The Unmaking of Rabbit Read online

  “Train’s ten, fifteen minutes late,” the ticket man said.

  “Hurry up and wait,” Gran said. “I can remember when you could set your watch by that train. Things aren’t the same as they were.”

  “That’s right,” the man said. “The old days were the best. No men walking on the moon, no traffic jams, no power failures. The old days were the best, that’s for sure.”

  She took Paul’s arm and walked away. “I thought he’d never stop talking,” she said haughtily. “And they say women are the gabbers!”

  As the train pulled into the station, Gran said, “And remember, don’t talk to any strangers.” She always said that, but Paul had noticed that there was never a stranger anywhere in Gran’s vicinity that she didn’t engage in conversation. He wondered why it was all right for her but not for him.

  She stood on the platform waving until the train pulled out. Paul hoped no one noticed. The car he was in was almost empty except for a couple of old ladies in hats sitting in front of him. He settled into his seat and took out the pack of candy cigarettes he’d bought for the trip. Putting one in his mouth, he struck a match to it, inhaled deeply, and blew a series of expert, if imaginary, smoke rings. Paul never traveled without a pack of matches in his pocket. They lent that final touch.

  One of the old ladies tottered down the aisle to get a drink of water. “This isn’t a smoker, young man,” she said, shaking her finger at him. “I never sit in the smoker. You’ll have to put out that cigarette or move.”

  The conductor came along to punch the tickets. “I don’t think he’s really smoking, ma’am,” he said. “I think he’s pretending.” He winked at Paul. Unconvinced, the old lady tottered back to her seat, and for the rest of the trip the two ladies whispered to each other and turned to stare at Paul. He was glad when the train pulled into Grand Central Station. “Everyone out this way,” the conductor said, and Paul was forced to go past the old ladies, who were still sitting there.

  “That’s him,” he heard the thirsty one say. “Imagine smoking at his age, and in a non-smoking car too. Young people today have no …” But Paul hurried out and heard no more.

  Once or twice, years ago when he was very small and had taken the train by himself, the conductor into whose care Gran had placed him had had to wait in the station until his mother arrived—running across the marble floor, hair flying—to meet him. She was late a lot. Then she’d been full of apologies and please would they both forgive her tardiness. Paul had always forgiven her, but he couldn’t be sure about the conductor.

  A little uneasy, Paul scanned the faces in the crowd. She wasn’t there yet. No sweat: He knew how to take the bus to her apartment. But just suppose he got to the apartment and she wasn’t there? Suppose he rang the buzzer in the lobby and there was no answering buzz, signaling him to come on up? Then what would he do? Go back to the station and hope she’d be waiting there for him? Maybe she’d forgotten this was the day he was coming.

  “Paul! Darling! How lovely to see you! And you look so elegant in your suit!” That was the way she talked, not in sentences, but in exclamation points. Paul smiled in relief. It wasn’t fair to have doubted her.

  “Hi, Mom,” he said. Several people turned to watch as his mother threw her arms around him and kissed him, leaving, he knew from experience, pale wings of lipstick on his face. Several strands of her long hair caught in his mouth, and he turned his head to disengage himself.

  “It’s so absolutely marvelous to see you! And we have the whole entire day to ourselves! I can hardly believe it!” She stood there, hands on hips, watching him and smiling. “What’ll we do?” she asked. “What’s your very favorite thing to do?”

  He wished she wouldn’t talk to him as if he were five or six. But maybe it was hard for her to get used to the fact that he was eleven-going-on-twelve. She wasn’t around him that much to realize he was getting older instead of standing still in time.

  “Where’s Art?” Paul asked.

  “He was asleep and I didn’t want to wake him up,” she said. “We’ll call him later and meet up with him. Maybe he’ll take us out to brunch. It’s Sunday and that’s the stylish thing to do, have brunch on Sunday.”

  “What’s brunch?” Paul asked.

  “It’s breakfast and lunch combined, and I’m starving.”

  “Me too,” Paul said. “Gran and I ate breakfast at seven o’clock.”

  “Let’s go to the Automat. I haven’t been there in ages,” his mother said. “Since the last time you and I went there, I guess. You had huckleberry pie, I remember.”

