We All Sleep in the Same Room (8 page)

December

1

“Y
ou get in trouble and I'll save you,” Ben says, wielding a plastic Superman figure.

I hold a plastic Dora the Explorer figure.

“How about you think of this next one?” I say.

Raina kissed us each goodbye some time ago, and Ben and I have been playing for the last hour.

“No, you,” my son says. His arms flap with agitation.

“How about we do one more mission?”

“Okay, go!”

He scampers across the room, crouches behind the armchair, and cries, “Call me when you need me.”

Ben hops up and down behind the chair, eager to execute another mission. We call each rescue a mission. There is no fluidity to our game, just a series of missions—a hairy situation for Dora and a near instantaneous fly-in rescue from Superman. My son has no use for any kind of foreplay, no need for suspense or context, so missions are completed as quickly as I can think them up. My job is to keep getting Dora in trouble. So far I have had Dora attacked by all kinds of prey, suffer every type of natural disaster, need food, need medicine, lose track of her friend, lose track of her parents, get nearly crushed by train and truck, and even just get scared and want a hug. Superman has been there for her every time.

“Do you know what one more means?” I ask him, holding up my index finger.

“Yes,” he nods. “C'mon, just do it, Daddy.” He retreats lower behind his alcove to watch for my signal.

“Alright, then. I'm just going to climb up this mountain.” I say in my Dora voice, walking the figure up to the top of the couch. “Uh-oh, it's pretty windy up here. Oh no, here comes a giant gust!”

I puff my cheeks out and then blow on Dora. Ben starts giggling. I do it again, bigger. Then again. It's hard to resist such an appreciative audience. I swell my cheeks until I'm laughing too. One more prodigious draft, and— “Help! Superman! Help! I'm faaaaaaalliiiing!”

Ben charges across the room, hurrying toward the back of the couch where I'm lowering Dora downward in slow motion. Superman's outstretched arms catch her just before she hits the floor.

“Thank you for saving me, Superman.”

“You're welcome, Dora,” Ben says, and in the same breath, “Daddy, let's do one more.”

“Time to clean up,” I say.

“But I don't want to clean up.” Tears are already there.

“It's okay.” I say. “No reason to be sad. More Dora and Superman later, they need to rest. Let's look at the movie page.” I place Dora in the toy bucket, but Ben holds onto Superman. “Do you need to rest?”

“No,” he whines. “What's the movie page?”

I pluck the Arts section of the
Times
off the table and take a seat on the couch. “Come look,” I say.

Ben climbs into my lap. A four-piece rock band poses on the front page. I've never heard of them before. “Musicians,” I say. “There's a keyboardist, and a drummer, and a guitar player, and another guitar player, or I guess a bass player.”

“I like guitar,” Ben says pointing to the front man. “I want to play guitar.” He does a strumming motion on his belly.

“Pretty good. Maybe you'll be a guitar player someday.”

I flip the paper over to find the Index.

“I like that,” Ben says. He points his finger at a close-up photograph of four smiling Rockettes in the kick line, performing their Christmas spectacular. The women clad in sequined leotards and Statue-of-Liberty tiaras are captured at the height of one of their magnificently high kicks. “I like that, Daddy.”

“Good,” I say. “Those are dancers.” It says they do over 1,500 kicks a day. I steal a sideways peek at my son: upturned nose, long eyelashes, silky brown hair, dressed in a spotless, newly laundered, blue and green striped polo shirt and tan corduroys. He beams, momentarily intoxicated, at the sight of long, smooth legs. Superheroes, guitars, and girls.

* * *

Hand in hand, we
enter the movie theatre at Lincoln Center to see a 10:45
a.m.
showing of
The Polar Express
. I've never been in a movie theatre this early.

“Take the escalator to the fourth floor,” says the woman behind the box-office window.

“Escabata!” Ben screams.

The young woman puts her hand to her mouth and laughs.

“You heard that, Ben? Three of ‘em.” I say.

“I love escabatas.”

“You have an adorable son,” she says.

I lift Ben, who's still clutching Superman, onto the counter to give the woman a better look.

