Rona Jaffe - Mazes and Monsters

“I’m not eating that,” Kate said.

“Why not?”

“Raw fish?”

“You’ll love it,” Jay Jay said.

She tasted it gingerly and shrugged. “It’s not so terrible.”

Daniel was very quiet, deep in thought. “When I was on the subway,” he said, “there was a map on the wall of all the routes, and it looked exactly like a maze. What if Robbie’s riding the subway?”

“Then we’ll have to,” Kate said.

“Not at night,” Jay Jay said. “We’ll get mugged.”

“There are less people at night,” Daniel said. “He’d be easier to find. Also less trains.”

Jay Jay ordered another round and lit one of his thin brown cigarettes. He was terrified of the subway. He would rather go into the caverns alone than have to go there. But at least there were three of them, and Daniel was big. And Kate knew karate. He sighed. He felt like the condemned man eating his last favorite meal.

“We’ll protect you,” Kate said.

“Thanks a lot.”

Jay Jay paid the bill with the credit card his mother had gotten him on the family plan, and they left.

They rode uptown on the subway, walking through the cars, looking for Robbie. Jay Jay kept glancing around looking for potential maniacs. Would Robbie think the graffiti on the walls was familiar? Would he think it was runes? Someone had scrawled in black: MURDER, MURDER, DEATH, DEATH. “Maybe Robbie got mugged on the subway,” Jay Jay said. “Maybe that’s who he stabbed — the mugger.”

They changed trains and kept riding. Now there were very few people, and although most of them looked normal, Jay Jay could hardly wait to get out of there. He kept expecting a gang with switchblades to come rushing on at every stop, like a bunch of Gorvils.

“We’ll never find him here,” Kate said finally. “This is crazy.”

“Let’s go home and see if he called,” Jay Jay said, relieved.

They went back to the apartment. No one had called, and when they telephoned Covenant House they were told that Lionel Stander a.k.a. Robbie Wheeling had not appeared. The apartment seemed peaceful and safe after the streets. Jay Jay’s mother was out, as usual. Jay Jay fed Merlin, and then he and Kate and Daniel went into the kitchen and tried to make Bellinis in the blender. The Bellinis didn’t taste bad at all, and they brought a pitcherful of them into his wonderful room while they planned a list of places where they would look for Robbie.

“The Cloisters,” Jay Jay said. “It’s a former monastery. We have to go there first thing tomorrow.”

“On the subway,” Daniel said. “It’s like roulette — a wild chance but you never know.”

To that they added Times Square, because Robbie had been there before; famous churches; and the Lower East Side, because parts of it were right out of another, ancient time, and Jay Jay had an instinct about this. They could stay in New York only ten days, and then they had to go back to school to take their Final Exams.

“I hope he’s not sleeping in the street,” Kate said. “I can’t even stand to think of it.”

“Maybe it would be better for him if the police did find him,” Daniel said. “At least he’d be—”

“No!” Jay Jay said. “He’s ours.” He was astonished at the vehemence of his response. He had never admitted closeness with anybody, too afraid of being rejected— used to being rejected — and for a moment he was worried that Kate and Daniel might laugh at him. But Kate had tears in her eyes.

“He is ours,” she said softly. “And when we find him we must never, never play the game again. You realize that, don’t you? None of us can. Let’s take a vow.”

“I don’t have to promise,” Daniel said. “I don’t even want to think about that game after this is over.”

“I swear anyway,” Jay Jay said. He felt abandoned, as if part of the good luck charm that had made him popular, even loved, was slipping out of his grasp. M & M had been more than a game, it had been his way of having friendships. But he did have friends, didn’t he? Kate and Daniel … and Robbie when they found him … would still like him and want to do things with him, wouldn’t they? He wasn’t so sure. Their whole friendship was based on the game.

Kate and Daniel got up to go to bed. “See you in the morning,” they said to Jay Jay.

“Everybody up at seven,” Jay Jay said.

“Fecalite,” Merlin said.

“Not you, lazy pig,” Jay Jay said to him.

Jay Jay watched Kate and Daniel go down the hall to the guest room, go in, and shut the door. It was a strange feeling. He’d known he wouldn’t like it, and he didn’t. He wasn’t exactly jealous anymore; Kate and Daniel had been living together so long in the dorm, on his very floor, that he was used to it, but … this was his apartment, his turf, and his loneliness was more poignant here because it was in his own home. He wondered how many years he would have to wait until he got old enough to be interesting to anybody — not as a trickster or an eccentric, but like Daniel was.

He went into his bathroom and brushed his teeth, and put in his hated dental retainer. It was a good thing he didn’t have a girl friend; imagine having to sneak that thing into your mouth at night! That would be the end of romance.

“Good night, beloved Merlin,” Jay Jay said. He put the cover on Merlin’s cage and went to bed.

The next morning the three of them took the subway uptown and went to The Cloisters, wandering through the beautiful gardens and walking through the old stone halls that monks had trod in silent contemplation so long ago. It seemed such a perfect place for Pardieu that Jay Jay was surprised and disappointed not to see him turning a corner to greet them, complete to his rough brown robe. Instead a group of Japanese tourists came by chattering, taking photographs of each other.

They took the subway back downtown and meandered through the Lower East Side, where everything you could imagine was sold from pushcarts on sidewalks. Old men in long black robes, hats, and full beards and payess walked by talking their own language. Would Robbie feel at home here, or out of place? Kate bought a necklace of green glass beads, and then they took the subway back uptown again. Jay Jay was getting more used to the subway and hoped their luck would hold out and no one would attack them. They were very hungry by then, so they stopped at Central Park where they bought shish kebabs and pita bread stuffed with salad from a sidewalk vendor, and went into the park to eat them on a bench. It was a perfect spring day, soft and gentle. Small children ran around on the paths, and sweaty joggers came puffing through the trees on their way home. People were walking around carrying loud radios playing rock or salsa. It was all so normal. In spite of themselves the three of them were having sort of a good time — it made them feel guilty, but they couldn’t help it.

“Let’s go to the zoo,” Kate said. “Just for a minute. It’s right here.”

They went to the Central Park Zoo and watched the seals playing. “I love seals,” Kate said. “If I had a million dollars and could have any pet I wanted, I’d get a seal.”

“He’d be lonely,” Daniel said.

“I’d get him a mate.”

“What would you get, Daniel?” Jay Jay asked.

“Monkeys,” Daniel said. “I love monkeys.”

“We don’t have to ask Jay Jay what he’d get,” Kate said. “He has it.”

They went to the monkey house. “That one there looks just like Perry,” Jay Jay said.

“Exactly!” Kate squealed. They all laughed.

They went back to the apartment to see if there were any calls, but there weren’t. They wanted to have dinner in Chinatown, but they were too tired from all that hiking. They decided to go the next day; in fact, spend the whole afternoon in Chinatown. They added it to their list.