The Water-Method Man

  This is true; Akthelt always takes a woman when he is off warring. But he still doesn't see what the matter is. 'Nettopp ub utuktig kvinna!' he shouts. 'Nettopp tu ukukt ... sla nek ub moder zu slim.' ('Just a fucking woman. Just to fuck ... she won't be a mother to him.')

  The distinction is lost on Gunnel. She fears that young Axelrulf will associate the role of the Greth fucking-woman with his own mother's role - that Gunnel herself will be debased in her son's eyes, by association. With fucking.

  'Utukt kvinnas!' ('Fuck women!'), Akthelt tells his old father Thak.

  'Utukt kvinnas urt moders!'('Fuck women and mothers!'), bellows old Thak.

  But that's not the point. The point is that Akthelt left Axelrulf at home with his mother; he did it Gunnel's way, after all.

  Hence, though not necessarily sympathetic to the Mother & Fucking Theory of the Greth Women, Bogus Trumper at least had some background reading to prepare him for Biggie's feelings about Colm - specifically, Biggie's feelings about Colm and that Greth whore, Tulpen.

  Since it was difficult for Trumper to leave New York, and since visits to Biggie and Colm made everyone uncomfortable, especially Bogus, Biggie did allow Colm to make a rare trip to New York - on one condition: 'That girl you live with - Bull Pen, is that her name? - in that apartment you're going to keep Colm in - well, I mean it, Bogus, I don't think you should be too familiar with her around him. After all, he remembers when you used to sleep with me ...'

  'Jesus, Big,' Trumper told the phone, 'he remembers when I used to sleep with you too, so what about Couth, Big? What about him?'

  'I don't have to send Colm to New York, you know,' Biggie said. 'Please just understand what I mean. He lives with me, you know.'

  Trumper knew that.

  The arrangements had been exhausting. The fretful synchronizing of watches; the repetition of the flight number; the willingness of the airline to allow an unescorted five-year-old on board (Biggie had to lie and say he was six) provided his pickup at the destination was certain, provided it was not an over-crowded flight, provided he was a calm child, not easily given to panic at twenty thousand feet. And did he get motion sickness?

  Trumper stood nervously with Tulpen on the greasy observation deck at La Guardia. It was early spring weather - nice weather, really, and probably a nice day up where Colm was, twenty thousand feet above Manhattan. The air at La Guardia, however, was like a giant bottled fart.

  'The poor kid is probably terrified,' Trumper said. 'All alone in an airplane, going around and around New York. He's never been in a city before. Christ, he's never even been in an airplane before.'

  But Trumper was wrong. When Biggie and Colm left Iowa, they had flown away, and Colm had loved every minute of it.

  However, airplanes did not agree with Trumper. 'Look at them circling up there,' he said to Tulpen. 'Must be fifty of the fuckers stacked up and waiting for a free spot to land.'

  Though such stackups are imaginable, and even probable, there were none on this day; Trumper was watching a squadron of Navy jets.

  Colm's plane landed ten minutes early. Fortunately Tulpen saw it come in while Trumper was still raving about the Navy jets; she also caught the number of the arrival gate over the loudspeaker.

  Trumper was already mourning Colm as if the plane had crashed. 'I should never have let him fly,' he cried. 'I should have borrowed a car and picked him up right at his back door!'

  Leading the still-ranting Trumper off the observation deck, Tulpen got him to the gate in time. 'I'll never forgive myself,' he was babbling. 'It was just pure selfishness. I didn't want to have to drive all that distance. And I didn't want to have to see Biggie, either.'

  Tulpen glanced through the gate at the passengers. There was only one child, and he held a stewardess by the hand. The top of his head came to her waist, and he was coolly sorting out the crowd; it looked as if the stewardess was holding his hand because she simply wanted to, or needed to; he simply tolerated her. He was a handsome boy, with lovely skin like his mother's but dark, blunt features like his father's. He wore a pair of lederhosen knickers, a rough pair of hiking boots and a fine Tyrolean wool jacket over a new white shirt. The stewardess held a rucksack in her hand.

  'Trumper?' Tulpen said, pointing out the boy. But Trumper was looking the wrong way. Then the boy spotted Bogus, dropped the stewardess's hand, asked for his rucksack and pointed out his father, who now was doing a mad pirouette, looking everywhere but the right place. Tulpen had to forcefully aim him in Colm's direction.

