Finn

by Matthew Olshan

  Those were nice times, but Mom could also be wild in a bad way, especially when she was in one of her funks. Her funks could last a long time. The worst one I remember lasted almost two months. She barely got out of bed at all. I almost called the police, because the things she was saying scared me. She was crying a lot and she always seemed to be saying goodbye. She came out of it, though, like always. She’d wake up one day and suddenly everything was okay. That’s when she’d go get a new boyfriend, or put up curtains, or have the rugs cleaned. She was very keen on fresh starts.

  The way she would suddenly be in a funk, and then just as suddenly be out of one, took a toll on me. I never knew what to expect, and I guess I got into a funk of my own, because for a long time I wouldn’t eat, or, if Mom made me, I’d eat the absolute minimum, and even that was hard to keep down. Mom thought I was doing it on purpose. She said I was just trying to get attention, but I wasn’t. Food just stopped appealing to me. I had a metallic taste in my mouth all the time. I finally got her to stop trying to force feed me. She said she guessed I’d eat when I was good and ready, and hoped that would happen before I starved to death. Honestly, at the time, I think I would have been happy to starve. I remember not caring at all, about anything.

  I must have looked pretty bad—I’d been avoiding mirrors for a while—because one day when Mom was out, my grandparents stopped by to see me, and my grandmother burst into tears when I opened the door. Mom’s place was filthy, as usual. My grandmother kept telling me everything was going to be okay. My grandfather was clenching his jaw, the way he does when he’s super angry. He said, “Let’s get the girl out of this hellhole.” Later, he told me they’d been watching the apartment building for almost two days, waiting until it looked as though my mother’d be gone for a while.

  That’s when I started living with my grandparents. They brought me in front of a judge, who agreed that they should take care of me. He was a friendly judge, not intimidating at all, the way you’d expect someone to be who decides people’s fates every day. He asked me if I wanted to live with my grandparents.

  “I suppose,” I said. “If it’s not too much trouble.” That made the judge laugh, and he granted them custody of me, and then he issued something called a “restraining order,” which was supposed to keep my Mom away from me. Obviously, restraining orders don’t always work.

  I thought about all of this, and then I thought about my Dad, which I almost never do when I’m angry because it makes me cry and then I get angry at him, too, or at least the memory of him, for making me cry. In a way, I was glad that my Mom didn’t keep any mementos of him around, because I don’t think I could have gotten through those three days if there had been.

  Chapter Seven

  What Mom “needed help with,” it turns out, was robbing my grandparents. “Those two are loaded,” she said. “They’re worse than Jews. They’ve probably got money sewn into every mattress in the house.” There was no point in telling Mom she was being idiotic. She wouldn’t have listened. Besides, it was nice just to let her go on being wrong.

  My grandparents are paranoid about cash. They’re always running out and getting twenty or thirty dollars from the bank. There’s never much more than that in the house, except when they go out of town. When they do go on a trip, they like to leave a hundred dollars on the table in the front hallway as they’re locking up, along with a note to any thief—Dear Intruder!—saying to please take the money and not make a mess ransacking the house. Personally, if I were a thief, I’d take the money and then I’d ransack the house for more, but I guess that means I think like a thief, whereas they think like grandparents.

  On the third night, Mom, Bobby, and I took the van over to my grandparents’ house to “scope things out.” I had been cooped up for so long that I didn’t even mind what we were doing. It was enough just to be outside, breathing outside air, and to see the sky, even if it was the dishwatery city sky, with its pale orange haze. On the way across town, Mom asked me a lot of questions about my grandparents, mainly having to do with their habits. It was a Thursday—at least that’s what Mom told me. It’s amazing how quickly you can forget the day of the week—and even though it wasn’t true, I said that my grandparents always stayed in on Thursdays and watched their boring antiques show. Mom said that it didn’t matter because we weren’t going “inside” tonight anyway. She said that I better not be lying about the antiques show, because if we got there and there was no sign of the TV being on, she’d cut my hair.

