The Evening Star (45 page)

Down the beach, a mile or two away, he could see the lights of the big hotel where he’d worked as a concierge after hitchhiking to Galveston for the first time. That was the day he left Cherry, a girl he still sort of missed.

For a moment, he not only sort of missed Cherry, he missed her a lot. If it had been Cherry in the car, and not Patsy, he wouldn’t feel so tight in his chest or be so worried about saying something stupid or uninformed. He knew that he had a weak grasp of historical chronology; he was always confusing artists or composers who lived in the eighteenth century with those who lived in the nineteenth. Errors of that sort marked you as a booby if you ran with a certain
crowd. With Cherry it had been no problem. Cherry was a nice, boisterous American girl who liked to do things top speed. She didn’t know much about anything, and probably would have placed the eighteenth century as way back before the birth of Jesus, in whom she believed fervently if vaguely.

“You don’t need to be quite so wary of me, Jerry,” Patsy informed him. “I’m just trying to get to know you. I’m not going to turn you in to the thought police for practicing shrinkery without a license. I was just kind of wondering how you got started in it.”

“I made a sign and put it on my porch,” Jerry said. “Most people believe signs, you know, if the sign says ‘Therapy,’ they don’t question it. All they want to know is how much you charge.

“I used to be concierge at that hotel,” he added, pointing down the beach. They had never had a concierge until I came along. I said I’d work for tips if they’d let me try it. The first day I made four hundred and twenty dollars. I probably should have stayed a concierge.”

“Are you an altruist?” Patsy asked. “Did you give up being a concierge in order to help suffering humanity? Or was there just more money in shrinkery?”

“I guess I thought it was a little more intellectual,” Jerry said. “Trying to sort out people’s problems seemed more enterprising than just trying to sort out restaurant reservations for old ladies from West Texas.”

“I see, you’re the neighborhood priest,” Patsy said. “So much for my quiz.” Her hair felt sticky from the moisture of the sea—also, her ambush felt like a failure.

Going north, back to Houston, she drove at speeds above ninety. When they arrived at Jamail’s, Jerry’s station wagon was the only car in the parking lot, although beside the store a big produce truck was purring. A team of men with handcarts wheeled vegetables from the fertile valleys of Texas and California into the depths of the store.

When Patsy stopped, Jerry tried to kiss her, but she drew away.

“I’m not one of your parishioners yet, Father,” she said.
She felt irritated with him, as she had for much of the evening.

Jerry just felt confused—not a new feeling. He felt that once again he had tried for a woman who was out of his class. Even so, he knew he would be sad if he just let her drive away.

“Can we do this again?” he asked, his hand on the door.

“You mean eat crabs?” Patsy asked.

“Well, eat something,” Jerry said.

“Don’t know,” Patsy said. “I do know that I’m not dating someone who has to two-time Aurora Greenway to date me.”

Jerry wished he had just kept his fantasies of the woman on the beach at Santa Monica. Feeling tired and feeling sad, he got out.

“It was a nice evening,” he said politely.

“You’re a hypocrite, Father,” Patsy said, as she whipped away.

21

Bump had learned to talk. To the delight of both his mother and his father, he had beautiful enunciation, and his talk, from the first, was interesting. Usually, he even spoke in complete sentences. But there was a catch: he didn’t want to talk to them. He only wanted to talk to his best friend, Kermit the Frog.

“I’m a Frog too,” he told his Big Granny, one day. “I’m going to live in Frog Town, where Kermit lives.”

His Big Granny had bought him Kermit and showed him how to slip his hand inside Kermit and wiggle his mouth, so he could speak. His Big Granny had only had to show him once. After that, Kermit went every place Bump went. One day at Big Granny’s, Bump saw Kermit on a picture machine his big Granny had in her bedroom. There was another, smaller picture machine in the kitchen, which Rosie let him watch. At first it astonished him to see Kermit on the picture machine at the very moment that he had Kermit on his own hand and was making him talk to Rosie and Big Granny.

“Why is Kermit two?” he asked.

“A good question,” Aurora said. She was very pleased with
her great-grandson, now that he could talk. “Kermit is two because the world is weird.”

“Is that Frog Town in that picture?” Bump asked, pointing.

“I think so,” Aurora said.

