Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee

by James Tate

  One such overweight boy, about fifteen years of age, stood beside his short, plump mother reading the buttons a left-over hippie was trying to sell. Even the funnier buttons seemed to make them sad, or sadder. The boy pointed to one that read EAT Mc-SHIT & DIE. The mother slapped his hand and they strolled off toward one of the many food concessions. They each ordered a huge bratwurst with sauerkraut. An old man stood beside them doing tricks with a day-glo yo-yo, rock-the-baby and walk-the-dog. He seemed immensely pleased with himself, and it seemed to anyone watching that the man had almost certainly devoted the better part of his life to mastering these tricks.

  “Lenny,” the mother said to her son, “Go get us some more napkins.” The boy’s shirt-tails were out and the front of his shirt sported at least a dozen large grease and juice stains.

  When Lenny returned with the napkins he couldn’t find his mother at first. There were life-sized puppets punching one another in the nose and he watched them for a while, not really concerned. He would find her, she would find him, they always did. He accompanied her everywhere, to movies, lectures, shopping. She couldn’t seem to do anything by herself, or he felt sorry for her, or she felt sorry for him. He couldn’t sort it all out, and vaguely resented that he should even have to. After all, he was only fifteen.

  “Here.” She had come up behind him and held out a massive cone of cotton candy. She had one for herself as well, already half-eaten. They ate in silence and Lenny’s face once again was discolored with blotches of pink spun sugar. Loudspeakers announced a glassblowing demonstration in tent #6 and mother and son exchanged knowing stares. They had seen the glass blowing demonstration eight years running and this time they were not going to fall for it. There really was nothing new from year to year, and yet their decision to attend each year was not even voluntary at this point. Just as it was not a decision to head for the ice-cream stand once they had finished the cotton candy, double dips of vanilla for both of them.

  Something about this particular day had Lenny on the verge of tears, but he held them back and bit his lip. “Why,” he wanted to say, “Why won’t you tell me anything? For God’s sake, it’s my life, too.” But he knew too well that all questions regarding his birth and his father were forbidden. She hurt, too. Yes, she hurt, too. And so they finished their ice creams, and ambled into a tent where a college student was telling a story about two baby calves lost on a mountaintop. Lenny held onto his mother’s arm and squeezed it several times. She patted his hair into place.

  RUNNING FOR YOUR LIFE

  Three little plastic pigs had crawled into my shoes in the middle of the night. We still had a river to ford in the morning. The rains were coming down. And a man by the name of Bad Bud Rosenblatt was breathing down our necks with an electric can-opener. A middle-level lieutenant from the phone company had put a price on our heads: $3.00. And Bad Bud Rosenblatt was flat broke.

  Tina turned in her sleep to ask if, once we got to Philadelphia, we could take the horses onto the subway.

  “I suppose,” I said, “if they’ll fit. But, you know, Tina, I’m not sure if they have an underground in Philly. Or, if they once had one, if it’s still there.”

  An hour later the rain had stopped. The horses were practicing their flamenco on a rock nearby. A family of bobcats stepped gingerly over our heads.

  “If there are subways,” I said, “I hope they have maps in them, because I don’t think I’ll recognize anything. Father said we lived there for three or four years, but I think that was before we were born.”

  “Do you remember the day Buddy Rosenblatt crashed his bicycle into the milk truck?”

  “No,” I said. “But didn’t you wrap his head in your shirt or something?”

  “They said I did. I have a good memory for all sorts of blood, and don’t remember any of his.”

  “They say he’s a bloodless killer.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They talk too much.”

  “‘They’ also say Father loved Aunt Isabel all those years he worked at the Dairy Queen.”

  “My God, Tina, is nothing sacred to you anymore?”

  “Sure, brother. I’ve got a long list of Still Sacred, though, actually, I’ve just recently begun to refer to that particular list as More Sacred. You want a peek? In no particular order, I can just make out through the Stygian smoke and mist—a long, hot bath, a tall tumbler of bourbon, some slow lovin’, a few Billie Holiday songs . . . You want more?”

