City of Boys (19 page)

I wake later to the shrill panicky cry of an animal just outside the window, and my mother opens her eyes and stares at me.

—Honey? she says.

—It’s okay, I say. —It’s just the cats. They caught something.

—Theresa? she says. —What are you doing here? But she is asleep before I can answer. In the bars of moonlight that stretch across the bed, I see the muscles in her jaw relax, and the lines disappear. After her operation, some of the skin I am looking at right now will be gone, sliced off and dropped into a bucket somewhere. I wonder what she is dreaming about. I put my head down. In a few minutes everything is quiet again; the cats go back to prowling through the bushes, and the neighbors turn and mutter under their blankets.

In the morning my mother’s side of the bed is empty; her sheets are tucked neatly into the mattress, and except for the faint scent of her perfume on the pillow, it is as though
no one has been here at all. When I come into the kitchen, she turns from where she is standing by the stove.

—Oh, Theresa, she says, —I was sure you were a late sleeper, so I made coffee already.

David looks up from the paper. —What’s wrong with your cats? he asks. —They kept me awake all night.

—Nothing’s wrong with them, I say. —They like to prowl.

—Well, my mother says, —it’s only one more night. She opens a cabinet and gazes into it for longer than is merited by the few cans and boxes there. —You don’t seem to have much food, she says finally. —Is that why you’ve gotten so thin?

She scrutinizes my body, though she herself is tiny, with bones like a sparrow. She opens another cabinet. —All you have is condiments. What do you eat? Do you ever cook anything?

In fact, after Alan left I went right on preparing the kind of meals I had cooked for the two of us–out of habit, I suppose, but without anyone to share it the food looked distasteful, and somehow artificial, like plastic refrigerator magnets shaped to resemble cookies and orange slices. I saved the leftovers at first, piling it all into plastic containers in the icebox, then freezing it, until finally I just threw everything away, which is not something I want to tell my mother.

—I eat, I finally say. —I’ve just been exercising a lot. That’s probably why I’m thinner.

David puts his finger on a word in the article he’s reading and looks up. —What kind of exercise?

—Oh, I say, —I joined a health club. As I say this, I can see that it is exactly what I should have done, months ago. It is something I’ve always meant to do, and now I think of all the things I could do there if this were true.

—I swim. And run. And lift weights. My mother looks at my thin arms. —Light weights, I say. —It’s aerobic. I do aerobics, too. They have classes.

As I talk, the health club rises in a gleaming surge against the sky; it is full of beautiful men and women who don’t even bother to look at each other; instead they gaze lovingly down at their shining skin, and run their hands over their own fine muscles and bones. When my brother says it sounds nice, I nod.

—It is, I say. —I eat there, too. Sprouts. Raw juices.

—I’ve been meaning to get some exercise myself, he says. —Maybe we could go there today.

My mother nods. —That would be nice, she says, and I almost agree to take them, so real has the health club become, so essential to my well-being.

—We can’t, I finally say. —It’s closed right now. They’re fixing the pool.

My mother turns from the sink. —What’s wrong with it? she asks, and her interest seems so genuine that I feel ashamed for having provoked it.

—Oh, I tell her, —I don’t know. It was too small. It got dirty too fast.

They gaze at me, waiting for more. —Actually, I say, —it’s not a very good health club at all. It’s sort of run down, and the equipment is old. I’ve been thinking about maybe joining a different one.

With every word, the beautiful club begins to crumble: the chrome flakes to rust, the sparkling walls clot with mildew, and the foundation weakens and collapses; from the dust rises a wormy Y, and inside it all the men and women slow to a creep around a warped track, or splash heavily through the murky water of an ancient pool. My back stings from the dirty water, and I grow weary of the aging spotted men who follow me from rusty weight to rusty weight.

—Well, anyways, David says, —it’s good you’re getting some exercise. I really ought to lose some of this weight.

—Oh, honey, my mother says. —You look fine. It’s just a few pounds, she says to me. —Now that he’s eating better. David stares down at the paper, moving his hand up and down each column as he reads.

—Anyway, I say to my mother, —I do have food. Look.

I open the icebox to show her the food I bought for their visit, eggs and bacon, the food we grew up on.