  “That’s the best kind they have,” Paul said.

  Although the day was windy and cold, they walked. Just before they left home, Gran had insisted he take his woolen hat along. “All those earaches you’ve had, it makes no sense to take a chance,” she’d said. Now he was tempted to take the hat out of his pocket, where he’d stuffed it the minute he got out of Gran’s sight, and put it on. But somehow it didn’t seem like the right thing to do. In the first place, it wasn’t a city hat. And in the second place, his mother didn’t worry about warm hats and gloves and stuff like that. So if she didn’t, he certainly wasn’t going to.

  The Automat was almost empty except for a couple of old guys hunched over coffee. Paul said, “I’m going to treat you,” and he went to the desk for change.

  “Can you afford it?” she asked him, her eyes wide.

  He felt very important, very masterful. He’d never paid a restaurant check before and was glad he didn’t have to worry about how much to leave for a tip, because there were no waiters. You just chucked a bunch of nickels in a slot and took out whatever you wanted through a glass door.

  “They were all out of huckleberry pie, so I got apple,” Paul said, bringing his mother a cheese Danish and coffee.

  “Tell me how you’re doing in school,” she said.

  “Better,” he answered, hoping she wouldn’t ask him any more about school. “When do you think you’re going to get a bigger apartment?”

  “Oh, gosh”—his mother patted back a yawn—“not for ages. Even if we could afford one, they’re scarce as hen’s teeth. How’s Gran?”

  “She’s O.K.” Paul stabbed at the last piece of pie. The bottom crust was like cardboard. “Their pie isn’t as good as it used to be,” he said, “and it costs more too.”

  “That’s life,” his mother said. “Everything costs more and isn’t as good.”

  “Why don’t you call Art up?” Paul suggested.

  “He’s probably still asleep. He likes to sleep late on Sunday.” But she called him anyway. “He’ll meet us in a half hour,” she said, coming back from telephoning. “He was awake. We had this perfectly ghastly man spend last night with us, and he woke Art up right after I left.”

  Paul wondered why they had room for a ghastly man to stay overnight and not for him. “Where’d he sleep?” he asked.

  “On the couch,” she said, and Paul could tell she remembered she’d told Paul they didn’t have room for him, because she added hastily, “He couldn’t have slept a wink. That couch is like a giant board with nails sticking out of it, like those things people in India lie on. I wouldn’t ask my worst enemy to sleep on it. One thing, that character won’t ask to spend the night again. Let’s walk to meet Art.” She took his arm as if he were a man. Paul left a nickel under the plate for whoever cleaned up the table, the way he’d seen Gran do once when they’d had hot chocolate at the drugstore.

  “You’re getting so tall!” his mother exclaimed. “I can hardly believe it!” Paul thrust his shoulders back and rose up on his toes as he walked. There was something about being with his mother that was exhilarating. She was an exciting person. People who passed looked at her.

  They waited on the corner for Art for quite a long time. The wind had turned colder, and again Paul thought of putting his hat on. He thought of telling his mother of his earaches, but when he started to, she cried, “There he is!” and Art came toward them. />
  “How are you, boy?” Art said.

  Paul thought maybe Art had forgotten his name. He’d only met him once, after all. “I’m Paul,” he said.

  Art looked surprised. “I didn’t think you were Elvis Presley,” he said. They all laughed. Paul’s mother and Art held hands. Art still didn’t have any socks on, and Paul figured his feet must be freezing. He didn’t wear an overcoat either—just turned his jacket collar up.

  “Paulie, we’re losing you!” his mother called as they crossed the street. Paul had been walking behind, thinking of things to say to catch their attention, make them think he was a pretty interesting guy to have around. Maybe he’d tell them about his wanting to be an actor. Still, he couldn’t just throw that into the conversation without some excuse.

  “My two men,” Paul’s mother said, linking her arms through theirs and looking up at Art.

  “What’s on the agenda?” Art asked.

  “It’s up to Paul. It’s Paul’s day.” His mother looked at him. “What would you like to do, Paulie?”

  “I’d like to go to a museum,” he said. “Either that or go to the movies. I’m thinking of being an actor when I get big,” he said, inspired.

