The Puppeteer

The garage, dank and dim that December afternoon, opened to a small yard. Pigeon brown hedges and wilted flowers peeked out from the fence encircling the gray garden. Slabs of plywood flattened the grass, hiding the fact that Peter had unintentionally sprayed most of the vegetation blue. Blue footprint-shaped stains graced the garage's doorstep and floor, leading to a skinny man and his cluttered workbench. The man hunched over a smattering of wood, paint bottles, and tools. His elbows wagged up and down as he tinkered with a screw. Peter wiggled the screwdriver until the screw plummeted on the table with a tiny clink. Peter sniffed in deeply, as if his nose sought the stench of drying paint.

"Smelling paints kills neurons, you know," Peter's mother always said. "That's why you shouldn't spend so much time in the art room after school. Besides, you always come home dirty. Get here as soon as you can. Or go to George's house. But I'm tired of trying to get paint out of your clothes."

Nodding submissively, Peter flung his blue (or red or yellow or green) hands behind his back. "Okay, Mom," he said.

"You know your father's trying to get a promotion at work. And with the boss living next door, Peter, and him seeing you everyday, well...what will he think of your father if you're always running around like a little painted savage?"

Peter stared his mother blankly.

His mother sighed. "Oh, Peter. I just mean...please try to act more like the other kids, okay?" She leaned in toward her son and tapped the tip of his nose. "Remember, artists always have hard lives. I don't want you ending up poor." The nervous woman shifted in her armchair and smiled at Peter. Her left eye twitched.

When she picked up her crossword puzzle again, Peter scurried back to his room. He closed the door silently behind his boyish frame. Then he whipped around. Before he could stop himself, his fingers danced over the drawers and the few shelves he could actually reach. The search for crayons, felt, yarn, markers, and clean paper had commenced. Within minutes, stickers, glue sticks, googly eyes, pom-poms, and envelopes littered the floor. Anything from cut-out animals to colorful dioramas to mini comic books somehow came out of the random shreds and strings he pulled together. When he finished, Peter shoved the creations under his bed, in his closet, under the floorboards, in the attic--anywhere his mother would not immediately find them.

Then, exhausted, Peter slumped down and contemplated his toy chest before pulling out a dinosaur or tiger. He'd make up stories for the animals, growling and roaring when necessary. When Peter's mother checked in on him, she beamed at her son behaving like a normal little boy. She beamed even more brightly when Peter asked for "cookies made from scratch."

"Of course, darling," she said, "I'll put them in the oven now. You'll have time to come up with at least one other of your stories, I'm sure. See how much more fun this is than painting? Cleaner, too."

Over the years, his mother's diction did not change. It was as she had thumbed through a dictionary for all the right words--concise, stern words. Then she wrote them all down, practiced her speech before the mirror, and spat it all out as soon as Peter arrived home from the art room. Smudged and dejected, Peter simply gulped and said yes. He had promised never to do it again at least a thousand times before.

"It's unhealthy to spend all of your time in the art room, Peter. It doesn't matter if Miss Breig stays after school everyday. That doesn't mean you have to. She's not married, doesn't have any kids. It's not like she has anything else to do, anyway. But you! You should go spend time with the other children. Don't you like the new playground at St. Agnes? You're a healthy boy, after all. Don't you like running around and throwing balls?"

By the time Peter's mother asked him questions, however, something else had already seized his mind. Perhaps a red ant scrambled across the counter. Or the faint scent of sesame oil lurked in the air. Or the television was on, with Quickdraw Mcgraw or Yogi. Distracted, Peter did not answer until his mother squeezed his chin between her lacquered nails.

"Peter," she said, "Please answer the question like an intelligent child." She waited a beat and repeated herself.

Peter sighed, promising to play soccer or baseball or tennis. The few rules of these games he actually knew had become so jumbled in his brain that, had he played, Peter probably would've held a racquet like a bat and tried hitting a soccer ball into a basketball hoop.

"You know that all boys who play sports grow up to be big, strong men, don't you? And big, strong men always get the neatest jobs when they grow up, right?"

Peter's gaze landed on his mother's mole. A teeny hair had recently begun to sprout out from it.

"You want to become big and strong, huh, Peter? Peter? C'mon." She jiggled Peter's chin. His hair fell into his eyes like bangs. "Right, Peter? You don't want to become all scrawny and pale like that sculptor down the street, right? The one who lives all alone and owns that mangy dog, right? Peter!"

Peter shuffled in place, annoyed by the nail marks his mother had left in his face. "Yes...um, no, Mom."

She patted his bony back. "Good. Now go outside."

At this time, Peter habitually hiccuped and returned to his room.

