“Harry, time to come in, dinner is ready.”
“Wait a minute, mommy, I’m still playing.”
“You can finish playing after you eat, besides it’s getting dark.”
Reluctantly, Harry, who was sitting on the lawn in the Magnuson’s yard with his back to the house, stood. Still facing the back fence he gave instructions to his four imaginary friends — Ray Ray, Z-Bone, Mackey and Lloyd, to meet him in his room to continue their activities after he finished his supper
Harry’s mother, Charlene could hear Harry promise to bring his friends food. Feeling a cold wind starting up, Charlene said, “Hurry now, Harry, it’s getting cold and you don’t have your sweatshirt.”
Charlene was easily frustrated by her precocious six-year-old son who, she often stated, “marched to the beat of his own drummer.” In response, her husband, Arthur, would add, “One with a crazy beat.” Every boy has an imaginary friend, Arthur would note, but our kid has four.
Harry finalized his instructions to the four then whirled around and ran into the house, his arms chugging up and down like the sprinters he’d seen on TV. He sped past his mother and skidded to a halt at the kitchen table where the Magnuson’s maid, Bertha, was putting a casserole on the table. Harry immediately saw that it was topped with broccoli and cheese and wondered how he’d manage to eat any of it. But then Bertha placed a large plate of chicken breasts next to the casserole and a bowl of mixed salad next to that. Harry’s mood brightened.
“Smells good, very good,” Arthur pronounced as he entered the kitchen. Arthur ruffled Harry’s hair before sitting down.
“How you doin’ son? No big greeting for your dear ole dad?”
“I’m fine, daddy. Did you make us a lot of money today?”
Arthur, who was an investment banker in New York, laughed and said, “well, sonny boy, I made money for some other people, I hope so anyway, and that’ll make money for me.”
“You mean us!”
“
"Of course I do,” Arthur responded with great cheer.
Charlene entered the kitchen having popped into the dining room to mix herself another cocktail. It was 6:15 and this was her fourth drink of the day. Noting the drink, Arthur frowned but said nothing knowing that doing so would likely lead to another argument. Charlene had taken to drinking regularly since a recent miscarriage.
“What were you up to today, Harry?” Arthur asked his son.
“Ray Ray, Z-Bone, Mackey, Lloyd and I were pretty busy. There were a bunch of mean pirates in the area stealing stuff and we had to fight them. It was kinna tough because Lloyd has a cold and Z-Bone misses his sister Lulu Belle who moved to Neverland with Peter Pan. Plus Ray-Ray hurt his hand yesterday when we were fighting the men in black hats.”
“So that’s three of your buddies, who’s the other one?” Arthur asked showing a genuine interest.
“Mackey!” Harry exclaimed as if it should be obvious. “Mackey’s fine. But ya know he’s a negro and is worried about the sickle rights.”
Charlene corrected her son, “civil rights, Harry, not sickle.”
Harry nodded to indicate he understood while chewing his chicken methodically.
Recently Harry had provided his parents with detailed descriptions of his four friends. Ray-Ray was short, dark-haired and mischievous. Z-Bone was quiet but the best fighter. Mackey was older than the rest, muscular and a negro. Lloyd was the brains of the group, bespectacled, slender and blonde. Harry claimed to like all four of them equally and said that they were all fiercely loyal to him. Harry and his four friends would hold long conversations in his bedroom or would play various games in the Magnuson’s backyard. They often pretended to be pirates or Vikings or “good cowboys in the old western times.”
Charlene told Harry to “eat some of the casserole Bertha made and salad too, they’re delicious.”
“How do you know, mommy, you haven’t eaten anything yet.”
Harry was blunt and honest which could variously be endearing and infuriating as when he told Bertha, who’d been their maid since Charlene was pregnant with Harry, that she was “fat.” Charlene and Arthur had been aghast and had admonished Harry and apologized to Bertha who, nonplussed, waved off their concerns. “He’s got truth as a defense,” she said.
It was quite true that Charlene hadn’t touched her food focused instead on her cocktail.
Arthur was both glad and mortified at his son’s observation. He hated having “scenes” with Charlene but hoped Harry’s comment would cause his wife to think about her drinking.
After a long desperate silence Charlene told her son, “I’m going to start eating just as soon as I finish this drink.”
Harry listened idly as his parents engaged in one of their typical dinner-time conversations. Not a word of it interested him in the least and much made no sense to him. He detected a bit of strain in his mother’s voice as if it required a huge effort to talk to her husband. The young boy also noted the hopefulness in his father’s voice. His dad sounded like was trying to convince his wife — but mostly himself — that everything was not merely okay, but grand.
Meanwhile Bertha emptied the dishwasher to make room for the dinner dishes, then cleaned the stove top. It was Friday night so Bertha would be staying well past her usual departure time of 6:30 as she didn’t come in on weekends. Bertha put in five-day weeks from 10:30 to 6:30, except Fridays which were her noon to 8:00 days.
Bertha was avuncular and warm, affectionate with Harry and much more like a member of the family than a servant. She worried about Charlene’s drinking and often discussed it with her husband Ralph, a maintenance man for the local school district. Ralph always told her to stay out of it.
The Magnuson’s lived in Darien, Connecticut, an hour’s commute from Arthur’s office in New York City. For two years after college Charlene Magnuson (nee Baker) worked as a graphic designer for an advertising firm. But she quit after getting married. Besides a well-paying job, Arthur brought to the marriage a large chunk of the vast Magnuson fortune, made in the diary industry but seeded decades before by Bert Magnuson’s success as a bootlegger during prohibition.
