The Notations of Cooper Cameron Page 12

  “I want ice cream,” Caddie says.

  “If Caddie can eat ice cream, I can eat ice cream,” he says because he needs a happy thought. His mother puts her credit card away and they cross the street to The Whole Scoop ice cream stand.

  Cooper ties flies when they get home. He ties flies until bedtime. He will finish these flies for Mike and he will never tie flies again. He will tell Mike his fingers hurt. He will tell Mike his mother won’t let him. No, he won’t. He cannot lie. But he cannot tell the whole truth. He will never tell Mike he feels sorry for the fish. That he wants all fish to be the big one that got away. Mike likes to fish. Mike will not understand.

  At midnight, Cooper is too tired to read. Too tired to lay out his rocks. Too tired to write in his notebook. He thinks he might sleep like a log. Like the dead. No, not like the dead. He must unthink that word. Dead.

  He lies beneath the thin and cool sheet. Awake. Caddie’s bed creaks as she rolls over in her sleep. A loon calls with a heart so full of love it shudders. An acorn drops on the roof. Rolls. The loon calls again. On the other side of the cabin, his mother gets up. Goes into the kitchen.

  Cooper lies still. Still enough to hear every movement. Every breath. Every thought. He hears the pump. The clink of a glass. He knows his mother has looked at the dead ivy and pricked her heart on its needle-tipped stem.

  He watches the moonlit shadows on his walls. Pictures The Father as a giant caddis fly, sputtering across the top of still, dawn-gray water. Thinks of the fish, swimming. Teased. Tricked. Trickery is a tactic of the enemy. He wants to whisper a secret to all the fish: Do not eat the caddis fly. Even if you fight for your life, you will die. And you will never know what happened.

  Now Cooper is thirsty. He wants a drink. He waits until the house is quiet. Tiptoes to the kitchen. Pumps the water. Sees the ivy in the garbage. Dead. Nothing you can do about it.

  It is a truth. Out in the open.

  He goes back to his room, to Grandpa’s old, safe bedroom, and turns on the light. “It’s just me, Amicus,” he whispers before he opens his notebook to a clean page.

  Some truths are easier when they aren’t secrets anymore.

  He leaves the light on and reaches for Tom Sawyer. He. He. He. Was. Was. Was. Gloomy. Gloomy. Gloomy . . . He was gloomy and desperate.

  Cooper is surprised. Surprised that brave Tom Sawyer is sad. Forsaken and friendless, Tom Sawyer has made up his mind to leave his home and become a pirate. Cooper thinks of Mike. The Mike who looks like Mike but acts like an alien being. For a tiny moment, between the words aye-aye and sir, Cooper wonders what it would be like to build a raft and sail away.

  Illusions

  A magician in a tuxedo and a tall black hat waves a magic wand. It swirls and blurs in the air. Flowers turn into blue pigeons. Suddenly, blue pigeons fly around Cooper’s room with a great fluttering of wings. People in the crowd laugh and clap and ooh and ahh.

  Like the magician, Cooper waves his arm in the air. Wakes up in the dark. He reaches under his pillow for his flashlight. Turns it on. No pigeons. Just a big gray moth on the wall above his head. Amicus croaks with hunger. A moth is not a happy thought. A blue pigeon flying around his room is. He has dreamed a happy thought.

  What day is it?

  Cooper climbs out of bed. Stands in front of his calendar with his flashlight. One, two, three, he counts. All the way to twelve. Twelve days left at the cabin. He wishes he had a magic wand. With a magic wand, he could slow time and never have to go back to school. Never hear the whispers behind his back. Or speed up time and never have time to worry. Magic would make all the difference in the world. No wonder magicians create illusions. Illusions make people happy.

  He opens his dictionary. Finds the words that begin with Il. Il-lu-pi. Il-luse. Il-lu-sion. His finger stops on the page. He reads the long definition. Likes this part the most: A false show. An erroneous perception of reality. What if he weren’t Cooper? What if he could make That Boy go away forever? What if he were an illusion? He writes this down in his notebook:

  If I could be an illusion of reality, I would make people happy.

  “Amicus,” Cooper whispers in the still-dark of the morning, “today I will be an illusion. I will not be what I appear to be. I will appear to be normal.” Everything else will be real. Like ice cream. Because you cannot eat illusions.

  Ice cream. Today is the day to take Mr. Bell some ice cream.

