The Cradle Read online

  Tigers. Joe was sitting beside him, quiet. Was it not obvious then, what this other feeling was, this mysterious feeling of gratitude for a day? It was the same shape, just the opposite. He hadn’t invented it himself and he had not been touched by the hand of God and granted a new emotion for doing nothing. No. That feeling that sometimes overcame him—that feeling that was coming again now and that was making his heart beat faster, making him start to sweat, making his hands shake a little—that feeling was what happened when he rushed through the carved passages of all that old pain, but rushed through them without the pain. Instead just existed and allowed himself to be what he was and what he had been at the same time. The divots and the paths and the channels that were there inside him were not malleable. Rather, it was what ran through them that was malleable.

  He started pulling over. It was one of those. The sky in front of him was a pale blue and closing down in a circle. The edges, again, were turning bright white. What he was feeling now was both sides of it, he realized, reaching forward and sliding the gearshift into park. The rage was nearly unbearable, but the joy, too, had mixed with it. Why, he didn’t know. He hadn’t the faintest idea what to do or say. This boy right here beside me, he thought. This boy. He looked over. Joe looked calm. He didn’t have the faintest idea.

  Matt got out of the car and leaned against the grill. It was hot, and he closed his eyes and let the feeling deep into the small of his back. He was an hour from home. But he couldn’t go there. Not yet. That was the point.

  Alone. This is what alone did. And to think there were reasons for it to happen, that it didn’t just drop down onto you. That was what he hadn’t understood when he was a child. That the world never just happened but rather was made by people, each and every aspect of it. Whether or not you could control it was beyond the point. It was not the question if you were a child. When you were a child, you couldn’t control anything. That’s what being a child was.

  Later, though. Later, it was different.

  What he felt he knew for certain was that without going, it wouldn’t be secure. Without actually making it clear what would happen, and making sure the law was on their side as well, something could always go wrong. Someone could go. Someone could come back. Someone would change their mind. Matt knew, though, that he wouldn’t change his mind once he decided. And actually, hell, he had already decided. So he would have to go back and make it clear, what he planned.

  He found a phone at a gas station just a few miles down the road. He was glad that she didn’t answer, and he left a message after hearing himself say that no one was home.

  “It’s Matt,” he said. “He’s here with me. We’ll be home tomorrow. One more thing to do.”

  11

  It was evening by the time they arrived back in Walton. The sun was low in the sky, directly in front of the truck, slamming Matt’s eyes a little—his eyes itched, and he wondered whether eyeballs could get burned—but despite its orange, the flatlands of southern Minnesota still looked gray. No matter how you lit it, barren was barren, sterile was sterile. They’d stopped once to eat, and now Joe was sleeping, curled up into a ball with his Little Mermaid backpack as a pillow. He’d had one more accident during the drive. Out of clothes, they’d stopped at a Target in Madison and Matt had bought three more pairs of little sweatpants for him and a new package of underwear. He’d also bought a package of Hanes white T-top shirts for himself in the spirit of hygiene. In the checkout line, he’d seen a superbouncy ball, swirled in color, so he’d also gotten that and given it to the boy.

  This time there would not be any circling through the streets. They passed the great dead mechanical beast and entered town slowly. It was two nights ago that Matt had come here for the first time. Now, though, it was different. All through the drive, he’d been carrying along the pulsing feeling that had overwhelmed him in Milwaukee. As they’d passed the St. Helens exit, he had stared straight ahead and had talked to Joe about the big icicles he remembered forming on the roof of the Kincaids’ house, and how he’d loved nothing more than to throw snowballs at them and knock them down and then take them up and play with them like they were swords. There was something to the many steps of this game that he had loved. As he spoke, the urge to have what he was thinking to himself as a discussion with Darren Roberts tickled inside his limbs.

  Just a discussion.

  They passed the bank where Matt had withdrawn the money, then turned, then turned onto Darren’s street.

  Joe was waking up, and Matt said quietly, “We’re here.” As they passed Darren’s house, Joe straightened up, and Matt wondered whether or not Joe remembered this town or this street. Probably not. The boy’s mind was an opaque mystery to him. It wasn’t only the not talking, it was everything else—the way his eyes moved with intelligence, the way his lips stayed still, never pursed, never changed position. He didn’t smile, either. He only looked.

  Now, he was looking out the window. He didn’t seem very interested in Walton, or the street, or whatever memories were left.

  Matt parked halfway down the block and turned off the car.

  “Joe,” Matt said, “I have a question for you. Actually, it’s more of a favor.”

  Joe looked up at him.

  “I have to run in and talk to a man in one of these houses,” he said, waving his finger across the street. “I was hoping that while I’m gone, you could wait here and wear my hat for me.”

  His eyes ticked up to the hat on Matt’s head.

  “If someone doesn’t wear it, then it gets less powerful. So I need it to stay on someone’s head, and I can’t wear it in there. There’s something about that place that makes it not work. There’s a person in there whose powers cancel it out.”

