"Do you want to have a picnic?"
"Maybe you could eat this and I could get McDonald"s," he suggests. "My aunt is a really good cook, but I eat it every day."
He hands me something that looks like an empanada-it"s filled with beef, onions, spices that are hard to name. Despite the fact that it"s at room temperature, it"s delicious.
"Okay," I say, "I"ll trade, but for what?"
"Double cheeseburger, large fries, and a shake?" Ricardo suggests.
"Cheeseburger, small fries, and no shake."
"Fine," he says, grudgingly.
We go to McDonald"s and then to a movie-it"s some kind of 3D kid thing-and after I get used to the gla.s.ses and my nausea pa.s.ses, it"s kind of great. Ricardo laughs so many times in his funny, strange way that he wins me over-pounding me on the arm when he likes something.
"I have to run a quick errand-do you like hardware stores?"
"I guess," the kid says.
The upstairs toilet needs a new handle. I find the part and then notice the kid poking around. From a couple of rows away I watch as he digs through bins of this and that, and then I see him digging through his pockets. At first I worry he"s shoplifting, but then realize he"s counting out change.
"How much have you got?" I ask, coming closer.
"Two dollars and sixty-seven cents."
"How much do you need?"
"Two dollars ninety-nine cents."
"Plus tax," I say. "What is it you want?"
Ricardo points to a green frog-shaped flashlight that makes a sound like ribbit-ribbit. I give him a dollar.
There among the nuts and bolts, a slightly older guy says to me, "Nice boy."
I smile. "He"s a good kid."
And then the man bends and pointedly asks Ricardo, "Where"s your other daddy?"
Ricardo looks confused.
"What are you doing?" I ask the guy, immediately protective of Ricardo.
"Sorry, I didn"t mean to offend, I just a.s.sumed you were from a two-daddy family; usually straight families get the white kids and they give the leftovers to the queers."
I pin the guy to a shelf. "You have no idea what you"re talking about; you don"t even have a clue." I"ve got a fiery knot in my gut, and what I really want to do is punch the guy in the nose. All my life I"ve never punched anyone in the nose, but now would be the perfect moment.
"My father"s dead," Ricardo says, frightened.
Realizing my behavior is actually freaking Ricardo out, I let go of the guy.
"c.o.c.ksucker," the guy says, shaking me off.
I flip him the bird-another thing I haven"t done in years. Disgusted, the guy walks away.
"What does that mean?" Ricardo asks, mimicking the gesture.
"Please don"t do that," I say quickly.
"You just did it," he says.
"I know, but I shouldn"t have. It"s the kind of thing that can get a fella in a lot of trouble." We go to the register, and while the clerk rings things up, I grab a couple of glow sticks from the bin at the counter, the kind you keep in your glove compartment for emergencies. I buy one for myself and one for the kid-spending nervous energy.
"So what does it really mean?" Ricardo asks as we"re leaving the store.
"What does what mean?"
"That thing I"m not supposed to do again."
"It just means a person is very frustrated...."
"I was hoping it was like sign language or like an ancient Indian gesture," Ricardo says.
When we"re outside, I snap the light sticks; they spring to life, glowing like alien sabers against the waning afternoon light.
"Cool," Ricardo says.
I hand him one. We pretend to duel-it"s fun. I haven"t played like that in...forever.
And later, when I drop him off at his aunt"s house, I say, "Hey, I"m sorry about what happened in the hardware store."
Ricardo shrugs. "It"s cool," he says. "You protected me." And then he gives me a kind of a hug, like how maybe he once saw a kid on a TV show hug a grown-up, or like something from Two and a Half Men that would be punctuated by a guffaw from the laugh track. "Let"s do it again soon," he says, exiting.
That evening, while looking for something, I find myself in the bas.e.m.e.nt. It"s like a multigenerational storehouse of stuff, skis, golf clubs, tennis racquets, sprinklers, old garden hoses, boxes of gla.s.s Mason jars, a good amount of which I suspect was left here by the previous owners and somehow memorialized by George and Jane as ephemera from another era.
I decide to get rid of it all.
Four hours later, with a dozen giant green plastic bags dragged to the curb and an overflowing blue recycle bin, I feel as though I"ve mucked out a stall. Someone had to do it.
Why did George have four sets of golf clubs? Why were there tennis racquets galore and skis so long, bindings and boots so old, all of it caked with a kind of crusty residue, perhaps toxic?
Finished and filled with a master"s sense of virtue, I microwave myself a late dinner and call Nate.
"How was Ricardo?" he asks.
