Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

I got out, Eric said to himself, watching them, their tired, harassed faces, hearing their loud, always angry or confused voices— even the laughter of the poor was unhappy: clanging bells, not happy peals. Their children fought over every toy, every activity, as if they already knew that there isn’t enough for everyone on this planet, and for those who don’t fight, there isn’t even sympathy, just lonely tears.

“What you want?” a young mother, not more than twenty, shouted at a pathetic two-year-old. She was a light-skinned black, probably beautiful, Eric thought, but her hair was angrily out of place, her skin was glossy with sweat, her eyes vacant with exhaustion.

The two-year-old cried out his answer. Eric thought he spoke in Spanish.

“He took it? Miguel! Miguel!” she shouted at a boy of six.

Also hers?

She screamed at the six-year-old Miguel in Spanish. Miguel watched her rage as if it had nothing to do with him. When she was finished, Miguel walked away. He had a bright ball in his hands, the object the two-year-old wanted.

That’s why I always take two of everything to the park, Eric thought. Then Eric realized she couldn’t afford two of everything, any more than he, as a child, had any recourse if he lost his pinkie early in the weekend and none of his friends had money for another. They would go to the park and hope to steal a ball or find a stray one. The fear of losing his pinkie meant that Eric never tried to hit a home run in stickball. One glorious moment of success brought all play to an end.

The two-year-old burst out with a fresh squall of tears as he watched Miguel walk off still in possession of the ball. “That’s what you get for not watching your things,” she told him. “Stop that,” she ordered her two-year-old after a long, cold stare at his misery.

He didn’t. He stood in front of her, his arms hopeless at his side, his features squeezed into formlessness.

“Stop it!” she ordered again.

Here it comes, Eric thought.

And she slapped him across the face. He screamed at this. She picked him up and walked away, her lean young body twitching with fury. She yelled and yelled, not looking at her son, complaining to the trees, to the other parents, to the sky.

Because she’s poor. Because she doesn’t have another ball. Because she has to do every little thing, change every diaper, wash every dish, make every bit of food, clean every piece of clothing—

“It’s horrible here now,” Barry said. “Remember how it was? With all the families? You knew everybody. All the kids knew each other … ” and he went on.

It was the same, Dad. The people were white. But it was the same.

LARRY WAS in his ear: “Look, I have to go. Please stop crying.”

The sweet perfume hugged Peter’s cheeks, hot and foggy in his nostrils. Peter put his hands between his legs and pressed. He pressed his eyes tight too. Get small. Get small.

“Jesus,” he heard Larry complain.

Calm down, he lectured. You’re all grown up now. You have your own apartment, you have a wife and child, you have credit cards. You have a job, you have a secretary. You can get up, go outside, and catch a cab. Maybe you need to nap.

“Are you having some kind of breakdown?” Larry asked. Peter opened his eyes a little, squeezing a look. An old man dressed in a gray suit was there.

That’s the horrible Larry, the gigantic man-penis, whispering, “You like this, don’t you?”

“Are you all right?” Larry asked slowly, saying each word with emphasis. “I have to go now. I can’t leave you here on my couch, crying.”

This is him? This is the monster?

Larry sighed, exasperated by Peter’s silence. “I’m sorry I said that about your mother. I’m sure she loves you.”

My mother? What did he say?

You’re all grown up now. You can get up and go.

“You look better. Do you want a drink? I’ve got some scotch here—” Larry moved toward a cabinet. “Jesus. Look at the time. Why don’t you have a drink? Relax. Take your time. You can leave when you want.”

“What did you say?” Peter’s voice was a child’s, a weepy child’s voice.

“Nothing. I shouldn’t have—”

“You said mother had an affair. That’s wrong. That’s all backwards.” Peter brought his hands to his eyes. They were wet. He brushed at them.

Larry didn’t want to answer. He tapped his foot and nodded. “It was a long time ago. Okay? I’m going to go.” He opened a cabinet. “The scotch is here. I’ll tell my—”

“You said she met Kyle and then—” Peter couldn’t talk. Couldn’t think out the sentences.

Who is this old man? Why am I asking about the divorce?

“That’s what she told me — I don’ know. Look, I’m sorry.”

Larry left. He walked fast. Opened the door with a quick jerk and disappeared.

There’s no point to this. Peter took his hands and rubbed his legs from the thighs down. He pressed his fingers into the flesh as hard as he could. He wanted to stretch, to grow out again.

He stood up. Tucked in his shirt. Cleared his throat.

You are all grown up now. What’s done is done. All the clichés do apply. You are a fine human being.

Your mother confided in a child abuser. And the child abuser thinks your curiosity is an irritation.

There’s nothing wrong with you, Peter. It’s everybody else who’s crazy.

THE NURSE took Diane by the arm right outside ICU’s swinging doors. “Feeling faint?” she asked.

Diane shook her head, relieved at her escape. She never wanted to go back and see Lily again.

It isn’t my mother in there. They killed my mother.

“I know they look terrible right afterwards. But you’ll see, by tomorrow her color will return. She’s doing fine.”

Diane got herself back to the waiting room. The internist had said he would meet her there. She lit a cigarette but was nauseated by her first drag and put it out. I have to quit, she decided, thinking of ICU, that human junkyard. My father died of a heart attack and Mom has this congenital problem. Diane had had the internist listen to her heart on his visit yesterday. He heard nothing but offered to run some tests. She had declined.

She felt alone.

Peter seemed to have nothing to do with her; she couldn’t really summon an image of his face. And Byron? He had been good with Lily, affectionate, not rambunctious, but somehow she didn’t feel he belonged to her.

I’m an orphan with lousy genes.

The parking lot outside was bright that day. For the catheterization, it had been rainy. Almost every space was occupied. The car roofs glittered in the sun, glowing to her, beckoning. She wished she could drive back to New York and get home. Get into the bath. Have some popcorn. Masturbate. Go to sleep.

If there’s something wrong with my genes, then Byron will get it too.

The internist arrived. He was genial but brief. They had put in a porcine valve; the operation was a success. Lily would be in the hospital for two to three weeks, probably the latter because she wasn’t in good condition.

Diane walked to her car and thought: I can’t stay here for three weeks. But who could take her place? Where was Daddy? Where were her sisters? Her brothers? The whole world had a family. Peter had two sets of parents, stepbrothers, stepsisters, aunts, uncles.

She thought she was okay.

But behind the wheel she couldn’t find the ignition. She pushed the key at the black plastic, but there were no holes, no entries.

I have no family. No one to help me. No one to drive me home.

Her eyes filled with tears. Painful tears. And no one could hug them away.

“I don’t have anyone to help me,” she said to the windshield. “Mommy, please help me,” she said, blubbering to the hot silent car.