Fishwives, page 18
“You need to skip the rest of the meeting? Go somewhere to calm down?”
Charlie looks at the sidewalk. “Those people in there. I’m being an asshole when I bitch about them. Anyway, I gotta go back in and eat or I won’t be able to sleep tonight.”
“Stale pastry is your dinner?”
“My coffee is always half milk.”
They stand in silence until the light on the side of the building flicks on and off signaling the second half of the meeting. “My wife’s having a surprise party for me after the meeting,” Jackie says. “Old people, dykes your grandmother’s age mostly. Potluck. Brother-in-law’s bringing venison meatballs; they’re awful. Wife makes great coconut cake with lemon frosting.”
“Potluck means I gotta bring something?”
“You’re the conversation starter.”
“I like old ladies.” Charlie looks much younger when he’s trying not to cry on the sidewalk than he does when he’s talking out of the side of his mouth in the church basement.
“These women will love you. Might have opinions about whether your skirt matches your chin stubble.” Jackie has a bit of chin stubble herself. She scratches it.
••••
“Well, good evening.” Regina is placing baby carrots on a vegetable platter when Jackie and Charlie walk through the kitchen door. “Introductions, please?” She raises an eyebrow.
“This is Charlie.” Jackie kisses Regina on the cheek. “I invited him to my surprise party.”
“I’m a waif from Gamblers Anonymous.” Realizing he’s blown confidentiality, Charlie says, “Shit, sorry.”
Regina feigns a startled look. “I thought you’d taken the yacht to the harbor, Jackie.”
Jackie opens the refrigerator door and gives Regina a private look that asks her not to be angry.
Regina gives Jackie, then Charlie, a strained smile. “You must be the surprise in Jackie’s surprise party.” She turns to Jackie. “Get dressed, please. Our guests will be arriving shortly.”
“Charlie’s hungry.” Jackie closes the refrigerator door.
“He can help cut vegetables and sample the appetizers while he tells me his life story.”
Jackie comes out from the shower in dress pants, vest, and tie to find Charlie and Regina in the bedroom. Charlie holds a pair of Regina’s jeans by the waist in front of him, measuring for length. The pants stop halfway down his shin.
While Charlie takes a shower in the bathroom off the bedroom, Jackie thanks Regina for not giving her hell for bringing Charlie home.
“We haven’t had a minute alone,” Regina says. “What do you know about this kid?” Jackie shrugs. The washer and dryer are in a little alcove in the bedroom, hooked up in the only place in the house where they fit. Regina holds up Charlie’s dirty backpack. “I think this will survive a spin. His clothes and sixty-three dollars in filthy bills are already cycling through.”
“But for the grace of god and my Regina.” Jackie grins.
“Sometimes I forget what a bullshitter you are.” Regina rolls her eyes. “That boy is not sleeping here. Did he tell you his grandmother died, and the state took the house she raised him in for back taxes? That a true story?”
“Maybe. He has pastry for dinner at a twelve-step program most nights.”
“Claims to be four months sober. Short-term shelter. Long-term, subsidized room somewhere. Hard to get a job without an address. Yvonne or Bo might be able to help.”
“Drafted his short- and long-term future while I was in the shower?” Jackie smiles.
Regina tosses the backpack on top of the sudsy clothes. “We’re not taking this kid in.”
“My plan is to give him some stew and drive him to the underpass where he’s been sleeping.” Jackie breathes in Regina’s freshly washed hair. “You smell like coconut.”
“He knows how to put together a veggie platter.” Regina turns to face Jackie. “We’ve already got one boy sleeping here some weekends. Don’t give me those eyes. Enough is enough. That kid could be a serial killer. We couldn’t take in a stray cat and survive.” Regina allows Jackie to circle her waist. “If it wasn’t your birthday, old woman.”
“You’d still feed him. You’re a fucking angel.”
“No one in their right mind thinks I’m an angel. The Chinese Place is always looking for help. Maybe Mac will hire him.” Regina smirks. “You’re going to have to give him a pair of your boxers.” She straightens Jackie’s tie.
“They’d be three sizes too big. He can go commando.”
“Easy for you to say.” Regina gives the tie an aggressive tug. “He’s not wearing your jeans. Jesus, my wife is eighty.”
