If Jack's in Love

by Stephen Wetta

  “What are you talking about?” Mom said.

  “I popped Gaylord good.” Stan brandished his fist.

  “You got in a fight with Gaylord Joyner?”

  “I was walking past their house and they called the cops. I wasn’t doing nothing, I was just walking along minding my own business.”

  “Did Officer Reedy show up?” Tillie asked.

  “How is it everyone seems to know Officer Reedy?” Mom said. “What’s going on that I don’t know about?”

  “I was out for a stroll and I walked past their house and they up and called the cops, like for no reason at all. Then Gaylord got smart with Jack and I had to pop him one.”

  “You were there too?” Mom said.

  “I tell you what, let’s change the subject,” Tillie said. “Who besides me is having a banana split?”

  “Please, I’m trying to have a conversation with my boys.”

  Mom’s eyes darkened. I don’t think she liked Tillie.

  “I was just walking along,” I said, “and I heard all these people hollering at Stan. There was this big commotion, Rusty barking and all. And then I saw Reedy’s cop car. And then Stan punched Gaylord and we came home.”

  Pop grinned. “You punched Joyner in front of Reedy? Boy, you got balls made of—” He caught himself and said, “You got guts, that’s for sure.”

  “What is the problem you have with that young man? You almost punched him when you were at my house too,” Tillie remembered.

  “When?” Mom said. “When did that happen?”

  “It ain’t no big deal. Gaylord got on his high horse one day because Jack brought Myra to the swimming pool.”

  “That happened before I got grounded,” I intervened. “Come on, Mom, it’s my birthday.”

  We grew quiet. Mom pursed her lips, studied the menu.

  Tillie clasped her hands. “So who’s getting a banana split?”

  “Say, you know why the banana split?” Pop said.

  She laughed and touched his arm, thinking that was the punch line.

  “I’m getting a hot fudge sundae,” Anya said. “What about you, birthday boy?”

  “I’d have never believed you’re old enough to have two teenage sons,” Tillie said to Pop. He was two or three years younger than Mom.

  Mom looked up to see if she was included.

  “And how old are you, Stan, I can’t remember.”

  “Old enough to go out with your daughter.”

  Tillie pretended to laugh.

  “I’m thirty-nine and holding,” Pop said.

  “Oh, you!”

  Tillie squeezed his wrist, dead set on touching him. I kept checking with Mom, but she was lost in the menu. Her forehead was all crumpled now with wrinkles and worry.

  “Maybe Basil knows of a job,” Tillie said. “He hears about all sorts of things in his line. I’ll ask him when I get home.”

  “He’s a lawyer?”

  “Sometimes his clients tell him things, pass on tidbits, you know.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you spread the word. I can do just about anything, plumbing, heating, refrigeration.”

  Mom was working her lower lip, which she tended to do whenever the topic of employment came up. All Pop did was lie around watching soaps all day. And now I knew he had other ideas about ways to make money. Every time I remembered Gladstein I felt a pang for his trusting nature.

  I shot Pop a glance, which must have caught him off guard, because he was staring back with a look that made me go cold. It was as though he were remembering thirteen years earlier, before I came into the world. Maybe he’d realized it was kinship and kinship alone that made us friends and not enemies. Whatever it was, he didn’t bother to rearrange his face. All he did was send me an unconvincing wink. And then I had a weird idea. I thought, This man would kill me if I gave him the occasion. I don’t know why I would think a thing like that. Maybe I was schizophrenic. Maybe I needed a psychiatrist. But it was a scary thing to think and it made the universe grow dark and cold.

  Tillie jerked on Pop’s sleeve to get him to order from the gangly kid who was waiting on us. I stared at the table, wanting to be out of there. I wanted to tell Mom that Pop was planning to rob Gladstein. I wanted this thing off my shoulders.

  Everyone was just sitting around, not saying a word. We’d already run out of things to say. Tillie seemed embarrassed. She was rubbing her fingertip over the table like she was erasing a dirty word.

  All of a sudden I blurted, “I’ve been smoking cigarettes. One or two a day, sometimes more. I do it in the woods, I just sneak right off and smoke. A lot of times when you think I’m going to the store what I’m really doing is smoking…. Sometimes I cut classes so I can go in the woods and smoke by the creek.”

  I have long since wondered what fatality it was that caused those words to cross my lips. Because fatality it was, and from that moment on my family was never the same. Did my pop provoke it? Was it the look in his eyes? Was I throwing down some gauntlet? But why would I do that? I was only thirteen. I still needed a roof over my head—three hots and a cot.

  I shot a look at Mom, who was sipping from her water. Slowly she brought the glass away, while Stan narrowed his eyes, giving me a warning lest I tell tales. “What is this, trueconfession time?”

  “I’m just saying I smoke. Right?” I looked at Pop.

  “Since when did you start smoking?” Mom’s hand went to her head, caressing an instant migraine. “Lord, these kids, I give up. Why on earth are you…?”

  “Why on earth are you telling everybody you smoke cigarettes, you damn weirdo,” Stan said.

