What Night Brings (Working Classics), page 14
Corin was sitting next to me. She held her doll tight to her chest. Mom came over and sat next to us.
“Mira, you two don’t live here. You live at our house. Now go get your sweaters so we can go.”
“We’re not going,” I said, like I was my own boss, even though having Uncle Tommy there was the only reason I could be that way.
Eddie’s fingers curled in and out as he looked at me.
“What did I just say to you back home? Now go get your sweaters like your mom asked you before I show you what’s good for you.”
“I already told you we’re not going.” I wasn’t backing down.
“Then that’s it,” Uncle Tommy said. “The kids are staying here.”
Eddie glanced at Auntie Arlene who came back to the couch with a glass full of wine. He turned toward Uncle Tommy.
“The hell they are! These kids are going home with me and that’s final.” He made a move to grab Corin.
Uncle Tommy blocked Eddie with his chest. “No, they’re not. They ain’t going anywhere.” Uncle Tommy’s hands were balled up into fists. His chest was big and puffed up like Popeye’s after he ate spinach. Uncle Tommy was bigger than Eddie and Eddie knew it.
“Well, well, well,” Eddie sneered. “So my queer little brother thinks he can kick his big brother’s ass, huh?” He folded his arms up like it would be nothing to beat him up. “Now I sure as hell know that no queer can kick nobody’s ass. Just because you got a few extra muscles don’t mean shit. Because a queer with muscles—is still a queer.” He looked over at Auntie Arlene but spoke to Mom. “Ain’t that right, Delia?”
“Who you calling queer?!” Uncle Tommy was really mad and pushed his chest against Eddie’s.
Auntie Arlene gripped the couch—her eyes were wide like a scared rabbit.
“Eddie, cállate!” It was Mom talking. “Stop being so hateful. Why don’t you get the girls’ sweaters so we can go.”
Eddie didn’t even look at her.
“Well, it seems to me, that if the queer shoe fits, then the queer,” he paused to look around the room, “should wear it.” He started laughing.
Uncle Tommy slammed his fist into Eddie’s face. I saw my dad knocked down in one punch. Mom went over to help him, but he threw his arm out to push her away.
“Get away,” he said as he pulled himself up. “I can take care of myself.” He got up slowly, and turned to face his brother.
Auntie Arlene had a funny face now, like she was eating something awful. I didn’t know what queer meant, but I could tell it was bad.
“Hijo, Tommy. Guess that was a sore spot, no?” Eddie asked as he rubbed his chin. He started laughing again. “Tell you what,” he poked his finger into Uncle Tommy’s arm. “I’m going to let you keep them for the night. No problem. Delia will come by to get them in the morning. If it’s that important for you to knock the shit out of your brother over the girls spending the night, well then, go ahead. Take ’em.” He flung his hands like he was throwing us away, then moved toward the door. “Let’s go, Delia.”
My mom picked up her purse.
Eddie opened the door, stopped, and turned around. “Yeah, it must be pretty damn important for you to hit your brother over his kids sleeping over. Unless,” he looked at my Uncle, then at my Aunt, “it’s something else.” He walked out the door laughing.
“I’ll be by in the morning,” Mom said, looking at me and Corin, as she followed Eddie out. “Be ready by a quarter to eight.”
She shut the door and was gone. Uncle Tommy was still breathing hard. Auntie Arlene got up and walked over to him.
“Nice guy.” She reached out and softly touched his face. “I’m going to bed. G’night kids.”
“Good night,” we said together.
“Uncle Tommy, what’s queer mean?” Corin asked.
“Quiet, Corin,” I corrected her. “It’s not a nice word. Don’t worry,” I said, looking at Uncle Tommy. “Eddie’s mean. You just can’t listen to him or he’ll get you.”
Uncle Tommy cocked his head a little to the side and looked at me. “Oh, I know all about your dad.” Then, suddenly, his face smoothed out and he pretended like nothing happened. “Okay, kids. Let’s put you guys to bed.”
My hand was killing me. Corin said her eye was hurting, too. Uncle Tommy gave us some ice packs and a half aspirin each. He laid us down on each end of the couch. I guess the aspirin worked because I slept pretty good. At eight the next day, Mom came. Uncle Tommy walked us out to the car and told Mom to take us to a doctor. Then he said if we ever needed him, to come over, or call, and he’d be there to get us.
