by R C Barnes
“Make what into a thing?”
“Mom is dating, and I just met the guy.”
Ollie sat his heavy frame down on the bed. “Oh, that.”
I must admit, I wasn’t expecting that reaction. “Am I the last one to know?” I asked. “Even Echo picked up the clues before I did.”
Ollie looked puzzled. “Clues?”
“Yes, the dating bra.”
“The cheetah print number?”
“Yes, that one.”
A contemplative look crossed over Ollie’s face. “I suppose she has been wearing it more frequently.”
“Ollie, you’re gay!?”
“Exactly. Which is why I notice these types of things.”
I crossed my arms and leaned back against the bed frame. “Have you met him?”
“No, my dear. I have not had the pleasure.”
“His name is Todd.” I tried to say the name without wrinkling my nose in disgust. “He’s really good looking.”
“I’ve heard. I guess I will get the opportunity soon enough.” Ollie heaved himself up on his feet and went for the door. “C’mon, my dear. Your guest is waiting. There’s a bottle of sriracha stashed in the frig. Give yourself a squirt. You’ll feel better.”
The worst thing about my mother dating was when she started to bring guys to the house and introduce them to Echo. She didn’t understand this type of activity confused my sister. After a while, the suitors knew to stay away from me. I was the teenage rattlesnake with a nasty bite. But Echo was different. Echo wanted a dad. My sister didn’t have any photographs to tell her what her father looked like. Any guy who walked through the door was a contender in her mind. She craved older male attention, and she got it because who could ignore an adorable little red-haired girl who sticks feathers and shells in her hair and wants to be a fairy princess Jedi knight.
Ollie was currently the steady male in the Wynters household. Ollie was a great guy, but he wasn’t great with kids. Kids made him nervous, especially in the kitchen. When he first moved in ten years ago, Ollie made it clear to my mother he cooked, but he wasn’t a babysitter. Ollie had a lot of hot pots going, and he was one of those cooks that used every bowl and utensil in the kitchen while he was cooking. Ollie left a huge mess, but it was okay. The kitchen was Ollie’s domain, and he made sure you were aware of it.
I followed Ollie into the kitchen and saw Joanie perched on a stool in the breakfast nook. She was already digging happily into a plate of baked penne. Near her was a setting with an empty bowl that had once been filled with ravioli. Echo had been sitting there. I said “hey” to Joanie and went to look for my sister.
She was watching television in the front room, curled up on the couch with a blanket over her shoulders. I sat down next to her, and she leaned into me for a quick snuggle.
‘What are you watching?” I asked.
“Cartoons.” Like a typical kid, her eyes never wavered from the screen.
“Those cartoons are going to rot your brain.”
“Too late,” she answered and then squealed when I tickled her ribs.
“Echo, I need you to look at me for a moment.” She turned her face my way. I swear she was the sweetest kid on the planet. “Remember when you came to my room the other night and told me about Mom?” She nodded her head.
“You were right, kiddo. I met the guy today. Mom brought him over to Cosmic Hearts.”
“Is he nice?” my sister asked.
I wasn’t sure how to respond to this. I don’t know, Echo. I never gave the guy a shot. There was an instant dislike. Instant. Almost like a flashbulb went off in my head and he was transformed into a disfigured ghoul with fangs dripping with blood and hands grasping a machete, ready to swing in my direction. I just got angry and called mom a name. I don’t know, maybe he is nice. But I really don’t want him to stick around long enough to find out. This insanity with all the people in and out has to stop. In and out. In and out. Just because Cosmic Hearts has a walk-in policy, doesn’t mean our personal lives have to as well.
“Yeah, sure,” I lied. “He’s nice.” And pulled her closer to me for an extra moment.
I hated lying at that moment, but what was I supposed to say to my little sister. I could have said I had a bad feeling, but that sounds like something you hear from an old television show accompanied by lousy organ music.
LUTHER
“You called your mother, a Ho?”
