Every Boy Should Have a Man

4 His Musical Man

After the female man died, the wealthy boy told the poor, “The baby man is yours. You can come to my house every day and watch them feed her.”

And the poor boy did visit every day, for now he had no man of his own to love and his father possessed no discretionary money to purchase another.

At the wealthy boy’s house, the poor boy was treated with a respectful sadness, even by the wealthy boy’s father, who regretted originating the cruel though legal actions that had led to the unfortunate ending. Each time the poor boy visited, the father sent him home with a gift of food or silver for his parents, which the poor boy always accepted with discomfort and reluctance.

But the poor boy was not there for the generosity of the wealthy father nor even the friendship of the wealthy son. He was there for the infant baby man of his female man.

Each day she came to look more and more like her mother, with the red frecks on her face and arms growing rustier, and the red of her hair becoming more like fire.

The man’s year is three times faster than the regular year, so at the end of the first year the poor boy had watched the baby man go from cradler to toddler and utter her first words. She was a man that talked, as had been her lidless-eyed father before her.

In the second year, the poor boy watched her grow from toddler into precocious childhood as she began early to display her natural gifts.

In his grand room, the wealthy boy’s father had many instruments of music, enough for an entire orchestra, and the child man reached for the tinny drums and the colored flute and both the small and large singing harps, each of which she did play, for she was a musical man, as had been her mother before her.

The music she played was always bright and cheerful.

In her fourth year, when she was a budding prepubescent of twelve in man years, the child female man did become more melancholy, as did her music, as she went into heat and began to attract the attention of the man mans in the wealthy house.

The wealthy boy, who was twelve in regular years, did not want her to be fixed as his father had threatened. He told his friend, who was also twelve, “My father wants to have her fixed, but I have a plan. Why don’t you take her? You still have the proper kennel your father built for her mother, don’t you?”

The poor boy lit up. “That’s a great idea!”

He exchanged the secret handshake with his friend and embraced him.

When the poor boy’s father came home, he found his son pounding nails into the roof of the proper kennel in the backyard.

“I’m fixing it up. I’m getting a new female man,” the boy explained.

His father’s brows and spirit lifted. “The one with the red frecks? The one who is the daughter of your old female man?”

The hammering boy nodded.

He heard the muttered words beneath his father’s breath: “It’s a good idea, I suppose. But how are we going to pay for it?”

The boy stopped hammering nails. “It’s not that much money — she’s not a baby anymore and she’s housebroken domesticated. It won’t cost much. Anyway, there is the money I earn down at the mill.”

The father nodded. Down at the mill. The boy worked with him as a loader for a few hours every day after school. The boy was a hard worker, not like some of the other goof-off boys who worked at the mill part-time. The father was proud of his son; every father should have a boy like him.

He said to him, “Very good, but if you ever run short, come to me. Together we will find a way.”

The boy went back to pounding nails and the father leaned against the fence and said, “It is not true when your mother tells you that I do not like mans. I like them just fine, but when I was growing up, my mother and I lived on the edge of the wilderness in a dwelling on the farm of a friend of my dead father. Our living was hard because we had very little money. It was not a farm with animals, but with grain. I was a small boy and lonely because there was nothing to do and no one to play with. Yes, the farmer had two dogs, but they were work dogs and not very good for companionship. One day I went to the edge of the wilderness and I spotted a little man man in the long grass. He was feral, but I was a boy and lonely, so I coaxed him with a gentle voice and the few grains in my hand that were to be my lunch. Eventually he came out and took the grain. He was a short, round man with thick fingers, pale skin, and a bad smell. He was feral, to be sure, but he allowed me to pet him as he ate the grains. And I petted him until he finished the grains, and then he darted back into the long grass and disappeared from my sight.”

As the boy labored and the father told his story, the father remembered their female man with a miserable sadness that the boy heard in his voice. The boy on the roof of the proper kennel looked down at the father. The father with the pain in his heart looked up at his boy. Father and son looked at each other, and the boy asked for a plank of wood. The father reached for one in the stack beside the proper kennel and passed it up to his boy, who returned to his mallet but did not resume his work. He listened to the father tell his story.

