Talking in Bed (6 page)

Paddy looked at Ev, but Ev didn't appear to be in any hurry. His long legs extended before him, he scowled in the bright light, and Paddy noticed a vein at his temple, a throbbing zigzag that made him seem angry. The man in the suit had begun selling the mug idea to Melanie, telling her she sure was a sweet pretty girl, asking if he could put his John Hancock on her cast. Paddy felt bad about the disaster he'd manufactured earlier concerning her clothes, and agreed. "Sure. Let's get Mama a cup."

The photographer sat Mel on the top step and asked her to smile. She shook her head. "Mama likes me just like this," she told him. Paddy grinned, looking again at Ev to see if he'd heard this healthy self-report. He hadn't, was staring up into the branches of an overhanging tree. When the man had completed his photo, and while he was waiting for it to finish making in his machine, he tried to scoop Mel up in his arms, nuzzle her neck. Melanie screamed, clawing for her father. She came into Paddy's arms like a monkey and he held her as she cried, comforting her, trying to persuade her the guy was friendly rather than menacing.

"I'm a grandpa, myself," the photographer said defensively. "I've got lots of grandbabies, I love them all. Love children, wouldn't make one cry to save my soul." He continued to pat Melanie's back as she clung to Paddy, clubbing him with her small cast. She screamed and screamed, lurching away from his touch, clinging so that Paddy nearly fell over backward. Maybe she was going insane, Paddy thought. Maybe a complete breakdown was about to happen.

It was then that Ev, standing to join them, focused on her. "Keep your hands off," he told the man sternly. "And your John Hancock, too."

Paddy, who'd been raised to treat his elders politely, was stunned.

"I wouldn't make a child cry to save my soul!" the man was repeating as Ev led them away, Paddy's thirty cents change neglected.

"He was mean," Melanie explained a few minutes later.

"Probably," Ev agreed. Paddy had been about to scold Melanie, to remind her to give people the benefit of the doubt. He had a basically charitable vision of the world, one it had never occurred to him to question.

"You think?" he asked Ev, genuinely surprised.

"Sycophantic sleazebag," Ev said.

Paddy laughed nervously; he didn't know what
sycophantic
meant, but it sounded as if it ought to be funny. Ev smiled with half his mouth, a sly expression.

The aquarium was crowded yet peaceful, everyone moving through the dusky light from tank to tank, room to room. And there the fish were, ignoring the people, going along with their lives without caring who watched. Paddy breathed easier among animals, even cold-blooded slimy ones like fish. It was probably a good thing that Didi was allergic to most pets; otherwise, they might have a whole brood of them, a regular urban farm.

Melanie held the coffee cup with the scowling picture of herself on its side, thumping it against her leg. On her other arm was the cast, glowing green in the murky illumination. Paddy was glad she seemed to like Ev, who'd begun giving the fish dialogue. "Move, fat thing," he said for the slinking stingray. "Shut your mouth, will you?" he made the neons say to the grouper. "Turn out the lights, boys," the grouper mouthed back. Soon Melanie thrust her new cup at Paddy and took Ev's hand.

Ev was startled by the child's hand in his; he'd forgotten the specific comfort of a small child's hand. Melanie's was tiny inside his, a reminder suddenly of the power of his grip. He held on lightly, aware that he could crush her fingers, thinking of his hand, this same hand, over his father's mouth and nostrils, his father's hands rising, motioning, then ceasing.

Paddy ambled behind them, unhurriedly reading the placards beside the tanks, standing for long periods of time just studying the fish, engrossed in an aspect of their existence that Ev did not believe he himself grasped. At home, his sentimental son Zach approved of Ev's vegetarianism, believing that his father loved animals. But Ev had no particular thought for them; he was interested in his own health. Fish did not move him; they seemed an embodiment of meaninglessness, caught in their small tanks, circling as they waited for food—affectless metaphors in a godless universe.

"I need to go potty," Melanie suddenly announced, dropping Ev's hand to clutch her crotch. Ev smiled as Paddy looked confused.

For his part, Paddy couldn't think what to do: send her alone to the ladies' room? Give her to a friendly-looking woman for safekeeping in there? Or take her to the men's?

Ev said, "I'd take her to the men's if I were you, and let her use the stall."