“I didn’t call her a Ho. I hate that word. Ho. And whore sounds harsh. I called her a tart.”
“I’m sure she appreciated the distinction you were making for her.” Luther pushed down the front hood of the Fiat he was working on, and he wiped his hands on the greasy rag hanging over his shoulders. His dark eyes bore into me like he was trying to comprehend the thoughts of someone as incredibly screwed up as I was. He must have given up because he sighed and went back to his work.
Luther is a big man with a muscular linebacker build. He played football at El Cerrito high school and a little bit later in college, but an injury kept him from going forward into the pros. He is a black man with a dark complexion and deep twinkling eyes that crinkle and sparkle when he laughs. And he laughs a lot.
Even though he never finished college, Luther is the smartest man I know. He reads all the time and is always quizzing me about the books assigned to me in school. Everything on the syllabus, Luther has already read. I’m in AP classes, so that is impressive.
He is reflective and honest, and he runs an auto shop, which is about twenty minutes on my bike near San Pablo. Every now and then, when I need the ear of an adult, I sneak away to see Luther.
Luther had his music playing, and he had turned it down when I entered the shop. In the background, Nina Simone was singing about getting some sugar in her bowl. The song seemed to underscore the gist of our conversation. Luther played a lot of black female vocalists. His favorites being Nina, Aretha Franklin, Brenda Russell, and Teena Marie (who everyone in the black community considers black). Hanging out with Luther is like kicking back with an old friend where you can be yourself because that person already knows your damage. I love Luther immensely. When he was with my mom, I wished and wished and wished he could be my father. But it was not meant to be. No Terry screwed that up royally.
I was taking a small risk showing up at his motor shop on my bike. If anyone appeared here looking for me, I would have to run off and leave the bike behind. And then there would be physical evidence I had been there. I made a mental note not to compromise Luther in the future. I should lock up my bike a few blocks away or take the skateboard. I didn’t want to make things even more difficult for him.
You see, there is a restraining order against Luther. He is not allowed to come within a 400-yard distance of the house or the tattoo studio. Technically, the restraining order lists my mother specifically and then the inhabitants of her “household.” However, my mother’s definition of a household is a loose one. I come to Luther on my own. I’m sixteen years old. I would become an emancipated minor if it were necessary to keep Luther in my life.
Luther and my mother dated for about three years. Echo was two years old, and I was twelve. Luther was the longest relationship my mother ever had with a guy. My mother met Luther because Dusty had gotten into a fender bender in front of the studio. It was her fault apparently, and since the big guy whose Audi she had hit was kind and not going off on her, she suggested they exchange car information inside. He agreed and met my mother, who was finishing up on a client who had gotten a design of the Beetlejuice character. The work was done, and the tattoo bandaged. My mother and the client were dancing with abandon around the studio. My mother had Harry Belafonte calypso music blaring through all the speakers, and Luther really dug the vibe of the music and the shop, and he dug my mother. They started dating immediately.
The time Luther was in our lives was magnificent. He showed a lot of interest in both Echo and me, taking Echo to the park and pushing her on the swings and going to tee
n girl movies with me.
I’ll never forget him picking me up after a Robotics club tournament where my team had been soundly trounced in the competition. We had been soundly trounced because of me. I had screwed up something in the schematics, and there was an entire function our robot was not able to complete.
I was sobbing outside the auditorium when Luther pulled up in his car. He had been sent to get me because my mother was running late with other errands. Luther listened to my crying and all the guilt I was placing on my shoulders. He didn’t try to say things like “it wasn’t your fault” because it was or “you’ll do better next time” because, of course, I would. I would never make a mistake like that again. He didn’t state the obvious. He held me close and let the tears fall until I didn’t have any left. Then he took me out for ice cream, and we watched a brilliant sunset from Indian Rock.
