The Home for Wayward Clocks (10 page)

“Like eyebrows?”

“Yeah, some ladies do their eyebrows. I like mine the way they are.”

“So…” He reached out and touched the tweezers. They were cold and the edges looked sharp. “All old ladies have beards?”

“Yep.” She nodded and turned off her mirror. “It’s a fact of life.” Then she stopped and blinked. “Though I’m not old.”

Liar! he wanted to yell. Not Barry’s mom! It’s just eyebrows for Barry’s mom! But he turned and walked away without saying a word, until he got to the kitchen entryway. The cuckoo clock went off, the bird flickering in and out like a bizarre snake tongue, and, thinking he wouldn’t be heard over the raucous chirping, Ty muttered, “Fucking freak.”

“Ty-ler!” His mother was at his side in a second, shaking his shoulder. “Did you just say what I think you said?”

He thought he said it soft.

She dragged him to the sink. “Don’t you ever talk like that!” She looked all around the counter and in the cabinets. Then she grabbed the plastic bottle of dish soap and pointed it at him like a gun. “Open your mouth!” she demanded.

Ty didn’t know what to do, so he stuck out his tongue, then sucked it back in like the cuckoo bird. In, out, in, out, and his mother snatched and pounced and then she finally caught it between her fingers. She squirted the soap all over until he gagged. “Now rinse your mouth out and go to your room until supper! No video games!”

Ty spat and spat, but the taste just wouldn’t go away. His mouth kept foaming, the bubbles going up the back of his throat and out his nose where they popped and got into his eyes. It was funny, in a way, but he couldn’t hold back the tears and he cried in earnest as he swirled cup after cup of water around in his mouth. Then he ran to his room and slammed the door.

All because his mother was a freak. All because of a beard. “Damn,” he said softly into his pillow. “Shit. Fuck.” But in the walls of his brain, he screamed the words as loud as he could.

T
he next day, Barry was absent from school so Ty had to walk home by himself. He wandered down the couple blocks and paused for a moment by the baked potato rock. He wondered if Barry told the truth when they talked about beards; maybe he just didn’t want to admit his mother plucked too. Though he told that bit about the eyebrows. Ty’s mom’s eyebrows were bushy and full, prone to collapsing into a vicious V over her nose.

Ty was just about to make his left turn when he heard a soft, “Pssst!” He looked around. Amy Sue Dander waved at him, her head poking out of a bush at the edge of her yard. “Ty!” she whispered. “C’mere!” She ducked back inside, then popped out again and Ty smiled, thinking she was like the cuckoo bird at home. In, out, in, out.

He carefully spread the leaves and followed her. The bush was all hollowed out, like a cave, within the spindly branches. He dropped his backpack and breathed out in appreciation. “Wow, Amy Sue, this is cool! Did you make this?”

She shook her head. “Hi, Ty,” she said, her voice low. “I just found it this way. It’s my favorite private place.”

He sat down on the ground, noticing the way the branches spread clear to the grass so nobody could see their feet from the outside.

Amy Sue smiled at him. She waggled her eyebrows, which he noticed were blonde, like her curls, though a little darker. “So you wanna see something really cool?”

“Sure. What?”

Amy Sue’s smile spread wider and her hands reached for her waist. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” she said, her voice suddenly full and throaty.

“Show you my—” Ty’s tongue caught on the roof of his mouth as in one swift motion, Amy Sue pulled down her jeans and underpants. They bunched around her ankles and then she pulled her shirt up high, almost to her chin.

She was so smooth, pink and smooth all over. He felt his eyes move of their own accord from her chin to below her belly button. Between her legs, there were two fat rolls of skin, joined in the middle by a crease. He found himself being pulled there, up on his hands and knees, and he crawled over to her and stared at her crotch, just a few inches away from his nose.

She wiggled a bit. “See?” she said. “Now I’ve shown you mine, you have to show me yours. It’s a game Barry showed me.”

Barry! He never said anything about this! Ty stood up unsteadily. “Show you my…?” he said and reached for his belt buckle. She nodded vigorously. Pulling at his belt and button and zipper, Ty allowed his pants to fall to his ankles, just like Amy Sue’s.

“Oh, look!” Amy Sue squealed. “It’s pointing right at me, just like Barry’s did!”