  “You’re a piece of work, you know that? I remember the Thanksgiving you smashed Aunt Sophie’s tiara with your drumstick. She wouldn’t stop crying the rest of the afternoon.”

  “Who the hell did she think she was anyway, the Queen of Rumania?”

  “Mother had to hide behind the lilac bush in the backyard until she could stop laughing.”

  “Mother was a good egg.”

  “She was the best.”

  The rain had stopped. From time to time I glimpsed several pairs of eyes carving us up into tasty bites from the edge of the clearing. But there was no blood, all things considered. A quarter-moon was gaining strength, or at least clarity. The actual strength wobbled, vacillated, doubted its own strength. Tina’s silhouette was striped. The horses were necking quietly in a stand of birch trees. “He never actually beat her,” I said.

  “Mother might have welcomed a good spanking,” Tina said, taking a deep drag from her last cigarillo, “what with her circulation problems and all.”

  “It was you who could do no wrong. Mother, with all the love in the world, only reminded him of his failure. All of her kisses he twisted into remonstrances. And I was the insurance policy that guaranteed his failure would live on, would not be forgotten, his name forever in ignominy.”

  “That’s not true, brother. Father knew how hard you tried. When you were on the track team he never missed a meet.”

  “And I never won a race, not once did I win.”

  “But you ran harder than all the rest; everyone could see that, you were that beautiful and we were so proud of you.”

  “I always thought I was going to burst into flame.”

  “That’s funny. You never told me that, but one of my clearest memories from those years is praying in the bleachers that you wouldn’t burst into flames. Even seated so far away from you I could feel the fire coming out of you. Father could feel it too. He never said as much, but I always knew he could feel it.”

  It was almost light now. Birds were shaking their heads and ungluing their eyes. Bad Bud Rosenblatt was snoring on a little pallet he had made himself sometime during the night. “Shouldn’t we cover him with something?” I asked.

  “Buddy’s such a wimp,” Tina said. “Always catching a cold when he should be catching his quarry.”

  I grabbed Tina by her shoulders and forced her to look me in the eyes. I could see the years, neatly labeled and stacked in boxes. The stuff that wouldn’t fit was burned long ago in an abandoned field no one would ever visit again. Or if some lost kid stumbled upon it he wouldn’t know what it was. He’d just kick it a few times and walk on, his poor mother pulling her hair and calling his name from a porch in the clouds.

  But I could also see the mountains in back of me reflected in Tina’s eyes, the mountains we would try to cross today.

  She gave me a good bearcub slap across the face and started to laugh. “Let’s just see if we can manage to get back up on the horses.”

  I kissed her hard on the mouth. “Let’s leave them here,” I said. “This is like home to them.” Our chances weren’t that good.

  “If ever there was a time to be afraid . . . but I’m not. I remember when Buddy’s sister died. Mother said. ‘Well, at least she got to taste chocolate cake.’ I thought about that for years.”

  “I remember father crying at the funeral; it was as if she were his only child. He couldn’t talk to us for days. Do you think he’ll remember us?”

  I couldn’t answer. I was suddenly anxious to get started. I felt
as if I barely knew Tina. Tina the ballerina long ago disappeared, Tina the lepidopterist and Tina the tea-leaf reader had fallen overboard during a storm early on in the passage, shortly after her brother the runner had burst into flames, not during a team track meet but during a private session. In each case there were no witnesses, and not even any questions afterwards. That is what always seemed so strange to me: that not only must one disappear on one’s own. . . . I couldn’t complete the thought, I didn’t want to.

  “It won’t matter,” I said.

  Bad Bud Rosenblatt was beginning to stretch and make waking sounds, the bounty hunter, the dreaming witness. Without speaking a word we placed a handful of wooden matches and a large chunk of brown bread beside Bud and made haste for the mule trail that would take us out of this fake paradise and back to the homeless world where we belonged.

