squirting glue, mangling construction paper, throwing glitter in the air and watching it snow down on the Yangs’ black and silver hair.
Max and Mrs. Yang sat cross-legged, backs against the couch. Robby was asleep on the cream carpet, snoring. It sounded likea snowy television set being turned up and down. He wore a fuzzy strawberry pajama suit, and his shoulders twitched every once in a while from the fabulous adventures or terrors that seizured his dreams.
As the Ricky Wu credits rolled, Max surprised himself by exclaiming, “I don’t understand why my dad and Kelly live together.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Yang said.
“Just seems like if you don’t really like someone, you shouldn’t live with them, right?”
“A person will accept many bad thing in order to not be a lonely one.”
“But he was less of a lonely one before. We were fine.”
“You must know that this is not the same,” she said. “Maybe you do not know the good thing she provide your father.”
“I’ve heard of sex, Mrs. Yang.”
He didn’t know he was making a joke until she erupted into her sirening laughter and Mr. Yang’s boyish giggle bounced in from the greenhouse. Robby woke up in a state of alarm, and Mrs. Yang pressed her hand on his forehead. Tranquilized by her touch, he plunked limply to the carpet again.
“Okay!” Mr. Yang said, coming into the living room, pointing at Max with his pocket pruner. “But also it is very hard to know what a couple is really like behind the closed door. Not only with the sex, Max, but in all way. People have so many different need. You cannot understand a couple when you are not inside the couple. Only the couple can really know the couple. And even they do not always really know.”
Max said, “I thought he needed a girlfriend to feel better, but I’ve never seen him look worse. And he doesn’t do anything about it. Just lets it happen.”
“Then you must let it happen too,” Mrs. Yang said.
SIX
Years before the tree house, Max believed anything he planted in the backyard had a good chance of growing into a tree. So he buried things like chewing gum, dried spaghetti, hard-boiled eggs, a mug, some of Rocket’s hair, hamburger buns, a bottle of San Pellegrino. Today, long after he’d understood that none of those things would sprout into magnificent trees, he crawled around the yard with Rocket, trying to dig them all back up to throw in the garbage. His desire to clean had spanned underground. He didn’t find most of the stuff, but he did unearth a petrified lemon that had been painted gold. Yes, he remembered it now. It was the most gorgeous lemon he’d ever bought, and thinking himself clever, he decided to invest it into a tree where more lemons like it would grow, rather than just indulge in it straight away. He got the idea to paint it gold many times over—because it was too difficult to leave such a perfect thing alone—and after five or six coats, heplanted it. When nothing happened for long enough, he forgot about it.
He contemplated the hardened little fruit a while, holding it up to let the sunlight shatter against it. Cracks in the gold paint showed threads of the lemon’s black and red skin. He felt a baffling hatred toward the lemon. He pitched it at his tree house as hard as he could. It flew through the window and knocked around loudly before lying still.
SEVEN
On the afternoon of Max’s thirteenth birthday, a week before his summer break ended, Rasheed took him shopping. During car rides Max imagined his eyes shot lasers that cut down trees. His rule was that he had to retract his lasers for non-trees. Any homes, metal poles, stores, people, etc., would in fact deflect the laser back at Max and destroy him and his father.
They’d driven to the store in the ’77 Toyota Celica. None of the doors opened from the inside anymore. Rasheed had to roll down the window, reach out, and find the handle on the exterior to pop it open. When parked, Rasheed asked for the
Max and Mrs. Yang sat cross-legged, backs against the couch. Robby was asleep on the cream carpet, snoring. It sounded likea snowy television set being turned up and down. He wore a fuzzy strawberry pajama suit, and his shoulders twitched every once in a while from the fabulous adventures or terrors that seizured his dreams.
As the Ricky Wu credits rolled, Max surprised himself by exclaiming, “I don’t understand why my dad and Kelly live together.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Yang said.
“Just seems like if you don’t really like someone, you shouldn’t live with them, right?”
“A person will accept many bad thing in order to not be a lonely one.”
“But he was less of a lonely one before. We were fine.”
“You must know that this is not the same,” she said. “Maybe you do not know the good thing she provide your father.”
“I’ve heard of sex, Mrs. Yang.”
He didn’t know he was making a joke until she erupted into her sirening laughter and Mr. Yang’s boyish giggle bounced in from the greenhouse. Robby woke up in a state of alarm, and Mrs. Yang pressed her hand on his forehead. Tranquilized by her touch, he plunked limply to the carpet again.
“Okay!” Mr. Yang said, coming into the living room, pointing at Max with his pocket pruner. “But also it is very hard to know what a couple is really like behind the closed door. Not only with the sex, Max, but in all way. People have so many different need. You cannot understand a couple when you are not inside the couple. Only the couple can really know the couple. And even they do not always really know.”
Max said, “I thought he needed a girlfriend to feel better, but I’ve never seen him look worse. And he doesn’t do anything about it. Just lets it happen.”
“Then you must let it happen too,” Mrs. Yang said.
SIX
Years before the tree house, Max believed anything he planted in the backyard had a good chance of growing into a tree. So he buried things like chewing gum, dried spaghetti, hard-boiled eggs, a mug, some of Rocket’s hair, hamburger buns, a bottle of San Pellegrino. Today, long after he’d understood that none of those things would sprout into magnificent trees, he crawled around the yard with Rocket, trying to dig them all back up to throw in the garbage. His desire to clean had spanned underground. He didn’t find most of the stuff, but he did unearth a petrified lemon that had been painted gold. Yes, he remembered it now. It was the most gorgeous lemon he’d ever bought, and thinking himself clever, he decided to invest it into a tree where more lemons like it would grow, rather than just indulge in it straight away. He got the idea to paint it gold many times over—because it was too difficult to leave such a perfect thing alone—and after five or six coats, heplanted it. When nothing happened for long enough, he forgot about it.
He contemplated the hardened little fruit a while, holding it up to let the sunlight shatter against it. Cracks in the gold paint showed threads of the lemon’s black and red skin. He felt a baffling hatred toward the lemon. He pitched it at his tree house as hard as he could. It flew through the window and knocked around loudly before lying still.
SEVEN
On the afternoon of Max’s thirteenth birthday, a week before his summer break ended, Rasheed took him shopping. During car rides Max imagined his eyes shot lasers that cut down trees. His rule was that he had to retract his lasers for non-trees. Any homes, metal poles, stores, people, etc., would in fact deflect the laser back at Max and destroy him and his father.
They’d driven to the store in the ’77 Toyota Celica. None of the doors opened from the inside anymore. Rasheed had to roll down the window, reach out, and find the handle on the exterior to pop it open. When parked, Rasheed asked for the
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