—Don’t you have any oat bran? David asks. —Or cereal?

—No. Just eggs and bacon. American food. I close the icebox. —I could go to the store.

—That’s okay, he says quickly. —I like eggs and bacon. Barbara never let me eat anything like that. She was always giving me oat bran.

My mother rotates each of the rings on her fingers. —Well, it
is
better for you, she says abruptly, as if it pains her to agree with Barbara on even so simple a matter as food. She opens another cabinet, closes it, and sighs. —I suppose a few eggs won’t kill us, she says. She bends to find a pan in one of the cupboards under the stove.

—Mom, David says, —listen to this. He reads to her from the newspaper as she rinses and dries the pans she has pulled from the cupboard.

Outside on my neighbor’s lawn, a bird hops through the grass; somewhere my cats are crouched, watching it, too. When my mother has bacon frying and water boiling for soft-boiled eggs, she wipes the counter with a paper towel.

—Well, she says brightly, —what shall we do today?

This–what to do with them–was the bridge I figured I’d cross when I came to it, and now it is here. David looks up from the paper, and they both smile at me expectantly. After a moment my mother says helpfully, —We just want you to do your usual routine. We don’t want to be in the way.

—Oh, I say, —I don’t know. With the health club closed … I trail off and look out the window; I’m sure they take this opportunity to exchange a glance. —I guess I could go to the store. I
have
been meaning to get some food.

—Perfect, my mother says. —And we can get some cereal for breakfast tomorrow.

She drains the bacon on a paper towel and pats the grease from the top before she brings it to the table, then sits and watches David eat as he reads. When he reaches for his fourth piece, she clears her throat, and he looks up, surprised, his hand still hovering over the bacon.

—That’s your fourth, she says, and he stares at his hand as though someone else has put it there. He looks at me as he withdraws his hand.

—Cholesterol, he says. He gazes at the bacon a moment, then goes back to the paper. —Listen to this, he says, and begins reading from a story about the level of radioactivity found in the pets of people who live near nuclear reactors. He looks up at me. —Those people’s cats are radioactive, he says, and shakes his head. —Jesus. You can’t even trust your own pets anymore. He looks back at the article, then up again at us. —I wonder if they glow in the dark, so at least you’d know.

My mother nods and I look out the window. From here I can see a small spot of gray in the grass by David’s car; it could be a stone, perhaps, or a patch of dirt.

—I guess I’ll check up on them anyways, I say, but my mother pats the air for silence as David reads a letter to the advice columnist.

The gray spot by David’s car is a field mouse; it stares forlornly up at me with its tiny black eyes, its paws drawn stiffly to its mouth. I sit on the hood of David’s car and light a cigarette. Already the neighbors have clumped at their
windows to shake their heads over me, my cats, the careless and shameful way they seem to think we live. They must wonder whose car this is, speculating over it all day as they clean their houses and mow their lawns.

I toss my cigarette out into the street as David comes out of the house, carrying the newspaper. He looks dismayed to see me on his car.

—I thought you might want to keep this article, he says.

—About the cats. Just in case.

I take the paper from him. The article is accompanied by a picture of a woman gazing at a cat who sits hunched inside a little glass cage.

—So, David says, leaning carefully back against his car.

—This is a nice place.

—It’s okay, I say. —For now.

He wipes his hand across the hood of the car and looks at it for dirt, but his palm comes up clean.

—Hey, he says casually, as though this is just occurring to him, —why don’t you come with us? There’s plenty of room in the car.

I envision them traveling together across the country; they are always sitting someplace–in the deserted parking lots of Dairy Queens, the dark lounges of highway motels; even at the Grand Canyon they’re sitting, perched on little burros in the middle of a herd of tourists crawling down the rocks. I try to put myself into any one of these pictures, but I don’t fit, like something with too many corners.

—I don’t know, I say. —I don’t really want to go to the Grand Canyon.

—Well, you sure used to. I’m surprised you don’t remember.

—Why are you going now?

—I don’t know. It just seems like a good idea. He looks at the house, and around at the quiet neighborhood. —I don’t
see why I have to have a reason. He licks his finger and rubs at a spot on the hood of the car, but it’s a flaw in the paint, and doesn’t rub away.

