A Ship Made of Paper

[18]

Morning.Warm dusty light pours through the uncurtained windows.

Daniel has kicked the covers offhis bed, and though he has slept only four hours, he is awake.His penis is hard, in a slightly disconcerting and even irritating counterpoint to his otherwise grim state ofmind.Re-lax, you idiot.He stares at the ceiling, with its chicken-skin paint job, and thinks about the money he lost last night.His mind is pierced by the pic-adors ofsudden money anxieties.He has made the mistake oftotaling up the money he would have made had he stayed in NewYork at his old firm.

He is minus about three hundred grand from that lovely decision.Two years now, he has been living in the half-life ofhis former affluence, but some time ago, without his admitting it to himself, his savings were de-pleted, the clothes he had bought when he was flush had begun looking like old clothes, his hair has forgotten what it is like to be cut by a master, and he no longer has that cheerful, ironic, healthy animal sheen ofa young man with more money than he needs.He has never computed how much money he had been saving by living with Kate.Even coming up with about halfofthe monthly mortgage payments—and lately he has come to suspect that the sum she requested was less than half, that she was float-ing him to an extent—he was exempt from phone, electric, and heating bills;and groceries, which he usually paid for in full, used to cost in a month less than he was now spending in restaurants in a week.

Courting Iris has cost a king’s ransom.Before he secured this little $1,400per month tract house—he knows he is being robbed—he was spending hundreds ofdollars per week on hotels, motels, and inns.He has spent $3,800he can’t afford on a pair ofdiamond earrings Iris can’t wear.(Sometimes, she puts them on when she comes to see him, but mostly she forgets them, and last time when he asked why she wasn’t wearing them she said that diamonds make her think ofapartheid, which struck him as unfair and aggressive.) He spends money on having her sidewalk shoveled and her lawn mowed when he is unable to take care of it himself.He brings bags ofgroceries into her house when the coast is clear, and leaves them on the porch when members ofHampton’s or Iris’s family are on hand, and he has never collected a penny in reim-bursement.He has brought her car into the shop for a new transmission and simply paid the bill.He bought her a purple-and-blackAmish quilt that was hanging in the window ofan antique store in town because when they walked by it one day she slowed down and looked at it.He forces himself to stop thinking ofthe tabs he has picked up, the munifi-cence that has been his second nature.He is not regretting it, not a ges-ture, not a penny.Receiving these things never failed to delight Iris, who, as it turns out, is becoming very careful with her money;Hampton’s cof-fers are rather full and his disability insurance is not only coming up with biweekly checks that approach what he was making before the accident but is also paying out for those occasional medical expenses his health in-surers manage to duck.Nevertheless, Iris’s frugality seems to be grow-ing.She patrols her house, turning offlamps.Daniel has watched with amazement as she scratched a single postage stamp offa letter because the post office failed to cancel it and she thought it could be used again.

Ifanything is left over on her dinner plate, even at the humblest restau-rant, she will ask the waiter to have it wrapped—a halfofa baked po-tato, thirty peas, a chicken wing.One ofthe reasons Daniel often asks her to wear those diamond earrings is sometimes he suspects she has soldthem.

Money money money.

Daniel’s phone rings and he lunges for the receiver.It’s only seventhirty.He has not had time to settle on a plausible narrative why some-one would call him this early, and there is a moment ofpure fear before he hears Kate’s voice, which for some reason settles his nerves.

“I’m not waking you, am I?”she says.This is a continuation ofan old relationship myth—because he sleeps less than Kate, she acts like he needs no sleep at all.

“What’s up?”he asks.He struggles to sit up in bed;as soon as he stirs, the shifting ofhis blood recalls the feel ofher kiss five hours ago.

“Ruby is freaking out here.She’s just desperate for you to take her toschool.”

“Really?”

“Can you manage it? It would mean the world to her.”

He suspects there is something less than the absolute truth in what Kate is saying.Ruby may have said she would like Daniel to bring her to day care, but it was most likely a matter ofKate asking her,Would you like Daniel to bring you to school today?and Ruby saying okay.After all, months have passed since Daniel moved out ofthe house and not once in that time has Ruby requested his chauffeuring services.It seems more than coincidence that Ruby would suddenly ask for him on a morning when Kate is in particular need ofa few hours more sleep, and after a night when she had kissed him.And Kate’s willingness to turn Ruby over to him is also a little suspect—she has been consistently grudging in allowing him to spend time with the little girl who was practically his stepdaughter.When permission is granted it is always qualified with the warning that he better not be taking her to Iris’s house, and that Iris and even Nelson not be included in whatever little plan might be in the offing.Nevertheless, Daniel is not about to turn down a chance to spend time with Ruby and he says he will be over to pick her up in twenty minutes.

