Babar’s Mystery, loot? — as I seem to be. Am. Usually. Though sometimes I can be tight — stingy, cheap. I think it’s because I made very little money working till only a few years ago. I mean, at least for about ten years before those few years ago, very little, where I couldn’t even buy myself pants. Anyway … actually, loot means things taken by a thief, or a soldier during war, so it isn’t the right word for money. Let’s just say my father wasn’t as free and easy with his money as I can be, though at times I’ve been as tight or stingy as he ever could be and maybe much worse. No, there were some things he did — newspapers on the subway…” “What things he did?” “Did he do. I think that’s right. ‘What things did he do?’ And I’ll tell you, if I can still remember them then, when you’re older. He was also very affectionate lots of times. You know what that means.” Nods. “Always — often, rather — he touched my face — every now and then’s more like it — with his hand when he’d just walk by on his way to someplace. Or at the dinner table, since for years my seat was on his right. This hand. Or my head. Touched it affectionately. And smiled when he did. A smile that showed he liked me a lot — loved me, even, I could say. What am I saying? The smile said very definitely that he loved me — I’m sure it did, when it went along with his touching my face or head. I could see that then. It still seems that way now. Meaning my opinion of it hasn’t changed.” “Of what?” “Of his hand on my face or head and the smile that went along with it and what it all meant. That he loved me when he did all that. He kissed me a lot too. All his children. Out of the blue. Meaning when there didn’t seem to be any reason for it and so I wasn’t expecting it. Just bang, he’d grab me and kiss me. I remember how. Held my face with his hands and kissed me on the cheek or top of the head. Sometimes very wet kisses. He seemed to have very moist lips — wet, juicy. I didn’t mind the wetness of them or what they left on my cheek. Sometimes I rubbed my cheek very hard to get the wet of him off. But I’m sure I did that because people thought it was cute — sweet, funny; you know.” “I know what cute is. It’s to be nice.” “Not nice so much. Pretty. Not pretty either. It’s a quality-characteristic, feature, something in somebody — that people respond to — are attracted to, react to, get affected by, like — though some don’t. Some people think it’s too, well — cute, I mean — cutesy, too sweet, like some candy is. Maybe nice is the best word for it, because cute’s almost an impossible word to get another word for, but do you now know what I mean?” “I think so.” “Sure you do. Or maybe I shouldn’t insist you do if you don’t or aren’t sure. So: do you know?” “Know what?” “I forget too. What were we talking about?” “I forget too. But I have a story for you.” “I know — my father’s affectionateness. Let me just go on, sweetheart. Affection. I don’t remember this but I bet he closed his eyes when he kissed me. Maybe I don’t remember it because mine were closed every time he kissed me. I know for sure it made me feel as good when he did it as I do when I kiss you, despite his wetness — even with it, that’s what despite means,” and takes her face between his hands and kisses her forehead. “You shut your eyes, see? Just the way I did when he kissed me, but I didn’t to you, so maybe he didn’t too. He also had a good sense of humor.” “Who?” “My father. At least he laughed a lot and told jokes and said funny lines, though used the same ones many times. For instance ‘If I had a dime’—I’d ask him for a comic book, let’s say, which cost—” “What kind of book?” “Comic, though that doesn’t mean they were funny. That’s what comic means. Acutally, ‘comical.’ No, ‘comic’ too. One of those cheaply made books on newspaperlike paper, meaning the quality of it, the feel. Feel it.” She does. “Though this newspaper, which was the one my parents read when I was a boy, never had comics, which are these little colorful drawn picture stories — colorful in the Sunday papers. That was disappointing to me because all the newspapers my friends’ parents read had them. You see what comics and comic books are now?” “Cartoons.” “Right. For newspapers and books. So if I asked him for a dime for anything like a comic book or ice-cream cone—” “Or candy bar.” “No, a candy bar cost five cents then. He’d say If I had a dime I’d build a fence around it.’ He never seemed to say it with a nickel or quarter, just a dime. For a long time I didn’t know what that fence-around-the-dime line meant. Do you?” “He’d build a fence around a dime.” “But why?” “It’s a special dime. Valuable one. Is a dime money?” “Sure, that littlest coin. Ten cents. So worth now about fifty cents in what it could buy. That’s what a comic book must cost today. Or maybe they cost thirty to forty cents but are nowhere near as thick as the comic books I used to buy for a dime. Wait a minute. When I was teaching junior high school years ago—” “What school’s that?” “It’s a long story. It’s difficult. A school for kids much older than you. But I saw that some of these comic books of my students cost a dollar then, so maybe they’re up to two dollars now. No, can’t be. But I remember when I was a kid when they went from ten to twelve cents and I thought it was too much money. I ended up buying them though and even when they went to fifteen cents. Come to think of it, there were sort of super-comic books at fifteen cents at the time when all the rest were ten, but twice the size of the dime ones.” “Will you buy me a comic book?” “Not right now. They’re really very silly and dumb. You like regular books, so why degenerate to comic books? I didn’t like regular books — and not ‘degenerate.’ I won’t even go into what it means. Just why go to comic books after you already started with regular books?” “I could have both.” “I don’t know. I know I wouldn’t like reading them to you. They’re all so thin and transparent. You can see through them. They’re shallow, trivial, not deep, just dumb, plain dumb. Or sensational. To give you a quick charge. A bang, thrill. Garbage, that’s what they are. Want me to use a bad word? Crap. And you know, to get off the point — away a little from what I was saying, which was too vituperative. I just cursed and put down and found fault with and, you know, like that, without really thinking. Anyway, I don’t remember anyone reading to me, except maybe teachers to the whole class. I’m not saying this to say ‘Hey, what a great dad I am.’ Just saying it to say that maybe all this happened — my great liking of comic books — when I was twice your age and already reading. You’re almost four. I was probably eight or ten or even twelve, so triple your age. What I’m saying in all this is that I probably started reading comic books before regular ones because the first—” “I can look at them. You don’t have to read to me.” “We’ll talk about it. Truth is, I think I looked at comic books before I could read them, and maybe when I was your age. And one probably can’t hurt you. Of course it can’t. And you’ll see how slight they are — thin, junky, good for nothing, what I said before. But maybe there’s something good in them and again, I don’t want to tell you — well, you know — before you read them. Anyway, my father said his dime-inside-the-fence line to all of us and just about every time we asked for one. My brothers and sister I mean. Or maybe not Vera, my sister, since that pour soul never really had a chance.” “What do you mean?” “What do I mean? I shouldn’t have brought it up. I meant that she was so sick so very early in her life that if she had asked for a dime from him — and by that time comic books probably cost fifteen to twenty-five cents — he probably gave it to her with no dime line or fuss. Maybe he gave her two dimes, two quarters, told her to buy two comic books or whatever she wanted the dime or quarter for. What the dime line meant though — but sure he said it to her, for it would have, if he thought this way, made her feel like a normal, regular, one of the children with no sickness, made her laugh. But what the dime line meant was that this dime was so much money, which it wasn’t for him — he was just kidding us — that if he had one he’d build a fence around it to protect it. As you might with a thousand dollars.” “Or a million.” “Right. Which you wouldn’t really. Not only — well you don’t want to hear anything about bank interest.” “Why?” “Because it’s dollars, decimals, numbers with diagonals dividing them, separating them, making them into pieces and parts, in this case slashing two numbers, one on top of the other, in half,” and makes a slashing motion with his hand, “all pretty boring and complicated. Or maybe not. Maybe you’ll become fanatic about fractions and mathematics. Think so?” “Sure.” “Two and two. Quick. That’s addition. Six?” “Four.” “dose. Anyway, we still smiled or laughed every time my father said the dime line because we knew he wanted us to. It made him feel good and if he felt good he’d feel happy and then be good and happy with us. Something like that. And of course we’d be more relaxed after our — after we were first nervous about asking him for the dime, if we all were. I know I usually was, but maybe my brothers weren’t. And maybe in this general all-around good mood and feeling he’d have toward us he’d even happily give us the dime without much more fuss. We were connivers, so to speak. Little phonies, fakers, saying, without saying out loud to him, meaning so he could hear, “We’ll make you happy, Dad, by laughing or smiling at your old lines and jokes we wouldn’t normally laugh or smile at, because we want your dime. Or maybe we laughed or smiled at the lines over and over again because he was so happy, or relatively so, meaning so-so, when he said things like that, or at least easier in feeling and mood than he usually was with us, and that made us feel good and maybe even a little happy too, do you see?” “Not quite well.” “That’s okay. And mood is what? Dark and what else?” She just stares. “Are you interested?” “Mood?” “Dark and light, like night and day,” and frowns and says “Dark” and smiles and goes “Ha-ha” and says “Light. Two different moods, see? Not the laugh and smile but the frown expression, this one,” and he frowns, “as against the other two. Forget it. And he did, listen, give us the dime when we smiled or laughed like that. Only time he didn’t to me was when I asked in front of older people. Then he’d usually say, after he usually said the dime line and I’d smile or laugh, ‘Don’t ask for money in front of people.’ But say it harshly in front of them.