August and Then Some, page 13
“Inside this box, booby boy, is a magic rabbit.” He opened it and took it out. “Browning’s best. A magic wand that’s got a permit to let me legally kill the guy who goes near her when she leaves.” It was a small gun, whose handle got a little lost in his hand, but as he held it I could almost feel the weight of the metal that looked like a tarnished green under the bad light. “Fuck do I care though. Go ahead!” he yelled to the upstairs. “Leave!” He took another epic sip. “You know, the first time I saw your mother feeding you, you know … from herself, I thought, aah, there might be a God. Now …? Huh. Why do I always feel like I’m about to fall off a roof if there’s a God? Ah, fuck this shit.” Then the tears came. He curled into himself like a burning spider. I understood that the car wreck of this guy’s life started way before he found a wife and kids. And whatever caused the accident was still riding his back.
I said, “That is one sob fucking story.” It came out so easily. “You know what a sob story is, right? Starts out like, ‘Why does everything bad happen to me?’ and ends with, ‘No one loves me.’ The beginning is bullshit for sure. But I gotta give it to you—the ending might be true.”
He wiped his nose with his wrist. “What’s true is you don’t have no guts to come over here and say what you just said.”
I guess he was right, because I stayed put.
“OK, I’ll put this back. See? Gun’s away now. Back in its box. Now come over here.”
“I’m right here.”
“So say it.”
I paused.
“Say what?”
“Say who no one loves.”
I paused again.
“Come on. Who’s the guy who no one loves.” He laughed at me. “That’s what I thought. No guts.” He stepped over to me and poked me hard in my stomach. “Empty.”
“You,” I said. “No one loves you.”
“There we go, now you’re showing some guts. Impressive. Fucked up. But impressive.” He picked up that hammer again and lifted it over his head like he was trying to break concrete and swung it down aiming for my head. My hands shot up and I caught the wooden part of it on my forearm and knocked it away. I managed to get a hand on each of his temples and yank him down to the floor. His knees and elbows slapped the concrete. I held onto his head and pushed his face into the floor with all my weight until he stopped struggling. “Ouch, you Mary dyke. You fuckin hurt me.”
He breathed in hard and let out a big “Ouch” on his exhalation. He did this over and over—deep breath in, let out an “Ouch”. Deep breath in, “Ouch.” Eventually the ouches turned into grunts and the grunts turned into sloppy exhalations. Finally, he was out cold.
I let go of his head and stood up.
“Hey.”
He didn’t move so I said, Hey, louder. Nothing. I gave him a little kick in his back. His body didn’t flinch or anything. All I saw lying there on the basement floor was a drunk who forgot to say when. And I had put him there. I had beaten him and successfully taken “father” out of the equation.
But why—here’s the tricky part—why was there no satisfaction in that? Why didn’t that make up for him and Danielle in the bathroom on my twelfth birthday? And God knows how many other nights. And why did it take me this long to get him ass-flat on a cold floor? Instead of kicking him again I picked up the hammer. I tried to hit him hard, but it was more like a tap to the ribs. He didn’t let out so much as a grunt.
I hit him in the same spot harder.
He wasn’t moving for nothing.
Then I whispered, “You son of a bitch,” swung the hammer over my head and came down as hard as I could right above his knee on his already messed-up leg. It sounded like pounding meat.
And still … Goddamn it—still … Not even the next morning when we all woke up to him yelling for help from the basement floor. Not even when I saw him on the same floor, his pants wet with scotch and piss, cursing his goddamn leg, and saying he fell over because of it. Not even when we called an ambulance and the hospital said the ligaments were never going to heal for him to walk right. Not even when he came home with another brace and a cane. And not even when my mom refused to come out of her room and talk to him. Still—I felt no satisfaction.
After I hit his leg I hung the hammer back up in its place.
Walking upstairs I tried to step on the parts that don’t creak. I passed the crack of light coming out from under my mother’s bedroom door, went to my room, lay on my bed and played over and over the hollow thud his fist made on my mother’s chest.
I thought he might have been right, maybe I didn’t have too much guts. I mean, how could you hit an already annihilated guy in his most damaged part and feel like you did something ballsy?
A dim orange from the streetlights sliced through my aluminum blinds. All I could hear was air coming in and out of my nose. I tried for a long while to breathe the silence deep inside me but my breaths wouldn’t go down.
Three little taps poked through the silence. Dani’s fist on the wall wanting to know what was up. We had no code for: Just beat up Dad with hammer, having trouble breathing, so I answered with four quick knocks: All clear.
Mom only left her room, and that niche in her bed that outlined her body, to go to work. A princess trapped in the second-floor suburban tower who long ago told her prince and his rope ladder to go to hell. At night I could hear her talking to herself—I couldn’t make out words, just sounds. We only saw her when we brought her food. By “we” I mean me.
Apparently the last thing my father remembered of that night was hitting my mother and he spent his first week home from the hospital clammed up and on the couch. He wouldn’t open his mouth for any kind of help, not for tissues, food, water to swallow his painkillers or for someone to change the TV channel. He knew better. Instead he set up a line of chairs from the living room to the kitchen, little islands he could hop to for access to the refrigerator and bathroom. He held to his no crutches rule. These were some quiet days. I’d pass him in the morning on the way to work and at night when I’d go upstairs to sleep and we didn’t even give each other the courtesy of a grunt.
