Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

And Larry’s still out there, still doing it, still twisting simple melodies of unhappiness into dissonant symphonies of pain.

I have to deal with Byron, with Diane’s collapse. Kotkin was no help, said nothing. Why do you think anything has to be done? she asked. No answers; his questions were bounced back.

Maybe I can’t deal with Diane and Byron until I deal with Larry.

How many children has Larry hurt? Gary never did anything to save Peter, and denied and lied even to this day. I’m just as bad, aren’t I?

But Larry’s an old man, he’s managed to survive his perversion, to escape, like some Nazi war criminal living in New Jersey, and now, Larry being old, wasn’t it merely cruel to—

What? He chuckled at the thought of going to the police to report Larry, he chuckled out loud, right in the middle of a pas de deux that had everyone transfixed. The woman next to him turned her head to stare — what in the world could he be laughing at?

It occurred to Peter that Larry might be in the audience. He scanned the rows from his position in the center ring, to the right, then to the left, studying the men in their sixties, trying to reconstruct Larry’s features and decay them appropriately. He might be bald now.

Maybe he’ll die of AIDS, Peter thought with a mixture of revulsion and pleasure. The pleasure faded at the memory of his visit to Raul Sabas in the hospital. Paralyzed, bone-thin, wheezing—

You’re disgusting, he told himself. And if Larry has AIDs, he might be giving it to young boys. Who knows what he does now, who knows how far he’s gone in twenty-five years of perversion? Maybe he does more than merely touch now, maybe he finds runaways, maybe he kills them—

This is madness. The audience applauded. Peter staggered out with them, back into the intermission parade outside, people gawking from above, swirling groups plucking hellos from the air, quick opinions whispered to the floor—

“Hello.” Juliet was at his elbow.

“What did you mean?” Peter said.

“Before?” She smiled at him sweetly. Does she ever get to meet any normal boys, or are they all freaks like her? “No one in the history of the world ever decided to be a musician,” she said. “Your parents have to decide for you. Otherwise, it’s too late. If you start as an adult, you can only be an amateur.”

“How do you know you want to do it, then? When does it belong to you?”

“It belongs to me,” she said, looking down at her shoes, mumbling, “because it’s all I’ve got.”

“And if you had something else, would you give it up?”

“Something else, like what?” She smiled now, looking off, enjoying this. “Husband and kids?” she offered, as if they were a wild possibility, flying to Mars or something.

“Okay.”

“Could be.” She laughed. “Maybe that’s what’ll happen. I’ll marry some egomaniacal conductor — no, maybe pianist — and give it up to bear his children. Then I could teach my children, push them like Mother pushed me. It’s like a bad movie, isn’t it?” she said, and giggled.

Peter smiled politely and agreed it was silly.

But her scenario was just like real life, he thought.

I’m stopping the lessons. If I force Byron to be something, it has to be something I know, something I can teach.

DADDY SAID this was special. Not a regular thing. Special for me. No more violin lessons, but that’s okay. There’ll be special things like this.

“Why?” Byron asked Peter.

“Well, they’re showing these cartoons in a museum because, even though they still make Bugs Bunny cartoons, these, the ones we’re going to see in here, were made a long time ago, they were the first ones made. See the drawings? This is how they do it.”

Up, up. Glass. They were small. I can do that.

“You see they make lots of these drawings and then they use a movie camera to film the drawings one after the other. So it looks like they’re moving, just like when you flip the pages of your little book.”

“Let me see!” Byron went down. Daddy handed him his special book with the little man, the little line man. Byron made the pages go, whoosh! And the stick man danced across, running at Byron’s thumb, right off the page! “Watch out!” But then he was on a horse!

“Okay,” Daddy said. “Now stop and look at each page slowly. See? There’s one drawing for each page, just moving the man and the horse a little bit at a time. That’s how they make cartoons. There are thousands of drawings moving very quickly.”

“I wanna make one!”

“When we get home, we’ll make one, okay?”

“I have a great idea! Make one about He-Man.”

“It’s a great idea for you to make one. But you should make up your own story. Something you make up will be different than anything else in the world. Anybody can make up a He-Man story, but no one but you can make up a story that comes from here—”

Daddy tapped on his head. Daddy looked so close, so happy. Daddy wants me to make up a story. “I can make up a great story!” Byron said.

“I know you can,” Daddy said with a kiss and a hug.

THE LITTLE Lego piece, hot red, smooth as ice, could go right on top, hold it there, hold it there — the Feeling! Pinching, growing inside, growing with a pain of metal, hard and sharp, twisting inside—

“Luke.” Daddy’s voice was boxed, something from television, very important. “It’s time to go to the bathroom.”

“Noooooooooooo!” Push him away.

Daddy’s hand came low, swinging for him. “Let’s go.” His hand closed hard, squeezing, pinching, like inside, heavy pushing in and down, so big and metal, ready to cut him open. Go away—

Daddy pulled him—

“Noooooo!” What was Daddy doing? “It hurts! I can’t.”

“Everybody has to go to the bathroom,” said the boxed voice, coming from someone else in Daddy.

Daddy pulled Luke. Pulled away from the toys. Nothing could stop it, no strength could stop him, right to the toilet, to the great white bowl, flowing up from the floor—“Daddy! Daddy! I don’t have to! I don’t have to! Mommy! Mommy!” Where was she? Where is the real Daddy!

“Sit on the toilet and push it out,” Daddy said, and pulled Luke’s pants down.

The cold air made his hole weak, the metal pushing, hurting him and everything collapsed, blocks crashing, his eyes falling out, tears everywhere—“I can’t! I can’t!”

But Daddy left.

I’m alone. Alone.

“Daddy!” He tried to move out, but the pants hit him in his knees, tying his legs, and he fell on the cold floor. “Mommy! Mommy!”

“Luke.” The boxed voice was back, harder, metal, and he was picked up, the pushing inside still there, twisting and burning in his stomach and penis. “It’s time to go to the bathroom.”

“Nooooooo!” He was being put on the toilet, the hole spread, the feeling big and bigger coming down. He tried to get up and he did.

Where was Daddy?

I’m alone. He’s left. I’m still crying, but don’t cry, Daddy isn’t here, you don’t have to, just push it back. He squeezed, maybe it was too late, he squeezed hard, his stomach closed on it, eating it back, eat it up, go away, go away!

The pain, the metal twisting up, twisting up, hurt, hurt his chest, his eyes — I have Legos red and white, and I build beautiful buildings, castles for He-Man, and spaceships to visit the stars in Maine because in New York there is so much light you can’t see the stars very well so I build my Legos to fly to the stars in Maine, and to Venus, away, away, away, away. …

ERIC WOULDN’T wait. He insisted they repair Luke. So Nina called and called and called, first a fellow mother, then a friend of a fellow mother, and another, until she got the name of a behavioral child psychologist who dealt specifically with problems of sleeping, eating, and toilet training. The pediatricians had failed her with their medicines, all that had happened was that Luke was now on mineral oil, which greased the stuff out against his will, presumably to convince him it didn’t hurt, but he kept saying it did, and the doses of mineral oil had increased steadily, and she knew what Luke meant by hurting, he meant he didn’t like the sensation, and no matter how easy they made it feel he would still complain—