Bubblebee & Spike

“Her sense of grief washed over her again but she was on the walk now and she smothered it. Sweeping her dress under her and sitting down on the curb beside him, she said: “What’s up, Doc?”

 He smiled at her but it was perfunctory. “Hi, Mom.”

 The glider was between his sneakered feet, and she saw that one of the wings had started to splinter.

 “Want me to see what I can do with that, honey?”

 Danny had gone back to staring up the street. “No. Dad will fix it.”

 “Your daddy may not be back until suppertime, Doc. It’s a long drive up into those mountains.”

 “Do you think The Bug will break down?”

 “No, I don’t think so.” But he had just given her something new to worry about. Thanks, Danny. I needed that.

 “Dad said it might,” Danny said in a matter-of-fact, almost bored manner. “He said the fuel pump was all shot to shit.”

 “Don’t say that, Danny.”

 “Fuel pump?” he asked her with honest surprise.

 She sighed. “No, ‘All shot to shit.’ Don’t say that.”

 “Why?”

 “It’s vulgar.”

 “What’s vulgar, Mom?”

 “Like when you pick your nose at the table or pee with the bathroom door open. Or saying things like ‘All shot to shit.’ Shit is a vulgar word. Nice people don’t say it.”

 “Dad says it. When he was looking at the bugmotor he said, ‘Christ this fuel pump’s all shot to shit.’ Isn’t Dad nice?”

 How do you get into these things, Winnifred? Do you practice?

 “He’s nice, but he’s also a grown-up. And he’s very careful not to say things like that in front of people who wouldn’t understand.”

 “You mean like Uncle Al?”

 “Yes, that’s right.”

 “Can I say it when I’m grown-up?”

 “I suppose you will, whether I like it or not.”

 “How old?”

 “How does twenty sound, Doc?”

 “That’s a long time to have to wait.”

 “I guess it is, but will you try?”

 “Hokay.”

 He went back to staring up the street. He flexed a little, as if to rise, but the beetle coming was much newer, and much brighter red. He relaxed again. She wondered just how hard this move to Colorado had been on Danny. He was closemouthed about it, but it bothered her to see him spending so much time by himself. In Vermont three of Jack’s fellow faculty members had had children about Danny’s age—and there had been the preschool—but in this neighborhood there was no one for him to play with. Most of the apartments were occupied by students attending CU, and of the few married couples here on Arapahoe Street, only a tiny percentage had children. She had spotted perhaps a dozen of high school or junior high school age, three infants, and that was all.

 “Mommy, why did Daddy lose his job?”