  ROBES

  She must have been the tallest nun in the world and, standing there at the streetlight, a crowd was beginning to gather about her. Punks and flower vendors and dirty-faced little girls stared up at her in wonder. At first she tried to ignore them and gazed straight ahead at the red light, but the crude little bumpkins had never seen a nun before, and certainly not one of such towering grandeur. She radiated an inner peace even as she was scrutinized.

  “My name is Sister Theodosa, and I suppose you are wondering just how tall I am.”

  None of the urchins dared to speak, so powerful was her presence. They scuffled around one another for a better view. Some of them backed up a few steps to get a better advantage.

  “Well, it is my secret,” she whispered.

  Ollie Cunningham, one of the worst troublemakers in his fourth grade class, had an overwhelming urge to touch her black robes, and he did it. She touched the top of his head and he thought he was going to explode, right there. Becky Maddox burst out laughing. She was in his class and was the best speller in the fourth grade. She even knew how to spell the capital of Swaziland, and what kind of useless information is that?

  Ollie now stared at the hand which extended from the huge folds of Sister Theodosa’s black sleeve. Sister Theodosa knew too well what it was to be a curiosity, she knew how it had shaped her life, and now she loved God and his little children.

  “Come here,” she said to Ollie. Wade and Leon were giggling uncontrollably, but Ollie didn’t care. He had never been in love before, not like this.

  “I bet your name is Ollie, am I right?” And Ollie nearly fainted. “Don’t be frightened, I’m not a witch. I know your mother, Edith Cunningham, formerly Edith Butler. We were in school together, she has sent me pictures of you.” But still Ollie’s heart was racing, some magic had entered his life and he could not take his eyes off of Sister Theodosa. It was a struggle for him to speak, but he knew he must.

  “My mother . . .” he said, but could not go on.

  “That’s all right, Ollie. Would you do me a favor?” Ollie shook his head yes, he would do anything for her. “Would you take me to your home?” He shook his head yes again and looked around at the others, feeling both proud and terrified. How could he walk beside one so tall and dressed so strangely?

  “Come now. I’ve traveled a great distance. Let me hold your hand and let’s be on our way.”

  Ollie blushed but complied with her wish. He expected Leon or Wade to call out “sissy,” but instead they followed the giant lady in black from a safe distance. She looked as if she should be the object of worship, a whole religion might spring up around her feet. She was so calm and graceful she might go waltzing with the Pope of a spring evening. Wade looked at Leon as if he were crazy for having such thoughts. It’s not that this lady demanded respect, she simply, and obviously, deserved it. Perhaps she would move to their town and everything would be different.

  “I never knew your father,” Sister Theodosa was saying to Ollie.

  “He wasn’t around much anyway,” Ollie replied. “I’ve got some letters from him in a box, and a picture. I guess he just liked to travel, that’s what mom says, that he was a traveling man.”

  “I bet he loved you very much.”

  “Not so’s you’d notice.”

  “Some people just don’t know how to show it, but they love in their own way.”

  “I don’t think he loved me, at least not much. He would have stayed home more.”

  Sister Theodosa tousled Ollie’s hair, and Ollie didn’t care what the kids behind him thought, he knew he was the lucky one.

  When Edith Cunningham greeted Sister Theodosa at the door, Ollie was surprised to hear his mother address this strange and magical lady as “Vera.”

  She said, “Vera, you’ve come, how thoughtful. I see you recognized my little scoundrel from his pictures. I hope he wasn’t rude to you.” Ollie was pained by this suggestion.

  “Quite the contrary, he’s been a perfect gentleman.”

  Edith looked around Vera’s robes at the little congregation of followers her old friend had attracted. A silent vigil had formed on the other side of the street.

  “And what about those hooligans, did they give you any trouble?”

  “None whatsoever, Edith. I must say, you appear well, in spite of your grief.” She embraced Edith, a trifle uncertain of her role.

  “I’m fine, really I am. I suppose it’s terrible to admit it, but there is a certain amount of relief. I mean, I never knew when . . . Oh, how rude of me. Please come in, please make yourself comfortable. I’ll just pick up and fix us something nice and cool.”

