Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (405 page)

Now Happy was old enough to do all those things he had been too young to do before, and Timbo?

Timbo had to die. Happy had reached the age of kill or be killed. Wolves know that when you are grown, you have to kill your father. Kill him before he kills you.

He thought he could take Timbo in a fight and so he scent-marked a tree, making clear his intentions. The wolf’s challenge!

He bunched himself as Timbo circled, snarling. Imagine his surprise. The gouge in his flank goes all the way from
here
down to
here.
Now, a wolf can lick all the hurt places, but Happy wasn’t built to reach the places wolves can reach without trying. Pain drove him sobbing out of the woods.

When you have been raised by wolves, you know what to expect.

Foolish to expect better of people.

Nursing the fresh gash in his flank, he watched the building, men walking back in front of lighted windows. He heard a sound like a forgotten lullaby: human voices. He limped out of the woods, whimpering, “Oh, oh, oh.” Then, when he least expected it, a word came to him. He pointed his nose at the sky. “Oh, help!”

He expected helping hands, kind words, but big men clattered out shouting, “Stop where you are!” They were nothing like he expected. Happy froze.

Somebody yelled, “What is that?”

Somebody else yelled, “Some kind of
animal.
”

They were so angry!
This is nothing like I thought.

Happy did what wolves do when they are in trouble. He howled.
Ah-whoooo.
One by one his brothers responded but the howls were scattered, the howlers far away. Wolves know never to come out of the woods, no matter who is calling.
Ah-whooooooooo
!

The men pulled shields over their faces and raised their guns. Guns: a word Happy didn’t quite know. In the struggle, the chain around his neck parted and the only scrap of his old life fell into their hands. Why did he imagine it made him special?

He limped back into the woods. The other wolves— his brothers!— smelled men on him. He was ruined for life in the woods and there was as well… what? The curiosity. When the men fell on Happy, he felt his flesh smacking into human flesh and there was no difference between them. Even clothed, his attackers were more like Happy than Happy was like the wolves. Like the missing limb that hurts at night, he felt the ghost family. Wolves run in packs or they prowl alone; they kill and are killed and that’s the end of it. Men have families.

Night after night Happy doubled back on the clearing. He was drawn by half-remembered smells— hot food, the scent of bulky, not-wolf bodies— and sounds: music and forks clattering, the buddabuddabudda of low, not-wolf voices. Circling, Happy yearned for something he missed terribly. As for what… He was not certain.

Alone, Happy howled to the heavens. He wanted to bring out Timbo, even though he knew Timbo would kill him.
Ah-whooooo.
If they fought to the death, one way or the other it would end his confusion. Happy’s howling filled the woods but not one wolf howled in reply.
Ah-whooooooo
!

The loneliness was intense.

This is why Happy did what wolves never do. For the second time, he left the woods. For a long time, he circled the police station. Then he dropped to his haunches on the front walk and howled to heaven. He howled for all he was worth. Unless he was howling for everything he was losing.

Now look.

* * * *

The needle Brent used to get him out of the airport left Happy inert, but aware. They are riding along, he and Brent and this Susan, he can smell her. The car is much smaller than the van that took him to the hospital after the fight at the police station. They sewed him up and Brent came. Happy did not know him, but he knew him. He rolled off the bed and fell into a crouch, ready to lunge. Guards came. He struggled but the doctors gave him to Brent anyway. They said he was next of kin. Family.

…Brent?

It was on the dogtag. That’s Brent’s word for it. But why was Brent’s name on the dogtag?
Am I his pet?
Happy wonders.
Do I belong to him?
He is no dog. He runs with wolves.

He does not like Brent. Keep your eyes shut, Happy. Keep them closed and he won’t know you’re in here.

He is riding along between them. The nice soft woman is soft, but not as nice as he thought. She says over Happy’s head, “Why in hell didn’t you hose him down before we got in the car?”

“It’s not my fault he stinks.”

“You could have put him in the trunk!”

Smelly breath mists Happy’s face as Brent peers at him, but he keeps his eyes clenched. “Lie down with wolves and you smell like one. You hear?”

“Save your breath, he’s out cold.” The woman riding along next to him, what does this Brent call her? Susan. Susan gives Happy a little shake; his head rolls back and settles on her arm. “If you want him smiling on TV, you’d better revive him.”

“Not now, Suze. Live at Five next Thursday.”

“Like they aren’t already waiting at Chateau Marmont?”

“No way! We can’t go public until Dad makes the deal.”
Dad.
The word Happy refused to remember. His teeth clash and his hackles rise. It is hard to keep from growling.

“You should have thought of that at the airport. Mr. Show biz.” She goes on in Brent’s voice, “‘I rescued him.’ Like you didn’t see the camcorders. Screen shots. Everybody knows!”

“Well, tough. Nobody sees him until the press conference. Dad is talking eight figures.”

Happy’s insides shift. He is confused. Wolves don’t think in figures.

Brent barks, “Driver, get off at National.”

“What are you
thinking?
”

“Gonna hide him!”

“Not in this town,” Susan says. Distracted, she’s let parts of herself flow into Happy. She thinks he is asleep. Parts of him flow back and she lets him.

“Outskirts. Inland empire. The valley.”

She says, “Too close.” Happy leans a little closer; she shrugs him off, but he slips back and she lets him. It is hard for him to keep from smiling. They ride along like this for a while. At last she says thoughtfully, “Your mom stayed back in Caverness, right?”

“She did,” Brent says and then he just stops talking.

