The Mare

Paul

The day before Christmas, the family met us at Penn Station and we went to eat at the same diner we’d gone to before. Ginger gave the boy a Hot Wheels car and his mom a gift card from Macy’s. Mrs. Vargas presented us with candles.

“Ahh,” said the boy, “the tradition continues!” He said it in English; he also said it sarcastically. He was much sharper this year.

I sat across from him and, while his mother and sister triangled with my wife, he and I talked about horror movies and cartoons. I asked him what he thought he’d be when he grew up and he didn’t miss a beat. He said, “I’ll be a statue of the suffering of hell.”

“I don’t think they make statues like that, Dante.” Though of course, they do.

“Then I’ll make it myself,” he said. “I’ll make it out of the junkyard.”

I said, “That’s great,” and he burped, which made his mom slap his head.

It wasn’t until much later that it occurred to me he was referring to the kind of elaborate graveyard statue you see in horror movies. That he was saying, basically, I’m going to grow up to be dead.