  “Then you’d better learn how to starve,” Art said. “Baby,” he turned to Paul’s mother, “why don’t we just drop into Paddy’s and see who’s around? Paul might like to meet our pals, and they’d like to meet him.”

  “What’s Paddy’s?” Paul asked.

  “Darling, Art and I usually go to Paddy’s on Sunday. We have a lot of friends there and we want to introduce you to them. We’re proud of you,” she said.

  Paddy’s was full of smoke and people laughing and talking and arguing. Paddy himself was behind the bar pouring drinks. “This is Paul, Anne’s boy,” Art said to several people, who said, “Atta boy” or “I didn’t know Anne had a son” or simply “Fine” and turned away to talk to someone next to them. Paul’s eyes began to smart from the smoke, and his mother said, “We’ll leave soon,” a couple of times. He began to doze because he hadn’t slept very well last night. Every time he’d drop off, the dreams would start. Freddy reaching out to grab Paul around the throat, Freddy leering through prison bars at Paul, Freddy laughing at Paul, stuck half in, half out of the little round window.

  After what seemed like hours, Paul’s mother looked at him. “Why, you’re almost asleep,” she said, surprised. “Want another ginger ale?”

  “No, thank you,” he said. He’d already had two, and ginger ale wasn’t his idea of a big deal anyway.

  “Art,” she tugged at his arm, “I think we’d better go.” Art. was engaged in a deep discussion with a peculiar-looking man who was wearing a hairpiece that kept slipping. He had absolutely no eyebrows whatsoever.

  “Sure,” Art answered and went right on talking. Paul listened to the hum of words surrounding him and could understand none of them. It was as if he wasn’t there. No one knew or cared that he was there, and probably if he stood up and shouted “Fire!” in his loudest voice, they’d go right on talking. He felt invisible. It was a strange sensation.

  Finally, the man with the hairpiece went to the bar to get another drink, and Art said to Paul’s mother, who was by now talking to a woman dressed in purple stockings and an old shawl, “Let’s beat it, baby.” She looked at her watch. “It’s already half past three!” she cried. “Darling, it can’t be,” and Paul didn’t know who she was talking to, him or Art. He felt as if it was even later.

  When they got outside, gusts of wind whipped dirty newspapers around their ankles. “What’ll we do now?” his mother asked brightly.

  Paul said, “I guess I better get back to the station. It’s almost time for my train.”

  “Oh, not yet. You don’t have to go yet,” she protested.

  The three of them stood there on the corner, not looking at one another. Art said, “Why don’t you two go along? I have some work at home I have to finish.”

  “Oh, it wouldn’t be any fun without you!” Paul’s mother said. “Let’s hop on a bus and take Paul down to the station.” Which was what they did, and when they arrived, Art bought him a copy of Mad magazine and a roll of spearmint Life Savers. His mother demanded to see his ticket, so he hauled out his wallet and produced it for her inspection. The station was warm after the windy streets and almost deserted because it was Sunday. The next train wouldn’t leave for a half hour.

  “It’s O.K.,” Paul said. He knew his mother wanted to leave with Art. “I’ll be O.K. I’ll read my magazine and everything. I like to watch the people.”

  Art shook his hand and said, “Come again, boy,” and Paul was doubly sure he couldn’t remember his name. Maybe he didn’t remember his mother’s name either. He called her Baby instead of Anne. His mother kissed him about ten times and said how wonderful it’d been to see him and how handsome he was, and then she and Art left, hand in hand. They didn’t turn around once, so the smile Paul had fixed to his face was wasted. He sat down on a bench and took his woolen hat out of his pocket and put it on. It was pretty hot and itchy, but he kept it on anyway. He took the last candy cigarette out of the package, lit a match to it, and inhaled deeply. After a bit, he knocked the ash off on the side of his shoe, the way he’d seen men do. Nobody noticed, no old ladies told him to stop smoking, nobody paid any attention to him at all. Maybe he really was invisible and that was why he had such trouble getting people to notice him. But then a girl about his own age said in a loud, piercing voice, “Look at the kid pretending he’s smoking a candy cigarette. What a nut!” So he knew he was visible after all.

