What I Loved

small notebook I kept on my desk. Mark paid me from the earnings he made as a cashier at a bakery in the Village. Bill walked him to work every morning, and at five o'clock Violet picked him up. Every day she asked his boss how Mark was doing, and the response was always the same. "He's doing fine. He's a good kid." Mr. Viscuso must have pitied Mark for having such an over-protective mother. Other than his family, me, and his coworkers, the only person Mark saw was Lisa. She came to visit him two or three times a week, often carrying a book under her arm for Mark to read. Violet told me that these volumes usually came from the pop-psychology shelves of local bookstores and were filled with prescriptions for "inner peace" that included exhortations to the reader such as "Learn to love yourself first" and "Fight the underground beliefs that keep you from being your best, happiest self." Lisa had signed on to the cause of Mark's reformation, and she spent many hours with him explaining the path to enlightenment. According to Violet, when Mark wasn't working, eating, or communing with Lisa about the tranquillity of his soul, he was sleeping. "That's all he does," she said, "sleep."
    In late August, Bill flew to Tokyo to prepare for a show of the doors. Violet stayed home with Mark. At nine o'clock on the Thursday morning after Bill left, Violet came downstairs to my apartment wearing her bathrobe. "Mark's gone," she said as she walked into the kitchen. She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table with me.
    "He left through the window, took the fire escape to the roof, and then walked down the stairs to the front door. I thought the roof door was locked, but when I checked this morning, I found it open. I think he's been doing it all along, but usually he comes back before morning. He sleeps and sleeps because he's exhausted from being out all night. I never would've known," she said quietly, "but the phone rang at around two o'clock last night. I don't know who it was. Some girl. She wouldn't tell me her name, but she asked me if I knew where Mark was, and I said he was sleeping and I wouldn't wake him. She said, 'The hell he is. I just saw him.' There was a lot of noise in the background, probably a club. Then she said that she wanted to help me out. 'You're his mother,' she said. 'You ought to know.' It's funny, I didn't say I wasn't his mother. I just listened. Then she said she had to tell me something." Violet took a big breath and sipped the coffee. "It might not be true, but the girl said that Mark is with Teddy Giles every night. She said, 'The She-Monster's out of its cave,' but I didn't know what she was talking about. I tried to interrupt her, but she just rushed on, saying that Giles had bought a boy in Mexico."
    "Bought?" I said.
    "That's what she said, that the boy's parents sold him to Giles for a few hundred dollars and that after that, the boy fell in love with Giles, that Giles dressed him up as a girl and took him everywhere for a while. Her story was pretty confused, but she said that one night they had a fight and Giles cut off the boy's little finger. Giles then took the boy to an emergency room and had the finger sewn back on, but not long after that, the kid, Rafael, disappeared. She said that there are rumors going around that Giles murdered him and threw his body into the East River. 'He's a maniac,' she said. 'And he's got his claws in your kid. I just thought you oughta know.' Those were her exact words. Then she hung up."
    "Have you told Bill?"
    "I've tried. I left messages at his hotel, but not urgent ones. What's the poor guy going to do from Tokyo?" Violet looked thoughtful. "The problem is, I'm afraid."
    "Well, if any of this is remotely true, you have reason to be. Giles is a frightening person."
    Violet opened her mouth as if to speak, but then she closed it. She nodded and turned her head away from me, and I admired her neck and profile. She's still beautiful, I thought, maybe more beautiful now that she's older. She and her face have a new harmony that didn't used to be there when she was young.
    Mark showed up at his mother's house the following Sunday. According to Bill and Violet, he insisted that he had never left the house before, declared the story about Rafael "total B.S." and explained that he had run off to see some friends because he had been "bored." A week later, he was back at his mother's house, going to school. Every Friday, either Bill or Violet picked