“I want Kermit to be one,” Bump said. “I want him to be just
my
Kermit.” He knew numbers, and how they looked, and he also knew the days of the week, although he didn’t find the days of the week particularly interesting. Nothing in the world was as interesting as Kermit, his friend.

“Why are you in there?” he asked Kermit, pointing at the picture machine.

Big Granny borrowed Kermit long enough for him to answer Bump’s question.

“I’m just a poor Frog, that’s where I work,” Kermit said.

Bump took Kermit home with him that night, a little troubled. He didn’t like it that Kermit was so tricky that he could be in two places at once. He didn’t tell his Bigs this, though. They weren’t really friendly to Kermit. If he gave Kermit too many hugs and kisses, his Bigs didn’t like it. They wanted him to give
them
the hugs and kisses. His mother was always grabbing him and making him sit in her lap and listen to stories. She didn’t understand that he would rather spend his time with Kermit in one of their hideaways. Their best hideaway was in the yard, under a hedge, but they also had a hideaway in the closet. Sometimes when his mother grabbed him he would try to kick his way out of her lap so he could get back to his life with Kermit, but his mother was strong, and it didn’t always work. She just hung on until his legs grew tired of kicking. If he tried to bite her and tried to make her let him go back to Frog Town she just held him up in the air and laughed. Usually Claudia laughed too, but she rarely tried to make Bump sit in her lap.

“My daddy’s hands shake when he reads me stories,” Bump informed Kermit one day. “I think he’s sick.”

When he talked with Kermit, he had to make Kermit’s words too, unless he saw Kermit on the picture machine—then Kermit made his own words. At Bump’s house there was no picture machine and Kermit never made his own words there.

Bump wished his parents would get a picture machine so maybe Kermit would make his own words more often, but his parents didn’t like picture machines. Once when he and Kermit were playing with his Greek blocks, Big Granny came over and argued with his parents about picture machines, while Bump and Kermit listened.

“I never thought I’d have relatives so high-minded they won’t even allow a child to watch television,” Big Granny said. “No wonder he took so long learning to talk. They have to
hear
speech before they do it.”

“He hears speech,” Jane said, annoyed. She was in the mood to go over to Claudia’s apartment and bag family life for an hour or two.

“Yes, but how often?” Aurora asked. “It’s my impression that you two mostly pore over your classical texts. If you aren’t going to talk to your child you might at least get a television set so he can hear his own language spoken.”

“I would risk getting one but Jane doesn’t want to,” Teddy said.

“Why is it risky?” Aurora wanted to know. “
I
watch television—do you consider me intellectually stunted?”

“You’re not intellectually stunted but you’re not a two-year-old, either,” Jane said with some vehemence. “I don’t want Bump to grow up watching violent garbage, and that’s all that’s on television now. Even the cartoons are violent garbage.”

“Well, I disagree,” Aurora said. “As it happens I’m almost as fond of Kermit as Jonathan is. The day seldom passes without my watching Kermit. What he has to say can hardly be described as violent garbage.”

“There are exceptions, but not enough,” Jane said grudgingly.

Bump thought his mother might be about to be a beast, but then the telephone rang and he ran to get it. His father had explained to him that if everyone else was busy, then answering the telephone was his job. But he usually tried to answer all phone calls now himself, even if the Bigs weren’t in the bedroom with the door shut. This time it was Claudia.

“Hi, Bump, is your mom there?” Claudia asked.

“I live in Frog Town now,” Bump said, but he carried the phone over to his mother, who began to talk low. Big Granny got up to leave, and he and his father and Kermit went down the stairs with her to her car.

Big Granny picked him up and gave him some kisses—Bump didn’t mind, because she smelled good. She gave Kermit a kiss too.

“I like Big Granny,” Bump said to Kermit, after he and Kermit had gone out on the lawn to be by themselves. They sat down in the grass. Bump was wearing only his underpants, so the grass tickled.

“I wish she’d bring us some storybooks,” Kermit said. “Go tell her.”

Bump got up and ran over to Big Granny, who was still standing on the sidewalk talking to his father.

“Kermit wants you to bring us some new storybooks,” Bump said, pulling on Big Granny’s skirt. “We don’t have any new stories.”

“Of course, you must have new stories,” Big Granny said. “I promise to attend to that promptly, Jonathan.”