With a bowl of soup in my hand I knocked and heard nothing, which was her way of letting me know it was OK to bring her dinner. She was in the same blue terrycloth bathrobe she’d been in for the past four days. It’s not like she was catatonic or all weepy and shit, she was just playing up the rock-hard silent treatment. And she was paying bills. Fucking bills. Had them spread out on her bed with her checkbook next to about a week’s worth of newspapers that I had refolded and delivered to her after my father finished with them. I had laid them next to her and on my way out I’d say, “What, no tip?” And she’d give me a dismissive look that didn’t have the hint of a smile in it. But when I walked in this time it seemed she was ready for jokes.
“Two things you have to do in this life: pay bills and die.”
“In that order?”
She thought about it. “Only God knows.”
“Well, you gotta eat too. Keep up your strength to write checks.”
“Cute. And true.” She probably hadn’t washed her hair since she went into hiding, because when she scratched her head little white flakes fell off her scalp.
“Chicken noodle?”
She pushed the papers out of the way. “Put it here.” I walked to her and laid the bowl down. “Where’s your sister?” she wanted to know.
“Swimming. I’m picking her up in a half hour.” Then she gave me this loaded stare and I knew I wasn’t going to like one inch of what she was thinking. I thought to just get the hell out of there, but you had to see her in that worn-out bathrobe with the bills, the dry scalp, and the dinner that would probably go cold—she was like a dog locked out in the rain. So against instinct, I bit. “Why? What’s up?”
She said, “You really hurt your father.”
I fuckin knew it. Here’s this chick just got slammed around by her husband, who I, in turn, put in the hospital. You’d think maybe I’da gotten a thanks for balancing out the score a little bit. Nooooo. I got sent to the principal’s office. Only a twisted statement like hers could have reached so far down my throat to pull out the line I’d never thought I’d say: “Yeah, well you really hurt my sister.”
A tremor of fear flashed over her face, but she didn’t back down. “Don’t be smart.”
“Don’t be dumb.”
“Don’t act tough, I’m still your mother.”
“Too bad for all of us.”
“Hey. You want me to get the police in here and have you charged with assault?”
It felt like the insults were rolling on their own and we were just following them. This time I put my finger in her face. “You want me to get child services in here and have you charged with neglect?”
“Don’t you dare lay a hand on me.”
“Do you?”
“Don’t be so goddamn dramatic.”
And my father, who heard that all the way from the couch, goes, “The hell are you two doing?”
“Mind your business,” I yelled down to him. Then so only my mother could hear, “Ya cripple jerk off.”
“Why did you beat him like that?”
“Why did you let him mess with your own daughter?”
“What the hell are you talking about? You make no fucking sense.”
“BULLSHIT, MOM.”
“You wanna be tough?” she said springing off the bed to the door, robe flapping behind her. Holding the door open she said, “Then go downstairs and yell at your father, since you’re being so righteous. I’m done with you.”
I didn’t budge. She called me out and I didn’t make a move. Not a fucking inch. I wanted to, man. I wanted to blow the whole thing open. But I just fucking froze. Watching her stand there holding the door open daring me, calling me out, made me even more pissed. So instead of making the scene with my father I grabbed her by her arm and flung her back on the bed.
“You hurt my arm. Damn you.”
I got on the bed with her and cuffed my hands around each of her wrists so she couldn’t move them. “You watched her childhood go to shit.”
“Let go of me.”
“You see that picture on your night table.”
“LET GO.” She kept her eyes locked on me.
“Don’t make me turn your head myself.” Then she looked. “You remember that fairy outfit? Remember what a riot she was, Mom? She used to perform. Remember? People used to look at her and say, ‘What a great kid. Such wide eyes, and such a quick mouth for her age. Way beyond her years.’ Have you looked at her lately? She’s not so funny anymore. Her eyes are like slits and she’s afraid to open her mouth. I mean … Did you bury your head so far up his ass all you can see is black? Whudid you get so used to pleasing him that you just lay under him when he tells you to, and shut up when he makes you?”
“Now you have to stop it.” She tried to wiggle her wrists free from mine, but couldn’t. “You’re being disgusting and you’re making no sense. Let go of me.”
“You chose him over her.” Again to the closed door I said, “And you son of a bitch, you let her do it. You’re dead. I’ll fucking kill you. You’re dead, you’re dead—” I kept saying that he was dead and every time I did I got less mad and more sad. It got where I started crying. I let go of her hands and slid off the bed, right under her feet. My mom just let me sit there until I got my breathing back together. “Look,” she said after I’d come down a bit. “I’ll be the first one to admit your father can act like an insane person, especially when he’s drunk. But everything is so much worse in your head than it is anywhere else, Jake. You’ve always been that way.” She rubbed her wrists where I had held them. “No one ever cried so hard because their ice cream dripped out of the bottom of their cone. You even yelled at the Good Humor man for it.” She shook her head with a little smile and I felt disappointment and acceptance all in one. Like some day I would learn pain is better avoided. “Don’t you know happiness isn’t in what we have or what we want? It’s stuck somewhere between those two.” She let out a sigh like there was nothing she could do for me. “Jake, stand up.”
