by Jim Kokoris
I continued to look at the picture. Mrs. Plank was right. There was something especially disturbing about it, something I couldn’t immediately identify.
“He doesn’t have any ears,” Mrs. Plank said. “Maria is deaf. She was trying to make a statement. Anyway,” she waved her hand, “I have to make one more call. Sit tight.”
I sat back and looked out the window, away from the Earless Jesus, and saw Maurice sitting in his black car in the parking lot. I watched him lower the window and methodically light his pipe. Maurice always lit his pipe in the same manner and I enjoyed and respected his thoroughness. Turning the pipe upside down, he tapped it three times, then sniffed it cautiously. Satisfied that it was empty, he next retrieved a small pouch of tobacco and took two pinches out, packing it gently but firmly into the brown wooden pipe, which he then lit with a large silver lighter. His first few puffs on the pipe seemed to give him the most pleasure. His face, serious and considered during the lighting process, would noticeably expand and unfold before easing into a general expression of contentment. I was glad that Maurice smoked. No one was showing any signs of kidnapping Tommy or me and I was afraid that he might soon find his assignment uninteresting. Smoking a pipe at least occupied his time a bit.
“Teddy Pappas,” Mrs. Plank said, hanging up the phone. She smiled at me but looked awkward. Mrs. Plank didn’t have much practice at being cheerful and her small smile, in the close proximity of the Earless Jesus, unnerved me.
“Teddy Pappas,” she said again. “As you know, there aren’t many Catholics in Wilton. It’s mostly a Protestant community. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But our numbers are small and the school is always looking for new sources of funding. The Archdiocese has been supporting this school for years. That’s why we’re thrilled that your father is considering our request for the furnace. Miss Polk is pulling together some of the specifics and will mail them off in the next day or so. In the meantime, if you could give him this personal note from me, I’d appreciate it.” When she handed me a letter, I immediately thought of all the other letters my father received from women and instinctively shuddered. Mrs. Plank was beyond old.
“So,” she said, after I put the envelope in my pocket. “How are you coping with your newfound wealth?”
“Okay,” I said.
“Have there been a lot of changes?”
“No,” I said. It was a truthful answer. From my perspective, winning the lottery had yet to have any real effect on our lives. The facts that Uncle Frank and Aunt Bess were now living with us, Mrs. Wilcott was having, or at least trying to have, sex with my father, and Maurice was now guarding us, did not represent significant enough change for me to comment upon. As Johnny Cezzaro constantly reminded me, we still hadn’t bought anything.
“How do you feel about your bodyguard?” She looked briefly out the window at Maurice, who was busily smoking.
“He likes to smoke Ins pipe,” I said.
Mrs. Plank’s mouth twitched to the side for a moment. “Well,” she said. “That’s good. We know it’s been difficult for you and your family since your mother’s accident. We’re praying for you, of course. All of us. Oh,” she said. “I understand you received a letter from your pen pal. And what did he have to say?”
I had forgotten about Ergu’s letter. “He asked for some money,” I said.
Mrs. Plank’s face darkened. “He did what?”
“He asked me for some money.”
Mrs. Plank’s mouth stopped in mid-twitch. “And how much did he ask for, Teddy?”
“Five thousand, no, fifty thousand dollars,” I said. I immediately regretted telling her this. I could clearly tell that she disapproved and feared that for some reason I might be held responsible for something, though I wasn’t exactly sure what.
“Do you have it?” Mrs. Plank asked. Her voice was now low and controlled. “The letter, may I see the letter please?”
I dug around in my backpack and handed it to her. Though I had thought the letter was strange, I had yet to form a clear opinion about it and was curious what Mrs. Plank thought. She read the letter without any expression, then folded it back up and put it in a drawer. “I would like to hold on to this awhile,” she said. “And, Teddy, if you have any more contact with this person, please let me know.”
“Okay,” I said.
THE NEXT MORNING, while I was still in bed, I thought I heard Stavros crying. It was very early and the sound pulled me from the bottom of sleep. At first I laid in bed, dazed, and listened to his whimpers. Stavros occasionally whined in the morning when Aunt Bess forgot to put food in his bowl the night before, so I thought nothing of his complaints and tried to fall back to sleep. His whining intensified, however, and I soon recognized an unfamiliar depth and rhythm to it that concerned me. I thought he might be hurt.
I got out of bed and walked downstairs. Our house was silent and the cries cut sharply through the stillness like a telephone ring at midnight. I followed the sound into the living room, then back again to the front hallway where I stood and listened. The sound was coming from outside. Unlocking the front door, I opened it slowly, expecting to find Stavros curled up on the top step. Instead, I found a baby.
It was lying in a picnic basket, bound tight in layers of white blankets like a delicate miniature mummy. When I saw its tiny hand make its way free and poke out from underneath the mass, my breath left me in a rush. I had never seen a hand that small before and its size and exactness to detail amazed me.
Pinned to the basket handle was a note that simply said, “Baby Girl, four weeks old. Please love her.”