As Peter aged, his mother obviously aged, too. But she seemed better preserved, like a well-kept antique toy who would never forget its one trick. From the second that Peter reached puberty, his mother did not change. When Peter trudged through the front door with his backpack slung on one shoulder and a paint-splattered smock on the other, she repeated the same words everyday:

"You're never going to get a girlfriend this way, Peter."

He altered his response everyday, just for variety. One day, for example, he muttered, "Maybe I don't want one, Mom." He stroked the pencil in his pocket with his hitchhiker's thumb. It squeaked softly beneath his nail.

"Trust me, you do. One day you'll find someone incredible and marry her and have children with her and--oh! Just..trust me, Peter. A paintbrush cannot compare to a girlfriend."

"You're right," Peter hissed, "The paintbrush's more interesting."

"Peter!" She stamped her foot against the floor. "You'll regret this later when you're the only one who doesn't go to your senior prom, or when you live your whole life alone!"

Peter shrugged his shoulders and headed upstairs to his room. Canvases and naked wooden sculptures awaited his arrival.

Fifty finished paintings, one wall mural, and countless illustrations later, Peter grinned at the thought of high school graduation. He had just returned with an appointment with his school counselor, who informed him that his GPA had just barely qualified him for a diploma in June.

"That's all I need to hear, Ms. Parks!" Peter exclaimed.

"But Peter--what about college? You can't qualify for an academic scholarship, but a fine arts scholarship might--"

"Thanks, Ms. Parks, but I don't need any more schooling. School is the one thing preventing me from creating as much as I know I can."

"But college will--"

"Don't try to convince me. I'm graduating--I'm getting out! That's all that matters. Then I can spend the rest of my life--"

"Flipping burgers, Peter. You need a degree to apply for artist grants and fellowships. How else will you support yourself as an artist?"

Peter scoffed and rolled his eyes, suddenly in a joking mood. "I don't know. Maybe I'll own a taco cart and sell my work from there. I could even work as a living statue or a caricature artist. Heck, I might become a puppeteer and tour the world!"

Ms. Parks tightened her fist. "Peter--"

"Thanks for your concern, Ms. Parks, but I have to go give my parents the good news." Then he hopped up from his chair, grabbed his backpack, and dashed home.

When he arrived, Peter went to the kitchen. His mother was bent over the sink, fishing spinach leaves out of the strainer.

"Mom!"

Ms. Parks grunted without turning to face her son.

"I'm graduating!"

"That's nice, dear," Ms. Parks muttered, "But what's the next step?"

Peter froze. "What do you mean? Isn't it enough that--"

"Peter, you're eighteen years old. If you go to the community college, earn good grades, transfer to a four-year school, and graduate with good grades, you'll get a good job. With a good job, you'll live sixty, maybe seventy more years. But if you don't do this, you'll live maybe twenty more before you end up so miserable and impoverished that--"

"Mom," Peter blurted, "You don't get it. That's not going to happen."

"Don't talk to me that way, Peter," his mother said. Her voice wavered. Her eyes gleamed with mixed sadness and anger. "I know exactly what's going to happen. You are going to enroll in the community college this summer."

"School just doesn't work for me, Mom. And if I ever want to be a working artist, I have to start now. I already have my portfolio. I just have to around and--"

"What? Show them your pretty pictures so they can criticize them? So they can ignore all the time and effort you put into them, Peter? So they can humiliate you?"

"Nobody. Will. Ever. Humiliate. Me."

Peter's mother swallowed and rubbed a mushy strip of spinach between her fingers. "You say that now, Peter. But you're still young."

"I may be young, but I know what I want." Peter opened up the fridge and picked up a jug of milk. Then he poured himself a glass, dumped in some chocolate powder, and stirred. His stirred slowly, pensively. Once the milk had achieved a rich, muddy shade of brown-purple, Peter stepped out onto the porch and sat on the swinging bench. The wooden planks quickly grew warm beneath him. The rest of the afternoon dissolved into memories.

***

Peter, thirty-eight-years old, pictured his Rubenesque mother, sipping her trademark cup of Early Grey in between lectures. Her cat-eye glasses sat at the very tip of her nose. Her rubbery lips flapped whenever she opened her mouth. All of her sweaters were some shade of green. When the image of a dark-haired Long Island housewife disappeared from Peter's head, he looked at the workbench before him. His latest creation laid bent over backwards, dangling from the workbench. It squinted at him through thick glasses.

"You're done now, you know," Peter said. "You're about to make your debut. Just--" Peter glanced up at the black wall clock ticking a few seconds behind. "One hour from now."