“Seventy-nine until six-thirty. Mama waited until the cows were milked.”
Regina is pressed against the washing machine and Jackie pressed against her when Charlie comes out of the shower wearing a towel and Regina’s jeans that fit like pedal pushers.
Regina whispers in Jackie’s ear, “You bet your ass you’re driving him to the shelter before it closes,” before she pulls away.
The backup alarm on a van sounds. Regina says, “That’ll be Lynn. See if she needs help, honey. Let’s find you a clean shirt, Charlie.”
Charlie chooses one of Jackie’s white dress shirts that’s huge on him. He rolls the sleeves neatly to the elbows, keeps the top buttons open to expose his hairy chest, and hangs a bolo that’s hung on the door handle unworn for years around his neck.
Lynn has a key to the house. Her husband, Silver, pushes Lynn in her wheelchair up the ramp into the house. He’s finished pivoting her from wheelchair to La-Z-Boy when Regina and Charlie arrive in the living room.
Silver shakes Jackie’s hand. “Welcome to eighty. You are officially an elder.”
“Thanks for moving your chair into the living room,” Lynn says. “Now I can give orders in comfort.” She pulls Jackie into a hug that leaves them both winded. “I forget my own strength.” Lynn laughs. “Legs barely work, but my upper body . . .” She pats her arms which are covered in silk. “Okay, lovely young man.” Lynn points her chin at Charlie and straightens her skirt to cover her leg braces. “Where did you come from?”
Charlie tells the story of the ten bucks and the thugs, talking fast, careful not to mention GA again. He wants these people to like him, wants their sympathy. He’s dying for a smoke, doesn’t have a cigarette, and bets Regina doesn’t allow smoking in the house. “You do stupid stuff when you’re hungry,” he says.
“Hungry.” Lynn nods knowingly. “I met Silver at a food pantry.” She beams at her husband. “He was a volunteer. Still is. It was summer. Regina wheeled me to the back of the line, and we waited for free bags of corn, kale, and tomatoes.”
“And I wheeled you out,” Silver says on cue.
“Stroke.” Lynn speaks directly to Charlie. “Thought my life was over. But Regina, Jackie, and Silver pushed and pulled me back. Silver owned a construction company. He built the ramp to Regina and Jackie’s side door.”
Yvonne and Bo arrive with their little dog Pee Wee standing on his hind legs, turning in circles as he yaps. They scrutinize the bolo Charlie’s wearing and banter about whether it was a present to Jackie from Bo in 1990 when Yvonne was still in New York breaking Bo’s heart, or a present from both of them in 1991 after Yvonne had returned to Bo and Massachusetts for good.
Charlie sits on the floor rather than sit in another metal folding chair and tells a story about giving up Big Macs for jars of peanut butter. Jackie wonders if the story is a con, thinking more power to him if giving Yvonne a chance to expound on nutrition, and Lynn a chance to relive her honeymoon with Silver, gets him a shot at getting the two couples to rally around him.
A half hour later there are more guests than seats. Charlie makes a second veggie platter. Yvonne and Regina huddle in the hall to discuss whether they should let Bo try to arrange a surprise Skype call for Jackie with her niece Selma who lives in Georgia. “The test run was a disaster,” Yvonne says. Yvonne is wearing a mostly red, twenty-year-old dashiki that originally belonged to Bo who wore it with pants. Yvonne wears the multicolored top over a long black skirt. “Whoever was helping on Selma’s end is worse than Bo at this computer nonsense. It took two hours to finally get a good view up Selma’s nostrils.”
“Old-fashioned phone call.” Regina nods her agreement.
“Now, about the young man.” Yvonne arranges an escaped piece of wiry gray hair behind her ear. “The shelter closes at ten.” She spent much of her career as an MD working with homeless people. “I’ll call ahead. They know me. Will he go?”
Regina has no idea if he’ll go.
They find Charlie alone in the kitchen looking in a cabinet. He turns when they walk in. “You ran out of chips. My gramma used to make popcorn for company. It’s cheap and easy. If you have some, I can make it. Grams called it a celebration in a bowl. You look like her, Regina.” He closes the cabinet door. “Just trying to make myself useful.”