  This was more of a punishment than it sounds. She had done it once before when she was angry. She used pinking shears, those huge fabric scissors with triangle teeth. The scissors were dull and rusty, and she wound up tearing out almost as much hair as she cut. The hair that was left looked like it had been chewed off by a dog. The next day, when she saw what she had done and how much it embarrassed me, she was very apologetic, but I guess she didn’t really mean her apology, because here she was, threatening to do it all over again.

  I said that we wouldn’t be able to tell if they were watching TV, because the TV was in a room that had no windows. Besides, I said, the point wasn’t that they watched the TV show. It’s that they made a whole evening of it, with popcorn, et cetera.

  “See?” Bobby said, clucking the van’s horn. “She’s very observant. She’s a natural for this line of work.” Mom told him to shut up, which he did, but not before complaining about how Mom was undermining his authority.

  The van, which was corroded and had huge tires and the bikini barbarians on the side, didn’t exactly fit into my grandparents’ neighborhood. Mom knew it, too. She told Bobby to keep the van moving, and when we did stop, she was constantly telling him to avoid the streetlights. There are streetlights everywhere in my grandparents’ neighborhood, which used to annoy me on nights when I couldn’t sleep. Now, I was grateful for them.

  We parked across from their house and a few cars down. I hoped to catch a glimpse of my grandmother or grandfather, but no luck. It was probably just as well. The sight of one of them padding around in a wool bathrobe would have made me too lonely.

  A police cruiser glided down the street toward us. Its lights weren’t flashing, but Bobby said, “That’s our cue to skee-daddle.” Mom told him to please shut his cakehole. Then she softened and said it was probably just a routine visit, on account of the kidnapping. It surprised me to hear her use the word “kidnapping.” I hadn’t thought of it that way since the first night.

  At any rate, Mom turned out to be right. The policeman parked right across from us. The whole time he was getting out of his car, Bobby was freaking. Mom said, “I swear to God, if you don’t shut up. . .” Then she turned her threats on me. “You make one sound. . .” she said.

  The policeman didn’t notice us. He walked slowly up to my grandparents’ door, flipping pages on his clipboard, as if he was about to take an exam. He straightened his hat before he knocked on the front door. I kept thinking of those rusty scissors. I whispered, “Please, please, please be home.” Then the light went on in the hallway.

  At that point, Mom let Bobby drive us away. He kept trying to explain himself, saying how the policeman wouldn’t have bothered him if he was scoping out the place solo. “I was thinking of you two, not me,” he said, but Mom said that that was a load of bull, and for once, I agreed with her. Nobody said anything more until we were on the freeway.

  Mom perked up at highway speed. She said she was hungry and asked Bobby to take her to the Krispy Kreme. Mom’s not a big donut eater, so I figured she was making a peace offering. Bobby stomped on the gas and said, “Yes, Ma’am!”

  Sometimes stereotypes are helpful, which makes me wonder why people are always telling you to avoid them. Marian says that stereotypes Trample the Inalienable Rights of the Individual, or something like that, but I say: why not use them, if they’re almost always true? The stereotype I’m thinking of here is a fairly minor one: the fact that there’s always a police car parked in front of a donut s
hop. People like to make jokes about policemen and donuts, probably because they’re afraid of the police and like to imagine them as big donut-eaters. There’s definitely something childish about eating donuts. It’s hard to imagine someone being violent if you can picture him stuffing his face with a French cruller.

  Lock me up for Trampling the Inalienable Rights, but there was a shiny police cruiser parked sloppily in the handicapped space in front of the Krispy Kreme. One cop was in the cruiser, fiddling with the radio. The other cop was ordering donuts at the counter. The bright lights and colors and the spotless glass walls made the insides of the Krispy Kreme look like a game show.