He arrives, in fact, in less time than that.Although he comes here regularly to pick Ruby up for their sad little dates, and, in fact, was just here a few hours ago dropping offKate and Lorraine, he is taken some-what by surprise by the loveliness and tranquility ofthe house and its acres.The rosebushes, after two reluctant summers, seem to have found their confidence and now are in full red-and-white flower.The lawn is a particularly luxurious dark green.The shutters have been painted at last; concrete urns ablaze with geraniums sit on the porch.Has the place ever looked so relaxing?A nasty little stab ofenvy.He lives in a crummy rented house.Iris’s house, though certainly adequate, is also rented.Of the three ofthem, Kate is the one with roots—and how strange, since it seems to him she is the one with the least reason to be inWindsor County.Kate has left the door open, which he takes to mean that the alarm system has been deactivated and he is to simply let himself in, but he knocks and waits for her nevertheless.She comes to the door and her eyes peer out skeptically beneath furrowed brows, she seems to be im-plying he is being deliberately difficult by not waltzing right in.

“Is she ready?”Daniel asks.Ruby hears his voice and races in from the kitchen, in practically maniacal high spirits.He hasn’t seen her in a cou-ple ofweeks and the first thing he notices is she has gotten a little chubby.In fact, she has gone from stocky to rather fat.Noticing this makes him feel petty and ungenerous, and he picks her up and holds her tightly, as ifto make it up to her.“My God,”he says, without meaning to, “you’re getting so big!”

“It’s nice ofyou to do this,”Kate says.She looks surprisingly fresh and composed, considering she usually requires nine or ten hours ofsleep and is operating on four at the most.

“I’m so glad to have the chance.Is Lorraine still around?”He doesn’t even know why he’s asked, he’s simply lofting the ball back to Kate’s side ofthe net.

“She fled the countryside for the safety ofthe city.I looked out the window at six o’clock and there was a taxi in the driveway, and then I saw her running for it.I guess she was trying to make the six-twenty.”

She rakes her fingers through Ruby’s hair, untangling it, but keeps her eyes fixed on Daniel.

He gets Ruby out ofthere as quickly as decently possible—he cannot shake the idea that Kate has engineered this whole thing as a way offur-ther implicating him in the life ofhis old family, and since he cannot fathom that there is the slightest possibility ofhis being drawn back into the old domesticities, it seems more humane to be briefand even a lit-tle remote.He makes only minimal eye contact with Kate as she hands him Ruby’s insulated snack bag, made ofbright scarlet fabric with aVel-cro flap.Yet when he has Ruby strapped into the child seat in the back of his car—he has kept the clunky gray-and-beige thing there despite his changed circumstances—he feels an unexpected swoon ofloneliness and nostalgia.Buckling the straps ofthe seat recalls those mornings that now seem a lifetime ago when he began every day with Ruby, and the plea-sures ofthose drives to My LittleWooden Shoe, when her sweet physi-cal presence filled the car, and her little piping voice was like birdsong, and for ten minutes he could see the world through her unjaded eyes, ten minutes when the trees were goblins, the crows were looking directly at her, the sky was a zoo, and the grammar school a shining city on the hill.

“How’s everything going back there?”he asks.He reaches back to pat her but misjudges her position and touches nothing but air.

“Fine,”she says.She catches his fingers and squeezes them affectionately.

Oh I wish, I wish, I wish,he thinks, though he could not say for certain what he wishes for.To be back with Kate? He does not believe that is the case.To have Ruby somehow belong to him? It’s out ofthe question.Yet there is something he longs for, something he has lost, and then, in a lit-tle flare ofself-knowledge he knows what it is.The privilege ofhis own comfort.He has lost his easy life.He has lost Kate’s house, her conver-sation, her soft, beautiful hair—he can barely believe he is thinking this, but then:there it is.He has lost Ruby, he has lost sleep, he has lost his energy, he has lost his sense ofhumor, he has lost his sight in one eye, he has lost ifnot his mind then at the very least his untroubled mind.And he has given it all away for something that seems to be slipping through his fingers.

When they are close to My LittleWooden Shoe, the familiar feeling ofanticipation comes back to him, a pure and wild animal eagerness.Iris could very well be pulling into the parking lot at this very moment.It’s fifteen minutes past eight o’clock.He knows she has a nine o’clock sem-inar at the college.The nurse who helps look after Hampton on the morning shift sometimes brings Nelson to day care, but Iris tries to do it herselfwhenever possible, and now, beneath a low, soft, blue-and-gray early summer sky, Daniel speeds the last mile ofthe way.

Her car is there, its doors dappled with mud.Hurriedly, Daniel takes Ruby out ofthe car seat and carries her across the parking lot, the peb-bles crunching eagerly beneath his feet.

Before he and Ruby reach the door, Iris comes out in what appears to be a great rush.She is wearing a maroon skirt and jacket, black high-heeled shoes.She looks hurried but hopeless.Nelson is beside her, try-ing to keep pace.Then Iris sees Daniel, with Ruby in his arms.Daniel’s first thought is that Iris will somehow misconstrue this, will think that he has spent the night at Kate’s house, or is in some aspect ofreconciliation.

But Iris, in fact, does not seem to be speculating about anything.

“Mrs.Davis just called the school,”she says, moving right past Daniel.“She has to leave in fifteen minutes and there’s no one home to look after Hampton.”

“Oh no,”Daniel says, following after her.“What happened to Mrs.Davis?”

“What difference does it make? I have to get home.He’s sleeping, he won’t be up until noon, at the earliest.But he can’t be in an emptyhouse.”

