Aberration of Starlight

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Your gramps can really play croquet! A champ! He just beat me without half-trying.

I think you’re pretty good, Mr. Thebus. You give Gramp a good game.

Ha! And I keep asking you to call me Tom. What’s the matter? You don’t like me? Mister Thebus! I’m not a schoolteacher. Do I look like a schoolteacher?

Mom told me I should call you Mr. Thebus.

What about your gramps?

What?

What did he say you should—? Nothing. But your mommy doesn’t call me Mr. Thebus … she calls me Tom just like you should too.

Mom’s different. I mean that’s different. I’m a kid and I’m supposed to show grown-ups respect. Mom says.

Billy, if you call me Tom you’ll show me all the respect I want. I’ll have a talk with your mother about it so you won’t get in dutch. How’s that? O.K.?

O.K. That’s swell.

How’s that slingshot coming along?

Neat! I can almost always hit a bottle and cans from about, oh, a pretty long way, twenty feet. Mom says I can’t take it back to the city.

And she is absolutely right. That’s a dangerous thing.

I wouldn’t shoot it at anybody.

But supposed you missed and hit somebody anyway? Or a window? It wouldn’t matter if you didn’t want to hit anybody. Your mommy’s got the right idea … do you realize how lucky you are to have a mommy like her?

I always just call her Mom. Just Mom. You know.

Well. You’re a very fortunate and lucky young fella. Believe me. I hardly knew my mother, she died when I was younger than you. How old are you?

Ten and a half, about. But I could maybe shoot it in the backyard in Warren’s house who’s a friend of mine in the city around the corner.

Yes. I was about nine I think… there’s an old saying that you never realize what a mother is until she’s gone. That is very true. Believe me. God couldn’t be everywhere, that’s why He made mothers.

Or down at the pier where the kids go crabbing maybe? You can’t hit people there. Mom don’t allow me to go there because she says the crabs have disease and you can fall in. A kid got killed there last year when he fell in down between the pier and a barge. He got squashed.

As usual, I have to agree with your mother. We see eye to eye on a lot of things.

Is she a good dancer? Mom?

Dancer? Your mommy? Mom?

She said you might go dancing with her. At the WigWam? They have a real band there, you know that?

Oh. Oh, we just talked about it — maybe, maybe. Almost like a joke. I haven’t danced in years and years.

I hate it.

Well, when you get older you’ll see it’s a good thing. A young man … it’s a thing you ought to know. You escort a young lady out …it’s a gentleman thing. My Tommy always said he hated it too. Another wise guy — like you! Put ‘em up! Come on! I’ll knock you for a loop! Think you’re tough!

Hey! You’re too big!

Aha! That’s what they all say! All the tough guys! All the wisenheimers! Hey! Ouch! Not so hard, Dempsey.

I don’t really not like dancing. I mean if you go with Mom dancing at the WigWam it’s O.K. I mean if you like to. Do you? Are you a good dancer?

Well. I don’t know, really. My Tommy’s mother thinks so — she used to think so once upon a time. God knows what …

What?

I said at least I don’t have what you call two left feet.

What’s that? What’s two left feet?

It means that you just can’t — Well, suppose you had two left feet. How do you think, with these two left feet, you’d walk around?

Oh, yeah.

Pretty dopey, right? Well then, imagine two left feet, dancing.

Oh, yeah, sure. Sure. Oh you couldn’t dance at all good.

That’s the idea right on the noggin. That’s where they get the expression.

Is your boy as old as me?

Just about your age. You’d like him a lot, I bet. He’s a lot like you are too.

He looks like me?

No, I mean he’s like you in a lot of ways, he’s just sort of… like you.

Has he got to wear eyeglasses like me?

No. But so what? What’s so important about eyeglasses?

I hate them. Kids call me four-eyes. And cockeyes.

What? You don’t have any cockeyes! Those kids must be nuts. What you have will most likely just go away by itself when you grow up. I knew a couple kids with that when I was a kid. They call it a lazy muscle. It just went away, like that!

Just went away?

Just like that. I swear it.

I wish that — I wish — But how is he like me?

Oh, a lot of ways. You feel like sitting down in this shade? It’s pretty hot for an old man.

What old man? Oh! You’re not an old man. Gramp is old.

He’s a wonderful gent, your grandfather. I wish I knew why he didn’t like me too well.

I didn’t know Gramp didn’t like you. I thought Gramp sort of liked you.

Well. I don’t mean that your gramps doesn’t like me, I mean you know, that he hates me. I just get the funny idea that he doesn’t actually, you know, like me.

Well I like you. And Mom likes you too.

Thank you, Billy. That’s very nice. And nice of your mom. How do you know that?

What? Know what?

That your mother likes me. Too.

Well she sort of told me. I don’t really remember.

She told you what? How did she tell you?

Well she didn’t really I guess tell me really. Things. Stuff she says about you and all. About what a swell guy you are and a gentleman. And you make her laugh and things like that. And you’re spic and span. Just stuff like that.

Well I like her a lot too. I think that maybe she’s one of the nicest ladies I ever met. Your mother is a real lady.

I sometimes make believe that, you know, that you are sort of my father. I kind of sometimes wish that you are my father. Sort of my father.

Well …

I mean that I hardly even know my real father. The last time I ever really saw him for about an hour was when I was really little. I was about maybe seven. He took me to Coney Island and the penny arcade. I love to go there.

Me too.

With about a thousand pennies, I had about that many. I played one of those steamshovel games where you pick up the prizes from all these little candy beans or some stuff. It’s hard. You know that one?

Oh yes. Tommy loved that one too. See? You and him are just alike. I told you, Jack.

Jack?

Dempsey. Jack Dempsey.

Oh. I got a big round lighter for the house, for the table. I started to give it to him but he said to take it home and give it to Gramp.

Ah. That was nice.

Yeah. Gramp don’t even fill it. He never filled it once. He never even once used the rotten piece of junk shit!

Hey, hey, kid … take it easy … you don’t want to cry. Hm? Come on. O.K.?

I wish I had a real father I could see … like you. If you could be like my father.

Well. Well, I don’t know about that but I’ll see if maybe we can’t fix it up so that we get to see each other in the city?

Really? You mean it, Mr. Thebus?

I mean it. Tom means it. Right?

Right. Tom.

You like football?

I don’t know. I don’t know how to play it.

No. I mean to watch it, you know, real football with men.

Oh. I don’t know much about it. I used to listen to it on Saturday sort of on the radio with Janet at my Cousin Katie’s house in Jersey City when Mom and me lived there. But I was really a baby then.

Well, maybe we can go to some games this fall. How does that sound to you? You think your mom would let me take you?

Sure! Sure she would. She really likes you a lot. That would be really swell.

Now if I can manage to only get your gramps to like me a little— just a little bit — everything would be just hunky-dory.

He’ll like you. I don’t really think he don’t like you. Sometimes he just makes you feel like he hates you. Me too I mean. Even my mother. When he talks about my granma who died from a sickness last winter in her blood. When he does he makes you really feel like that. It’s really stinky. And other times too.

Well, it’s his privilege, Billy. It was very very sad for all of you, I’m sure. Come on, let’s start back, O.K.? That old dinner bell will be ringing soon and we should wash up.

I think that’s Mom over there coming over to us. Yeah, she’s waving.

Yes, that’s your mom. Let’s go and meet her, O.K.?

Can I tell her about the football games?

Why don’t we sort of—? Why not? Sure.