Mama's Boy Read online

  I have come to feel a lot of regret for having run over your son Sergeant Runkle even though it was an accident. It was snowing and my windshield was iced up and I admit I have a lead foot besides being unfortunately drunk at the time. I must have been loco driving like that in that weather. I think I probably am a little loco since I see and talk to my dead father every so often and every time I do I see him more clearly as if he was actually there, still alive under a mile of ocean, which is kind of scary. Loco or not, I sure wish I hadn’t hurt your son. I hope you can believe this in your heart. I believe it in mine.

  I also wanted to say that your son is a better man than I am. You’re probably laughing bitter tears at that because, of course, he’s better than the reckless drunken moron who ran him down. That’s a given. What I mean is, Sergeant Runkle is taking it like it was something minor, like a broken toe or a bad tooth, even though he’s probably eighty percent blind or even worse.

  Here’s another thing that shames me but also makes me feel good at the same time. I hope you can follow my thinking here. Your son used to be a mean-hearted SOB, excuse my French, but now he seems goodhearted, even friendly and considerate. We played checkers for over two hours! How do you explain that? He ordinarily wouldn’t pass you by without making some remark about your abnormal sexual tendencies or your mongrel family background, and so forth. Here’s what I think—I don’t know what he was like back home in Pennsylvania, but I bet you and Mister Runkle were glad to see him go off and join the air force. Someone told me about his dog Rascal who killed neighborhood cats and how proud he was of Rascal coming home with dead cats dripping from his jaws, their guts ripped-out, and so on. Anyone, even his Mom and Dad, would be glad to see someone like that join the air force. Maybe especially his mom and dad. He must have been a disappointment to you in a number of other ways, too. It only stands to reason.

  Here’s what I’m trying to say: I think you’re going to find him to be a much better person now. I don’t mean to claim that my running him over did him some good, but it kind of looks that way. My friend, the sergeant who your son put in the hospital with that unjustified beating I mentioned a minute ago, calls it the shithouse rule. (Pardon the French again, but there are no other words to describe it, none that I can think of anyway.) Every accomplishment or disaster has an upside and a downside. It goes something like that. Think of yourself in an outhouse, having great success doing your business but someone before you has used up all the toilet paper. That takes some of the satisfaction from your success, right? Or the other way around, there’s ten rolls of high-quality toilet paper available but all you can do is beg the unmovable stones locked in your bowels for mercy.

  I hope you are well and that your son improves a lot in the Seattle hospital where they are sending him. I’m sure he will. I am sorry for having nearly put his lights out permanently.

  Sincerely Yours,

  Gus Reppo (A/2C, USAF—Almost Retired Myself!)

  Gus folded the letter and put it into an envelope. He sealed the envelope and addressed it. He went to the front desk and bought a seven-cent airmail stamp. He licked the stamp and stuck it to the envelope.

  He went back to the writing desk and sat down. He thought hard for a minute or two then tore the letter in half and dropped it into the wastepaper basket next to the desk.

  40

  Gus and Tracy went to the Orpheum. Forbidden Planet was the main feature. Gus liked it, Tracy did and didn’t.

  “The special effects were very good,” she said. “But the message was a bit much, don’t you think?”

  “Here we go again,” Gus said, affecting a weariness he did not feel.

  “You didn’t see it? It was practically spoon-fed to the audience.”

  “You mean, ‘You never know what you’re going to find on alien planets.’ That message?”

  “Superficially. But the real message, the bogus one they want you to believe, goes a bit deeper than that.”

  They were in the Winshaw house, curled up on the sofa in front of the fireplace drinking hot buttered rum. Dr. and Mrs. Winshaw were on an overnight trip to Pocatello, Idaho, visiting Mrs. Winshaw’s sister.

  “Bogus?” Gus said.

  “The id thing at the end.”

  “The invisible monster that burned its way through solid steel doors?”

  “It killed off the Kel, the super-advanced people who lived on the planet a million years before the American space travelers arrived. The Kel engineers dealt with everything except the id.”

  “What’s bogus about that? I thought it was pretty neat when that thing burned through those fifty-ton doors.”

  Gus put another log on the fire. It was dry and full of pitch. It exploded into flame. He closed the fireplace screen but not before some big sparks flew out. He stepped on them, ground them into the carpet. The blond carpet was covered with little black burn marks. Gus figured a few more shouldn’t upset the Winshaws.

  “Freudian gibberish,” Tracy said. “They want us to believe that no matter how advanced a civilization becomes, it will crumble before the subterranean forces of the id, the primitive animal inside all of us.”

  “They. It’s always ‘they’ with you.”

  Tracy ignored him. “Why try to create a classless proletarian society if there’s a self-gratifying destroyer roaring around in the unconscious of every human being?”

  “More bourgeois bullshit?” Gus said.

  “Of course. Freud got his theories by treating middle-class patients, mostly women. Queens of the bourgeoisie.”

  Gus stood up and stretched, then collapsed into the sofa. He was not quite drunk. He was holding onto a first-rate buzz. It was a good place to be. He reached for his buttered rum and allowed himself a calculated sip.