“She calls me Jonathan—it’s her name for me,” Bump told Kermit, going back out on the prickly lawn.

“I wish I had an airplane,” Kermit said. When they rode in the car they kept their eyes on the skies, hoping to see an airplane.

“Whether she likes it or not, television is part of our culture now,” Aurora said. “It’s not going to hurt him to watch a few cartoons—nor would it hurt you and Jane. From the looks of things, you two could stand some laughs.”

“I don’t think Jane would ever laugh at something that was on television,” Teddy said. “She used to like Carol Burnett but Carol Burnett’s not on anymore.”

To Aurora’s eye, Teddy looked ground down. There was no light in his eyes—not even the manic light that appeared when he became unstable. Now he didn’t look unstable, he just looked sad. He had always been sweet but not strong, and he still was sweet but not strong.

“What is it?” she asked, hoping she might surprise him into talking about his problems.

“It’s not anything in particular,” Teddy said. “I guess it’s just life.”

Jane came down the steps and waved at them as she turned along the sidewalk.

“She’s going away,” Bump said to Kermit. “I hope she never comes back. She shakes me when she’s mad.”

Sometimes he loved his mommy more than anyone, but he could not forget that she was apt to turn into a beast, which was scary. Once when she was scary she had grabbed Kermit and thrown him out the window. Bump had had to hurry down the stairs to get him. Kermit hadn’t been hurt, but Bump hadn’t forgotten or forgiven what his mommy had done. His daddy would never become so scary that he would throw Kermit out a window. His daddy only shook, and talked in a high voice, when he got angry.

“I think she’s just going over to Claudia’s,” Teddy said. His grandmother had not asked, but he still felt that he ought to explain his wife’s silent departure.

“Oh, yes, the girlfriend,” Aurora said. “Is that why you’re looking so miserable?”

“No,” Teddy said quickly. “I don’t mind her seeing Claudia.”

“Ted, are you sure?” Aurora asked. “I myself am not at all possessive, in theory. It’s my firm belief that human beings belong to themselves—what they do with others is strictly their business.”

“I bet what
you
do with others is strictly your business,” Teddy said, smiling for the first time since his grandmother had come.

Aurora smiled too, a little relieved. At least he was not so sad as to be unable to appreciate certain aspects of the human comedy.

“Yes, absolutely my business,” she said. “Still, there’s theory and there’s practice. In practice one is always wrestling with one’s demons. Mine happen to be quite possessive demons, despite my admirable theories. So are the General’s. In theory he and I are in perfect agreement about the value of individual freedom, but in practice he’s mad as hell at me because he suspects I have a lover.

“Which I do,” she added, after a moment. “In his finer moments Hector would probably admit that the game is over, for him, and that I need a lover and have every right to have one. But in practice he’s mad as hell and he won’t admit anything except that he’d like to bash my head in with one of his golf clubs.”

“We’re younger, though,” Teddy pointed out. “Jane’s not neglecting me or anything. I really don’t mind about Claudia—sometimes I even think I like her better than Jane.”

“She does seem pleasant,” Aurora said. She had met Claudia—a small woman with mild blue eyes—only once.

“Jane can be a little rigid—like she is about television and stuff,” Teddy said. “She’s also mad.

“I don’t mean crazy, I mean angry,” he added, seeing anxiety in his grandmother’s eyes. “I’m not sure I could live with Jane right now if Claudia wasn’t in the picture. It doesn’t mean we have a bad relationship or anything, though.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Aurora said. “I’ve always considered it rather ridiculous, this penchant human beings have for taking vows which, if held to literally, mean they would only see one other adult naked for the entirety of their lives.”

Again Teddy smiled, this time with a little light in his eyes.

“Jane and I didn’t marry, though,” he said. “I’m pretty sure she plans to see more than one person naked in the course of her life.”

“Well, I approve—but I can approve and still be a little worried about you, can’t I?” Aurora said. “I want you and Jonathan and Jane to flourish. Jonathan’s fine and Jane’s fine, but I’m not sure I think you’re exactly flourishing, Ted.”

“It may just be the job,” Teddy said. “Selling coffee and toilet paper’s okay, but it’s not too stimulating. I’ve been thinking of going back to school.”