“The next day, I took my lunch to the long grass at the edge of the wilderness and my little friend appeared and ate the grains from my hand. I talked to him about whatever a boy of that age who is lonely talks about to a man and he seemed genuinely interested, for he remained quietly in place though he had finished eating and there were no more grains. So he was my friend and I went to visit with him every day. I grew very fond of him and I called him Fat One. One day when I got there, Fat One had brought with him another man. This man was taller than Fat One and with a fatter stomach, but with the same pale skin and a similar oval shaping of the eyes. I recoiled when I saw him, for his face made me wonder if he were dangerous. He had ugly bruises and gashes on his face as though he had been clawed by a predator or maybe even another man. I called him Ugly One and I fed him too, though I did not like him as much because of his damaged appearance and because he always rushed to grab the grains from my hand before I could give some to my little friend Fat One. One day when I went to the wilderness, Ugly One was there alone and he rushed to snatch the grains from my hand. Where was Fat One? Where was my little friend? While Ugly One ate his fill of the grains, I went into the edge of the wilderness searching for Fat One. I only had to walk a few hla-cubits before I found him lying on the ground, bleeding from a wound in his head. I was puzzled. What happened? Seconds later, my bewilderment was solved when Ugly One, having finished his meal, ran to Fat One and hit his head with a sizeable rock and began to dance and laugh. Like all boys, I had been warned never to trouble a feral man because they bite and they have diseases, but I became angry and I lifted Ugly One by the neck and slapped his face with my hand, crying, Don’t do that! Don’t do that! When I dropped him, he screeched miserably and ran off into the wilderness, never to be seen by my eyes again. Well, now I had to do something. I could not leave Fat One lying helpless on the wilderness floor. What if Ugly One returned to finish the job? What if some other predator found him? The truth was that I had been hoping ever since I’d found Fat One that my mother would allow me to keep him as a pet. So I picked him up and took him home, where I explained all that had happened to my mother. She nodded her head as I spoke, and then she took him from me, washed and scented him so that the bad smell went away, and then she laid out some sheets for bedding and placed him upon them. That night I slept on the bedding with my little man man Fat One beside me. In the morning when I awoke, he was doing much better and we played together all day. The friend of my father who owned the farm came to visit and he and my mother looked on as we played. And the friend of my dead father said, The man cannot stay in the house. He will have to stay out in the yard. My mother had a queer, sad look on her face, and she said to me somberly, He will be safe in the yard. Then she commanded me to take a nap and I did, and when I awoke from the nap, it was time for supper. I ran to the window to see my man in the yard, but could not. Well, it was a big yard. I would go out after supper and we would continue our play. So I ate my meat soup with grains that was set before me and thought nothing more of it. Afterward I ran back to the door, and my mother stopped me. Where are you going? she asked. To play with my man, said I. And my mother had tears in her eyes as she explained what had been done. The friend of my dead father had a great appetite for man, but they were scarce and dangerously feral in that part of the earth and thus expensively sold by the trappers and hunters. But a feral man made a pet of by a boy dwelling on his property? Indeed, it was his property, as was every beast living on it. He considered the gift of the quarter portion of Fat One that he had given us to make our soup quite a grand gesture on his part. My mother warned me that if I hoped to avoid sadness, I was never to bring home another man until our situation was improved or until the friend of my dead father had made of her a wife. The warning was unnecessary, for my stomach had already been forever turned.”

The father, having finished his story, sighed and went into the house.

The boy, disturbed but undeterred by his father’s story, hefted his mallet and resumed his hammering of nails.

When the boy arrived at his wealthy friend’s house, only the wealthy father was at home and he bid him come in. They passed through the great house and to the back where the proper kennels were set up. Her kennel door was already open, and the boy reached inside and she came to him. She was pretty with her red hair in bright green hair cloths and her loins covered by a green pouch.

As he leashed her, he said, “You’re going to live with me now.”

She answered, “Yes, they told me.”

The look on her face was not exactly joy, and he said to her, “You don’t want to come live with me? You don’t like me?”

“I like you very much. I guess it will be okay.”

The boy glanced up at the wealthy father, who shrugged, and then he said to the little female man, “I thought you liked me.”