Yvonne pulls out a chair at the kitchen table. “Sit with us, Charlie?” Yvonne waits. Charlie doesn’t sit. “You know the Howell Street Shelter?” she says. “How do you feel about staying there tonight?”
For the first time since he arrived, Charlie has nothing to say.
Regina roots around in the cupboard. She places an old-fashioned looking popcorn popper in the middle of the table. The popper is a silver bowl with four small silver balls for feet and a round silver cover that turns the pot into a silver globe when placed on top. She takes a seat at the table.
“Man, I love this thing.” Charlie, still standing, avoids eye contact with either of the women and bends to get a closer look at the popper. “Looks like a tiny spaceship. Either of you ladies could take command of the Starship Enterprise.” He laughs and scratches his head. His left foot taps as he speaks. “I saw a Twilight Zone episode; a thing like this landed on a lady’s kitchen table and a bunch of tiny spacemen poured out. The lady doesn’t notice because she’s turned away from the camera doing the dishes, looking out the window onto this big prairie, and you only see her back. It’s the olden days. The little spacemen swarm around in her kitchen, hiding behind the sugar bowl and shit. One of them knocks over a spoon or something and she turns around. She has a warty green face and antennae. One of the spacemen raises a tiny American flag. Turns out the spacemen are aliens from earth.”
He smiles and the women smile back. “Do you have popcorn?” He runs a hand over the popcorn popper. “Can I use it? It’s like something I saw on a field trip to the Springfield Museum when I was in high school. At a modern design exhibit. It’s from like, the fifties, right?”
“Forties. It was my mother’s,” Regina says. “What about the shelter tonight?”
He puts a finger on the electric cord, which is thick and covered in gray and black stripes. “I can manage. Am I talking too much? I thought it was okay to talk. I used to talk to Grams. Bossy old lady, real good to me. Big talker. After she died, I learned to keep my mouth shut in front of most people. I thought you wanted me to talk.”
“Are you high, Charlie?” Yvonne sits back in her chair and settles her folded hands on her belly like she’s prepared to settle in for the long haul if necessary.
“It’s fine to talk,” Regina leans in. “And it’s fine for Yvonne to ask the question.”
“My mother used to accuse me of being high when I was like, ten years old. The first time I didn’t even know what she was accusing me of.”
“We’re not accusing. We’re asking,” Yvonne says. “You have a sponsor?”
Charlie nods, half-turned to the counter so he’s at an angle to them, not facing them, not quite turned away. “Some days I don’t talk to anyone all day until a meeting. I didn’t sleep last night. I’m not stupid. Surprised Jackie even let me know where she lives. I know you don’t want me here too long . . . a young guy, an addict, two old women. It’s warm enough outside, under the bridge, protected, sort of; you hide behind the girders.”
Regina and Yvonne exchange a glance. Charlie stares at the popper and keeps talking. “Last night a guy I didn’t know showed up under the bridge. My jeans and hoodie were on top of my pack, easy pickings. He must have stolen them just before dawn, so maybe I did sleep for, like, five minutes. Thanks for these.” He looks down at the jeans he’s wearing, not feeling bad about being high or lying to the nice ladies about it but feeling bad about taking the Oxy from his gram’s cabinet that first time. Why do all old ladies keep drugs from the last century in the back of their cabinets? Charlie is barely high, just high enough so he can relax; maybe he could figure out a few things if he could lean against the girder under the bridge, watch the moon come up in Jackie’s clean shirt with his belly full of baby carrots and cheese and guacamole. He should get out of here while he and Jackie are still friends. “Sometimes,” he says, patting the jeans that cover his thigh, “it’s just not the right occasion for a skirt, you know?” His laugh sounds easy.
The women laugh with him.
The sound of the kids shrieking “surprise!” comes from the front room.
“I have guests to tend to,” Regina stands. “Are you high, Charlie?”
“No, I’m just,” he turns the pot around, “socially awkward.” Until tonight, he’d been sober four months. It feels good and bad at the same time to be just a little high, to know he has six, and only six, more Percocet from 1997 in his back pocket. He left two in the bottle in the back of Jackie and Regina’s kitchen shelf where he found them. Two left in the bottle, that’s good. That shows restraint.
