Something Happened

you too and no television for a week because I say so do you hear and is that clear? You're laughing!' he explodes with a grin. 'I can see you're laughing, Daddy, and I don't want you to pretend you're not and make believe you're angry at what I did and then forget you're making believe and really get angry. You do that sometimes you know, Daddy. Don't you?'

'Are you finished?' I ask, with my hands still on my hips. 'That's a mighty long speech for a little piss-ass like you who sometimes hardly talks at all.'

'Are you mad?' he inquires uneasily.

'No, I'm glad. But do you think just because you made me laugh I'm going to let you get away with what you did?'

'It was mine.'

'It was mine before I gave it to you.'

'It was mine after you gave it to me. Don't embarrass me in public.'

'Are you imitating me again? Don't think you can get away with that forever.'

'We're in public, aren't we? I don't want you to do anything that will make people stop and listen.'

'I'm not doing anything at all but listening to you.'

'You're standing.'

'So are you.'

'With your hands on your hips, just like an actor on television. Let's walk. Let's walk, I said.'

'Now you're like an actor on television, shaking your finger at me.'

'You're embarrassing me,' he charges.

'No, I'm not.'

'But you're going to,' he predicts, 'aren't you?'

'Why should I embarrass you?'

'Are you going to yell at me?'

'Am I yelling at you?'

'Are you going to be mad?'

'Am I mad?'

'You are embarrassing me,' he accuses triumphantly. 'You're being sarcastic.'

'Big shot!' I tell him sarcastically. 'You don't even know what embarrass means.'

'Yes, I do. And I know what sarcastic means. It means when you're doing something I don't want you to do.'

'I'm not doing anything you don't want me to do. I'm not doing anything at all but standing here, so how can I be embarrassing you?'

'You're asking me questions, aren't you? Why do you keep asking me questions?'

'Why don't you answer them?'

'I'm going to tell Mommy,' he threatens. 'I'm going to tell Mommy you drank whiskey.'

'She won't believe you. She'll know it's a lie.'

'How come?'

'Your nose will grow.'

'How come?'

'A person's nose grows when he tells a lie.'

'Then your nose is growing,' he counters. 'Because that's a lie.'

'Then why would my nose be growing if it's a lie?'

'I'm going to sock you one, Daddy,' he squeals in frustration, as he feels himself outsmarted.

'Why are you twisting around so much? Stand still.'

'I think I'm nervous,' he guesses.

'Do you have to pee? Then why are you picking at your pecker?'

'I don't like that.'

(He stops picking at his pecker. I'm sorry I said it.)

'She'll smell my breath,' I resume, to change that subject. 'She won't smell whiskey, and that's how she'll know you're lying.'

'I'm going to kick you,' he says. 'I think I'm going to kick you in the shins.'

'Why?' I ask in surprise.

'Because,' he says. 'Because whenever I kick you in the shins or sock you one you begin wrestling with me and we laugh a lot, so I think I'll do it to make you laugh a lot.'

'I'll kick your ass.'

'I'm going to tell Mommy you said a dirty word to me.'

'So what? I say dirty words to her.'

'She doesn't like it. She'll fight with you.'

'We don't fight.'

'You fight a lot. She'll smack you.'

'She doesn't smack me.'

'She cries.'

'No, she doesn't.'

'Sometimes she does.'

'You talk too much. And notice too much. Sometimes you get them all mixed up.'

'I wish I knew somebody who could beat you up,' he tells me, kidding.

'Why?'

'I'm going to call a cop.'

'Why?'

'To smack you.'

'He's not allowed to.'

'You smack me.'

'I'm allowed to. And I don't smack you.'

'You used to.'

'I did not. In your whole life I bet I never smacked you once.'

'Once you did. When I was little. I remember.'

'If I did, I'm sorry. But I don't think I did. I don't smack you now. Do I?'

'You're going to. Aren't you?'

'For what?'

'You know.'

'I'm not.'

'You promise?'

'I promise.'

'You promise you won't smack me?'

'I promise.'

'You really promise you won't smack me?'

'I promise. I won't smack you. Don't you believe me?'

'I believe you,' he says.

And wham — he kicks me in the shin!

I leap a mile into the air, howling with surprise, and I know I must look funny as hell to him as I go hopping around in outrage, stroking and fanning my stinging leg. He does not laugh immediately: he frowns instead, wondering, I guess, if he has perhaps gone too far and is now in trouble, until he sees and hears me guffaw and understands that I am neither hurt nor displeased. Then his own face opens radiantly in a sunburst of relief and he begins laughing in exultation. I exaggerate all my own comic motions in order to keep him laughing and then to trap him with a sneak attack. He is doubled over in quaking merriment, clutching his belly and gulping and sighing helplessly, and all at once I am upon him: I hurl myself at him while he is bent over laughing, and we fall to the