Charles Baxter - The Soul Thief

“How’s German class?”

Michael pointed at the nearly empty serving tray. “Ich muß meine meatloaf haben, bitte.”

After going through a phase when he claimed that he would “convert” to African-Americanism, Michael tried to pass himself off as a Communist. “Property is theft,” he informed us one night over the tuna-noodle casserole. He was then just barely ten years old. His brother sighed his practiced sigh and asked him if he planned to start a career in shoplifting. Six months later Michael announced that he would grow up to be a Mormon missionary. Mormonism! Where had that come from? Had we heard, he asked us one afternoon, that he would soon leave for Mozambique on a mission? He would have to learn Swahili, or whatever they spoke in that faraway nation, and he would have to do it right away. Jeremy asked him his opinions about Joseph Smith, and Michael said, “Who?” I used to catch Michael reading the encyclopedia — a dangerous hobby with a kid like that. So is surfing the Web. Weird ideas are out there for the picking: he is convinced, for example, that if you turn your TV set to a blank static channel, the dead will find a way to send you a message through the ambient snow on the screen, or through the white noise on the speakers. I have seen him sitting patiently next to the TV set, tuned, he claimed, to the Dead Channel.

Some of his interests, his habits of mind, can probably be credited to me. When he was about six years old, I was delegated — Laura ordered me — to go up to his bedroom and tell him a bedtime story. I climbed the stairs and in the dim light began a tale of Heroic Henry. This fellow had been born an orphan in a cabbage field but had been trained by a wizard in bravery, guile, and fighting skills. In the first story, Heroic Henry fights back an army of killer gnomes threatening the village. The villagers reward him with a beautiful house and bride. Then, somewhat abruptly, because I had grown a bit sleepy myself, Heroic Henry dies.

“He dies?” Michael asked, disbelieving, sitting up in bed.

I nodded. Tears threatened to appear on my son’s face.

“He can’t die!” Michael told me.

“Well,” I said, “he does. I’m sorry, but that’s what happened.” I kissed him good night and, after waiting for him to calm down a bit, went back downstairs.

The next night I told another story about Heroic Henry. In this story, he persuades a dragon to eat the lava that is dribbling down from the volcano and threatening the village with incendiary ruin. Then, together, he and the dragon conquer an army of zombie puppets coming in from the West Country. Overcome with thankfulness, the village rewards both the dragon and Heroic Henry with a salary and comfortable shoes. The dragon is put on a retainer. At the end of the story, Heroic Henry dies again.

“This is like last night,” Michael told me.

“Sorry. Can’t help it. That’s how the story ends.”

On subsequent nights, Heroic Henry fought off the vollzards — lizard-like vultures — and then he organized picnics and freed various slaves and went to King Alarcord’s Mine to retrieve the Biggest Diamond in the World, and he wrote operas and he invented the water-powered automobile engine, and somehow found himself as a relief pitcher in the seventh game of the World Series (he saved the game, of course, for the Toonerville Titans, who had at last made it, after much struggle, into the major leagues), and he rescued the elephants from the evil capitalist poachers who had flown in from Frankfurt, Germany — he is, indeed, a super-hero, but he must meet up with Death at the end. Death, impeccably groomed, is usually wearing a business suit and takes him through the nearest doorway.

After about two months of this, on those nights when Michael was half asleep, he would sometimes tell me to shorten the story. “Make him die,” he would mutter.

In January, Michael invited a friend to stay for a sleep-over, and when the boys were ready for bed, he asked me to tell both of them a Heroic Henry story. The friend had a sweet bewildered look underneath a mop of tangled blond hair; his name was Abraham (we were getting into the era of Old Testament names). I didn’t think Michael’s friend could handle the usual narrative conventions. So I went up there to Michael’s bedroom and had Heroic Henry cure King Scotty of the wound in his side, and then Heroic Henry fought off the Yankees, a flock of vampire birds wearing baseball caps, and finally the rains came and saved the village from starvation, and the wheat was harvested, and everyone lived happily ever after.

From his sleeping bag on the floor, little Abraham seemed quite contented. He appeared to be drifting off to sleep.

But Michael was outraged. “He has to die!” he said. “He always dies! He’s not Heroic Henry if he doesn’t die!” I shook my head and turned out the light. Behind me, I heard Michael protesting, “That’s not a real Heroic Henry story. That’s a fraud!”

“Sorry,” I said, behind the closed door. “Tonight he lives.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Michael replied.

He once told me that he knew he had been conceived on the Moon by Moon People, transported as a Moon Baby on a rocket ship back to Earth, and we, his parents, were trying to foist him off as a normal American boy, whereas in fact he was totally interplanetary.

I agreed with him. Yes, that was exactly what had happened. He expressed dismay with my agreement — he shuffled away angrily. But he’s a sweet little lunatic who actually has pretty good sense, and anyway, the sight of him always lifts my heart.

AFTER DINNER,the boys disappeared — Jeremy into his room to do his homework, write out his college applications, and call his current girlfriend, Celeste (pronounced “Sellest”). Like other American teenagers, Jeremy has his own cell phone, and sometimes the two of them simply stay on the phone all evening as they do their homework. I don’t see how this is physically possible, but I know that it happens. Jeremy’s ear has reddened from having a phone always pressed up against it. He has had one girlfriend or another for as long as I can remember. They adore him — his kindness, his good looks, his gentlemanly manners, and his attentiveness. Even when he breaks up with one of them, he manages to be so gracious that they stick around. It will not be like that once Michael’s romantic feelings are stirred up. There will be an air of sickness and apocalypse. Michael will make them crazy.

After Jeremy excused himself from the table, Michael, lacking his best audience, also excused himself — for a wolf cub, he is polite — and, after waving and saying “Tschüss,” made a beeline into his own room, the better to read up on his latest enthusiasm, Gay Pride. After half an hour, he would probably get bored with that. A page would turn. Coca-Cola syrup concentrate is often available behind the counter at drug-stores, for certain gastrointestinal ailments —and few people would know this sly little fact. Michael would be suddenly interested. Coca-Cola syrup! What uses…might it be put to?

My wife stood, swept a strand of hair aside from her forehead, and with a laugh said, “Well, it seems we have a gay son.” With the back of her hand, she wiped her cheek, a gesture I have always found endearing.

“Could be. But I doubt it.”

“Me, too. Well, we’re completely unsatisfactory parents for him anyway. In this household, if you came out of the closet to your parents, all you’d get is a bored yawn.”

I nodded. “That’s it. No closets here. With us, everybody says everything.” As she cleared the table, I settled in to add up some receipts, part of our months-long preparations for our income taxes.