  Bobby said something lame about criminals and cops not being so different because they both liked Krispy Kremes. When I said that we weren’t criminals because we hadn’t broken any laws yet, he said, “Speak for yourself,” in an extremely pompous way. Mom laughed in his face and said that where she grew up, B.O. wasn’t a federal offense. Bobby tried to look hurt by that comment, but he was clearly excited by the prospect of donuts.

  It was hard to imagine why Bobby would marry a woman who was so mean to him, but I was learning that some people actually liked that. And besides, Mom was a very beautiful woman, in a wild kind of way, when she wanted to be. She never had a problem attracting men. Since Dad, she’d just been specializing in losers.

  I asked if I could run to the bathroom. Mom didn’t want to let me. She told me I could hold it until we got back, but I pointed out that there was a pretty long line in the Krispy Kreme and that “casing my grandparents’ house”—which was what Bobby insisted on calling it— had been a little scary, which made me have to pee even more. Mom finally agreed, but not without threatening to come in with me. I knew that what she really wanted was to wait in the van and have a cigarette, so I said, “Fine, be my guest.” She gave me a hard look, but finally told me to go on and hurry up. I thanked her, if you can believe it. I really did have to pee and it would have been nothing for her to say “too bad” and make me hold it until we got back to her place.

  Bobby was at the counter, involving all the customers in helping him choose his donuts. He was in hog heaven, probably because he’s so rarely the center of attention. He grinned when he saw me, flexing his thick continuous monobrow, as if to say, “Is this place not the greatest?” I ignored him and went to the ladies room.

  On my way out of the Krispy Kreme, I bumped into the policeman, who was packing up his coffee and donuts at the counter by the door. I apologized. He gave me a very friendly policeman wink, which carries a lot more meaning than the average wink, at least in my book, because the person doing it is wearing a gun.

  Seeing the policeman up close reminded me of Dad for some reason. Dad was definitely the kind of person who would wink at you if you bumped into him. It wasn’t just the wink. There was something else. Maybe it was the barbershop powder smell. A lot of policemen smell like barbershop powder. Dad did, too.

  Bobby came up behind me and handed me a box of donuts and put his fat fingers around my arm. I don’t know why, but in front of that policeman, Bobby’s hand on me made me feel guilty, as if I actually had broken into my grandparents’ that night, and not just scoped it out. I wasn’t worried. I knew I could fool the policeman into thinking I was perfectly innocent.

  A school counselor told me once that lying can be a kind of survival skill, like knowing how to drink water from a cactus or eat raw frogs. I could see that, but it still didn’t make it right.

  Bobby was shoving me along, saying, “Your Momma’s waiting, tiger,” as if he was my real Dad. I caught myself automatically starting to pretend that I was his daughter. Suddenly, I caught a glimpse of the life in store for me with Mom and Bobby—a night-time, liar’s life, without rules. Instead of just being pushed towards the door, it was as if I was being pushed out to sea. The confusing part was that I loved the sea, only not enough to want to drown in it.

  Bobby squeezed my arm again, right on one of the fence scratches. Without even thinking about it, I stopped in front of the policeman and said, “This man is kidnapping me.”

  The policeman looked around at the other people in the Krispy Kreme to see if they were laughing, which they weren’t, but then he started laughing. Everyone else joined in, even Bobby. “Kidnapped, huh?” said the policeman, more to the people at the counter than to me. “Then maybe you should call the police.” Everybody thought that was hilarious. The policeman elbowed Bobby in the ribs and said, “Cute kid.” Bobby grinned and said, “She’s a pistol.” Then Bobby herded me out of the store. I didn’t bother to say anything else to the policeman. It would have been pointless.

  Outside the Krispy Kreme, Bobby told me that what I had just done was super dumb, but I knew he wasn’t going to rat me out. He was mad, but ratting me out would have gotten him in worse trouble than me.

  I thought things were okay when I climbed into the van, but Mom was waiting for me in the back of the van. She had seen everything, or at least enough, because after we pulled out of the Krispy Kreme lot and were safely on the highway, she came over and hit me in the face with her fist.