"Good idea," Paddy said, leading her hopping away. While standing crushed against the inside door of the tiny toilet cubicle, waiting for her to finish, Paddy reflected on his past adventures with his daughter. Hadn't she ever had to pee before when her mother wasn't around? He couldn't think of a single time. Of course, she'd been potty trained late, and he didn't often take her places without Didi. Still.

She concentrated on her task, her face squeezed in the breathlessness of expulsion, red. Looking down at her, Paddy was saddened by the wad of hair stuck to the grubby ceramic, by the soiled toilet paper on the floor all around her. The tile was sticky and the metal walls were lousy with graffiti—he was glad Melanie didn't yet know how to read; he hoped the crude pictures weren't inciting her imagination in some damaging way. He envisioned her in other public bathrooms, her future in them, at gas stations in the middle of the night, in restaurants on dates, in loud bars as she sat, drunk and reeling. Perhaps she'd flee to one to smoke, as Paddy had done in school, or perhaps to cry over some worthless boy who'd broken her heart. It occurred to Paddy that the next man to see his little girl sit on a toilet would probably be her husband. He hoped she would marry the kind of guy who wouldn't make a big deal out of bathroom sharing. He hoped Melanie would be the kind of woman who joined her husband in the bathroom without making a fuss, an intimacy her mother tolerated but did not feel particularly comfortable with. One of Paddy's most striking childhood memories was of his parents both disappearing into the bathroom near bedtime, getting ready together, shuffling about in their scuffs and bed clothes, the single flush of the toilet. He had loved that knowledge he had of them, and that they had of each other. He hadn't thought of it in many, many years, and his eyes filled suddenly, this image of his father sabotaging him, his own adulthood making him sad.

"Wipe me," his daughter ordered, leaning forward off the seat and revealing her pink puckered bottom hole. Paddy knelt with the coarse tissue provided by the dispenser. Outside the stall, he heard two teenagers talking as they used the urinal, and he waited until they'd left before opening the door.

"Wash hands," Mel reminded him. He hurried her through this as a group of boys came yelling in.

Ev was circling the coral reef tank, watching the diver get ready for the feeding session. He lifted Melanie up to see the woman fall backward into the tank, the turtles and fish lazily floating away from her.

"I want to be a underwater lady," she told Paddy from Ev's shoulders.

"Girls can be whatever they want," Paddy replied loftily, "just like boys." He thought this was a good response.

Melanie said, "Girls can't be daddies."

Ev said, "Or brothers." They both gave Paddy the same challenging look. "Or uncles," Ev continued.

"Or bad guys," Melanie said. "Can they?" she asked Ev, leaning down to watch his face.

"Girls are not bad guys," he agreed.

"And girls can wear anything," Melanie went on, "but boys can only wear pants."

"So true," said Ev. "I wish I were a girl."

"Poor boys," Melanie said.

In the gift shop, Melanie asked Ev what he would get if he were getting something. "I'd buy that big killer whale and sleep with it at night," Ev said. "I'd make it watch for bad guys for me."

The killer whale had pink gums and white teeth, a kind of snarl. "Isn't he cute?" Melanie crowed.

They purchased it. Outside, the photographer was packing his cart up, the spring wind flapping his banners and shirts. His expression when he saw Ev was full of hatred. Paddy turned his face away, embarrassed to seem to condone his friend's rudeness.

"Fucking pedophile," Ev muttered. Paddy again felt thrilled, scandalized. Also curious; was
pedophile
related to
podiatry
?

Ev had ridden the train down to the aquarium but accepted Paddy's offer of a ride. "Good God," he said in the parking lot before Paddy's Bronco, jumping back as if receiving an electric shock.

"All-terrain vehicle," Paddy said. "Better for potholes."

"Need a ladder?" Ev asked Melanie as he hoisted her up. "Maybe an elevator?"

They rumbled out of the lot. "What a view," Ev said. "You can see right into the laps of the other drivers. What a frightening prospect."

They were quiet a while. Melanie fell almost instantly asleep in the back seat. Ev turned to check on her, then said, "How would you feel if some complete stranger jerked you off your feet and put his mouth on your neck?" He meant the photographer, the event that had started the day, and he meant it from Melanie's point of view.

"I wouldn't like it," Paddy guessed.

"No shit."