“They won’t need to do that anymore,” Mom said to Uncle Tommy.
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“I had a talk with Eddie last night, y pienso que the girls won’t need to be coming over here again.” She opened the car door and we each got in. Uncle Tommy looked at us through the window.
“Oh yeah? Eddie say he was going to stop hitting them?” He leaned on the open window. “Look, Delia, both you and I know Eddie’s got his charm, but he can be a real son-of-a-bitch. And a man who hits his kids isn’t really going to change. At least not in my book.”
“Mira, Eddie’s not as bad as you say. Es muy cariñoso. He’s good to these kids most of the time. He just needs to watch his temper. Y, last night, he said he lost his temper. But we talked, and he said he won’t hit ’em again.”
“It’s a lie!” I cried out from the back seat.
“Come on, Delia, you know he has said that before.” Uncle Tommy looked over at Corin with her closed up purple eye. “How much more are you going to let these kids get beat up? Is he gonna have to kill one of them to make you listen?”
Mom started the car. She looked hard at Uncle Tommy and pointed her finger as she talked. “He said he’s going to stop and I believe him!” She put the car in gear, gunned the motor and sped away. I looked out the back window. Uncle Tommy was standing there with his hands in his pockets. He stood there until we drove out of sight.
* * *
I think I figured something out. I mean about this word, queer. As far as I know, it means being different. I don’t know how it means something bad. But I know if Eddie is calling Uncle Tommy queer, then it probably is. I could tell by how Eddie said it. Plus, Eddie wouldn’t have said it unless he wanted to make Uncle Tommy mad, which he did. I’ve never seen Uncle Tommy so mad. It felt good to see him knock Eddie down with one punch. That’s what I’d like to do someday, but you already know that and I’m getting off the track. I decided to look up queer in the dictionary. I didn’t have one, but the library did. This is what it said:
“Queer: adj [origin unknown] 1 a: differing in some odd way from what is usual or normal b: (1) eccentric, unconventional (2) mildly insane: touched c: obsessed, hipped d: slang: sexually deviate: homosexual 2 a: slang: worthless, counterfeit [~ money] b: questionable, suspicious 3: not quite well: Queasy; syn see strange—queer-ish / adj—queer-ly adv—queer-ness n.”
I sat in the library a long time. Why did Eddie call Uncle Tommy queer? It could be for lots of reasons, but none of the ones in the definition seemed like they fit Uncle Tommy. The number one thing Miss Buck says to pay attention to in the dictionary is the first definition. Then after that, you can go to the second or third if the word has one.
I started thinking about all the things Uncle Tommy does. He lifts weights, but lots of men lift weights and there’s nothing queer about that. He goes swimming, but tons of people swim, and it’s just exercise like my mom used to do to Jack LaLane before she started working. He drinks wine, but look how much wine Auntie Arlene drinks, and Eddie didn’t call her a queer. He goes to church, but practically everyone I know goes to church except my mom and dad. Eddie says Uncle Tommy’s a holy roller; someone who goes to church a lot. Does going to church make you queer? The nuns go to church every day, and they for sure seem queer, especially that Mother Superior. The priests go to church, and they seem different, but they sort of are the church, so I don’t know if that counts.
Maybe the queer word and church go together, but I’m not sure how. There was the time I saw Uncle Tommy in the same confessional booth with Father Chacón. That seemed kind of queer. Why were they in there and what were they doing? If they were just talking, they could have found a corner or sat in a pew. It seemed weird, plus, it didn’t look like Father Chacón was hearing a confession, either. And why did he pray at the altar when he walked out? I need to think like a scientist. Better yet: a detective.
I took a piece of paper and wrote the word queer. Then I wrote down all the things I’ve been thinking about, plus a little more.
Queer:
the church
too much of the church = holy roller
holy roller = queer?
queer nuns = Mother Superior
queer priests = Father Chacón
queer people = Miss Beauchamp
Uncle Tommy called a holy roller
Uncle Tommy called a queer
Father Chacón acting queer
Uncle Tommy and Father Chacón in the same confessional booth = queer.
