Joy Williams - Honored Guest

“What do you think actually went on there, on that sub-floor?” Abby’s mother wondered. “I have three guidebooks and they all suggest something different. It was either a pantry, or for laundry, or for torture.”

“You have four guidebooks,” Abby’s father said.

“I think it’s all a matter of wild conjecture.” Abby’s mother raised her hand and brushed the inconsequential thing off her face. “There were twenty-five nuns, right? Twenty-four? And they were never allowed to leave except when there was an earthquake.”

“I like those creepy mannequins at prayer in their cells,” Caroline said.

“Don’t you just want to know everything?” Abby’s mother exclaimed suddenly. “Just think of all the information children Parker’s age will have access to, and so quickly!”

“What’s your favorite ruin?” June asked Abby’s father.

“I don’t have one,” he said. “My favorite meal was the steak at Las Antorchas.”

“I can’t believe we’re going back to Las Antorchas,” Abby’s mother said. “Honey,” she said to Abby, “I’m sorry we’re so early but we’ll be back early. I just want to get this anniversary dinner over with.”

“I don’t want to stay here,” Parker announced. “I want to stay with you.” His hair was firmly combed. He wore madras shorts and a short-sleeved button-down shirt, dressed in a manner that small children often are for an event they are not really going to attend.

“Parker, look at that parrot!” Abby’s mother said.

He studied the parrot, which was staggering across the grass to retrieve a bit of melon. “I don’t like it, there’s something wrong with it,” he said. “I don’t like that dog, either.” The dog had been straining toward them soundlessly on its rope all the while, panting wildly.

“Well, just stay away from the dog,” Abby’s mother said. “Play with your trucks.” She whispered to Abby, “We’re just going to slip away now.” They left and Parker sat down on the grass, dropping his head rather dramatically into his hands.

Howard went into his room and brought out an almost full bottle of Jägermeister. There was still the possibility, which they all embraced, that the liquor was made with opium. This had not been utterly discounted. “Hey, Parker,” he said. “Would you like a drink?”

Parker raised his head. “I like iced tea,” he said. “The kind you get at home, at the store, in a bottle. My favorite is Best Health’s All Natural Gourmet Iced Tea with Lemon, and you wouldn’t have that in a million years.”

“He’s into iced teas,” Caroline said. “Isn’t that scandalous.”

“There’s one that tastes kind of like fish,” Parker said. “Sort of like rusty fish. But not right away. Just a little afterwards.”

“They actually make an iced tea like that?” Howard said. “Cool.”

“That is so radical,” Abby said.

They drank the Jägermeister, ignoring Parker. The mosquitoes arrived. The parrot was coaxed onto a broom handle by the guardian’s wife and taken in. Howard lit the paper trash and scraps of wood in the fire pit, a short, shallow trench he tended every evening. He was a big, meticulous young man. Each day he would set off with a burlap bag and scavenge for his fire pit. He kept the fire calm, he was very particular about it.

“What are you thinking, June?” James asked.

“Do the Chinese really eat nests?” she said.

“Just those of a certain bird, a kind of swift,” Howard said. “The swift builds the nests out of its own saliva and the stuff hardens.”

“You’re kidding!” Caroline said. “Those damn Chinese.”

June blushed.

“Oh, what are you thinking now , June?” Abby said. “You’re so funny.”

June had had a dream where a boy was kissing her by spitting in her mouth. He just didn’t know , she thought. It was awful, but in the dream she was unalarmed as though this was the way it had to be done. “I was thinking about picnics. Didn’t you used to have the best picnics when you were little?”

“You’re too nostalgic, June,” Caroline said. “Nostalgia nauseates me. I lack the nostalgic gene, thank god.”

“Why do you ask her what she’s thinking,” Parker demanded.

“Why, because it’s a game,” James said. “Because she’ll tell us and nobody else ever does.”

“I wouldn’t tell my thoughts,” Parker said. “They’re mine.”

“But you don’t have any thoughts,” James said. “You’re too little.”

“I do too,” Parker said. He was angry. He had broken one of his trucks. It was not by accident that he’d broken it, but even so.

“Well, what’s one of them?” James said.

After a moment Parker said, “I like ants.”

“Ants! Ants are great,” Howard said. “Ants live for a long time. I read about this guy, this ant specialist who kept this queen ant and watched her for twenty-nine years. She laid eggs until she died.”

“Eggs?” Parker said.

“Occasionally she allowed herself the luxury of eating one of them,” Howard said. “This guy just watched his ant. What do you think? You want to do stuff like that?”

The sky was full of stars and they were beneath them, contained as if in a well.

“I’m sleepy,” Parker said.

“We should have the picnic,” June said. “What about the picnic?”

“What’s it feel like to be adopted, Parker?” Howard asked. “You can hear me way over there, can’t you?” He sprinkled out the last of the Jägermeister into their glasses. The bottle’s arcane label had a stag’s head, over which there was a cross.

“I was chosen by Mommy and Ralph,” Parker said.

“Ralph!” Abby laughed. “Why don’t you call him ‘Daddy’?”

“Daddy,” Parker said reluctantly.

“Why don’t you call Mommy ‘Joanne’?” Abby said.

“They got to choose me,” Parker insisted.

“When you take a dump, do you save it in the bowl for Ralph to see before you flush it down?” Howard asked. “That’s what I remember. The prominent throat specialist had to see mine and tell me it was good or it didn’t go away. It stayed until the prominent throat specialist came home.”

“Poor Howard,” Caroline said. “That’s what you remember?”

“Fondly,” Howard said.

The guardian and his family were hammering away in the corrugated shed attached to their kitchen. Each night there was the sound of grinding and hammering. They made door knockers, June thought. But no one knew for certain. Those pretty door knockers in the shape of a lady’s hand.

They began discussing, mostly for Parker’s benefit, the rumors of a gringo ring that trafficked in the organs of Guatemalan children. This rumor had been around for years.

“There’s a factory where the organs are processed,” James said. “It’s behind the video bar in Panajachel. It’s just that everyone’s too stoned to see it.”

The gringo entrepreneurs didn’t take the whole kid, they recounted loudly. Except in the beginning, of course. They took just a kidney or some tissue or an eye, which left the rest of the kid to get along as best he could, which usually wasn’t very well.

“Parker,” Howard said, “I hope Mommy and Ralph were sincere tonight as to their whereabouts. I hope they’re not, in fact, kidnapping little Guatemalan children so they can have parts on hand for you, should any of your own parts fail. They could land in big trouble, Parker.”

“I think he’s asleep,” James said.

“Wake up!” Howard roared. But Parker slept. Howard moodily raked his fire and then announced he was leaving to get some beer.

“I’ll go with you,” Abby said.

June would never have gone off alone with Howard. There was something cold and clandestine about him.