And she wouldn't have liked going to the bathroom with a stranger, either. Paddy felt a precarious and tender pride in himself, and looked in the rearview mirror at his daughter, at the way she listed sideways in sleep and resembled her baby pictures, with her hair stuck to her chubby cheek. Watching her sleep often made him ashamed of himself, as if he would never be good enough to be her father. He now wished that he'd let her wear her princess clothes, and that it had been he instead of Ev who'd bawled out the photographer, but he was nonetheless glad he'd taken her to the men's room.

"She seems O.K. to me," Ev was saying, "but that's only an informal guess." Paddy was bewildered for a moment, having forgotten entirely his excuse for inviting Ev along. They had reached Ev's building on Fullerton, and he pulled over before it, his right wheels up on the curb to allow traffic to continue past him. Ev went on. "She's smart, she has a healthy mistrust of assholes and a good curiosity about the world."

"She wasn't afraid of you," Paddy said. He'd watched carefully the way Ev handled her, the way he stooped to listen to her, the way he did not try to read every single sign to her. As a father, Paddy often felt obliged to narrate and impart knowledge endlessly, loading Melanie up with data he himself didn't know, couldn't hold on to. An appetite for learning things was not enough; he wanted to fill her full. She would embody his reverence for education. This, he supposed, was the result of his not having finished college.

"She doesn't consider me an asshole," Ev said, opening the door. "Say, don't you think you could just charge on up the stairs in this thing?"

Paddy gunned the engine, grinning. "Thanks," he said, truly grateful. "Thanks for coming with us."

"My pleasure," Ev said, unbuckling his seat belt. He'd climbed out and was about to close the door when he leaned back in. "Did you get that sack I left at your house last summer? Your dad's stuff?"

"Oh yeah. Thanks for that, too. I was a mess that night."

"Actually," Ev said, frowning, "you seemed pretty sane. I admired how you kept your head with that woman."

"What woman?" Paddy summoned the faces of nurses, visitors, the Oriental woman who turned out to be a doctor—Dr. Ono, Dr. Oh No. He couldn't think of anybody. Behind him, another big vehicle honked. Paddy waved, as was his habit, left over from his young life, when honking at fellow drivers had been a way of saying hello.

"That crazy woman in the parking lot. The one I thought was trying to steal my car. Remember?"

In an instant, she inhabited Paddy's mind, with her funny hat like his father's. "Oh yeah. Her. I wonder what happened to her daughter?"

"I don't know. But I have to say, I really did admire how you knew she was in trouble. I didn't see it, myself. I learned something from you." He was squinting at Paddy with one eye in a way that made Paddy uncomfortable. Exhaust fumes were filling the car; the truck honked again. "Sometime I want you to come meet my family," Ev said. "My wife and sons. My youngest is only a few years older than Melanie. You guys could come for dinner. You want to, sometime?"

"Sure," Paddy said. "Why not?"

"Good. That's good." Ev held his palm out as if to show Paddy his life line and then pressed the door quietly shut. Melanie, deeply asleep, clutching her killer whale with her good hand, did not stir.

O
N WEDNESDAY
E
V
saw only women. He and Rachel called it Seven Brides Day; at breakfast, Rachel would sniff around his collar and make comments if he'd used aftershave.

Long ago Ev had acquiesced to his gloomy, guilt-ridden conscience and made it his policy to reserve roughly a third of his client hours for indigents, people in the same straits as his brother Gerry. Try as he might, he could not rescue Gerry; he hoped to have better luck with his clients, not his own sibling but the siblings of others. He would have to have faith that Gerry would meet with similar generosity. And was it generosity? Because Ev knew that his actions, though they
looked
kind, did not
feel
kind. He was pantomiming kindness, method acting mercy.

The dilemmas of the impoverished were not, in general, as tantalizing as those of the middle class. They seemed more physical, meatier and less cerebral. The poor were typically caught up in a conundrum of bureaucracy and bad luck, often topped, like a cherry, by violence, becoming victims or perpetrators of it. Ev had been known to babysit a feverish child while her mother went on a job interview, to hold the door against a brutal husband who'd come gunning for his wife. Once he'd installed a wheelchair ramp to a double-wide trailer in the dead of winter, when no one else would. His partners considered this the purview of their lesser comrades, the social workers, but Ev adamantly refused to find it demeaning.