Dark Song
Page 8
“Ask your father,” Mom said.
I hurtled down the stairs and into the study.
“Why are we moving to Texas?” I burst out.
Dad slouched in the leather wingback chair, staring vacantly. Whatever the yelling had been about, he had been soundly defeated. “Your grandparents live there.”
No. I don’t have grandparents in Texas. I only have one grandparent. No one, no one would lie to their own children about their grandparents.
“My…” I whispered, “My… your parents… are dead. You said… that’s what… you said —”
Dad held up one hand to stop me. “Trust me, it’s easier to say they are dead than to tell you the truth.”
Trust him? I took a breath. “What truth?”
“They’re penny-pinching monsters whose hearts shriveled up so long ago they can’t remember having them.”
I waited.
Dad looked at me. Saw I wanted more. “They’re slumlords in a horrible, hard-scrabble town, and until now, I hadn’t spoken to them since I went to college.” He pushed out a breath. “Satisfied?”
If he could walk away from his own parents, when would he leave us?
“Then why are we going there?”
“Your mother said I’ve humiliated the family too much to live in Boulder anymore. Not that we can afford it.” He looked down at the hardwood floor. When he pulled his head back up and gazed out the window, I saw the tears on his cheek. “She made me call them and ask if we could live in one of their rentals. I think this is her way of making sure I get a good dose of humiliation, too. I’m thinking prison might have been better.”
He brushed the tear away. “Don’t look at me like I’m full of self-pity. The only reason those two old wretches are letting us stay is because one of the rentals is so broken down it hasn’t rented for six months. I have to fix the damn thing to get three free months’ rent. And they’ll get their pound of flesh out of me while I’m there.”
I felt a warm flush of anger. “So on top of all the rest I’ve learned about you, I find out that you’ve lied to me my whole life about my grandparents?” I was practically breathless with indignation. “You’re a gambler, a thief, and a hypocrite?” I counted on my fingers and stuck a fourth one out. “Oh, I forgot — add forgery to the list of crimes.”
“I’ve already heard this speech from your mother.” He ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.
Contempt now replaced the empty place I’d held for Dad. “I thought family was supposed to be what the Fords are all about.”
“Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I’m a pile of manure, and your and your mother’s shit smells like roses.”
Speechless. Dad had never talked to me like that before.
He cleared his throat and tried to redirect. “We’ll be near Houston, and there’re some good jobs there. Executive positions. People won’t know me or my past.… And the cost of living is a lot better in Texas. It will be a good move. A fresh start.”
HUMILIATION
I was left with two suitcases of clothes. A box of treasured pictures and mementos. My makeup, a couple of books, a camera, my pillows, and, after a fight, my laptop.
I watched strangers and, worse, neighbors and friends rummage through my CDs and clothes, our furniture, sheets, table linens, Dad’s golf clubs, our bikes, tennis racquets, everything that made us The Fords. I died of shame when Mom forced me to make change.
I made a deal with Em to come and buy all of Chrissy’s bears.
“That’s kind of you, Emily, but there’s no room in the car or the U-Haul for even one more box,” Mom said.
“I’m going to mail them to her, Mrs. Ford.” Em didn’t even try to make nice.
Mom’s face blazed with color. “Fine, then.” She wouldn’t make eye contact as she took Em’s money, but her long look at me could have incinerated paper.
I walked out with Em. “Thanks for this, Em.”
“How bad would it be to kidnap just one bear from a six-year-old? This one is really cute. Will Chrissy notice?”
She grinned at me. I couldn’t help but grin back. “Chrissy would notice.” We said it together. Nothing got past Chrissy.
I turned and trudged back to the garage to find Kim Banks, Layla Emerson, and Reggie Wilcox sashaying among the tables of our possessions.
Nightmare. I knew my friends didn’t garage sale shop. Kim pointed at things but didn’t touch, as if the objects were infectious. I guess sometimes a slap in the face isn’t physical.
“There she is.” Kim was loud, pulling the attention of everyone in the garage. “Ames, you poor thing.”