  The cupboards are almost bare. Cooper snaps five graham crackers and a chocolate bar into pieces. Pulls the stem from the strawberries. Mashes the berries to a pulp. Adds two bananas. He pours the last of the sugar into the ice cream maker. Scratches a mosquito bite on his wrist. Scratches the welt until it bleeds.

  He washes his hands, and then he adds ice and what is left of the rock salt. Then he turns, and turns and turns the crank. And looks. Turns the crank and looks. Patience, patience, patience. Scratch, scratch, scratch. He pumps the water. Washes his hands. Turns the crank and looks.

  Caddie finds him in the kitchen. “Cooper, you can’t eat ice cream for breakfast.”

  “I’m not. I’m making ice cream for Mr. Bell.”

  “What time did you get up?”

  All concepts are illusions. They can disappear without warning. Time does not change reality. “Time is an illusion,” he says.

  “Cooper!”

  Cooper is Caddie’s illusion of mad. Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think. “I don’t know what time I got up. Do you want to go with me?”

  “No.” Caddie opens a cupboard and gets out a bowl. Opens another cupboard for the puffed rice cereal. The next cupboard she opens and slams shut. “Where’s the sugar?”

  The sugar is gone. Used up. Kaput. “In the ice cream,” he says, cranking and cranking and cranking.

  “COOOO-PER!”

  Cooper imagines his name shooting from Caddie’s mouth like a burst of flame, landing on the ice shelf. Slicing glaciers like a laser beam. Warming the globe. No, no, no. Think a happy thought. Like ice cream. Like glaciers made of strawberries and chocolate bars. Enough to feed the whole world.

  He carries the big metal bowl full of ice cream to the road and walks along the crumbled edge of tar. Déjà vu, déjà vu, déjà vu. He knows he is small and the world is very, very large. The ice cream bowl burns his hands with cold. Numbs his fingers. He is glad cold is an illusion. Soon the sensation will disappear like magic.

  The mosquito bite on his wrist itches. He rubs it against his pants until it bleeds again. Bears can smell blood from three miles away. Bears are not illusions. Don’t think about bears. Don’t think about bears. Don’t think about bears. He hurries. Hurries around the bend to the plain white house with green shutters. No misspelled sign. No other man’s treasures. The giant black bell is all alone in the yard.

  The bell is not an illusion.

  What if Mr. Bell is?

  Maybe he should go home. No, he can’t go home. There is only one destination in the whole very large world for Mr. Bell’s ice cream. Cooper stares at the fancy B on Mr. Bell’s door. With his elbow, he thumps on the door one, two, three times. A woman with short black hair and a nametag that says “MARY ANN” on her pocket answers the door. Mary Ann is too big and strong to be an illusion. “Yes?” she says.

  “Is Mr. Bell home?”

  “Is he expecting you?”

  Caddie has his mother’s sister’s book. Cooper has his favorite food. “Yes,” he says. “I have his ice cream.”

  Mary Ann smiles. “He loves ice cream. Follow me.”

  Cooper follows Mary Ann into a big living room. Mr. Bell sits in a reclined chair, cupped like an astronaut, in front of a window as big as a spaceship’s bridge. For a split second, Cooper imagines Mr. Bell as the first man to land on Tezorene. Ever.

  A blue plaid blanket covers Mr. Bell from his knees to his shoulders. Plastic tubes run from his nose to a tank of air that sucks and squirts and breathes. His ancient eyes are closed.

  “Mr. Bell,”
Mary Ann says. “Someone . . .” She looks at Cooper. Waits.

  Today Cooper is not Cooper. He is an illusion. “A friend,” he says.

  “A friend has brought you some ice cream, Mr. Bell.”

  Mr. Bell opens his eyes. “Hell’s bells,” he says. “It’s you.” Long, bony fingers crawl out from under the blanket. Flip a lever. The chair pops Mr. Bell right side up. “Must’ve fallen asleep.” Mr. Bell coughs. “Darn waste of time, sleep is, wouldn’t you say?”

  Time. Time is an illusion. “Yes,” Cooper says. “Especially when there’s ice cream.” He holds out the bowl.

  Mary Ann is not an illusion, but she has disappeared.

  “Ice cream?” Mr. Bell peers into the metal bowl in Cooper’s cold hands. “Mary Ann!” Mr. Bell’s voice is gruff and crackly. “Can you bring us two spoons?”

  Mary Ann brings two spoons. “Pull up a stool,” Mr. Bell says. Cooper puts the bowl in Mr. Bell’s lap, pulls up a stool. Its seat is the shape of a duck. No. A loon. Mr. Bell pushes at the tubes across his chest. “Nothing better than ice cream for breakfast, wouldn’t you say?”