—Really, he says, —you should come.

He looks at me hopefully, and I look out across the street. Curtains flutter in the windows of the houses that face us.

—I would, I say. —I really would, but I don’t think I can leave the cats that long.

He nods and eases himself away from the car. —Well, he says, —if you change your mind. He turns toward the house and stops. —Theresa, he says. —There’s a dead animal here.

—There is? I say. —Oh my God.

I jump down and stand next to him; together we stare down at the mouse. —Oh my God, I say again. —Alan’s cat must have done that.

David looks up and around at the yard, and at the same moment we spot a small chipmunk in the driveway, and near that some other little brown thing.

—Look, he says, —there’s more. Jesus. It’s like a battlefield.

—It’s not that bad, I say. —It’s Alan’s cat. I can’t stop it. David shakes his head as we go into the house. —You should at least pick them up, he says. —You shouldn’t just leave them there.

My mother looks up when we come into the kitchen.

—Mom, David says, —Theresa’s got dead things all over her yard.

She turns the water off, and I see that she is rewashing all of my coffee cups. —Dead things? she says.

—Mice, he says. —Chipmunks. Birds. You name it.

—Birds? she says, and I say, —They don’t kill birds. Just mice, really. Field mice.

Their eyes meet. —It’s Alan’s cat, I say. —I’m pretty sure it’s just Alan’s cat.

—Well, my mother says, drying her hands on a paper towel. —That’s easy enough to stop. Just have them declawed. Remember Fuzzy? Fuzzy was declawed and he never killed anything.

—Fluffy, David says, and my mother looks at him. —Her name was Fluffy, he says.

—Oh. Well, anyway. He was declawed and he never killed anything.

—She, David says. —And she never went out, so how could she kill anything?

—Well, my mother says. —Whatever. My point is, if you have them declawed, they won’t be able to kill things. And, she adds, looking around pointedly, —it’s better on your furniture.

—I don’t think, David says, —that if Fluffy
had
gone out, she would have killed anything. She wasn’t that kind of cat. My mother looks down at the paper towel in her hands and folds it neatly into quarters before she throws it away.

I hardly remember Fluffy except as a furry white blot at the end of the couch. —What kind of cat was she? I ask.

David goes to the window and looks around at the yard. —I don’t know, he says. —I don’t know what kind of cat she was. I don’t even like cats. Barbara was the one that liked cats. He puts his hands flat against the window and brings his face to the glass. —I hate cats, he says bitterly. —I’ve always hated cats.

My mother clears her throat. —Well, she says, —I just think you ought to consider it. Declawing, I mean. It’s perfectly harmless.

In fact, I did consider declawing when Alan first brought his cat here; it clawed everything–the furniture, the curtains,
the stereo speakers–and my cat, who had never clawed much of anything, took it up, too. When I asked the vet about it, he said, —Sure, then took my hand and pinched my finger just above the middle joint. —That’s where it would be on a cat, he said. —We just cut it right off. On the way home I could still feel the pressure of his fingers on my bone, and I wondered all day what it would be like to go around without any fingernails, without any fingertips.

—I’ll think about it, I say, but my mother is watching David draw circles in the dust of the window. He has drawn a large circle around his car and smaller circles around each dead animal he has spotted in the yard.

—Maybe we should go to the store now, she says, and when I offer to drive, David turns around with a look of horror. —Oh no, he says. —Let’s take the Toyota. You haven’t ridden in it yet.

We wait at the curb while David unlocks the doors for us, and my mother looks at all the houses lining my street; when she realizes that the dark lumps in the windows are people looking out at her, she is startled and pulls her purse to her chest. She steps delicately around the mouse to get into the car.

As we drive David points out the Toyota’s features.

—Feel that, he says, turning on the air conditioner. A tepid rush of stale air comes back to me, and he turns it down. —Well, he says, —it takes a minute to get cranked up. And look-he pulls down the sun visor on my mother’s side and flicks a tiny switch under the mirror, which turns on a light. My mother smiles and lifts her chin a bit as she looks up at her reflection, and when David flips the visor back, she brushes her fingertips lightly along the edge of her jaw.