I tried to make my face a mask and tamp down the nausea that roiled in my stomach, but I couldn’t control the blush that revealed my shame.
“There’s a rumor that you’re moving,” Reggie said. “You know, the sign in front of your house and all, but you haven’t said a word to anyone.”
Layla made a sound like a cat coughing up a hair ball. “Like someone is going to buy your old school uniforms? How desperate is that? And CDs? Like everyone doesn’t download.” She put one manicured hand over her mouth. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. Really, good luck with the sale. My dad said the creditors are totally hounding you guys and… oh, I totally didn’t mean to say that, either.”
“Go away,” I said. “And I totally meant to say that.”
I turned and shot my mother a scathing look, then rushed into the house, searching for the nearest bathroom.
After the bits and pieces of our lives were carted off by strangers and pitying neighbors, Mom, Chrissy, and I cleaned the remains. Mom made a run and sold what was left to a secondhand store. Dad was in the kitchen, sitting on the floor drinking beer. I could have paid for Chrissy’s bears myself with the money for that beer. He gambled away the big money and now he was drinking away the change. He looked more than pathetic, droopy-eyed and loose-limbed, propped into a corner.
Chrissy and I clattered across the rugless wood floors and up the stairs to her room.
“Everything echoes,” Chrissy noticed.
“There’s nothing to hear us, so our words just come back,” I said. We flopped down on her plush carpet.
“Do you think Em will kidnap any of the bears?” I asked.
“Em’s too nice,” Chrissy said.
I laughed. “Those three words have never been spoken together in the history of mankind,” I said.
Chrissy shook her head fiercely. “Em is nice, deep down. Sometimes she’s nicer than you.”
I felt like she’d just kicked me in the stomach. “What do you know?” I grumped. “You talk to stuffed bears.”
* * *
“You’re too drunk to drive, but I think you can manage to get the last of the suitcases into the back of the car,” Mom shouted down the stairs to Dad, and then came into Chrissy’s room. “Well, it’s all done. Let’s get in the car and go.”
“I thought we were leaving in the morning,” I said. “Em’s coming by.”
“Why sleep on these hard floors when we could be driving? Saying good-bye will just make you cry and give yourself a headache. Let’s cut our losses and get going.”
I wanted to argue with Mom for taking away my last thing of value: a good-bye with my best friend.
But she was already whipping down the hall.
Dad bumbled and fumbled with the suitcases. He arranged the already rearranged bags with Mom tapping her foot and snapping glances at her watch like we were about to miss a flight or something. Finally, she said, “Stop it. You’re driving me insane. The suitcases are fine. They were fine ten minutes ago. Let’s just go!”
That’s when a ’60s Volkswagen, hand-painted camouflage and purring like a cream-fed cat, drove up and angled across the nose of our Lexus SUV. Dad gave a big sigh of relief. Out of the passenger seat popped Rockin’ Robin.
“Seconds from a clean getaway, were you?” Robin said.
“You called her?” Mom asked Dad.
“At least this time I won’t have to live in a tent.” Mom tried to laugh but sobs came instead. She sank to the curb.
Robin sat next to her. “I’m moving in with Gretchen for a while. Randal has my phone number. I got a part-time job at a no-kill pet shelter. I just might get a hankering to pet me a cow or two and come to Texas sometime. You never know with me.”
“You never know. That’s God’s truth.” Mom wiped her eyes. “I’ve lost everything important and you’re blathering about petting cows.”
Robin stood up slow and steady. She stepped away from Mom. “Last time I looked, your children were something important, Diana.”
She leaned into the car and kissed Chrissy. “I love you, dumpling. I’ll call soon.” I hugged her. “Take care of them,” Robin whispered in my ear. “I love you.”
She hugged Dad. “Thanks for calling. Now straighten up, asshole.”
When Dad and I got into the car, Mom was already in the driver’s seat with the motor running. She backed up, to avoid killing Robin’s friend who still leaned against her camo Bug, then changed gears and drove away without another look at her mother.
