The School on Heart's Content Road

by Carolyn Chute

  Mickey nods.

  Donnie swallows again. More pain to be put out of sight. Now with a bit of a squeak, he speaks. “It’s about breaking us. It’s like getting in our pants and squeezing, showing who’s boss.”

  Britta steps from the curtained bedroom, digs in a drawer for a washrag. Runs it under the faucet.

  Donnie pushes his empty dish away, reaches down for a plastic dinosaur, sets it on Travis’s tray. Travis spanks the dinosaur with both hands, and off goes the dinosaur to the floor again.

  Donnie says, “So, Mum, could you toss me coupl’a those cookies from the jar while you’re over there?”

  Britta ignores this. There are no cookies in the jar. This is just Donnie being sarcastic about the usual food shortage. She steps over to the high chair and slathers the washrag around Travis’s chubby cheeks while he is leaning way forward, face down, to the right of his chair, pointing to the dinosaur.

  Mickey especially avoids looking at Donnie’s naked face. It’s as if Donnie has his pants off. Or is caught in a lie.

  Donnie asks, “What do you guys do over at those militia meetings anyway?”

  Mickey is surprised, not by the fact that Donnie has found out but by the offhand way he’s brought it up.

  “Mostly just talk.”

  Donnie snorts happily, leans back in his seat, arms up over his head, thumbs coming together, and he kind of stretches as he looks around and sees how both his mother’s face and Travis’s face are aimed at the smiling faces on the TV—an ad for insurance—smiling faces, sugary music, and the word protection used five times. Donnie says, “Shit. I was hopin’ you guys were getting ready to blow the fuckers away.”

  Mickey Gammon speaks.

  It’s almost eleven o’clock but she’s still up, rocking him. Looks like she’s holdin’ a new baby, ’cept for his big feet sticking out . . . big skinny feet. She says, “Hey, little brother.” And I give her the money and she takes the money and she looks me up and down, my face, my neck, my crotch. Then she looks away. And it’s all over. The moment. The thing she was thinking. Maybe it was the thing I think she was thinking, but just thinking, not doing, ’cause she ain’t the affair type. Maybe it was just some weird flash, like all women get. Hot flashes.

  She says, in a real cute way, “Sure you’re not dealin’ drugs?”

  I just make a little spit sound. Like yeah, right. Like I would do such a thing. Which I haven’t. ’Cause I ain’t much of a salesman. You gotta be able to talk to deal. At least you got to say, “This stuff’s a little seedy and has a lotta lumber, but it’s all that’s coming in now.” Or “You again? I can’t front you any more till you’ve paid up.”

  She’s looking down at Jesse’s foot with no expression now. I turn and head up the stairs to bed. I would never touch her. But I can go all night and a week thinking of her hands on me, how it would be. Shit. That’s all, just imaginary fucking. Just like dealing reefer or dealing used cars, whatever. With gettin’ a woman, you gotta be able to talk to get very far.

  Erika at her clothesline.

  Her older sister, Patti, and two strange women pull up in a small, newish, copper-color car. Patti’s words come out carved and cool, words that can draw you in, gladly, for sales is what she’s all about. She resembles Erika across the eyes, but she is neither pudgy nor wifely.

  Patti makes the introductions. “This is Nan Bradley and Sass Hilare from church. This is my sister, Erika . . . Erika, we thought we’d stop by and see you . . . and the baby.”

  The churchwomen say they are very sorry to hear about the baby. Their church is not a fundamentalist damnation kind of church, nor a he-ain’t-heavy-he’s-my-brother kind of church. But a career-minded, positive-thinking church. Perfect for Patti. But these two women seem different from Patti.

  Erika tells each one hi. Like her face and shoulders, Erika’s voice is soft.

  Nan and Sass and Patti are all holding gifts, a covered casserole or dessert and some packages wrapped in lavender tissue with elaborate polka-dot and silver-stripe bows.

  The yard is too bright. Just one old oak tree, tall and lacking lower limbs, looking more like an elm. There’s a path cut into the tall grass of the field by the barn, and also leading to the clothesline and its mowed rectangle. The clipped grass is stiff and prickly to Erika’s bare feet. The lines droop with laundry, including sheets that have cartoon prints. Erika wears shorts. Legs pudgy, shaved, but not tanned. V-neck T-shirt, dark blue. Kids’ bikes in the tall grass. A wheelbarrow full of water. Wildflowers. Bees. Erika squints. The visitors squint. Only Patti wears sunglasses, eyes wide and roving.

