January 6–13, 2000

cover story

The Boy

by Elizabeth Rollins

I’m dumping drawers of utensils into boxes. I enjoy the dangerous way they clatter into the box, the way the pronged fork sticks out, the knife glints naked. So much crap. Spatulas, basters, pie servers. I wonder almost, whose stuff this is, who I was that needed such things. For a year now I have lived on convenience foods, five-minute showers, plastic bags for traveling. I have lived in one corner of this house, like a mouse, a spider, a waterbug.

I’m staring at a takeout menu from a restaurant that’s been out of business for years.

I think about the husband and wife who want to buy my house. Her lips the color of candy circus peanuts. Big orange marshmallows. Will she stand here and cook? What kinds of things does she cook? Turkey casseroles. Tuna pastas.

When they came the second time to look I knew they would buy it. She touched the doorjambs as she went through, tapped her nails on the windowsills. I could tell she wished I was already gone. I hadn’t even brushed my teeth that day, or combed my hair. I’d been wearing the same jeans for a week, so soft they felt damp and flapped at my ankles.

The real estate agent says it’s a good offer and that I should take it. I went down to her office so that we could "go over some things." I sat there while she talked. I bent paper clips out of shape and left them twisted and shiny on her desk. I borrowed her pen to sign some papers and when she asked if I wanted to read them first, I shook my head no.

There’s a dog barking outside. I realize it’s been barking for a few minutes. I kick aside the box I’ve been packing and walk out to the front door.

In the street, beyond my azalea bushes, there’s a dog going crazy, leaping and barking at something just beyond the bushes. I push open the screen door and step out to the porch.

"Hey dog, what’s going on out there?"

That’s when I see the little boy, about six or seven years old, just in front of my bushes. He’s standing there, holding a backpack with one hand. The dog snarls and leaps at the boy, but bounces back as though there’s an invisible shield preventing attack.

I freeze for a moment, trying to think what I should do. I yell, "Stay right there!" and I run back inside, thinking I’ll need a jacket or something in case the dog attacks me. Just inside the door, though, the coat rack is gone. My jacket is packed.

I run back outside, calling, "Here I am, here I am," but the boy is gone. The dog is gone. The street is silent. I walk down to the bushes into a horrific stench. As if something big, bigger than a squirrel or a chipmunk, has died beneath the bushes. I look. There is nothing there. I put my hand over my nose and look up and down the street. There is no sign of the boy and his dog.

 

As night falls, I realize I’ve packed the lamps. I work by the few overhead lights, one in the kitchen, one in the dining room. Upstairs there are only the bathroom and hall lights. These overhead lights are so bright they make everything seem shallow, including my own shadow, thin and sharp beside me. As I finish packing each room I push everything against the walls; furniture, stacks of boxes, rolled rugs. It looks like I’m having a dance. As if I’m planning a party where it will be standing room only. My footsteps are loud on the floors.

I work late, but I don’t know how late. I’ve packed or thrown away the clocks and my watch is missing.

I sleep on the living room floor on a mattress. Lying on my side, I look at the blank brown boxes the moving company gave me, now filled with my things. I’m tempted to just throw them all away when I can’t see what’s inside.

The dog’s barking wakes me up. The same hysterical bark. I crawl to the window and look out. The boy is sitting on my lawn with his backpack. The dog is standing at the break in the azalea bushes, barking its head off.

"Hey," I call out softly, in case I’m imagining him. He turns his head and looks up at the window. A delicate face, dark hair cut in a bowl shape.

"Hey," he says back.

"Stay there," I stand slowly, keeping my eye on him as long as I can. I throw the front door open and peer through the screen. The dog, startled, falls silent. The boy waits for me.

I step out on the front porch. The dog stands and resumes his barking; short, sharp barks. I walk down the creaky porch steps and the boy stands up. There’s a warm breeze.

The stench hits me. It’s so overpowering, thick and alive that I almost fall. I gasp and put my hands over my nose. The boy watches me.

"That’s why the dog is following me," he says sadly. "Because I stink."

I step onto the grass and my vision tunnels inward: the house, the sky, the bushes, the night stars disappear as the tunnel grows black and wide. My legs go soft, I am falling.

