The Late Child (31 page)

“Are there going to be pancakes?” Eddie asked.

“Not unless we go out and get some pancake mix—I guess the mice ate all I had,” Laurie said.

“I don't see any mice,” Eddie commented.

“Well, mice are sly, they had to be,” Laurie said.

“How many mice have you counted?” Eddie asked, patting Laurie on the shoulder.

“Eddie, can't I just sleep a
few
more minutes?” Laurie asked. “I haven't counted the mice lately, but I think there's about forty running around here.”

“Iggy hasn't seen any mice either,” Eddie said.

Neither Harmony nor Laurie responded.

“Mom, I have to be on many television shows today,” Eddie said. “If I don't get some pancakes pretty soon, I'll be starved and won't be able to tell them about Iggy falling all the way off the Statue of Liberty.”

“Why can't Iggy tell them about it himself?” Laurie asked. “He can sort of yip it out.”

“No, he's just a dog, he isn't supposed to talk,” Eddie said.

“I'm a human, I'm not supposed to make pancakes at this hour, either,” Laurie said.

“Mom, why don't you say something?” Eddie asked. “You look like you're deaded.”

“Honey, I'm just tired,” Harmony said. “So is Laurie.

“Go see if Sheba's awake—maybe she and Otis can take you for pancakes.”

“Omar's snoring,” Eddie said. “That's why I woke up. When he snores it's like an animal's about to eat you.”

“Maybe he has a nasal obstruction,” Harmony said.

“Maybe he has a monster that lives in his head,” Eddie said. “When Omar goes to sleep the monster roars and it comes out his mouth like a snore.”

“I like that theory,” Laurie said.

“The monster is the color of puke …
green
puke,” Eddie said. Then he giggled.

Iggy was still tugging at Eddie's shoelaces.

“He likes my shoelaces,” Eddie said. “Maybe he thinks they're pasta.”

Laurie opened her eyes and sat up.

“This kid's not going to give up,” she said.

Harmony agreed. Sleep never seemed more delicious than at some moment when Eddie insisted she wake up and feed him pancakes.

“Sheba doesn't have her wig on,” Eddie said. “I don't think she would take me for pancakes unless she puts on her wig, because she doesn't want to be seen on the street without it, because her hair is too short.”

“In her view,” Laurie said. “Personally I think she looks better without the wig.”

“Mom, they sprayed my hair when I was on television,” Eddie said.

Laurie put her hand over Eddie's mouth, like a gag, and he
giggled into the gag. Harmony opened her eyes and saw that Eddie's eyes were full of mischief.

“Eddie, go and see if anyone's awake in the other room,” she said. “Maybe someone else wants pancakes too.”

“Aunt Neddie's the only one awake—she's smoking,” Eddie said. “It's bad. It means her lungs will turn black.”

“Go make Iggy bark at them and wake them up,” Laurie said. “We have to take a team approach if we're going to get through the day.”

“He won't bark at them because he's
very
polite,” Eddie said.

“Well, you're not especially polite, go pull their hair or something and get them up,” Laurie said.

Immediately it was apparent that Laurie had made an ill-considered remark. The giggly look left Eddie's face, to be replaced by a solemn look. In a moment his eyes got wide and filled with tears.

“Hey, don't look that way, it was just a joke,” Laurie said, horrified.

“She didn't mean it, honey, it was a joke,” Harmony said.

“But she
said
it,” Eddie said. “She said I wasn't very polite.”

Tears slid down his cheeks.

“Eddie, don't cry, I was kidding—sometimes people kid,” Laurie said, looking at Harmony, to see if she could offer more help.

Harmony was willing to help, but once Eddie got his feelings hurt, making them unhurt was no simple matter.

“I didn't want to hear those words,” he said.

Then he slipped off the bed and started disconsolately out of the room.

Laurie jumped off the bed and swooped him up in her arms.

Eddie began to kick and struggle, but Laurie carried him back to the bed and hung on until he got tired of kicking and struggling.

“He doesn't hold grudges,” Harmony said. “He gets over things.”

