I'm in control tonight. My girlfriend, Gwen, it's her night out. Dinner and play, that's me, then the times for bath and bed. Her baby is all mine.

Her baby is half mine. His eyes are Gwen's shape, the high slant of a last drop of Cherokee blood, but the color is all mine, a blue that's true, shoots green, speckles hazel or hazes grey according to the light and my shirt and spirits.

Gwen's big night out involves a computer class, offered by the regional tech school, classes held at the night empty highschool, paid for by her company. As she explains, not really at all wanting to be gone an evening a week, "If they're willing to pay for me to educate myself into a better job elsewhere, who am I to complain?"

The evening begins as a tribute to nothing special, a few hours of catch. Sammy is several months shy of a year, on his first tottering steps away from the dependability of being a baby. Thus, dinner is a surprisingly no-fuss affair; no battles, little mess. He's not terribly enthusiastic about the whole business, but caught on he stoically chews away, learning early that the matter of eating is as much habit as it is drive. Pleasure melts so fast in the face of repetition it's best not to be overjoyed at every occasion. However, I am pleased, as I aim for speed. While I clean up and he behaves in his chair, I decide to do something special.

I add to us both sweatshirts and shoes, then we're out the door and I'm wheeling him slowly down our walk. I watch the way he watches, thinking he must be thinking about the two times before he's gone for dark walks. Before we get to the sidewalk, Sammy's flailing his arms and squawking, banging his feet on the footrest. Then he adopts his night patrol stance, sitting way up, gripping the padded front bar with hands and chin, staring and grinning.

We're having indian summer and it is quite nice out, passing under the dusty orange of the streetlights, crunching through all the fallen leaves, our world grown brittle and brisk, the air thick with that crackly dead smell. It's all the same old streets--however altered by light--but I take us on a different configuration, a route that should be not quite an hour, a shortcut built in if needed. By the final dogleg home, skirting away from the park, he's settled flung back lying down. I stop and reach down, stroking his cheeks while bubbling some nonsense. Sammy giggles and it's just as funny the second time, then I scoop him up sitting at the bar. He bangs his feet to get us going again. After the excitement's faded, he lies back down and I stop again, repeating the procedure. All the long last block home, the game's only variation is how evermore quickly Sammy throws himself back, smile already breaking. We're still two houses shy of ours when I can't get back up to the handle before it's time to tickle again. I concede, and push the victor in his chariot home, reminding myself to remember to tell Gwen about the game.

I let Sammy unwind crawling and cruising around while I relish the first half of a cold beer. Then I make him a warm opaque bottle and we take it upstairs of the night, deciding to skip the bath.

I have him strapped to the changing table, in a clean diaper and half undressed, and the phone rings. I've come to hate the obligation of a ringing phone, but usually I still surrender to its charms. The times I snarl fuck off and ignore it, I do feel heroic and alive. Hurriedly I detach my son from the table, pick him up and stumble into the dark junk room where we keep the upstairs phone. In a last rush I grapple the receiver to my head, Sammy with fistfuls of curly cord.

I hear a sound distinctly that of several pieces of silverware, aluminumware, dropped from low sent clattering on a formica topped kitchen table.

A low raspy beyond-the-grave style voice informs me, "The bird . . . flies south . . . by northeast."

There, standing in a dark room basically alone in a big old house, my spine does give a little shimmy, whipping away a shake of my shoulders. Very little, of course, because the crypticism is so bogus, a line picked up from some stupid movie on t.v. Nothing supernatural is going on, I'm simply speaking to some creep who thinks he's clever.

"Really? is that so? Well, thanks a whole lot for letting me know. Now I understand."

Just a mutter, in a voice normal with disappointment, the guy sighs, "Yea, okay."

I feel so guilty for not having screamed or jabbered whoisthis? whatdoyouwant? whyareyoucallingme? that I just have to hang up.

In the hour I have before Gwen gets back, I savor a second beer while sinking into the sofa, kicking myself for having been so slow on the draw.

-- No it doesn't.

-- Hey, sounds like a party to me.

-- Oooh, your voice is so-o scary, but you know what? it's also kind of sexy. Anyone ever tell you that?

+ + +

Just days back I picked up another evening ring and there was this kid immediately on the line with some wild exotic accent like Persian or Tibetan, asking for me or Gwen by our full names. Upon my retelling, Gwen said it was just a kid's sort of funny voice disguise. But she didn't hear it. I remain enamored of the wise-child-of-the-East hypothesis.

After I identified which one I was, the voice then dashed mile a minute, and really it was a minute or so before I caught a word of it, and then what it was was that she's telling me that yes, I'm a winner! What I'd won were three free Jess' pizzas, a local brand frozen and found in all the groceries.

She paused long enough for me to try and figure out what the hell was going on, but too quickly for me to snag a conclusion. "So, would you like to take this order?" she emphatically asked.

Would you like to take this order? I finally spoke. I said, "Wha-at?"

She replied rather primly, "Oh. You really don't understand, do you?" And with that, she hung up.

And still, in any grand sense, no, I really don't understand.