 

	I’m smiling in the pictures. It’s a hollow feeling, to see myself smiling and know I wasn’t happy. I wish I could be fooled.

When I awake, it’s cold. The bluish light of dawn is over the neighborhood and the lawn. I am soaked with dew. I’m freezing. My face has been in the grass. I sit up. The boy and the dog are gone.

Inside, I have to rummage through several boxes to find a sweater. I strip off my clothes and put the sweater on. I wrap myself in the sheet and blanket and sit on the mattress.

I count twenty reasons why I am a failure. I count four reasons why it is stupid to sell the house. I wish all I had to worry about was my weight. I wish all I had to worry about was what to cook for dinner. I think about people who read fliers during the holidays, looking for perfect gifts. I think about people who drive two extra miles for cheaper aspirin. I wish I was like them.

I throw myself back down on the mattress, still wrapped in the blanket, and stare across the dusty hardwood floors. I remember when the couple was here the first time, the woman squeezed her husband’s arm and said, "Ooooo. Hardwood floors."

 

I’m out back, in the small garage, cleaning the years of accumulated junk into garbage bags. Coffee cans full of odd screws and nails and unidentifiable bits of metal. Old clothes, a bicycle with rotten tires. All the photo albums are out here. I discover them and toss them in a garbage bag. After a few minutes, I pull them back out and flip through them.

I look so ruddy. And robust. We’re on bicycles. Swimming. My hair long for a few years, then short. A party in the backyard, which looks great in the pictures but is now tall with weeds and sticks that have fallen out of the oak trees during storms. I’m smiling in the pictures. It’s a hollow feeling, to see myself smiling and know I wasn’t happy. I wish I could be fooled.

I smell him first and then the dog whines. I turn to see the dog in the doorway of the garage. He wags his tail. He’s a mangy dog, a brown mutt with orange splotches. The boy is behind me, sitting on an old sawhorse that once belonged to my father-in-law.

The boy says, "Don’t faint, please."

I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth to block out the smell. "Who are you?" I ask nasally.

"I’m afraid of that dog," he says. "He’s following me because of this smell and I don’t know what to do."

"What is that smell?" I peer at him. He looks fairly clean, there’s no obvious reason why he should smell.

"I don’t know," the boy says. He looks out at the dog and swings his legs.

"What’s in your backpack?"

He climbs down carefully and brings the pack over. "It’s my schoolwork," he says. "Here’s my math homework, here’s my spelling. I drew this picture during art hour and this is my special tiger eraser." It’s the same paper children have always used, with the large dotted lines for beginning writers. The spelling words are done carefully and correctly: door, queen, walk, think, coat, apple. The math is subtraction. The boy is not as good at this. The drawing is in pencil, colored in with crayon. There is a house, two blue trees, some bushes and a green dog.

"Whose house is this?"

"My house."

"Is that your dog?" I point to the dog at the door. He’s not barking, I notice. He wags his tail, once, when we look at him.

"No, not him. That’s my dog, there." He points to the picture.

"Oh. I see. Is he really green?"

He looks at me and giggles. "No."

He giggles again.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Your voice sounds funny."

"It’s because I’m holding my nose, mister." I look at him. His eyes are a bright brown under his bangs. A rosy mouth, pointy chin. He’s amazingly sweet. Somebody must be looking for him, I think. If he’s real. "So, tell me." I walk over and put the photo albums back in the garbage bag. "Why don’t you go home?"

"I can’t."

"Why not?"

"Can’t you smell me?" I’ve upset him. He shakes the paper with the house drawing at the dog. "I stink! I stink! This dog won’t let me!"

"Have you tried to wash?"

"I want to wash," says the boy, his eyes filling with tears, "but I can’t go hoooooome." He lets the paper drift to the floor, drops the bag and stands there, crying. The dog barks.

I let my tongue off the roof of my mouth for a second and there it is: a death-smell, a bloating smell, vomit and blood and rotting fur… I clamp my nose shut with two fingers, my stomach heaving.

The dog’s barking bounces off the walls of the garage. I say, "What if I let you wash in my tub?" The boy is hunched over, his face wet with tears. He looks up at me and blinks.

