The baby cried. What baby?
“Mommy,” he said. No answer. Byron walked to his door and looked at the hallway. The floor was black in spots; the open door to the kitchen disappeared into nothingness. It was a long way to Mommy.
“I can’t,” his daddy said.
There was light around their door, glowing yellow, yellow pee door. Mommy was the baby. She was crying.
“I can’t,” his daddy said.
Byron felt fear. His body chilled; there were things behind him, reaching with their claws for his cold little body, for his little penis and bare behind.
“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! They’re going to eat me! Mommy! Help!”
The door exploded into light. Daddy came at him, making crashing sounds. “Byron, what is it?”
“I’m scared! I peed! I’m scared! Help me!”
Daddy picked him up; his clothes felt rough, but warm. Mommy was behind. Her face was right at his, meeting him at Daddy’s shoulder. Byron couldn’t see her eyes.
“What’s the matter, baby?” Mommy asked. “You had a bad dream?”
“What’s dream?” Byron asked.
“While you were sleeping,” Daddy said.
“Did you think something bad was happening?” Mommy said.
“Monsters. Tigers want to eat me.” There were big cats, everything. Look in the kitchen! Yellow monster cat! “I’m scared.” He screamed to chase it away.
“There’s nothing there,” Mommy said, and kissed his hand, the hand he had pointed at the kitchen darkness.
“In the kitchen?” Daddy said, and turned, Byron turning with him. “I’ll show you.”
“No! No!” Byron squeezed Daddy to make him stop.
“That’s all right,” Daddy said. “I won’t let go of you. Turn on the light, Diane.”
The hall blew up white and orange. It shrank. Nothing but the dumb hall. Mommy lit the kitchen. The same. Nothing but the things, the cooking things.
“You took your diaper off?” Mommy said.
Mommy’s eyes had cried; her mouth was down. “You cry?” Byron said.
Mommy closed her face on his, shutting out light. Her cheeks were slippery like ice, but warm like pillows. “Do you want me to lie down with you?”
“Yes,” Byron said, and leaped from Daddy to Mommy. She put him in a new diaper and new fur, red now, like the picture of Daddy’s burning tiger. Mommy carried him to bed.
“I’m the baby,” Byron said.
“Yes.” Mommy laughed.
“Only babies cry,” Byron said.
Mommy got under the sheets with him. He put his feet on her stomach and dove his head into the hot cave of her arms. “I’m in the mommy cave,” he told her.
“Go to sleep now,” Mommy said.
Don’t want to. But the hot lowered his eyes, only the top of his head was cool and not sleeping. Deep in the mommy cave, everything clean and dry, he was a baby and safe. Safe. And a baby.
“I THINK we should”—mommy said more things to Pearl Luke couldn’t hear—“the park.” Luke took his pacifier from the table and pushed it in. That made his mouth feel happy and full, but his body was too big. He climbed on the couch and snuggled into the corner. He pulled his blankey up to his chin and rubbed against the smooth. Mommy would go away, really away, today.
His eyes hurt.
“Luke.” Mommy’s voice was too fast and too high. “Luke, we’re going to get dressed—”
“No!” he said, and then hid behind the blanket, frightened by his own angry voice.
“To go to the park,” Mommy said. She wouldn’t let him say no. “I have to go to school today. I thought you’d walk me to the bus and then you and Pearl can go on to the park.”
“No,” he said softly this time, and hid, thinking: If I stay home, then Mommy can’t go.
“Really?” Mommy was dressed like a going-out night, a grown-up night. “I have to go soon. I thought you’d like to walk me to the bus.”
Luke stared at Mr. Rogers. He was painting his swing yellow. Daddy had made the tape. Luke could remember Daddy pointing to the recorder button: this is how you turn it on in case Pearl doesn’t know. Why wouldn’t she know? What’s wrong with her?
“Luke?” Mommy was over him now. Her knees were dark from the nets stretched over them. “It’s beautiful out. I don’t want you to stay here all day watching television.”
He held on to the TV with his eyes. Don’t look. Her smell covered him. Soft lips kissed his head. Don’t look.
“Luke?” she whispered. “Let’s get dressed.”
Mr. Rogers was showing a film. A film of how they make yellow paint. “Look,” Luke said,
“What’s that?” came Mommy’s voice, like the rain, everywhere and above.
“Making yellow.”
“What? I can’t hear you with your pacifier.”
No. Keep it.
“Oh, I see. Yellow. So that’s how they do it. I’ll bring your clothes and get you dressed while you watch.”
He kept his eyes on the TV. He got the Feeling and moved his bottom to rub it in and away. You press the power and it pops up. The tape goes in — which way? Which way? Pearl won’t know. Remember which way the tape goes, Luke. Pearl won’t know. Why not?
He saw something at the living-room doorway. Pearl stood there with her jacket on.
No no no no no no no no no no.
The color was dust; the paint was milk. Together they make yellow.
Mommy carried his clothes in. She flipped him back on the couch. Luke held on to the TV with his eyes and didn’t look, not at her, not at Pearl.
No no no no no no no no.
Mr. Rogers talked about yellow. Yellow flashing lights, yellow crayons, yellow curtains. Yellow blankey. Smooth on his cheek.
It hurt when Mommy turned off the TV. The world got quiet and small and sad. His eyes closed against the pain, the weakness. Mommy picked him up. Pearl had the stroller waiting.
No no no no no no.
He pressed his face into her, but felt only the rough clothes, not Mommy. “I want to go with you,” he said to her.
“I have to go,” she said, soft, but angry.
“I want! To go with you.”
“You want me to go?”
The stroller was going, he was going.
“No no no no.”
“I want to!” he yelled, and lost his pacifier.
No no.
He let the crying come out.
All the noes were crying out.
“I’m sorry, honey.” Mommy was everywhere and above.
The elevator sank through the floor. She gave him his pacifier back. He felt it fill his mouth, wet inside, outside.
The wall door popped him out into the lobby. There were all those legs and clothes. Voices: “What’s the matter, baby?”
Ramon bothered him. “Watch you cry.”
He hid his face. Don’t watch.
“Watch matter? Big boy don’t cry.”
“Yes, they do,” Mommy said. “Everybody cries sometimes.”
The yellow covered him, hot and smooth and rough.
No.
PETER THOUGHT: I’ve become a character in a poorly written play. Recently, he had seen several with scenes just like the one he was suddenly playing himself. Diane had called out to him when he came home. He had been at a late dinner with a lively group after an Uptown Theater premiere. They had been at Orso, a delightful place, jammed with his favorite celebrities, theater people, and he was smashed. What a good word for it. Smashed, all the little fearful repressions repressed, the opaque partition between outward and inward self smashed by gin. He came home feeling young, relieved the affair with Rachel was over, looking forward to tomorrow’s session, and to a weekend of interesting theater and ballet — and then Diane called to him.
He went into the bedroom, bobbing happily on his sea of alcohol. Diane was in a long nightshirt from L. L. Bean, surrounded by papers, the room filled with cigarette smoke. Maybe she’ll die of lung cancer, he thought with disinterest, wondering, not hoping.