  'Colm!' Bogus cried. After he had swooped down on the boy and picked him up, he realized that Colm had grown up a little and no longer liked being picked up, at least not in public. Of all things, Colm wanted to shake hands.

  Trumper dropped him and shook hands. 'Wow!' Trumper said, grinning like a fool.

  'I got to ride with the pilot,' Colm said.

  'Wow,' said Bogus, in a kind of hush. He was looking at Colm's Austrian costume, thinking of Biggie getting Colm all fancied up for the trip, dressing the poor kid like a showpiece for an Austrian travel agency. Bogus had forgotten that he had brought the whole outfit for Colm, including the rucksack.

  'Mr Trumper?' the stewardess asked him, being dutifully careful. 'Is this your father?' she asked Colm. Bogus held his breath, wondering if Colm would admit it.

  'Yup,' said Colm.

  'Yup, yup, yup,' said Trumper all the way out of the terminal. Tulpen carried Colm's rucksack and watched the two of them, struck by Colm's inheritance of Bogus's peculiar way of ambling.

  Bogus asked Colm what was in the pilot's cockpit.

  'There was a lot of electricity,' Colm told him.

  In the taxi, Bogus bubbled about the number of cars. Had Colm ever seen so many? Had he ever smelled air this bad? Tulpen held the child's rucksack in her lap and bit her lip. She was about to cry; Bogus hadn't even introduced her to Colm.

  That awkwardness took place at Tulpen's apartment. Colm was fascinated by the fish and turtles. What were their names? Who had found them? Then Bogus remembered Tulpen, and remembered, too, that she'd been just as nervous about Colm coming as he had. She wanted to know, What did five-year-olds eat, what did they like to do, how big were they, when did they go to sleep? Suddenly Bogus realized how important he was to her, and it chilled him. Almost as fiercely as he wanted Colm to like him she wanted Colm to like her.

  'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' he whispered to her in the kitchen. She was preparing a snack for the turtles so that Colm could feed them.

  'It's all right, it's all right,' she said. 'He's a beautiful child, Trumper. Isn't he beautiful?'

  'Yes,' Bogus whispered, and went back to watch Colm with the turtles.

  'These live in fresh water, right?' said Colm.

  Trumper didn't know.

  'Right,' said Tulpen. 'Do you ever see any turtles in the ocean?'

  'Yes, I have one,' Colm said. 'Couth caught him, a big one.' He spread his arms - too wide, Trumper thought, for any turtle Couth could have caught around Georgetown, but a fair exaggeration for Colm. 'We have to change his water every day. Sea water; that's salt water. He'd die in here,' he said, peering into one of Tulpen's elaborate tanks. 'And these turtles,' he said, his voice bright with discovery, 'they'd die in my tank at home, right?'

  'Right,' Tulpen said.

  Colm turned his attention to the fish. 'I had some minnows, but they all died. I don't have any fish.' He watched their bright colors intently.

  'Well,' Tulpen told him, 'you pick out your favorite one there, and when you go home you can take it with you. I've got a little bowl a fish can travel in.'

  'Really?'

  'Sure,' Tulpen said. 'They eat special food, and I'll give you some of that too, and when you get it home, you'll have to get a tank for it, with a little hose thing which puts air in the water--' She was showing him the fixture, on one of her aquariums, when he cut her off.

  'Couth can make one,' Colm said. 'He made one like that for my turtle.'

 
'Well, good,' Tulpen said. She watched Trumper slip off to the bathroom. 'Then you'll have a fish to go with your turtle.'

  'Right,' said Colm, nodding eagerly and smiling at her. 'But not in the same water, right? The fish has to have fresh water, not salt water, right?' He was a very exact little boy.

  'Right,' Tulpen told him. She listened to Bogus, in the bathroom, flushing himself away.

  They went to the Bronx Zoo: Colm and Bogus, Tulpen, Ralph Packer and Kent, along with about two thousand dollars' worth of movie equipment. Packer shot Bogus and Colm riding the subway out to the Bronx during that long ugly stretch when it is above ground.

  Colm watched the laundry flapping from the grimy apartments, in the grimy buildings alongside the tracks. 'Boy, don't those clothes get dirty?' he asked.

  'Yup,' Bogus said. He wanted to throw Ralph Packer, Kent and the two-thousand-dollar movie equipment off the subway, preferably at high speed. But Tulpen was being very nice, and Colm obviously liked her. She was trying hard, of course, but there was more than enough that was natural about her to make Colm feel at home with her.