  Cooper wants his own bowl. He doesn’t want Mr. Bell’s spit on his spoon. In his ice cream. Germs are not an illusion. They are invisible. There is a difference. Don’t think about germs. Don’t think about germs. Don’t think about germs.

  Mr. Bell holds up the bowl. His arms shake. “You go first. You’re my guest.”

  Cooper is glad to go first. He dips his spoon. Digs out a bit of candy bar. Mr. Bell dips his spoon next. Purses his wrinkled lips around the bite of ice cream. “Strawberry?”

  Cooper nods. Mr. Bell smiles. Cooper chews a chunk of cold graham cracker. Mr. Bell sucks on his next bite. The oxygen tank hisses.

  “Strawberry,” Mr. Bell says slowly. “And banana?” He works his tongue around and around. “And chocolate?” He swallows. “So, what do you call this kind of ice cream?”

  Names. Names never go away. Not even if you die. Names are not illusions. “It doesn’t have a name yet,” Cooper says.

  “Cooper, right?”

  “What?” Cooper says.

  “Your name. It’s Cooper, right?” Mr. Bell coughs. Cooper nods. “Then we’ll call it Cooper’s Crazy Quilt ice cream,” Mr. Bell says.

  “Why?”

  “Because my mother used to make quilts from scraps of old fabric. A little bit of everything. Called them crazy quilts.” Mr. Bell coughs. Cooper imagines wet ice cream in Mr. Bell’s lungs. Clogged. Clogged like a drain with the last bit of soap lodged in its trap. He moves the bowl.

  Cooper suddenly has a cold headache. He stops eating. Moves the bowl back to Mr. Bell’s lap. Looks around the room. Masks that appear to be enormous caddis flies hang on one wall. Photographs cover the far wall in perfect rows like diplomas. Like a hundred diplomas. “Are you a photographer?” Cooper says. The question sounds dumb to Cooper. He wants to write this down, but he is sitting on his notebook.

  Sometimes polite questions are dumb questions.

  “Took pictures my whole life. Most of it anyway. Ninety-seven last April. Damn near a hundred years. My God. That’s a lot of sunrises.”

  Cooper can believe it. Mr. Bell is the oldest living person he has ever known. Cooper taps his fingers. Calculates. “At least thirty-five thousand four hundred and five.”

  “What?” Mr. Bell says. His mouth is full of ice cream. Ice cream strings hang from his upper lip like thin stalactites.

  “Sunrises,” Cooper says. “But the precise answer depends on your birthdate.”

  “Feels like more.” Mr. Bell laughs and swallows at the same time. Coughs. Almost chokes. His slimy white tongue waves in his open, quivering mouth. Ice cream runs in the rivulets above his crinkled lip. “You’re a smart kid, aren’t you?”

  Smart is an illusion. Cooper isn’t sure about old. Wrinkles and white hair are not illusions. But you grow old over time. And time is an illusion. Therefore, perhaps, old is an illusion. “How did you get to be so old, Mr. Bell?”

  “The same way you got to be so smart. It’s in the genes. Not much you can do about it. Everything else I did on purpose.”

  Cooper looks back at the wall of pictures. “Like climbing Machu Picchu?”

  Mr. Bell swivels slowly in his chair. “You know about Machu Picchu?”

  Cooper nods. “I’ve read about the ancient Incan landmark in books.”

  “Never was much for reading,” Mr. Bell says. He turns back to the bowl of ice cream in his lap.

  “You can learn a lot by reading,” Cooper says.

  “Maybe,” Mr. Bell says. “But where’s the thrill?”

  “What thrill?” Cooper says.

  “The thrill of doing it.” Mr. Bell holds his spoon tight in his fist. Waves it in the air. “The thrill of surviving so you can tell the world all about it.” Mr. Bell coughs.

  Cooper shivers inside. “But what if you don’t survive?”

  Mr. Bell snorts. “If I’d looked at it that way, I might never have done anything.”

  “Did you tell the world all about it?”

  “You bet I did!” Mr. Bell nods toward the photographs. “You know what they say. A picture paints a thousand words.”

  Cooper has never heard anyone say that. He digs out a chunk of banana at the edge of the bowl. Slides off his stool with his spoon in his hand, walks around a coffee table made of shiny yellow metal, and walks closer to the wall of photos. He zeroes in on a raft of people riding the rapids in a river. “Where is that?”

  “Alaska.”