Uncle Tommy hitting Eddie hard when he called him a queer
Queer = something bad.
Too much church makes you queer, or
You’re already queer and that’s why you go to church.
The church is queer.
If the church is queer, then God must be queer.
Hmm. It seemed that Uncle Tommy did something bad or too much with the church and that’s why he’s queer. So what could he’ve done? The only thing I could figure out is that Uncle Tommy shouldn’t have been in the same confessional booth with Father Chacón. If Father Chacón is queer because he’s a priest, then he might of done something to make Uncle Tommy queer.
Or, could it be that Uncle Tommy likes Father Chacón?
I went back to two words in the definition that I didn’t know: “eccentric” and “homosexual.” I looked both of these up.
The first word, eccentric, means “not having the same center or deviating from some established pattern or from conventional or accepted usage or conduct.” I didn’t totally understand this, but it sounded a lot like the first definition. The second word, homosexual, means “of, relating to, or exhibiting sexual desire toward a member of one’s own sex.”
That could be it! I walked back to my study table and pulled out my list again. If Uncle Tommy and Father Chacón liked each other, then that could be why Eddie called Uncle Tommy a queer. But, I don’t know. Father Chacón is a priest, and priests aren’t supposed to get married or have girlfriends. They’re supposed to be like God, so this means they have to be holy and they can’t kiss anyone. Uncle Tommy is a macho and he’s married to Auntie Arlene, so it doesn’t seem like he would like Father Chacón. The more I thought about it, the more mixed up I got. Auntie Arlene and Uncle Tommy don’t have kids and they’ve been married a long time, and they’re Catholic. Auntie Arlene drinks lots and lots of wine. I don’t know why, or if it has anything to do with this queer stuff, but it just seems like it could be evidence or something. And remember when I was in confession with Father Chacón and told him I liked girls and he didn’t even care? And remember I thought it was because he thought I was a boy? Well, maybe he knew I wasn’t. If he knew I was a girl and I said I liked girls, then can you see why he didn’t care?
So if being in the church makes you a homosexual queer, or a man loving a man, or lady loving a lady makes you a homosexual queer, then this must be what I am. I’m a girl. I like Raquel. That makes me a girl liking a girl, which is a homosexual queer. And since I like God, Baby Jesus, and Mary, and they’re the church, then I must be a double homosexual queer. I looked over at Miss Buck who was whispering something to a lady. She saw me looking at her and smiled. But then what happens if I want to be a boy. Does that make me a triple?
* * *
If your dad throws spaghetti against the wall, two things can happen: 1) it can stain the walls, which it did, and 2) you don’t eat it again. Nothing else changes when you throw food against walls, at least not in our house. If you thought it might, then you’d be thinking like me, and not like my mom. I think she’s got something deep inside that keeps her wanting to stay with Eddie, some kind of claw that keeps hold of her. He can tell lies and she’ll believe him. He can do anything and she’ll forgive him. I love Mom, more than anything. But after what Eddie did to us the last time, I don’t know if she loves us the same way she loves him.
Me and Corin stayed home from school a whole week to let my hand get better and her eye go down. We stayed with Mrs. Torres who said she didn’t mind, especially after she saw Corin’s eye. She asked Mom what happened, and if she took us to the doctor. Mom said we fell off the gate in the back yard and that, yes, she did.
“Why did you lie?” I asked her later.
“Qué dices? What are you talking about?” She was cleaning the bathroom sink, something she did every morning before she left for work. Eddie left around seven so I asked her without him being around.
“I said, why did you tell Mrs. Torres we fell off the gate and that you took us to the doctor?”
She kept wiping the rag around the sink. I stood next to her, my eyes following her hands. She didn’t answer.
“You know, Mrs. Torres always says, ‘I may be stupid, but I wasn’t born yesterday.’” I tried to catch Mom’s brown eye. “I know she knows what Eddie did to us.”
Mom stopped.
“Y qué? Did you tell her? Did you? Did you tell her so she can talk about it to todas las vecinas? Huh? Did you?” She threw the rag down hard into the sink.
I turned to walk out of the bathroom.
“Marci, you better answer me.”
“And if I don’t? What are you going to do, hit me, too?”
