A grumbling was heard from down the hall, and, with the sound of flip-flops unsticking themselves from linoleum, Lantana appeared, stalking around the corner. He elbowed his way through the Ms. Wendell’s narrow doors, and in a gold’s gym tank top, purple spandex and eye-patch, held out his hand in something between greeting and attack.
“I’m here to spring my boy,” he said. After ‘boy’ he let a demented smile swim over his face. Something that was probably supposed to be congenial. “What needs to be done?”
“Mr. Zatkin—“ “Lantana.”
“Well, Lantana, you’re son isn’t in trouble. He doesn’t need to be ‘sprung.’” “But I heard he wasn’t in class,” he said that last word like it had been taboo until just recently, possibly due to the enactment of a new law.
“He had a reason for that.” “Is it money you want?” asked Lantana, removing a massive sack of nickels from what seemed to be his back pocket but could have been his underwear. “My wife gave me thirteen dollars worth of change and I don’t want a Goddamn thing to do with it.”
“Mr. Zatkin,” said Nurse Wendell, gently shoving the bag of nickels away from her chin. “Your son has been the target of awful canards around school.”
“Nurse Wendell, please?” said Nemo, not nervous, but wary in the dealings of family. “It’s no big deal.”
“What the fuck is a canard?” asked Lantana. “Mr. Zatkin?”
Lantana scratched his head. “Oh my God…” he whispered, eye reeling wide. “Is he dead?”
Nemo and the nurse cocked their chins. “Dad… I’m right here.”
“Doesn’t mean anything,” said Lantana.
“Yes it does,” said the nurse. “It means he’s alive.”
“No it doesn’t. No it fucking doesn’t.”
Urging the brute into a small plastic chair that, on first glance, seemed barely large enough to cup a medium sized house cat, Ms. Wendell proceeded to explain to Lantana, in her patient melody of voice, the meaning of canard, or rumor (Lantana, for reasons associated with his former existence, his unsolved life’s purpose, had practically carried on much in the way of a rumor itself, and thus, in the tradition of most things whose existence had been called into question at one time or another, was unfamiliar with the actual meaning of the word, or whether that meaning, once explained, could hope to warrant reprobation). It was a longer conversation than she’d expected to have; not to mention demoralizing, considering the state of her counterpart. Lantana bull-snorted whenever he felt patronized and filled her with one-eyed ire. After the end of her lesson, he confirmed understanding with a slight tip of the chin. Nurse Wendell then imparted the reason for bringing up the subject in the first place: Nemo had been falsely assailed with the allegation of masturbating at school, gunning down his endangered social esteem. The incident, she proceeded to explain, had in turn spurned him from his studies, made him afraid of his own shadow, and caused him to seek out the solace of a sickbed. Lantana, as he listened, tried to remain stately looking in his chair, with one spray-tanned leg poised over the other’s knee, though he more resembled a lion teetering atop a circus-stool, pining for his memories of the hunt. Surrounding him was wallpaper with slightly raised engravings of what might have been cinnamon fern, tip to tail. All of it was soaked in a thick wash of butterscotch paint. And Lantana hated the taste of butterscotch. It made him sick.
“So, he was accused of masturbating in the boy’s room?” he finally asked, feigning comprehension.
“Yes.”
“And it wasn’t true?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Ms. Wendell caught her breath.
“I don’t know how to answer that question.” “The first time I masturbated was at the age of…” he thought to himself. “Birth.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“I highly doubt you, Nurse.”
“You have something against nurses?”
“And doctors. And surgeons.”
“Dad, please?” pleaded Nemo. “It’s impossible to masturbate at birth.”
“Mr. Zatkin,” said Ms. Wendell, placing her angular fingers into a triangle above her stomach as if opening a portal of mild calm for him to stare through. As his trembling eye relaxed, it seemed to work. “Your boy needs the attention of a therapist to help sort out his curricular issues. Problems like this can lead to the development of low self-esteem.”
Lantana’s eye burned. “Did you say therapy?” he asked, remembering, just by the suggestion itself, the time he’d spent in Doctor Fezzeliski’s office with his ass exposed to the ceiling.
Ms. Wendell nodded. “It’s something a lot of children do these days.”
Creaking from the chair, Lantana and his spandex smiled, “Of course.” He canted his chin at Ms. Wendell, letting her see how large, how burgeoning full of archetypal male he was. “Of course, of course. Forgive my hostility.” He smiled. “Long morning. I’ll be excusing my son from school for the day. Believe he needs the fresh air. You don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” said the nurse, scribbling some info in the records. “I’ll set up the appointment with a counselor if you’d like. We can have Nemo in care by next week.”
Lantana, winking, said, “Don’t worry about that, Ms. Wendell. I’ll make the call myself.”
She clicked her pen closed and looked down at her desk. Lantana took his son’s hand.
“A father’s love is remedy for all,” he said.
(Continued on page 3)
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