David Gates - The Wonders of the Invisible World

“What would you like Nonny to read, punkin?” she said, once she finally got him squared away. “Your daddy said you could have one story and then off to bed.”

He went and got the mouse book from the coffee table and put it right in her hands. “ That. ”

“He loves that one,” I told Sylvia. “Just so you know, they don’t have any words in it, so you have to sort of make it up as you go. It’s kind of along the lines of the—”

“Oh, I think Nonny can manage.” She had him up on her lap, playing with his hair. “What do you think, punkin? Does Nonny have it under control?”

“Just telling you,” I said.

Sylvia opened the book, flipped through the first few pages, then nodded. “Now, once upon a time,” she said, “there was a little mouse. And one fine day, this mouse happened to meet up with a kitty cat who was as big as a monster. ”

I shot her a look — the idea was to put him to sleep, not get him worked up. When she pointed at the picture, I got up from the recliner and came over and sat down beside them, and my God, you could smell her breath three feet away. Unpacking. She must have been into it hot and heavy. “So the mouse said, ‘Can’t we even talk about it?’ ” Little squeaky voice for the mouse. “But the kitty cat hated all mice in the world, and he began to run after the mouse. See? ‘Come back, I want to eat you alive. ’ ” A big bass voice.

I looked at Dave Junior, but he was smiling away.

“So the mouse ran into her hole, and when the kitty cat went after her, he tripped over a grrreat big dog. And there’s the dog, see? And that dog was as big as a monster. ”

“Syl?” I said. “I don’t know about too many monsters.”

She put a finger to her lips and hissed. “Quiet in the peanut gallery. Now, the dog, who was as big as a monster, hated all kitty cats in the world, and when the kitty cat tripped over him, he took off after her just as tight as he could go. ‘Come back, I want to eat you alive .’ ”

“You said her, ” Dave Junior said.

“Uh-huh. And there’s the kitty cat.”

“But before you said—”

“Sssh. So they ran and they ran and they ran and they ran and they ran. Aaaand —they ran!”

Dave Junior giggled.

“And then guess what?”

He did a big show-off shrug.

“They ran !”

Another giggle.

“Until pretty soon what should they come upon but a man and his wife. See? Now, the wife had just gone to all the trouble of making the most beautiful cake in the world for her husband, and there it is right there. Can you guess what’s going to happen?”

“The kitty’s gonna run under the chair and they’re gonna go pow and all go flying.”

“That’s right. Completely ruined. So watch, she’s bringing the cake in, and he’s not paying any attention. Just sitting there with his face in a newspaper. You’re not going to be like that, are you?”

“ I don’t know,” said Dave Junior.

“What kind of an answer is that?” she said, in a way that made me look at her. “That’s no answer. Let me tell you something. You turn out to be like that, I’ll come back from the grave and cut off your penis.”

He squirmed around and stared up at her.

She began to laugh. “Oh, my Christ. Oh, Sylvia. Now you’ve done it. You have done it.”

I got up and picked him up off her lap. “C’m’ere, young fella. Time to hit the hay. We got a big day tomorrow.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t want to, you didn’t finish. ”

“Here we go.” I got up as he tried to wrestle out of my arms. “I’ll tell you the rest of your story in bed.”

“No, Nonny has to tell it.” He started kicking.

“You run along with Grandpa, sugar,” Sylvia said, just sitting there on the couch smiling, not even looking up at us. “He’s going to give you your milk because Nonny got tired. She’s going to have her milk and go to bed, too.”

I carried him out to the kitchen, squirming and screaming his head off, and managed to get the icebox open and pour him a cup of milk one-handed; I put it on the table and sat him down in front of it. He gave me a dirty look, drank it in one big gulp and instantly got quiet. I led him by the hand into his room, put on his night-light and tucked him into bed. He lay quiet while I finished up the story as best I could, but when I left, shutting the door behind me, he started up again.

I went back into the living room; Sylvia was gone and the door to the den was shut. I sat down on the couch — still warm where she’d been sitting — and listened to him carry on. He was just all keyed up, and probably wouldn’t keep at it for long. Basically he’s a good boy; Bonnie did a fine job with him — or I better say does.

Jesus, I thought, imagine having all this to do over.

That night I dreamed the accident was just a false report, and that Bonnie and I were grocery shopping in the Big Y in Greenfield (where I go once a week). I was pushing the basket and she was riding in it, standing up, even though she was a grown woman, and pulling down boxes and cans and throwing them on the floor. Actually, she was sort of Bonnie and Sylvia both. I woke up and it was just starting to get gray outside the picture window. It took a second to understand that none of this was true.

I thought about getting up and pulling the drapes closed, but once I’m up I’m generally up. For me, a couple hours is a good stretch, and I don’t seem to need more than four or five hours a night. Which can make for a long day unless you’ve got some project going.

When I first retired up to Shelburne Falls, I figured I’d do some hunting and fishing, not having fished for maybe twenty years. I got a license and borrowed a pole and some tackle from Scotty, but it was all I could do to poke the hook through a nightcrawler. If they’re so backward they can’t feel pain, why is it they start wringing and twisting when the hook goes in? I knew right then that if I was that sorry for a worm, I wouldn’t be much of a hand at shooting deer anymore. You change, you know?

The one smart thing I did, I moved my shop up. My basement’s only half the size of the one in Clinton, but without the rec-room furniture and Ping-Pong table I’ve got more space. I still turn out some piecework for Wahlstrom — last month I cut two hundred and fifty cams — which gives me a little mad money. We could do everything back and forth by UPS, but it makes a good excuse to drive down and get together with some of the old gang. A few of them still work there, and I guess Fred Wahlstrom’ll outlast everybody. Eighty-one years old and he still comes in at seven-thirty every morning. We have an early supper and I drive back up the same night; somebody always offers to put me up and put up with me, but it’s a straight shot up 91 and I like to sleep in my own bed. Sometimes you sit there at the table and they’ll be talking about how so-and-so did such-and-such the other day, or what a fuddle-dee-dud old man Wahlstrom is, and suddenly you feel like you’ve died and you’re looking on from the other side. Like you can still hear and see them, but if they were to reach out a hand it’d go right through you.

I must’ve fallen back asleep, because I woke up again and the room was brighter. What woke me up this time was a hissing and the smell of bacon. I’m at Bonnie’s house, I thought, and she’s fixing breakfast. Again, it took a second for it all to come back. I sat up and saw Sylvia out in the kitchen, poking a fork around in a skillet. Dressed to the nines, too, in plaid slacks, white blouse, her hair just so. She saw me, smiled and waved. As if that business last night had never happened. Well, I wasn’t about to bring it up. Old Harold was more than welcome to deal with all that.