Gould (20 page)

She took a dance class one night a week and once he peeked into the teacher's dance studio to watch. It was dark, not even a moon, Brons was sleeping in the car, slight smell of fall: decomposing leaves, smoke from a nearby fireplace, crisp air. She was in a leotard and tights, hair pinned up, thin face radiant, lively eyes, forehead wet and sweat dripping down her neck, barefoot. She danced so well, terrific leaps, bounds, twirls, strides, whatever the steps and things dancers do are called, it seemed she had the perfect body for it, even the neck was right, hair, long thin fingers and arms, legs looking more solid in the tights, square shoulders with a little knob on top apiece, her hard rear, small waist, the chest. She should have been a dancer, he thought. In the car, for he'd come to pick her up, he said “You should've been a dancer,” and she said “Were you playing voyeur before? Themis hates when people look in,” and he said “No, just that you look and move like one, so graceful, athletic. And the way you're still even breathing hard, which shows what you must have put into it, and you seem to love it so much,” and she said “You really think so, you're not just saying? Because I've been thinking the same thing, but no ‘I should've.' Even if I'm past twenty-five I thought there's still time. Not to be a lead dancer or anything like that. I'd be happy simply to be in the corps or maybe a little past it—a small ensemble role, you know the kind: all six together doing the same steps—of a good company. If I got into the San Francisco Conservatory would you move with me there if it became too difficult to commute?” and he said “Sure, I like that city and always wanted to live in it,” but that was the last he heard of it from her and he never spoke of it again. But something about her looks and outfit, sweaty serious expression, yellow leotard and black tights, bare feet, hair up, hands on her hips and one leg sort of pointing out as she listened to the teacher, hand on one hip as she stretched on the barre in front of the long wall mirror, everyone applauding her, it seemed, after she did one piece of dancing where she raced across the room several times and made lots of big leaps, head bent down afterward modestly acknowledging the applause, that made him feel he was never so much in love with her as at that one time. Looking through the window, no light on him and hidden on both sides by bushes, he thought if he were a stranger looking in now he'd love to get to know that woman. She's beautiful, serious, unpretentious, seemingly intelligent, talented and with one of the supplest most agile little bodies he's ever seen. She said in the car “You're a real dearie for saying things I occasionally need to hear, but meaning them, not just to please,” and pulled him into a dreamy kiss. “The kid,” he said, thumbing to the back and she said “Another real dearie, still fast asleep.” They drove home holding hands most of the way, he steering with his left and only when the car was lurching back and forth or about to stall, taking his other hand from hers to shift gears with the floor stick.

He was once very high, thought he was going crazy, was seeing and hearing eerie things he couldn't make out, then he was a bug with his head clamped between another bug's legs, next he was in a dark cell, his arms and legs chained to the wall, rats crawling through the ceiling grate and chewing his shoes off and then biting his toes, she talked to him, said what he thinks he's experiencing really doesn't exist, he was home, in the living room, on Euclid Avenue, right next to the Presbyterian church, the choir's practicing right now but you don't seem to hear, Brons is sleeping in his own room and please don't wake him with your groans and yells, walked him around the house for an hour, fed him coffee and aspirins and a couple of tranquilizers and then called a friend who drove over with a combination of stronger pills that would bring him down and make him sleep, she got him into bed and held him, saying things like “It's okay, nothing to worry about, only a bad trip that's ending, last time for that, right?—we're off that junk for good because it can happen to anybody no matter how stable and placid you've been till then. I'm here for you always, my baby, and tomorrow you'll be up and at ‘em and bouncing around as usual. Now shut your eyes, it's all going away from the medicine you took or will soon. Rest, rest,” and rubbed his forehead and stroked his eyelids and put her head on his chest and they slept like that till late morning, Brons awaking much earlier and looking in, he said, and seeing them asleep and knowing it was Sunday from the church bells tolling, got his own breakfast and then played outside with his Tonka steam shovel and trucks.

