Guilt in the Pancakes

Daddy was seven when we met on the streets.

“How old are angels when they die?”

I’d asked Daddy a lot of questions before. “Why is the sky blue?”

He’d cleared his throat, readying that bass-low pitch. “The many seas of this flat world we live in be reflecting sunlight back, kiddo. So the blue of the seas mixed with sunlight makes the light blue that goes all over up above.”

My jaw had hung open. Jaw open, I awaited that thick chunk of pancakes hanging on my fork. Daddy’s answers to my questions came long before the 7-am pancakes and the surreal winter warmth behind windows.

Two full grown shadows moved nearby - Ma’am and Sir, who’d greeted the morning with strong voices, all sourced from an innocent question: “Where did you go when you couldn't sleep last night?” Sir didn’t like Ma’am’s tone. He disliked it more than they disliked my calling them “Ma’am” and “Sir.” If I recall correctly, Daddy had never answered my many questions like that.

“What pushes the cars around?” I’d asked Daddy as those moving metal things had wandered across my long stretch of home.

“Good one, kiddo. They have lots and lots of hamsters running in their hamster wheels deep inside all that metal. Then hamster wheels that go round and round get those big wheels spinning. And at those refueling stations, they load up those cars with energy drinks for those tired fur balls.”

I’d closed my eyes, imagined the cuteness at work, and smiled. Part of me had wanted to free them and give animal rights a win for the day, but all of me had run beside several cars instead, seeing if I could outmatch the hoards of tiny paws hustling. Hamster power won four out of five times. A little girl from the last one had locked eyes with me from her side of the window. Wheels and bare feet had matched in pace for a moment. And for that moment, I’d become a passenger, fooled by his own game of pretend.

I closed my eyes with two voices shaking up the dining room. No smile. I chewed my pancakes. And there was guilt. I walked in stealth, a plate of pancakes in my hands, leaving behind the bottle of maple syrup. I feared hearing the name they call me by - that “Mason.” I’ll forever be Muffin, forever his kiddo. I indulged in them in my room on his behalf, enduring their tasty sting. I could see his name on them, but there they were vanishing into where they didn’t belong, putting a big smile on my empty stomach. 

Saturday mornings were always reserved for walking Jello and watching cartoons, but this one had me in front of my bedroom mirror with a marker in hand.

“Where do the lights of the streetlights come from?” I asked, my eyes on the mirror.

I drew an imperfect mustache above my lips - not as perfect as Daddy’s work of art above his.

“You know those airplanes that fly high above, kiddo?” An imitation of Daddy’s croaky voice was bouncing back from the mirror. “They catch stars here and there with a special net. Then they plant these stars into these tall poles. And just like any of them stars, they light up only at night.”

I looked up to the ceiling to behold the starry night amid the Saturday morning. If I just close my eyes tightly enough, it will be just thirty minutes before Daddy’s bedtime story and an hour before we dreamed among street-starlights.

Then a rap on my door chucked the memory back into storage. Ma’am’s smiling face greeted me upon opening the door. Upon seeing the flattest and blackest facial hair I could ever carry, her eyes widened. “Ooh, I like myself a bit of pretend too! My sweet boy…”

That pause, that delay… it felt like an explanation for the disturbed morning peace belonged there. She opened her mouth again. “Got a syrup-stained plate for me to clean?” I nodded and handed it to Ma’am along with the knife and fork. 

There’s always that one question we reply with silence.

“How old are angels when they die?” I’d asked Daddy.

He’d stroked the inky mustache on his baby face, then shrugged.

“Come on, kiddo,” Daddy had finally said. “Tie all these umbrellas tightly, a’right? The rains are coming soon.”

Ma’am just stood there by my bedroom door, the used plate in her hand, facing down on the plate. Then, in a whisper… “I’m sorry, sweetie.”