Daniel places Ruby on the ground and she and Nelson begin talking, smiling, and gesturing, like old friends in their mid-forties.

“You’re all dressed up,”Daniel says.“Are you supposed to be somewhere?”

“Yes.”She gestures helplessly, a mixture oftemper and surrender.

“I’ve got a meeting with my advisor.I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Fucking Mrs.Davis!”She doesn’t bother to lower her voice.“And now this one…”She waves in Nelson’s direction.“He’s insisting on coming home, too.May as well.No sense putting him in day care ifI’m going to be stuck in the house no matter what.”She reaches toward Nelson, pulls him close to her, caresses his face, his head.For a moment he luxuriates in his mother’s love, but then, suddenly, he squirms away from her.

“I thought all those people were there,”Daniel says.

”They’re gone, they left early this morning.Who can stand it?”

“I can look after him.He’s sleeping.He won’t know.I’ll just bethere.”

“You can’t do that,”Iris says.

”How long do you need?”

“An hour and a half, two at the most.No, I can’t.It’s too strange.”

“It’s okay.Don’t forget.”He smiles.“I have almost no career.All I have to do is make a couple ofcalls, I can do that from your house.”He is about to say,It’s the least I can do,but he stops himself.Iris is looking at him intently;it takes him a moment to realize why:she is trying to de-cide under what rules ofconduct it would be permissible to have Daniel looking after Hampton, even ifit’s only ninety minutes, even ifHamp-ton will never know, even ifthere are the emergency phone numbers Scotch-taped onto the wall next to every phone in the house, even ifthis will never ever happen again.

“You’re not going to see him, you know,”she says.“Not unless you go upstairs and watch him sleep.And, Daniel, I don’t want you to do that.

I forbid you, I really do, I forbid you to do that.”

“I won’t.I wouldn’t.I’m trying to help you here, Iris.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Okay, then?”he says.

”Okay.”

“Good, then that’s it.”He is wringing his hands, trying not to touch her.

”I really appreciate it.You don’t have to do anything, all you have to do is be there.”

“You better hurry.”

“Thank you.”She is surprised how formal this sounds.She clears her throat.“I really appreciate it.”

“I’m glad to help.I’ll bring Ruby, okay?”As soon as he says it, he wishes he hadn’t, but he doesn’t want to complicate matters by taking it back.Besides, Ruby will take care ofNelson, which Daniel cannot really manage.And Kate will never know.

I love you,Iris mouths.

He presses his hand to his heart, as ifhe has been stabbed.

”Ruby?”he says.“Would you like to go to Nelson’s for the first part ofthe morning?”

Iris doesn’t have time to drive back to her house, she doesn’t even have time to transfer Nelson’s car seat to Daniel’s car, and she certainly has no time to jolly Nelson out ofhis annoyance that he is not going to be spending the morning with his mother after all.Daniel makes his way to Juniper Street with the kids in his backseat, Ruby snugly strapped in, while Nelson, as ifto announce his policy oftotal noncooperation with Daniel, refuses to keep his seat belt on.Each time Daniel glances into the rearview mirror, he sees Nelson glowering at him, and before long the boy’s antipathy becomes so wounding and, frankly, so irritating that Daniel feels it might be an appropriate act ofdiscipline to slam his foot on the brake and send the boy pitching forward.

Mrs.Davis, a thin, tired-looking fifty-year-old black woman, is waiting nervously by the front door.She is so fretful that she doesn’t even in-quire as to why Daniel is coming there to look after Hampton, though she has never seen Daniel before.Perhaps his being with Nelson proves his legitimacy.She gives Daniel no instructions, nor does she offer any explanations or apologies.In fact, all she says is a quick hello to Nelson, and“Now I’m really late”to Daniel, and then she puts a tan ski jacket over her uniform, though it is at least seventy degrees outside.

“Mrs.Davis!”Daniel calls out, when she is nearly out the door.“Wait!”

She turns toward him with a practiced, opaque expression, unapproachable.“Yes,”she says in a tone that says no.

He doesn’t know exactly what to say, but he is suddenly afraid to be in charge.“Is there anything I need to know here?”

“When’s Mrs.Welles coming home?”Mrs.Davis asks.

”In about an hour and a half.”

“That man ain’t going nowhere in the next ninety minutes,”she says, moving past Daniel and out onto the porch.An old FordTaurus is at the curb, with an immense kid ofabout eighteen at the wheel, wearing a sleeveless shirt.The car rattles as it idles, inky exhaust pours out ofthe tailpipe.Daniel stands on the porch and watches Mrs.Davis hurry to-ward the waiting car—had it been there all along?The driver starts to get out but she waves him back in;she goes to the passenger side and lets herselfin, and a moment later theTaurus pulls away with an unmuf-fledroar.

Daniel goes back into the house and as soon as he is inside he can tell by the quality ofthe silence that the children are no longer there.He goes to the kitchen and looks into the backyard.An olive-green tent has been pitched between two hemlocks;Nelson is standing next to the flap while Ruby crawls in, and then he crawls in himself.Daniel wonders for a moment whether he ought to go out and show the flag ofadult super-vision, but then he thinks it would be pointless.

