Free Mr. Bones by Paul Theroux Page A

“What are you going to do for Mr. Bones?”
    â€œTrumpet lessons, Mr. Bones.”
    â€œYou always were good at blowing your own horn. Ha!” Then he had me by the chin and was lifting it, as Dad had never done. “Who was that lady you saw me with last night?”
    With his white-gloved hand gripping my chin, I couldn’t speak.
    â€œThat was no lady. That was my wife!”
    Mother muttered as he shook his tambourine.
    â€œYou’ll need some Karo syrup for that throat,” Mother said, and handed him a bottle and a spoon.
    He took a swig straight from the bottle, then said to Fred, “Here, want to keep this bottle up your end?”
    I didn’t know it was a joke until he lowered his shoulders and swung his arms and shook his tambourine.
    I had been dreading going to the show for weeks, and when the day came I said, “I don’t want to go. I’ve got a wicked bad stomachache.”
    â€œEveryone’s going,” Mother said, trembling with a kind of nervous insistence that I recognized: if I defied her, she might start screaming.
    On a wet Saturday night in May we went together to the high school auditorium in our old car, Mother driving. I could tell she was upset from the way she drove, riding the brake, stamping on the clutch, pushing the gearshift too hard. Dad had gone separately. “Tambo’s stopping by for me.”
    I hurried into the auditorium and slid down in my seat so that no one would see me. When the music began to play and the curtain went up, I covered my face and peered through my fingers.
    Dad—Mr. Bones—was sitting in a chair onstage, and the others, too, sat on chairs in a semicircle. Mr. Bones looked confident and happy; he was dressed like a clown, but he looked powerful. He was wearing his floppy suit, shiny vest, big bow tie, white gloves and tilted wig, and his face was black. All of them were in blackface except Morrie Daigle, in the center, who wore a white suit and a white top hat.
    â€œMr. Bones, wasn’t that music just beautiful? Didn’t it touch you?”
    I pressed my fingers to my ears, closed my eyes, and groaned so that I wouldn’t hear the rest. I wanted to disappear. I was slumped in my seat so my head wasn’t showing, and even though I kept my hands to my ears I heard familiar phrases:
physician of good standing
and
that was prior to his decease.
    The songs I knew by heart penetrated me as I sat there trying to deafen myself. Mr. Bones sang “Mandy.” “Rosie” and “Rock-a-Bye Your Baby” were sung by others. Someone else sang “Nobody.”
    I heard,
You should see my brother, he walks like this,
and knew it was Mr. Bones. I heard,
bare-faced liar.
I heard,
Toulouse and Toulon.
Even so, my eyes were shut, my palms stuck against my ears, and I was groaning.
    There was much more, skits and songs. People laughing, people clapping, the loud music, the shouts, the tambourines, the familiar phrases. This was silly and embarrassing, yet the same jokes and songs had intimidated us at home. And Mr. Bones had been different at home too, not this ridiculous man clowning, far off on the stage, but someone else I didn’t want to think of as Dad, teasing us and making fools of us and getting us to agree with him and make decisions. That was who he was—Dad as Mr. Bones.
    When the people onstage were taking their bows and the auditorium was still dark, I said, “I have to go to the bathroom,” and ran out and hid in our car.
    Back home afterward, no one said anything about the show. Dad was in his regular clothes, with the faint greasy streaks of black on his neck and behind his ears. He was excited, breathless, but he didn’t speak. The strange episode and uproar were over. Later, I got anxious when he hummed “Mandy” or “Rosie” while he was shaving in the kitchen, but he didn’t make any jokes, didn’t tease or taunt anymore. Looking