  “Stop saying ‘damn.’”

  “Pop let me puff on his cigarette last year at my birthday and I’ve been smoking ever since.”

  Mom turned to Pop. “Is that true?”

  “Well heck, it might be. I might of give him a puff. But I didn’t know he was smoking. It’s not like I been letting him.”

  Anya burst out giggling. “He’s so cute!”

  Her eyes were weird and I realized she was probably high. She and Stan must have smoked a joint before they rode over.

  There followed an uneasy silence that lasted intermittently until the ice cream came. I was trailing my finger in the condensation on the tabletop, wondering why I had told them what I did. To snitch in front of Pop and Stan was the worst thing a Witcher could do.

  The waiters brought me a banana split (Tillie, enforcing her gaiety, had insisted I order one) with a festive candle jutting out of the fudge. The entire staff was singing “Happy Birthday” and everyone joined in except Stan, who folded his arms in disgust. The whole Neuman’s crowd sang along. It was a tradition there. It was why people came, for stuff like that.

  When the song was over Anya let out an inappropriate whoop and Stan swore at her.

  I made ready to blow out the candle.

  “Did you make a wish?” Tillie said.

  I wished for Myra.

  Everyone in the parlor applauded.

  Later, after everyone in our party had gobbled down their ice cream and headed to the bathroom, Pop, Tillie and I were hanging around just inside the front door, where people could sit until their table came open. A cigarette machine was in the foyer and Pop went over and bought a pack of Salems.

  “You can’t have one,” he told me when he came back.

  His tone was joking, but he wasn’t happy with me and I knew it.

  “You’re not corrupting minors anymore?” Tillie asked him.

  “This boy doesn’t need any corrupting. I oughta whip him good when I get him home,” he joshed.

  Tillie laughed and rested her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll bet you’re good at giving whippings.”

  Pop grinned. He looked at me, proud of himself. He could get a rich gal anytime he wanted, and he was glad I was there to see it.

  And I was thinking, Sure, like any other stable boy.

  24

  THE NEXT NOTE from Myra arrived in the morning.<
br />
  DJ,

  Is it true? Was it your birthday yesterday? Dickie Pudding came to my window and he said it was your birthday. If I missed it I am so sad. [She drew an “unhappy” face.]

  Why is your brother so crazy? He is making everything worse. Yesterday Gaylord told me you aren’t so bad, but he can’t stand your brother. He said as long as your brother acts so crazy no one will approve of you. Can’t you talk to him and make him be nice?

  To answer your question [she was referring to a note I’d Coghilled to her the previous day]: Yes! I can’t say I am in love, but, Yes! I do have feelings for you. I don’t want to say I am in love because I am not sure what that means. Are you? I think I am too young to have feelings that strong. But I definitely am in like with you. Well…I have to go.

  Love and kisses, You Know Who, M

  This letter, in which for the first time a girl (and not just any girl) had professed herself mine, I slid under my pillow. For two days I walked about in a stupor, my heart swollen with emotion.

  I went to Gladstein’s to show it off, but something peculiar was happening when I arrived.

  He had customers.

  I had never seen customers in his store, at least not since I started to visit. It never occurred to me that his establishment, like any other, might enjoy, occasionally, a visit from clientele. Now some dowdy couple was peering at wedding rings and petulantly bickering over what they liked and disliked while Gladstein diplomatically chimed in when compelled. Nearby hovered a sinister character, a tall man in a dark suit and sunglasses. He was flicking ashes into a saucer Gladstein had provided.

  Gladstein gave me a backhanded wave, more dismissal than greeting, and I walked home.

  However, I found the compulsion to show the letter off overpowering.

  At home I found Stan listening to James Brown, clapping in rhythm and strutting about the room like a turkey. I perched on the bottom bunk and watched. Ostentatiously I unfolded the letter and perused it, figuring he would probably snatch it from me when he passed. And he did.

  Then he stopped his strutting. He pulled the needle off the record. His lips were full, slightly malformed. He reminded me of a scornful Renaissance bust I’d seen on a school trip to the National Gallery in Washington.

  “So she thinks I’m crazy,” he said.

  “Well so what, everybody does.”

  I figured that much would be obvious.

  “Fucking Joyners, man. The little twit sits around talking to Gaylord about me. And look at this, you’re all right but I’m not. Those motherfuckers.”

  “Well, what do you expect? You act so crazy they get the wrong idea about you. Heck Stan, you want people to think you’re crazy.”

  “When did you start taking up for the Joyners?”

  “I’m just trying to explain why people see you the way they do.”

  “Everybody likes you for that, right? That’s the deal you got, you’re gonna sell out me and Pop so you can run around with your skinny little Joyner snot.”

  “I ain’t selling out anyone.”

  “Don’t deny it, you piece of shit.”

  Before I knew it he had me collared on the bed and his knee was on my chest.

  He thrust his face in mine and pulled my eyes to his, full of hate.

  “You fucking traitor. What were you doing squealing on Pop last night?”

