughing, her chest sticking out. Theo stares. He knows what women look like underneath their clothes. He’s got to find something to do and not think about the dogs or Adrian or Frieda or Gus or school or. Sometimes Theo’s in the middle of an ocean and can’t see the shore. He’s a tiny boat and he wants to see land. The sun’s in his eyes, his hair’s in his eyes. The adults are rolling down the rock wall saying ow ow ow and falling off onto the gravel, and laughing. He never knows if he’s talking to the real person or if it’s the drug or the alcohol making them say what they say. And do what they do. It’s like they’re kidnapped, or they’re hostages. What are people like when they’re not pirates. What about people who aren’t ever pirates. Glue made kids in school really weird and their noses were snot faucets. They weren’t hard to avoid, at least, you could see it coming, their bodies signaling to the world, stay away; the way animals warn each other with stripes or a dance or a noise.

  Theo is an animal, watching Gina and the other men and lady moving toward one of the big sea trees on the front lawn, the trees with bushy heads and big arms, old skin like elephants. Theo likes to be around the trees. He pats them and talks to them, and they click and sigh answers in wind.

  Colin tried to grow two palm trees – our own little pleasant isle, and I’m Caliban, he said. He called Gus Prospero and thought that was funny, he always laughed when he did. But Gus didn’t. What’s the bloody joke, Gus would say. Colin would wave his bottle and walk away.

  Colin planted the palms, or had them planted – men came and did it, weird old guys who looked at Theo funny and one had an eye that pointed the wrong way. Theo was glad when they finished – in the front lawn’s sunniest part so the palms leaned together in the grass between the legs of the driveway. The leaves hung brown and Theo wasn’t sure if they were dead. They were an X. X marks the spot, Colin said about them. Here there be treasure. Yonder be monsters. He waved at the house, after the planting men were gone and the trees, still green, clacked and whispered in the air above their heads. No coconuts or anything. Just long leaves with fringe, and circles of bark all the way up.

  Will these trees be okay here.

  As long as they can smell the ocean.

  What about the snow.

  They’ll adapt. You know how the zoo has polar bears, and it gets beastly hot in the summer. They adapt.

  How do you know.

  That’s how the world works, boyo.

  The dinosaurs didn’t adapt.

  Theo and Colin were walking back toward the house in the late afternoon. Theo worried about the trees.

  Good point. Point for the con side. Five minutes for rebuttal.

  Colin bent over and made dinosaur noises and bit Theo on the arm, but not hard. Theo punched him and ran off into grass. Colin followed laughing and roaring. Theo ran heart pounding happy and scared of the dinosaur zigging and zagging and turning his head to see Colin’s back, him wandering away in the door’s direction and looking up at the sky. Theo kept running, pretending, hearing and feeling the thumps of something heavy chasing him until he slowed and b
egan walking, listening to his stomach growl. The trees browned up, stopped clacking, fronds got limp. Holes now where they were.

  Gina and the men and the lady now sprawl in shade under the low front lawn trees, Gina waving Theo over. Theo thought about dinosaurs tall as the trees and how fast they could run. Or pirates. If they’re drunk all the time, how bad can they be. You can run away from a drunk person easily. Theo wonders if they have accidents when they sail, like drunk people in cars crashing into things. Adrian never drives anymore. Or not often. He says the label won’t let him, have to protect their investment, like me hands. Insured. Theo’s dad holds them up, blunt fingered.

  Colin calls the house the rogues gallery. Theo’s not sure what a rogue is. Theo’s a bird and then nothing, he’s empty, and then chased by lions, he’s a zebra. Nobody’s going to catch him. Why do adults lie so much. Outside is hot plains, lions in the shade, and inside is weird caves, the rooms: you never know what is inside one.

  Theo opened a door last week looking for Gus and there were two men and two ladies, no clothes, and the ladies were lying on their backs with glistening pools of what looked like wax on their stomachs. He froze, couldn’t breathe just stood there. The men were on their backs too, their penises raw looking and wet like sausages, not cooked. One of the ladies said, why don’t you close the door. She was smiling, wide-eyed.

  Theo backed out, couldn’t think, his crotch throbbing, seeing everything still through the closed black door, the ladies with the pink eyes on their chests, the men with front tails, handles. Stuff flows between them and babies happen. He wants to touch one, touch things. He’s seen his mother naked; when they’re in Europe they go to beaches where no one wears clothes. Theo does because he has to, he’s embarrassed.

  Now Theo feels like he’s carrying something heavy all the time and he’s not strong enough, he needs to be older, bigger, for what they give him, the adults. Theo remembers India, Jamaica, Africa once: kids working, selling things, dirty, pushy. Girls with make-up. Theo on the lawn runs in a circle seeing clouds and sun and world and a plain with an antelope and people chasing, not natives but regular people, wearing regular clothes and carrying cameras and tape recorders, hundreds of them, thousands of people and they’re chasing just one antelope, a small one and it’s getting tired.