and we are on a fashionable date in his fancy car. Prince plays along, though he doesn’t really understand. Rick Dees and I have a romantic dinner at a fancy restaurant.
My mother stays in bed most of the time now. She asks that we not disturb her. Maybe she is imagining that she is somewhere else, someone else. But who else would she want to be? She’s my mother, she can’t be anything else.
My brothers stay in the basement. They are making plans down there, I think. They are stroking the magazine pictures, trying to pretend they are real. I know that by now the magazine pages must be all withered from their pawing. Looking at the fleshy naked women all day must make them hungrier.
Only my dad still goes out, every day, with his gun. He walks unsteadily, hanging on to things, but still he goes. He still seems to think there is something out there, something to put in the pot.
There’s nothing left. There hasn’t been for months. But he refuses to believe it.
Then suddenly it gets colder. Is it because of the war, because of a bomb? I wonder. Or is it just a very cold December? My mother comes downstairs, my brothers come upstairs, and we all settle in the living room. The bedrooms and the basement are too cold. It is warmer with all of us together, and the living room is better insulated. We hardly speak to one another. My brothers seem to speak by looks: They snicker suddenly, together, at nothing. And my parents speak with stares and shrugs. Me, I don’t look at anybody; I stay in my corner with my winter coat and my blanket. Two of my teeth are loose. They shouldn’t be.
I still spend a few hours a day with Prince on the porch. Most of the time he stays curled up against the side of the house, trying to steal some of the warmth. Once in a while he crawls around the yard, trying to warm himself up.
I’m too tired these days to sing. Just opening my mouth gives me a headache.
Prince understands. He is the only one who understands me.
Then one day I come in from the porch. It’s starting to get dark so early, now that it’s winter. I go into the living room and it’s all in shadow. I can’t see anyone’s face clearly; all I see are their teeth shining.
It is so quiet. Then I hear their breathing, each one of them separately, like singers not in harmony. They are all waiting for something.
“I wish I had a steak,” says Eliott, his voice strained and high.
A pause.
“In Africa they eat grubs and things. Maybe there are worms in the backyard,” says Pat.
“You can eat dandelion greens. I’ve heard of a dandelion salad,” says Eliott.
Pat says, “I heard in Korea people eat dogs.”
No one says anything. I can see the room get darker.
Then my dad stands up.
“What are you doing?” my mother says. He doesn’t answer.
“Where are you going? Howard—don’t—don’t—”
My dad is reaching for his gun. My brothers stand up.
“What are you doing? How can you even think of—”
They are walking slowly to the door.
“He’s a man, Howard! A man! You can’t—” my mother screams.
“He’s a dog,” says my dad. “He’s an animal.”
And then I see the door swing open, see Prince lift his head expectantly. I see my dad lift the gun and aim. I’m trying to get over there; I can’t get there fast enough—the air is too thick. They’re framed in the doorway, my dad and my brothers, and beyond them I see Prince pause, showing the whites of his eyes, wind ruffling the fur on his head. Then he’s running, galloping on all fours across the yard, his tongue hanging out like a pink streamer. A shot rings out, echoing in the silence, but it misses him. He keeps running, and then he’s up, up on his hind legs, lurching away two-footedly, front legs pawing the air, and then another shot rings out, shaking the world, and he’s down, down, splayed out on our front lawn, nose in the dirt, tail in the air, wind whipping his fur around, his legs quivering, then still.
I try to go to him, but it’s too late. My dad and Eliott and Pat beat me to him.
They run across the lawn, the pack of them, and fall upon him snarling.
“What kind of son are you?” asks Aunt Fran.
Aunt Nina says, “Your own flesh and blood!”
“What your mother wouldn’t do for you …” Aunt Fran goes on. “She’d do anything for you, anything in the world.”
“And now you won’t give just a little back. For shame,” says Aunt Nina.
“Now I’m glad I didn’t have any children; it would hurt me too much if they grew up as hard and selfish as you!” Aunt Fran cries and shudders. The heat is stifling, but she pulls her sweater closer.
We’re sitting in the hospital waiting room, Aunt Fran and Aunt Nina and I. My mother suffered a heart attack this morning. An hour ago we talked to the doctors. They told us her heart is in bad shape. It’s tired, they said, and erratic—a senile old dancer lurching from a tango to a two-step, stumbling to a halt and starting again. We’re waiting to see her, the aunts and I.
The doctors told us her heart won’t last much longer. Her old ticker is ticking its last, unless something is done. “What can be done?” the aunts cried.
“We can’t fix it,” the doctors said. “She needs a new one, a transplant.”
“Then give her one!” the aunts cried.
“It’s not that easy,” said the doctors. “We need a donor.”
The doctors went away. The aunts looked at me.
“Arnie,” Nina said, “what about your heart?”
“My heart!” I shouted. “Are you crazy?”
That started them both off on what a bad son I was. It’s impossible to argue with Nina, especially with Fran to back her up. They see no reason why I should not donate my heart to save my mother’s life.
The doctors still won’t let us see my mother. So we sit here waiting on the green vinyl chairs in the waiting room. It is empty, but we can see the ghosts of other bodies imprinted in the vinyl, others who sat waiting here for hours.
I sit in the middle. Aunt Fran clutches one arm, Aunt Nina the other. They wept at first, but now they sit grimly. A Styrofoam cup of coffee steams next to my foot, but I can’t reach for it. The aunts don’t care; they are amazed that I bought it, amazed that I can even think of coffee at a time like this.
Aunt Fran wears a bally sweater and sensible shoes. Her lips are pressed tight. She taps her feet nervously. On my other side, Nina licks her lips again and again. She has high blood pressure, so when she’s upset, she becomes flushed and overheated. Even now I can feel the creeping heat of her thigh touching mine.
I try to pretend it’s Mandy sitting beside me, clutching my arm the way she does at horror movies.
“I saw it on Sixty Minutes,” Aunt Fran announces. “They put the heart in a cooler, a regular Igloo cooler like we have at home, and they rush it in a helicopter to the hospital, and they put it in, connect up the pipes—it’s just like plumbing.”
“You must be your mother’s tissue type, too. I’m sure you are,” Aunt Nina puts in. “You’re