"What about the dog?" he asks.

"What about it?"

"Can he come?"

 

Everywhere he touches, he leaves yellow stains. From his fingertips, a yellow staining dust, like pollen. Small finger lines on the back of my hand, on the door where he’s held it open for the dog.

We walk through the half-empty house. The dog follows us. I pick the boy up so he doesn’t leave yellow stains everywhere. I carry him up the stairs. He is heavy and slightly clammy from crying. I can feel his small palm on my back. The dog’s nails click on the floors behind us.

In the bathroom, I turn the faucet on. The old shower curtain has already been torn off and thrown away. There is shampoo and a bar of soap. The boy and the dog stand watching the steam rise from the water.

 

I notice the afternoon sun, flickering in the window, blocking out maple shadows on the wall. Afternoon sun, my favorite. I feel good for the first time in months.

I ask the boy, "Do you need help getting undressed?" "No," he says. He sets his backpack down on the black and white tile floor. He takes off his sneakers, his pants, his shirt. He stands there in his small white underwear and white socks.

"Are you shy? Do you want me to leave?"

"No!" he says. His eyes are wide. "That water looks so hot! Will it burn me?"

I laugh. "It’s not so hot, besides, it has to be warm enough to get that smell off, right?"

"Right." He removes his socks, slowly, peeling each one off and dropping it in a ball on the floor. He stares again at the water. "What if I slip and fall when I’m getting in?"

"I’ll help you."

He takes off his underwear and stands in the middle of the bathroom, uncertain. He’s so small I can’t believe he’s human. Twig arms, two tiny dot nipples and a little finger-sized penis. His skin is so thin and pale I can almost see through to the slender bones, the bean of his heart.

He holds out his hands, smiling vaguely. I pick him up, his arms so fragile I feel as if I could pop them off, and I lower him, two small feet first, into the tub.

He shrieks lightly, blinking at his feet. After a minute, he sits down. Yellow, bright as Easter egg dye, floods from him out into the water. The dog barks. I assume the smell is worse when wet.

The boy squeals with delight, "It’s warm!" I lather up the bar of soap and begin on his back, the twin scapulas like miniature fins. He splashes his hands in the water, dark yellow streaks spilling out from his fingertips. I scrub with my hands; his back, his arms, his neck, his chest, his feet. I hand him the soap and instruct him to wash between his legs. He does so with concentration. I get his hair damp, scooping water up the back of his neck. He giggles and scrunches his shoulders up. My hands turn a deep yellow on the palms. I dab shampoo on his scalp and scrub with my nails.

"Ouch," he says mildly. He makes up a song, a string of sounds that please him.

I rinse his hair with an old plastic cup from under the sink, scooping water onto his head and pushing it away from his face with my hands. He sings. He looks like a wet little animal with his hair slicked back, his pointed pink scalp. I feel a huge affection for him.

"Stay here," I say, "I’ve got to go find some towels." He adds "okay" to his string of song sounds. The dog watches, not moving as I step over him.

I open the laundry closet, pleased to find I’ve forgotten to pack it. I pull down some towels. With a start, I realize I’m not holding my tongue to the roof of my mouth anymore. I’m breathing normally. I laugh.

I’m walking back across the hall when I realize his singing has stopped.

In the bathroom the tub is full of clean, clear water. I set the towels down on the toilet seat. I reach out and touch the soap, which is dry.

 

I’m sitting on a kitchen chair, crying and talking to myself. The tears that stream out of my eyes feel good and hot on my cheeks. I let my words run together into a wail. I’m so upset. I say this aloud and it soothes me. "I’m so upset! I’m so upset!" I clutch my fingers closed and open on my jeans. Sometimes I moan with my mouth open, which sounds bottomlessly sad and satisfies me.

Eventually, I stop. I wipe my eyes with paper napkins from the chicken place where I got my dinner a few nights ago. On the napkins, there is a bright orange chicken flexing his muscles. I stare blankly at the picture and then I blow my nose on it. I toss one at the garbage and miss.

"You have bad aim," he says.

I turn around. He’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen. His hair is wet and combed to one side. He’s wearing one of my T-shirts, which reaches to his knees. The dog moves past him and lies down under the table. I can’t smell anything but shampoo.

