Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

“It’s Fred Tatter again,” Irene said.

So I was just a nice schmuck, an errand boy. And now I’m a fool.

Eric took the call.

“Well?” said Fred. “The market’s open. You said you’d call back.”

“I can’t recommend it, Fred.”

“What about two thousand shares?”

“Okay, if you want.” Eric hated him, this fool whom he had tried to protect. What did it get him? Nothing but the misery of truth. “I’ll call you back with the price.”

Eric placed the order, then sat back in his chair, his eyes closed, and waited for a confirmation. Errand boy. Eric the great stock picker. He tried to tune the words out. Errand boy. But they had music in them — Schmuck! Errand boy! — a persistent, irritating jingle that couldn’t be forgotten.

BIG BOY. Big boy. Big boy.

Byron sucked on his soft thumb, washing it with his saliva. He ironed the liquids back into the mushy skin, pressing them out with his tongue and the roof of his mouth. Up and down, trailing his teeth on the knuckle’s hard bump. First cool, then hotter inside, soft on top, hard on bottom.

Big boy!

Mommy pulled him through the lobby. He swung on her hand, felt himself bottomless, heavy, but loose anyway, free in the world tied to the mommy swing.

“Are you tired?” Mommy’s dark, dark face stopped the easy, loose world.

“Tire?”

“Tired. You’re sucking your thumb. Do you need a nap?”

“No!” Angry Mommy wants me away. Look — behind the leaves. A man.

“Hello, Beerun!”

It was Jesus, the doorman. Peeking through the leaves.

“Hello, Beerun!”

Byron scurried across the forest floor to catch the lion Jesus.

“Can’t catch me, Beerun!” Jesus hopped back and forth around the plant, the gold buttons of his blue suit rattling, his feet dancing on the grass floor.

So funny! The green world shook, tables, chairs, all hopping around the lion Jesus. He pawed the air and meowed. “I kratch you, Beerun. I kratch you,” Jesus said as Byron dived for his silky pants. “Oh, no!” Jesus said. Big boy had caught him. Big boy had won.

“Byron, the elevator’s here.”

“Okay. Up now, Beerun. You big boy,” Jesus said, lifting him up from the green rug. “Go catch your mommy.”

“Rrrrr,” Byron said, and grabbed Jesus’s legs again.

“No, no, big boy Beerun. Your mommy’s waiting.” Jesus’s hands pushed him gently toward Mommy. Byron paused and looked at Mommy’s body, tilted sideways, holding up the elevator switch.

“Can’t catch me!” Byron sang and ran, his hair floating, big boy on the fly. “Can’t catch me! Can’t catch me!” He ran into the gold box and looked up at the lighted numbers. Home was six. He jumped at the buttons. Press the button — see the light.

“What are you doing?”

“Want to press, want to press, want to press.”

“I told you. You only have to say things once!”

Big boy jump. Couldn’t. Mommy hands could. “Lift me, lift—” only once, say only once.

“Okay, okay.”

Press and light. “Six!” he called to the light. “We’re home!” he called to Mommy. “Can we play?”

“We’re in the elevator.”

“I know, I know—”

“Byron!”

“I know,” he mumbled. “Can we play in my room?”

“I have to go to work. Francine will play with you.”

“I hate Francine.”

“You do not!”

“Francine fat!”

“Bryon! Don’t you dare say that to her! That hurts people’s feelings.”

“Fat, fat, fat.” The elevator doors opened. Byron ran out. “Francine fat!” he shouted at the tall wall door with the symbol of home—6A.

Diane grabbed him by the elbow. The floor fell away. “Stop it!” she yelled.

Home—6A — jumped. “I’m not bad!” he answered, once the 6A stayed still.

“Stop it! I can’t stand it when you’re like this!”

“You don’t love me,” big boy called up to her, to the dark face.

“I don’t love you when you act like a brat!”

Brat is bad. Not bad. “I’m not!”

“You are! I don’t love a brat. I love a boy who is good.”

The 6A dripped, the floor got big. Mommy’s hand felt hard. Not bad. Too big for the bad. His face got squeezed and hurt. He cried.

“Oh, no,” Francine’s voice said. She was fat and big in the home door. “What’s all the crying? You hurt yourself?”

“I have to go, Francine,” Mommy said. “He needs a nap.”

“Don’t! Don’t need!” The squeezing face hurt more. Mommy don’t love me.

“Now, Byron,” Fat Francine said. “Don’t cry. Babies cry. Big boys don’t.”

Big boy. Big boy. Big boy not bad.

“Good-bye,” Mommy said. The dark face came at him, a shadow sun darkening the squeezed hurt.

“No!” he cried, and turned into Francine’s big warm fat.

“Byron! You bad boy. Give your mommy a kiss.”

“Forget it,” Mommy said, and the shadow went away.

Big boy run, big boy sleep. Big boy bad.

I AM DADDY’S head. I am his hair. His eyes. His ears. His nose. His mouth. I walk on Daddy’s head. Walk through the sky. Walk through signs.

“Don’t pull on my hair, Luke.” Daddy’s forehead rolled up and under his hand.

“Okay.” Luke made his hand flat and felt the rumpled skin.

“Duck,” Daddy said.

The building cover moved at his eyes. He felt himself lowered; he put his head next to Daddy’s. The sun went dark for a moment and then he was going up again, up again to the windows, above the grown-up heads, big and bigger in the world.

“That was a low awning,” Daddy said.

“Why?”

“Didn’t you see how low it was?”

“Why low?”

“Compared to the others, it was low.”

“No, no.” Luke wanted to burst out of words, to yell. “Why make it low?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.”

Luke felt the inside jail open and laughed away the worry. “You didn’t!”

“No, I didn’t.” Daddy’s hand went around crazily to pat Luke’s back. “I don’t know why they made that one so low. Maybe the only place to attach it — do you know what ‘attach’ means?”

“No.”

“Like glue. Sticking something to something.”

Daddy was happy. Luke patted the hard ball of Daddy’s head to feel his happiness.

“Anyway, maybe the only place to attach it was low.”

“I see.” He felt the wet air and the dry light. The song played in his ear: “I like you just the way you are. Not the clothes you wear.”

“Is this your neighborhood, Luke?” Daddy said with happiness in his voice.

“What?”

“Welcome to your neighborhood, right?” Daddy said with laughter in his happiness. “This is your neighborhood. Mr. Rogers has his neighborhood and this is yours.”

The worry was back, confused sound and dark light. “What?”

“Do you know what ‘neighborhood’ means?”

He put his hand on Daddy’s fur and grasped it to hold on, hold on to the big and bigger world. “No,” he said, and wished he could pull the hair.

“It means the place right around where you live, the stores, the park, these streets. And ‘neighbor’ is someone who lives right around where you live. In the same building, or one nearby.”

The air was wet again on his face, the light dry and warm. “I see,” he said, and then watched the people, the stores, and, ahead, the wonderful and terrible prospect of the trees and grass of the park. They belonged to Luke now, like his toys, his room, his bed. “This is my neighborhood,” Luke sang. “Welcome to my neighborhood.” He laughed.

Daddy’s happy head bucked under his hand. “That’s right, Luke.”

AS ERIC approached the playground gate, he felt more in control than usual, because he had been so clever at wooing Luke to the park. When Eric first made the suggestion they go to Washington Square Park — he wanted Nina to sleep late, undisturbed by their noise in the living room — Luke had lowered his head, his bright blue eyes darkening as if the source of their energy were on the blink. Eric said, “We’ll go to the park, I’ll put you on the swing until you’re tired of that, then I’ll catch you going down the slide—”