Free These Things Happen by Richard Kramer

supposed to mean?" I say.
       "What it usually means. They're not good."
       "Don't be rude," Kenny tells him.
       This, somehow, sets Wesley off. He flushes; he has English skin, like Nigel, my imaginary nephew; every feeling blooms. "I'm not rude!" he says. "It's not rude if it's true, is it? It's just true !"
       "You haven't even tasted them!" I say.
       "Should I wear my blue tie with this shirt?" Kenny says to me.
       "Sure. That'd be fine."
       "Have you seen it?"
       "Did you even look?"
       "I just got off the phone with the T imes , George."
       "I keep telling them," I say, "stop calling! We don't want to subscribe. I will get your tie. This one last time."
       I start out of the kitchen, but Kenny stops me.
       "I'll get it," he says.
       "I want to!" says Wesley, and I think of a kid again, one of those small ones in elevators who announce I wanna do it when it's time to push the button. He dashes out and is right back, holding the tie out to his dad. But Kenny doesn't take it right away, as he sees Wesley squint at him.
       "What?" Kenny asks.
       "Blood!"
       "Pardon me?"
       Wesley takes a step in Kenny's direction. "On your chin, Dad," he says. "You always cut yourself in the same place."
       Kenny feels for the cut and the crusting blood, but just misses it. Wesley comes closer, and is about to touch the spot when Kenny turns away. For a moment I lift out of myself and see this happen again in sections, in slow motion, as acts of a tiny play. Then it freezes, as in that kid's game I used to love; early theater, I guess, bodies doing what they're told. I decide it's my job to unfreeze us, so I clap my hands and they turn to me, reanimated.
       "Well!" I say, hoping something will come to me. Something does. I nod to Kenny. " Lucky you're not a Romanov, huh?"
       "A what?" Wesley asks.
       "Russian," I vamp. "The royal family. They were bleeders, or the kid was. They got shot in a basement. One survived. I! Anastasia." I can't resist throwing in a moment of Ingrid Bergman, from the movie, one of my all-time favorites; I'm a sucker for any story that ends on a note of maybe, or maybe not. I cough, as Bergman does. "Grandmama, you are so cruel." I put a napkin on my head, and cough again.
       "What?" Wesley says.
       Now, I'm hardly the queeniest of queens, and I know you could read that statement as, in the words of my dead friend James from Texas, " self-loathin'." But somehow this kid's being here brings out, from time to time, the Norma Desmond in me, the Dolly Levi, the clamoring Golden Girls of my soul. Maybe it's just the pleasure of referring to something and having someone not know what it is. That's a New York problem; everyone here always knows what you're talking about. They've heard the joke, tried the recipe. It gets exhausting, drowning at the same time you're running in place.
       Kenny's cell phone rings.
       "I thought you turned it off," I say.
       "I'm not totally sure how to do that. Just let it ring."
       So we do. But we don't do anything else, either, as each of us knows it will ring again in a moment. Which it does.
       "You should get that, Dad."
       "That's what they invented voice mail for," says Kenny.
       "It's also why they invented hammers," I say. "Because I'm going to smash that thing. Because this place is too small for you, me, and the entire gay and bi-curious population of the whole world, all of whom have your cell number."
       The ringing stops, then starts again.
       " Really," Kenny says, "it'll go right to—"
       Wesley cuts in, which I've never seen him do before; the new zit I swore I didn't notice seems to glow, like a third eye, seeing what's usually kept secret. "Dad?" he says. "Do what you need to do. Just do it, please, I'm proud of you, Dad. People need you."
       Kenny doesn't say anything; he just obeys, and goes off down the hall. It's not easy, this, being