Bark: Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

groups right now,” Zora said defensively. “It’s difficult for him to find other kids who are as intellectually serious as he is.”
    “We’ll rent him a movie,” said Ira. “Excuse me, a
film
. A foreign film, since he’s serious. A documentary. We’ll rent him a foreign documentary!”
    “We don’t have a VCR.”
    “You don’t have a VCR?” At this point Ira found the silverware and helped set the table. When they sat down to eat and poured more wine in their glasses, Bruno suddenly came out and joined them, with no beckoning. The spring spaghetti was tossed in a large glass bowl with grated cheese. “Just how you like it, Brune,” said Zora.
    “So, Bruno. What grade are you in?”
    Bruno rolled his eyes. “Tenth,” he said.
    “So college is a ways off,” said Ira, accidentally thinking out loud.
    “I guess,” said Bruno, who then tucked into the spring spaghetti.
    “So—what classes are you taking in school, besides music?” asked Ira, after a long awkward spell.
    “I don’t take music,” he said with his mouth full. “I’m in All-State Woodwinds.”
    “All-State Woodwinds! Interesting! Do you take any courses in like, say, American history?”
    “They’re studying the Amazon rain forest yet again,” said Zora. “They’ve been studying it since preschool.”
    Ira slurped with morose heartiness at his wine—he had spent too much of his life wandering about in the desert of his own drool, oh, the mealtime assaults he had made on his own fragileconsciousness—and some dribbled on his shirt. “For Pete’s sake, look at this.” He dabbed at the wine spot with his napkin and looked up at Bruno, with an ingratiating grin. “Someday this could happen to you,” Ira said, twinkling in Bruno’s direction.
    “That would never happen to me,” muttered Bruno.
    Ira continued dabbing at his shirt. He began thinking of his book.
Though I be your mother’s beau, no rival I, no foe, faux foe
. He loved rhymes.
Fum! Thumb! Dumb!
They were harmonious and joyous in the face of total crap.
    Bruno began gently kicking his mother under the table. Zora began playfully to nudge him back, and soon they were both kicking away, their energetic footsie causing them to slip in their chairs a little, while Ira pretended not to notice, cutting his salad with the edge of his fork, too frightened to look up very much. After a few minutes—when the footsie had stopped and Ira had exclaimed, “Great dinner, Zora!”—they all stood and cleared their places, taking the dishes into the kitchen, putting them in a messy pile in the sink. Ira started halfheartedly to run warm water over them, and Zora and Bruno, some distance behind him, began to jostle up against each other, ramming lightly into each other’s sides. Ira glanced over his shoulder and saw Zora now step back and assume a wrestler’s starting stance, as Bruno leaped toward her, heaving her over his shoulder, then running her into the living room, where, Ira could see, Bruno dumped her, laughing, on the couch.
    Should Ira join in? Should he leave?
    “I can still pin you, Brune, when we’re on the bed,” Zora said.
    “Yeah, right,” said Bruno.
    Perhaps it was time to go. Next time Ira would bring over a VCR for Bruno and just take Zora out to eat. “Well, look at the time! Good to meet you, Bruno,” he said, shaking the kid’s large, limp hand. Zora stood breathlessly. She walked Ira out to his car, helping to carry his chair and salad bowl. “It was a lovely dinner,” said Ira. “And you are a lovely woman. And your son seems so bright and the two of you are adorable together.”
    Zora beamed, seemingly mute with happiness. If only Ira had known how to speak such fanciful baubles during his marriage, surely Marilyn would never have left him.
    He gave Zora a quick kiss on the cheek—the heat of her wrestling had heightened her beautiful nutmeg smell—then kissed her again on the neck, near her ear. Alone in the car on the way home he