  Colm had never liked Ralph, though. Even when he'd been a baby and Ralph had come to their place in Iowa, Colm didn't like him. When the camera ran on and on, Colm would stare into the lens until Ralph stopped, put down the camera and stared back. Then Colm would pretend he was bored and look away.

  'Colm?' Bogus whispered. 'Do you think Ralph would live in fresh water or sea water?' Colm giggled, then whispered to Tulpen and told her what Bogus had said. She smiled and told Colm something, which he passed back to Bogus. The camera was running again.

  'Oil,' Colm whispered.

  'What?' said Bogus.

  'Oil!' Colm said. Ralph would live in oil.

  'Right!' said Trumper, flashing a grateful look at Tulpen.

  'Right!' Colm shouted. Aware that the camera was running again and aimed at him, he proceeded to stare Ralph Packer down.

  'The kid keeps looking at the camera,' Kent told Ralph.

  With exaggerated patience, Ralph leaned across the aisle and smiled at Colm. 'Hey, Colm?' he said gently. 'Don't look at the camera, OK?'

  Colm looked at his father, seeking guidance on whether or not he had to obey Ralph.

  'Oil,' Bogus whispered.

  'Oil,' repeated Tulpen, like a chant. Then she started laughing, and Colm broke up too.

  'Oil,' Colm chanted.

  Kent appeared typically baffled by the experience, but Ralph Packer, who was at least a keen observer of detail, put his camera down.

  And after the zoo - the pregnant animals, the molting coats, the controlled little kingdom, from wart hog to cheetah - and after God knows how many feet of film, not of the animals but of the main character, Tulpen, Bogus and Colm ditched Ralph and Kent and the two thousand dollars' worth of movie equipment.

  Ralph never really put the camera away. It hung in that heavy shoulder bag like a pistol in a holster, but you knew it was a pistol of large calibre, and you never forgot that it was loaded.

  Tulpen and Bogus took Colm to a puppet show for kids in the Village. Tulpen knew all about such things: when museums put on films for the kids, when there were dances and plays and operas and symphonies and puppet shows. She knew about them because she herself was more interested in seeing them than things for adults; most of those were awful.

  Tulpen hit it right every time. After the puppet show they went to a place to eat called The Yellow Cowboy, which was full of old film posters from Western movies. Colm loved it and ate like a horse. Afterwards, he fell asleep in the taxi. Bogus had insisted they take a cab, not wanting Colm to see any subway happenings at night. In the back seat, Trumper and Tulpen almost fought over whose lap Colm was going to lie in. Tulpen gave in and let Trumper hold him, but she kept her hand on Colm's foot.

  'I just can't get over him,' she whispered to Trumper. 'I mean, you made him. He's part you.' Trumper looked embarrassed, but Tulpen went on anyway. 'I didn't think I loved you this much,' she told Bogus. She was crying a little.

  'I love you too,' he said hoarsely, but he wouldn't look at her.

  'Let's have a baby, Trumper,' she said. 'Can we?'

  'I have a baby,' Trumper said sourly. Then he made a face, as if he couldn't stomach the self-pity he'd heard in his own voice.

  She couldn't stomach it either. She squeezed Colm's sleeping foot. 'You selfish bastard,' she told Bogus.

  'I know what you mean, but I do love you, I think,' he said. 'It's just such a fucking risk.'

  'Suit yourself, Jack,' Tulpen said, and let go of Colm's foot.

  Tulpen took Biggie's request that she and Trumper not be too familiar with each other more seriously than Trumper did. She arranged for Colm to sleep in her bed, facing the turtles and fish. Bogus was to sleep with him, if he could remember not to reach out and goose the child in the middle of the night. She slept on the couch.

  Trumper listened to Colm's sweet breathing. How fragile children's faces are in sleep!

  Colm woke up from a dream in the half-light before dawn, wailing and shaking, whining for a drink, demanding that the fish be quiet, claiming that a mad turtle had attacked him, then falling asleep again before Tulpen could bring him the water. She couldn't believe that a boy could be so worldly in the daytime and in such terror at night. Trumper told her that it was perfectly natural; some kids have rough nights. Colm had always been a wild sleeper, hardly ever passing two nights in a row without an outcry, mysterious and never explained.

  'Understandable,' he muttered to Tulpen. 'Considering who the kid's lived with.'

  'I thought you said Biggie was good with him,' Tulpen said, worried. 'And Couth too, you said. You mean Couth?'

  'I meant me,' Trumper said. 'Fuck Couth,' he mumbled. 'He's a wonderful person ...'

