City of Boys Read online

  —Wait a minute, he says. —Six times seven. Six times seven.

  He pulls a pen from his pocket and writes it down, 6 × 7, in the margin of the map. —Six times seven, he says again, and she wants to tell him the answer, but instead she closes her eyes and waits for it to be time for dinner. In Ohio, she thinks, under the snow, the stiff green grass is growing. In the summer, her father will cut it, and it will grow back again, and again, stiff and frozen. She half sleeps, half listens, and over the rattle of the train, she can hear her father quietly going through the multiplication tables.

  The dining car is only half full when they have their dinner, and as the waiter puts down their plates, Alice watches the ice in her parents’ drinks shake with the motion of the train. —Well, her father says cheerfully, —only five hundred miles to Oklahoma. He picks up his knife and fork, and looks down at his roast beef sandwich. —You’re really going to like Oklahoma, he says to Alice. —I’ve always loved it there.

  Alice’s mother looks around for an ashtray, then finally leans her cigarette on the lip of her butter plate. —You’ve never been to Oklahoma, she says.

  Alice’s father puts down his silverware and places his hands on either side of his plate. Then he leans forward until his tie is almost touching his gravy.

  —I’ve been to Oklahoma, he says quietly. —I was there when I was fifteen. At a basketball camp.

  —Oh, she says. —Well, I didn’t know that. You never told me that. I can’t see why you would expect me to know that. —I’ve told you, he says. —I’ve probably told you ten times. Twenty.

  Alice watches a family across the aisle from them, and wonders what they’re talking about. There is a girl about her age, and a boy, younger, and she wonders how life would have been different if she’d had a brother, but she cannot imagine another presence in their house; though it is large, it seems barely able to contain each of them as it is.

  Alice’s father picks up his fork. —Oklahoma, he says, —is a wonderful place. I think I had the best time of my life there. The best.

  He cuts his sandwich in half and watches gravy spread across the plate. —I could probably do very well for myself there. I could probably make a very satisfactory life for myself there. Maybe, he says, —maybe I’ll look into it.

  —Fine, Alice’s mother says. —And we can all eat dust.

  She smiles at Alice. —Oklahoma is a state full of dust, she says. —Nothing but dust. And dirt.

  Alice’s father looks up. —I didn’t say we would all go, he says, and he stares at Alice’s mother a moment as Alice watches her peas tremble in their small bowl. She looks up as the waiter approaches and stands quietly by their table.

  —Excuse me, he says apologetically to Alice’s mother. He hands her an ashtray. —I’m afraid we don’t allow smoking in here. He puts the ashtray down, then leaves, and Alice’s father watches as she puts her cigarette out.

  —Probably everyone was complaining, he says. —Probably everyone in the whole car. He smiles as he stabs his fork into his sandwich.

  * * *

  After dinner, they retreat to their cabin and sit nervously on the bolted furniture. All they can see of the world outside is a square of darkness in the window: no moon, no stars, not even the reflections of houses, or city lights, just a square of black, and in it their own reflections, trapped like ghosts in the glass. Finally, Alice’s mother stands.

  —I think I’ll go to the smoker, she says. —At least I can find some conversation.

  When she is gone, Alice’s father smiles. —Isn’t this fun? he says.

  —I guess so, Alice says. She pats at the hard bottom bed of the bunk and sits, then leans back against the wall with her book.

  —Hey, her father says, —you don’t have to stay in here with me. There’s lots to do on a train. You just have to know how to find it.

  He gazes at her until she puts down her book and leaves the cabin.

  She walks down the center of the aisle, not touching the seats as she passes them, maintaining her balance by shifting her weight with the movement of the train. She stops in the cold breeze way between the cars; when the train comes to a jerk in the tracks, the hooks that hold the cars together rattle but hold fast, and she wonders what would happen if the train came apart right here, right underneath her; she would have to think quickly, and leap for either car, but she has a crazy vision of herself straddling the empty air between them, stretching wide as they separate.

