10

Long ago, when he’d been small enough to fit neatly under his mother’s arm as she read to him before bedtime (and sometimes she read to him in the middle of the day, for no reason at all), she’d read him a tale about a baby who had been born under a cabbage leaf. Left there by the fairies, the baby had been picked up, nourished, and cared for by an old couple with no children of their own. When this cabbage leaf baby became a man, he was good and noble and did all sorts of good and noble things.

At times, Fex liked to think that he too had been born under a cabbage leaf. It seemed to him a quaint and original way to come into the world. Never mind the tiny bracelet made of blue beads, reading “O’Toole,” which his mother assured him had once fitted around his wrist as he lay in the hospital nursery—placed there by diligent nurses so he wouldn’t get mixed up and go home with the wrong family.

Never mind the birth certificate stating that one Francis Xavier O’Toole, sex male, had been born on June 27 at 1:50 P.M. That struck him as odd. He’d always understood that babies arrived in the middle of the night. But there it was: 1:50 P.M. The sun had been shining brightly, his mother said, on the day he was born. People were going to the movies at 1:50 P.M. Or coming back from lunch. Or standing up in English class trying to remember the poem they were supposed to have memorized the night before.

There was a picture on his father’s dresser of Pete, aged three and a bit, and an ancient girl cousin, at least ten years old, holding him, Fex, a wizened, wrinkled baby, up for the camera’s inspection—holding him as if he were a bomb that might go off at any minute. Passing him back and forth between them as if he were a football.

No cabbage, leaf baby ever got that kind of treatment.

He didn’t look like anyone. Not his mother, who was fair with blue eyes. People were always saying Jerry looked like her. When he heard that, Fex pushed down the terrible pangs of jealousy he felt. He longed for someone to say that he, Fex, looked like his mother. Was, in fact, the image of her. No one ever did.

And he certainly didn’t resemble his father, who looked rather like pictures Fex had seen of Abraham Lincoln. Fex thought his father was cool looking. He wished he looked like him. And he didn’t even look like his brothers. Not Jerry the violinist with the face of innocence and sweetness that made him the old ladies’ darling. And not Pete, who was tall for his age, good-looking and filled with aggressive self-confidence. Pete had curly brown hair and had never wondered for a moment where he was going, who he was. Things would most likely turn out the way he’d planned them for the simple reason that Pete wouldn’t have it any other way. People like Pete had a head start on life, Fex figured. Pete was off and running before he, Fex, had even warmed up.

They had never been friends, he and Pete. Sometimes Fex thought they weren’t really brothers at all. Weren’t even related to each other. That’s when he pulled the cabbage leaf theory out and examined it. Suppose those little blue beads that spelled out his name were lying. Suppose in the night someone had sneaked into the hospital nursery and switched the bracelets and he was really someone else. Stranger things have happened. All you had to do was read the newspapers and you’d know that.

If I could pick my family, Fex thought, I’d keep my mother and father, and I’d trade in Pete. Maybe for Audrey. And keep Jerry, of course. Even with his practicing, I’d hang on to Jerry.

These were the things he sometimes thought about. Along with lots of other things. But when he was about to dip into sleep, thoughts swirled through his head that he couldn’t always remember the next day. It infuriated him, especially when he knew they’d been exciting or original ideas or mind pictures which, if he could only bring them back into focus, might be worth keeping. Once, for instance, he’d slipped over the edge of sleep just as he saw himself, perfectly clearly, dressed in a red uniform with brass buttons and a steel helmet that glinted in the sun. People were lined up on either side as he rode his magnificent black stallion into town. Girls threw rose petals in his path, and shouts of “O’Toole! O’Toole!” rang in his ears. That had definitely been worth pursuing.

Suddenly, unbidden, lines from one of his father’s favorite poems, one he sometimes recited, came to Fex’s mind.