“Don’t say sorry for being kind, kiddo,” I said to Ma’am, clambering to that deep voice. I remembered Daddy telling me just that. I’d once caught this bag with a strap that slipped from this lady’s shoulder. Then, with a gasp and a grunt, she’d yanked her bag and pulled away from me. I’d apologized out of the blue, but nothing had changed, except for the distance between us - growing.

Don’t forget the fence, Muffin, I’d thought right after. It’s a wall of doors from their side, but it’s a fence from ours, a fence for people like us.

Across the street, I’d seen Daddy, his arms crossed and face in disgust. A quick lecture had awaited me.

I walked to my bedroom mirror, and though I had my back turned, the glow of Ma’am’s smile pursued me before she disappeared behind the door.

“Why do you eat only the skin, Daddy?” I’d asked him, a naked apple in both my hands.

“Well, kiddo, my stomach disagrees with the pulp of them fruits somehow,” Daddy had replied. “And my aged blood wishes for the color on the apple skin.”

“Are you sure?”

 He’d nodded at me, a counterfeit smile above his hairless chin.

I’d asked why he ate only the crust and left the doughy rest for me. Apparently, the crust is well reserved for those fully grown men; it turns men’s bones into steel, even if a select few stand just four-feet tall.

Then I’d wondered how it was fair for me to have the body and tail while Daddy had kept for himself the fish’s head. Daddy’s ninety-ninth fun fact: the fish head is where the wise stuff comes from. And as the papa, he’d needed it more between the two of us. It seemed like an unfair distribution, with me on the losing end - I could have been the one with the answers and not just questions. But I had dared not to throw any argument.

I’d never thought that at the age of six, I could outweigh Daddy. He’d even joked about the nighttime wind blowing him away while we slept underneath the shade of leaves and twigs.

“Like a kite?” I’d asked.

He’d shaken his head. “Like those birdmen.” I’d thought hard, for I was sure there was a better word for it.

Grams, one of the old beggars within our block, had later received a generous handout from a passerby, the lines on her face rising. “May the angels bless you!” she’d said.

I’d returned home to our spot near the lamppost with a red X - painted by yours truly.

“How old are angels when they die?” I’d asked Daddy.

He probably hadn’t eaten enough fish heads then.

Then a blizzard had come. Anything the gales had hit had promised frostbite to the touch. My toes had curled. Bedtime stories could not cast me to sleep. More than one thing had ruled the night - piercing winds, shivers, and untamed snow.

Then Daddy’s sole jacket had wrapped my numb torso. Two bare arms had coiled around me, trembling.

I despised lacking the strength to contest, to reject his offer, and to return to sender.

In the morning, Daddy’s bare arms were as white as feathers. A hoverfly had encircled his head like a halo.

There’s always that one question we reply with silence. Maybe two.

I’d had one more question to ask, but he had to be awake for it. So, I’d waited. And waited... And waited…

Ma’am took me for a drive. Every time I rode with her or Sir, I listened closely for the squeaks of toiling hamsters somewhere near the wheels. There were none, no tiny cries for help. No need for a savior just yet.

The routes grew familiar, then strange, then sentimental. She brought me to where the cold had nearly marked my last night, where a red X had started fading. She said that she'd never given me a choice. Everyone assumes it’s a no brainer - choosing the indoors over the streets, choosing the imperfect over the cold. 

So, I walked back to her car, exhaled warmth on the window, and drew an X on its fogged glass.

Angels are eleven years old when they die. Then they go beyond the reflection of the seas and tend to the stars, the ones that have not been caught yet. Sometimes, they do so with facial hair as fake as a Relex timepiece. But some are lucky. Some live long enough to drive the likes of me back into a life undeserved, to cook a mere human boy pancakes till they sting no more.

Locked on the ever-changing view beyond the car window, I wondered. “From what bee hive do they get maple syrup, mom?”

No answer.

Checking the other side, I found her teary eyes lighting up and a smile daring to break out.

I looked out the car window again, eyes wide open. Was it something I said?