Miranda July: The First Bad Man

She missed the first two Fridays, and the one after that. I called several times to issue a gentle reminder, but her phone just rang and rang. I pictured it in a rainy gutter somewhere. She was exactly the kind of woman who ends up murdered.

“I don’t want to alarm you,” I said calmly. “But I thought you should know.”

“We just saw her yesterday,” Suzanne said.

“Oh. How is she?”

“She’s happy as a clam in her new place — you should see it, she and Rachel painted the walls all kinds of crazy colors. Did you meet Rachel?”

“Rachel lives there?”

“Oh yeah, they’re inseparable. And I have to say they’re real cute together — Clee is just gaga for that girl. Did you know Rachel went to Brown? Carl’s alma mater?”

“When you say ‘gaga,’ what do you mean?”

“They’re in love.”

I PUT AWAY ALL THEdishes except my own set and Jack’s tiny plastic spoon. I covered the TV with the Tibetan cloth. I took the cloth off and put the TV on the curb by the trash cans. As everything went back into its proper place, I explained my system to Jack, carpooling and so forth.

See, this way the house practically cleans itself.

He crumbled a rice cake into his lap.

So if you’re down in the dumps you don’t have to worry about things devolving into filth.

He dumped a box of plastic blocks on the rug.

My plan for toys was to not worry about keeping them in their place, since that would be a never-ending battle, but to approach them like the dishes: less. I threw all of them into a suitcase except a ball, a rattle, and a bear. These were allowed to be anywhere but ideally they wouldn’t clump together. Two of them could be in the same room but I liked for the third one to be somewhere else, otherwise it became too chaotic. She wanted a girlfriend. Someone to pal around with. Exploration of the body, womanhood and so forth. It was so ordinary. Jack wondered where all his toys went; he crawled all around the house looking for them. I rolled the suitcase back out and emptied it in the middle of the living room. Stacking cups and blocks, soft cars and stuffed animals, board books and interlocking squeaking rings with googly eyes and textured tails. My system wasn’t really applicable to babies. Babies ruined everything. Secret plan to get in bed and never move again? Ruined. Tendency to pee in jars when very sad? Ruined.

Each day I walked to the park with Jack in the stroller. We stopped and watched the men playing basketball, wondering if Clee had ever watched these men and if they had watched her. There was a muscular bald man whose place she could have gone back to. He showed no recognition, but why would he think the child of a woman he’d never met was his son?

Do you feel a kinship with any of these men?

Jack did not. He was getting bigger and on some days he looked much less like Clee and much more like someone else. His expression when troubled was not unusual — I’d seen people, men, with brows that furrowed like that. But I couldn’t put a face to the feeling; it was a dissolving thought, like a dream that hurries away when you approach it. We watched people jogging and older children playing on the slide and swings.

A couple stretched on the grass smiled at Jack.

Do they know us?

No. People just smile at you because you’re a baby.

Now they were waving. It was Rick and a woman. They walked over to us.

“I was just saying, ‘Is that her? No, yes, no.’ ”

“He was just saying that!” the woman agreed. “He really was. I’m Carol.” She stuck out her hand.

I glanced around the park. Did he live here? I didn’t see a hovel or sleeping bag nearby. Carol was clean and ordinary; she looked like a college professor.

“This is him?” he asked, eyes moist.

“Jack, yes.”

He delivered you.

You’re kidding.

“I’ll never forget that day. He was blue like a blueberry — didn’t I say that?”

The woman nodded heartily. “You came home, dropped your gardening tools, and said, ‘Honey, you’ll never guess what I just did.’ ” She swung her hands in the pockets of her skirt and smiled. “But it’s not the first time you’ve helped out in a pinch, hon.”

Rick was either the homeless man she lived with and called “hon,” or else he was her husband.

“I did a small amount of medic work in Vietnam,” Rick mumbled modestly. “He certainly looks healthy.”

“He’s fine now.”

“Really?” Rick’s eyes were pained and full. “And the mother?”

“She’s doing great.”

Carol patted his back. “He didn’t sleep well for weeks after the birth.”

“I should have called,” said Rick. “I was afraid of hearing bad news.”

Not gardening, he wasn’t even dirty. Why had I decided he was homeless? Because he always arrived on foot. No car. I looked at him sideways, wondering if he’d been aware of my mistake. But if you weren’t homeless you would never assume someone thought you were. I pointed toward my house and said it was almost time for Jack’s nap.

“We were just heading back too,” said Carol, pointing in the same direction. “We’re a few blocks over.”

A neighbor with a green thumb and no yard. That’s all. Would this be the first of many awakenings? Was I about to be buffeted with truth after truth? More likely it was just a singular instance.

An isolated case of mistaken identity , I explained.

An honest mistake , Jack agreed.

WE WALKED TOGETHER AND RICKinsisted on checking the backyard.

“What a mess. I shouldn’t have let it go like this. How are the snails?”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen one. The bucket was empty. It seemed they’d left with Clee.

Carol picked lemons off my tree and made lemonade in my kitchen.

“Never mind me, just go about your business.”

I walked Jack around the house, teaching him the names of things.

Couch.

Couch , he agreed.

Book.

Book.

Lemon.

Lemon.

“It’s so quiet here,” said Carol, wiping her hands on my dishcloth.

“I like to keep it calm for the baby.”

“Do you ever talk to him?”

“Of course I talk to him.”

“Good, babies need that.”

They left lemonade and promised to return next Thursday with a quiche. I locked the door. Do I talk to him? I did nothing but talk to him! I laid Jack on the changing table.

All day long! I’d been talking to him for decades.

There we go, that’s nice, isn’t it? It feels good to be all clean and dry.

Okay, sure, I didn’t holler at him like a train conductor. But my internal voice was much louder than most people’s. And incessant.

Now let’s snap your pants.

I suppose it was possible that to someone on the outside it might seem as if I were moving around in perfect silence.

Snap, snap, snap, there we go. All done.

I patted his tummy and watched his wide-open face. It was a crushing thought, little Jack innocently living in a mute world. And all those words, all the terms of endearment — had he heard none of them?

I cleared my throat. “I love you.”

His head shook with surprise. My voice was low and formal; I sounded like a wooden father from the 1800s. I continued. “You are a sweet potato.” This sounded literal, as if I was letting him know he was a root vegetable, a tuber. “You’re a baby,” I added, just in case there was any confusion on that last point. He craned his neck, trying to see who was here. Of course he had heard me talk, but always to another person or on the phone. I put him down on the bed and kissed his fat cheeks again and again. He shut his eyes, gracefully enduring.