THE PLACE THAT DANNY GREW UP IN

Mr. and Mrs. Fischer were happy. Ed was forty-eight and was content with his job as foreman in the loading bay at the Toys R Us store in town. He earned enough money for all his own needs and for those of his family. He gave most of his pay to Frieda. She also earned a little extra working mornings in the clothes store owned by Mabel. They used to go out with Mabel and her husband Rick on Saturday evenings sometimes. And sometimes on Fridays Ed and Rick would play cards together with some of the guys from the Naval Air Station, where Rick worked, or sometimes with some of the guys from the loading bay. Occasionally they would go to Harry’s on Petronilla for a drink, but if one of the guys wanted to go out somewhere after Harry’s closed at eleven, Ed would always refuse and go home. Ed liked to have a good time, but he knew when to stop. Frieda liked him to go out, but didn’t want him coming home drunk at two or three a.m., like he said some of the guys did. “Home”, she would say, “is where we feel best, and that’s where we should be most of the time.” So they considered that they had provided a good home for young Danny.

 

Danny was almost seventeen now, and was doing well at school. They were going to put him through college so he could “make something of himself”, as Ed used to put it. “You’ve gotta be someone, son,” he would say when they talked about Danny’s future, which Ed did a lot. At times Ed and Frieda could manage to feel so happy and contented with their lives that they would forget that Danny wasn’t their real son. Ed thought that it would be better if they never told him he had been adopted at birth; Frieda thought they should tell him. “Maybe after he’s been through college,” she would say when they discussed the subject, which they had to do after Miss Angela Davies called one afternoon to speak to Frieda.

 

She didn’t want to cause any trouble, she told Mrs. Fischer. She just wanted to see her boy. She wouldn’t ever tell him she was his real mother. Couldn’t she be invited over for a coffee or something when he would be at home? They could say she was an old friend who was visiting, she suggested to Mrs. Fischer, listening on the phone in the kitchen in her home. Outside it was a warm spring Texas afternoon. Miss Davies called several times that March, until Mr. and Mrs. Fischer agreed to her suggestion. First Mrs. Fischer, and then Mr. Fischer. Ed didn’t want to be there to see this. “I don’t wanna meet the damn woman,” he said to Frieda. He would go bowling with Rick and Gary next Sunday. Ed didn’t even like bowling, but he didn’t want to meet the damn woman. “Just make sure that she’ll promise never to bother us again after this,” he added, as an end to the discussion. Mrs. Fischer told Danny that an old friend of hers was coming for coffee and cookies on Sunday afternoon and that he would have to stay in and be on his best behavior.

 

Danny said he would, but he was probably thinking of Jenny, his girlfriend, and the plans he had for the two of them on Sunday. Mrs. Fischer liked Jenny, and thought that Jenny and Danny used to go walking by the Nueces or by the Marina when they went out together, but a friend of Jenny’s had an apartment near to where the turnpike passes the old Indian cemetery, and Danny and Jenny used to borrow the keys on Sundays and cycle off to a place where they knew that no one could find them.

 

Danny was born when his mother was only thirteen. His father was no one: Circus. She was from a family of means, who all insisted that the child live and be adopted. Anything else could not only interfere with Angela’s future, but might ruin her father’s career in local Texas politics. She was sent away to have the child while Angela’s parents contacted good adoption agencies. The child was born here, where we – you and I – are now, in Corpus Christi, so that no one back at home might find out. Danny’s mother is now a lawyer, and she used her influence to get hold of Danny’s address. She stayed at Lloyd’s Hotel the weekend that she came to visit Danny Fischer, and called at their house on Sunday before she left to go back to Houston. She wanted to see the place that Danny grew up in, so on Saturday she visited the Japanese Art Museum, the Art Museum of South Texas, she strolled along the promenade by the Nueces and ate a hot-dog as she walked along the boardwalk at the Marina. Sixteen years ago she had been here for two months. Then she had stayed at the St. Ursula Private Clinic. Angela stood at the end of the boardwalk and looked out at the bay. An aircraft carrier glittered in the afternoon sun.

