Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [186]
In the car, with Freddie explaining about his hero, Argo, and his descent into the underworld, Estelle turned toward Lake Calhoun. When she parked near the beach, Freddie sat up and said, “What’re we doing here?”
“I thought it would be nice to go outside,” Estelle said. “Just a stroll. It’s summer, Freddie. We’ve got a little time before dinner.”
“Of course it’s summer. I mean, what are we doing here?”
“Well, look at the swimmers.” Outside the car, she walked ahead of him in the midafternoon glare on a sidewalk that ran parallel to the beach. At some distance from them, young men and women were playing volleyball. Out on the lake she could see swimmers splashing each other, and, beyond them, hazed in the hot Impressionist light, the sailboats. The air smelled of suntan oil and lake vegetation. People were bicycling past on the bike paths, and everywhere men and women, children and dogs were enjoying themselves. Pop music floated on the air from some radio.
“I hate it here,” Freddie said, from behind her. Estelle could hear the shuffling of his shoes on the sidewalk. “I need to practice my Mr. Scary monologue.”
“We should have brought your swimming trunks.”
“I can’t swim.”
“You could learn.”
“Not if I don’t want to, I can’t,” he said. “I’d rather sleep with the fishes.”
“The fish. Not fishes. Fish. You shouldn’t be so negative,” Estelle told him.
“You mean I’m supposed to be happy?” He inflected the word with scorn. “Happiness sucks.”
“Well, you could try,” his grandmother said, feeling a wingfeather of hopelessness. Just to her right, a boy about Freddie’s age, maybe a bit older, bronzed with the sun, a kid who obviously lived outdoors, was tossing a football to a friend. The wingfeather beat against Estelle as she watched him. Happiness came only to those who never asked for it.
“I’d rather be Mr. Scary,” Freddie said. One of the boys close to them threw his football unsteadily, and it landed near the sidewalk. Freddie stared at it before kicking it out of the way. One of the boys said, “Throw it here!” while Freddie continued on.
Estelle raised her head, closed her eyes, and breathed in. “You could have thrown that ball,” she said. “Couldn’t you?”
“No,” Freddie said. “It’s just a trick. They’re trying to mess with us.”
“Incidentally, I think,” Estelle said, “that Randall is organizing a softball game for after dinner. We’ll use your new bat!”
“Oh, that’s great. That’s just great.”
“Don’t you want to try it?”
He treated her to his silence.
Well, at least there was the Bakken Electrical Museum. After they had returned to the car, Estelle drove Freddie to his favorite place on the southwest side of the lake, the museum where they had a working Theremin installed. Freddie had been here half a dozen times, and each time he would push impatiently past the exhibits near the front door to the Theremin in the middle of the museum’s stairwell. He’d turn on the old instrument and raise his hands in the air between the two antennae.
Here, he was in his element. His hands raised like a conductor, with his fingers out, Freddie would tap and poke the air in front of him, and from the old Theremin came pitched noises that sounded like music but really weren’t music, Estelle thought, any more than screaming was like singing. According to the information on the explanatory wall plaque, other Theremins had been used for the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” and the movie scores for Spellbound and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Freddie, when he played this thing, had a beatific smile on his face, as if he were summoning his monsters from the deep. Once he had played “Jingle Bells” for her on it, and Estelle thought she would jump out of her skin with revulsion. He had learned through trial and error where to poke the air for certain pitches. Apparently he had a musical ear. He was getting good at it. Soon he would be playing “My Funny Valentine” on this thing and scaring away everybody.
But