Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [88]
“Well, I won’t keep you,” the old man said.
As Cooper reached for his wallet, Alexander suddenly spoke: “Daddy, don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t give him any money,” the boy said.
“Why not?”
Alexander couldn’t say. He began to shake his head, looking at James, then at his father. He backed away, down the sidewalk, his lower lip beginning to stick out and his eyes starting to grow wet.
“Here, James,” Cooper said, watching his son, who had retreated down the block and was hiding in the doorway of a hardware store. He handed the old man five dollars.
“Bless you,” James said. “And bless Jesus.” He put the money in his pocket, then placed his hands together in front of his chest, lowered himself to his knees, and began to pray.
“Good-bye, James,” Cooper said. With his eyes closed, James nodded. Cooper ran down the block to catch up with his son.
After Alexander had finished crying, he told his father that he was afraid—afraid that he was going to bring that dirty man home, the way he did with the red-haired guy, and let him stay, maybe in the basement, in the extra room.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Cooper said. “Really. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Wouldn’t you?” his wife asked, that night, in bed. “Wouldn’t you? I think you might.”
“No. Not home. Not again.”
But he had been accused, and he rose up and walked down the hall to his son’s room. The house was theirs, no one else’s; his footsteps were the only audible ones. In Alexander’s room, in the dim illumination spread by the Swiss-chalet night-light, Cooper saw his son’s model airplanes and the posters of his baseball heroes, but in looking around the room, he felt that something was missing. He glanced again at his son’s dresser. The piggy bank, stuffed with pennies, was gone.
He’s frightened of my charity, Cooper thought, looking under the bed and seeing the piggy bank there, next to Alexander’s favorite softball.
Cooper returned to bed. “He’s hidden his money from me,” he said.
“They do that, you know,” Christine said. “And they go on doing that.”
“You can’t sleep,” Cooper said, touching his wife.
“No,” she said. “But it’s all right.”
“I can’t tell you about Paradise,” Cooper told her. “I gave you all the stories I knew.”
“Well, what do you want?” she asked.
He put his hands over hers. “Shelter me,” he said.
“Oh, Cooper,” she said. “Which way this time? Which way?”
To answer her, he rolled over, and, as quietly as he could, so as not to wake their son in the next room, he took her into his arms and held her there.
Snow
TWELVE YEARS OLD, and I was so bored I was combing my hair just for the hell of it. This particular Saturday afternoon, time was stretching out unpleasantly in front of me. I held the comb under the tap and then stared into the bathroom mirror as I raked the wave at the front of my scalp upward so that it would look casual and sharp and perfect. For inspiration I had my transistor radio, balanced on the doorknob, tuned to an AM Top 40 station. But the music was making me jumpy, and instead of looking casual my hair, soaking wet, had the metallic curve of the rear fins of a De Soto. I looked aerodynamic but not handsome. I dropped the comb into the sink and went down the hallway to my brother’s room.
Ben was sitting at his desk, crumpling up papers and tossing them into a wastebasket near the window. He was a great shot, particularly when he was throwing away his homework. His stainless-steel sword, a souvenir of military school, was leaning against the bookcase, and I could see my pencil-thin reflection in it as I stood in his doorway. “Did you hear about the car?” Ben asked, not bothering to look at me. He was gazing through his window at Five Oaks Lake.
“What car?”
“The car that went through the ice two nights ago. Thursday. Look. You can see the pressure ridge near Eagle Island.”
I couldn’t see any pressure ridge; it was too far away. Cars belonging to ice fishermen were always breaking through the ice, but swallowing up a car was a slow process in January, though not in March or April, and the