“No.”
“Come on. Please, just get up.”
I stayed on the floor, so she stood up, got me a tissue and laid it on my shoulder. I grabbed it.
“Blow,” she said.
I did.
“Always the nurse,” I said. “Sometimes for the wrong people.”
She slid down the bed and sat next to me. “You know, Jake …every dying patient I see at the hospital gets to a point when they’re out of the doctors’ and nurses’ hands. It’s right before they go. In those last few minutes they seem completely alone, but they’re not. Something is there. To keep them company and give them peace and quiet, because we can’t. Yes, it sounds crazy, but trust me, I can see it. Sometimes I think that if I got myself as alone as they are I could know what that kind of company feels like …”
“So is that what you wanna do? Cut out and get some peace and quiet?”
“On a nurse’s salary?”
“Yes?”
“Jake …” She gave my arm a firm squeeze and held it. “You have no idea what alone is.”
“I have a pretty good idea.”
She let go of my arm. “Maybe you do.” Which was one of the smartest, nicest things she ever said to me.
“Mom, are you thinking of leaving?”
Nothing.
“Mom, seriously?”
Nothing felt more like yes than no. But I wasn’t sure she had the guts.
“Look,” I said, “do whatever you gotta do. And don’t stay here cause of me. I can go live with Nokey or someone else. I’m making some money, I’ll be fine.” She checked my face for whether or not I was serious. “I mean it. Get out. Avoid some pain for yourself and Danielle.”
Her eyes exploded with shock like remembering she left her oven on and her house was miles away and on fire.
“Jake, do you know what it feels like to try to pray to God every day and the only thing you wind up saying to him is Are you kidding me?”
“No, I don’t pray to God.”
She threw a “Why not” at me.
“I’m only saying this once. If you leave, don’t leave Danielle here alone. We all know you don’t even want her here for a couple hours with the guy, so don’t think about leaving without her.” She stayed with her long-distance stare. “You hear me? You got no one to cover your shift on that one. Don’t leave her here.”
She put a hand over her mouth.
“Did you hear me?”
She nodded.
“Say it. Say you won’t leave her here. Ma, say it.”
“Your sister …” Her eyes turned so red they might as well have been bleeding. I don’t know what to do with her. She’s in this phase … All her black bracelets and her … She won’t talk to me ever.”
A fucking phase? “Say it, ma.”
“I won’t leave her. OK? I said it. Don’t ask me that again.”
“All right, take it easy. Come on, you’re gonna knock over your soup.”
She snapped, “I don’t want the soup.”
“OK.”
It took a few deep breaths for her to get to where she could talk again, and in a high-pitched voice she added, “I want a family.”
Since we both knew her family had just been reduced to one can of lukewarm soup, two bruised ribs, a husband on a couch, a daughter she was terrified to mention, a son who could live without her—we figured it was better to stop talking.
August 8
In the foyer of an apartment building on Horatio Street I push the 8E button. Stephanie’s voice crackles through the intercom. “Who is it?”
“It’s me.”
“Me who?” she says, playing guard dog.
“JT.”
She buzzes me in and I push through double glass doors. They shut behind me and silence the street noise. I walk slowly through the lobby, my boots echo off the marble floor. I come to a mirror with an antique-looking bench at its feet, and take a second to check my look. I really can’t wait for my hair to grow back in already. It’s in that fuzzy, too-long-for-military-too-short-for-civilian phase. The length doesn’t bother me as much as the memories of sleeping in Tompkins Square Park. I try to pat it down, and for a second it submits then pops back into its electric shock routine. OK, I do wish it looked good right about now. There, I said it.
I hit the up button in a small mahogany elevator that someone some time ago crafted with painstaking detail. I hear a few clangs in the shaft and the car rises smooth and slow, delicately beeping from L to 8. The doors separate like curtains. I step off and I appear in another mirror, this one flanked by two round tables that hold flower arrangements. A dog that sounds like it’s the size of a baseball barks from inside an apartment whose welcome mat asks that people wipe their paws upon entering.
“Papi,” I hear from my left. Stephanie stands in the apartment doorway with a dishtowel in her hand next to an empty brass umbrella holder almost as tall as she is. I walk to her. “Nice place.”
“Got that right.”
She closes the door behind me, the cool air hits my skin, and the living room expands in front of me. Two windows, practically floor-to-ceiling, look south to Tribeca and the Financial District. Between those windows a TV and stereo system with enough CDs to build a small bridge are racked—a couch flanked by two leather chairs faces them. One entire wall has been turned into bookshelves. And a plant, or a tree I guess, reaches almost to what’s probably a ten-foot ceiling. Off right a bar with three stools separates the kitchen from the living room. To the left a hallway leads to three other rooms.
I look back to Stephanie who’s getting a smile out of how dazed I just got. “What do these people do?” I ask.