He couldn't stand her smoking and she was constantly giving it up. He once dumped her last packs into the trash can outside when she asked him to and she ran out a few hours later to retrieve them and smoke from one. She smoked before she went to bed, sometimes in bed while he was reading, first thing when she woke up, in restaurants over their food, in the car with the windows up, on their walks and the one camping trip they all took, spoiling the fresh air, on the beach when she'd ask him to help her light one because of the wind. He told her that his mother, when he was a boy, always seemed surrounded by cigarette smoke. “Two packs a day, sometimes three, and these extra long ones—Pall Malls; the smell in the house was execrable; even my father, who smoked a lousy cigar at night, complained of it and her breath, though his smoke I didn't seem to mind that much and for some reason quickly dissipated. To kiss her I felt I had to wave a wall of smoke away just to see her face. She kidded me about it but I hated the stench and I don't know how many times I got burned by her or one of her cigarettes left around. It kept me—I'm sure of this—from getting closer to her even emotionally and I didn't even want to use a towel she'd used, because of the cigarette smell on it, or get too near the clothes she had on.” She laughed and said “So it at least stopped you from having a too-comfortable relationship with her and becoming a mama's boy or from even marrying your mother—a good thing, I'd think,” and he said “The truth is—and of course what you say about my mother and me is absurd—that I could never marry a woman who smokes,” and she said “Why in hell would you ever think I'd marry you, if you were referring to me?” “So I should cross that possibility off my list, is that it? But if it doesn't remain one then I don't see how I can hang around here that much longer. I eventually want to get married to someone, have my own kid, maybe a second,” and she said “Yes, for certain, cross it off with me. I've had my child. To me one's more than enough, to have and to handle. I want to do things, not just bring up babies. You want to have one, two, as many as you want—many bedrooms filled with them; I don't want many bedrooms; two's fine and a third for guests—do it with someone else or several women. You could still live here while you're off inseminating, I wouldn't mind, unless you took one of these reproducers too seriously and I wasn't getting my time's worth from you and began to look like a fool. And when the baby's reached a certain age, long past being toilet trained in both departments and a good clean eater. What I'm saying is no big messes on the floor and in its pants and broken bowls. When it gets into kindergarten or first grade, really, so is out of the house a minimum of six hours a weekday, it can come live with us, if its mother doesn't mind, and permanently if she wants to give it up to its dad. I think I'd like a second child that way, and by that time, but only with your assistance and financial support, and because Brons should pretty well be on his own by then, there wouldn't be that much work to do for it, so it'd be something I could manage while doing all my other things,” and he said “But your smoking, and I'm being serious here—you don't think you could do something about it? At least cut it way down and try to keep it out of my food and hair and the room we sleep in?” and she said “Giving it up entirely or cutting back on it is something I'd only do for myself. And after all my starts at it and quick stops, it's obvious I'm not ready yet. I suppose I can keep it out of the bedroom and blow it away from your plate, but that's probably as far as I can control it for now.”

Soon after she awakes she says “Goodness, I just remembered, I have a lunch date with an old girlfriend. Do you want to join us or do you think I can leave Brons with you here?” and he says “What do you prefer? It seems like you want to go alone, which is understandable,” and she says “No difference. You certainly won't embarrass me and I feel confident, short a time as I know you, that you won't jump the first gorgeous friend I introduce you to, and even if you did—well, that'd save me a whole lot of aggravation later on,” and he says “Actually, my shoulder hurts, from last night, I think, so I'd like to stay put today,” and she says “Then I can leave Brons with you? You won't doze off and let him run into the street?” and she tells him what Brons might like for lunch, “though he can be a fussy eater and there's no guarantee he'll open his mouth,” that he still takes naps once or twice a week, “so if you're lucky, this may be the day,” gives him books to read to Brons if he gets too wild or bored, “or really anytime, he loves them,” and goes and he asks Brons what he wants to do while his mother's gone, “play alone awhile, maybe?” and Brons says “Play,” and he says “But alone, by yourself, here, in your room, what? Because if you do then I have things to do myself,” and Brons says “Play,” and he says “Okay, I know, but where, I'm saying, and with whom? Yourself, alone, with me, here or some other place, outside or in? You have to understand, Brons, I'm not familiar  .     