  Joe took in the baseball cap for a long time. When his eyes finally came back down, Matt said, “Okay?”

  Joe nodded.

  Matt took the hat off and dropped it down onto the boy’s head. It was much too big, and the brim dropped down to cover his whole face.

  “I just have to talk to someone for about ten minutes.” Matt helped him rearrange the hat so it stuck off to the side, and up. “Now don’t try to mess with it or anything,” he said. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t try to drive to California or anything like that. It would just be too ridiculous.”

  With that, he got out of the car and walked down the road to Darren’s house, hands in his pockets. He climbed the stairs and knocked loudly several times. He heard the dog barking, then heard Darren tell it to shut up.

  “Who is it?” he heard Darren yell through the door. He sounded far away.

  “It’s me,” Matt said. “It’s Matt.”

  “Who the fuck does that mean?”

  “Matt,” Matt said. “The cradle.”

  “Oh,” Darren yelled. “You. Yes, you.”

  “Yes, me.”

  “I can’t get to you,” Darren yelled. “Just come in. I left it open for you.”

  The janitor at Fryer’s, he had been a tiger. There wasn’t any other way to think about him. Cold steel-blue eyes and his goddamned dry mop, always moving slowly up and down the halls, sweep by sweep. But he was hunting. He was crouched and hunting. Matt never saw him using any water on anything. Just the sweep-sweeping, glances here and there, passes in the hall in line with all the other boys. There was a bathroom in the lunch hall, but one day it was broken. It was early in his stay there and Matt didn’t understand anything yet, so he’d asked the old man with the mustache and he’d patted him kindly on the shoulder and had told him where he could find the other bathroom, down the hall. Matt had hurried there, hands pressed down hard into the pockets of his jeans. Then inside, through the door, into the large tiled room, and there he was, leaning back against the windowsill on the far side of the room, smoking. The sweep-sweeper was beside him. He had brown hair with a violent strand of gray at the front, folded back and slicked. He was long and skinny, dressed up in an aqua-blue jumpsuit, and he didn’t move when
Matt came in. Matt stood still, dying to go to the bathroom, hands still thrust down in his pockets. He looked at the urinals. The janitor said, “Hey, fella. Just come in.”

  Matt pushed the door open and stepped into the house. He found Darren in the center of the living room, upside down, strapped in at the feet to a big metal frame.

  Matt had seen commercials for the thing on late-night TV. Some yuppie exercise invention. It looked like a torture device. Darren looked like a vampire bat at the moment. His hair hung down from his head and touched the floor. His arms were crossed at his chest. Darren the Dog was on his back, balls up, nearby.

  “Hello there,” Darren said, upside down as he was. “You seem to have come upon me in a compromising situation.”

  “Should I even ask ‘What the fuck’?”

  “Back strain,” said Darren. He stretched his arms out. “Originally, mind you. During the course of my rehabilitation, I had a transcendental experience, however.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “A lucky coincidence. I found that this kind of position also helped me to organize my thinking.” Darren’s hands were now up near his hips, and he squeezed two canvas straps. “Think of it as a focusing device. A kind of crystal that promotes deeper sorts of organization, et cetera.”

  “You look organized.”

  “You say that,” Darren said, pointing. “You joke. But you know something? I knew you’d be back. So maybe you’re not so funny after all.”

  “Maybe you should turn around,” Matt said, “so we can talk.”

  “You mean right side up?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Is he here?” Darren asked.

  “Is who here?”

  “My son.”

  Matt took another step into the room. He had parked far enough away, and he doubted Darren had seen them through the window. “No,” he said.

  “No?” Darren said, surprised, raising—lowering—his eyebrows. “Then I was wrong on that count. Sometimes I am, I admit it. Excuse me. I saw you as coming back with him. When I got the whole, kinda, idea of it.”

  “So you’ve been talking to your mother.”

  “Neither my mother—”

  “Stop,” Matt said.

  Darren sighed. “You don’t understand, do you? Not that I’m surprised. Nobody ever gets shit about shit when it comes to this. Both of us—we are special people. I don’t know how else to say it. She has her way, and I have mine.”

  “That’s not helpful.”

  “But we no longer talk,” Darren continued. “Let’s just skip it. I could tell you another long story, but fuck that, okay? Without getting into the specifics, Matt, you’ll just have to accept it.”

  “It doesn’t matter anyway,” Matt said. “If you’re so special, then you know why I’m here.”

  Darren closed his eyes then, nodded his head. Matt watched as his right hand released from the strap and moved right, through the air, and began feeling around near the table. The hand crawled around the table until it found a can of Miller Lite. Darren then brought the beer to his mouth and drank upside down. A good amount spilled up his face and dripped off his forehead onto the carpet.

  After he put the beer back on the table, he said, “I do know why you’re here. You’re here because you want to keep him.”

  “I’m here for more than that,” Matt said.

  “What, then?”

  “First of all,” Matt said, “keep is not the word. Give and keep are not the words.”

  “What are the words, Matt?”