“I am the master of my fate,” the poem went, “I am the captain of my soul.” He thought about that. The captain of my soul. That would be nice—to be the captain of your own soul. He wondered how a person managed that. For one thing, if he wanted to achieve it, he’d have to give up on the double-dare stuff.

When had it started? Why? He thought back to the first time. He’d been five. They’d been in the five-and-ten shopping for stuff the day before Easter. The store was crowded with people buying candy and baskets and straw hats. Out of the blue, Pete had dared him to walk down the center aisle of the store on his hands. He’d just learned how to walk on his hands and was very proud of himself. He’d done pretty well, falling down only when he got to the notions counter. He remembered the look on his mother’s face as she turned to see what all the noise, the applause, the commotion was about. Even the manager of the store had joined in on the applause. It was a wonderful moment.

“Little showoff,” Pete had muttered. That had been the beginning. Fex couldn’t let go. He liked to make people laugh. He felt important. From then on, Fex was hooked. Kids found out and double-dared him to do crazy things, dangerous things. Once he’d jumped off the jungle gym at school when a kid dared him, and he’d broken his collarbone. Another time when he was about eight, a gang of kids had been down by the river. It was March, and the ice that had formed during the cold winter was thin. They had thought they could see fish swimming underneath. A kid had said, “Double-dare you, Fex, to walk on that ice,” and, not even thinking, he’d started across to the other side. The ice was green and gray, and it creaked under his feet. He’d almost made it. Then the ice had given way with a kind of creaking sigh, throwing him into water so cold he couldn’t even cry out. The kids standing there on the shore, watching him, were scared. A couple of them ran away. But luck was with him. A man in a truck heard the others hollering for help, and he stopped and ran down to the riverbank carrying a large, stout rope from his truck. Fex caught the rope on the first try, and the man hauled him to safety.

That should’ve cured him. But no. He let his father think he’d fallen in by accident. From his mother’s face, he was sure she knew the truth. She tried to talk to him, asked him why he let himself be used by other kids.

“Please, Fex,” she begged, sitting on the edge of his bunk. “Promise me you won’t do any of that daredevil stuff. Promise me. I worry about you.” But, no matter how hard she begged, he never really promised her because he knew he’d break that promise. Sooner or later he’d break it.

His father got very angry with him. He lectured Fex a long time about growing up, taking responsibility (that word again) for his own actions. When the police had brought Fex home after the bike riding incident on the parkway, his father had been home, raking leaves. The policeman explained what had happened. His father was very polite, said thank you to the policeman. “Come inside,” he’d said then to Fex, his face tight, grim. “I want to talk to you.”

He’d paced back and forth in the living room. “You know you might have been killed, don’t you?” he’d said. His voice rose, gained strength and ferocity. “It was another of those dares, wasn’t it, that made you do that damn fool thing?” Fex had never seen him so angry. He’d nodded, too scared to speak.

His father lectured him for what seemed like hours. His mother cried a lot. But when her tears dried, she was just as angry as his father. Later she calmed down. “You promised me you wouldn’t do those things any more,” she’d said.

“I never promised, Mom,” he’d said. “I don’t know what makes me do those crazy dumb things. I try not to. But every time I do.” Then she kissed him, and he felt her cheek wet against his. He felt terrible, but that night he’d had a vivid dream. All his dreams were vivid, but this one took the cake. He was swinging on a trapeze without a net because someone had double-dared him. He looked down and heard the roar of the crowd, saw their faces turned up to watch him. When he started a spectacular triple somersault, they rose to their feet and screamed with excitement. He looked down and saw there was no net. Then he woke up. He never found out if he made it, but boy, it had been exciting!

The next morning his father had said, “I will say only one more thing on the subject and then we’ll let it rest.” Fex hoped that this was so but knew it wasn’t. Through tight lips, his father said, “Only fools accept dares to do things that might result in injury or death. Remember that the next time someone double-dares you, Fex. Remember that.”

And he’d tried. He really had tried.