Part 40 (1/2)
She nuzzled his head and he felt that her cheeks were wet. He sat back.
”What's the matter, Mom?”
She snapped open her purse and took out a handkerchief.
”Everything,” she said. ”What's the matter with you? How come you keep doing this? You were going to Tannen's again?”
”No.”
”Don't lie, Tommy,” she said. ”Don't make this worse than it already is.”
”Okay.”
”You can't do this. You can't just skip school whenever you want to and go to Tannen's Magic Shop. You're eleven years old. You aren't a hoodlum.”
”I know.”
The train shuddered and the brakes screeched. They were pulling into Pennsylvania Station now. Tommy stood up and waited for her to get up and drag him off the train, across the platform, back out to Jamaica, and then home. But she didn't move. She just sat there, checking her eyes in the mirror of her compact, shaking her head ruefully at the mess her tears had made.
”Mom?” he said.
She looked up.
”I don't see any reason to waste these clothes and this hat just because you would rather saw a lady in half than learn fractions,” she said.
”You mean I'm not punished?”
”I thought we could spend the day in the city. The two of us. Eat at Schrafft's. Maybe see a show.”
”So you aren't going to punish me?”
She shook her head, once, dismissively, as if the question bored her. Then she took hold of his hand. ”I don't see any reason to tell your father about any of this, do you, Tommy?”
”No, ma'am.”
”Your father has enough to worry about without this.”
”Yes, ma'am.”
”We'll just keep this whole little incident to ourselves.”
He nodded, though there was an eager look in her eyes that made him uneasy. He felt a sudden mad desire to be grounded again. He sat down.
”But if you ever do this again,” she added, ”I'll take all of your cards and wands and all that other nonsense and toss them into the incinerator.”
He sat back and relaxed a little. As she promised, they lunched at Schrafft's, she on stuffed peppers, he on a Monte Cristo sandwich. They spent an hour in Macy's and then took in It Should Happen to You It Should Happen to You at the Trans-Lux Fifty-second. They caught the 4:12 for home. Tommy was asleep by the time his father came in, and said nothing the next morning when he came in to wake him for school. The encounter on the train was scattered in the cracks in their family. Once, long afterward, he summoned up the courage to ask his mother what she had been doing on that inbound train, dressed in her fanciest clothes, but she had merely put a finger to her lips and gone on struggling over another of the lists she always left behind. at the Trans-Lux Fifty-second. They caught the 4:12 for home. Tommy was asleep by the time his father came in, and said nothing the next morning when he came in to wake him for school. The encounter on the train was scattered in the cracks in their family. Once, long afterward, he summoned up the courage to ask his mother what she had been doing on that inbound train, dressed in her fanciest clothes, but she had merely put a finger to her lips and gone on struggling over another of the lists she always left behind.
On the day that everything had changed, Tommy and Cousin Joe were sitting in the outer room of the offices of Kornblum Vanis.h.i.+ng Creams, where there was a false receptionist's desk. Tommy was in the armchair, a big wingback covered in a rough fabric like burlap, pool-table green, legs dangling, drinking a can of cream soda. Joe was lying on the floor with his arms folded under his head. Neither of them had said anything for what felt to Tommy like several minutes. They often pa.s.sed long periods of their visits without saying very much. Tommy would read his book, and Cousin Joe would work on the comic book that he had been drawing, he said, ever since taking up residence in the Empire State Building.
”How's your father?” Joe said abruptly.
”Fine,” said Tommy.
”That's what you always say.”
”I know.”
”He is worried about this book by Dr. Wertham, I imagine? The Seduction of the Innocents?” The Seduction of the Innocents?”
”Real worried. Some senators are coming from Was.h.i.+ngton.”
Joe nodded. ”Is he very busy?”
”He's always busy.”
”How many t.i.tles is he putting out?”
”Why don't you ask him yourself?” Tommy said, with an unintended sharpness.
There was no reply for a moment. Joe took a long drag on his cigarette. ”Maybe I will,” he said. ”Some of these days.”
”I think you should. Everybody really misses you.”
”Your father said that he misses me?”
”Well, no, but he does,” Tommy said. Lately, he had begun to worry about Joe. In the months since his foray into the wilds of Long Island, he had by his own admission been leaving the building less and less frequently, as if Tommy's visits had become a subst.i.tute for regular experience of the external world. ”Maybe you could come home with me, on the train. It's nice. There's an extra bed in my room.”
”A 'trundle' bed.”
”Yeah.”
”Could I use your Brooklyn Dodgers bath towel?”
”Yeah, sure! I mean, if you wanted.”
Joe nodded. ”Maybe I will, some of these days,” he said again.
”Why do you keep staying here?”
”Why do you keep asking me that?”
”Well, don't you-doesn't it bother you to be in the same building with them? With Empire Comics? If they treated you so bad and all?”
”It doesn't bother me at all. I like being near to them. To the Escapist. And you never know. Some of these days I could maybe bother them.” them.”
He sat up as he said this, rolling onto his knees brusquely.