After making token efforts at eating the casserole and salad, Harry asked if he could be excused. He wanted to play with his friends until it was time to watch 77 Sunset Strip. After that was over, his parents, unless, it was night that they were going out or having friends over, would watch Burke’s Law. Harry always pleaded with his parents to let him watch it too, but they insisted he be in bed by 8:30.
Arthur gave his son permission to leave the table. On his way out he politely thanked Bertha “for another wonderful dinner” and gave her a hug. Even though it was a nightly ritual insisted upon by his parents, Bertha found it charming and kissed Harry on the top of his head.
On his way out of the kitchen Harry observed that his mother had finally managed to eat a few bites. What he didn’t know was that she would soon be making herself another cocktail and would eat no more that day. She would be plastered by 9:00 leaving Arthur depressed and angry. Until, that is, she stripped to her panties and bra and seduced him. Drunk or not Arthur found it impossible to resist his beautiful wife’s sexual advances. It made Arthur sad that when sober Charlene showed little interest in sex, only going through the motions.
So as he sat next to his sotted wife on the living room sofa staring blankly at the TV, consoling himself in the knowledge that he was virtually guaranteed a good screw that night.
After watching 77 Sunset Strip with his parents, Harry was led to bed by his dad who supervised his son putting on his pajamas and brushing his teeth. Harry positively reveled in brushing his teeth, though not for any reason he could possibly articulate.
Once tucked in and left alone in his bedroom, Harry chatted amiably with his four friends who he envisioned being in sleeping bags. After wishing each a good night the young boy stared out his window and gazed at the bright moon which was illuminating the many large clouds that were moving about. Harry tried to picture witches flying in front of the moon on broomsticks. Halloween was in two weeks and he was looking forward to donning the pirate costume his mother had already purchased for him.
His thoughts then wandered to President Kennedy, a man both his parents were enamored of. Harry reasoned that the president must be the smartest man in the world, or at least the country. Harry figured that there had to be smart people in most every country in the world but wondered if the very smartest were in the United States. He’d seen pictures of and heard his parents talk about the previous president, who Harry thought was named Eyes-in-hour. Neither he nor the man Nixon who’d been his vice president and ran against Kennedy in the presidential election, seemed to be terribly bright. Harry could tell by looking at them. Plus they were from the Republic Can party which Harry thought was a silly name.
Eventually Harry’s eyes grew heavy and his mind started to see pictures. He realized that sleep was going to overcome him. He wanted to hold it off for a bit so he could keep on thinking about stuff, but it was impossible.
Harry slept deeply that night and didn’t hear his parents argue. He didn’t hear his mother slap his father when he said he was fed up with her drinking and how disgustingly drunk she got. He didn’t hear her tearful apology nor did he hear her — by way of apology — pull off her clothes. And he didn’t hear them making love or their loud orgasms or the repeat performance thirty minutes later.
Harry did not hear his mom emerge from the bedroom a little past midnight, walk downstairs to the living room and sob uncontrollably for ten minutes.
The next day was Saturday and Harry veritably flew out of bed happily greeting his four friends — all already awake — rushed into the bathroom to pee then made a bee line to the kitchen for a bowl of corn flakes after which he hopped on the sofa to watch cartoons.
Harry had been watching cartoons for over an hour when his father entered the living room still in his pajamas.
“Whatchya watching, sonny boy?”
“Bugs Bunny, he’s my favorite.” Harry thought it a silly question since all his dad had to do was look at the TV screen to know what he was watching.
“Looks like ole Elmer Fudd is still trying to catch Bugs,” Arthur said seriously.
“And he’s never gonna. Bugs is too smart, right dad?”
“That’s right, son,” Arthur assured his son, then tousled the young boy’s hair.
It was another ninety minutes before Charlene emerged from the bedroom. Arthur had already showered, shaved, fried eggs and bacon and read much of the morning paper before she came into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee.
Harry had finally grown weary of watching cartoons and was in the backyard instructing his four friends as they prepared for the men in black hats to attack their fortress. Indeed he was having a particularly fun morning letting his imagination run wild, inventing new scenarios for him and his imaginary friends. These included the bad men recruiting dinosaurs and assorted monsters and ghosts to — unsuccessfully, of course — attack their fortress. By the time he was called in for lunch, the attackers had been vanquished though at the cost of a broken arm for Ray-Ray and a black eye to Lloyd.
Harry joined his parents at the kitchen table for tuna sandwiches and a macaroni salad. He had two tall glasses of milk with his meal.
After lunch Harry and his parents got into their station wagon and drove to the hospital to visit Harry’s Great Aunt Heloise who’d had an operation the day before. Harry loved his great aunt who always had candy for him, but it was no fun visiting her in the hospital where she was laying in a bed and didn't have any candy to give him.
From the hospital they went to the grocery market. It was a successful trip for Harry who was able to persuade his parents to buy Neapolitan ice cream, his favorite.
When they got home Arthur watched the Wide World of Sports and Charlene mixed her first drink of the day. Arthur went in his room and talked to his four imaginary friends while drawing in his coloring book.
One month later President Kennedy was assassinated. Two months later Harry got a puppy for Christmas. Six months later Charlene quit drinking and started attending AA meetings. Nine months later Harry’s baby sister Jenna was born. Twelve years later Harry was a freshman at Harvard.
Twenty years later Harry’s first novel, The Golden Promise, was published. It’s four main characters were named Ray Ray, Z-Bone, Mackey and Lloyd. It went on to be a best seller and was subsequently made into a movie.