  Wolves and grizzly bears and giant mosquitoes and moose live in the Land of the Midnight Sun. They are not illusions. They are real. “Were you scared?”

  “Hell, yes. We trekked in. But I told myself people had been doing it for hundreds of years. Told myself the same thing when I climbed Everest. Besides, it was the plane ride that damn near scared the . . .” Mr. Bell laughs. Shakes his head like he can’t believe it. “I guess you’re right. Maybe I’m not supposed to be here. Been defying the odds my whole life.”

  Maybe it is possible. If Mr. Bell should not be here, maybe he is an illusion.

  Cooper walks the length of the wall, staring at the pictures. He wants to count them. Touch their sharp corners. He wants to straighten the picture of the people in the raft, water around their heads like white lace, but the picture does not belong to him. He should not touch it. He will not touch it. Today he is an illusion. Today he is normal. He will be polite. He clasps the spoon in one hand, puts the other hand in his pocket.

  “What’s the scariest thing you ever did?”

  “Got a picture of it right there.” Mr. Bell points his spoon at the wall. “You tell me.”

  Cooper scrutinizes the pictures one by one. A man and a woman all dressed up and getting married. Mount Rushmore, eye-to-eye with Abe Lincoln, someone’s feet dangling from a helicopter. “Are those your feet?” Cooper turns back to Mr. Bell. Mr. Bell nods.

  Cooper keeps going. John F. Kennedy, the 35th president. The Taj Mahal. Muhammed Ali with a big gloved hand over his head. The Champ. More presidents. More famous people. A helicopter on fire in a jungle. More famous places. A close-up of a mountain climber, his face covered in frost. German soldiers stacking cement blocks, making a wall taller than they are. Lou Gehrig leaning on a baseball bat. Cooper pauses. Lou Gehrig was his grandfather’s hero. “The Iron Horse,” he says.

  “Smart boy,” Mr. Bell says.

  But Lou Gehrig was not an iron horse. Not really.

  Cooper backs up. Remembers what Mr. Bell said about climbing Mount Everest. Looks at the mountain climber. Clouds above his head. Nothing but icy-blue sky at his feet. The mountain climber is suspended in thin air. “That one,” he says, and he knows he’s right. “Climbing Mount Everest is the scariest thing you ever did.” He turns toward Mr. Bell. Waits.

  “Good guess. Plenty scary, all right, to hang by a thread from a mountainside. But you’re wrong,” Mr. Bell says with his mouth full. And then he swallows.
And licks his lips.

  Cooper is confused. He feels like he’s playing a game that is not a game.

  “I’ll give you a clue,” Mr. Bell says. “It’s the only picture up there I didn’t take myself.”

  Cooper looks back at the wall of pictures. “That could be all of them,” Cooper says.

  Mr. Bell’s lips push together. Protrude. “You got me there,” he says. And then Mr. Bell wipes his mouth with the fringe of the blue blanket. “But the truth is, there’s only one picture of me in this whole darn place.” Mr. Bell laughs and coughs again. “The first one, top left.” He waves his spoon in the air. “My wedding picture.”

  Cooper looks at the photograph of the man and woman more closely. Sees their happy smiles. Can’t find Mr. Bell anywhere in the man’s smooth face and tall body. He wants to begin his sentence with “I believe,” but he hears Caddie’s voice. No one says “I believe.” “You tricked me,” Cooper says.

  “Not at all,” Mr. Bell laughs. “Getting married is the scariest thing I’ve ever done.” Mr. Bell pokes at the ice cream with his spoon. Stops. “Best thing too.” Mr. Bell stares out the big window. Stares and stares. The oxygen tank hisses and squirts in the silence. The silence that isn’t silent at all.

  Cooper knows Mr. Bell sees a memory in the window. “Excuse me, Mr. Bell,” he says. He pulls out his notebook. Flips open the cover. “I don’t want to forget something.” And then he writes,

  Sometimes the scariest things you do are the best things you do.

  “You look like a reporter,” Mr. Bell says. He coughs. Pokes again at the ice cream. “What’s the scoop?”

  “Scoop?” Cooper says.

  “What are you writing?”

  No one has ever asked Cooper what he is writing. No one has ever read his words. But Cooper feels like he is in school. Like Mr. Bell is the teacher. He knows he must answer this question. He feels a shiver in his breath as he reads his words out loud: “Sometimes the scariest things you do are the best things you do.”

  Mr. Bell nods. “That’s true. But I bet nothing scares you. You’re too smart. Just like your grandfather.”