  16

  When he got off the train at home, Gran wasn’t waiting for him. Why should she be? She didn’t expect him for another couple of hours. He stood on the platform and wondered if he should call her and tell her he would walk home. No, she’d just get Bess Tuttle to come for him in her huge shiny old car that she drove in the middle of the road. He could walk home in the length of time it would take Bess Tuttle to drive the same distance.

  “Taxi?” a man asked.

  Why not? “Sure,” Paul said, getting into the car.

  “Where to?” The taxi driver had a cigarette tucked behind his ear. That was a good idea.

  “Do you know where number 32 Tremont Avenue is?” Paul asked.

  The man leaned back into the decrepit car and said, “I should hope to tell you, young fella. I been driving a taxi in this town for longer’n you been alive. There’s not too much about it I don’t know.” He winked at Paul. “Hang on to your hat,” he said and drove all the way to Gran’s house at a fast twenty miles per hour.

  “How much do I owe you?” Paul said when the cab stopped.

  “That’ll be seventy-five cents,” the driver said. “Half fare for kids on Sunday. Especially when they’re polite boys like yourself. Seventy-five cents it is.”

  “Keep the change,” Paul said grandly, handing him a dollar bill.

  “Thanks.” The driver touched his hand to his hat. “Call me any time. Joe at Ace Taxi. Pleased to meet you,” he said and drove off. As he went up the steps, Paul could see Gran peering out, looking worried.

  “What on earth?” She had the door open even before he was halfway up the stairs. “What’re you doing home so soon? Did something happen? Are you all right? Did you lose your wallet? Nothing went wrong, did it?”

  “I decided to come home early,” Paul said. “I took a taxi home.”

  “Aren’t you the spender, though?” Gran said. “How much did it cost you? They probably took you to the cleaners, a child like you, figured you wouldn’t know the difference.”

  “He charged me seventy-five cents, half fare for kids on Sunday. His name was Joe at Ace Taxi. He was nice.” Paul rubbed his eyes. They still smarted from all the smoke at Paddy’s.

  Gran stood and looked at him. “How was it?” she asked. “Did you have a good time? What’d you do?”

  “Oh, I met a lot of Art’s and my mother’s friends, and we had an inte
resting discussion,” Paul said. “We did a lot of things. We had brunch in the Automat and everything.”

  “I expect you’re hungry,” she said. “Have you had anything to eat since brunch?” She took some eggs and bacon out of the refrigerator. “Brunch indeed,” she muttered.

  “Gordon stopped by to say good-by. He said to tell you he’ll write to you. I must say he was a pleasant surprise, didn’t you think? I thought he’d be an overbearing little creature, and he turned out to be nice.”

  “He likes me, Gran,” Paul said. “He said he’ll invite me to his house. I hope he doesn’t forget. He’s my friend.”

  “And why not?” Gran cracked the eggs into a bowl. “He shows good taste. You’re a very nice boy.”

  “Now you sound like Mrs. Tuttle,” Paul said. “Bragging.”

  “Fat chance,” Gran said. “Go wash.”

  “Did you miss me, Gran?” Paul asked teasingly as he washed at the sink. “Did Flora keep you company?”

  “I’ll tell you one thing.” Gran sat down at the table. “A cat can’t take the place of a human being when it comes to company. Much as I think of Flora, she’s not you.”

  Hearing her name, Flora roused herself from the register and stalked around Gran’s ankles.

  “Old fat Flora,” Paul said, pleased by what Gran had said. “Feckless fat Flora.”

  Flora looked at him with her cold cat’s eyes and said nothing.

  17

  The first thing Paul did on Monday after he got home from school was to sit down and write a letter to Gordon. He lied some about his day with his mother and Art, making up a lot of things that he hadn’t actually done but would’ve liked to. That was all right. He didn’t think Gordon would mind the lies. He told him about his taxi ride home and about Joe who wore a cigarette behind his ear and about the half fare for kids on Sunday. He signed it “Your pal, Paul.” He was tempted to add a P.S. saying “Don’t forget to write,” but he didn’t. If Gordon wanted to write, he would, and if he’d just been talking, there was no way to force him.