Once on the interstate, Mom gripped the leather-covered steering wheel like her hands were fused into the ten and two position. Her seat was full upright and she never set the cruise control. No radio, no talking. She stared straight ahead, but there were sight daggers for Dad. He sighed and tilted his seat practically into my lap and went to sleep.
It got dark and the passing lights hypnotized me. I couldn’t stretch out much with Dad’s seat tilted back and Chrissy’s booster seat anchored next to me. My legs were cramped and my back needed some stretching, but Mom made it clear that wouldn’t happen any time soon.
“We’re only stopping for gas and to pee. There’s snacks and water. We don’t have the cash for hotels or restaurants.”
I decided drinking water would complicate matters. I dozed off for a while.
I woke up when Mom pulled in for gas. Dad sobered up enough to drive part of the way, so Mom took a nap. We all bailed to hit the bathrooms.
“It’s official. Nothing is more disgusting than a gas station restroom,” I snarked. But I had a surprise waiting for me in Texas — and a lesson about tempting the gods.
Once we got to our “destination,” I begged Mom to let us live in the car. Any little hope of a life I recognized vanished when we turned onto Poverty Lane, as I called it.
The houses were crowded one next to another with scraggly yards, bare patches of dirt surrounded by unmowed grass that crawled up chain-link fences. Pit bulls and rottweilers strained against their chains as we drove by. Porches and roof lines sagged, curtains hung haphazardly, parting to let suspicious faces watch us covertly. Of all the run-down, pathetic houses, we turned into the carport of the worst.
Peeled and blistered paint made the house look like it had leprosy, front window broken, door hanging agape like a first grader’s dangling front tooth, bits of shingle missing from the roof, and wild overgrown grass. Its only saving grace was a tangle of briars along one side where, almost in defiance, roses bloomed. Not many. Just enough soft beauty to highlight the raw ugliness. Home sweet home.
“Let’s go look at the damage before we unload,” Dad said.
Opening the car door was nearly a fatal mistake. Early April in Boulder is still cold. We left in sweaters and jeans. We stepped out into a sauna. Swamp-monster humid. Clammy pop-sweat-out-on-your-forehead-in-seconds hot. I was skinning off my sweater quicker than I could draw another labored breath. Geez, you could eat this air easier than breathe it.
I wiped my face with the sleeve of the sweater and then pulled the tail of my T-shirt out of my jeans and flapped it. “We cannot live here,” I moaned.
“Maybe it’s not as bad inside,” Dad said.
He was so wrong. It had been used as a drug flophouse or something until it got too gross for skuzzballs. Hypodermic needles littered the floor, as did human feces and animal crap. Pizza boxes and Chinese takeout settled in corners and heaped in piles in every room. Newspaper bits that had been used for toilet paper littered the bathroom floor. A dead rat floated in the toilet bowl.
I walked out and got back in the car. Mom and Dad followed.
Mom took a deep breath. “Here’s the plan,” she began, summoning her inner organizer to help her cope, I guess. “I can’t face cleaning that up without sleep. Randal, we’ll go to your parents’ — your mother and father will just have to deal. We’ll have a nap, then buy supplies and do a major clean and disinfect. The girls and I do that while you fix the door and window. We can sleep on the floors once they are clean and move our stuff in tomorrow.”
I made a loud blatting noise, like the sound of the buzzer in a game show. “Wrong. I’m never stepping foot in that place again. Kill me if you want. Put me up for adoption. Leave me on a street corner with hookers and drug addicts and let me find my way back to Boulder. But I’m done with Texas. Officially over.”
Mom didn’t even turn around. “Tell someone who cares.”
Part 2
THE GENE POOL IS POISON
My grandparents’ house was in a neighborhood of geezers. Their houses were geezered, too. Painted mailboxes with ducks or flowers on it, concrete statuary in the yards with cheap flowers around the bases. Cherubs, angels, saints, or worse, gnomes. The place was an ode to bad taste.