“I like you just fine.”

“But…”

“But that place is where my mother died.”

“I liked your mother very much,” he said.

“Yes, they told me. But you’re very poor. Will I be able to eat every day?”

The poor boy flinched.

The wealthy boy’s father smiled.

“Yes,” the poor boy insisted, “we have food enough for you,” though he knew there would not always be food enough for themselves. “You will eat every day. I am working at the mill to make sure that you are well fed. You will eat better than we do. Does that answer all your questions, little man?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“What now?”

“Instruments.”

“We have a small singing harp.”

He saw the look on her face. One small singing harp?

He said, “It’s the one your mother used to play… and I will work to purchase new instruments for you. In time you will come to own every instrument that exists. I promise.”

It was a promise they all knew he could not keep, so the wealthy boy’s father added, “And what he does not own, he is free to borrow from me.”

She nodded at that, but the look on her face…

“What now?”

“Nothing.”

“What? Tell me,” the poor boy said.

The red-haired female man hid her face in her hands.

“What?” he said. “What?”

She blushed. “Well, it’s just that I have someone here that I like. Will I be able to see him from time to time?”

“No!” said the boy.

The wealthy father shook his head. “No man mans for you. That’s why we’re sending you away. We’re sending you away to keep you out of trouble. If we don’t send you away, then we are going to have you fixed.”

Now she was sobbing in big gulps. The poor boy rubbed her head and she peered at him through her tears. “What does that mean? Fixed? I’m not broken, am I?”

The wealthy father called the poor boy over and said to him, “I have some things for you. Some food for her. Some cloths for her hair. A few leashes. And some things for your parents.”

The poor boy shook his head. “I’ll take the things for her and the food for her, but not the silver. You have already given enough.”

“The poor do not understand the heavy burden of silver,” the wealthy boy’s father said. “I am ashamed of what I put you through. You’re a nice boy, my son’s best friend, and your parents are good people. I was unkind and I acted selfishly. Please take this silver from me and give it to your parents.”

And the poor boy took the silver for his parents.

When he got her home, his new female man seemed reluctant to go out to her proper kennel. Instead, she stayed in the house, exploring the rooms. When she finished exploring, she picked up the small singing harp and made it sing: “In the heart, in the air, hear the joy everywhere…”

The boy was amazed. “That song, your mother used to play that song.”

“I know,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“She told me.”

“But how did she tell you? She’s dead.”

“Mother is she who gives all to her child. She’s ever with me, telling me things.”

At first, the boy believed her words and pondered their significance. Then it came to him that he was talking to a man. Sometimes they spoke sense, but more often than not they spoke nonsense that had the appearance of being sense. The boy knew that nothing that is dead can still be with us. But he smiled and decided to play along with her.

“What sort of things does she tell you?”

“She tells me that you are very nice and she loved you very much. You took very good care of her. You stood by her side in her trouble.”

“Hmmm. Very nice. What else does she tell you?”

“That you are correct. She died of a great sadness in her heart.”

The boy was no longer comfortable playing this game. He was starting to have a strange feeling. “How do you know that?” he demanded.

“She told me.”

“But she is dead.”

“She is with me now at this moment. I am filled with her.”

He looked at her, and her green eyes had strangely darkened.

“She says that it was cruel of them to take her infant away. She was a mother, but not a mother. It was cruel of them to remove her thumbs. She had hands, but no hands. She could no longer make the small singing harp sing her heart’s pain. She wept every night until the night she died.”

“This is dreadful,” said the boy.

“Truth is often dreadful,” said his man.

The boy was weeping. “Does she tell you any good things?”

“She tells me good things, but those good things are for me alone, and not to be shared.”

“Okay.” He sniffed back tears.

“But she does not want you to weep.”

“I can’t help it. I miss her. I’m sorry how she died. I wish I could bring her back and save her life.”

“Wait, I do have a good thing that I can tell you.”

“Okay.”

“She touched the heart of the father of the wealthy boy. He is afraid of me. He is afraid of you. That’s why he insists that you take his silver.”

“Really?”

“She commands him to do it. He is afraid that she will kill him. But she can’t do that. She is dead. It doesn’t work that way. There is no need to fear the dead.”

