The Night Listener : A Novel

South back then, grownups always called you son.”
    “Even if they weren’t your parents?”
    I chuckled. “Especially if they weren’t your parents. Did that bother you?”
    “No. I liked it.” He waited a moment, then asked: “Could I call you Dad sometimes?”
    I was so embarrassed that all I could manage was flippancy. “As opposed to Dicksmoker, you mean?”
    Pete remained thoroughly serious. “I’d really like to.”
    “Okay, then…sure. Whatever.”
    “I’ve never called anybody that.”
    “Not even…” I censored myself, wary of opening that door.
    “The sperm donor?”
    I laughed nervously. “Is that what you call him?”
    “Why not? That’s all he ever did. Why should I have a name for him when he never called me anything?”
    “What do you mean?” My flesh was crawling for reasons I couldn’t quite pinpoint.
    “He never used my name,” Pete explained. “And neither did…you know, his wife. Sometimes their customers called me Little Boy Blue, but those two never called me anything. Just ‘Hey, you’ and shit like that. I didn’t even know my name until I went to school and the teacher read it out during roll call. I couldn’t believe it when Mom started using it.” I was thrown for a moment. “Oh…Donna, you mean?”
    “Yeah. It was like I’d just been born, like she was the only mother I ever had.”
    “She was, Pete. She is.”
    “I know. Shit, man, I know that better than…” He couldn’t finish this thought because of a coughing jag, one that grew in ferocity until it unnerved me. Then came a shrill wheezing sound, a noise I’d never heard him make. This is it, I thought. And I’ll be the only witness.
    “Pete, is your mom there? Or somebody who can—”
    “It’s okay,” he gasped.
    “Maybe you should ring—”
    “No. I wanna be with you.”
    “I know, Pete, but—”
    “I’m okay, now. See?”
    His breathing had improved, but it was still labored, so I asked again where Donna was.
    “Down the hall. I asked her for privacy.”
    “Don’t you think you should—”
    “No. I’m fine. There’s a button here if it gets bad.”
    “But how do you know if—”
    “I know, okay? I’ve been livin’ with this shit.”
    “Well, catch your breath, then.”
    “Okay.”
    He didn’t talk for a while, but I could still hear his tortured breathing. Finally he said: “I don’t want you to go yet.”
    “I’m not going anywhere.”
    “Are you still holding me?”
    “Sure.”
    “You know what I’d like?”
    “What?”
    “If we could do this for real.”
    I wasn’t sure what to say. Pete had always been too straight with me to be humored like a child, and I didn’t want to promise him something I couldn’t deliver. On the other hand, if this was a last request…
    “Actually,” I said, “your mom did say something about her chili.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah. When you’re feeling better.”
    “You mean, like…coming to Wysong?”
    “That’s what it sounded like.”
    “It’s kind of a suckhole, you know.”
    I laughed. “I wouldn’t be coming for the antique auto museum.” Pete giggled. “How’d you know about that?”
    “Your mom told me.”
    “It’s the boringest place in the world, but there’s a pretty decent lake down the road. We could go fishing together.” A ludicrous image formed in my head: Andy and Opie with their fishing poles, whistling their way down that country road. Pete was as much a fantasist as I was, but how could I begrudge him that?
    “Great,” I said. “But why don’t we just walk around the lake?”
    “You don’t like fishing?”
    “Not really.”
    “Why not?”
    “I’ve never been persuaded they don’t feel pain.” I expected a teasing retort, but it never came. “I kinda know what you mean,” he said.
    “Good. It’s a date, then.”
    “Cool.”
    “But you gotta stick around for it.”
    “I hear you,” he said.
    “You think you could get some sleep now?”
    “Could you tell me a story first?”
    “A story?”
    “Don’t gimme any shit, okay?”
    I wasn’t about to do that. It was painfully clear that Pete was claiming one of the missing rituals of his childhood while there was still time to do it.
    “What sort of story?” I asked.
    “Like one on the radio.”
    “Those are all written in advance, sport.”
    “So write me one now.”
    “I wish it were that simple. I spend days working on a page sometimes. And lately I haven’t even done that.”
    “Yeah. They’ve all