And outside the window, he is still looking at me, like he's a fisherman wanting to reel me in.
At the kitchen table, the little girl is sitting drawing a picture. The picture is a canary-yellow lion drinking from a swimming pool fountain. Outside the front window a middle-aged woman is suddenly kissed on the jaw by a younger woman. Perhaps her daughter. The middle-aged woman has a look of startled surprise and love. Could that have been me? Somewhere on a reedy old radio accordion music plays.
"Why can't I come with you?" the little girl asks.
I give her more drawing paper. I give her a bowl of oatmeal. I lock her in.
On the subway, towards South Station, I see two lovers. They get on the subway holding hands. The young woman, thinking they're going towards the left, heads that way. The young man heads towards the right. Their hands extend. For a moment each pulls in the opposite direction. The young woman won't give in nor will the man.
"You're on your way to becoming a great candy-maker," my boss says when I enter the tiny shop. "Your crocodile chocolates, they're just eating "em up."
Should I tell him about my ancestor who rode the backs of crocodiles? A circus act? he"ll ask. Should I perch a chocolate man on the back of the chocolate crocodile? They used to say of that Uncle he was tarred with the wrong brush. A dark-skinned Latin. And he used to reply, "Tarred with the wrong brush, maybe, but feathered with the right feathers!" Didn't know what that meant.
Having hallucinations is like living in a nightmare, but I know this little girl is no hallucination. I know she's real.
The alligators let him ride them too, like he was some sort of river god. But that was years later: in the beginning, it was all danger. And when they asked him why he'd put his fool self in danger, he'd answer, "Why not?" In a photograph, I saw the great undle. Chocolate brown skin. Face the same as any man's.
The little girl has climbed onto my lap. Why is she so patient? Why doesn't she ask me to take her home? She opens her kangaroo book and shows me pictures. I tell her about my imaginary kangaroo chair and explain the mystery of the couch. "You can hide precious things in there, or you just can hide stuff."
"Why don't you be on American Inventor?" she asks. Then she asks, "What should I hide?"
"No one tells you what to hide. You decide for yourself."
We make a game of the imaginary pouch.
"Make it a real chair and go on American Inventor," she insists.
But the game goes this way. Name the stuff you can hide there: A merrygoround, a tree (except a Japanese banyan!), a circue, an elephant, a sumo wrestler, a hahaha! The Mardi Gras, a carnival, gumbo stew - how merry!- and love!
"But then it would have to be imaginary," says the little girl. "And I bet you'd want to hide me in there?"
"No, never," I promise.
I never wear perfume. I wear baby powder. Perfume stings my nostrils and smells like trouble. I'm allergic to perfume.
The little girl gives me a bottle of perfume that smells like sunshine, fresh air, and song. She says I can wear that. It's for those with allergies.
I study the little girl.
"And what else can I say of myself?" she asks. "Who do you think I am?"
I study the little girl but don't answer.
Me? Myself?
"Who could I be?" she asks again.
But I don't answer.