“Someone will drive you to the shelter before ten.” Regina pulls a bag of popcorn, a bottle of oil, and a measuring cup from the cabinet over the stove. She motions at the oil and popcorn. “Half cup of each. No on or off switch. Just plug it in. When there are four seconds between pops unplug it. Watch it like a hawk. Don’t burn down my house.” She nods at Yvonne.
“Go,” Yvonne says. “Greet your guests.”
The kids are settling in on the rug in the middle of the living room with a Game Boy when eleven-year-old TJ sniffs the air. He yells, “Popcorn!” jumps up, weaves around the adults, and runs into the kitchen. Ramon and Pock follow. Thirteen-year-old Oscar is too interested in watching Pee Wee walk on her hind legs to trot off with the rest of the kids.
Charlie is standing in front of the counter answering or avoiding Yvonne’s questions when the three kids burst in. They stop in their tracks to stare at him. Yvonne introduces them.
Their awkward “hellos” hang in the air until the popcorn starts to pop, which animates Pock who says, “Charlie’s got Jackie’s shirt on.” She drags a chair from the corner and pushes in next to Yvonne. Ramon takes a seat across the table from them.
“Why you here?” TJ takes a step closer to Charlie. He can’t decide if this guy is cool or not cool so he laughs. Since he turned eleven, TJ laughs at anyone who confuses him. “Jackie know you’re using that?” Sometimes Jackie lets TJ and Ramon make popcorn. TJ also can’t tell if this guy is a kid or an adult, but he knows Charlie is intruding on his territory.
“Manners,” Yvonne says.
“Yes, ma’am.” TJ has learned that “Yes, ma’am” followed by shutting up is one of the few answers Yvonne will accept from “rude” children.
Pock says, “Is that a tie or a necklace? How come your pants are short? Are you a model?” She competes with the popcorn, which is at full pop, and lifts in her chair to get a better look. “How many earrings does he have?” she asks TJ who still stands a foot away from Charlie.
Yvonne puts up a hand. “And now you are forgetting your manners, young lady.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” Pock says. “Sorry, Charlie.”
“It’s okay.” Charlie, happy to be rescued from the conversation about future housing and employment, holds up the bolo, “Half tie, half necklace.” He points a thumb at the two rods in his right eyebrow. “Way too many piercings. Makes it hard to get modeling gigs.” He winks at TJ like TJ’s in on the joke. The popcorn slows, Charlie pretends he’s not sure what to do, and TJ pulls the plug. Charlie says, “Thanks, man. You know where there’s another bowl?”
Oscar comes in rubbing his eyes. He has his shirt collar grasped in his hand and pulled up covering his chin. He bites the nail of the thumb of the same hand that holds the collar.
“Hey, buddy,” Charlie says. “You want some popcorn?” He puts the bowl on the table, pulls out a chair, presses gently on Oscar’s shoulders to get him to sit down, and sits next to him, handing Oscar a kitchen towel. “Wipe your hand before you stick it in that bowl, my friend.”
Ramon watches the way his brother Oscar grins back at Charlie. Ramon smiles at them both. TJ watches them all. TJ catches Ramon’s eye, and wordlessly the boys agree that this guy Charlie is okay.
Yvonne is watching, too. She decides the kids will be okay for a few minutes alone and announces that she’s joining the rest of the party and that Charlie and the kids should make another batch of popcorn, bring it into the living room, and, “All of you, be sure to unplug the spaceship.”
After Yvonne leaves, Pock says, “Even TJ likes you, Charlie. And TJ doesn’t like anyone except Ramon. And sometimes me.”
“Shut up, Pockie.” TJ laughs. “I never like you.”
By the time the popcorn is ready Charlie is tired, tired of being watched, tired of talking, tired of entertaining. He’s lost the knack of socializing, especially with kids. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken that second Percocet. Especially since he didn’t sleep last night. Suddenly the kids are laughing and Charlie’s not sure why. One of them says something. Ramon and Pock look at him like he’s supposed to answer.
TJ grins. “Told ya he’s not gonna tell us why he’s here.”
••••
Charlie sits on the floor with his back against the wall in a corner of the living room. The kids sit around him.
Ramon passes TJ the Game Boy. “You like that song, ‘Control Myself’?”
“Who doesn’t like Cool J?” Charlie says.
