One More for the Books
Puck used the toaster without help that morning to make “butter toast.” El Oso talked him through the situation before I could scold the young upstart. But Puck insisted that he had retrieved the toast with a cloth, not a fork. Still, that’s what I get for not setting an alarm. Puck is king of the house if I’m not up. I noticed the stick of mutilated butter in the fridge. At least he had put it back. Or maybe El Oso did; I didn’t ask.
Puck was flat on his back in the snow, blinded from the sun, making angels. I let him roam for just under half an hour. The cold was biting. Earlier, he had salvaged the enormous – now broken – icicle from the front porch. Nothing would melt today. He handed it to me, piece by piece, like dinosaur bones from a dig, although they more resembled wrinkled elephant legs. “Put these in the fridge, Mom!” When I turned around next, he was on the patio holding up the broken shards of a peanut butter jar, one of the many casualties of temperatures this cold. Next came the broken branches, brandished like swords as he lead a William Wallace charge across the backyard. – CRACK – “What is that, Puck?” I called through the glass patio door. Puck held up a scoop-shaped piece of plastic. “I DON’T KNOW! IT JUST CAME OFF THE HOUSE!” He began shoveling snow out of the fire grate with it, which I realized probably had something to do with the dryer vent from the basement. Sometimes I just let these things go.
Of all items in the house that Thursday, Puck had become most attached to a miniature orange cat, made of some solid plastic, which came from who knew where. It’s a new object every day. He talked to it during his morning sums, like it could understand as well as Crackers did. “Here, do this addition problem while I work on math.” He propped up twelve plus five. As he set down a beat to study by, “N-ss n-ss n-ss n-ss.” Sometimes I just don’t say anything.
While Puck started movie night: a geese reserve in marshy cornfields (Disney in the 60’s), I walked outside to gather two days of mail. The yards were cut clean, chunks of white crossed with wet pavement, like slices of heavily frosted cake. And the cold was bitter; took my breath. All silent. Except for the highway under a melting sky, gold-white almost silver sun behind cloud webbing, like fire behind wax.
El Oso was out with buddies, beers, and catching up on life that night. He called first, as usual. Asked Puck to read a Garfield strip to him, and asked about the icicles, if there were any more good finds. He was a busy man. Lunch meetings, dinner meetings, even breakfast meetings. He traveled fast.