He wanders through the house, looking for a spot where he can unobtrusively sit while the time passes.What had seemed at first like a fa-vor he was capable ofdoing for Iris seems now perilous, foolish, and strange.The entire success ofthe gesture hinges on Hampton staying asleep, and though Daniel is still enough ofan optimist to believe that Hampton will not awaken before Iris’s return, now that he is in the house—with its signs ofsuffering everywhere, a cane in the corner, a table filled with amber medicine bottles, brightly colored plastic baskets filled with laundry, piles ofblankets for the frequent house guests, the loving family who come when they can to share the burden ofHampton’s affliction—now that he is breathing the Lysol-tinged heat ofthis airless, sunny room, Daniel realizes not only that he is perched on the precipice ofdisaster but that he has been on this increasingly exhausting edge for months now.

He sits on the sofa facing the empty fireplace.Next to it is a large wicker basket filled with mail.Idly, Daniel looks in and sees that it is all for Hampton.Daniel scoops his hand into the pile, lets them fall;it’s like a write-in campaign, an appeal to the governor for neurological clemency.Free the Hampton One, let him come back to renew his sub-scriptions, make his donations, place his order, balance his checking ac-counts, look after his investments, go to Bermuda.

Scarecrow comes waddling down the stairs, roused from her spot next to Hampton’s bed.She seems to have aged years in the past six months.Her rump is massive now, her gait slow and uncertain, her brown eye is alert, but her blue eye, once keen and electric, is now milky and opaque.She moves toward Daniel, lowers her snout, and pushes the top ofher head against his legs.He strokes her silky ears, and she emits a deep, mellow groan ofpleasure.

“Oh, Scarecrow, Scarecrow, what in the world are we going to do?”

Daniel says, in that plaintive murmur people sink into when they are opening their heart to an animal.The old shepherd raises her snout, looks up and her tongue unfurls from her mouth, lands on Daniel’s chin, and then sweeps up over his lips.“What are we going to do, Scarecrow? What’s going to happen to us? It’s pretty messed up, isn’t it, Scarecrow? How did everything get to be so broken?”

Daniel slumps back in the chair, continues to pet the dog.He closes his eyes and is about to sink into sleep when he is startled and revived by the sound offootsteps directly overhead.Hampton is awake, awake and moving.His first impulse is to hide;he stands up and his legs tremble for want offlight, his good eye looks for the quickest way out ofthe room.

He tries to calm himself by thinking that perhaps it is someone other than Hampton upstairs, or even ifit is Hampton, then he may not be coming down—he is going to get a drink ofwater, or take a leak, or maybe he has heard the children in the backyard and he is going to a win-dow to gaze out at them.But no:this is merely a story Daniel is telling himself, a little explanatory fable that will allow him to believe that the worst is not about to happen.

Now the footsteps are on the stairs, coming down, and Daniel has not run, he has not hidden.He sits down.He will seem less threatening, less intrusive, seated.He crosses his legs, left to right, then right to left, and then leaves them uncrossed, the knees slightly parted, his clammy hands folded between them.He ransacks his mind for something to say, an ex-planation for why he is here, an apology, a bit ofsmall talk, and then he remembers what should have been impossible to forget—Hampton cannot understand a word, not spoken or written, and all Hampton him-selfcan say is that single stunned syllable:da.Da Da Da.

How strange, then, to finally see him, this strong, beautiful man whose throat was pierced by a rocket, this ruined prince who has lost everything.He is dressed in copper-colored pajamas, with white piping around the pockets and down the leg.The top buttons ofhis shirt are open, the scar just below theAdam’s apple looks like a wad ofchewed-up gum, and someone has spread talcum powder on his throat all the way down to the chest.He is freshly shaved but his eyeglasses have been snapped in two and then repaired with tape á la Ferguson Richmond.It seems unthinkable that Hampton would be wearing broken glasses, it is, for the moment, the saddest thing in the world.Sadder than his slack mouth, the corner ofwhich is yanked down and to the side, sadder than his dull, unblinking eyes, sadder than the cologne Mrs.Davis has splashed on him, and sadder, even, than the fact that he is wearing his wristwatch, with its lizard-skin band and nineteen jewels, its expensive Swiss ner-voussystem, its mini-clocks at the bottom giving the time in London and Tokyo.

“Hello, Hampton,”Daniel says.He knows he cannot be understood, yet he can’t simply stand there and say nothing.And even ifthe words are gibberish to Hampton, even ifto his bombed-out brain the sounds Daniel makes are no more decipherable than the chattering ofa monkey, perhaps the context will do, the logic ofthe moment, the gesturing hand, the smiling mouth, the deferential little bow.

“Da,”Hampton whispers.He shuffles forward a step.He hasn’t noticed that Scarecrow is underfoot now and on his second step he catches the dog’s paw beneath his foot.She lets out a high, piercing yelp.Hamp-ton is startled.His eyes widen, his mouth opens—his expressions are guileless and large.His personality, no longer projected through the scrim oflanguage, has now an intolerable purity.He looks down at the dog and smiles.At first it seems to Daniel that there is some cruelty here, but then Hampton pats the dog’s head with a wooden herky-jerky move-ment, and Daniel realizes that the smile was one ofrecognition:Scare-crow’s cry has made more sense to Hampton than Daniel’s hello.

