"Hey! Here I am. Couldn't you find me? Can't we be together now?"
And hiding inside of me somewhere, I know (I feel him inside me. I feel it beyond all doubt), is a timid little boy just like my son who wants to be his best friend and wishes he could come outside and play.
On the positive side, he seems to be outgrowing his fear of bees, spiders, caterpillars, crabs, and jellyfish, he tells me, and I want very much to believe him.
"I am," he repeats, insistently. "The last time I saw a bee I didn't even want to move away."
"But were you afraid?" I question him closely. "Did the bee come near you?"
"I was with someone," he admits.
He is marvelous at math and good at science, but no longer cares to excel in either (to the chagrin of his teachers, who express disappointment with him. He is puzzled by their disapproval). Mixed in with all his confusion, I'm sure, is an unresolved Oedipal conflict of staggering dimensions and attendant horrifying castration fears (mine, of course), but he is still too young, ha, ha, to be bothered by any of that stuff now.
He thinks (I think) that he is much smaller than he actually is. I think he thinks he is funny looking and disappointing and that we want to abandon him, take him somewhere far, and leave him there. For what reason we should want to do this, he doesn't know; he doesn't say. (Maybe he believes we want to abandon him because we think he's too small. He isn't small. He is average, and only seems small in comparison to boys his age who are taller. He is a little small, and it's no use telling him he isn't.)
It used to be that when we brought him someplace he had never been before, or even to certain places he had been, to somebody's home, or to a public place that was deserted or one that was noisy and crowded (dark or bright didn't matter. He didn't like crowds; he didn't like emptiness. Or the taking him there. Or taking him anywhere. When we went, he was not convinced we were going where we told him we were going until we got there and not sure when we were there that we intended to bring him back), he would maneuver craftily to keep his shoulder or hand against my wife or me, persevere at remaining in physical touch with one or the other of us, at least until he had scrutinized his surroundings and us to his satisfaction and concluded that the time had not yet come (that it was not yet the occasion of his doom. Sentence had already been passed. Only the moment of execution remained in doubt). He wants to hold on tight to what he knows he has (even though he is far from pleased by what he knows he has). He does not want to lose us. He does not want to be alone, not even at home, and usually leaves the door to his room open. He doesn't spend much time inside it. (He is disturbed when he comes upon doors to other rooms in the house that are closed. The door to my daughter's room is always closed, almost as a flamboyant gesture of spite. Ours may be open or closed. And evenings and mornings when my wife and I make love, or one of us thinks there's a possibility we might, it is closed. We don't feel we want anybody to watch. Group sex will never be for us.) He does not want to be with people he doesn't trust; and he does not trust people he has not known long. He does not always trust us. (So who else does he have?) He would take hold of our hands and be unwilling to let go. We were often embarrassed. We made him let go.
"Let go," we would coax. "Let go of my hand. Please let go now."
The blood would drain from his cheeks and lips (which would turn blue. His lips would take on a bluish tinge when he was very tense). He would tremble, swallow, and gag; especially if, after forcing him to let go, we then also forced him to go off somewhere alone to play or told him to sit in one place while we moved out of sight to another. He always hung back an instant with a sickened, pleading look whenever we told him to go off someplace and play. So we stopped. (He would not want anyone to see his painful apprehension, even while baring it to us. We have stopped making him come with us to places he does not want to go. He has the choice of remaining home without us. My daughter is usually too busy now to devote much attention to him.) He is always saddened and disconcerted when one of our Black maids or white nurses leaves (even though he might not like her. He usually does not like them and wants no more to do with them than he has to). He feels we may be planning to get rid of him the same way.
"Do you want to get rid of Derek?" he has asked.
"No," I have lied.
"Do you want to get rid of me?"
"No. Why should we want to do that?"
"Do you want to get rid of anyone?"
"No."
"People who work for you?"
"No. Just one. Why should we want to get rid of you? You're too good."
"Suppose I wasn't?"
"You'd still be too good."
"Sometimes," he confesses ruefully, with a soft (perhaps tricky) smile, "I dream at night that I'm all alone someplace and I don't know where to go. And I cry. When I wake up, my eyes are wet. Sometimes," he continues humbly, now that he has decided to tell, "I'm not even asleep when I have this dream."
His look is sad when he finishes, and he waits in silence for my answer with a searching, sagacious air.
(I do not know anymore whether he tells me things like this because they are true, or because he observes how strongly they affect me. Mistrust and acrimony are starting to cloud my emotions toward him. More and more frequently, I am incited to react toward him contentiously and competitively, the way I do toward my daughter. I try not to.
"Are you angry?" he will ask.
"No," I will lie.)
Or, as he asked of us one day when we dressed him in a shirt, knitted tie, and jacket to take him to what we told him was the circus (it was to the circus, although he did not seem to believe it, and he looked so lovable, wholesome, and neat in the pink tattersall shirt I had bought for him in the Boys' Shop at Brooks Brothers and miniature blue blazer we had also bought him from Brooks Brothers, with his shiny, silken hair — which was his own and not from Brooks Brothers, ha, ha — clean, wet, parted, and combed.
"Am I clean enough?" he asked, turning from the full-length mirror after he had been scrubbed and dried and dressed.
"Clean as a whistle," I assured him. "Shiny clean," added my wife): "Are you going to put me in a taxi and leave me there?"
"No, of course not!" I retort with anger, appalled. "Now why in the world would we want to do that?"
He responds with a self-effacing shrug. "I don't know."
But he does seem to know.
"Are you playing games with me?" I demand. "Or do you really mean that? Do you really think we would leave you in a cab? What would the cabdriver say?"
"Can I ask you?" he requests meekly.
"What?"
"What I want to."
"I won't get angry."
"You're angry now."
"I won't get angrier."
"Go ahead," my wife says.
"If you do want to get rid of me, how will you do it?"
"With hugs and kisses," I answer in exasperation. "You're ruining the whole day. This is a hell of a conversation to be having with a handsome boy who's all dressed up in a tattersall shirt, tie, and blazer. And we're taking you to lunch at a fine restaurant too."