  It got me partly in the eye, but mostly on my nose, which tends to bleed easily. “What was that for?” I said, hunching over to avoid ruining my clothes. I was not going to cry in front of her.

  Of course I knew why she had hit me, and she knew that I knew. She didn’t bother to explain. Instead, she went over and opened the side door, which you’re never supposed to do when the van is moving, and definitely not at highway speed. The wind roared into the van and rocked it back and forth. Hamburger wrappers and drink lids swirled into the air, which was suddenly full of white dust. Bobby hit the brakes and said, “What the hell?” Mom turned to me and shouted, “You want out?”

  The car in the lane next to us swerved and honked. Mom leaned out the open door, gave the driver the finger, and started screaming that he should mind his own business. Bobby was shouting back over his shoulder, asking Mom to please get back inside the van. She stayed out there for a second, facing the wind, chin up, her eyes shut. Her gorgeous hair whipped her shoulders. Then she stared down at the wet pavement for a while. She was crouching by the open door like a troll guarding a magic gate. She flung her arm out into the sixty-mile-an-hour wind, which made her hand fly up like a bird. She turned to me and said, “You want out? Go ahead. Be my guest.”

  The dark trees and the concrete walls of the highway streamed behind her in bars of angry color while she waited for my answer. I didn’t give her one. Then she slid the door shut, forcing it against the wind, which was no match for her powerful arms and legs.

  After that, everything seemed silent except the windshield wipers, which squeaked against the windshield. Apparently, it had started to rain. Bobby offered me a donut after a while. I wanted to eat one—I hadn’t really eaten all day—but I was afraid of what Mom would do if I did, so I said I wasn’t hungry. Bobby offered to save me one for later, but Mom told him not to bother.

  She said I’d had enough for one night.

  Chapter Eight

  I managed to stall Mom and Bobby for a few more days by making up things about my grandparents’ habits, but I didn’t count on my Mom remembering that Monday was the anniversary of my Dad’s death, the day my grandparents always drove to the cemetery to visit his grave. The grave was in an old family plot, a couple of hours away by car. Friends of theirs lived near the cemetery. After visiting the grave, there was always a little party with drinks in my Dad’s memory. It was the only day of the year when both of my grandparents drank cocktails. They spent the night at their friends’ house, so neither one would have to drive.

  I’ve never been to see the grave myself. I was too scared to go when it all happened, and since then, I’ve had some other chances but I always turned them down. It’s just not how I want to remember him.

  I couldn’t very well tell Mom that my grandparents had stopped visiting their son’s grave. Mom wouldn’t have believed me, because
she knew better than anyone how devoted my grandparents were to Dad. I doubt I could have lied about it anyway, since it’s such an emotional topic for me.

  So Mom, Bobby, and I found ourselves parked outside my grandparents’ house again on Monday night, only this time there wasn’t a police car sitting out front. What’s more, all the streetlights on their block were out, which Bobby and I both took as a sign of luck, only opposite kinds.

  “Here’s how it’s going to work,” Mom said. “You’re going to take Bobby in with you. You’re going to turn off the alarm, and then you’re going to show him where the good stuff is.”

  “What good stuff?” I said.

  Mom told me there’d better be some good stuff. “If I think you’re holding out on us,” she said, “I’m going to go in there myself, and God help that house. You better pray your grandparents aren’t home when I come back and burn it to the ground.”

  Coming from anyone else, I wouldn’t have worried about the last part. Lots of people talk about hurting other people, especially when they’re angry, but most of the time it’s just talk. I knew that in her right mind Mom would never hurt my grandparents, not because she felt sentimental about them, which she didn’t, but because of the huge consequences if she got caught. But she was capable of almost anything when she was in one of her funks. I hadn’t seen any evidence of a funk, but that didn’t mean one wasn’t just around the corner.

  I finally told her about a few things that sounded pretty valuable, leaving out the stuff that my grandparents actually cared about. Mom wrote down what she wanted. She slapped Bobby with her little notepad every once in a while to make sure he was listening.