  Just outside the door to the smoker, Alice can see her mother, sitting, with her back to Alice, at a little white table, across from a man in a dark sweater. As Alice approaches, she watches the man watch her mother; he smiles every now and then, lifts his eyebrows, nods. His eyes move across her face, down to her hands, back up again.

  —I could do a perfect figure eight, Alice hears as she approaches. Her mother takes a drag of her cigarette and smoke rises, a delicate frame around her head. —I was, in my way, she goes on, —a kind of prodigy.

  The man nods and looks around the room. When Alice stops at the table, he smiles vacantly, and Alice’s mother turns.

  —Oh, she says. —Alice. Alice, this is Mr. Gregg. He’s traveling to Albuquerque. On business.

  —Alice, he says. —What a pretty name.

  —Yes, says Alice’s mother. —Isn’t it?

  She puts her cigarette out and smiles at Alice. —It’s a family name, she says, but Alice cannot remember anyone in her family named Alice. The man looks out through the window at the dark screen of the world passing by, and when he looks back, he seems surprised to see Alice still there.

  He smiles grimly. —Well, Alice, he says, —what do you want to be when you grow up?

  Alice looks at her mother and tries to imagine what she herself will be, what she will do when she is that age; probably by then she will smoke, and she will be married to a man much like her father, and in the summers she will probably take vacations with him and their little quiet children. She closes her eyes a moment and tries again: instead of all that, she will have a different life, one in which she will doze after she has had her breakfast, and in the evening she will lie down after supper. She will have a cat that sits quietly in her lap, and when it dies, she will get another.

  —I don’t know, she says finally. —A nurse.

  —Ah, the man says. —The medical profession.

  Her mother smiles at her. —That’s what I wanted to be, too, she says. —A nurse. She looks at the man. —And I could have been. I would have made a good nurse.

  She stops and taps a cigarette from her pack. The man picks up his lighter, but she looks down at the cigarette and does not bring it to her lips.

  —I’d still like to be a nurse, she says. —But it’s too late for that.

  —Oh now, he says. —It’s never too late. Not for a woman like yourself. You’re still quite a young woman.

  Alice’s mother looks at him and smiles. —Really? she says.

  —Oh yes, he says. —Oh yes. He flicks his lighter and Alice watches the flame pass across her mother’s dark eyes.

  Her father is in the chair by the window when she returns to the cabin; the map and newspapers are spread open around him on the floor and in his lap is the Kansas City paper. From the door Alice can see the photo of the hotel with the white circle around the window. He looks around at her and drops the paper on the floor.

  —Where’s your mother? he asks.

  —Smoking, Alice says. —She’s still in the smoking car.

  —I suppose she’s making friends, he says, and Alice nods.

  —Your mother is a very friendly woman, he says, gazing at her, and she can tell he is waiting for a response, but she sits on her bed and picks up her book. Finally he reaches for one of the newspapers on the floor, and over the top of her book Alice watches him read: his eyes run quickly across the paper and all the way down it, but when he finishes, he comes back to the top, without turning the page. He is waiting for Alice’s mother to come back;
he is waiting for something to happen, Alice can tell, and she wants to be far away when it does, but already she knows that it will not happen without her; if she is gone, it will wait for her to return–to come out of the bathroom, or to arrive home from school, or to wake up–and while it may not be something too terribly awful–a word, a look, a small mean flick of the hand–she will be there for it; she is a part of it by now. There was a time when her parents, having quarreled, would turn to her with sad shocked looks for all that they asked her to witness, but now it goes on as though she is not even there. Her father abandons the paper and looks out the window; the only light is that of the train, cutting through the black country. She wonders if he is thinking of the life he might have had in Oklahoma, or of her mother, or if he thinks nothing at all, his mind an empty field, crossed only from time to time by a few thoughts rattling over a rusty track.