When he has comforted Scarecrow, made his amends, Hampton straightens up again, looks at Daniel, taking him in in a long, silent gaze.

Daniel feels he must somehow communicate, but the only sign language he can think ofis gestures ofsupplication.He folds his hands, low-ers his head, and sorrowfully shakes his head.Yet even this does not seem enough—what could be? He wants Hampton to be restored.Short of that, he wants to be forgiven, he wants Hampton to give that to him, to lift him offthe hook and set him free, to place an exonerating hand on Daniel’s shoulder and admit to the idea—submit to it, ifthat’s what it takes—that what happened in those woods was a fluke and had nothing to do with Daniel and Iris.Daniel will not allow himself to beg for mercy, he will not try to urge Hampton to see that the two ofthem are simply men who have been caught in the Rube Goldberg machinery oflife.

Then, for no particular reason, he has a fleeting thought:Ruby.How long have those two been out there?A halfhour? More?

But the thought evaporates because Hampton is crying.He is drumming his long fingers against his head—shaved by Mrs.Davis, nicked here and there, the cuts left to dry in the air—and he is shaking his head, more vociferously than a simple no, he is shaking it to clear it, to dispel some merciless, obliterating beast that lives within, eating his words.

Tears as thick as glycerine streak down his cheeks, and his mouth is twisted into a scowl ofgrief.Daniel’s heart, in a convulsion ofempathy, leaps, as ifto its own annihilation.

Inside Nelson’s tent, the sunlight, filtered through the nylon, is pale green.The unmoving air smells ofdirt, candy, and child.Nelson and Ruby sit on two beige bath towels that serve as the floor in Nelson’s hide-away.Between them is a Styrofoam cooler that Nelson uses as a recepta-cle for his playhouse provisions.The lid is offand he is showing Ruby his treasures one by one, some ofthem his, some ofthem appropriated.A bottle ofElmer’s glue, a manicure set in a leather case, a half-eaten PowerBar, an eyecup, a flashlight, several batteries, loose kitchen matches, a hand puppet ofsome kind ofAmerican Indian princess, a block ofbaking chocolate, and a gun, given to Hampton by his own father for the safety ofthe house, stored and then halfforgotten in the drawer ofhis night table, on hand in case a robber should enter the house, or some vicious white kids looking for a little racial adventure, a gun sneaked out ofthe house by Nelson several days ago, which has gone unmissed, a pistol that has seen its better days, the front sight chipped, the blacking on the trigger guard and the barrel peeling off, but with an aroma Nelson finds entrancing, narcotic, a mixture ofold steel and oil.

He picks it up, careful to keep the barrel pointed toward the ground, and bends his head ceremonially over it, breathes in the blunt, manly bou-quet, and then he lays the pistol in both his hands and holds it out there for Ruby to take her turn.

Hampton walks across the room and sits on the sofa Daniel has occupied.He covers his face with his hands, his feet move up and down as ifhe were walking.There is room on the sofa, but Daniel cannot sit there.Instead, he kneels in front ofHampton.Hampton uncovers his face, and tentatively, as ifhe and Daniel were creatures, different species, he offers his hand.And Daniel, upon taking it, and feeling the cool weight ofit, the simple skin and bone ofit, realizes in a grievous instant what he has at once known and prevented himself from knowing all along, the knowledge he has carried in his belly and denied:they are all ofthem ruined, Iris, Hampton, and himself, ruined.

“Oh, Hampton,”Daniel says.

Hampton looks away, a sheen ofdullness shrink-wrapped onto his eyes.“Da, da,”he says, barely audibly.

“I’m sorry,”Daniel says, knowing it cannot be understood.But maybe God is listening.“I’m so sorry.”

“Da.”

“Do you want anything? Something to drink or eat?Anything.Is there anything I can do?”

“Da.”Hampton turns further on the sofa, twisting his body, almost looking behind himself now.The fabric stretches between the buttons of his copper pajamas.His feet continue to pump up and down, his legs waggle, he is squirming like a child desperate to relieve himself.

The children have a gun.The gun is loaded.The safety is disengaged.

And when the gun fires the sound is so far removed from Daniel’s ex-pectations and so divorced from his experience oflife that at first he barely reacts to it.A truck’s backfire, a sonic boom.But Hampton re-sponds immediately.He leaps offthe sofa, runs across the living room to-ward the kitchen and the back door, and Daniel, awakened to reality by Hampton’s response, follows, and now he knows that what he has heard is a gunshot.

Hampton and then Scarecrow and then Daniel race across the backyard.Daniel is shouting now;he can’t really understand what has hap-pened.In the few seconds it takes to get from the back porch to the tent, Daniel has two thoughts.Only one shot was fired, is the first thought, and let it be Ruby who is unhurt, is the second.

Hampton, in his rush, has lost his slippers.Daniel, who must wait for Hampton to crawl in before he himself can enter the tent, shouts out Ruby’s name, but there is no answer, and then he calls for Nelson and is likewise met with silence.