"You’re supposed to be in the tub!"

He shrugs. "I’m hungry," he says.

All I’ve left out is peanut butter and bread. I take the jar of peanut butter, the half loaf of bread and a knife over to the table. He pulls out the other chair and sits down, just his head showing above the table. I spread a slice for him.

"Not too much, please," he says. He’s looking at me strangely. Glancing and then looking away. I realize he is trying to be polite and not stare.

"What?" I ask him.

"Nothing." he says. He accepts the peanut butter bread and sniffs it. "I like this peanut butter. I don’t like the crunchy kind that pokes you in the mouth."

"Nope, me neither."

He looks up at me as he chews. I smile at him. He finishes his bite and swallows. He looks at me again and says, "Were you crying?"

I put my hand to my face. I’m sure it’s all blotchy and red and pitiful-looking. I nod my head yes.

"Why were you crying?"

"I feel like I’m going crazy."

"You?" He’s so shocked by this, he even points a finger at me to be sure he understands what I mean.

	The stench hits me. It’s so overpowering, thick and alive that I almost fall. I gasp and put my hands over my nose. The boy watches me.

I can’t help but laugh, he makes me feel so much better. He laughs too, his mouth open. He has peanut butter bread smashed all over the inside of his mouth. It makes me laugh harder. I spin a finger next to my head to show how crazy I am. We laugh more. He chews and kicks his foot rhythmically under the table.

"If you’re crazy," he announces, "then I’m crazy too." He reaches for the jar, begins spreading himself another slice. He gets peanut butter on his thumb and licks it off. I look over at him, his face shiny and scrubbed. The dog snuffles under the table and rolls onto his side, stretching his legs out. The dog sighs.

"You’re a good person," I say.

His mouth is full, but he says, "Me too."

"I said you were a good person."

"I thought you meant you," he says. His hair is beginning to dry. He looks sleepy. I start to feel sleepy too. It gets dark earlier in the fall.

"Are you going home after this?" I ask. I look at him out of the sides of my eyes to see how he feels about it.

He thinks, still chewing. "I’d better," he says.

"What about the dog?"

"He’d better come home too."

"Won’t that upset your dog?"

"He is my dog."

"I thought you said he wasn’t!"

"Well, not when he’s acting like that, he’s not my dog." We laugh again. He’s got that round kind of laugh that’s irresistible. He’s a great kid, this kid.

He finishes his bread. I reach over and touch his rosy ear. He giggles. The dog gets up and walks to the hall. It stops and looks back.

I walk them to my front door. My old front door. I open it and let them out onto the porch. I call goodbye and close the door. If they’re going to vanish I don’t want to see it.

After they’re gone I feel awake again. I walk out to the garage and begin piling everything I see into garbage bags or the sagging boxes that have sat out there for years. When they’re full, I drag them from the cold dark of the garage down to the curb. I hardly pause to pick up things I’ve dropped, leaning and scooping them up on my next trip in or out.

I find a crusty winter coat with fake sheep wool inside the hood and cannot imagine why I’ve kept it so long. There’s a wicker wastebasket with a broken bottom, an ugly lamp with no shade, a box of camping stuff nobody’s used in years. Finally it’s done, empty except for leaves and balled white spider sacs in the corners of the ceiling.

Back inside the house I pack the linen closet. The only boxes left are small ones and I stuff them with washcloths and towels and sheets. They’re too full, but I tape the box flaps shut over the humps and shove them into the bedroom across the hall.

I walk through the house and say goodbye to each room, imagining how I was when I lived in them. I hope that when the movers come they will carry these things out into the sun, and that the house will fill with autumn’s bright air, doors and windows open.

Elizabeth Rollins lives in Moorestown, NJ. Originally from Virginia, she lived in Maryland, Wyoming and North Carolina before settling in Jersey three years ago. She works for Borders Books and Music in Langhorne, PA, to support her writing and is currently enrolled in the long-distance MFA in Creative Writing program at Goddard College in Vermont. She was a member of the Rittenhouse Writers’ Group in Philadelphia for over a year. This is her first major publication.