Every Boy Should Have a Man (3 page)

“Maybe they were trying to get rid of her because she was stolen,” suggested the mother. “Only the wealthy can afford a musical man.”

The father folded the paper in his lap. “Maybe they didn’t know she was musical. Maybe that’s why they sold her so cheap. They didn’t know. Her license looks real. It’s not easy to forge a man license, is it?”

They both looked at the man playing the singing harp and at the boy who was staring up at them with worried eyes. The mother inhaled a deep breath. “Well, she may be stolen. What are we going to do?”

The father got up and patted the boy on the head. “She’s ours now, and we’re going to keep it like that. We just won’t tell anybody that she is a musical man.”

The boy smiled, the mother let out a relieved breath, and the father squatted on the ground with his family and listened enraptured as the female man made the small singing harp sing. The father patted the man’s head and mused, “She must be worth some good money.”

The female man knew ten songs that they remembered from their early childhood, and she played them one after the other, and they were all very happy.

* * *

When the boy would take his man out for a walk, he would try to follow his mother’s wishes and avoid the field where the boys from wealthy families walked their mans, but sometimes the temptation was too great.

His man was the best fighter and the wealthy boys, showing off their expensive talking mans in their fabulous hair cloths and fancy loin pouches, needed to be taught a lesson that only the biggest, bravest, strongest, most ferocious man in the whole wide world could teach.

The rules were simple. No leashes. No biting. No gang-ups.

The boy, like a proud but bored spectator who has seen it all before, lay on his side with his head propped up on an elbow as the action proceeded.

His female man had already beaten six of them in a row, and this last one was about to cry surrender. She had this last one by the neck. She could snap his neck easily if she wanted, but she was content to hold his neck under one arm and punch him in the face with her free hand. The boy knew he should head back home before his mother began to worry, but he hated to call a fight in the middle, especially a slaughter like this.

He would make up an excuse to tell his mother.

While all around him the wealthy boys shouted encouragement to the doomed combatant, the poor boy arose from his place on the ground, stretched, yawned theatrically, and smirked. Nobody ever hooted and cawed for his man. Even though she was the best, she was a man of the poor. But this would teach them a lesson.

Six in a row and soon to be seven.

His man was punching the face of the man of the wealthy boy. The face of the wealthy boy’s man was puffy and red. The female man landed two more hard blows, and the face of the wealthy boy’s man dripped tears now as well as blood.

That was enough. The wealthy boy tapped the poor boy on the shoulder. “We surrender.”

The poor boy said, “No.
He
has to say
it.”

The female man landed another hard blow and two teeth jumped from the mouth of the wealthy boy’s man.

“But maybe he can’t talk,” said the wealthy boy to the poor. “He gets frozen when he’s scared and he can’t talk! We surrender!”

The poor boy snorted. “All right, girl. Let him up.”

She released the wealthy boy’s man and he fell on his face crying out, “Thank you for sparing my life.”

As his victorious female man came running over to him, the poor boy turned to the wealthy boy and laughed. “See? He
can
talk. He’s not frozen at all.”

The wealthy boy, who was bigger than the poor boy, stepped toward him. “You think that’s funny?”

The rest of them balled their fists and stepped toward the poor boy too.

The poor boy’s female man showed her teeth and hissed at them dangerously, and they stepped back.

The poor boy laughed. “Watch out. She gets angry when people I don’t like get too near.”

The wealthy boys and their beaten mans took another step back. As the poor boy and his female man departed for home, they heard bad names being shouted at them.

Bully!

Poor boy!

Cheater, cheater!

Pinhead!

Pinhead oaf!

The boy turned his head to show them the big smile on his face and to pink his tongue at them, but really it made him sad to be called such things. He was not a bully or a cheater—his man was just better than everybody else’s. And he couldn’t help it if his parents were poor. They were still the greatest parents in the whole wide world.

He ran so that he could get away from the things they were shouting. He ran until he heard a different sound, which was music.

At the far end of the field, only minutes away from his neighborhood and home, there was another boy—a wealthy boy—sitting on the grass while his mans, three of them, sang to him.

Each man had a different appearance, so the poor boy guessed that they were not from the same litter. The first man was tall and brown with hair that grew in a circle around his head, the second was shorter with a very round belly and his skin was pale, and the third was short and round and pale like the second, but his brown eyes were large and nearly lidless. All three of them wore blue cloths in their hair and matching blue loin pouches. They were three little man mans in blue.

The three mans were singing in a way that was very pleasing to the ear. It was like the trained mans he had once seen at a circus, the way they sang. One voice was high-pitched, another was low, and the last was somewhere in between. Their song was very beautiful.

The wealthy boy did not seem arrogant or mean, so the poor boy sat down on the grass next to him and listened to the beautiful song of the singing mans in blue.

His female man seemed quite affected by the music; her eyes were closed as she listened, and her hips moved back and forth. The boy shouted a command, and she sat, but even while sitting, her hips continued to move.

The wealthy boy smiled at the female man. “She likes it. Maybe she is in heat.”

The poor boy said, “What is
in heat
?”

“I’m not sure,” the wealthy boy said, “but I used to have a female man who acted that way when they sang, and my parents said she was in heat. And then they had her fixed.”

“What is
fixed
?”

“I don’t know,” laughed the wealthy boy. “But after she came back, she cried every time they sang. I think it has something to do with babies.”

“Babies?”

The wealthy boy pointed to her moving hips. “She’s a female man. She can have baby mans.”

The poor boy hadn’t thought of that, but he liked the idea.

“She’s the best fighter in the whole world. She’ll have lots of fighting baby mans.”

The wealthy boy nodded. “I saw her fight. She’s very good.”

The poor boy nodded. “She’s the best in the world.”

“Is she going to fight at the circus?”