Ty looked down and sure enough, his penis was up and pointing directly at Amy Sue. He felt different too and he just didn’t know what to say. They stood there for a while, looking each other up and down. Mostly down. Amy Sue’s cheeks turned red and Ty felt his own face grow warm.

Abruptly, he reached down and pulled up his pants. Amy Sue did too. The sounds of snaps and zippers seemed impossibly loud. Ty put on his backpack. Then he followed Amy Sue out, crawling under the bush.

Standing on the sidewalk, Ty stared at Amy Sue. She smiled and looked away. Then he touched her chin. It was smooth, as smooth as the rest of her. “Amy Sue, do you ever use a tweezers on your chin?”

She frowned. “A tweezers? Why?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Just asking.”

“My mom does sometimes. I don’t. Maybe later though. It might be a lady thing.”

Ty closed his eyes and kissed her cheek. He felt like he had to, it was right, like it was a law. Amy Sue shrieked, then ran toward her house. “Bye, Ty!” she yelled over her shoulder.

Ty walked slowly the rest of the way home, thinking about beards and tweezers and bushes and soft pink folds of skin. And about Amy Sue’s voice as she popped her head out of the bush like a cuckoo bird, saying, “Hi, Ty!” His name didn’t seem so bad now.

He got home just as the cuckoo clock chirped four, so he knew he was late. But the sound of the shower told him that his mother would never know. Throwing his backpack into a corner, he helped himself to some cookies and milk. He thought of his mother, sitting at the table the day before, her hands pulling and stretching the skin beneath her chin. He thought of her eyebrows and Amy Sue’s and Barry’s mother’s. And he thought of Amy Sue and the smooth fat place between her legs.

He wondered.

Quickly, he moved to the bathroom. He heard the water, heard his mother singing. Slowly, he opened the door. Her silhouette shimmered behind the shower curtain, her arms upraised, fingers scrubbing her head. She was washing her hair. He started taking showers by himself when he was six, but he could still remember how it felt to have her wash his hair while he sat in the warm water of the bathtub. Her fingers were strong and rough, yet he still leaned into her hands. It never felt as good with his own.

He pulled back the curtain just enough to see with one eye. His mother’s eyes were closed against the shampoo and her face was raised as she sang. He took a deep breath and he looked.

No smooth fat skin. Just a wet dark triangle of hair.

He backed away and shut the door. Her song never stopped so he knew he wasn’t caught. Going back to the kitchen, he sat down and tried to puzzle it all out.

Amy Sue’s skin was smooth; his mother’s, hairy. His mother and Barry’s plucked some hairs and left others alone. He thought about what Amy Sue said, about how her mother used tweezers and how maybe she would too, someday. A lady thing. And he thought of his father’s razor in the toothbrush holder in the bathroom.

It was all beginning to make sense, in a cuckoo sort of way. Logic dodged in, out, in, out. Women plucked, men shaved. Not all women plucked the same places. Smooth skin could grow hair on both men and women. Some kept it, some didn’t. Men grew beards, kept them or shaved them off. Women grew beards, but always plucked them. It was a lady thing. It was weird, but it seemed to work.

His mother walked into the kitchen, a towel still wrapped around her head. “Hi, honey,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come in. Did you get your own snack?”

Ty nodded. “Mom, I’m sorry.”

She stopped by his chair. “For what?”

He lowered his eyes. “For what I said yesterday.”

She squeezed his shoulder. “Oh, that. That kind of stuff happens sometimes, sweetheart. It’s okay.”

Maybe, Ty thought, looking up at the cuckoo clock, maybe swearing’s a man thing.

B
arry was still sick the next day and Ty stalked the playground, looking for Amy Sue. A strange feeling tugged the right corner of his mouth; he felt a new expression on his face, a sort of sideways smile. When he saw her on the swingset with her best friend Judy, his breath caught. Then he went up to her. “Hey, Amy Sue,” he said.

Amy Sue stopped swinging. “Hi, Ty,” she said softly as Judy giggled.

