Joyce Oates - Sourland

This was scary too but Tod knew, the way the daddy laughed, and the other man laughed with him though not so loudly as the daddy laughed, it was meant to be a joke, and meant to be funny.

Now it was, in the weeks following Tod’s fourth birthday in March, the daddy was home much of the time. This was so strange! — for as long as Tod could remember the daddy had always been away at work all day and returned in time for supper at 7 P.M. or sometimes later after the mommy had put Tod to bed. Now the daddy was always home . The daddy was home in the morning after the mommy left for the medical center. The daddy was the one to make Tod’s breakfast and walk Tod six blocks to nursery school and return at noon to bring Tod back home.

No longer was there any need for the nice Filipina lady to take care of Tod after school. Suddenly it happened that Magdalena was gone for the change in our schedule came abruptly and seemingly irrevocably and within days Tod was forgetting that there’d ever been Magdalena for now there was just the daddy in the house when the mommy wasn’t there. There was just the daddy to rouse Tod from bed, bathe him and hug him hard in the bath towel and feed him. And sometimes it was the daddy who put Tod to bed if the mommy came home late. All this because the daddy had been downsized — which was a word the daddy pronounced like it was something sharp inside his mouth cutting it or a red-hot coal the daddy would have liked to spit out except it was making him laugh, too — or was the daddy trying not to laugh? — y ou had to look at the daddy closely like somebody on TV to see if he was serious or not-serious but if you looked too close at the daddy the daddy became angry suddenly because the daddy was like Canis familiaris he said he did not like to be stared at at close quarters Got that, little dude?

There was a threat in this — a threat of a sudden backhand slap — not a slap to hurt but a slap to sting — and it was risky, if you smiled when you shouldn’t smile or failed to smile when you should. But Tod was little dude and this was a good sign. Tod liked being little dude . Tod was thrilled being little dude for this suggested that the daddy wasn’t mad at Tod just then.

Li’l dude just you and me. Love ya!

Most times when the daddy took Tod to nursery school in the morning and to the park in the afternoon, the daddy would make sure that Tod wore his Yankees cap and a warm-enough sweater or jacket and the daddy would tie his sneakers the right way — tight! — so the laces wouldn’t come loose and cause Tod to trip over them. If the daddy whistled tying Tod’s shoelaces this was a good sign though if the daddy hadn’t remembered to wash Tod’s face and hands after breakfast this might be a not-good sign like if the daddy’s jaws were covered in scratchy stubble and if the daddy’s breath was sour-smelling from cigarettes the mommy was not supposed to know that the daddy had started smoking again. Nor was it a good sign if when they were walking together the daddy made calls on his cell phone cursing when all he could get was fucking voice mail .

Tod’s nursery school was just a few blocks away from their house and Terwillinger Park just slightly farther so there was no need for the daddy to drive. There was no need for a second car. In the park the daddy smoked his cigarettes — This is our secret, kid — Mommy doesn’t need to know got it? — and read the New York Times — or a paperback book — (the daddy had been reading a heavy book titled The World as Will and Idea for a long time) — or scribbled into a notebook — or stared off frowning into the distance. At such times the daddy’s mouth twitched as if the daddy was talking — arguing — with someone invisible as Tod played by himself or with one or two other young children in a little playground consisting of a single set of swings and monkey-bars and a rusted slide. Sometimes the daddy fell into conversations with people he met in the park — there were young mothers and nannies who brought children to the playground — and women walked dogs in the park — or jogged — or walked alone — and often Tod saw his father talking and laughing with one of these women not knowing if she was someone his father knew or had just met; once, Tod overheard his father tell a flame-haired young woman that he was a married man which was one kind of thing and simultaneously he was the father of a four-year-old which was another kind of thing .

Whatever these words meant, the woman laughed sharply as if something had stung her. Well that’s upfront, at least. I appreciate that .

This was a time when they’d begun going to the park every day. This was a time when the mommy’s work-hours were longer at the medical center. This was a time when there was just one car for the mommy and the daddy which was the Saab, that had become the mommy’s car. Before the downsizing there had been a Toyota station wagon which the daddy had driven but this vehicle seemed to have vanished suddenly, like Magdalena.

Turnpike. Totaled. Towed-away. End of tale! the daddy reported with terse good humor of the kind Tod knew not to question.

“Let’s surprise Mommy at work. D’you think ‘Dr. Falmouth’ would like that?”

This day in Terwillinger Park the daddy snapped shut his cell phone in disgust — shoved it into a pocket of his rumpled khakis that drooped from his waist beltless and a size too large — and spoke in a bright-daddy voice as Tod trotted beside him trying to keep up. Tod was thinking — somber li’l dude as the four-year-old was — that the river was miles away, where Mommy worked at the University Medical Center was miles away and he and the daddy had never walked so far before.

But Tod was little dude and any idea of the daddy’s was an exciting idea. Like a man on TV the daddy was rubbing his hands briskly saying here was their plan to discover whether “Dr. Falmouth” was really where she claimed she was — “We will see with our own eyes like Galileo looking through his telescope.”

Tod laughed — Tod laughed not knowing who “Galileo” was — though something in the daddy’s voice sounding like gravel being shoveled made Tod uneasy — anxious — wasn’t Mommy where Mommy was supposed to be? — where was Mommy? — and the daddy gripped Tod’s skinny little shoulder reprimanding him — “Don’t be so literal. Christ sake! If ‘Dr. Falmouth’ is there she will give us a ride back home. If ‘Dr. Falmouth’ is not there, we will take the fucking bus back home.”

The daddy spoke matter-of-factly. Tod swallowed hard trying to comprehend. It seemed to be that, if Mommy was somewhere they couldn’t find her, they would have a way to get back home as if getting back home was the crucial thing.

“Has your daddy ever misled you, li’l dude? Yet? Have faith!”

The daddy was tugging at Tod’s hand jerking him along like a clumsy little puppy. Sometimes you saw such puppies — or older, stiff-limbed dogs — jerked along on leashes by their impatient masters. Sometimes it happened, the daddy was seized by an idea and had to walk fast. Since the lavish French toast breakfast that morning the daddy had been in an excitable mood. The daddy’s eyes were glistening and red-rimmed and the sharp-looking little quills in the daddy’s jaws glinted like mica. Though often on these walks the daddy wore a fur-lined cap now the daddy was bare-headed and his dust-colored hair disheveled in the wind that was cold and tasted of something wet-rotted like desiccated leaves — the daddy had crookedly buttoned both Tod’s corduroy jacket and his own suede jacket — the daddy was wearing his rumpled khakis and on his feet waterstained running shoes. Tod wasn’t sure if the daddy was talking to him — often in the park the daddy was talking to himself — the daddy was whistling — just pausing to shake a cigarette out of a near-depleted pack when there came hurtling at them — almost you’d think the boy was on a bicycle, he came so fast — a tall skinny spike-haired boy with a chalky-pale face, whiskers like scribbles on his chin — a purple leather jacket unzipped to the waist and on his black T-shirt a glaring-white skull-and-crossbones like a second face. What was strangest about the boy was his lacquered-looking hair in two-inch spikes lifting from his head like snakes — Todd turned to stare after him, as he passed on the woodchip path without a backward glance.