We didn’t say another word about the Robotics competition. Instead, we discussed, in detail, the Lincoln assassination and the crazy manhunt involved with John Wilkes Booth. The sky was purple and orange as the sun drifted into the Pacific Ocean, and as we excitedly talked about the level of Booth’s celebrity and how he escaped wearing drag, others jumped in with their opinions. It was such a Berkeley moment with university philosophy professors, artists, rocket scientists, carpenters, and auto mechanics engaging in a lively discussion about Lincoln’s death, the layers of conspiracy, and the twelve day search for Booth. Luther held his own. He always does. I think it is my fondest memory of Luther Tucker.
Actually, I take that back. There is another fond memory. This one filled my heart with bliss. Being biracial and having a mother who is a redhead with translucent skin, I am always asked where my mother is. People don’t automatically link the two of us together. As I have gotten older, there are certain features of my mother I have developed. I have her nose, and my mouth is shaped like hers. But no one looks at us separately and makes the connection. We must be standing next to each other for people to see it.
However, when I was out with Luther, it was different. There was one time when we were at a hardware store, and Luther was at the counter. We were purchasing knobs for my mother’s bureau, and he looked at me, asking, “Are there four drawers on that unit, or three?”
“Four,” I answered. But then I added, “I think.”
Luther held up the blue knobs with pink roses on the ends (my mother was going to love them) and said, “Grab me two more of these. Just to make sure.”
I ran down the aisle to retrieve the knobs, and as I was returning, I overheard the man at the register say, “You better watch out. You are going to need a shotgun when that girl gets older.”
Luther laughed and answered, “Yes. Yes, I will.” He didn’t correct the man and say I wasn’t his child. He claimed me at that moment, and when we walked out of the store, he put his arm around my shoulders. I knew I would love this man forever.
But then Echo got sick. It was terrible, and she had to be hospitalized. My mother was an emotional wreck and basically moved into the hospital, sleeping in a cot by her bed. She kept a constant vigil and read and sang to my sister whenever she was conscious. Dusty managed things at the tattoo studio, but she couldn’t watch over me. Everyone knew not to approach Ollie, so I ended up staying with Luther for a few weeks.
Luther had a decent-sized apartment on Acton Street, and it wasn’t far from the high school. We settled into a comfortable routine. I slept in his bedroom, and he took the couch. He made me breakfast in the morning, and I would walk to school or take my bike. After school, I would let myself back into the apartment, feed his cat, Chauncey, and do my homework. Around six o’clock, Luther would close the auto shop and pick me up and take me over to my mother’s house. Ollie would have dinner for us, and we would visit with him. Maybe my mother would pop in at the time, but usually not. Sometimes after dinner, the three of us would watch television for a while, or Luther and I would leave Ollie alone to play his opera arias. We were all anxious about Echo and her recovery. The concern for her kept the evenings from being a family fun night, but the time was serene, and it flowed.
There had been a girl crashing at our house around this time. I can’t remember her circumstances very well. She was a bit ditzy, had a large gap-toothed smile, and smelled like vanilla. She was like a groupie and lingered on every word that tumbled out of my mother’s mouth. She had wanted to start an apprenticeship at Cosmic Hearts and had traveled all the way from Humboldt. Dusty had told my mother not to take her on because her work and sketches weren’t strong. The girl needed to go to school or something. Anyway, my mother wisely didn’t hire the girl for the studio, but she didn’t have the heart to give the girl the boot from the house.
She hoped the girl would find something else and move on.
When Echo got sick, the girl didn’t figure out it was time for her to vacate and go back to Humboldt. Ollie had to speak frankly to the girl, and finally, he packed her stuff up and left it on the steps outside the back porch. A week later, she came by with a bunch of druggie friends and retrieved her boxes. Ollie asked Luther to stand guard when they arrived to make sure no crazy shit happened. I remember Luther was pretty steamed about it. Not at Ollie, who had done the right thing, but the circumstance itself. This girl was taking advantage of a situation, and she hung with the wrong crowd comprised of addicts and thieves. I overheard Luther explaining to Ollie the girl had nothing to lose. You can’t trust people like that.
