OATMEAL by Andrew R. Touhy
Alone and slow, the bald little boy struggling down the sidewalk on canes evaporates with the traffic cop’s “Let’s go!” Downtown this is. A Monday. Noon but, you know, you can shake with cold in the San Francisco sun.
Paul, finding himself in the middle of a crosswalk, concedes a hand, lopsided smile, jogs a halfhearted jog not so much out of defiance as necessity.
At forty, in dress shoes and ankle brace. Coming off another night of broken sleep. New-parent sleep. The kind – well, is there any other? – that leaves you lumbering in a fuggy sort of lag while your son – toddling now, everywhere. Already? When yesterday he couldn’t close a hand around his rattle? – springs at the morning like some giddy penguin, possessed. Who can fault the man a soft mind, burnt eyes, his underwater stupor?
The officer: “Buddy, come on!” he cries from behind Paul now. “Move!” and rips the air with his pea whistle, even though the signal has seconds still beside the red flashing palm. The sight of the boy has come over Paul again anyway.
Either it’s the memory dissolving already or he didn’t see his face. Only that perfect moony head smooth and white as milk. To call it shaved would be a mistake. Hair had likely surrendered by the handful first (pinches of eyebrow and lashes too?) and maybe then his parents took him to a barber, telling themselves at least we can spare him that humiliation. And the boy asking, But won’t it grow back? Oh Honey, we talked. Ever? It might, Champ, but we bought all those new hats, remember? When what they want to say is every piece of him will grow forever. Every inch of hair . . .
Not a stride from the curb and unbelievable – this cop, still at it. Something about order, no one’s above, a ticket, your fool life, hear? But it’s silly for Paul to look back. At the officer . . . sure, maybe. Turn palms up, shoulders to the ears, a good sour face What is your problem, buddy? But for the boy. Who even wobbly, landing one awkward cane after the other (more like tent poles with thick jangling cuffs up the elbows), might be blocks gone by now. So why do it then? Why stare in the first place? Stand dumb as a damned kid himself, mouth open, glassy eyes fixed for possibly a minute, pulling this stark and painful unfairness into his heart? It’s not a question you can answer, really. It’s something he’s never understood. Pity? Swim in that mess? What’s pity but a stab of fear papered over with relief and false concern? Pity’s how we save ourselves in these moments. We the chosen. We the spared. We the happy, the healthy. We the helpless, too. Because the truth is the world rushes forth on its own cool meaninglessness and everyone’s on the hook. Sometimes our only choice is to hold this. At least, our hearts don’t know better than to hold it. At any rate, there’s no saving anybody. Nobody is saving anybody. Traffic is unusually heavy.
Streets swollen with cars, SUVs, buses. Feet too. A tide of crisply dressed lunchgoers in sleeker, somehow smarter shoes. Glitter in the sidewalk – flecks of metal sprinkled into the cement? – flares in the sudden sunshine. Paul walks on. Ahead the bay a blue steel – all June this teeming blue steel, soundlessly drawing people to it like a mirror. Such a horrible thought but in ways wasn’t becoming a parent similar to being diagnosed with something terminal? There’s a clear before and after. And in that before you imagine – so certain in your fears – there’s no chance you’d be able to handle such an illness. And yet here you are every day, handling it. Every day handling it becoming every bit as much your life as your life. A clearer life, too, perhaps thrown finally into focus. Though you wait for the day when the wheels come off. Lord knows it’ll all go wrong, terribly wrong – he scraps the whole comparison.
Next corner, a taxi – of course – runs the light, tires squealing taking the curb turning . . .
And everyone simply takes a step back and then a step forward, as natural and normal a dance as breaking waves or breathing. Some people don’t bother looking up, even. Astonishing. Yet maybe Paul’s looking back would be for someone else, something else entirely. Where were the boy’s parents? How could they leave him behind? If only he’d seen their faces, been able to search their faces. But they didn’t leave him. The mother quickly ducked into his favorite smoothie shop. Three large Mango Tangos with flax boosts to go. You’ll wait on this bench, okay? The father, whose shoelaces had been untied since the parking garage, only bent down for a minute. That boy – you know him – kept going.
At breakfast this morning, Paul wiped at an oat stuck on his son’s cheek. He wiped hard so many times the boy started crying. When he lifted him – piggely legs kicking free of the little clamp‑on highchair – his son popped him one then threw his arms around Paul’s neck. He was so beautiful! Saying Daddy Daddy? How could he have let that sticky oat ruin him for a second longer? And he wiped again. Little boy. Little boy! he turns to face the sea of others dashing onwards.
Andrew R. Touhy’s stories have appeared in New England Review, Conjunctions, New American Writing, New Orleans Review, and Colorado Review.