“That’s very funny,” the boy said, and he laughed a small laugh.

She added, “I want those instruments in his house. I want every instrument in his house. He is afraid and he will give them to you if you are patient and ask for them one at a time.”

“Okay,” said the boy, laughing. “We will take all of his instruments. Hahaha. One at a time.”

His female man laughed with him, and then she said, “I will tell you a good thing that my mother told for me alone and not to be shared. But she trusts you. I trust you. So I will share it with you.”

“Okay.”

“This world will die one day.”

“What does that mean? Is that true?” He peered into her green eyes, which were now as dark as a forest blackened by fire.

“This world will die one day and all of this shall pass away. But I will not die here. I will die somewhere else.”

“What does that mean?”

“I do not know,” the female man said, “but it is what my mother told me and she does not lie.”

And then she finished her song: “In the heart, in the air, hear the joy everywhere. Shall we call, shall we sing, of the joy everywhere? Come, my friends, let us sing, of the joy everywhere. There is joy, there is joy, there is joy everywhere.”

And the day became evening, and his parents were at home, and they were happy to have a musical man in the house again. She made the harp sing for them as they ate their meal in happiness, and when evening became night, she slept under the boy’s bed.

This went on for many weeks.

When the boy asked her if she wouldn’t be more comfortable sleeping outside in her proper kennel, she told him, “I am afraid. Bad things happen to mans in proper kennels in this neighborhood. From what I see, some of them are desperate in this neighborhood. They are so poor and so hungry. To you I am a man, but what do you think I look like to them? Food. I could be stolen and eaten. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“No,” the boy told her. “That would be dreadful.”

“Yes it would be,” she said.

And they laughed together.

In four years, when the boy turned sixteen, his red-haired female man was eight in regular years but twenty-four in man years and in outward appearance. And in that year, the boy found a girl who was about his age and in the natural course of things he began to spend less time with his female man.

He would get up in the morning and feed her, then rush off to school, then after school he would work his hours at the mill, then he would come home and feed her, then don his finest garments and venture out with the girl with whom he was in love.

There were smiles all around the house, but there was a strain too.

One evening as he dressed, his twenty-four-year-old man said, “You know, I created a new song for you. Would you like to hear it?”

He said, “That sounds like a great idea. When I get back, you’ll play it for me.”

“Going out again?” said she.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am,” said he.

He was prepared for a fight.

This time she surprised him by saying: “Have fun.”

When he got back that night, he was too worn out, he told her, to listen to the song and he fell asleep right away. She played the new song to an audience of herself, then folded herself under his bed and went to sleep.

In the morning when they awoke, she asked him if he would like to hear the song she had created for him.

He said, “Sure. Play it.”

She sat down with the small singing harp in her lap and began to make it sing, but there was a noise from beyond the room. Someone was at the door. When they opened the door, it was the girl with whom he was in love.

She said, “I came by to walk with you to school. Hey, that’s a man! She’s a cute one. Is that a singing instrument thing she’s got? I always wanted a musical man, but, you know, my father could never afford one. All we ever had growing up were regular old run-of-the- mill mans. How did you guys get so wealthy?”

“We were blessed,” the boy said. “She can talk too.”

“Well,” the girl said, “she must cost a lot. Tell her to say something. I love the way they talk. I see them all the time at the festival and the circus. Tell her to say something funny.”

The boy looked down at his man, and she grumbled, “Okay, so now I’m a circus performer.”

The girl looked at the boy, then back at the man, then back at the boy. “Is that it? Is that all she can say?”

“She can say more than that, can’t you, girl?” he said, winking at his female man.

She scolded, “Hurry on your way to school, little children, before you are late.”

The girl said, “That is soooooo cute! I love the way they talk. Can I bring my little brother over to play with her?”

The boy said, “Well, I’ll have to ask my parents.”

His female man quipped, “Well, maybe you should ask me. The answer is no. Goodbye now. Have fun at school, children.”

The girl said, “That is soooooo cute! You are soooooo lucky to have her. She must be worth a lot of money.”

The boy, sensing the shortening temper of his female man, who was known to bite on occasion, nudged his girl toward the door and they left for school.