Echo recovered, and you would have thought things would go back to the way they were. There was hope we would become the cohesive family; we were on track to becoming. I imagined Luther being the man who walked me down the aisle when I got married. But something curdled inside my mother while she was at the hospital watching her youngest child toss and turn in a feverish sleep. Her imagination went wild, and crazy waves of guilt crashed in her head. She kept thinking there were things she could have done to prevent Echo’s illness.
My mother’s brain does not operate rationally or logically. She focused on Luther as if he was the cause or the astronomical instrument behind Echo’s illness. Suddenly, she viewed their relationship as wrong, and Luther was why she was being punished. She went on the attack.
She was suspicious of everything and challenged Luther constantly. Innocent gestures became over-analyzed, and proof he was trying to undermine her and make Echo and me love him more than we loved her. If Luther put syrup on Echo’s oatmeal to sweeten it instead of brown sugar the way my mother did, it was an example of him trying to one-up her. If Luther picked me up from school instead of having me walk, he was coddling me, but then the next day, my mother would be in front of the school sitting in her Volvo wagon. My mother accused Luther of stealing her family. She would scream Echo and I were her children, not his. Things escalated, and her nasty charges became racial in nature.
I don’t know how Luther put up with it. He loved her, that was true, and he probably believed Terry would back down eventually. She would see how irrational she was becoming and relax. But she was like a terrier that had gotten hold of the squeeze toy and was not letting go.
Terry started saying things like, “how can you walk down the street with Echo? Don’t you think it looks weird? This big black man with this tiny freckled kid… Aren’t you worried the police are going to stop you? Accuse you of kidnapping? You’re endangering my daughter.”
When that didn’t make Luther flinch, she would add me to the picture. “Perhaps it’s Elizabeth you want. You like it when people think she is your daughter. You get the glory, and you don’t have to do any of the work! You don’t have to raise her. You don’t have to buy the pads when she has her period. Do you think she will ever share her troubles with you? Bess has a lot of issues. She’s not your kid. Don’t think that she is, just because she looks like you.”
Echo and I would hide in my bedroom, and I would play Ollie’s opera music to drown out Terry’s ugly hysterics. It didn’t help when Ollie spoke to my mother or when D
usty tried to apply reason. She was the terrier with the toy, and she wasn’t letting go.
And through all of this, Luther just took it. My mother would work herself to exhaustion and collapse on her bed. Luther would tuck her in, smooth the hair back from her forehead drenched in perspiration, peek into the bedroom and say goodnight to us. He would lift Echo, who had fallen asleep, and carry her down the hall to her bedroom and tuck her in. Then Luther would leave for his home.
This went on for a few weeks until Luther decided he would no longer be my mother’s verbal punching bag. Ollie had gone out of town to visit his sister in Idaho. He had a new nephew, and his sister needed some extra hands. Ollie was anxious about leaving. He had already rescheduled the visit twice. In addition to the blistering interactions between Terry and Luther, there was the overriding fear Echo could have a relapse and need to go back to the hospital. His sister’s pleadings finally convinced Ollie he had to go to her.
I don’t know what caused Luther to snap. I don’t know what new awful thing my mother threw in his face. I really can’t come up with anything worse than what she had already hurled at him. But one night, Luther fought back. It must have shocked my mother to suddenly see the fury inside this man erupt. His baritone voice added to her shrill high pitch, and it was like a Great Dane suddenly barking back at the little terrier.
The voices escalated, and then there was the sound of things crashing and breaking. The time seemed endless, but in reality, it was a few minutes. But a few minutes is all you need to destroy something that once was real and worth saving. A loud bam and thud resonated through the walls of the house. Echo clung to me and buried her head under my armpit.
Red and blue lights flashed outside my bedroom window. The noise and shouting continued. I could hear movement outside, and I was positive someone was standing at the back steps of the house. They were silent, though, holding a position, and I didn’t think I should call out.
