Richard Riggins had a little red robot that made his bed each morning and put his shoes in neat rows in the bedroom closet. He also had a chimpanzee that played ping-pong with him in the basement. Richard and the monkey liked the same programs on television, and whenever Richard laughed the chimp would bounce up and down, clap his hands, and expose his big yellow teeth.
Richard had received the chimpanzee from his father, who was an astronaut and had traveled all over outer space in a rocket. Because his father was so busy, he did not live with Richard and his mother. He would, though, sometimes come for a visit, arriving on each occasion in a helicopter that he piloted and landed in the parking lot of the Mormon church across the street from Richard’s house. Besides his work as an astronaut, Richard’s father was also a famous scientist. He was a strong and handsome man with a fine singing voice.
Richard’s mother refused to acknowledge any of these things about the man who had fathered her child and had once been her husband. To Richard’s consternation she also refused to acknowledge the existence of the robot and the monkey. All of these subjects, in fact, only seemed to make her even more unhappy, and she would often yell at Richard and slap him until he cowered or fled to his bedroom.
Things didn’t get much easier for Richard Riggins when he went to school at Thomas Edison Elementary. He was shy and small for his age. He had bright red hair that his mother cut with an old sewing scissors, and his clothes were ill-fitting and infrequently laundered. The other children picked on him and said things about his mother, who was known to make scenes at the Piggly Wiggly and had written checks that were taped to the wall behind the cash register at the Walgreen’s drug store.
Richard didn’t dare tell any of his classmates or teachers about his father or his robot or his monkey. His mother had warned him that he wasn’t to mention any of these things to anyone.
At night Richard would often sit at his bedroom window in the dark, staring out across the neighborhood of small, low houses. Far in the distance he could see the town’s water tower and the big sign above the 24-hour Conoco station near the highway. For some reason the water tower and the light of the sign made him think of his father. He was determined that the next time he spoke with him he would ask his father to give him a talking bird for Christmas.
Richard’s father would call late at night. Richard would have to tip-toe through the living room where his mother was usually asleep in front of the television. Sometimes one of her cigarettes would still be smoldering in the ashtray next to the recliner, and Richard would quietly stub it out before proceeding to the kitchen to answer the phone. The ringing never seemed to wake his mother.
His father’s voice always sounded like it was coming from someplace far, far away, almost as if he were calling from his rocketship. Richard liked to imagine his father in his space suit, turning cartwheels in the air as he chatted with his son on the telephone. His father would ask him about school, and when Richard told him that he was having a hard time his father would say, “It’s ok. Things will get better.” They would talk about the monkey and the robot, and Richard’s father would laugh at the stories he told.
One night after it had snowed all day Richard’s father called him from a tropical island where he was on a deep sea diving expedition. Richard told him that he wanted a talking bird for Christmas and his father had been silent for a moment.
“I think I might have just the bird for you,” he said. “The one potential problem is that it speaks only French, and you will have to teach it to speak English.”
Richard’s father asked him what words he would teach the bird, and Richard had answered without hesitation. “I will teach him,” he said, “to say ‘I love you.’”
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