  “How’s the baby doing?” she asks cautiously. Patti always asks a lot of questions, which she appears to have no intention of hearing the answers to, but will look around at furnishings and floors as if guessing their value. She has always done this. Long before she was in home and commercial real estate. And there’s her nonaccent accent, cultivated since high school. A few years ago, that generic accent made Patti seem peculiar. Now, today, she’s among millions.

  “Not very well,” Erika tells her.

  From the open windows there come rustlings and rumblings, a slam, the sound of ice in a glass, pop pop pop pop pop . . . a giggle . . . a whooooosh and, of course, the multiple TVs’ tinny tweedles and little roars. The restless house breathes.

  Erika picks a wet sock from the basket, pins it to the line, reaches for another.

  The gifts wrapped in such summery paper and the casserole remain unoffered in the visitors’ hands, spelling out that these are offerings for passage into the house.

  Erika glances again at the two strangers, then goes for another sock. All three visitors are dressed like their gifts, pastel and summery. Nan is white-haired, fiftyish. Sass is young.

  Patti asks, “Can we see him when you’re done with your wash, Erika?”

  “Well . . . yes . . . but he won’t be friendly. He’s not even eating.”

  Patti glances at the faces of her friends; behind her sunglasses, her eyes are just two meaningful gleams.

  “So very sad,” says white-haired Nan. “I’m truly sorry.”

  Erika turns and looks at her, a blinking single nod.

  Patti tells on her sister. “They’ve decided to refuse treatment.”

  “Yes,” says the white-haired woman, which means this has already been discussed prior to their arrival.

  Patti says, “They just decided to hope for the best.”

  Erika feels for a twisted pink pajama top.

  Patti says, “They are not Christian Scientists. That’s not it. They are just—” She cuts herself off, meaningfully. Her eyes are on her sister’s back, the oversized navy T-shirt, pudgy shoulders, the bra line cutting into the extra pudginess of her back. “They have just decided to let him go.”

  Erika says nothing. She fetches another pastel sock and a handful of washcloths.

  “You mentioned before that they don’t have insurance,” the young Sass offers quickly. The armholes of her dress are cut deep into the shoulders and her arms are tanned and shapely. Not a churchy dress. Her hair is in a blonde Pebbles do. Not churchy hair.

  Patti replies, “Well, yes.”

  Sass says, “With the way things are these days, seems most people don’t have insurance.”

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” says the white-haired Nan kindly. “My daughter doesn’t have health insurance either.”

  The young Sass nods energetically.

  This conversation: third person all the way, like Erika isn’t around. But, after all, she is keeping her back to them, isn’t she?

  Patti looks at the house. Her eyes sweep over to the Lockes’ car, parked near the kitchen door. “Where is Donald, not at work?”

  Erika says, “Tuesdays he’s nights.”

  Patti’s sunglasses turn toward her friends. “The hospital would treat him whether they have insurance or not. They wouldn’t turn a child away. I called them myself and they said Erika and Donald only need
to apply for a red card and MaineCare.”

  “It’s true,” says Sass. “A hospital wouldn’t be that mean to turn you guys away.”

  Erika turns and puts her eyes wide on each of them. “Yeah?” Then goes back to pinning washcloths.

  “They’ll let you charge it,” says Sass eagerly. “Unless you are real poor, then the hospital part is free if you aren’t eligible for MaineCare. But Jesse himself is probably eligible, even if you aren’t. He’s under eighteen. Even so, you only have to pay the doctor, maybe. And probably anesthesia if . . . you know . . . if that is necessary.”

  Erika pins the washcloths slowly. She does not want them in her house. She does not want them in her yard. But Erika is a soft person, not one to offend.

  “Maybe you could save him!” Sass urges. “Maybe it’s not too late.”

  Patti sneers. “My sister is a conspiracy theorist. There’s all this rumor among her friends that the hospitals are grabbing people’s houses. Or the state is. Or something.”

  “Oh, the state wouldn’t do that,” says Nan.

  “We have friends,” says Erika without turning, “who the hospital said they put a lien on their house. And MaineCare too.”

