Franky Furbo. William Wharton

right now, just before Christmas. And Billy will have another birthday, two days before Christmas. It won’t be long before we’re alone. It’s hard to think about.

      Kathleen and Matthew are both down in the mountains of Chile now. They seem to be happy together, and each is doing work they think is important. Kathy has become what she calls an anthropologist-archaeologist and is making studies of giant rocks and strange marks on the mountains down there. Matthew works on a computer and makes up programs for solving different problems in ecological procedures, the way I make up children’s stories. He says he can live anywhere he wants, and he likes living near Kathleen. I worry about them living such strange lives, but Caroline doesn’t seem concerned, and, after all, she’s the mother. I’ve been a pretty good father, but there’s no question: the center of our family has always been Caroline. She lives her life around them and they around her. Except for the Franky Furbo part of my life, I’m not very important.

      Camilla is living on one of the northern islands of Japan. She’s an oceanographer and is concerned about the whales and dolphins, their survival. She keeps trying to dissuade the Japanese from killing whales and dolphins for food. Boy, our kids sure have taken up crazy things for a living. It’s hard to believe it all started here in this little house.

      But then, I should talk; I’m probably the wackiest one around.

      Could be I’m actually not all here, a true loon, the way the army psychiatrists insisted. I do know I can’t get myself to stare over that edge to the black hole of existence or nonexistence without help. I really like to pretend, to make believe, to live inside stories, stories I hear or read or make up, even the stories I write for a living. Also, I’m a sucker for all the group fantasies man’s created – Christmas, Easter, Halloween, birthday celebrations. All those things buffer me, give me an illusion of continuity. I need something I can hold on to.

      Also, the entire Franky Furbo saga, and what I believe about him, is a part of my life, my reasons for living. I just can’t consider that he doesn’t exist, that I make him up myself. He means too much to me. The deep purples of despair surround me right now, and only because Billy said he didn’t believe in Franky. I don’t know how to handle it. I smell the smells of dirty feet, moldy sheep, feel the slippage of entropy. I’m not ready for this unwanted clarity of perception.

      After breakfast, Billy goes upstairs to the schoolroom. One of Caroline’s theories of teaching is that children must learn to teach themselves. She teaches them so they read with personal joy and pleasure, then gives them books that will interest them and at the same time instruct. After they’ve read the books – whether they be novels, biographies, algebra, chemistry, physics, geography, any subject – she’ll sit with them and discuss what they’ve read. When something is particularly difficult, she’ll explain or, better yet, help them explain it to themselves. I’ve sat in when she’s been teaching, and sometimes I just leave the door open from where I’m working, opening onto her classroom, and I always learn something I didn’t know.

      When we were at UCLA together, I knew she was an outstanding student, but I didn’t know how much more she was learning than I was. She loves to teach too, and our children love her as teacher almost as much as they love her as Mother.

      So, we’re left alone. I’m drying the dishes and stacking them in the closet. I’m waiting for her to say something about the terrible ending to the Franky Furbo story I told, but she’s holding back. It’s almost as if she’s thinking of something else and doesn’t want to be disturbed. I’m feeling terribly depressed and want to talk with her, but I don’t want to interfere with her thoughts. I find I’ve started whistling; it’s that damned six-pence song. That’s always a bad sign for me. Caroline notices and looks over. I stop. I need to talk.

      ‘All right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve made up that ending. It was a cruel thing to do.’

      ‘Yes it was. He’s getting too old for you to insist he believe in all those things; he’s growing up. I think he’s going along with Santa this year because he knows how much you enjoy it, but this will be his last year. Billy is a very nice person.’

      I know I’m supposed to feel bad here for what I did, and I do. I really do, with one part of me.

      ‘Caroline, I know I shouldn’t have made up that whole bit about the fire and Franky being killed and all that, but Billy hit me where it really hurts. He said he didn’t believe in Franky Furbo. I guess I was striking back.’

      ‘He was only being honest, William. You can’t punish him for that. He can’t go on forever believing in a fox who’s more intelligent than human beings, who can fly, who can make himself big or small, turn himself into a man or fox, can transmigrate his body from one place to another, transmute matter – all the rest. You can’t ask him to grow up believing something like that. It isn’t right. You should be proud he could come right out and tell you.’

      ‘Yes I know. But the trouble is, there really is a Franky Furbo. You know that. It can’t hurt him too much believing in something that really is, even if he can’t see him or know him himself, can it?’

      She looks at me, she looks into my eyes in that kind yet veiled way with which she can seem to see into my deepest parts.

      ‘William, we both know, in one way, there really is a Santa Claus too, but in the real world, there isn’t. You can’t ask Billy to live with you in your fantasies; it isn’t fair. The children need to know there’s a place where they can draw a line between what is and what isn’t, what can be and what can’t. It’s only natural.’

      ‘You’re not listening, Caroline. There really is a Franky Furbo. Let us not forget that. We’re not talking about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Little People now. We’re talking about Franky Furbo! If he isn’t true, then nothing is true.’

      Caroline looks at me again. In over thirty-five years, we haven’t talked much in this area. I think we’ve been afraid of it, what it means, could mean to our relationship, to the way we live.

      ‘You don’t really believe that, William. I know you like to play with thoughts, the nature of reality and all that kind of thinking, but this is serious. You know, deep down in your heart, there’s no Franky Furbo. There couldn’t be. It’s just too ridiculous.’

      I stare back at her. I could leave it here. We mean so much to each other and it all happened so long ago, but I can’t stop myself.

      ‘Caroline, you do know I had a Section Eight discharge from the army. I never lied to you about that now, did I?’

      ‘Of course, William dear; I know that. But it never mattered to me. I love you. I loved you then and I love you now.’

      ‘But when I told you about my Section Eight, I also told you about Franky Furbo. I told you all about it then, when we were at the university, just after we’d met at one of those Friday night dances and knew right away we were in love. I told you about it that night. I felt you were the first person I’d ever met I could tell about Franky who wouldn’t laugh or get scared or run away from me. It was the year I was released from the hospital back in Kentucky. This is true, isn’t it? You did believe me, didn’t you?’

      Caroline stares at me. She has the butter in her hand, ready to slide it into the refrigerator.

      ‘It was such a long time ago, William. Everything was mixed up after the war and you were so sad. And yet you had a fascinating way about your life, driving that impossible black, yellow and red cut-down jeep with the birdcages built into the back, living in a tent up there on a hill in Topanga Canyon. And then building your private nest in the attic of Moore Hall and living there.

      ‘I would have believed anything you told me; even if I didn’t believe, I’d have pretended I did. I wasn’t about to let you get away. I was so young. You can’t imagine what it is for a young girl when she meets someone like you and knows she’s in love – it’s a special kind of desperation.’

      ‘Then