ashtray from his hands.
“Little food and water bins? What are you talking about? My father has faced economic reality every day of his life in this town. It's done things to him, too. That isn ' t real? ”
“Are we talkin’ about John-John or your father?” Hugo let his eyes drift back to the TV screen, where Ida Lupino was testifying, animatedly, before a packed courtroom.
“Look, you know the reality of supporting a family on a noncom's pay. That's why you've moonlighted at the store. Are you trying to tell me that sort of thing isn't real?”
“Not me.”
“And the competition's beginning to get him down. It's twisted him—my own father—into stinginess , of all things.”
“Van Luna is very real for your father,” Hugo acknowledged.
“But it's not real for you, is that what you're saying?”
“Of course it's real for me, Jeanie. You were askin’ me—I think—about John-John and these people because his skin is black. You've changed the subject out from under me.” He tapped a cigarette from a Marlboro flip-top box, lit it like George Raft, and waggled the burning tip under Jeannette's nose. “You don’ listen, mujer . You listen sideways, anyway. So I'm gonna repeat this only once: The problem you've discovered is that for John-John—not for me or you or Mr. Rivenbark or Mrs.
What's-her-face— Van Luna is not real . If you like to worry about that, Jeanie, go ahead, please.
Worry up a storm.”
Jeannette handed the ashtray back to Hugo, then moved closer and put her chin back on his shoulder.
“Do you think we should move into Wichita, then?”
“What for?”
“So that he'd have someplace real to live. A borderline neighborhood, not too run-down. That sort of thing.”
“Hell no. That would be crazy.”
“But I'm trying to—”
“But nothin', Jeanie. The best place for kids to grow up is a place that ain’ too goddamn real. In Bogotá, you know, I've seen the little orphan boys—the gamines—runnin’ in packs, sleepin’ in the streets under newspapers. And Zaragoza, and Sevilla, and other such realities. Screw ’em. You want to take John-John to Mississippi, maybe?”
“I don't want to take him anyplace. I was just—”
“Good.” He jabbed his cigarette toward the television set. “Look at that Ida Lupino. She's a real bitch in Page 43
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
this one, eh?”
* * * *
Later, well after midnight, Jeannette went into the children's room to check on them.
A nightlight glowed in the tiny room. This was a clown with a bulbous nose and a pair of round, upraised fists. Outward from the bedside table on which he stood, his hands and nose shed a circle of pale orange light, a fuzzy nimbus. Anna lay half out of her covers on her trundle bed, while across the room from her, still in a crib, John-John sprawled with one tiny hand extended backwards through the spindles. Jeannette rearranged Anna's bedding before approaching the boy. She found him in the throes of dream.
Supine, his head seeming to pivot on the knob of bone at the back of his skull, John-John was making a gentle, gargling noise. His eyelids had fallen back, like the eyelids concealing the bright marble eyes of a Madame Alexander doll. Half hidden from view, however, John-John's eyeballs jiggled from side to side in the upper portions of the sockets, their faintly muddy whites pulsing in time. Jeannette had witnessed this strange phenomenon dozens of times since bringing John-John home from Spain, but it never failed to disconcert her.
“Dear God,” she murmured.
The Air Force doctors at the McConnell dispensary, to whom she had taken the child about both his slowness in learning to speak and these uncanny nocturnal fits, always assured her that John-John was perfectly healthy. He had an especially vivid dream life, perhaps, but the fact that his eyelids rolled back did not imply that he was suffering from epilepsy, petit mal, or
“Little food and water bins? What are you talking about? My father has faced economic reality every day of his life in this town. It's done things to him, too. That isn ' t real? ”
“Are we talkin’ about John-John or your father?” Hugo let his eyes drift back to the TV screen, where Ida Lupino was testifying, animatedly, before a packed courtroom.
“Look, you know the reality of supporting a family on a noncom's pay. That's why you've moonlighted at the store. Are you trying to tell me that sort of thing isn't real?”
“Not me.”
“And the competition's beginning to get him down. It's twisted him—my own father—into stinginess , of all things.”
“Van Luna is very real for your father,” Hugo acknowledged.
“But it's not real for you, is that what you're saying?”
“Of course it's real for me, Jeanie. You were askin’ me—I think—about John-John and these people because his skin is black. You've changed the subject out from under me.” He tapped a cigarette from a Marlboro flip-top box, lit it like George Raft, and waggled the burning tip under Jeannette's nose. “You don’ listen, mujer . You listen sideways, anyway. So I'm gonna repeat this only once: The problem you've discovered is that for John-John—not for me or you or Mr. Rivenbark or Mrs.
What's-her-face— Van Luna is not real . If you like to worry about that, Jeanie, go ahead, please.
Worry up a storm.”
Jeannette handed the ashtray back to Hugo, then moved closer and put her chin back on his shoulder.
“Do you think we should move into Wichita, then?”
“What for?”
“So that he'd have someplace real to live. A borderline neighborhood, not too run-down. That sort of thing.”
“Hell no. That would be crazy.”
“But I'm trying to—”
“But nothin', Jeanie. The best place for kids to grow up is a place that ain’ too goddamn real. In Bogotá, you know, I've seen the little orphan boys—the gamines—runnin’ in packs, sleepin’ in the streets under newspapers. And Zaragoza, and Sevilla, and other such realities. Screw ’em. You want to take John-John to Mississippi, maybe?”
“I don't want to take him anyplace. I was just—”
“Good.” He jabbed his cigarette toward the television set. “Look at that Ida Lupino. She's a real bitch in Page 43
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
this one, eh?”
* * * *
Later, well after midnight, Jeannette went into the children's room to check on them.
A nightlight glowed in the tiny room. This was a clown with a bulbous nose and a pair of round, upraised fists. Outward from the bedside table on which he stood, his hands and nose shed a circle of pale orange light, a fuzzy nimbus. Anna lay half out of her covers on her trundle bed, while across the room from her, still in a crib, John-John sprawled with one tiny hand extended backwards through the spindles. Jeannette rearranged Anna's bedding before approaching the boy. She found him in the throes of dream.
Supine, his head seeming to pivot on the knob of bone at the back of his skull, John-John was making a gentle, gargling noise. His eyelids had fallen back, like the eyelids concealing the bright marble eyes of a Madame Alexander doll. Half hidden from view, however, John-John's eyeballs jiggled from side to side in the upper portions of the sockets, their faintly muddy whites pulsing in time. Jeannette had witnessed this strange phenomenon dozens of times since bringing John-John home from Spain, but it never failed to disconcert her.
“Dear God,” she murmured.
The Air Force doctors at the McConnell dispensary, to whom she had taken the child about both his slowness in learning to speak and these uncanny nocturnal fits, always assured her that John-John was perfectly healthy. He had an especially vivid dream life, perhaps, but the fact that his eyelids rolled back did not imply that he was suffering from epilepsy, petit mal, or
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