Bentley Little - The House

It took over an hour to prepare the meal, and Margot came home before he was finished, but she was touched by his thoughtfulness and she gave him a big hug as he slid the casserole dish into the oven. "I love you, Mr. Mom."

He turned around, gave her a quick kiss. "I love you, too."

Dinner wasn't great, but it was better than he'd expected, and Margot praised the meal to high heaven, exaggerating its quality to such an embarrassing extent that Tony rolled his eyes and said, "Give it a rest, Mom."

Daniel laughed, looked over at his wife. "Is this your subtle way of telling me you want me to cook dinner more often?"

"No--" she began.

"No!" Tony repeated.

"--I'm just touched by your thoughtfulness and I

wanted to let you know."

Tony pushed back his chair, stood. "This is getting too pukey for me. I'm out of here."

They watched him go, smiling.

"It really is pretty good," she said. "I'm proud of you."

"Thanks."

As always, he offered to do the dishes and, as always, she turned him down. So he went out to the living room and watched the last part of the local news, then the national news. There was nothing on after that except reruns, game shows, and syndicated entertainment news, so he shut off the television and walked back into the kitchen, where Margot was eating an orange over the sink.

"Where's Tony?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I don't know. His room, I guess."

"Hiding in there?" She looked at him significantly.

"Why don't you go see what he's doing."

"He's all right.

"Why don't you check?"

He understood her concern, thought of his son walking alone through the crowds of students at school, thought of him sitting silently in the car, and nodded.

"Okay."

The door to the boy's bedroom was closed, and Daniel walked quietly down the hallway and stood outside it for a moment, listening. He heard nothing, and he reached for the knob, turned it, pushed open the door.

Tony moved quickly, trying to hide something beneath the unmade covers of his bed.

A bolt of primal parental terror shot through Daniel.

Drugs, was his first thought.

He walked toward the bed, desperately trying not to think the worst. Let it be a Playboy, he prayed. Let it be a Penthouse.

He forced himself to smile at his son. "What you got there, sport?" He reached for the covers, pulled them up.

It was not drugs. It was not porno magazines.

It was a figure, a doll, the body made from an old 7Eleven Big Gulp cup, the arms straws, the hands and fingers toothpicks, the legs and feet bent toilet-paper tubes. The face was paper, topped by whisk-broom bristle hair, and it was the face that stopped him cold. A

seemingly haphazard composite of eyes, nose, and mouth culled from disparate newspaper photos, the face nonetheless possessed a strange unity, an off-center cohesion that seemed natural in an unnatural way and awakened within him a dread deja vu.

He had seen the face before.

In the House When he was a child.

In the House But he couldn't quite remember where.

"What is that?" he demanded.

Tony shrank back, shaking his head. "Nothing."

"What do you mean, 'nothing'?" He was aware that he was yelling, but he couldn't help it, and though he was addressing his son, his gaze remained fixed on the figure. It repulsed and frightened him at the same time.

There was something abhorrent in its makeup, something repugnant about its form and shape and the way ordinary objects had been used in its construction. But it was the doll's familiarity that frightened him, the sense that he had seen it before and could not quite place it.

"What is it?" Margot ran up behind him, an edge of panic in her voice. "What's happening? What's wrong?"

Tony was still cowering on the bed before him. "Nothing!"

he told his mom. "I was working on an art project and Dad went crazy!"

"Art project?" Daniel said. "For school?"

"No, I'm doing it on my own."

"Then why were you trying to hide it?"

"I didn't want you to see it!"

"What's going on?" Margot pushed past him, stood before the bed. She looked down at the doll. "Is this what all the commotion was about?"

"Yeah," Tony admitted.

Margot turned on Daniel. "Why are you screaming at him? Because of this? I thought you'd caught him using drugs or something."

"Mom!"

Daniel stood there, not sure what to say, not sure how to defend himself. Margot was acting as though there was nothing unusual here, nothing out of the ordinary, and it threw him. Couldn't she tell that there was something the matter with the doll? Couldn't she see?

Obviously not.

Maybe it was him. Maybe there really was nothing wrong. Maybe he was just overreacting.

Daniel looked once more at the doll, again felt repulsed, scared.

He tried to tell himself that he was having some sort of breakdown, that the stress from being out of work for so long had finally gotten to him, but he did not believe it.

Wasn't that the definition of mental illness, though?

If you had it, you didn't know it?

He didn't believe that either.

What did he believe?

He believed that Tony's doll was evil. He believed that his son was doing something wrong in making it and that he knew it was wrong and that's why he had tried to hide it. He believed that, for whatever reason, Margot couldn't tell what was happening and didn't understand.

"It's not for school?" Daniel asked again.

Tony shook his head.

"Then throw it away. If you want art supplies, we'll get you art supplies."

"We can't afford--" Margot started to say.

"I don't want art supplies!" Tony said. "I just want you to leave me alone!"

Margot pulled at Daniel's sleeve, pulled him toward the door. "Come on."

Daniel stood his ground. "I don't want that thing in the house."

"What's the matter with you?" Margot frowned at him.

"I'll do it in the garage," Tony said.

Daniel didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do. He knew his attitude appeared irrational, but he could not seem to articulate his aversion to the figure, could not seem to explain and communicate his feelings toward the horrid object. The threads were there but he could not pull them together. He glanced from Tony to Margot. He did not want to get into a fight with them over this. He knew the truth, felt it in his gut, but he was aware that he was in the intellectually weaker position here and that in a fair fight he would lose.

It was best to back off, throw the thing away later, when they were both out of the house.

He allowed himself to be led by Margot out of the room, and she waited until Tony's door was closed and they were safely in the kitchen before confronting him.

"What was that back there? What did you think you were doing?"

He didn't even try to explain. Out of the room, away from the figure, it almost seemed silly even to him, and he could think of no way to defend himself that would sound even remotely plausible.

"If that's all he's doing by himself in there, making 'art projects,' then we should consider ourselves lucky."

"Yeah," Daniel said. "You're right."

But he didn't think that at all.

He walked back into the living room, nipped on the television, found a movie.

The thing was, Tony didn't seem to really understand what the doll was either. He obviously knew enough to try to keep it hidden from his parents, obviously felt as though it was something he should not be doing, but there'd been no deception or dishonesty in his defense of his "art project." He'd seemed as naive as Margot in that way, sincere in his straightforward appeal. It was as if, on one level, he recognized the abnormal and abhorrent nature of the object, and on another level he saw it as merely an ordinary product of an ordinary hobby.