“Dígame!” She put both hands on her hips. “Did you tell her?”
I don’t ever remember seeing her so mad.
“No, I didn’t tell her, so you can keep telling everyone your lies.” I started to walk out the door, then faced her. “It’s not like people don’t know. But, if she asks, I’m gonna tell.”
Mrs. Torres never did. She watched TV all morning. At twelve she fixed us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Then she watched more TV. Around two o’clock she started cooking and cleaning. At three o’clock cartoons came on and she let us watch those.
It seemed that everyone wanted to believe my mom. No one said anything when she said we fell off the gate, even Tía Leti and she knows about Eddie’s temper. So me and Corin decided to write Grandma Flor a letter. We wrote the letter while Randy’s mom watched her soap operas. This is what it said:
September 19, 1967
Dear Grandma Flor,
Hi. How are you? Fine, we hope. Me and Corin are writing you because we want you to know what’s been going on at our house. Our dad, who we now call Eddie because we disowned him, is still really mean. Eddie is living with us again because our mom took him back, even though he never gave us any money while he was gone and had a girlfriend named Wanda, too. While Eddie was gone, Mom learned how to drive and got a job at Woolworth’s. We didn’t think she would take him back, but she did. Why? Who knows.
Eddie is mean. He hits us a lot, and then he lies to Mom about it. The other day he threw a pot of spaghetti against the wall that I was cooking for supper, and then hit us so hard I got a broken hand and Corin got a black eye that swelled up till it closed. Eddie keeps lying to Mom, saying it’s me and Corin that’s fighting and not him who’s hitting us. Nobody believes Eddie (except our mom), including Uncle Tommy who got in a fight with him and knocked him down with one punch!
We want to know if you can come and help us. If you can’t come here to help us, please tell us what to do. Okay?
Thank you grandma. We will be waiting for your answer.
Love,
Marci and Corin
P.S.
Don’t tell Mom we sent you this letter.
We found a stamp in Mom’s bills box and Grandma’s address on the back of one of her birthday card envelopes that we always saved. We mailed it on Tuesday and got a letter back right away. This is what it said:
September 26, 1967
Mijitas,
I feel bad for you. I have to be here for Tio Fonso porque he is sick. He had un heart attack—not to bad. He is fillin mejor. I think he gonna be fine. I am sending you money to take the bus to come hear and stay with me. Your mama is too crazy over your daddy and she no gonna leave him. So come hear and be with your gramma Flor and your Tio. Tell your Tia Leti or Uncle Tommy to show you how to catch the bus. I give you my phone number so you can call me when you get hear. I will come and get you. 555-525-7764
Love,
Gramma Flor
PS
Mijitas, go stay with your uncle if your daddy gets mean again. I don’t want you sticking around putting up with his shit.
In the envelope were two twenty dollar bills. We took Grandma Flor’s letter and the money and hid them both between Corin’s mattresses, way in the back where Mom wouldn’t find them.
“What are we gonna do?” Corin asked. We were sitting on the bed talking low, just in case Eddie or Mom came home early from work.
“I don’t know, I don’t want to go to Grandma Flor’s unless we have to.”
“Eddie ain’t gonna change.”
“I know, but I wish Mom would see what he’s really like, so she can come with us.”
“She won’t.”
“I know.” I let out a big breath of air, then went over to my drawer and took out the knife that Grandma had given me. It was four inches long and about an inch wide. It was a pretty knife, silver and black with a piece of turquoise in the middle. “Corin,” I said flipping open the knife. “Let’s make Eddie change. Let’s show him that we’re not gonna take anymore shit from him.”
“Like how?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but we can think of something.” I looked at her and she looked at the knife. Then I smiled real big.
* * *
We did want to kill Eddie, if that’s what you were thinking. God says not to kill, but it sure is hard to obey him with a father like Eddie. I wonder if God gave Moses those Ten Commandments for people who were in tough places like me and Corin, or were they just regular rules that he had to write to keep everybody in line? Who knows? Even though Sister ’Lizabeth seems to think she knows what God is thinking, I don’t think she really does. I think she makes up most of what she says about God, just to keep me believing in him. Either that or she thinks I’m really dumb.