Finally, Hampton is in the tent and Daniel follows, and the children are there, Ruby a frieze offear, Nelson cool, a blank, but it’s clear in his slightly narrowed eyes and the stubborn, impervious set ofhis mouth that he is ready to deny everything.The bullet has gone through the side ofthe tent about a foot above Ruby’s head, and a brilliant, slow-turning rod oflight shines through the hole.Daniel stares at it for a moment as ifit were the presence ofGod.

The tent is too small for the adults to stand up.Daniel rises into a simian stoop and gathers Ruby into his arms.The feel ofher, the com-fort ofher heft, causes him to straighten, and the pressure ofhis head against the top ofthe tent unfastens it from its pegs.The center pole wobbles and a moment later the entire tent deflates, tips over.

“You’re wrecking it!”Nelson screams.

”Where’s the gun, Nelson?”Daniel says.His voice is calm, gentle.The children are alive, unhurt, the anger is gone.Life is so precious, time is so short, we’re all in it together…

“You’re wrecking the tent!”Nelson continues to shout.

”Da da da,”Hampton says, sobbing, the tears coursing down his stricken face.He places his hands on Nelson’s shoulders, pulls him close.

”Da,”he cries.And then, lifting his face, he shouts it out again, toward heaven.

“Where’s the gun, Ruby?”Daniel murmurs into her ear, and she points to the Styrofoam cooler, which is now partly concealed by the collapsed tent.Daniel places her on the ground—her frightened little hands grip his trousers—and he pulls the green nylon offthe cooler’s lid, opens it up, and there, on top ofNelson’s heap oftreasures, lies the pistol.

“Okay, please, everybody stand away,”Daniel says, retrieving the gun.

But Hampton cannot understand what Daniel is asking, and Nelson is staying with his father, and Ruby adheres to Daniel.He picks the gun up, careful to keep his hand as far as possible from the trigger, pointing the barrel straight down at the ground.He backs away, moving as ifafraid the gun might spontaneously fire again.Hampton, Nelson, Scarecrow, and Ruby follow him, and now he stands in the middle ofthe backyard, holding the gun and trying to resist the impulse to heave it into the trees.

And now he is pounding his heel into the ground, digging out a hole so that he might bury the gun, but after a few moments the madness ofthis is apparent and he stops.

Hampton presses his hands on Nelson’s shoulders, instructing him to stay exactly where he is, and then he walks over to Daniel and reaches for the gun.“Da,”he says softly, in a somehow reassuring way.Daniel, at a loss, anxious to be rid ofthe gun, relinquishes his awkward possession ofthe pistol, and then steps back, gathers Ruby in.What did I just do?he wonders, as he imagines Hampton firing the gun.But Hampton puts the safety lock on, and then flicks the magazine catch, which is right behind the trigger guard, and then slides the magazine case open at the base of the grip and empties out three cartridges.He puts the cartridges into the pocket ofhis pajama bottoms and hands the empty gun to Daniel.

They walk toward the house, just as Iris is coming through the back door and stepping out onto the porch.Her initial frown ofbewilderment is quickly supplanted by alarm.To see her lover, her husband, two children, and a gun is more than can be understood, but it can surely be evaluated.

“Daniel, Jesus Christ, what is going on here?”

“Da da da,”Hampton says, excited to see her.

”Did you know there’s a gun in your house?”Daniel says.

”Da da da…”

“Tell me what’s happening?”

The terror ofthe gunshot is just catching up to Daniel, like those near misses on the highway that take a minute or two to rattle us, to make hands shake and hearts race.“Did you know there’s a fucking gun in your house?”he says, his voice rising.“Did you know that?”

“Yes.Sort of.It’s not something I think about.”

“Da da…”

“It’s not something you think about?Well, your son does.Your

son…”His voice curdles around the word.He hears it himself, won-ders for a moment at the ugliness with which he has infused it, and then he sees Iris’s suddenly steely gaze.Fuck it.Yet even the phrase, and the way it stiff-arms his feelings, the way it pushes him out oflove and into the emptiness and foreverness ofhis own solitude cannot stop the anger that is enveloping him like a trance, and when Nelson walks past him, Daniel is astonished by his own sudden desire to throttle the boy.

“Da da da da da da.”

“What is he doing down here?”Iris asks.

”He got up, he came down.What was I supposed to do?”

“Oh Jesus,”says Iris, while making a series ofcomforting gestures toward Hampton.Easy now, it’s okay, I’m here, easy, easy…Nelson is next to her now, pressing his forehead into her stomach.She staggers back a step, touches him, holds him.

“What in the fuck are you people doing with a gun in your house?”

Daniel says.

“You people?”Iris asks.“I don’t believe what I’m hearing.”

“You know what I’m saying, don’t try to turn this into somethingelse.”

“Well,wepeopledon’t always feel safe when we’re living in a house surrounded byyou people.”

“Da! Da!”

“All right, Iris.”He feels tugging at his shirt and looks down at Ruby.

Her face is flush, her eyes immense and glittering.

“Why is he saying that, Daniel?”