  By the time her mother comes back, Alice has finished her book, and her father is cheerful again, back to plotting out their trip. He looks up and smiles briefly at Alice’s mother as she sits on the chair by the bed. She picks up a magazine and stares at it for a while, then closes it.

  —Do you remember, she says to him, —that I wanted to be a nurse?

  He looks up from the map and makes great show of closing it up carefully, along its original folds; when he is done, he smiles. —No, he says. —I don’t remember that.

  —Well, she says, —I do.

  He looks out the window, and she nods. —You know, she says, —I am still relatively young. I am still a relatively young woman.

  He does not answer, but his lips are moving and as he gazes at the passing scenery Alice tries to tell what he is saying. After a moment she realizes he is going through the multiplication tables.

  She puts her book down and goes into the tiny bathroom to brush her teeth for bed, and one by one they all go into the bathroom, then emerge in their nightclothes. Alice’s father climbs onto the top bunk first, and her mother follows. Just before her mother pulls her leg up, Alice sees at her ankle a fine spray of blond hairs that she has missed with her razor. She wonders what her mother was thinking that day, leaning over her long white legs; if perhaps she was thinking of all the things she might be doing instead of that. Alice turns her face to the wall, wondering who has slept in these beds before them, what family took this room before tonight. She concentrates on not listening, but it’s an unnecessary effort: her parents make no noise at all; they lie above her like stones, and she cannot even hear them breathe.

  She wakes to darkness, not knowing if it’s the jerking of the train that woke her, or her mother, who is in the chair near the bed, watching her. Her hair is outlined in the feeble light from the window, and her eyes are dark smudges in the dark circle that is her face. She leans forward and touches Alice’s arm gently.

  —You know, she says softly, —I really did want to be a nurse. I wanted to work in a hospital. I really did. It’s not just something I made up out there like you did. I really wanted that.

  Alice closes her eyes and feels the train move underneath her. She wonders what state they’re in now, what city it is that casts the dirty light over the fields outside. She wonders how long it will take them to reach Oklahoma, and she hears and does not hear her mother move from the chair; she feels and does not feel her mother’s cold lips on her forehead, her hand smoothing her hair back; she sleeps and does not sleep, so that when her mother leaves the room, she knows it but does not hear her go. Above her, her father finally moves, turning over on the thin mattress, and Alice can feel that he is awake. When she falls asleep again, she dreams she is in a tall empty room without windows, her feet buried in sand and her face in flames.

  She wakes with a sudden jolt of the train and she is startled by her first sight: the world rushing by in a cluttered blur of objects. Then she remembers where she is and closes her eyes to try to recall that moment of opening her eyes and not knowing where she was, but it is too late. All around her on the train, people are waking to a world that is not their own, and for just a moment they forget everything: husbands, lovers, children, wives, even the destinations toward which they rush with such determination; then they look around; their eyes fall on their clothing, the faces of their children, their familiar suitcases and books, all of the things they carry with them. The mattress shifts above her and she wonders what it must be like for her parents to wake to each other every day–if, for only a moment, it is a surprise. She opens her eyes again and sees her mother’s face dangling over the mattress, smiling upside down at her, and she can hear her father brushing his teeth in the bathroom. He comes out dressed, smiling tightly.

  —Okay, he says. —Another day. He walks to the window, then to the door, and paces alertly around the room, tapping his hands against his thighs as he walks, waiting for Alice and her mother, but when they are finally dressed and ready for breakfast, he is in the chair, watching them dully.

  The family that sat across from them at dinner is gone, replaced by an old couple who eat steadily and do not talk. They take bites of food almost simultaneously, and chew as they look around the room, then wearily bring their forks to their mouths again. Alice is torn between French toast and poached eggs, but when her mother chooses French toast, she decides on eggs, curious to see the effect of the motion of the train on the trembling skin of the egg. When the eggs come, they are overcooked, and when she breaks the center of one with her fork, only a disappointing dribble of yolk bleeds out over her toast. Mr. Gregg enters the car and sits at a table across the room from them. He watches them eat, and when Alice meets his gaze, he nods at her in a businesslike way. She smiles, then looks away, and her father turns to see whom she is smiling at. He watches Mr. Gregg open his newspaper and prop it up in front of his face, then turns back to Alice.