I don't know how to take care of kids     I haven't done it before, though you'll be safe with me, that you also have to understand, but I really don't even know how to talk to them     kids, I mean, little boys and girls like you. So once again, what do you want to do? Because if you just want to stay in your room alone, or here, and play by yourself awhile—” and Brons goes into his room and Gould says “Okay, fine, but I'll be here, and if you need any help in the bathroom, call me,” and gets his typewriter out and Brons comes back with a box of blocks and empties it at Gould's feet and they start building things, later draw with crayons, dress several stuffed animals, go outside and he pushes Brons around in the bed of his big dump truck, puts him into his high chair and the food in front of him on the chair tray and Brons stares at it and he says “Want me to feed you? Your mom said you might and she even instructed me how. Showed me how to do it. With a spoon, only a spoon, you're too young yet for a serrated knife and pronged fork. Well, all forks have prongs—that's the pointy part—and I'm only kidding  .   .  just the spoon, and a special one, I see, with Daisy Duck on the handle. Where'd you get it? Because you look like a Donald fan, but that's sexist  .   .  you know what that means. Nice applesauce, so open, open wide. Do I sound like a dentist about to extract a tooth rather than a surrogate mother wanting to shove food in?” and Brons laughs and Gould says “For my own information, because maybe it's something I can use with you later on, but what was it particularly that made you laugh?” and Brons just looks at him deadpan and he says “Why did you laugh?—you know, ha-ha, ha-ha,” and makes a face as if he's laughing and Brons laughs and he says “But why, before?” and Brons says something that sounds like “I dunno,” and sticks his spoon into the bowl and bringing it to his mouth half the applesauce on it goes to the floor and Gould takes the spoon and feeds him the applesauce and a mashed-up hard-boiled egg mixed with mayonnaise and later he says “So, that was easy; my motto should be ‘Yuck it up, feed the pup,' right?     no?” and Brons starts raising the chair tray and Gould helps him out and down and they walk to the market a few blocks away, get pastries and bread and lettuce for tonight and a juice for Brons now and after Brons drinks it Gould says “Listen, first thing before we head home, and maybe I shouldn't have given you that juice till we got there, but do you have to make caca or pee pee or whatever you call them? Because I remember seeing a boys' room in the market,” and Brons points to his pants and says “Wet,” and he says “Oh great     okay, but we'll deal with that later  .     I guess you'll just take your underpants off and put on another pair of whatever you wear. Why didn't your mother warn me about this, or why didn't I ask her?” and Brons says something again that sounds like “I dunno,” and then something accompanied by motions that seems to mean he can't walk home, too tired, and Gould says “I'm afraid you have to. I've a bad shoulder—this part—and it hurts like the dickens, very bad, very bad. I think I broke it. Break, like you break a stick—smack!” and demonstrates with his fists, “and I can't carry you, okay?” and Brons looks as if he's about to cry and he says “You really can't walk home?” and Brons says no and he gets on one knee and moves him onto his good shoulder sidesaddle and carefully stands so as to put all the pressure on that shoulder and carries him this way, every half block or so getting on the same knee and letting Brons off and saying “Can you walk now? All rested?” and Brons saying no and looking as if he's about to cry, so Gould continuing to carry him. At home Brons says “Ead,” and he says “Eat?” and Brons shakes his head and says “Ead, ead,” and he says “What?” and Brons takes his hand and leads him to the pile of books Evangeline left and Gould says “Oh, so which one do you want me to?     wait, your pants, you said you were wet,” and Brons says “No I am,” and he says “Excuse me, but do you mind?” and sticks his hand down the back of Brons's shorts—cloth diapers—doesn't want to put his hand inside but the outside of them feel dry and he says “You think you should go to the potty now?” and Brons shakes his head and he says “You know, to pee pee, or even caca; just so you don't do it in your pants,” and Brons says “Ead,” and they sit on the couch and he reads to him and explains each illustration and during it Brons gets on his lap and then holds Gould's hand and he thinks it's such a small hand, those fingernails, it's like a little dog's paw and puts it against his and says “See how much bigger mine is? I'm not boasting, but some day—” and Brons says “Ead, ead,” and he finishes the book and starts another and Brons almost falls off his lap reaching for the first book and puts it in front of Gould and says “Again.” Evangeline comes home while he's still reading and he says “This kid's such a sweetheart, I can't tell you, he couldn't have been better,” and she says “I'm glad you two got along,” and he says “More than that and I'm not saying it to impress you. Ask him. Just one thing though; he didn't urinate once since you left. Not in his,” and points behind Brons to his shorts, “or in the WC, though I didn't walk him there. I hate to be a worrywart but I was wondering if it could be some kind of urological problem,” and she says “It's okay, I like it that you're worrying. But he's probably done it by now, or if you felt in his pants you just didn't dig deep enough. I'll change him,” and when she comes back he says “Truly, I never knew a kid that age could be so charming,” and she says “A lot can, some are even more advanced than that, but I'm glad it's him,” and he's not sure what she means but doesn't ask her to explain: she might think him dense.