Byron explicated his sketches at length, his words blurring together in his excitement. Max seated himself on the windowsill and distanced himself from the boy’s blueprints and his speech. He thought about Manny’s workmanship in Little Italy and resented Byron, resented this child who was being indulged to blow up his ideas into grandiose and useless monuments to himself, who was being encouraged to learn quickly and carelessly and who might very well one day design a famous building — like the Hancock in Boston, a huge sleek building with windows that fell out by the dozens.
“You’re a child,” Max interrupted the boy’s lecture.
Byron paused. His arms were spread, his towhead bowed. He lifted it slowly. The hair had been recently cut in a shape that neatly framed his eager face. He looked up at Max, his high cheeks shining. “I know I’m a child.” He bobbed his chin, irritated, as if daring Max to continue this dangerous line of thought.
“It’s ridiculous for you to draw these things without having any idea of the engineering, of the practical problems involved.”
Byron nodded, his lips squashed together in a disgusted frown. He pushed himself off the coffee table, sliding on his belly. The drawing of the mall slid off with him onto the floor. Byron settled on his knees. He held his head in his hands and shook it sorrowfully. “Not this,” Byron said. “You’re not going to do this.”
“Yes. This. Whatever this is. It’s no trick to draw a picture and say here’s a high school, here’s a mall. Buildings aren’t hard to imagine or draw — what’s hard is to get someone to build them and then make sure they actually stand, to make them not only look good but also make sense so that people can use them. And will want to use them.” Max had propelled himself off the windowsill. He paced away from Byron and considered leaving the room. He was upset and angry at the child. He was close to saying too much. Yet he turned back to see if he had had an effect.
Byron got to his feet. He was self-possessed. “I’ve heard you say that it’s people who screw up buildings,” he said in a clear ringing voice. He looked pleased at catching the master in a contradiction.
Max got on his haunches to be level with the boy, speak to him face-to-face. “The things I say, the things anyone says about their work, are never really true. The troubles I have in my work are too involved with what I can’t do and what the world won’t let me that I can’t speak of them honestly. But I can tell you that it’s the practical problems that make architecture a great art form. Buildings have to work. A painting doesn’t have to support a hundred people dancing. A sculpture doesn’t have to have running water and toilets. Look at your idea of a swimming pool—” Max pointed to a drawing that had fallen halfway off the coffee table. “It’s neat to put it on the top floor and cover it with glass windows — only an ordinary floor wouldn’t support the weight and it would cost too much to have the extra support and the heating in winter would cost too much and the glass itself would cost too much. Anyone can imagine beautiful things. That isn’t talent. Talent is making beautiful things work. You don’t know how to make them work. And you’re not interested in finding out. You just want to show off. You just want adults to say — isn’t he bright? Isn’t he talented? And the reason you want that is because your father doesn’t know any other way of loving you except by believing that you’re talented. He’s scared he won’t love you if you’re ordinary and so you’re scared to be ordinary.” Max knew he had said too much. He clenched his hands and swallowed, trying to hold himself in, to stop the flow of hurtful talk.
However, Byron wasn’t hurt. He didn’t back away. He moved closer to Max while he listened to the lecture. His high cheeks seemed to lift his mouth into a grin. His thin eyebrows rose up and merged with the edges of his haircut. When Max finished, Byron nodded to himself as if he had come to a conclusion. “You’re jealous of me,” he said mildly.
“Jealous of you?” Max rocked back on his heels and tilted too far to the right. He put out a hand to steady himself. The pantomime of being off balance was a good reflection of how he felt. Max assumed Byron meant that Max was jealous Byron had a rich father. “Jealous of what?” he asked to be sure.
“That I’m so good at it and I’m just a kid.” Byron gestured to his drawings. One of them had slid too far off the coffee table; it began a slow and noisy descent to the floor. They both watched it drop without making a move.
After the paper had settled, Max said softly and gently: “You’re not good. You’re precocious. Maybe someday you will be good, but right now you’re simply doing something ordinary at an early age.”
“You’re jealous,” Byron nodded his head up and down, grinning. “Yes, you are.”
“Listen to me.” Max took him by his narrow shoulders. The firm grip stilled Byron. His eyes were alarmed; they stared into Max’s, their usual conviction flickering. “You’re very bright and I’m sure you’ll be successful and your father loves you. You don’t have to pretend to be grown-up. You don’t have to do great grown-up things for your father to love you.”
Byron shrugged Max’s hands off. He swaggered away, skidding onto his knees and sliding to the fallen drawings. He picked them up carelessly and shoved them into the portfolio. “My dad,” he said as if it were of no consequence, “is a wimp.”
Max assumed he had misheard. “What did you say?” he asked. He was still on his haunches, an adult cut in half. He stood up; suddenly, he had to be tall.
Byron was done with his sloppy cleaning. He flipped the portfolio together and zipped it up recklessly. The zipper buzzed shut. “He’s a wimp.” Byron faced Max. “He’s even scared of my mom.”
Max slapped the boy. His hand was already back at his side before Max was conscious of the action. He had hit Byron hard. The child’s head remained turned to the side where the blow had pushed it. White ghosts of Max’s fingers still burned on the clean new skin.
“My God,” Max mumbled.
Byron’s face gradually pivoted back toward Max. His eyes were awash with tears and yet they looked fearlessly inward at something ugly. Byron’s mouth trembled but made no sound.
Max shivered. He was cold.
The sun came across his jaw, bobbing through the plane’s windows. He glanced at Jeff and made a decision — I’m going to sit with that abandoned child so he will not die an orphan. Max saw the look on Jeff’s face as he left him. Jeff’s eyes were startled and frightened. He mouthed something at Max, a plea…
Max understood his partner’s last look—Jeff wanted me to stay with him. He needed me.
Byron was gone. He heard wailing.
Debby was shouting: “Max! What’s going on?”
She came out of the bedroom with her hair wet, wearing only a towel. Max shook himself, like a dog drying off, to wake up from the memory.
He had forgotten exactly who he was or where he was or what time in earth’s history he was living in. His first real thought was that he was living on the Upper West Side and that his apartment needed to be painted. Then he noticed Byron by the front door. From the angle he had of the foyer, Max could only see Byron’s legs. He moved until he had a full view. Byron was spread on the floor, leaning his head against the door, clutching his portfolio and sobbing. Debby came beside Max muttering or mumbling something — Max didn’t pay attention. He smelled fragrant shampoo.