  “I don’t want to keep him. I want to give him a family so he doesn’t have to be raised by some alcoholic woman who doesn’t care one way or the other. Or you, for that matter.”

  “What am I?”

  “What?”

  “You described my mother with a high degree of accuracy,” Darren said. “I’d like to hear you do me.”

  “By whatever it is that you are,” Matt said. “Someone who doesn’t care.”

  “It’s outright impossible to burp when you’re in this position.”

  “Then turn around and talk to me.”

  “I think I’ll stay down here, thank you,” Darren said. “And you’re right, by the way. I don’t care.”

  “So I want your word then,” Matt said. “Your word that when all the papers come, you’ll sign them and you’ll send them back. It costs you nothing. You and I both know it’s the best thing that could happen.”

  “Is it?” asked Darren. “For who? I also question your use of best.”

  “I don’t,” Matt said.

  Darren smiled and blinked a few times as though he’d heard just what he’d been waiting for. He said, “This is the problem with all you people. You forget that best is an opinion no matter what.”

  “All what people?”

  “I guess I just mean people.”

  “Think that if you want. In this case that’s just not true,” Matt said. “You know it. No matter how much you say you don’t believe in anything.”

  Darren had no response.

  “You’re a person, I’m a person,” Matt said.

  Still Darren said nothing.

  “There’s more that I want from you,” Matt continued. “Sign the papers. But something else, too.”

  “Yes,” Darren said. “Go on. I’m very interested in your mortal plans.”

  “You’ll never come looking for him,” Matt said.

  “Well, I can promise you I won’t do that,” Darren said. “Straight up, man. I told you.”

  “Most people I’ve ever known who pretend to be like you wake up one day and realize all along they just hate themselves,” Matt said. “And that was the problem. So excuse me if I don’t think you’ll always be this way.”

  “Suit yourself,” Darren said. He crossed his arms and closed his eyes again, and again he looked like a vampire bat. “But always have, always will.”

  “Beyond that, though,” Matt said. “The more important part. If he comes to find you one day—and I’ll do everything that I can to stop him from trying, I fucking promise you—but if he comes to find you one day, even though I tell him not to, even if I tell him that the last time I saw you, you were hanging upside down in your living room, telling me you didn’t care one way or the other, and he shows up here, or wherever you are, you will act like you are gracious.”

  Darren’s eyes opened. “That’s wonderful, imagining me like that.”

  Matt waited.

  Darren locked his fingers together, then cracked all his knuckles. The dog turned its head to look.

  “Okay, then,” Darren said. “Seeing as I have no reason to do any of these things, my response to you is simple, Matt. I’ll do all of it. You just answer me my Question of the Ages. If I say your answer’s good enough, then I give my word. If it’s not good enough, then I won’t do it.”

  “I am not answering a goddamned riddle,” Matt said, “to decide whether or not he comes with me.”

  “You’ll have—”

  “Listen to me. Every single person I’ve talked to since I left my house has been absolutely out of their fucking minds, but listen to me, Darren, just actually listen to me: no matter what, he’s a real boy. Joe is a real boy.”

  “Yes, he is,” Darren said. “Youth.”

  “This is real.”

  “Yes. I believe that. I never said a thing about not believing that.”

  “So I’m not playing a game with you.”

  “No?” said Darren. “You won’t play my game? Oh, painful to me. But don’t you think I’m enough of a crazy sonofabitch to not do any of these things and send that little fucker, that real boy, to some real-ass foster home somewhere just because you wouldn’t? Or, shit, you know what, Matt? Maybe I do want him after all. Maybe I have some things I wanna teach him about. So maybe he should just come back here. Maybe I’m ready. Maybe I’ve grown.”

  “No matter what you say,” Matt said, “I know that you care, and that is why you’ll do it. T
his is all real. His life is real. This is real.”

  “Answering my question is a lot better than me just shootin’ you, isn’t it?” Darren went on. “Then shoot myself for fun? Or, I don’t know, eat you before I shoot myself? Or something? Because I could do that with equal nihilism. That’s one of the wonderful aspects of my point of view, Matt. And let me tell you, you glowing uptight real motherfucker, in the last couple of days I had a lotta nice ideas, friend, but instead I decided to meditate and await your arrival this way, because I thought it might be more interesting, and because you’ve got something about you I like, and because, as you know, I am a student of the human condition.”

  “Okay,” Matt said, “fine. Ask. Ask, and I’ll say some answer, and then I’ll go, and then you’ll keep your promise. Because you give a fuck.”

  “No,” Darren said, “I don’t. The answer’s gotta be good or you lose.”

  “You give a fuck,” Matt continued. “You’re alive and you’re here, and you think it matters, and because saying it matters is just another way of saying you’re alive and you’re here.”

  Darren was silent for a long moment, frowning.

  Then he said, “Huh.”

  “What?” Matt said.

  “The strangest thing,” Darren said. He shook his head once, violently, then put his pinkie into his ear. “Very strange.”

  “What?”

  “No.”

  “No, what?”