  “Probably a bluff,” says Patti with a chuckle. “Playing on their ignorance.”

  Sass’s voice gets a little thrill to it. “Oh, Erika, why don’t you call now? Every minute matters.”

  “Because,” says Patti, “my sister is stubborn and. . . .” She picks fretfully at the yellow bow of her gift. She stares deeply into this bow and says, “This whole discussion is disgusting.”

  Sass says softly, “They really won’t take the house, Erika.”

  “And so what if they did!” snaps Patti. “It’s just a piece of real estate!”

  “Maybe she can mortgage the house,” Nan suggests. “They don’t have to sell it.”

  Erika hangs another washcloth carefully. There’s the rustlings of the children inside the house, those who will still be alive next year. She says, “Jesse would die even with treatments.”

  Patti laughs. “He has a ten-percent chance!”

  Erika speaks only to the striped pink and white washcloth and two clothespins. “A five-percent chance of living five more years.”

  A car passes. The horn toots. Friends of Donnie’s.

  Patti sighs. “They could discover a miracle in five years.”

  “They?” Erika asks the dark sock she is now hanging.

  Patti’s eyes behind her sunglasses are unseen. Her voice comes out like a cheery TV ad. “Erika acts like her own baby is just a piece of furniture. It . . . it is hard for me to understand. Five years of time, Erika! Five precious years! But oh, no, you are not looking at five years as precious. You sit there juggling numbers like your child is just a card game or lottery . . . or something. My God!”

  “I do not want him in this world,” Erika’s voice says firmly, into a long stunned silence. She finishes with the last washcloth, turns, and sees Donnie in the doorway in his old sweatpants, blue with white double stripes on the outsides of each leg. And gray T-shirt. She has two fantasies right now. One, that Donnie will keep filling that door, like a brave soldier, and keep them out. He will not be his usual wishy-washy self and let people walk over him. He looks so strong from this distance, even without his mustache. The way he stands, the hard fed-up look in his eyes. She imagines he is who she once thought he was.

  And she imagines Jesse as he actually was six months ago. Standing in the kitchen. His sly, mischievous, fun little white-baby-teeth grin, cheeks blooming with perfect health, pointing up at his half sister, Elizabeth, who would be fixing his Barney cup with Kool-Aid, and he says, “Mine is reddy,” which means either ready or very red. Even his mistakes seemed so smart. And his delight with everything. His delight: yeah, it was from the same place forgiveness is made. And no one else’s forgiveness matters.

  Next day, suppertime.

  Little girls stand at the table and pick from plates. There’s enough chairs, but they don’t use them. Elizabeth, the oldest, says “I want one of those” as she watches the parade of products on TV. Donnie says, “Sit down. You’re not a cow.” He says this only to Elizabeth, his seven-year-old daughter by his first marriage, singling her out. She gives him the finger.

  Mickey comes in from somewhere, screen door thwacking, and sees the finger raised and then Donnie standing with his coffee by the refrigerator, tie loosened, top shirt-button unbuttoned, but his light-color hair still neat. And on Donnie’s bare, pink, hairless face, a look. Full-blown fury. And Donnie’s eyes slide over to Mickey’s proud light-stepping walk, the knees, the T-shirt that reads BLAME IT ON EL NIñO, the slim hips.

  Neither Erika nor Britta have seen the finger. And so they don’t know of it, and they don’t see Donnie’s face, nor the brace of his shoulders.

  Mickey prances over to Erika and taps her shoulder. She turns from the pan of stewed tomatoes, big spoon in her hand, and into her free hand he presses a wob of money and she breathes, “Thank God.”

  And Britta. She coos.

  So Mickey is standing between Donnie and Erika, and he reaches for a glass from the drainer and Erika pushes the money into the front pocket of her shorts, against that warm place near the hip bone, and Britta is looking up at the side of Mickey’s face, at the pale, very soft, very sparse beard appearing there, and the glass slips from Mickey’s fingers and smashes into the sink and this gives Donnie’s right arm a life of its own. Fist smacks Mickey hard. Mickey’s mouth looks instantly thick and bright.

  “Donnie!” both women howl, for they are absolutely shocked, this being the first time Donnie Locke has ever struck anyone or anything.