She said it because Laurie looked as if she might cry herself.

“Yes I do hold grudges,” Eddie said. “I hold them forever and forever and forever until it's the end of the world.”

“You mean from now till the end of the world you're going to hate me just because I made a stupid joke?” Laurie asked. “You're going to hate me for one little stupid comment forever and forever?”

“Yes,” Eddie said. Then he looked at Laurie's face and changed his mind.

“Well, I won't
hate
you,” he said. “You made me sad because of those words, though.”

“If you hated me I couldn't bear it, Eddie,” Laurie said.

“Well,” Eddie said again. It was his philosophical “well.”

“I apologize, how's that?” Laurie said. “How about if we just move on to pancakes?”

“Yes, let's move on to pancakes,” Eddie said. “We'll take Otis and Sheba because my mom looks too sleepy to go down to the street.”

“What if I tie your shoelaces?” Laurie said.

While Laurie was tying the sneakers Iggy began to try to bite the strings even though Laurie's fingers were in the way.

“He thinks he owns my shoelaces,” Eddie said.

“He thinks he owns
you!
” Laurie corrected.

“He doesn't own me and I don't own him,” Eddie said. “We're friends. He's a dog and I'm a person.”

“I don't think Iggy realizes he's a dog, though,” Laurie said. “I think he thinks he's a person too.

“I
know
he thinks he's a person,” she said, picking Iggy up. “He's looking at me right now the way a person would look if another person were holding him up.”

“I like to hold him up because he's small,” Eddie said. “Anyway, he's not a person, he's a dog.”

He looked at Iggy and reflected on the business of who was a person and who wasn't.

“He might think he's a person now because he lives with me
and my mom,” Eddie said. “Before that he was an orphan and somebody put him out on the road in Arizona, where the Hopi people live.”

“Okay, those sneakers are tied and even a dog who thinks shoelaces are pasta can't get them untied,” Laurie said. “Now can we go see about those pancakes?”

A minute or two later Harmony looked out the window and saw Laurie and Eddie walking down the littered street. Laurie was holding Eddie's hand. Neddie wandered in and looked down at them too.

“She's sweet, ain't she?” Neddie said.

“She's sweet,” Harmony said.

While waiting for Eddie and Laurie to get back from having pancakes, Harmony decided she couldn't wait any longer to check in with Gary—it was the longest she had been out of touch with him in almost thirty years. In the back of her mind was the hope that maybe Gary would have had some contact with Ross, who still didn't know that his daughter was dead.

Of course it would have to be chance contact, because Gary didn't like Ross and Ross didn't like Gary; still, Las Vegas was a pretty small world, they might just sit down by one another at Burger King or something. Sometimes she would just be having a burger or maybe a taco and some showgirl she hadn't seen in years would wander in and sit by her; or maybe it would be a stagehand or a light man or even an old boyfriend who had sort of passed beyond the hots and still had a little tender feeling for her. She herself had tender feelings for quite a number of guys who had been in her life for a while and then passed on. After all, why hold grudges? Life or maybe just love or certainly the hots had that temporary aspect to it—somebody was around, making lots of waves and occupying a lot of space, and then, one day, they weren't around, or maybe they were still around but occupying less space and less space until they just gradually stopped occupying any space.

Harmony didn't really expect to get Gary on the first try, usually it took seven or eight calls, and messages would have to be left with people who might run into him, but this time she was lucky and got Gary on the first try.

“Harmony?” he said, when he answered. His voice didn't sound quite right, it had a different tone.

“So did you see Eddie on TV? He's a big celebrity because his dog fell off the Statue of Liberty and lived,” Harmony said at once.

“Really?” Gary said—his voice still didn't sound quite right.

“Gosh, if I had a TV I'd turn it on,” Gary added. “Has he been on Letterman yet?”

“That's today,” Harmony said. “Why don't you have a TV? I gave you my old one, remember?”

“Of course I remember, I'm not a mental defective,” Gary said—Harmony was shocked that he would be so bitchy right off, when they hadn't talked to one another for quite a few days.

“Gary, do you have a hangover?” she asked.