Dad’s geezers acted like the British army had arrived to bivouac in their house when we arrived. No smiles, no welcoming hugs. They stared at us like the strangers we were and at Dad like… well, like they didn’t trust him. They ushered us in with worried looks. Had we already caught leprosy from that house?
Chrissy stepped up. “Do I call you Grandmom like our grandmom Robin or what?”
The old woman stepped back, glaring at Dad. “Well, since I’ve never set eyes on you ’til this minute, I think Mrs. Ford will do right fine, little miss.” I ground my teeth.
So, we couldn’t look forward to a love fest here. I couldn’t blame them. How cold could Mom and Dad be? To not even tell these people that they had grandchildren? But when Dad hit bottom he called for a handout. Couldn’t we have gone on welfare or something in Colorado?
“Ma,” Dad said, “we drove straight through. You have to know what that house looks like. We just need to sleep a few hours before we can get to work. We’re not here to steal your paintings.”
Dad shrugged toward a wall. Hanging there in a dime store frame was a magazine picture of JFK. Seriously.
“Wouldn’t be the first time you stole from us,” Dad’s mother said. “I’ll get you something to drink. You looked parched.”
Mom’s head snapped around to Dad in surprise. I could see in her expression that those words were clattering around in her head like they were in mine.
Wouldn’t be the first time you stole from us.
Dad’s mother brought us warm tap water to drink from plastic cups. The floors in the house were vomit green linoleum, the furniture was Goodwill rejects, and their clothes were Kmart Blue Light Specials. Fine, I’m a snob. I was tired, sweaty, road-gritty, and all I wanted to do was bawl my head off, but I wouldn’t give my parents the satisfaction of seeing me break.
“Where’s my bedroom?” I asked.
“Well, now, she’s something,” Mrs. Ford said. “There’s no ‘your’ bedroom. Why would there be one when I haven’t even heard a howdy from you ever?”
I didn’t know how to politely explain to someone that they were supposed to be worm food.
“There’s a single bed in the room Doreen uses for sewing. Y’all can fight for that and the others can bed down on the floor.” This from Mr. Ford. “Hope you got your own pillows and quilts for the floor.” He hitched his sagging trousers and shuffled out of the room.
Mom and Chrissy
doubled up on the twin bed. Dad tossed his pillow on the bare linoleum and lay down. He didn’t even take off his shoes. I stretched out on a braided rug that smelled slightly of dog.
Against all odds, I slept, only to be awakened by Mr. Ford. “Y’all need to get up. It’s dinner time and Doreen’s got chili.”
They were going to feed us? I could do chili. I got up and stretched. I felt like someone had been walking on me with heavy boots. I peeled my sweat-dampened T-shirt away from my body and shook it, once again trying for a little cooling air. How could it be this hot?
When we assembled at the table Mrs. Ford served the bowls of rice and chili. The chili was made of beans in a watery but spicy sauce. The beverage? The tepid tap water again. No ice.
“Are you vegetarians?” I asked.
“We live on a fixed income,” Mrs. Ford snapped at me. “We can only afford meat twice a week. There’s plenty of protein in beans.”
“It’s good,” I muttered. “Some of my friends are vegetarians, that’s all.”
“Do you all know what your father done to us the last time we seen him?” Mrs. Ford asked, her chin low to her chili bowl and her eyes narrowed into slits.
Dad put down his spoon and launched into a protest before they even had a chance to explain. “You owed me that money. I’d been picking up rent checks every month for two years. It wasn’t easy. You never paid me a cent for it.”
“We fed you and clothed you and gave you a roof,” said Mr. Ford.
Mom’s expression told me that she had heard a different version of this story. “Randal?” She was demanding an explanation.
“I got accepted to University of Texas.” Dad’s voice was curt and defensive. “I managed to scrape together the deposit fees but didn’t have the money for the first semester. So I collected the checks and I took the bus to Austin.”
“You stole from your own kin,” Dad’s mother insisted.
“Hardly,” Dad retorted. “Everything I owned fit in a backpack.”
His father grunted his contempt. “Only reason we let you come back is we wanted to see you crawl.”