  —Looks like you have a friend, he says. Alice mashes her egg down into her toast.

  —Alice, her mother says, —don’t play with your food. You’ll be hungry later if you don’t eat now.

  —It’s overcooked, her father says. —Can’t you see it’s overcooked? He smiles at Alice. —Who’s your friend? he asks.

  —Will you leave her alone? her mother says. —Will you just leave her alone and let her eat her eggs?

  They are all quiet a moment and Alice’s mother scrapes her fork across the top of her French toast, then pushes her plate away.

  —I’m already sick of the food on this train, she says. —I’m sick of the food and I’m sick of the room and I’m sick of the goddamn scenery. I’m going to smoke.

  Mr. Gregg does not turn as she passes him on her way out of the car, but when she is gone, he looks around to see the door close behind her.

  Alice’s father pulls her plate of French toast toward him.

  —I’m afraid, he says, —that your mother is not a very happy woman. He pours syrup over the French toast. —No, he says. —Not a very happy woman at all.

  He cuts the French toast into quarters, then into smaller pieces, and does not once look behind him as he begins to eat.

  Back in the cabin Alice’s father kneels over the paper he has most recently bought, looking for stories about the suicide, but, he tells Alice, they must be too far from Kansas City to get any coverage.

  —Wait, he says. —Here’s something. It says here that he was a family man. Everyone was very surprised. They didn’t even know where he was going. He gazes out at the floor over the newspaper.

  —I can understand that, he says. —I really can. When he looks up, he seems startled to see her.

  —Hey, he says, —you should be having fun. You should be doing something. What would you be doing at home right now?

  —I don’t know. Reading. Watching TV, Alice says, but what she would in fact do after breakfast is go to her room and sit on her bed and run her hands up and down her legs from her ankles to her knees, pushing the nerves one way, then the other, until her parents called her for lunch or dinner.

  —Well, he says, —you can d
o a lot more than that here, and he sits back on his heels and waits for her to leave.

  Through the window of the smoker, Alice watches her mother, who is sitting at a table by herself. She lights her cigarette and smokes it without looking around, but her shoulders stiffen each time the door opens at either end of the car. She is waiting, but not for Alice, so Alice goes to her seat by the window in the coach car. Outside, dogs and cows and pigs are clumped against the gray dirt, or sit under dry trees. As the train slows through a crossing, Alice looks out at a blue car waiting for them to pass; a woman is at the wheel, and a boy beside her; in the flash of passing, Alice is sure the boy has looked up and met her eyes. She imagines herself in the car. The boy and his mother might be going to swimming practice, or skating, perhaps, or to a store to pick out a new outfit, but sooner or later they will drive past these same trees and go home again. They know nothing of what it is to be on this train.

  Soon the train pulls into another stop, and Alice watches the platform outside for her father; he appears just outside her window, but does not see her inside. He stretches, and stands still for a moment, looking out away from the train, then bends and pushes coins into a newspaper box.

  When Alice wakes, it is late afternoon. The sun hangs at the edge of a field, and she watches for signs to see where they are. After several slow miles, she sees a sign for an Oklahoma bank, and she stands to go to the cabin. She is dizzy from her nap, and her brain buzzes nervously as she walks to the room, where her father is kneeling over a newspaper and her mother sits in a chair, reading Alice’s book.

  —Well, her mother says, —you were certainly out cold when I came to get you for lunch. Did you have a good nap?

  —Yes, Alice says, —I guess so.

  —Well, her mother says, —you didn’t miss much. I think we’re taking the long route. She snaps the book closed.

  —You might have missed a pig or two.

  Alice’s father looks up. —Are you trying to say something? he says.