* * *

We take seats behind
a well-dressed, platinum blond mother of three. Her two boys and girl are dressed in identical red sweaters. Triplets maybe. The previews begin, and I listen to the triplets gripe with one another while circulating two bags of gummy, sugary snacks among themselves.

During the opening credits, I demonstrate how to put on the 3D glasses the usher handed us on our way in. Ben shakes his head.

“I don't want to wear those,” he protests.

I motion for him to whisper.

“It's okay,” I say, soothingly as I can. “It's not scary. It just makes the movie look different.”

He's not having it. I look around at the other kids wearing their glasses.

On screen, the nameless young boy, unable to sleep on Christmas Eve, is delivering a monologue in which he doubts Santa's existence by reviewing certain facts: no one lives in the North Pole. And even if someone did, one person couldn't possibly deliver all those presents unless they were traveling at light speed.

“But Ben,” I say, “it will help you see the movie.”

Ben reaches for my face to pull off my glasses. “I don't want you to wear them, Daddy.”

“Alright,” I concede, “I won't wear them.”

Without the glasses the picture stays clear for certain stagnant moments but shortly goes maddeningly fuzzy every time there's movement. When The Polar Express comes roaring through the back yard, rattling the entire house, everything—the boy's hair, the bed-sheets, the curtains, the walls—all double, then triple and quadruple in successive blurry layers. It's like being extremely drunk. Only not as fun.

Ben stares bravely forward at the screen, dipping his hand into our bag of popcorn like the seasoned movie-goer he's fast becoming. The movie boy gets on the train and finds a golden ticket in his pajamas. The conductor provides hot chocolate. The children sing a song. I slip on the glasses. The steam rising from the mugs has impressive depth.

However long the moviemakers want to draw out the original scenes, something different is going to have to happen to fill out a full-length movie. And then it does, when the boy, in a gesture of kindness, sets out to return a young girl's ticket but drops it when crossing cars. The ticket takes an astonishing journey through the woods, under hoofs, inside beaks, and back, as a perilous chase ensues between boy and ticket atop the train's roof. The sound of the wind and the chugging wheels moves from side to side to side to side as if the train were traveling in a circle around the theatre. Mid-chase, a crazed hobo appears.

“I'm the king of the North Pole,” the hobo says.

“Isn't Santa the king?” the boy asks.

“Do you believe in Santa?”

“I want to but I don't want to be tricked.”

“Seeing is believing.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?” asks the hobo.

“No,” says the boy.

“Interesting,” says the hobo and disappears.

The triplets in front of us get restless. “Where's Santa?” they beseech their mom. This sentiment continues to grow through the theatre. Other kids ask their accompanying adults.

I take off my glasses and look at Ben who stares intently upon the unfocused screen. There's almost no chance he's following the film. I'm surprised it doesn't make him nauseous.

I kiss him on the cheek and whisper, “Do you like the movie?”

He shrugs.

“Do you want to try the glasses?”

He shakes his head.

“Do you understand what's happening?”

“Where's Santa?” he asks.

“He's coming,” I say. “They haven't reached the North Pole yet.”

“Cause why?”

“It takes a long time.”

The movie boy and the girl sing a ballad in the caboose. The song is about faith. The actors on screen appear neither real nor animated. They're something in-between. As the duet crescendos, the northern lights emerge in spectacular fashion. From the audience, a young voice calls, “Where's Rudolph?” Another high-pitched voice asks, “Where's Frosty?”

“Shhh,” says the nanny.

And all of a sudden, I can't take it any longer. I start to laugh. It's that spontaneous, uncontrollable laughter. I'm on the verge of a rare fit of hysterics.

“Daddy, what's funny?”

I'm sitting in a giant hi-tech theatre with eight pre-kindergarteners at eleven in the morning.

“C'mon, Daddy, what's funny?”

Ben looks adorable. I signal for him to hold his thought while I attempt to catch my breath.