  “The ego serves the needs of the id,” Tracy said. “The ego is a fake, a servile tool of the id. In other words, nothing with a human face on it is genuine. The civilized mask hides the monster in charge. It’s a degenerate, reactionary idea. And totally bogus.”

  “The movie had a happy ending,” Gus pointed out.

  “A phony tacked-on happy ending. If the id exists, then the space travelers are taking it back home with them. They think they’re escaping, but—if you allow the premise—they can’t escape. No one can. All civilizations are doomed.”

  “Hold on, professor,” Gus said. “If the Kel have been dead a million years, how come this id beast is still stomping around the planet, tearing the hell out of things?”

  “It isn’t the id of the Kel. It’s Dr. Morbius’s personal id.”

  Gus thought about that. “Gotcha!” he said. “That’s where your argument doesn’t hold water, Miss Winshaw. Dr. Morbius and his daughter Alta had been living peacefully on the planet with no id in sight years before the space men came along. How do you explain that?”

  Tracy sipped her rum. “Incest,” she said.

  “Incest?”

  “The space men flirt with Alta. One of them kisses her and she immediately gets hot. This arouses Dr. Morbius’s jealousy, and his anger releases the power of the id from his unconscious mind. His incestuous relationship with his daughter is so obvious. The movie practically rubs your nose in it. The scene where the tiger attacks the space man? That tiger is a symbol of Dr. Morbius’s jealous rage. And his name, Morbius? It’s from the Latin morbis, meaning disease! God! How transparent can it be?”

  “Let me get this straight. You’re saying that Dr. Morbius was screwing his own daughter?”

  “But not because of some underground demon called the id. He’s screwing her because he’s a filthy old pervert.”

  “And that’s it? That’s what the movie is about? A dirty old man shipwrecked on a planet with his daughter?”

  “Why do you think they called the movie The Forbidden Planet, unless they meant to suggest a taboo?”

  “Well, I guess poor old Dr. Morbius will still be able to lead a productive life even though he’ll lack enthusiasm and a sense of purpose.” />
  “What in the world are you talking about?”

  “Loyalty and companionability are out the window, too.”

  “I’m serious, Gus. There are no demons. Science has gotten rid of all that mythological baloney.”

  Gus thought about that. He thought about his life to date. “I respectfully disagree, Professor,” he said.

  “Ignorance can’t disagree with knowledge,” she said.

  They watched the fire and sipped their hot buttered rums. The log Gus had thrown in was almost burned down to charcoal. Gus tossed in another. Sparks flew out like tracers. Gus stepped on them. Little curls of smoke rose up out of the carpet.

  “Explain this,” Gus said. “Walt Disney made the movie. How could Walt Disney make a movie about a filthy old pervert messing around with his own daughter?”

  “Did you ever notice that Donald Duck has no pants hiding his feathered glory?” Tracy said.

  “His what?”

  “Feathered glory. It’s from “Leda and the Swan,” a poem by W. B. Yeats, another dirty-minded reactionary.”

  Gus pulled Tracy close and kissed her. He put his hand on her small breast.

  “Not so rough, you beast,” she said.

  “I’m all id, tonight,” he said.

  They kissed again.

  “Let’s go to bed, honey,” she said. “Bring your feathered glory with you.”

  Gus was stunned. Honey. She’d called him honey! That old bourgeois term of endearment! He couldn’t have been more thrilled if she had torn his pants off with her teeth.

  “Come on, let’s go to bed,” she said.

  “Can we take off our clothes this time?”

  “No.”

  “But …”

  “Not negotiable, honey.”

  41

  Gus was the only customer in the Athenian. Milk River High hadn’t let out yet. He was going to meet Tracy, but he was an hour early. When Tracy found out he was getting kicked out of the air force she was thrilled. Gus became a hero. She wanted to talk to Gus about enrolling in college. “You’re basically bright and perceptive,” she said. “I think you’d make a wonderful student.”

  Gus daydreamed about student life over his cup of coffee. He was imagining himself attending classes with Tracy and her bright and perceptive friends, talking philosophy and politics and saying smart things in French, when the front door of the Athenian swung open with a bang and Jeff Sparks came in with a Milk River police officer.

  Sparks grabbed Gus by the collar and yanked him out of his booth with enough force to send him airborne. He picked Gus up and threw him down hard, slamming the air out of his lungs. Gus couldn’t breathe.

  Sparks turned him over and put a knee in his back. Gus’s mouth was open but he couldn’t draw air. He felt like a beached fish. Which made him think of Beryl Lenahan. Then it was more than a thought: He saw her dig the eyes out of a rainbow trout, watched her slip a knife into its rectum, slit its white belly open all the way to the gills, pull out the guts in one sure gesture. Yum, she said. Gus smelled fish frying in the aromatic bacon grease.

  “What’s going on?” Gus whispered. Kneeled on and handcuffed, he tried to organize his thoughts. Sparks pulled him to his feet.

  “He’s all yours,” Sparks said to the police officer. The officer took Gus by the arm. Gus sucked in air with some difficulty. The officer and Sparks walked him to the jailhouse.