His female man was named Red Locks because of the red hair on her head, but often the boy believed they should have named her Red Mouth because of the sassiness with which she sometimes spoke to him — and the painful man bites she sometimes gave him.

When the boy came home he fed his man, and the harp was in her hand as he dressed to go out again. He promised her, “Tonight when I come home, you can play the song you created for me as many times as you like. I will listen.”

“Will you?”

“I promise.”

“Will you?” said she who had been disappointed so many times before.

“I promise, I promise, I promise,” said he who had disappointed.

“Okay, I’ll try to wait up. If I’m asleep, wake me. An artist must have her sleep, you know?” She batted her eyes at him.

He petted her head. “You’re still my favorite girl, okay?”

That made her happy and she waited up well into the night for him, but when the hours grew too long for her determined but limited constitution, she fell asleep.

She awoke with the next day’s sun and pouted as he dressed for school. “You did not wake me last night as I told you to.”

“I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Pinhead!” she called him.

“Who is the man and who is the master!” he fired back.

She shook her head from side to side and clucked her tongue with sadness as she set the small singing harp on her lap and played the song he hadn’t asked her to play: “The way you treat me, the way you treat me, the way you treat me, my heart is unclear. The way you treat me, the way you treat me, the way you treat me, my heart is soooooo unclear.”

At the completion of her song, he sat down on the ground beside her. “That is beautiful,” he told her because he mistook the melancholy in the tune for cheer and he hadn’t really been listening to the words. “You are the best musical man in the whole wide world.”

She smirked.

“The best,” he said with a wink.

She said, “I have to be honest with you. I don’t like your girl and neither does Mother.”

“Why not?”

“Mother says that she is no good for you.”

“What makes her say that?”

“She is hungry. She thinks you can feed her.”

“Oh, I see. But your mother is wrong this time. I am a poor boy. I can’t feed anyone. She is with me because she loves me. She is beautiful. Don’t you think she is beautiful?”

“This girl is beautiful like a poisonous flower. Her beauty is there to draw you to the poison.”

He shook with laughter. “Oh, but wait. This is my man and my dead man talking to me. Hahaha. What a pinhead I am! For a moment there, I was almost listening to you. I have to go to school now. Goodbye and thanks for the lovely song.”

He reached to pet her head and she grabbed his finger and bit it.

“Ouch!” he cried out. “Sneaky man!”

“Listen to me!” she screamed.

“You bit me! I should muzzle you!”

She put her hands on her hips. “You will do no such thing, you big oaf! How dare you threaten to put the muzzle on me. Ask her about her brother! Mother said to ask her about her bad little brother!”

Then, with violent possession of the small singing harp, she dove angrily under the bed.

And he kissed his finger where she had bitten it and left for school, an odd little smile on his face.

After school the boy went to the mill to work his hours.

After the mill he came home and ate a meal with his parents while his musical man played — the tinny drums this time. Over the years they had acquired most of the orchestral instruments in the wealthy boy’s father’s house because of his fear. But she had never played the drums at mealtime before.

She drummed to make you want to shake your hips.

His father looked up from his bowl. “She’s drumming tonight. It’s nice, though.”

His mother said, “She’s very talented.”

The father said to the boy, who now wore no smile on his face, “You and your girl aren’t going out tonight?”

The boy shook his head.

“What happened?” his mother asked.

The boy shook his head. “At school, we had… sort of a fight.”

“Well, that happens. That’s nothing to worry about. That’s nothing at all,” his mother said. “When your father and I were young — ”

“Leave him be. Let him eat,” said his father.

And his female man drummed to make you want to shake your hips.

In his bedroom that night, he told his man, “She says her brother, her little brother, has been recently released from incarceration. He is a thief. The authorities have him on their list. But that doesn’t mean you are right. He may be bad, but she is my girl. She wouldn’t do a thing like that to me.”

“They are hungry in this neighborhood.”

“But she loves me, I know it.”

“She is hungry.”

“No.”

“The way she looked at me… she says I am worth a lot of money. You know if they sold me for meat how much they would get? You know if they sold me to a circus how much they would get? I play every instrument. I can talk. I should be owned by the wealthy who know how to protect their possessions. In this neighborhood, it is only a matter of time.”

