Thomas Pierce - Hall of Small Mammals - Stories

“Don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it,” Bet said before bed. “Besides, babies are mostly math. Ounces eaten. Hours slept. You’ll see.”

The crying began sometime just after midnight. Felix did his duty, creeping down the hall and peering in on the little red-faced crank, who shook his tiny arms like they were meant for flight. Felix hoisted him out of the crib and nestled down in the rocking chair across the room, humming a little Van Morrison. The Van Morrison worked nicely. Hank calmed down, his eyes heavy again, but when Felix tried to deliver him back down into the crib, Hank went off like a car alarm.

“There’s a trick to it,” Bet said, small face in the door. Felix wasn’t sure how long she’d been watching him. “Do what you were doing before.”

He sat back down in the rocking chair and started humming the horn section of “Into the Mystic.” Bet, in a loose and ghostly nightgown, hovered near the crib. When Hank quieted down again, she motioned for Felix to bring him over. At the crib, she told him to blow gently on Hank’s face while lowering him down.

“Really?”

She nodded and smiled. He blew gently, and Hank’s nose scrunched up like he might sneeze. But when his butt hit the blanket, he actually stayed quiet. In the hallway, Felix asked her what that was all about.

“I have no idea why it works, but it does. I figured it out by mistake.” She blew gently in Felix’s face. “Feels nice, right?”

He kissed her. Later he wouldn’t remember what exactly had prompted him to do it. Maybe it was her blowing in his face. Maybe it was a quick but powerful feeling that all of this was theirs — this baby, this life, this house, this night-light shining around their bare feet. She pulled him into her bedroom, next door to the baby’s. She lifted her gown and stretched back on the bed. He kept his feet on the floor and leaned toward her, arms on either side of her shoulders. It was different from their first time at the hotel, almost a year earlier — less hurried, less boozy — and as he finished, he said it, or something like it, like or love or, the old Annie Hall joke, luff . But then again, maybe he hadn’t. He might have only sighed pleasantly. No, he’d certainly said something . He kissed her on the shoulder and said he should probably get back to his room. “Okay,” she said.

The next morning, at breakfast, he avoided eye contact with all of them. The Ash family whirled around the kitchen, dishes clattering as they unloaded the washer, discussing plans for the day, a Saturday, and Bet breast-fed Hank at the table. Watching the three of them, Felix felt like an intruder. He had an impulse to run, but he finished his cereal and then showered, whistling in the steam.

They spent the day Christmas shopping. In the car, Mr. Ash asked Felix if he even believed in Jesus, and Felix said, “Jesus… Jesus… didn’t he drum for the Beatles before Ringo?” Mrs. Ash looked back at Felix scandalized. “Sorry,” Felix said. At the mall, he wandered through a toy store alone with Hank, who seemed to like the lights and colors and not much else. Then they went to find Bet and discovered her in the neighboring department store, checking the tag on a mannequin’s jacket.

“You like it?” she asked. “I think I could wear it in the spring.”

“Let’s see it on you.” With Hank gurgling in his arms and Bet wrestling the jacket off the mannequin, Felix forgot, just for a moment, that this wasn’t his everyday existence. She bought the jacket, and they strolled through the mall together, like any other couple, hands on the stroller.

That night she snuck into his room after her parents were asleep and climbed into bed. On the monitor they could hear Hank breathing through the fuzz of static. She was on top of him, and he certainly wasn’t resisting. “You okay?” she asked. He wasn’t sure what to make of that and shrugged up at her: yes, he was okay. When they finished, she fell asleep on his arm and didn’t wake up again until Hank started crying in the early hours, milky light in strips across the bedspread.

In all, this happened three more times before Felix flew home. She would sneak into his room and stay until Hank’s first morning fit. She did this without ever asking what it meant or where it was leading. Each time, afterward, Felix felt more agitated, as if the stakes were that much higher, though he tried not to show it. What was he doing? Possibly he cared for her more than he’d realized. He began to doubt his initial decision to stay on the West Coast. He even entertained notions of bringing her back West with him. His apartment would be too small for both Hank and Bet, but he could find something more suitable. If he really wanted to, he could make this work, couldn’t he? When Bet drove him to the airport, she gave him a short kiss and asked him to text when his plane landed.

“Maybe you and Hank could come and visit me sometime,” he said, and when she nodded, he added, “To see how you like it out there.”

Had he been too subtle? Not subtle enough? He couldn’t tell. Her cheeks were pink and she smiled uncertainly. “Okay,” she said.

On the flight home, he tried watching a movie but couldn’t concentrate. He folded the vomit bag into tinier and tinier squares. He drank three whiskey-and-sodas. The woman sitting beside him asked if he was feeling all right. Felix wasn’t sure. “I used to be the same way,” the woman said. “Have you ever listened to the black box recording from a plane crash? Don’t. They’re all on the Internet. It’s addictive. It always ends one of three ways. It’s either Oh, God or Oh, shit or Oh, no, the flaps! Religion, panic, or blame. Every time I fly now, I think, Well, that’s it. So long, farewell. There’s no possible way I’m going to survive this .”

“There are worse ways,” he said. But really, every flight felt like a little death. What died was the place you were leaving and the person you’d been there. The more distance between him and Atlanta, the less real it all seemed to him — the Ashes, Hank, Bet, all of it. The only inescapable constant was himself: miserable, unfunny Felix.

Waiting for his suitcase at the baggage claim back in Los Angeles, he called Bet’s cell despite the time difference.

“Hey,” she said, surprisingly not groggy.

“I’m here and—” His bag approached. “And that’s it, I guess. I’m here now.”

“Good,” she said. “I’m glad. Hank already misses you.” She cleared her throat, and he could hear a door close. “Listen, Felix, I’ve been thinking. About what happened this week. Going forward, I don’t think we should complicate things, you know?”

Felix grabbed his bag and wheeled it back and forth across the baggage claim floor as Bet explained all the reasons why it didn’t make sense for them to be together. She had no intention of leaving Atlanta, and though she’d always care for Felix, she wouldn’t love him, not like that. When she asked him what he thought, he said that, yes, well, she was absolutely right, it would never work. Only later — weeks later, trying to recall Bet’s exact tone during this conversation — would he wonder if it had been some sort of test. Regardless, they didn’t discuss it again. Whether Bet had told her parents about what had happened between them, Felix couldn’t be sure, but they never offered him a guest room again. After that, he began staying exclusively at the hotel.

• • •

Hank comes stomping down the stairs after an especially long afternoon nap, looking a little bit like a high Shakespearean actor: red tights, wild brown hair, eyes a tad droopy. Felix holds out his arms for a hug, a little worried that he is about to be rebuffed in front of Laura and Bet and the Ashes. JT, who is apparently a master chef, is in the kitchen preparing a “gourmet” dinner. Hank launches off the bottom step and lands in Felix’s arms. Felix spins his son’s legs out like a helicopter. They all file into the living room for an early round of cocktails — vodka tonic for Laura, screwdriver for Bet, whiskey for Felix and Mr. Ash, and a seltzer for Mrs. Ash, who rarely drinks any alcohol aside from white Zinfandel. They sit in a rough circle, encamped on various pieces of antique furniture: a green leather sofa, the two wingback chairs, the ottoman under the flatscreen on the wall.