“ ‘Sure, sugar,’ she said, and smiled at him and scrambled his hair with her hand. ‘Why do they ever have to grow up?’ she asked when I gave back her menu.
“And me thinking the same, Mills. Why do they? Why do they have to grow up? Why do they have to learn to read? And had already relented, and wanted to thank him, say, ‘That was nice, Harve.’ But thinking, No, talk is too cheap, I won’t spoil it by saying anything. Thinking, The kid must be starving. After the food comes, after the food comes and she’s left us alone I’ll take a bite and sigh and tell him I’m not as hungry as I thought I was, and push my plate across the table at him. Thinking, Yes. That’s just what I’ll do.
“I couldn’t even look at him yet, Mills. I couldn’t even look at him I loved him so much. I didn’t want to see his fine hair, his slight body, his soft, perfect skin.
“She brought my shrimp cocktail. She brought Harve his milk.
“I arranged the napkin in my lap and lifted my shrimp fork. I didn’t squirt lime on the shrimp because I didn’t know if Harve would like it. Most people don’t. I still couldn’t look at him. I heard a kind of noise, Harve’s ventriloquized conversation, but low, almost under his breath, sounds no one could spell. Which even I realized was perhaps why he made them. I didn’t recognize this one. It wasn’t, well, mechanical. It didn’t have that special gift of speed and divided, juggernauted air he was so good at. It didn’t rumble like avalanche or crackle like fire. I couldn’t recognize it at all. It had none of the crisp rasp and bristle of Harve’s natural disasters, forests coming down, the earth quaking like a stutterer. They weren’t the nasal trills of siren and emergency. It wasn’t the rapid fire of war. It was a kind of long-drawn-out sliding, a soft rubbing noise like something being slipped out of a package.
“ ‘Here, Harve,’ I said, ‘these are good, but you eat the rest. I’m not nearly as hun—’
“It was the paper bag. It was the paper bag with the candy I’d made him promise not to eat all at once. It was the paper bag he was sliding out of his pocket, that he overturned on the table letting the bars and confections rain down on the cloth like bombs from a bomb bay and then covered with his napkin so the waitress wouldn’t see it when she came by with my steak.
“ ‘You put that—’
“ ‘You said I could eat anything I want. I even asked you. I said “Anything?” and you said I couldn’t have eggs.’
“Because he was waiting, setting me up. Because he knew, you see. Knew in Kentucky when he spent his three bucks. Because he was ready for me before I was ever even close to being ready for him. Because he’s hawk through and through. Because that megaton noise, those sounds that he makes, are war games, maneuvers, some worst-case scenario he has by heart in his head.
“ ‘If you’re so smart,’ I taunted, ‘if you’re so smart why can’t you read? Knock knock. Hey, knock knock, Harve.’ ”
Messenger’s hands were shaking. “Do you get this? Do you see what I mean?” he asked George. “Big deal I don’t take him hunting, big deal I never taught him to fish.
“His suits,” Messenger said suddenly, leaning toward Mills, fervent. “The power of my father dressed! His suits. Their ample lapels, their double-breasted plenitude. The fabrics like a gabardine energy, their sharkskin suppleness, the silk like a spit-and-polish swank. His trousers riding his hips like holsters and giving off not an illusion of bagginess but some natty, rakish quality of excess, bolts, cloth to burn. Full at the calves, full at the shins, and spilling over his shiny shoetops, fabric rolling over him like water. He stood in his clothing like a man swaggering in the sea. His suits, my father’s suits, the power of my father dressed. The fierce force of that middle-aged man!
“In shorts, George. In pajamas the same. His thighs spread in swim trunks, on beach chairs, in hammocks, his long old balls hanging out. An old testicle prophet my pop!”
“I don’t—”
“Did he teach me engines? Did he teach me to drive? You pass on what you can. He sold costume jewelry. He taught me a gross is a dozen dozen. A hundred forty-four rhinestone necklaces, a hundred forty-four pairs of earrings. Term insurance a better deal than straight life. That you pay cash you lose the interest on your money. His traveling salesman’s weights and measures.”
“I don’t—”
“Wait, wait. I gave Harve five dollars to play the video games. He was back in an hour with a kid half his age.
“ ‘This is my friend, Dad. This is my dad.’
“ ‘Hi.’ The kid giggled. ‘Let’s splash my sister, let’s go run around.’
“ ‘We found the secret tunnel,’ Harve said, ‘where they keep the machinery. Where they keep all the chlorine, where they keep the equipment that works the whole pool.’
“ ‘Mister, Harve turned off the lights. He shut off the games.’
“ ‘Could you step out for a minute? I want to speak to my son.’
“ ‘The janitor’s after us, that guy who makes change.’
“ ‘Please,’ I said, little boy.’
“ ‘I’ll be in the tunnel,’ the kid said to Harve. ‘Unless I’m captured.’
“ ‘Don’t get captured, Pete. Gas him. Unscrew the caps off the chlorine.’
“ ‘You know how old that kid is?’ I thundered. ‘Christ, Harve, he’s six! There must be half a dozen boys out there your own age. Why choose babies to play with?’
“ ‘He’s eight.’
“ ‘He’s a fucking baby. He’s crazy as you are.’
“ ‘I’m not crazy,’ Harve said. ‘Don’t call me crazy.’
“ ‘I don’t understand you. Why can’t you find someone closer to your age?’
“ ‘They’re boring.’
“ ‘You’re boring! All you do is run around and make trouble. All you do is run around and act wild.’ He started to leave. ‘Forget it. You’re not going out. Where’s my change from the machines? You’re not stuffing yourself with any more candy.’ He threw down some quarters. Tick those up! Pick them up!’
“He undressed in the bathroom. When he came out he switched channels. A movie with airplanes, another with spies. He flipped back and forth during commercials. He bit off his nails. It wasn’t even eight-thirty.
“ ‘Mom packed your suit, Harve. Want to go for a swim?’
“He wouldn’t speak to me.
“ ‘Want to go for a ride, Harve? See what Nashville is like?’
“Paula says I overreact.
“ ‘Harve, are you hungry? They could send in fried chicken, a burger, some fries. What do you say, Harve? How does that sound? Harve, answer me, damn it, I’m talking to you! Harve? Harve?’
“I’m not his enemy, Mills. He thinks I’m his enemy. I love watching television with him. I love it when he falls asleep next to me.
“ ‘I’m watching a movie. You took back the quarters. I can’t eat what I want or play with my friend.’
“I snapped off the TV.
“ ‘Sulk now I’ll smack you, I’ll break you in half!’
“ ‘I’m watching my program. I suppose I can’t watch my program?’
“When I sat down on the edge of his bed he moved away. I pulled the chair over from the desk. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m going to tell you some jokes.’
“I told him the one about Johnny Fuckerfaster. I told him the one about the three kinds of turds — mustard, custard and you, you dumb shit. I told him book-and-author jokes—The Panther’s Revenge by Claude Balls, The Spot on the Mattress by Mister Completely. I told him all the jokes I could remember from when I was Harve’s age, the age of the kid Harve had brought to the room. I did maybe twenty minutes. He looked at me as if I was crazy.