The car rounds a corner and Happy leans into the body next to his, but only a little bit. He can feel her voice vibrating in his bones. “Then take him to your mom’s.”

Warm, she is so warm.

“No way. She hasn’t forgiven me for losing him.”

Something changes in the car. “You lost him?”

Happy’s ears prick.

The woman has asked a question that Brent won’t answer. He says instead, “Come on, Susan. What are we going to do?”

“You lost your very own brother?”

“Not really. Well, sort of.”

Happy is trying to make his mouth into the right shape to frame the big question. Even if he could, he knows not to bring it out. It is disturbing.

“Brent, what were you
thinking
?”

The fat man whines, “Mom
said
he was a mistake. I thought she would thank me, but she freaked.”

Mom. Another word Happy can’t parse. Oh. Same as mother. That word. Soft, he remembers. Other things. He will not remember other things.

“She never forgave Dad either.”

“So he lives in L.A. Got that.” Susan adds drily, “Too bad you can’t divorce your kids.”

“Could we not talk about this please?”

She stiffens—
is it something I did?
“Back there.” Her voice goes up a notch. “Look. Tell me that’s not a mobile unit.”

“Holy crap, it’s TV Eight. Driver, take Laurel Canyon.”

The car goes around many curves and up, up, higher than Happy remembers being, and whenever they round a curve too fast he bumps against Susan’s soft parts like a sleeper with no control over what he is doing, but in all the uphill and downhill and veering around corners he never, ever bumps Brent, not even accidentally.

He is aware of a hand waving in front of his closed eyes. A pinch. He wants to play dead but he can’t stop himself from flinching. The needle bites. The world goes away again. He can’t be sure about the days or the nights, which they are or how many.

Happy sleeps and he wakes up, then he sleeps again and in the hours they drive he can never be certain which is which, or whether the woman is touching him by accident or because she intends it.

At last the car crunches uphill and stops for the last time. Happy’s head comes up. The smells when Brent hustles him out of the car and hauls him to his feet on the hard, hard street are terrible and familiar. They are climbing steps to a wooden… porch. Happy knows almost all the words now. Brent slaps the door and a remote bell rings. Footsteps come.

Terrified, he begins to struggle.

“Brent, he’s waking up!”

“Not for long.”

Happy yips as the needle goes into his butt. What they do and say when the door opens is forever lost to him.

When he wakes everything is as it was and nothing is the same. Will his life always be like this? Happy is curled up in his room. He knows it is his room because it used to be his room in the old life, and he knows from the sights and smells that nothing has changed here. It feels good and bad, lying in the old place. From here he can see the pretend bearskin rug in the center of the room with its plastic fangs and empty glass eyes, and lodged in the corner, the faded pink volleyball that he remembers from his very first time on the floor in this room and his very last day here.

When wolves quit the lair they stalk away leaving it untouched because they are done with it forever; they do not expect to come this way again. Is this what not-wolf mothers do?

Not-wolf mothers leave the lost son’s room exactly as it was in hopes he will come back, but there is no way Happy can know this. He has no idea who he is or why he feels both good and bad about being back here, although he is a little frightened. He doesn’t know why all this makes him miss Sonia so terribly or why, on that night so long ago, his hateful big brother slammed the door to the family car and let them drive away without him.

Brother. That’s what Brent is.

Oh.

Happy would throw back his head and howl for Sonia but his hideout is constricted, the woods are lost to him and Sonia is dead now. He could howl for this other mother but before, when he was small and crying out lonely, she was a long time coming and when she did… There are things you don’t remember and things you don’t want to know.

Can you want to belong in two places at once and know you don’t belong in either?

At least Happy is safe. When he came to, instinct sent him off the bed where they’d dumped him and under here, where they won’t see him before he sees them. Holed up, he counts the cobwebs hanging from rusting springs. He wants to weep for the blue dogs and pink teddies cavorting on the plastic mattress cover. He is under his old crib.

When you can’t go back to being what you used to be, you go back to what you were in the beginning. You were safe because she loved you, and Happy does not know whether he means the old mother, or Sonia.

The sounds in the house are so different from the crackle and whisper of the woods that it takes time to name them. The hum of the refrigerator, the washing machine grinding because— Happy looks down— they have changed his hospital rags for grey stuff like the clothes — clothes!— he used to wear when he was a… The bark of the furnace kicking in. A telephone ringing, ringing ringing and soft voices: women talking, a strange man’s voice downstairs in the hall. Brent is arguing with the other.

The smells in this house at this moment in his life are enough to break Happy’s heart. He can smell mold in the foundations, laundry products; dust, in this room in particular; there is the residue of memory and oh, God… —
God?
— there is the smell of something cooking. Whatever else is going on in this place he used to know so well and had forgotten completely,
Mom
is baking brownies. Everything waters. Happy’s mouth, his nose, his eyes.

* * * *

It’s getting dark, but nobody comes. Cramped as he is, stuck under the crib for too long when he is used to running free in the woods, Happy is restless and twitching. He thought by this time Brent would be in here raging; they could have fought. He could have killed the brother. Unless Brent put another dart into Happy and dragged him out from under here. Instead the shouting stayed downstairs, sliding into the low, grating whine of a long argument. Then doors slammed and the cars roared away. Now there is no more talking. The machines have stopped. There is almost-silence in the house, except for the stir of a body he knows, approaching. What does he remember from the last time he heard her footsteps? Nothing he chooses to remember. Trembling, he pulls himself out from under the crib just long enough to run his hand along the bedroom door. He finds the lock. He loves the click.