“It’s okay, honey.We’re going to leave now.”

“But why is he saying that over and over?”

“He’s not feeling well, baby.”

“He’s not feeling well?”Iris says.

”All right,”says Daniel.“You supply the answer.Your kid just fired a bullet two inches over her head, so I’m sure this would be the right time to fill her in on all the neurological details.”

Daniel lifts Ruby offthe ground.“Sorry,”he says.“There’s something about a kid getting a bullet in the head that puts me a little on edge.”

“I didn’t do it,”Nelson whimpers, looking imploringly up at Iris.

“Shh,”she says, soothing his forehead.Then, to Daniel,“No one was hurt.The only person hurt around here is Hampton.”

“Thanks to me.”

“Okay, ifthat’s how you want it.”

Hampton, walking now toward the porch, toward his family, bumps into Daniel, and Daniel, with a vivid surge oftemper, grabs the gun out ofHampton’s hand.He doesn’t know what he will do with it—he thinks again ofsimply heaving it—but he is certain that it must no longer be in Hampton’s possession, nor with any ofthem.He will take it to the river.

Or to the police.Yes, the police…

The police the police…He thinks it over and over, incorporating the unfamiliar idea into his little corner ofconsciousness.And then he turns and sees the police have indeed arrived—Derek Pabst and Jeff Crane.They enter Hampton and Iris’s backyard, exuding confidence and implacability with every long stride.Their service revolvers are still hol-stered.They hold their caps in their hands, like country folk calling on neighbors.

“Da da da da…”

Crane, boyish at forty, with neatly combed reddish hair and a prim, self-righteous mouth, sees that Daniel is holding a gun.Hampton and Iris stand together on the porch.

“You want to place that weapon on the ground, Dan,”Crane says.

Daniel does as he is told, immediately.

”We got a call about someone doing some shooting around here,”

Derek says.

“My fault,”Daniel says, knowing he must, knowing any other answer will cause more trouble than his taking the blame.

Crane picks up the pistol, checks to see ifthere are any cartridges.

Daniel watches him, wonders ifCrane knows how far his daughter, Mercy, has gone to escape his world.

“Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da…”

“What the hell is he saying?”Crane asks.

“He’s all right,”Derek says.“Don’t worry about that.”Then, to Daniel:“Whose gun is this?”

“Mine.”

“Yours?”Derek tucks his chin in, shakes his head.“Why’d you fire it?”

“Derek, come on.Obviously it was an accident.”

“That’s a hell ofan accident, man.”

“Was anyone hurt? Did it hit anything?”

“Scared the hell out ofat least two people.Enough to call.”Daniel sees it playing out.Derek does not believe him, he knows Daniel hasn’t brought a concealed weapon to this house, but he’s going to let it pass.

“Is this weapon registered in your name?”Crane asks.

”Yes, it is.”

“Mind ifwe take a look?”

“I don’t have it with me,”Daniel says.He turns away from Crane, directs his request to Derek.“How about I bring in the paperwork a little later on?”

Derek looks at Iris, Hampton, and Nelson on the porch, and the three ofthem are silent, their faces blank, their gazes slightly averted, as his eyes carefully move over them.Satisfied, Derek turns back toward Daniel and, indicating Ruby, he says,“You’re carrying pretty precious cargo there, buddy.”

“I know, Derek.I know.”

“It would be a hell ofa thing.”

“I know.”

“Kate know you’re here?”

“No.”

Derek nods, his lower lip slightly extended.After a silence that seems to go on and on, he asks,“You all right?”

“Me?”asks Daniel.

”Yeah.”

“I’m fine, Derek.Just a stupid mistake.”

Derek gestures to Crane, time to leave.Crane hands the pistol back to Daniel.

“You okay?”Derek asks Ruby.

”I’m fine,”she says.“It was stupid.”

While they are talking, Iris, Hampton, and Nelson go inside their house.Daniel doesn’t notice until he hears the door close behind them.

He only wants to go home, but he drives to his office instead.He can no longer afford to pay SheilaAlvarez’s salary—nor can he bear her occa-sional disdain—and he has cut her hours to two halfdays a week.When he lets himself into the office he is surprised to see her there.She is at her desk, behind a pile ofwhat looks like at least a hundred files.

“What are you doing here, Sheila?”

“I’ve been going through the files.There’s a lot ofpeople who owe you money, did you know that?”

He shakes his head no.

She looks at him and then she, too, shakes her head.“You poor thing,”

she says.“Just look at you.”She swivels her chair, puts her back to him, and resumes entering numbers on a calculator.“Your parents were here about twenty minutes ago,”she says.“They dropped an envelope on your desk.”

He goes into his office.He and Iris cleared offhis desk last time they made love here, and now the only things that are on it are his telephone and the envelope left by Carl and Julia.He opens it.

Dear Dan,

You’re going to think we’ve gone senile, but we’ve decided not to change our wills, after all.The Raptor Center can do without us, and we’re going to keep things the way they were.

Much love,

Mother and Dad He stares at the words on the page until they blur and swim away.So the birds won’t be getting his parents’money after all.He buries his face in his hands.Was this why he’d come all this way? Had he just been given what he had been seeking all along, this small, glancing caress?