He leaned toward her, the corner of his mouth turning up in that new way. “Amy Sue,” he said slowly, remembering the boy’s words a few days before. “Wanna Ty-One-On? Wanna Ty-One-On with me?” He looked in her face, then dropped his gaze down, down to her lap. He still didn’t know what those words meant, but they sounded the way he felt yesterday and he laughed when Amy Sue squealed and jumped off the swing, running away with Judy.

Spinning around, he threw his arms wide and he looked straight up, up as far as he could, into the sky. “Fuck!” he bellowed. The word roared out of his throat and it felt so good, so good, that he didn’t care who heard. He didn’t care at all.

It was just too good. It was a man thing.

A
nd so what about fathers? In your books, fathers usually wear suits and go off to work every morning, just like your father did, though he didn’t wear a suit. The Papa Bear in Goldilocks and the Three Bears was gruff, always growling out orders. Your father wasn’t like that. He was quiet. He didn’t say much. When he did talk, it was always in a soft tone meant to soothe, meant to comfort, meant to lull your mother back into peace. The father in Dick and Jane wore suits and went to work, but he wore casual pants and mowed the lawn on weekends, like your father. The Dick and Jane dad smoked a pipe, while yours smoked a cigar.

While your father was still around, there was always a supper to eat, breakfast in the morning, a bag lunch packed for you in the refrigerator. At night, after supper, you and he would sit silently in the living room, your father smoking a cigar, you breathing it in. Your mother was in her bedroom, at her vanity, looking at her reflection, or she was gone, out the door, and you and your father never knew if she was coming back. But still, you were silent. Just in case.

Until your father disappeared one foggy morning, your mother put you in the root cellar for only a few hours after each school day. She always remembered to let you up before your father came home, and he would find you in your room, doing homework, and he patted your head and asked for your help with supper. He cooked, you set the table. Your mother slept or stared in the living room, under a soft blanket that your father placed there when he got home.

When your mother had one of her fits, what you decided were temper tantrums, your father just sat, made patting motions with his hands, and whispered to her. Their voices made an odd sort of harmony.

But he never did anything.

Imagine.

You are eight years old when he wakes you in the early morning. When he places both of his hands on either side of your face and whispers that he’s leaving, he’s going to find a new place for the two of you, and he will be back for you. “I know what goes on, son,” he says. You try to protest, but he leaves anyway, off into the grainy gray of a foggy morning, and you are now with your mother alone. All you can do is hang on with your whole life to his words, that he will be back for you. Hang on as the days lead to weeks and to years.

Yet those other words are there too, just under the surface of your skin, and they poke you, growing sharper as you get older.
I know what goes on, son.
You think of the evenings spent in the living room, your father smoking his cigar. Sitting still. Whispering.

Those words flame red. Like the burning end of a cigar. Like the welts on your body.

Imagine a father who knows not doing anything. Imagine him just leaving. How could he never come back? With your father gone, the root cellar bursts wide open, sucks you in, slams the doors closed. Your mother no longer bothers to hide, because there is no one to hide from. There is no longer the relief of a father coming home, calling your name, patting your head. There is only your mother and your mother and your mother.

Imagine.

James watched as his mind colored his father as a protector, then a journeying hero, then nothing at all. Someone who sat and did nothing was nothing, James decided. A coward. A well-meaning coward, but a coward.

I know what goes on, son.

How could anybody know and not do anything? How could he know and sit and smoke his cigar and pat his son’s head?

Imagine.

T
he next day, on his way to fetch the morning paper, James stopped when he heard the painful bleat of a cuckoo. Glancing into the living room, James saw a plain yellow cuckoo bird, smacking its head against the door of its clock as it announced the time. It was seven o’clock and seven times that bird banged its head. James winced and touched his own forehead in sympathy.

He tried so hard to fix that clock, but he just couldn’t find the right bird. One day, a woman brought the cuckoo, a woman who looked thrown together in sweat pants and a sweater, one purple, one orange, and an urgent look on her face that let James know she got up that morning and came straight to the Home. The clock was tucked under her arm like an already-read newspaper and she set it directly in his hands.

“The bird’s gone,” she said simply.

James opened the little hatch and sure enough, there was only a perch and what was left of the missing bird’s feet.

“When it goes off now, the perch knocks on the door from the inside, making this awful cracking sound, and there’s still a cuckoo, even though there’s no bird. It’s like a haunted cuckoo house,” the woman said.