into it. “I mean it,” she moaned. “You can read my journal, my diary, anything. I want us to know everything about each other.”
I got anxious. I thought, I don’t want to fucking read her journal, do I? Sure, I’m curious, but I don’t want her poking around through my stuff. I can move them into my closet the next time she goes to the can. Too obvious. She’ll notice they’re gone, and then she’ll never stop asking me questions. I can’t get rid of them until she goes back to New York. Fine. I won’t leave her alone long enough to do too much digging. That’s what I’ll do.
“Hey, Tiger,” she said. “Easy does it.”
I DIDN’T KNOW shit about taking care of kids.
“Don’t worry about it,” James said. “This is all you have to do: Push him up and down the street until he falls asleep. He should stay out cold for a couple hours.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“He will. And when he wakes up, feed him right the fuck away or he’ll go ballistic.” James held a stack of three identical Tupperware containers on top of a foil-covered baking pan. “There’s diced fruit in this one, and chopped chicken and carrots in this one. This one’s all Cheerios and Wheat Chex and shit.”
“What’s in the big pan?” James gave it to me. It was still warm.
“I don’t know. Pamela sent it for you.”
I removed the foil. Pamela was a good cook. The pan held a lasagna with a large divot taken out of it. “Weird,” I said. “She must have run out of noodles to make a whole one.”
“That’s my haulage fee,” James said.
I laughed. “Your haulage fee.”
James was in a rush. “Come on. I don’t have time to fuck around.”
“Fine.”
“So, feed him a bunch of this.” He handed me the Tupperware containers.
“How much?”
“I don’t know. Until he starts crying.”
“That seems kind of cruel.”
“Maybe, but it’s the only way to be sure he’s getting enough. He’ll definitely piss himself and probably shit. You’ll be able to tell because he makes ‘this’ face, and he’ll stink. You know how to change a kid?”
“Can’t it wait until you get back?”
“Don’t be an asshole.” He hung a mommy bag on my shoulder. “Everything’s in here. And when you do change him, make sure you put enough of that aloe oatmeal ointment on him. His ass is sensitive. So is his weld.”
“His weld?”
“Where your dick joins up with your bag.” James pinched at his weld. At least he didn’t pinch mine. “Suit him back up and you’re home free.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t fucking know. Let him run around until I get back.”
I asked James if it was cool if I swore in front of Roy.
“Don’t fuck around,” he said. “Your sister will have my nuts on a stick.” Pamela was a pretty easygoing person. But once you push her past her breaking point, you’d better head for the fucking hills.
ROY WAS NOT very good at walking. But he screamed whenever I picked him up and tried to help close the distance between him and the object of his capricious desire. In order to get him into the stroller, I tricked him into thinking the stroller was what he wanted. I lifted it by an umbrella-hook handle and dangled it like a SeaWorld herring in his line of sight.
“Roy? Look at this, Roy. Smooth,” I stroked the seat invitingly. I was a good deceiver. He fell for it. He locked on. “Come on, kid. Get in.” I set the stroller down on the driveway about ten feet from him, lit a cigarette, and killed some time watching him labor to get from A to B.
He was pretty cute. He was wearing green Wellington boots, baby Levi’s, a black longshoreman’s cap, and an Irish knit sweater under a miniature L.L. Bean tan hunter’s coat. His outfit was worth many times my own. When he finally reached the stroller, he screamed with a delight that was so sincere, I was actually kind of grateful to him. I hadn’t smiled and meant it since I got married.
JOCELYN AND I babysat for Roy one night after Christmas so that James and Pamela could go on a last-ditch date. We didn’t really do anything with regards to care-taking because Roy was asleep when we got there, and he stayed asleep the whole time. Jocelyn was in a good mood in spite of the holidays. We curled up on the couch and watched Masterpiece Theater: A Scandal in Bohemia. Jocelyn checked