He is exhausted, he feels unequal to the task ofhis life.He is not put together for such difficulties.

Three hours later, at two in the afternoon, Daniel is in his house, drinking a warm beer, staring out his small living room window at what he can see ofthe white oak in front, he is crouched deep down into the cellar ofhimself, waiting for the storm to pass.He does his best to speak kindly and rationally to himself, but he is inconsolable.He thinks ofthe tone ofIris’s voice as she spoke to him from her porch, the distance, the contempt.As soon as there was anger she spoke to him as ifhe were, first and foremost, a white man.What happened to love bringing history to its knees? How could all those old adversities be having their way?

He weeps.Stops.Drinks.Belches.Stares.Weeps.Weeps.Tries to talk himself down, as ifhis life were a drug, a bad, a terrible, a most power-ful and devastating drug that he must survive while it works its way through his system.

He has lost everything, and there is nothing he can say to himself that can change that.

Kate will never trust him with Ruby again.

Recoil.Try to think ofsomething else.

Hampton.No.Not now.Something else.

Monkey mind swings from branch to branch.

A perfect, pulverizing memory offalling down those stairs.

My God, there is no safe thought, nothing in his mind that is not lethal.

Ruby’s hands.Kate’s kiss.

Those boys in their masks.

That rocket’s fire in the deep wooded night.

And then, most terribly ofall, wherever the monkey swings there is Iris.Her shoes.The smell ofher scalp, her breath.The ten thousand de-tails ofher life fill the tree and then fly off, a terrifying flutter ofwings.

Cut the tree down, pull out the roots, and a river takes its place.And in that river she is there.Her hands, the taste ofher, her hair, her darkness, her car, her keys, what she might say next.

The phone is on his lap, but it does not ring, nor can he dial it.He cannot hear her voice, not that voice from the porch.If that’s how you want it.

Hours pass.Darkness bleeds across the floor, he pushes his chair back, afraid to have it touch him.

Then, atlast, the phone rings, but he does not answer.It chirps in his lap, the machine comes on, he hears his own terrible voice, and then a dial tone.Night fills the room like floodwater.He lifts his feet, tucks them beneath him.

At eight o’clock, Iris arrives.He first sees her headlights flare against his windows, then he hears her footsteps.She lets herselfin with-outknocking.

“Daniel?”she says softly, into the darkness.

He clears his throat, afraid ofhis own voice.“Right here,”he says.

She fumbles for a lamp, turns it on, the bulb dull, quite helpless against the night.She is wearing a redT-shirt, baggy shorts, sandals.She is holding a clear blue plastic container offood.

“What are you doing?”she asks.

He can tell by her face what he must look like.There’s nothing to do about that now.

“Thinking.”

She sighs.She understands what that means.

”That was so terrible, Daniel.I’m sorry.”

“You’resorry? Oh my God, Iris.I don’t even know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say.Look.”She holds the plastic container higher.

“I made some rice and beans.Are you hungry?”

“I don’t know.”

She takes his hand, pulls him out ofhis chair, and leads him to the relative neutrality ofthe kitchen.She seats him at the table, opens the con-tainer, and then finds a fork in the silverware drawer.She sits across from him, gestures for him to eat.

“I put a little extra hot sauce in it,”she says.“The way you like it.”

He tastes it.Its hotness feels cleansing.

”And hardly any salt,”she says.“I’ve noticed you never salt your food.”

He takes another bite.He hasn’t eaten since yesterday.He sees her glancing quickly at her watch.

“You have to leave?”he asks.

”No.Well, actually, soon.”She gets up, carries her chair next to his, and sits again.She runs her fingers through his hair.

“Who’s home?”he asks.

”I’ve got somebody new, a really sweet Jamaican lady named Sandra.”

She crosses her fingers.“Want to see something?”She stands, lifts her T-shirt, exposing her belly.“Look how fat I’m getting.”

“I don’t see it.You look the same.”

“Are you kidding? Look!”She grabs an inch ofskin, shakes it.“I might be pregnant.”

Daniel struggles to keep his expression detached.But he thinksif

only.He takes another mouthful ofher food.

“That would be all we need, wouldn’t it?”says Iris.

”Do you really think you might be?”

“I don’t know.I sure feel bloated.Who knows? Maybe we can be one ofthose couples who think they can solve the world’s problems by cre-ating a new race, or a non-race, or whatever.”

“That might be a good idea.”

She smiles, shakes her head.“I actually have to go.I told Sandra I’d be right back.”

“How’s Hampton? Nelson?”

“Let’s not even talk about them.Can you do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I have to leave, honey.I’m sorry.”

“Thanks for the food.”

“You were starved.”

“It’s good.Soul food.”

“Not really.There’s no ham hocks or any ofthat old-timey crap.”

“It’s still soul food.”

Iris kisses his forehead, strokes his hair again.

”Do you still love me?”

“Yes,”Daniel says.

”This is so hard.”

“I know.”

“Don’t you sometimes wish…?”

He reaches for her.“No,”he says.“It’s too late for that.There’s no turning back.”