Is that a demon? No, just a little boy

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

I have never seen him, the child who lives upstairs. I heard him for the first time the morning after we moved in. Elephant hooves awakened me at 6:45 a.m. I anticipated that the beast overhead would crash through the ceiling and fall in my lap. But apartment floors are apparently constructed of sturdy wood. Good thing. It is only a floor that separates us from him.

I have listened to him morning and night now for nearly six weeks. We have deduced, my daughter and I, that the small human who makes such ferocious sounds must be a two-year-old boy. No girl, and no one who isn't two, could be as tirelessly raucous.

He is taken somewhere during the day, so for long hours, between 8:30 and 6, there is no sound coming from upstairs at all. But before and after, all there is is sound.

Right now it is early evening and his voice is a note far to the left of middle C. He shrieks as he thumps on the floor. Shriek/thump, shriek/thump, shriek/thump. The child has rhythm, I'll give him that. I wonder what game he is playing. I wonder what his mother is doing. I wonder how she can stand the incessant noise.

There is only a mother, not a father. We hear her walk lightly sometimes, her steps whispers, and we hear her shower every morning. But most times we don't hear her at all. I wonder what she does all day, where she works, who minds her child, how she manages to make it through long days followed by noisy hours that seem interminable from a floor below.

The boy stops shrieking and begins to whoop. It is a gleeful sound, and tolerable when muted. But upstairs? I expect the mother to yell, "Stop it! Can't you be quiet? Can't you ever sit still?"

But the mother mustn't say anything because the whoops go on and on and on and are soon accompanied by a gallop. He is playing cowboy now. This one's easy to guess. He is riding his horse, chasing bad guys, or Indians, or herding cows, maybe, from kitchen to bedroom, back and forth, across the range. There's not enough room for a pony, never mind a horse. Not even enough room for a real run. And yet the child makes do. I find myself smiling.

It must be difficult to be a child in the city. Children and dogs are pulled and yanked, on a tether always. In the park on weekends, they wander a little but never out of sight, never free. Along the beach in Maine, children and dogs run with abandon. This child could do cartwheels there, be a fighter plane, a dinosaur, a marathon man. I can picture him. I see him in other children I've seen.

Cowboy ends. Hopscotch begins. Thump. Thump. THUMP. Thump. THUMP. Now there is the clicking of heels. Crisp. Light. Water runs. The child races toward the front of the apartment. Chairs scrape. Dishes clink. They are eating.

I sit below them feeling like Jimmy Stewart in "Rear Window," a peeping Tom, eavesdropping, imagining these strangers' lives. Five, ten minutes pass. I hear nothing. Then a bowl drops, it sounds like a bowl, not a plate, thick, not thin. It doesn't break. It rolls.

The child runs again, toward the back of the apartment. Hushed footsteps follow. I anticipate tears, but instead there is silence. I think both mother and son have fallen asleep.

But at 9, Chuckie's back, pounding on the floor, hot-footing it from bedroom to kitchen, from kitchen to bedroom, like a toy with diehard batteries.

Cowboy again. Hopscotch. And something I don't recognize. Something that sounds a bit like Let's Jump Off The Top Of The Refrigerator And See If We Can Break Through The Floor.

It is 10:30 p.m. He has been at this 4 1/2 hours. This is not unusual. This happens every night.

How can she stand it? When does she have time for herself, to read a newspaper, to talk on the phone, to relax? Is she doing all these things while he whoops and thumps and screams? Is she so patient that she doesn't need quiet time?

There is silence again, then floorboards creaking, and her tiptoeing out of a room.

Finally. Now maybe she can read. Or think. Or get ready for the next day. But no. He's up again. He's running toward her. He cries, "Mommy! Mommy!" And she takes him in bed with her, I know, because there is unbroken silence after this, sweet silence, until 7 1/2 hours later when it will all begin again