“So you want me to sell you to someone wealthy? For your safety?”

“No. I want to stay forever and ever with you. But you should never have brought her into our home.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I’m crazy. I’m a crazy man.”

“You’re my favorite girl,” said he to her.

“You’re not so bad for an oaf,” said she to him.

She laughed and went under the bed. He laughed and went to bed. He lay in his bed for many minutes, laughing, laughing, laughing, and thinking.

His laughter died away, and he took in a deep breath and then let it out. He got up and looked under his bed, where she awaited.

And her lips met his.

“Oh,” he said, his heart filling with confusion.

He went back up to his bed. She was under his bed. Beneath him. His pet. His favorite girl.

Evening turned to night and night turned to morning.

For the boy, it was a morning that followed a sleepless night — a night of waking dreams.

In the morning he prepared her favorite meal in her favorite bowl and brought it to her, and she played him a sweet tune on the colored flute, a tune that made him feel as sweet as bright pink melting into light blue.

“Does it please you?”

“It pleases me,” he said.

She did not speak of the kiss, he did not speak of the kiss, but he left for school and he thought of it and nothing else all day.

After school he worked his part-time hours at the mill.

When he got home, the authorities were there.

His mother was weeping. His father was angrier than the boy had ever seen him before. The house was turned upside down. Everything was out of place. All of the larger musical instruments were missing. Most of the smaller musical instruments were damaged, and the small singing harp was completely destroyed.

“What happened?” the boy asked.

“Someone burgled us and stole our man,” his father said.

“I know who did it! If we hurry, we can get her back!”

The authorities gathered around as the boy told them about the girl with whom he was in love and her brother who had recently been released from incarceration.

The brother denied it, of course, but they traced the missing instruments of music to the hot shops, and the clerks at several of them identified the brother as the one who had sold to them, earlier that day, this instrument or that.

But the penalty for theft of a man was more severe than the penalty for theft of any other property, so the little brother of the girl the boy loved continued to deny having stolen the female man.

“I’m really sorry about what I did — but I didn’t steal any man from your house. Maybe she snuck out and ran away. I remember leaving the door open. Don’t they run away all the time? Well, that’s what I heard anyway.”

They knew that he was lying, but he refused to admit the crime.

He shrugged. “In a world without thieves, the wealthy become gods,” he said.

They checked all of the local public kennels, and no one would admit to having purchased a red-haired female man from the brother of the girl with whom the boy was in love.

When the boy got permission from the authorities to check the inventory of all the local public kennels, he did so, but his female man was nowhere to be found.

A sympathetic kennel boss took the boy aside. “You have to understand how it is, son. I see that look on your face and I can only imagine the pain you’re feeling right now, but what I’m going to tell you is as true as the day is long. She is in one of two places. She is in the mines or she is with a circus. These days, most missing mans are never recovered. It’s not like before when there were ample mans to go around. A man would run away and someone would find it and bring it home or bring it here. My shop used to be stocked with as many talking mans as dumb ones. But with all of these new laws protecting the natural habitats of the mans and no laws protecting the natural rights of working people to earn a living in the mines, every talking man is worth its weight in silver. Cheap labor is the law of the land. Whoever stole your talking man got rid of her immediately — and a musical man too! Circus or the mines, and I’m betting the mines. Only the wealthy are still using them as pets. People are too hungry these days. I do not have one single talking man in my shop right now. I take in maybe three a week and they are gone within minutes. Your man would have to be pretty dumb and pretty dull to be a pet, but the smart ones — straight to the mines. Thieves know this. Business is good for thieves these days. A curse on all thieves!”

The boy went home with the horrible vision in his head of his sweet, sarcastic little red-haired female man working in the mines. He wept all the way home. He wept all night.

“Oh Red Locks, oh my little Red Locks!” he cried in his room that night.

In the morning he got up and dressed for school and then he left. After school he went to the mill and he worked his part-time hours. After work he and his father got with their mallets and other tools and they tore down the proper kennel in their backyard.

It was a very long time before the boy courted a girl again. It was a very long time before he loved a girl again. And he never again owned a man.

It hurt too much.