  “What’re you booking this boy for?” the desk sergeant said. The desk sergeant was a three hundred-pound man with a pink head round as a basketball. What little hair he had was combed forward into oily black bangs. He had a jovially sinister smile that seemed a permanent feature of his face. One of his front incisors was rimmed in gold.

  “Attempted murder, assault, hit and run, resisting arrest,” the officer said. “And anything else we can find that needs cleaning up. These flyboys are handy for that.”

  “Add treason to that list,” Sparks said. “He runs with the local Better-Red-Than-Dead crowd.”

  “We got some of those here?” the desk sergeant said. “I thought those pussycats were all in England.”

  “I guess you don’t read your own newspaper,” Sparks said. “You got your share of Red professors and college kids right here in Milk River. The OSI—that’s the air force criminal investigation unit—keeps tabs on all subversive activity anywhere near a radar base. If war comes the Reds will try to put the radar bases out of commission first. Radar is the eyes of our defense.”

  “Well put,” the desk sergeant said. “You have a flair for the poetic.”

  “Sparks here says this little guy’s the one bashed in the brains of that fat-ass AP,” the arresting officer said.

  “Finally caught the raving maniac, did we?” the desk sergeant chuckled. “He’s kind of a mild-looking prospect to be running around bashing people’s heads in.”

  “I’ve been keeping my eye on him, and now I got his confession,” Sparks said. He showed the desk sergeant the letter he’d retrieved from the wastepaper basket in the lobby of the Milk River hotel. Sparks had used Scotch tape to mend the torn pages. “Says he ran down Runkle with a Plymouth Belvedere, but I believe he used a baseball bat and snuck up behind him.”

  “Either weapon gives the smaller man a considerable advantage,” the desk sergeant observed.

  “That’s how a yellow bastard like him works,” Sparks said.

  The desk sergeant yawned. “I believe you have a few more such miscreants out at that radar station,” he said. “Like the sexually disturbed deviant who waved his engorged member at some ladies in the parking lot of the Northside Club last week, suggesting they kneel before him and pay oral homage to it. The ladies’ escorts, stout farm boys from Box Elder, kicked most of his teeth out. The bulk of these deviants are from the big cities where behavior is less guarded. You should keep them confined to the radar base. They don’t seem to fit in with small town life.”

  Sparks, who was from Cleveland, took offense. “I differ with you on that point, sergeant. This boy here is from a small town on the California coast.”

  Spark’s sensitivity to the subject made the desk sergeant’s constant grin grow wider. “Sure, and you’ve got a bunch of Benedictine monks out there at the radar station reading the Bible to each other and singing Gregorian chants.”

  Overmatched, Sparks said nothing.

  Gus had a cellmate. He recognized the man. Solomon Coe. “Mr. Coe,” he said.

  Solomon Coe looked as if he’d fallen out of a rolling cattle car. He reeked of whiskey and his wrinkled suit was speckled with mud and partially digested food. He was sitting on a hard bunk trying to roll a cigarette. Tobacco spilled out of both ends. The thing he lit was mostly paper. Gus sat on the bunk opposite Coe’s and watched the pathetic cigarette flame with each puff.

  Coe looked at Gus without recognition. “And who might you be, son?” he said. Coe’s voice startled Gus. The basso and alto modes, working simultaneously, produced an eerie harmony. Gus thought Coe might have been kicked in the throat.

  “I met you in the Milk River Hotel bar a while back,” Gus said.

  “I meet a lot of people in bars. Why are you here?”

  “Attempted murder,” Gus said.

  “Did you confess?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Don’t. They’ll want you to confess to all unsolved crimes committed in Antelope County since the attack on Pearl Harbor, but I advise you to hold your tongue. I’ll defend you, if you wish, whether you did the crime or not. If you did, I’m sure you were justified.”

  Coe got up and vomited into the cell’s lone toilet. He cleared his throat but the basso/alto harmony persisted. “I think I have a form of food poisoning,” he explained. He went back to his cot. He stretched out on it. “We can’t change the wind, son, but we can adjust our sails.”

  “I’d write that down if I had a pen,” Gus said.

  “Ah, now I remember you,” Solomon Coe said. “You’re the insolent boy with the girlfr
iend problems.”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend,” Gus said.

  “Easy to see why,” Coe said. “Tell me, young man. Have you wised-up yet or are you still beating your head against the wall?”

  “I don’t follow you, Mr. Coe.”

  “Then you haven’t wised-up. You go ahead and beat your head against that wall, son. Eventually you’ll break through to the other side. What do you think you’ll find when you do?”

  Gus shrugged.

  “More wall, son. You have my personal guarantee.”

  Coe rolled over, turning his back to Gus. He released a trumpeting fart. A minute later he began to snore. His breathing was labored. Now and then he stopped breathing altogether. At one point Gus thought Coe had died. Then his body shuddered and a dry rattling noise issued from his chest, and his wheezy lungs began to labor again.

  The rotund desk sergeant and a chinless deputy brought trays of food into the cell. The deputy affected a brutal seen-it-all look that was undermined by his weak chin, shifty eyes, and large velvety ears. The lunch trays were meager: Fried baloney, toast, fried potatoes burnt black at the edges, and a small cup of what looked like applesauce.