“It's not a hangover, it's a broken neck,” Gary said. “All I have left of that TV you gave me is the remote. I'm clicking it right now but nothing's coming on because Derek stole the TV set.”

“Gary, who's Derek? I never heard of him, why do you have a broken neck?” Harmony asked.

No wonder he doesn't sound right, she thought—if he had a broken neck his vocal cords might have been affected.

“I have a broken neck because Derek knocked me off a wall I was sitting on,” Gary said. “It was about a ten-foot drop and the worst part of it is that I landed on a grill where some people were barbecuing, so I got a bad burn and now it's infected.

“I knew something like this would happen if you went away and left me,” he said, in a sort of accusing voice.

“Gary, you could have come, you were already in the car, it's not my fault you jumped out,” Harmony said, annoyed that he was trying to make it sound like it was her fault because his boyfriend pushed him off a wall.

“Okay, forget it, when are you coming back?” Gary asked. “I have to have an operation in six weeks, I was really hoping you could be here.”

“Oh my God, why do you need an operation, is it for your burn?” Harmony asked.

“No, Harmony, it's for my broken neck,” Gary said. “They have to take a piece of bone out of my hip and graft it into the place that got broken in my neck.”

“Gary, that sounds horrible,” she said. Thinking about Gary with part of his hip somehow stuck onto his neck made her want to cry. It was as if there was no direction she could turn her
mind's eye to that didn't present a horrible sight, unless she turned her mind's eye toward Eddie, who was never a horrible sight. Probably even now he was getting happily sticky from eating pancakes.

“It is horrible, I imagine I'll lose my job, too,” Gary said, morosely.

“I don't know Derek but if I see him I'm going to rip his head off,” Harmony said. The thought that someone would cause Gary such a terrible injury made her feel like slapping whoever did it.

“He's just a little faggot, he had no idea they were barbecuing that chicken on the balcony below,” Gary said.

“Yeah, but it wasn't just the burn—he broke your neck,” Harmony reminded him. “Can't you make yourself love someone nice for a change, Gary?”

“You're no one to talk,” Gary said. “How long has it been since
you
loved someone nice?”

“Never mind, I'm sorry I ever brought it up,” Harmony said. She knew she was no one to talk, although it had been a while since a boyfriend had done anything as bad as what Derek had done to Gary. She had never had anyone break her neck, although a boyfriend named Randy had slugged her so hard she couldn't do aerobics for six months, she had dizzy spells whenever she bent over.

“Harmony, please just say you'll come for the operation and all will be forgiven,” Gary said—he sounded like he needed to know that he still had his best friend. It occurred to her that he had forgotten that she had left Las Vegas forever—that had been her feeling anyway, when they loaded Eddie's bunk bed and all his stuffed animals and took off.

“Gary, of course I'll come for the operation,” Harmony said. “I don't live anywhere now, so I don't know where I'll be coming from, but I'll come. Have you seen Ross?”

“No, why would I see that ugly son of a bitch?” Gary asked. He had always taken the attitude that Harmony had degraded herself by sleeping with Ross and getting pregnant by him—probably
it was because Ross only had a seventh-grade education. Ross was from Kentucky and in Kentucky it was not uncommon for kids to drop out of school about the time of the seventh grade—Harmony had only been through the tenth grade herself and didn't see that it was such a big deal, but Gary felt differently.

“You have natural smarts,” he told her one time, when the subject came up. “Ross on the other hand has natural dumbs.

“He's ugly besides,” Gary had added, unnecessarily in Harmony's view. That was even before Ross had gone bald, too.

“Eddie didn't have a dog when you left Las Vegas,” Gary said. He had figured out that he needed to change the subject.

“No, we picked him up on the Hopi reservation,” Harmony said. “He was an orphan and now he's a national hero.”

“It sounds gimmicky to me,” Gary said. “How could a dog fall all the way off the Statue of Liberty and live?”

“Gary, are you in a bad mood because your burn's infected, or are you just mad at me for leaving?” Harmony asked. It was trying her patience a little, that Gary was being so negative.