  Ollie stood by himself off to one side and looked around the room. He had never thought about it before, but suddenly it occurred to him: We’re poor. We’re poor and I never even knew it. He thought a person like Sister Theodosa, or Vera, whatever her name was, must live in a splendid palace with servants and thrones, while he and his mom watched their broken TV on that couch with the springs sticking through and the arms half worn away.

  “Ollie, come help with the lemonade,” his mother called from the kitchen. Vera, Sister Theodosa, had not seen her friend, Edith, in ten long years. That last summer they had shared a cabin on a remote beach. Each day they swam and sunbathed. They shopped at a nearby village. They picnicked. They read long novels and talked. Vera sensed an awakening in herself, a possibility for total love, but when she confronted these feelings in herself she was forced to conclude that Edith was innocent of the same ardor, that for her it was simply a summer free of the complication of young men’s inconstancy.

  “Vera, I wish you would tell Ollie how important it is that he do well in school. The boy is lucky he hasn’t been forced to repeat this past year. He was sent to the principal three times. He doesn’t know how rough it can be in the world without a proper education.” Edith had brought in a tray with three glasses and a pitcher of lemonade and was clearing a place for the tray on the coffee table.

  “What subjects do you like best, Ollie?”

  Ollie saw how gently she deflected his mother’s criticism.

  “Geography, I guess I like geography, reading about foreign places.”

  “Do you want to travel when you’re older?”

  “I guess.”

  “Where would you like to go?”

  As luck would have it, now he couldn’t think of any place. He tried to remember all the pictures, pictures of natives in Africa, pictures of old cathedrals in other parts of the world, but he couldn’t remember names.

  “I’d like to go to Swaziland,” he said, and then felt a cold shiver run through his stomach, it was such a stupid thing to say. But Vera sensed his embarrassment.

  “You’ve got me on that one,” she said. “Is it in Africa?”

  “I think so. The King has six hundred children.”

  “Vera,” Edith interrupted, “would you like to change clothes? I mean, no one will know. I just thought you might be more comfortable.”

  Vera didn’t seem upset with Edith’s suggestion. In fact, the idea refreshed and stimulated her. Ollie, on the other hand, could not imagi
ne her in anything but the majestic black robes. He was afraid of losing her, her specialness, as though she would reappear in common dress and treat him exactly as his mother did—as though he could do nothing right. “He had one hundred wives,” he said.

  “Yes,” Vera said, “I’d like to change. Thank you for suggesting it, Edith. You can’t imagine . . .” She didn’t finish the thought, but took her bag into Edith’s room and closed the door behind her.

  “Ollie, I’m going to call Mr. Grady and tell him that you will be down to pick up a bottle of wine for me.”

  “But Mom . . .”

  “You do as I say. Here’s five dollars. Be sure to bring me the change. Now get going.”

  Only Leon still sat vigil on the curb. He was whittling on a stick, but stood up when he saw Ollie come down the front steps of the house.

  “What’s she like?” he asked. “Can she perform magic tricks?”

  Ollie didn’t feel like talking to Leon, but there wasn’t much he could do to discourage him from walking with him to the store.

  “Does she really know your mother? How can you talk to her?”

  Ollie had always felt that his mother secretly blamed him for his father’s staying away so much of the time. He didn’t really know Vera, but already he wished she would stay on with them. Maybe then his mother would forgive him. Forgive him, he didn’t know what he had done, aside from the little things, and being born. He assumed that was it: his father hadn’t wanted to have a child, maybe they were too poor, and this meant that his mother couldn’t travel with him.

  “Yeah, they were friends before I was born, I guess.”

  “Does she always dress like that?”

  “Leon, I don’t know much myself. I just met her today. All I know is that she’s real nice to me and that she has two names. My mother calls her Vera.”

  Leon was even more fascinated now, how anyone could have two different names mystified him, as if she could turn into a leopard if she wanted.

  “Are you mad at me?” he asked Ollie.