I held the note in my hand and looked down at her. For a moment she stopped crying and looked at me with dark, urgent eyes. Then she squeezed them shut and started crying again, her face florid and angry, her cap of black hair damp and wild. I looked around to see who had left her, but the street was empty.
I stood on our porch, uncertain what to do. I was sure that my first step would be the wrong one, so I watched Baby Girl’s face tighten into a red fist. I was scared, convinced she was going to die.
I finally picked the basket up carefully by the handle and walked back into the house. Baby Girl kept crying. As I walked up the hallway stairs I began calling for Aunt Bess to come quick.
“What, what is it, are you sick?” Aunt Bess yelled from her bedroom. “What’s wrong?”
“Come here. Please. Hurry, please.”
“What’s that noise?” she asked. I heard her get out of bed and saw her bedroom door open, saw her face explode.
“It’s a baby,” I said, holding the basket toward her like a gift. “It’s a little girl.”
WHEN MAURICE and the two policewomen came, Aunt Bess finally started crying. Sobs shook her body and the loose skin under her arms flapped as she waved her arms around like an angry windmill.
“That baby’s been here for close to an hour. I had nothing to feed her, no formula, nothing,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks in thick streaks.
“We came here as fast as we could,” one of the policewomen said. She was tall and thin and wore small glasses at the tip of her nose, like Charlie. Every time Aunt Bess said something, she would write it down in a small black notepad that she would flip shut, then flip open again when Aunt Bess said something else. The other police officer, a small, gentle-faced woman, silently took the baby into the back of the police car that was parked in our driveway.
“Now where did you say you found the baby again?” the tall policewoman asked Aunt Bess.
“Right here, right where you’re standing,” she said, pointing to our front steps. “It was right there next to the door. How many times do I have to tell you?”
“Are you all right, Miss Pappas?” Maurice kept asking. He had come at his normal time to pick us up for school and was confused by what he had walked into.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Is Mr. Pappas at home?” Maurice asked.
“No, I’m all alone. Theo lef
t for Atlanta for his conference last night. I don’t know where Frank is. He didn’t come home last night.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Maurice asked.
“You should have been here! You’re supposed to be protecting us. Someone should have been here. I was all alone and someone left that baby on our porch. She could have died out there.” Aunt Bess took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “I’m fine now, though,” she said quietly. “Take care of that baby, that’s all I have to say.” With that she went inside.
Maurice stayed on the porch with the policewoman, but I went inside after Aunt Bess. I found her sitting at the kitchen table looking out the window over the sink, her face a mixture of sadness and relief, her tall hair leaning forlornly to one side.
I sat down next to her and listened to her breathe. Before the police arrived, she had been frantic, rocking the baby back and forth in her arms and talking loudly to herself in Greek. She made me call the police twice, panic rising in her voice.
“Are you okay?” I finally asked.
“Yes, honey, I’m fine now. The baby upset me. I was upset. I wasn’t expecting it. I was afraid. I don’t know too much about babies. I thought she was sick and would die in my arms, right in my arms.”
“Why did someone leave her?” I asked.
Aunt Bess shook her head and waved her hand. “I made a coffee cake yesterday for breakfast and I think we should eat it,” was all she said.
As she set out plates and forks and poured milk from her favorite glass pitcher, I continued to ask her questions. The whole incident had happened too fast and I felt cheated, like I had arrived at a party just as it was ending. Outside I could hear Maurice and the policewoman’s low voices.
“Why did they want to give us the baby?” I asked again. The idea that someone had abandoned Baby Girl would not leave me.
“I don’t know. People have pain, problems. Probably a young girl, no husband. Probably poor. People leave babies every day.” She looked down at her plate and shook her head. “I can’t eat this, what was I thinking?”
“Why did they leave it with us?”
“Because of the money, that’s why. Because we won the money.”
“What’s going to happen to her?”
Aunt Bess shook her head again. “Someone will adopt her. She was a little doll, a perfect little doll. Someone will take care of her. There’s people who do things like that. People who take responsibility. They’re special people.”
I nibbled on the coffee cake’s sticky frosting and took a sip of milk. “Why didn’t we keep the baby?” The idea of having a small baby around was suddenly appealing. I vaguely remembered liking Tommy as a baby.
“Who would take care of it? I’m almost eighty years old. And your father can’t even take care of you.” She put her thick arms on the table, causing it to tilt in her direction.
“This table is too small,” she said. “The kitchen is too small. We have to get your father to spend some money around here. He hasn’t spent any money and time is running out.”
“Do you mean, if we don’t spend the money, we have to give it back?” I was alarmed by this prospect, though on a certain level it made sense to me.
“No, it means I’m getting older, that’s all. So is your father. We should do something with that money, before something happens.”
“What would happen?”
“I don’t know, something,” she said. “The money is forcing things upon us, forcing things out in the open.”
We sat in silence, Aunt Bess’s sadness and worry filling the kitchen.
“I don’t think anyone will leave any more babies here,” I said trying to make her feel better.
She sighed, her chest expanding to the size of a circus tent. “I don’t know. Crazy things keep happening. Maybe your guard should stand at our door to keep people away.”
