(his real mother)

or hotshot

(his father)

and although he knows the idea isstupid, thinking about it in bed is fun, thinking about it beats the penis-pissout of thinking about the Deathfly that would come and buzz over his corpsewhen he died with his tongue down his throat like a stone down a well. In theafternoon when he gets home from nursie-school (by the time he’s old enough toknow it’s actually nursery school he will be out of it) he watchesMillion Dollar Movie in his room. On Million Dollar Movie they showexactly the same movie at exactly the same time—four o’clock—everyday for a week. The week before his parents went away and Mrs. Greta Shawstayed the night instead of going home

(O what bliss, for Mrs. Greta Shawnegates Discordia, can you say amen)

there was music from two directionsevery day, there were the oldies in the kitchen

(WCBS can you say God-bomb)

and on the TV James Cagney is struttingin a derby and singing about Harrigan—H–A–doubleR–I, Harrigan, that’s me! Also the one about being a real live nephewof my Uncle Sam.

Then it’s a new week, the week his folksare gone, and a new movie, and the first time he sees it it scares the livingbreathing shit out of him. This movie is called The Lost Continent, andit stars Mr. Cesar Romero, and when Jake sees it again (at the advanced age often) he will wonder how he could ever have been afraid of such a stupid movieas that one. Because it’s about explorers who get lost in the jungle, see, andthere are dinosaurs in the jungle, and at four years of age he didn’trealize the dinosaurs were nothing but fucking CARTOONS, no differentfrom Tweety and Sylvester and Popeye the Sailor Man, uck-uckuck, can ya sayWimpy, can you give me Olive Oyl. The first dinosaur he sees is a triceratopsthat comes blundering out of the jungle, and the girl explorer

(Bodacious ta-tas, his father wouldundoubtedly have said, it’s what his father always says about what Jake’smother calls A Certain Type Of Girl)

screams her lungs out, and Jake would screamtoo if he could but his chest is locked down with terror, o here is Discordiaincarnate! In the monster’s eyes he sees the utter nothing that means the endof everything, for pleading won’t work with such a monster and screaming won’twork with such a monster, it’s too dumb, all screaming does is attract themonster’s attention, and does, it turns toward the Daisy Mae with thebodacious ta-tas and then it charges the Daisy Mae with the bodaciousta-tas, and in the kitchen (the mighty kitchen) he hears the Tokens, gone fromthe charts but not from our hearts, they are singing about the jungle, thepeaceful jungle, and here in front of the little boy’s huge horrified eyes is ajungle which is anything but peaceful, and it’s not a lion but a lumbering thingthat looks sort of like a rhinoceros only bigger, and it has a kind of bonecollar around its neck, and later Jake will find out you call this kind ofmonster a triceratops, but for now it is nameless, which makes it evenworse, nameless is worse. “Wimeweh,” sing the Tokens, “Weee-ummm-a-weh,” and ofcourse Cesar Romero shoots the monster just before it can tear the girl withthe bodacious ta-tas limb from limb, which is good at the time, but that nightthe monster comes back, the triceratops comes back, it’s in his closet,because even at four he understands that sometimes his closet isn’t his closet,that its door can open on different places where there are worse thingswaiting.

He begins to scream, at night he canscream, and Mrs. Greta Shaw comes into the room. She sits on the edge of hisbed, her face ghostly with blue-gray beautymud, and she asks him what’s wrong‘Bama and he is actually able to tell her. He could never have told his fatheror mother, had one of them been there to begin with, which they of coursearen’t, but he can tell Mrs. Shaw because while she isn’t a lot differentfrom the other help—the au pairs babysitters child mindersschool-walkers—she is a little different, enough to put hisdrawings on the fridge with the little magnets, enough to make all thedifference, to hold up the tower of a silly little boy’s sanity, sayhallelujah, say found not lost, say amen.

She listens to everything he has to say,nodding, and makes him say tri-CER-a-TOPS until finally he gets it right.Getting it right is better. And then she says, “Those things were real once,but they died out a hundred million years ago, ‘Bama. Maybe even more. Nowdon’t bother me any more because I need my sleep.”

Jake watches The Lost Continent onMillion Dollar Movie every day that week. Every time he watches it, itscares him a little less. Once, Mrs. Greta Shaw comes in and watches part of itwith him. She brings him his snack, a big bowl of Hawaiian Fluff (also one forherself) and sings him her wonderful little song: “A little snack that’s farand wee, there’s some for you and some for me, blackberry jam and blackberrytea.” There are no blackberries in Hawaiian Fluff, of course, and they have thelast of the Welch’s Grape Juice to go with it instead of tea, but Mrs. GretaShaw says it is the thought that counts. She has taught him to sayRooty-tooty-salutie before they drink, and to clink glasses. Jake thinksthat’s the absolute coolest, the cat’s ass.

Pretty soon the dinosaurs come. ‘Bamaand Mrs. Greta Shaw sit side by side, eating Hawaiian Fluff and watching as abig one (Mrs. Greta Shaw says you call that kind a Tyrannasorbet Wrecks) eatsthe bad explorer. “Cartoon dinosaurs,” Mrs. Greta Shaw sniffs. “Wouldn’t youthink they could do better than that.” As far as Jake is concerned, this is themost brilliant piece of film criticism he has ever heard in his life. Brilliantand useful.

Eventually his parents come back.Top Hat enjoys a week’s run on Million Dollar Movie and littleJakie’s night terrors are never mentioned. Eventually he forgets his fear ofthe triceratops and the Tyrannasorbet.

Seven

Now, lying in the high green grass andpeering into the misty clearing from between the leaves of a fern, Jakediscovered that some things you never forgot.

Mind the mind-trap, Jochabim hadsaid, and looking down at the lumbering dinosaur—a cartoon triceratops ina real jungle like an imaginary toad in a real garden—Jake realized thatthis was it. This was the mind-trap. The triceratops wasn’t real no matter howfearsomely it might roar, no matter that Jake could actually smell it—therank vegetation rotting in the soft folds where its stubby legs met itsstomach, the shit caked to its vast armor-plated rear end, the endless cuddrooling between its tusk-edged jaws—and hear its panting breath. It couldn’tbe real, it was a cartoon, for God’s sake!

And yet he knew it was real enough to killhim. If he went down there, the cartoon triceratops would tear him apart justas it would have torn apart the Daisy Mae with the bodacious ta-tas if CesarRomero hadn’t appeared in time to put a bullet into the thing’s One VulnerableSpot with his big-game hunter’s rifle. Jake had gotten rid of the hand that hadtried to monkey with his motor controls—had slammed all those doors sohard he’d chopped off the hand’s intruding fingers, for all he knew—butthis was different. He could not close his eyes and just walk by; that was areal monster his traitor mind had created, and it could really tear him apart.

There was no Cesar Romero here to keep itfrom happening. No Roland, either.

There were only the low men, running hisbacktrail and getting closer all the time.

As if to emphasize this point, Oy lookedback the way they’d come and barked once, piercingly loud.

The triceratops heard and roared inresponse. Jake expected Oy to shrink against him at that mighty sound, but Oycontinued to look back over Jake’s shoulder. It was the low men Oy wasworried about, not the triceratops below them or the Tyrannasorbet Wrecks thatmight come next, or—