Chapter Seventy-One
It felt a lot later driving out this morning, even if it was the usual Tuesday hour. The sun hit full blast on a frosty 7:30, and light traffic. We talked church and siblings and the regular ticket items. I wasn’t feeling 100% myself. Maybe I had a cold, maybe it was just sinus irritations. Either way, I hadn’t had anything like that since Hallowe’en. But I didn’t feel bad enough to stay home all day. So we took off.
“Check out the angry goose when we get to the parking lot,” The Bear told us.
Two mad geese, actually. With a nest nearby, one of them ran at our tires as we passed. When we drove by again, the same abrasive fowl was perched on the roof of a red utility vehicle, squawking at us with venom.
We could see Maddie’s little black-brown ears sticking out over the tops of the dish cabinets. Still scared of us. I think she really must have entirely forgotten that one month or two she lived with us last spring.
“Have you really thought of something, Mom?”
“What’s that, Puck?”
A young man in blue flying saucer shirt speckled with miniscule balls of white tissue from the dryer walked over to me.
“Have you thought of who will babysit the cats while Onion is gone?”
“Uncle Joe. Or Mr. Magnus.”
I know what he was hinting at, but that wasn’t happening. The fur would fly. Puck retreated to the bathroom. I heard him comment to himself in a sort of poetic chant…
“I wish, I wish, with all my heart, that Curly’s wedding would come soon.”
A few moments of quiet…
“Are there more than one hundred kids on the earth?”
“Way more than that.”
“101? 102? 103? 104?…”
“Probably billions.”
“One hundred and one hundred and one hundred and one hundred…”
“More, more.”
“How about one hundred and one thousand?”
“More.”
“Billions and billions and billions?”
I was a little too tired to explain further…
“Yes.”
“Oh no. Will I be old, old, very old when I stop counting?”
“Yes.”
We brought The Bear back for lunch. After watching the goose head popping up to check things out over the cement wall.
“Dad. Let’s take down Onion’s trash and have a little chat,” Puck suggested, as they wrapped up the meal.
They did. After practicing lazy cross-eyes together. My crazies.
With all the coming and going around today, Puck found more than one opportunity to ask this question, his latest signature…
“What’s the big point?”
…which basically translates to, “What’s the big deal?”
It was really cold, even at three-something. But I had promised parks. The wind was up and with my cold or whatever, I didn’t feel like spending a huge amount of time in the ice box that was the afternoon. But how could I resist my son’s happiness, or the gorgeous clouds and streaming light?
So we ended up in the gated Clayton playground adorned with telescopes, New-Age-fairy-toned xylophones, and how to say hello in six different languages. After only 25 minutes we retreated to the car for Tyson’s chicken nuggets and Garfield.
We waited for The Bear to emerge in the gold of a late winter evening. The security guard was trying to shoo away the two geese still honking on the roofs of a few cars…
“Go on! Get!”
The geese were not impressed with Marco’s orders.
Puck had one more thought for me that evening…
“I know truth is also truth. But truth can also be a lie. Remember that.”
Rogue philosopher.
