The World According to Garp

"Why don't we all go to the wrestling room, as long as we're downtown?" Duncan said. He was increasingly logical, but Garp said no, he didn't want to wrestle today. "Why not?" Duncan wanted to know.

"Because he's got his running stuff on, dummy," Walt said.

"Oh, shut up, Walt," Duncan said. They more or less fought on the bus, until Garp told them they couldn't. Walt was sick, Garp reasoned, and fighting was bad for his cold.

"I'm not sick," Walt said.

"Yes, you are," Garp said.

"Yes, you are," Duncan teased.

"Shut up, Duncan," Garp said.

"Boy, you're in a great mood," Duncan said, and Garp wanted to kiss him; Garp wished to assure Duncan that he wasn't really in a bad mood, but kissing embarrassed Duncan, so Garp kissed Walt instead.

"Dad!" Walt complained. "You're all wet and sweaty."

"Because he's got his running stuff on, dummy," Duncan said.

"He called me a dummy," Walt told Garp.

"I heard him," Garp said.

"I'm not a dummy," Walt said.

"Yes, you are," Duncan said.

"Shut up, both of you," Garp said.

"Dad's in a great mood, isn't he, Walt?" Duncan asked his brother.

"Sure is," Walt said, and they decided to tease their father, instead of fight among themselves, until the bus deposited them--a few blocks from the house in the increasing rain. They were a soggy threesome when they were still a block from home, and a car that had been going too fast slowed suddenly beside them; the window was rolled down, after a struggle, and in the steamy interior Garp saw the frazzled, glistening face of Mrs. Ralph. She grinned at them.

"You seen Ralph?" she asked Duncan.

"Nope," Duncan said.

"The moron doesn't know enough to come out of the rain," she said. "I guess you don't, either," she said sweetly, to Garp; she was still grinning and Garp tried to smile back at her, but he couldn't think of anything to say. He must have had poor control of his expression, he suspected, because Mrs. Ralph wouldn't usually pass up the opportunity to go on teasing him in the rain. Yet, instead, she looked suddenly shocked by Garp's ghastly smile; she rolled her window back up.

"See ya," she called, and drove off. Slowly.

"See ya," Garp mumbled after her; he admired the woman but he was thinking that maybe even this horror would eventually come to pass: that he would see Mrs. Ralph.

In the house he gave Walt a hot bath, slipping into the tub with him--an excuse, which he often took, to wrestle with that little body. Duncan was too big for Garp to fit in the tub with him anymore.

"What's for supper?" Duncan called upstairs.

Garp realized he had forgotten supper.

"I forgot supper," Garp called.

"You forgot?" Walt asked him, but Garp dunked Walt in the tub, and tickled him, and Walt fought back and forgot about the issue.

"You forgot supper?" Duncan hollered from downstairs.

Garp decided he was not going to get out of the tub. He kept adding more hot water; the steam was good for Walt's lungs, he believed. He would try to keep the child in the tub with him as long as Walt was content to play.

They were still in the bath together when Helen got home.