“My father wants her to, but my mother says no.”

“She should fight. She’s good. She would win.”

“She beat seven in a row today. She beat them bloody. She knocked their teeth out. But my mother says it is cruel.”

The wealthy boy grinned. “Yes, I saw it.”

“Would you like her to fight one of your mans?” the poor boy offered.

The singing mans had stopped singing for some time now, and two of them were sitting on the grass listening as the boys talked.

The wealthy boy shook his head. “No, no, no, these are not fighting mans. These mans are very delicate. The circus pays us to have them sing.”

The poor boy laughed and said, “Coward.” But he said it in a way that was friendly and not mean.

“My sensitive and delicate little mans would be eaten alive if they tried to fight yours,” laughed the wealthy boy.

“She would eat them for lunch,” laughed the poor boy.

“I didn’t know mans were cannibals.” The wealthy boy snorted with mirth.

“She only eats sensitive and delicate singing mans dressed in blue,” kidded the poor boy. Then he said, “Where is your other man? Isn’t one of your mans missing?”

The poor boy was right. The one with the lidless eyes was missing.

And the wealthy boy asked the poor, “Where is
your
man?”

The poor boy turned to the empty space beside him. His female man was gone.

* * *

A short distance away, concealed by the rise of a low hill, their two missing mans were found, but entangled in such a way as the poor boy had never seen. The pale-skinned man in blue with the nearly lidless eyes was riding the back of his female man, who was emitting a rhythmic, shushy breath through her mouth.

The poor boy asked, “What are they doing?”

“I don’t know,” replied the wealthy boy, “but I don’t like it. I think she’s hurting him.”

“But he’s on top.”

They watched for a few more seconds until the man with the lidless eyes contorted and began to groan. The female man closed her eyes and yelped, burying her face in the grass.

The two boys had seen enough. They shouted harsh commands and spanked their mans, separating them.

Then they replaced their loin pouches, said goodbye to each other, and went each to his own home.

* * *

That evening, the boy was wroth with his female man.

When she came to him with big, apologetic eyes, he shook his head. When she came to him and rested her head on his chest the way she did when she wanted to be petted, he pushed her away.

When she brought the small singing harp into his room, he said, “Okay, girl, you want to be friends again? Okay. Good girl.”

And in the boy’s bedroom his female man played the small singing harp and made it sing. He did not know why, but she was playing the same song over and over. He did not recognize the tune, though it was beautiful and vaguely familiar.

Evening became night, and eventually the boy fell asleep.

It was only the next day, as he was on his way to school, that the boy realized the song that she had been playing was the song he had heard the three mans in blue singing earlier that day at the field.

* * *

She began to change after that, but the boy did not notice until a month later.

Her diet had shifted. She was eating more often—she was stealing their food. She would even steal a piece of dried meat from the cupboard once in a while, which was cannibalism. She was gaining weight.

He took her to the field on a day when there was no school, and she lost two fights in a row.

He found a stick and spanked her with it to make her fiercer. He made her growl and show her teeth. He sent her into two more fights and she lost them both. Four in a row. That had never happened before.

“Maybe you’re sick,” he told her as he walked home holding her hand. Her eye bruised, her nose leaking blood, she was too exhausted to flinch when they were pelted with pebbles and provoked with jibes and hoo-haws by the wealthy boys who had triumphed at last over the poor boy and his mighty champion.

As tears spilled from her emerald eyes, the boy promised her, “You’re sick, but when you feel better we’ll be back. We’ll teach those guys a lesson.”

Yet her tears kept falling. He had never seen her like this.

He gave her what he thought was ample time to heal—a week—and he took her to fight again. But she had lost all interest in fighting and refused to do it.

He spanked her with the stick to make her fiercer, he even poked her with the stick, but she let the other mans pummel and scratch her flesh until she was shedding blood along with her tears. She would not lift a hand to her own defense. Each time the boy was forced to stop it by crying surrender. It was another bad day at the fights. She lost three in a row that day.

The wealthy boys cackled with glee and pinked their tongues rudely as the poor boy walked his badly beaten fighting man home in a hail of pebbles and hoo-haws.

And she was playing the small singing harp every evening in his room—the same song the three singing mans in blue had sung that day at the field.

* * *

When he went into the backyard to feed her one morning before school, she was not there.

He went to her sleeping tent under her favorite tree, and she was not there. He went back into the house to look for her because on evenings when it was cold, she would come inside and sleep under his bed or under the couch in the grand room near the fire. He looked everywhere in the house, and she was not there.

He said to himself,
Now
,
I hope she didn’t jump the fence again
.

Puzzled, he went back outside, and she was in her tent as if she’d been there all along.

She was grateful for her food, which she devoured, and then she held out her bowl to him for more. He replenished her bowl with vegetables and grain, and as he watched her eat, he said, “I see you’re very hungry. I guess you jumped the fence to go look for food. Don’t do that. The authorities will pick you up. You’ll get in trouble. If you’re hungry, come into the house and wake me. Okay?”

To make her understand, he knocked on the wooden fence that ran the perimeter of their backyard and shook his head.

“Don’t go over the fence,” he repeated. “Obey me. Obey me.”

* * *

The next morning when he went to feed her before school, he caught her climbing down the fence and ducking into her tent. She had just returned from wherever it was she roamed at night.

He spanked her and scolded her harshly. When he set out her food, she still had tears in her eyes, but he was at the end of his patience.

“You’re going to get us in trouble! Don’t force me to tie you up or lock you in the house!” He pounded the wooden fence. “Don’t go over the fence! I know you understand! Obey me! Obey me!”

She stared at him blankly, then went back to her food.

He went into the house and came back out with an extra bowl of food and set it beside the first. “Now give me a hug,” he said to her.