But then, incited by the example of the first curious and impatient child, the other children follow suit. There's a host of
Where's Santa?
's. Then again the same child asks,
Where's Rudolph?
Where's Frosty?
Each question is answered with a barrage of shushes.
Where's the Grinch? Where's Elmo?
they want to know. The triplets lead the charge. Like me, fighting harder now to stifle my amusement, they're really beginning to enjoy themselves. Their mother isn't.

“Where's Mrs. Claus?” one of the boy triplets shouts.

“Where are my underpants?” says his brother.

All the children erupt with laughter. Anarchy is triumphing. In an attempt to smother the revolution, the triplets' mother unleashes a volley of fiercely whispered threats. I can see that Ben is very stimulated by this disruption and his father's laughter.

To my surprise, Ben lets one fly.

“Where are my underpants?” he says, copying the intonation of the older boy.

I laugh even harder. I can't stop myself now, my son is so endearing. Luckily, the chuckles of the children largely muffle my own, but Ben still hears me. He looks at me, somewhat puzzled, for he's still not exactly sure what is so funny. Nor am I really. But then, as if understanding something, if only that a good time is to be had, Ben flashes a sly and cheerful smile and begins to laugh along with me. He stands up on his seat, leans over, and whispers into my ear, “underpants.”

His eyes are wet with tears. Mine are too. We're both shocked at the sight of the enraged mother when she whips around in her seat looking like an extraterrestrial in her 3D glasses. She says sharply to me, “Can you please control your child?!”

I manage a nod.

I turn to Ben and ask him, “Do you want to go?”

“Okay!” he says.

As we shuffle to the exit, I look up and watch the movie boy being lectured by the conductor, whose voice and message is the same as the hobo. “Seeing is believing,” the conductor says. The triplets are throwing candy at one another. “Sometimes,” the conductor says, “The most real things in the world are the things you can't see.”

Ben wears a big grin when he ambles up to the one kids' urinal in the movie theatre's bathroom. I help him to unbutton his corduroys and pull down his underwear. As he pees, he continues to grin.

“That was a funny movie, Daddy.”

* * *

Surfacing, son in tow,
from the Union Square station. I direct us north, compelled to extend our morning's outing and delay our inevitable return. For most of December's daylight hours, skateboarding and radical politics give way to Christmas shopping.

At the pet shop, automated snowmen made of Christmas lights sweep brooms and wave at intervals. We pass a sushi restaurant with a running waterfall splashing down in the entryway and an electronics shop displaying miniature models of old cars. When a customer exits, a tinny, robotic rendition of “Deck the Halls” leaks out. We pass an organic soap and bodywash shop with a large cutout of a wholesome model who, with gift in lap, looks up gratefully at her unpictured benefactor. We pass a sporting goods shop with mannequin-skiers and snowboarders—knees bent in their respective mid-slope poses—clad in sleek, futuristic outerwear and dark glasses as well as Christmas wreaths. We stop and look in on a storefront, set back from the street, situated behind fluted columns, where red and pink candles held by a crystal chandelier glow against a reflective backdrop of silver linens and jagged stalactites, below which, an upright bear wearing ice skates makes a continuous figure eight.

A posh-looking home-furniture store exhibits a green marble tub with brass faucets, a stainless-steel oven with six gas-top burners, and a granite countertop below mounted cherrywood cabinets. It strikes me as the type of store I've never bothered to see the inside of, but would like now to peruse.

“We can look,” I say to Ben as we step up to the entrance, “but you have to hold my hand.”

To the right of the door a quote in spare white lettering reads: “The details are not details. They make the product.”

The door swings open with the sound of wind chimes and reveals a vast rectangular floor divided into a maze of numerous, interlocking rooms or, more precisely, displays of rooms. Nothing by way of four conjoined walls literally divides one room from the next but the borders are clear because each space is uniquely furnished and thus self-contained. Together we navigate, crossing first through a dining room with a long table stained to a deep finish set sparsely for four, and then through another such room with a curved table of purple glass set for two with champagne glasses. Next to the table is a hulking, abstract metallic sculpture. Stenciled onto one of the floor's many columns: “An interesting plainness is the most difficult and precious thing to achieve.”