The sky was gray and misty, the snowdrifts outside gradually eroding beneath a steady drizzle of February rain. “We’re doing work, aren’t we?” Zac asked Dan, who nodded, looking up from the linoleum block he was carving pieces out of.
“Yep,” Dan agreed. “We’re definitely doing work.”
“And Nora is working,” Zac said. “And Tay is at school. And Ike is in the hos-hosk-hopsicle.”
“Yep,” Dan repeated. “Ike is in the hopsicle all right.”
Zac bit his lip and studied the crayon marks he’d made on his sheet of construction paper. “I know where everybody is,” he remarked, smiling. He went back to his drawing. “I’m going to give this to Ike,” he said.
“That’ll make him happy,” Dan agreed.
“Yeah.” Zac bit his lip and reached for another crayon. “It will make him happy.”
“Because you’re doing something nice for him.” Dan went back to his own drawing.
“I’m going to do something nice,” Zac told Taylor, the moment his older brother got into the car that afternoon.
“What are you going to do?” Taylor asked.
“I’m going to give Ike my picture I drew him.” Zac smiled. “And it will make him happy.”
“That’s good,” Taylor said. “Because. . . you know what?”
“What?” Zac asked.
“Ike wasn’t happy when Mommy taked a knife and she-”
“Don’t talk about it!” Zac covered his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t want to hear it!”
“Taylor. . .” Dan began.
“Why can’t I say it?” Taylor asked, annoyed. “It’s true, isn’t it?”
“It’s true,” Dan allowed, “but for the love of God. . .”
Taylor’s eyes widened. “Dan!” he admonished.
Dan raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“You,” Taylor told him, “took the name of the lord in vain! That’s really bad.”
Dan groaned. “Sorry. . .”
Zac took his hands off of his ears, inquistively. “Why is that bad?”
“It makes the baby Jesus cry,” Taylor breathed. “The lady down the hall where we used to live told me.”
“You made the baby cry?” Zac asked Dan.
“The baby Jesus is crying now!” Taylor exclaimed. “I hope you’re going to say you’re sorry!”
“Yeah, Tay, I’m sorry.” Dan shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Sorry, Jesus! You can stop crying now, okay?”
Taylor sighed. “You said a swear, Dan,” he said. “If you do that in school, you get sent to the principal’s office.”
“I don’t want you to go to the principal’s office!” Zac wailed.
Dan’s head was spinning. “Nobody’s getting sent to the principal’s office. We’re going to the grocery store.”
“Hey!” Taylor exclaimed, beaming, “I like the grocery store!”
In later years, Dan would always remember those first few months with Taylor and Zac as one of the most surreal periods of his life. There was something inherently abnormal about conversations that jumped from appropriate comments to make concerning one’s drug addicted mother to the crying baby Jesus to principals’ offices and a six year old’s love for the grocery store. There was something inherently abnormal about pushing a shopping cart down the paper-towel aisle while a first grader danced along behind you, singing to himself, especially if you really didn’t. . . Dan reminded himself of the fact. . . have any kids. Again, Dan remembered the mind-boggling responsibility he’d taken on and tried not to let the feeling overwhelm him.
“Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together ,” Taylor sang, loudly enough for Dan to hear him. “I’ve got some real estate here in my bag . . .” Here, Taylor’s recollection of the lyrics grew fuzzy, so he made up some words of his own. “I don’t really have a bag, but the guy in the song does I guess. . . so we bought a pack of cigarettes. . . you shouldn’t smoke cigarettes, you’ll get lung cancer. . . and we walked off to look for America!”
“Would you guys wait here for a second?” Dan asked, positioning the shopping cart near a display of grape juice at the end of an aisle clogged with people. “I just have to run and get some cereal.” He took a deep breath. “Don’t go anywhere, okay?”
“You maked me sit in the cage,” Zac pointed out. “And you buckled the buckles. So I can’t get out.”
“I’m sorry I put you in the cage, Dan apologized, feeling guilty. “But you’ll get lost otherwise. Anyway, it‘s not a cage. It’s a shopping cart.”
“You’ll get lost,” Zac corrected him. “You always do get lost. Every time we go anywhere.” He shook his head, sighing sadly. “Dan, I really don’t know what to do about it. And it is too a cage.”
“When I’m big, will I have to sit in the cart?” Zac inquired.
Dan shook his head. “Not when you’re big.”
“Like in two days?” Zac asked.
“Something like that,” Dan agreed. “Taylor, you don’t go anywhere, okay?”
“Michigan seems like a dream to me now. . .” Taylor sang, watching Dan make his way down the aisle. “
“That’s not the way it really says,” said Zac. “That’s the wrong way.”
“Is not the wrong way,” Taylor protested, mildly. “It’s my way.”
“I like the real way better.” Zac put his thumb into his mouth and narrowed his eyes at his brother.
“I said ‘be careful, his bow-tie is really a camera!’” Taylor intoned, ignoring him. “And we’ve all come to look for America! All come to look for Am-m-e-e-r-i-ica!”
“I’m covering my ears,” Zac told him. “You sing real bad.”
Taylor shook his head. “I do not sing real bad!”
“Yes you do.” Zac smiled, pleased that he was making Taylor mad.
