("Tyger, tyger, burning bright," his mother sings to him, for this is her idea of a lullabye, along with "I heard a fly buzz... when I died," which gives 'Bama Chambers a terrible case of the creeps, although he never tells her; he lies in bed sometimes at night and sometimes during afternoon naptime thinking! will hear a fly and it will be my deathfly, my heart will stop and my tongue will fall down my throat like a stone down a well and these are the memories he denies)
It is good to have a secret name and ivhen he finds out mother is going to Montreal for the sake of art and father is going to Vegas to help present the Network's new shows at the Up-fronts he begs his mother to ask Mrs. Greta Shaw to stay with him and finally his mother gives in.
Little Jakie knoivs Mrs. Shaw is not mother and on more than one occasion Mrs. Greta Shaw herself has told him she is not mother
("I hope you know I'm not your mother, 'Bama, "she says, giving him a plate and on the plate is a peanut butter, bacon, and banana sandwich with the crusts cut off as only Greta Shaw knoivs how to cut them off, "because that is not in my job description"
(And Jakie-only he's 'Bama here, he's 'Bama between them-doesn't know exactly how to tell her he knows that, knows that, knows that, but he 'II make do with her until the real thing comes along or until he grows old enough to get over his fear of the Deathfly)
And Jakie says Don't worry, I'm okay, but he is still glad Mrs.
Shaw agrees to stay instead of the latest au pair who wears short skirts and is ahoays playing with her hair and her lipstick and doesn't care jackshit about him and doesn't know that in his secret heart he is
"Bama, and boy that little Daisy Mae
(which is what his father calls all the au pairs)
is stupid stupid stupid. Mrs. Shaw isn't stupid. Mrs. Shaw gives him a snack she sometimes calls Afternoon Tea or even High Tea, and no matter what it is-cottage cheese and fruit, a sandwich with the crusts cut off, custard and cake, leftover canapes from a cocktail party the night before-she sings the same little song when she lays it out: "A little snack that's far and wee, there's some for you and some for me, blackberry jam and blackberry tea."
There is a TV is his room, and every day while his folks are gone he takes his after-school snack in there and ivatches watches watches and he hears her radio in the kitchen, always the oldies, always WCBS, and sometimes he hears her, hears Mrs. Greta Shaw singing along with the Four Seasons Wanda Jackson Lee "Yah-Yah" Dorsey, and sometimes he pretends his folks die in a plane crash and she somehow does become his mother and she calls him poor little lad and poor little lost tyke and then by virtue of some magical transformation she loves him instead of just taking care of him, loves him loves him loves him the way he loves her, she's his mother (or maybe his wife, he is unclear about the difference between the two), but she calls him 'Bama instead ofsugarlove
(his real mother)
or hotshot
(his father)
and although he knows the idea is stupid, thinking about it in bed is fun, thinking about it beats the penis-piss out of thinking about the Deathfly that would come and buzz over his corpse when he died with his tongue down his throat like a stone down a well. In the afternoon when he gets home from nursie-school (by the time he's old enough to know it's actually nursery school he will be out of it) he watches Million Dollar Movie in his room. On Million Dollar Movie they show exactly the same movie at exactly the same time-four o'clock-every day for a week. The week before his parents went away and Mrs. Greta Shaw stayed the night instead of going home
(O what bliss, for Mrs. Greta Shaw negates Discordia, can you say amen)
there was music from two directions every day, there were the oldies in the kitchen
(WCBS can you say God-bomb)
and on the TV James Cagney is strutting in a derby and singing about Harrigan-H-A-double R-I, Harrigan, that's me! Also the one about being a real live nephew of my Uncle Sam.
Then it's a new week, the week his folks are gone, and a new movie, and the first time he sees it it scares the living breathing shit out of him. This movie is called The Lost Continent, and it 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 movie as that one. Because it's about explorers who get lost in the jungle, see, and there are dinosaurs in the jungle, and at four years of age he didn't realize the dinosaurs were nothing but f**king CARTOONS, no different from Tweety and Sylvester and Popeye the Sailor Man, uck-uckuck, cany a say Wimpy, can you give me Olive Oyl. The first dinosaur he sees is a triceratops that comes blundering out of the jungle, and the girl explorer