”Lot of people tell me that,“ I said. ”Who would you rather live with, your mother or your father?“
”What’ll you do if I won’t say?“ he said.
”Ride around and be funny at you till you plead for mercy.“
He didn’t say anything. But he didn’t shrug. And he did look at me. Briefly.
”Want me to turn around and take you back to your father?“
”What difference does it make?“ the kid said. ”What do you care? It’s not your business. Whyn’t you leave me alone?“
”Because right now you’re in my keeping and I’m trying to decide what’s best to do with you.“
”I thought my mother hired you. Whyn’t you do what she tells you?“
”I might not approve of what she wants me to do.“
”But she hired you,“ he said.
”She gave me a hundred bucks, one day’s pay. If you don’t want me to take you to her, I’ll take you back to your old man, give her back her hundred.“
”I bet you wouldn’t,“ he said. He was staring out the window when he said it.
”Convince me you should be with him and I will.“
”Okay, I’d rather be with him,“ the kid said. His face was still turned to the window.
”Why?“ I said.
”See. I knew you wouldn’t,“ he said. He turned his face toward me and he looked as if he’d won something.
”I didn’t say I wouldn’t,“ I said. ”I asked for reasons. This is important stuff, choosing a parent. I’m not going to have you do it to win a bet.“
He stared out the window again. We were in North Reading, still going south.
”See, Paul, what I’m trying to do is get you to decide what you’d like best to do. Are the questions too hard for you? You want to try watching my lips move?“
With his face still turned to the window the kid said, ”I don’t care who I live with. They both suck. It doesn’t make any difference. They’re both awful. I hate them.“
The soft whine was a little shaky. As if he might cry.
”Son of a bitch,“ I said. ”I hadn’t thought of that,“
Again he looked at me in an odd sort of triumph. ”So now what are you going to do?“
I wanted to shrug and look out the window. I said, ‘I’ll probably take you back to your mother and keep the hundred dollars.”
“That’s what I thought,” the kid said.
“Would you rather I did something else?” I said.
He shrugged. We were through Reading Square almost to 128. “Can I turn on the radio now?” he said.
“No,” I said. I knew I was being churlish, but the kid annoyed me. In his whiny, stubborn desperation he irritated the hell out of me. Mr. Warm. There’s no such thing as a bad boy.
The kid almost smirked.
“You want to know why I’m taking you to your mother?” I said.
“To get the hundred bucks.”
“Yeah. But it’s more than a hundred bucks. It’s a way of thinking about things.”
The kid shrugged. If he did it enough, I would stop the car and bang his head on the pavement “When all your options are lousy,” I said, “you try to choose the least lousy. Apparently you’re equally bad off with your mother or your father. Apparently you don’t care which place you’re unhappy. If I take you back to your father you’re unhappy and I get nothing. If I take you back to your mother you’re unhappy and I get a hundred bucks. So I’m taking you back to your mother. You understand?”
“Sure, you want the hundred.”
“It would be the same if it were a dime. It’s a way to think about things. It’s a way not to get shoved around by circumstances.”
“And Mommy will give you money,” he said. “Maybe you can fuck her.” He checked me carefully, looking sideways at me as he said it, to see how shocked I’d be.
“Your father suggested the same thing,” I said. “Your mom into sex, is she?”
The kid said, “I dunno.”
“Or you figure I’m so irresistible that it’s inevitable.”
The kid shrugged. I figured I could take maybe two more shrugs before I stopped the car. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.
“Then you shouldn’t have brought it up,” I said.
He was silent.