 

On Sunday she arrived just after three. She had brought a bunch of flowers for Mrs. Fischer. There was a card that said “Thanks”. Danny was in the yard fixing his bicycle. Mrs. Fischer called him in to meet Miss Davies. Angela was dressed in her best. She was wearing a light-blue woolen suit from Via Appia in Dallas, black silk stockings and patent leather high-heeled shoes. She had fixed her long brown hair into a bun, and as she went to kiss Danny ‘hello’ she let her gold-rimmed glasses fall and swing against the black cashmere polo-neck sweater that clung tightly against her breasts.

 

Danny was happy to talk to her about his school, his plans for the future, what he thought of living in Corpus Christi and almost everything. She had brought a little present for him. It was nothing really, but she hoped he liked it. It was an airplane model kit. “All the kids in Corpus Christi are nuts about ships and planes,” a colleague had told her, back in Houston. As it happened, Danny wasn’t interested at all, but he was a polite boy, he had been brought up to have manners, and so he thanked Miss Davies profusely.

 

When it was time to leave, Danny told Miss Davies that he hoped to see her again, and offered his hand. Instead, Angela leaned forward to kiss his cheek. Later, in the bathroom, when Danny noticed the lipstick mark, he touched it with his fingers and remembered Miss Davies’s smell.

 

Mr. Fischer was not yet back from bowling at suppertime. Mrs. Fischer was a little worried. Ed had gone with Gary and Rick to Harry’s on Petronilla and was debating whether to go with them to the Lone Star later on. So he wasn’t home with Frieda when Miss Davies called up the second time.

 

“I know I promised,” she said, “but it’s just once more. Now I’ve met him I’d like to buy him something he really likes. It’s only just this once more, Mrs. Fischer. Please, Mrs. Fischer. Next Sunday? What harm can it do? What harm can it do, Mrs. Fischer? Please. Mrs. Fischer, he’s my boy. Mrs. Fischer…”

 

So Mr. Fischer went bowling and later to Harry’s for two Sundays running.

 

Angela arrived again at a little after three. This time Danny was waiting in the lounge. He had put on a tie and had tried his after-shave for the first time. Dad had given it to him at Christmas but he had never paid much attention to it. “Hustler”, it was called. Once again they talked mainly about Danny. Danny was saying what he would study at Corpus Christi State and Miss Davies was saying that the best universities were Rice and Texas Southern in Houston. Mrs. Fischer said that she thought it would be better for Danny to study in his home town. “He ought to be near his parents,” she said. Before leaving, Miss Davies gives Danny a present. He opens it. Inside a long slim box is a gold Cross fountain pen.

 

“To help you with your studies, Danny,” said Angela Davies.

“Gee! Thanks a million, Miss Davies,” said Danny.

“Angela,” said Angela.

“Look, mum!” said Danny.

“You shouldn’t have,” said Mrs. Fischer, looking at the pen. “There was no need.”

“As long as he gets good use out of it…” said Angela.

 

On the outside of the pen was an inscription that said “For Daniel”, and inside, as Danny discovered later as he was fingering it in bed, screwing and unscrewing the cap, was a very tightly rolled up piece of paper: a note. It was just after midnight, and Danny heard the front door slam. “Dad,” he thought, and then there was the sound of angry voices.

 

Next Sunday afternoon Danny goes out as usual to meet Jenny. He cycles past the little shopping mall at the junction of San Antonio and Mountainview. He turns left along San Antonio and is making for the Indian cemetery. But instead of turning along the path that leads parallel to and eventually under the turnpike, he makes a right into Alonzo Falcon. He leaves his bicycle chained to a waterpipe in an alley at the side of the laundromat and takes the bus into town. “Lloyd’s”, the note had said. “We need to meet, Danny. I’m sure you’ve guessed why. Come to Lloyd’s Hotel on Union Boulevard next Sunday at three. Room 405.”

 

Danny walks nervously across the hotel lobby and calls the lift. Fourth floor. And then even more nervously along the red carpet that leads to room 405. She opens the door. “Oh, Danny!” she says. “Come in, Danny,” and she’s so pleased to see her son and to be able to talk to him alone and to tell him about everything. She knows he’s guessed. “My Danny,” she says, and hugs him tightly.

 

But as she is hugging him motherly Danny begins to bite her neck. He puts his right hand on her left breast and squeezes almost too tightly as he nibbles her ear. “Danny!” she says, and pushes him away. But then Angela looks at him in the eyes – so much like his father’s – and realizes that this is what she wants too.