“Maurice?”
“Yes. Do you think he’d be able to do that, if we ask him? I don’t want this to happen again.”
I imagined Maurice keeping a lonely vigil on our front steps, standing like a sentry all day and night, guarding against unseen and unwanted babies.
“I don’t know,” I said. Then I said, “I bet this won’t happen again.”
Aunt Bess waved her hand. “There’s thousands of unwanted babies out there, thousands.”
I pulled at a piece of the coffee cake and decided to change the subject.
“Is Uncle Frank in some type of trouble?” I asked. From the look on her face, I immediately realized that this subject was no better than the previous one.
“Who told you that?”
“I heard them talking.”
She got up and walked over to the counter to get the pitcher of milk. “He needs a little money, that’s all. A loan. That’s all. He owes some people some money so he can finish his movie.”
“Is my father going to give it to him?”
“I think so. I hope so. I don’t know anymore, I just don’t know,” she said. “Do you want more cake?”
I glanced down at my plate, which was still full. “No,” I said.
“Frank, I worry about him too. He drinks too much. He doesn’t seem happy.”
She walked over to the counter and began wiping it with a dish rag, her arm moving in slow, sad circles. I thought she was going to say something else about Uncle Frank but instead she said, “I never had babies. I never had any babies and I’ve lived a whole life. I should have had children, a woman should have children.” She put her hands up to her face and wiped away a small tear. “Oh, Teddy,” she said. “Pray someone takes care of that baby. Pray that it’s someone good like your father.”
THE NEXT TWO DAYS were quiet around our house. My father was still in Atlanta discussing southern feet and Uncle Frank was a phantom, leaving early in the morning and arriving home late after we were in bed. Aunt Bess spent most of the time walking around in a hushed, thoughtful silence, a new copy of Luxury Living! unopened and unread. I knew she had been deeply upset by Baby Girl so I never discussed her, though the incident weighed on my mind too.
Near the end of the week, on the way to school, Maurice asked me how I was feeling.
“Okay,” I said.
“Is your aunt still upset about that little baby?”
“I think a little.”
“Well, that must have been hard on everyone.”
It was a cool morning and the leaves on the ground were wet from frost. The sun was out though, and I knew that by lunchtime it was going to be warm. Tommy walked a few feet ahead of us, dragging a stick on the sidewalk.
“What do you think will happen to her?”
“That little baby? I’m not sure. I’m sure she’ll be fine. Someone will take care of her.”
“Why do you think they left her?”
“I don’t know for sure.” Then Maurice said, “Maybe because they loved her.”
“If they loved her, then why did they leave her?”
Maurice squinted his eyes, thinking. “They might have thought she’d have a better life with your family. My momma sent me to live with my aunt for awhile in St. Louis when times were tough, after she lost her job at the phone company. I was only eight and I missed her terrible. She did what she had to do though. She was looking out for my best interests. I know that now. You do what you have to do sometimes, you do what you have to do to get by.”
Maurice lit his pipe, following the usual procedure. I regarded this now as a sacred ritual and was silent as he performed it.
“I talked to your father about what happened,” he said after he took his first puff. “He wanted to come home, but I told him not to, told him everything was under control. He’s been in contact with the police and they told him the baby was fine.”
“When’s he coming home?” I asked. Suddenly, I missed my father.
“Day after tomorrow. He said his conference was going well.” Maurice took Tommy’s hand as we crossed a street. When we got to the other side, he let go and To
mmy ran up ahead again, still dragging his stick that was now bending in the middle.
“Your father seems to like his work,” Maurice said.
“He likes the Civil War a lot.”
“It’s important that a person likes what he does. The money hasn’t had much effect on him. It doesn’t seem to be changing him.”
“My father never changes,” I said.
“How’s that?”
“My father never changes,” I said again, stating what I thought was the obvious. “He’s always the same.”
“I imagine being consistent is an important part of being a parent,” Maurice said. “Maybe it’s good then that he doesn’t change.”
“I wish he was a little different,” I said.
Maurice puffed on his pipe. A thin trail of smoke lifted up into the air. “Now why do you wish he was different?”
“I just wish he was different, that’s all,” I said.
We crossed another street. A police car drove slowly past and the policeman waved at Maurice, who waved back. The car drove away, leaving a small pile of leaves chasing it in its wake.
“Well, I’m sure he’ll change a little,” Maurice said. “All that money will probably bring some change, I suppose.”
“What would you do if you won the lottery?” I asked.
“What would I do if I had won,” Maurice repeated my question. “I don’t. . .” he stopped. “I don’t think I’d wish that on myself.” Then he said, “Your father, he’s doing the right thing, I think.”
This confused me. My father didn’t seem to be doing much of anything. “What’s he doing?” I asked.
“He’s controlling the money,” Maurice said. “Instead of having it control him.” With that, Maurice puffed on his pipe a few more times and we walked the rest of the way without saying much else.
When I got to school, Benjamin Wilcott came up to me in the hall and pushed me against my locker. “Hey, asshole. Tell your dad to leave my mom alone.”