  And two of the girls burst into tears, two of the four who live here, while the two neighbor girls slink toward the door.

  “Tense! Tense!” Donnie hollers. “Fucking tense, okay?”

  Silence from the corner, the pallet of blankets where dying Jesse lies, breathing in an odd way.

  Mickey doesn’t shout back at his brother, nor does he cry, nor does he cringe, nor does he leave the room, but just goes over to the table and sits, facing the TV, which is showing a pale rerun of a large boisterous family living a lite life.

  Breakfast of champions.

  Early morning. All the TVs are on, two downstairs, two upstairs. All with the news, three different networks flickering with high-tech efficiency, more efficient than God. Or at least equal to God in its power to bend the knee.

  Donnie is in a kitchen chair, T-shirt and jeans, bare feet, legs stretched out, eyes faithful to the screen. Reportage on a trial. Ads. Urban crime. Ads. Welfare “reform.” Ads. Tax “reform.” Ads. A plane crash with forty-four dead. Ads. A weirdo less-than-human man eats his sexually assaulted boy victims. Ads.

  Summer presses on and on at the screened windows and door. Humidity and miles of weedy-smelling flowers, miles of crickets creaking in pauses and crescendos, a rhythm innate and old and creepily genius. And a car passes.

  Donnie’s day off, so he can let his mustache grow for one day, but its blondness keeps it invisible.

  Mickey comes down from his little attic room, wearing a fresh but wrinkled T-shirt. A camo print. The militia look. Jeans. Sneakers with double lacings and his light, proud, catlike walk. And his mouth, still swollen. Bruised berry-blue. A badge. Smacked mouth has given him more arrogance, not less. And his beard shows more now, a bit reddish.

  No women. No kids. Only the old deaf dog and Mickey and Donnie.

  Donnie keeps his eyes on the TV screen, one bare foot rubbing the dog’s back.

  Mickey finds one of the brand-new boxes of cold cereal in the cupboard just as that very same brand of cereal explodes full-blown onto the TV screen, golden flakes raining from above into a bowl, then bluish milk and a lot of high-feeling music. Mickey picks open the box, which is glued too well, and it rips.

  Back to the news. Music is just as high-feeling as the cereal music.

  Mickey pours a bowl of f
lakes. Fetches the milk—milk he has provided with his own earnings. He settles at the table to eat. Donnie and Mickey both watch an update on the “drug crisis” in America. Drugs. Guns. Victims. A three-year study. Experts speaking from their desks before walls of books. And a spokesman at a microphone telling the whys of the president’s “crime bill.” Mickey munches. Donnie’s jaw twitches.

  Going to the discount store, six-and-a-half-year-old Jane Meserve speaks.

  I wear my new dark pink sunglasses. Dark pink is where you see out through. White is around the edges, which are plastic, shaped like two hearts. And I wear my best earrings, which are like Manda Blake’s on the news. Gordie has dark glasses too, but just plain. Not heart shapes. His have metal around them with gray tape stuff to fix where they broke once. But he only wears his for when he is driving into the sunshine.

  The discount store is called ROBBINS because it’s their garage fixed up, it’s in East Egypt and Gordie says this is my last chance. He says, “Tantrums do not turn me on.” If I ask for ONE LITTLE THING, he will hate me. And I will not be “allowed” in a store “till the end of time.”

  You would not believe all the piles of stuff he buys. Screws and wires and little metal-shape things. And he is really friendish with all the people at the store. He laughs and they laugh and there’s jokes and weird mental talk about “sole electricity” and “passion sole” and some companies everybody hates who send you bills which have made us “too dependent and helpless.” All so boring.

  I take off my dark glasses. I just go around and look at stuff. This stuff is cheap, called regulars and overloads. It’s good stuff, not just nails. I pick up some sheer lip gloss and feel it. And some Profusion, which there’s only one bottle left and has a ripped label. On a big spinning thing are earrings, and there is a two-sided comb that would be so easy for Gordie to buy if he noticed my sad eyes.

  Mum has always told me she likes to have a guy with style. Ha! Gordie is definitely out of the picture there. Mum would definitely laugh her head off if Gordie said, “Will you marry me, Lisa?” with his hairy mouth, roundish throat, roundish body, working boots, and junky old truck. And gray tape on his sunglasses.