"Good. I accidentally taught him to flip the bird."
"Accidentally?"
I explain, and Nate says, "Sounds like you"re off to a good start."
"In the long run I like to think it"s a minor offense." I pause. "I never know what to tell you or not-about your father."
"Yeah," Nate says, not exactly giving me a clue, "it"s hard to know."
"The place where he"s been is closing."
"What kind of a place is it?"
"Therapeutic," I say, for lack of a better word.
"Do you know what he used to do with me?" Nate asks. "He"d turn me upside down and swing me around. It was half fun, half terrifying; sometimes he would crash me into things, like a table, chairs, or a wall. I didn"t know if he just got so distracted or if he really had no idea, but it was a fine line. It might have been different if I was another kid-another kid might have liked it more."
"Or less," I say. "It sounds like you were a pretty good sport about it. Why take on what some other kids would have tolerated? It"s okay to say it scared you, or that you just hated it for whatever reason."
"I always thought he wanted me to be another kid, he thought I was a wuss." Nate pauses. "Are you eating while we"re talking?"
"Yeah, sorry, I"m starving; somehow I didn"t eat with Ricardo. I was setting an example about moderation, and then, when I got home, I went on a tear and cleaned out the whole bas.e.m.e.nt. There was so much s.h.i.t down there."
Nate gets very quiet. Worse than quiet-serious. "Like what?"
"Skis, tennis racquets, boxes of old gla.s.s jars..."
"My award-winning science experiment on remaking antibiotics from home-grown sources such as ginger, horseradish, mustard, and nasturtiums?"
"I don"t think so," I say, worriedly remembering that some of the jars did in fact have dirt and something growing inside-I thought it was simply mold.... "It was just a lot of junk, your dad"s old golf clubs."
"And my clubs?" Nate asks.
"Which ones are yours?" I quiz, likely sounding as nervous as I am.
"Mine were in a wheely plaid bag, and I have a second set as well with blue knit toppers."
"You know what," I say, stumbling, knowing full well they"re in a bag at the curb, "I"ll take a look, I"ll double-check on that, just to be sure."
"d.a.m.n it," Nate says, "can"t you leave anything alone? Do you have to put your mark on everything? It"s not your stuff. It"s my house-that"s where I live.... Are you going to make it so I don"t have a home, so there"s no place left to go?"
"Nate," I venture, trying to repair what"s been done. "Nate..."
"No. I have been so f.u.c.king calm, so G.o.dd.a.m.ned decent through this whole thing-I think I gave you the wrong impression. You f.u.c.ked my mother, my father killed my mother, and now you"re in charge of me? I am not going down this road-I am not going to be another one of you. I will not let you drag me down." And he hangs up.
I am taken aback-not only is he right, but it"s surprising that this moment hasn"t come sooner. I run down to the curb and reclaim his golf clubs along with any other equipment that looks reasonably current, and "reinstall" the goods in the bas.e.m.e.nt in what I hope is a user-friendly sort of way.
A couple of hours later, Nate sends me an e-mail.
"Apologies-one of the guys gave me some of his medication telling me it would help me concentrate and I think I had a bad reaction. P.S. My school may call you about the broken desk but I can a.s.sure you that was really an accident-it had been in precarious condition from the year before when Billy b.u.t.thead landed on it during an attempt to fly."
I write back: "No worries, your point well taken. Your clubs and all else-safe and sound."
Tuesday morning, just after eight, the phone rings.
"There"s someplace I need you to go with me," Cheryl says.
"What happened to "hi, h.e.l.lo, how are you"?"
"Is that necessary?" she says. "I"m trying to ask you for a favor."
"It"s customary," I say. "It"s the way most things begin. Where is it you"d like to go?"
"Is that important? Isn"t it enough just that I"m asking you to go?"
I wait.
"A club," she says.
"What about your husband, can"t you get him to take you?"
"I can"t even get him to go to a movie. So-will you go?"
"What is it?"
"Like-minded people?" she suggests.
"A political group?"
"Not exactly, more like a social gathering."
"When is it?"
"Tonight."
"This evening?"
"Like you"re so busy? It"s eight to eleven-I figure to go around nine."
"Does it have a name?"
She sighs. "It"s a friends-and-neighbors party. Do you want me to pick you up?"
"I"ll meet you there. Have you got an address?"
"It"s at the laser-tag place called Night Vision, in the mini-mall...."
"The one with the CVS?"
"That"s the one. Can we meet in the parking lot?"
"Sure," I say. "What"s the dress code?"