  Tulpen was also struck by how totally children wake up in the morning. Looking out the window, Colm was a babble of talk, thinking what he wanted to do, prowling Tulpen's kitchen.

  'What's in the yogurt?'

  'Fruit.'

  'Oh, I thought it was lumps,' Colm said, eating on.

  'Lumps?'

  'Like in cereal,' said Colm. A-ha! Bogus thought, so Biggie is lousy with cereal. Or perhaps the overtalented Couth is responsible for the lumps?

  But now Colm was talking about museums, wondering if there were any in Maine. Yes - for ships, Tulpen thought. Here in New York there were ones for paintings and sculpture and natural history ...

  They took him to one for machines. That's what he wanted. There was a giant contraption at the main entrance, a jumble of gears, levers, steam whistles and hammering rods as high as a three-story ceiling, as wide as a barn.

  'What does it do?' Colm asked, standing transfixed by its terrible energy. The thing sounded as if it was constructing a building for itself.

  'I don't know,' said Trumper.

  'I don't think it actually does anything,' Tulpen said.

  'It just sort of works, right?' said Colm.

  'Yup,' said Trumper.

  There were hundreds of machines. Some were delicate, some were violent, some you could start and stop yourself, some were terribly noisy bashers and others appeared to be resting - like the great, potential animals in zoos who are always asleep.

  In the big tunnel leading out of the building, Colm stopped and felt the wall with his hand, absorbing the vibration of all those machines. 'Boy,' he said. 'You can feel them.'

  Trumper hated machines.

  Another museum was showing W.C. Fields in The Bank Dick, so they took Colm to it. Both he and Trumper howled throughout the film, but Tulpen fell asleep. 'I guess she doesn't like the movie,' Bogus whispered to Colm.

  'I think she's just tired,' Colm whispered. After a pause, he added, 'Why does she sleep on the couch?'

  Deftly changing the subject, Trumper said, 'Maybe she doesn't think the movie's so funny.'

  'But it is.'

  'Right,' said Trumper.

  'You know what?' Colm whispered thoughtful
ly. 'Girls don't like funny things so much.'

  'They don't?'

  'Nope. Mommy doesn't, and ... what's her name?' he asked, poking Tulpen.

  'Tulpen,' Trumper whispered.

  'Tulpen,' said Colm. 'She doesn't like funny things either.'

  'Well ...'

  'But you do, and I do,' Colm said.

  'Right,' Trumper whispered. He could listen to the kid for days, he thought.

  'Couth thinks things are funny too,' Colm went on, but Trumper lost him there. He watched W.C. Fields drive the terrified bank robber out to the end of the dock overhanging the lake. Fields said to the robber, 'From here on, you'll have to take the boat.' Colm was doubled up, laughing so hard that he woke Tulpen, but Trumper couldn't even manage a convincing smile.

  During Colm's last night in New York, Bogus Trumper had a nightmare about airplanes and this time it was Trumper who woke up Colm and Tulpen with his howls.

  Colm was wide-awake, popping questions and looking for turtles who might have attacked his father. But Tulpen told him that it was OK; his father had just had a bad dream. 'I have those sometimes, too,' Colm confessed, and he looked very sympathetically at Bogus.

  Because of the dream, Bogus decided to borrow Kent's car and drive Colm back to Maine.

  'That's silly,' Biggie said on the phone.

  'I'm a good driver,' Trumper said.

  'I know you are, but it will take so long. He can fly to Portland in an hour.'

  'Unless he crashes in the Atlantic,' Bogus said. Biggie groaned. 'All right,' she said. 'I'll drive to Portland and meet him, so you won't have to drive all the way to Georgetown.'

  A-ha! thought Trumper. What is there in Georgetown that I shouldn't see? 'Why can't I come to Georgetown?' he asked.

  'God,' said Biggie. 'You certainly can, if you want to. I didn't think you'd want to. I just thought, since I was going to drive to Portland, anyway, to meet the plane ...'

  'Well, have it your way.'

  'No, have it yours,' said Biggie. 'Have you had a nice time?'

  He did it Biggie's way. He borrowed Kent's awful car and drove to the Portland Airport. Tulpen packed them a lunch and bought a lovely little fishbowl for the fish Colm selected, a big purple fantail. Colm couldn't see that Tulpen was crying over his shoulder when she hugged him goodbye, and she snarled at Trumper on the sidewalk when he tried to hug her.