Peter snatched up the puppet and tossed it into his trunk with the rest of his big-headed creation. Their wooden bodies rattled like the sound of bones in a coffin. Peter skipped to his car, swinging his trunk back and forth along the way. He threw the trunk down in the backseat and then shoved his puppet booth beside it. Whistling, he strolled to the front seat, speeding off almost without thinking about where he was going. The prospect of another performance, another display of his beautiful puppets, seemed to momentarily snatch the address from his mind.

When he parked, the rusty red Jeep lurched forward so that Peter bounced against the steering wheel. He burped, tasted some guacamole in his throat, and patted his chest. Kicking open the door, Peter jumped out into the university lot. He looked around, wondering if his car looked amiss among the clean Sedans and Jaguars. But the question quickly dissolved from his mind when he yanked out his booth. Suddenly he could only focus on voices, plots, and puppet blocking.

Twenty minutes later, Peter had set up his whole world on the carpet of an elementary education classroom. Half a dozen curious children sat on the floor before him, whispering like snakes in the grass. They poked each other with stubby fingers and nabbed each other's toys. A row of college students, most looking excruciatingly bored, occupied chairs behind the children. A sixty-year-old woman wearing a serene expression stood at the front of the room with Peter. She pushed up her glasses before introducing Peter to the group. The college students muttered, 'Good afternoon.' The children, in contrast, clapped their hands and shrieked with joy.

"Hi, everybody," Peter said, "I'm happy to be here. I, um, have three stories for you today, all of them I wrote myself. One of them is new, so you're, er, really the first audience to see it. I hope you guys like it." Peter rolled his weight from one foot to another and scratched his neck for a moment. "Anyway, I'm going to stay afterwards, too, so you kids can ask me anything you want about the puppets. Then, like Ms. Hirsch said, you're going to the library. And, for the grown-ups, I'll stay here so you can ask me questions, too. So, um, let's get started."

Peter darted behind the booth and fumbled with the puppet that resembled his mother. He smoothed down its hair and skirt. The puppet stared back at him.

"Stop that," Peter mumbled.

Then he thrust the puppet through the red curtains on his little black booth.

"This, children," Peter exclaimed in a falsetto voice, "is the 'Tale of the Caged Bird,' a new story that takes place in a city much like this one. Once upon a time--"

Suddenly the classroom door burst open, banging against a laughing whale poster on the wall.

"Once upon a time, there lived a contrary boy named Peter Henderson who threw away his future!" The puppeteer's mother boomed, "He turned down the chance to go to college, even when his parents agreed to pay his tuition in full. He swore to make a living as an artist and that nobody--no one on earth--would ever humiliate him."

Peter squeezed shut his eyes and gripped the puppet tightly in his fist. His knuckles whitened.

"He might fool you," Peter's mother continued, "But I know the truth. He lives in someone else's garage in Southside. He dumpster-dives for pizza every day of the week because he earns less than most fifteen-year-olds do working at burger joints. He's never been married--never even had a girlfriend. What does he do all day? Paint. He spends all day painting puppets to put on childish little shows in no-name venues for audiences that forget all about it two seconds later. This man could've been a lawyer, a doctor, an account. Instead, he's a failure, a loser, a--"

At that, Peter dropped the puppet.

"I am not a loser!" he bellowed.

The puppet hit the booth at the center of its neck, lopping off its round head. The decapitated puppet slammed against the floor and shattered into several pieces. The pieces eventually landed, lying there pitifully. The fall rendered twenty hours of Peter's life meaningless. The puppeteer bit his lip, suppressing an anguished scream, and held his face. Tears welled up in his eyes.

Not a second later, the room broke out into gasps and shouts from everyone but Peter, whose gaze remained on the broken puppet. Children pointed and excitedly asked, "What?" and "How?" One, a blond boy who was small for his age, began to cry in terror. One of the college girls yelped and fainted. Two of the other students squatted, fanning her with their hands and calling her name over and over. Panic overtook every molecule in the air.

One of the college students sprung up and called, "Somebody get help!"

"I'll do it," another student replied. A plaid-wearing young man started dialing 911.

Finally, Peter looked up. He knew nobody in the room could feel as distraught as he. That's when he realized his mother had stopped speaking. Peter eyed the doorway, where his mother no longer stood. Instead, her body had broken into dozens of shards and landed in a giant heap on the multi-colored carpet. Her spectacles had jetted off a few feet away from her remains, staying completely in tact.

Peter chuckled softly to himself. He drew his fingers up to his wrist and pinched himself until the tiny flab of skin purpled. Despite the soundtrack for chaos playing throughout the room, Peter unlocked his trunk and pulled out another puppet. He chose a wooden cut-out of a dove. Feathers and white sequins decorated its luminous surface. Grasping the dove by the tips of its feathery wings, Peter made it dance across the miniature stage. He cooed sweetly, the way his mother had cooed to Peter before he first picked up a crayon.