“I do not!” Taylor’s lower lip quivered.
“Do too!” Zac insisted.
Taylor looked at the ground, his eyes filling. He kicked at the floor with the toe of his sneaker. “Do not,” he whispered.
Zac didn’t say anything, absently sucking his thumb.
“You didn’t say ‘do too!’” Taylor prompted.
“Do not,” Zac supplied, changing tactics.
“Do too,” Taylor shot back, then paused, confused.
Zac started laughing. “You just said you were bad.”
Taylor’s hands clenched into fists, and he stomped his foot on the floor. “I’m running away!” he said, and he did.
“Bye,” Zac waved. “See you later.”
Dan came back down the aisle, toting a box of Cheerios. “Okay guys. . .” he began. “Hey, Zac, where’s Tay?”
Zac shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“And I’m never coming back!” Taylor stormed down the paper towels aisle, fuming. “And I won’t feel bad, even if they miss me! And when they come and say ‘Tay, come back, we love you!’ I will just say ‘No!’ I’ll say ‘You didn’t ‘preciate me when I was around and I’m never coming back!’” He paused, eye-level with the fluffy-haired little girl on the toilet paper package. “And then I bet they’ll feel bad.”
He continued down the aisle, stalwartly. “I can go live with the president. He doesn’t have any little boys. I bet he’ll want me.”
Taylor paused. “But it would take me a long time to get there.”
“Little boy, are you lost?” Taylor looked up into the pink and white face of a tiny old lady in an oversized cardigan and long flowered dress, riding in the seat of an automated shopping cart. “Do you need help finding your mommy?”
“Oh, no,” Taylor shook his head, smiling cheerfully. “I know where my mommy is. She’s in jail!”
The old lady looked taken aback by this, but only momentarily. “Is your daddy here?”
Taylor shook his head. “I don’t know where my daddy is. I came with Zac.”
“Who is Zac?” the lady inquired.
“My little brother,” Taylor told her. “He’s four.”
The old lady pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows. “You must have had an adult with you,” she persisted.
“Oh, yeah!” Taylor nodded emphatically. “Dan’s a dult. He’s the dult that was with us.”
“Where is Dan?” the lady asked, relieved.
Taylor narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know and I don’t care.” He leaned forward to whisper in the lady’s ear, smiling conspiratorally. “I runned away.”
“Oh, my,” the old lady breathed. “Well, I’m sure Dan misses you.”
“Yeah, I bet he does,” Taylor agreed. “I bet he misses me a lot.” He shrugged. “He’s probably crying now.”
The old lady shook her head. “Poor Dan.”
Taylor nodded. “Yeah, poor Dan. But that’s what he gets. Because Zac is mean, so I runned away.”
“Did Dan know you ran away?”
“No.” Taylor shook his head. “I did it by myself. Because Zac said I didn’t sing good.”
“Were you singing?” the old lady asked.
“Yeah, I was singing. I know lots of songs,” Taylor told her. “I sing really good.” He paused. “Want to hear me?”
“I’d love to hear you,” the old lady told him. “Sing me your song and then I’ll bring you up to the front of the store so we can call Dan over the store’s intercom.”
“Like when they say ‘come and clean up the spilled milk in aisle 12?’” Taylor asked.
The lady nodded. “Exactly.”
“I will sing you my song now,” Taylor decided. “It goes like this.” He took a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut and taking a deep breath.
He opened one eye. “I heard it from the radio,” he clarified. “I didn’t make it up.” He paused for a moment and then began. “We’re not gonna take it! No, we ain’t gonna take it! We’re not gonna take it anymore!”
“He’s about this tall,” Dan was trying not to panic as he described Taylor to the manager of Safeway. “He’s got blond hair, he’s wearing a blue jacket. . .”
“He sings real bad,” Zac piped up.
“And jeans, and sneakers,” Dan went on.
“With Velcros on them,” Zac added, jealously.
“He’s six.” Dan wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans.
“But he doesn’t got any lost teeths yet,” Zac interupted. “Only baby teeths.”
“His name is Taylor,” Dan ennumerated.
“You already said that,” Zac informed him.
“I’m sorry,” Dan apologized.
“We’ll keep an eye out for him,” the manager promised.
“Zac,” piped a familiar little voice, “I do sing good! This lady telled me I do!”
“So then I got to ride in the shopping cart with that nice lady,” Taylor finished, taking a deep breath. “And it was the most fun I’ve ever had in my life!”
“I’m just glad nothing happened to you.” Dan rested his head against the steering wheel for a moment. As soon as they’d gotten out to the car, he made Taylor tell him the whole story.
“Lots of stuff happened to me,” Taylor objected. “You got lost.”
“You runned away,” Zac corrected him.
“Lots of stuff happened to me,” Taylor repeated. “Aren’t you glad nobody found me and keeped me?”
“No,” Zac shook his head.
“Yes.” Dan pulled out of the parking space. “I am.”
Taylor stuck his tongue out at Zac. “See?” he asked. “Dan is glad.”
“If they keeped you, they would bring you back,” Zac predicted. “You would ‘noy them.”
And Dan had to admit that he couldn’t keep from laughing at that one.