  “I wasn’t squealing on Pop, I was squealing on myself.”

  “Fuck that shit, you told Mom he started you smoking and now she’s not speaking to him. Look, you say anything about me smoking grass I’ll fucking kill you, I swear to God I will.”

  “I ain’t gonna say anything, let me go.”

  He released my collar and took his knee away.

  “Punk snitch,” he said.

  “She’s my girlfriend, I can’t help it.”

  “She’s Joyner’s sister. Which means she’s the enemy. If you wanna slobber over the brat go ahead, but don’t come crying to me when she tells you to get lost. Fucking punk, you and me are through.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t recognize you as a brother from now on. You’re just the kid who lives here.”

  I sat up straight. I could still feel where he had grabbed my neck.

  Stan left the room.

  I found Pop in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette.

  I guess I’d been too wrapped up in Myra and her letters to notice, but whatever good feelings my pop and brother once had for me had distinctly diminished. Pop hadn’t spoken much since Neuman’s, and now, in the kitchen, he barely acknowledged me. If Mom was mad because of what I’d told her, and if she was showing him she was mad on top of that—what was there to say? I was a Witcher and I had told tales. She sure wasn’t helping any.

  “Did Stan come through here?”

  “He went out the front.”

  Exactly what I expected to do when I found him I don’t know. I wanted to justify myself, apologize, make up. I didn’t want to leave things the way they were.

  I checked the south end of Lewis Street. No one was on the road aside from Rusty, who peered from the distance, vaguely wagging his tail. I wandered to the drainage pipe, past the Coghills’, into the woods behind Dickie Pudding’s house, and then all the way to Myra Street. I doubled back, detoured into the woods, came to the brackish creek where Stan and Anya liked to tryst. I hopped across and hiked up the incline, and when I came to the edge of the woods I peered into the Taylors’ back yard. There was someone behind the slats in the fence surrounding the pool. I heard splashing sounds.

  I sat on the ground, and soon I saw the whiteness of a bathing suit emerge from the pool and move to a chair.

  That would be Tillie.

  I sat for quite a while, batting away flies and thinking about what it meant to be a Witcher. The worst thing was, I had broken a code that Stan and Pop dogmatically adhered to. But I’d done it only half aware. I had no idea why I had brought up smoking cigarettes. Snitching had not been my intention. I was just mad, and it was the first thing to come out of my mouth. I didn’t figure it would be a big deal. Mom suspected all along I’d been smoking, she could smell it on my breath. Not only that, she had been present a few times when Pop gave me sips out of his beer. So I think her being mad at him for letting me smoke was just an excuse. She was mad period, that’s all.

  Tillie climbed out of the chair and splashed in the pool and returned to the chair. A small animal was dead in the woods and from time to time its stench would waft along the breeze.

  It was too bug-infested to keep sitting there, and I was tempted to go speak with Tillie. I suspected Stan might be inside the house, with Anya. These days he was always with Anya.

  Around the front an engine started. That would be Anya’s GTO. The thing always sounded like it was on its way to the drag strip. I heard it shift into reverse and back out of the driveway.

  I got up, depressed.

  Stan was in that car, and now he was gone. And I was surrounded by flies.

  I returned home, hoping to get back into Pop’s good graces. He was on the sofa, watching the day’s first soaps. I sat beside him and asked a question or two and he answered in monosyllables. Whenever something funny happened on the TV I laughed out loud and looked to share it with him. But he wouldn’t look back.

  During a commercial I said, “Are you mad?”

  He lifted his head, peered, and lowered it. “Leave me alone, I’m watching TV.”

  I went on down to my room and waited for Stan. Around six Dickie Pudding rang the bell and asked if I wanted to pitch ball. But I was too keyed up. I didn’t want to leave off monitoring the house for Stan’s arrival.

  I stayed awake ’til after midnight. Mom and Pop were in the front room, watching their shows and not speaking.

  I had become hypersensitive to stimuli. Every time a car passed on the road I peeked out the window.

  I kept falling asleep and waking up. I did that several times. Each time I could tell from the
silence that Stan hadn’t returned. I grabbed the clock from the dresser and held its face to the glow from the window. It was three a.m. No hallway light shone at the door. My parents had gone to bed. They didn’t seem to care anymore how late my brother stayed out.

  When dawn broke he still hadn’t come home. Birds were singing, the room was growing light. And then I heard the rumble of Anya’s GTO out front. Doors slammed, and the engine rumbled off into the distance.

  Stan came in the house….

  I was anxious about whether I should speak or not. I prepared a greeting—“Jesus Christ, it’s almost six, where have you been?” But he didn’t come to the room and after a while the rehearsal grew stale. I waited and he kept not coming. Finally I couldn’t stand it. I got up and looked in the hallway. There was a light on in the bathroom and I put my ear next to the door. Water was running in there, not only the shower water but water from the sink. The toilet kept flushing over and over. It sounded like he was tearing something up, fabric or clothes or something. I knocked on the door and whispered his name. There was a pause. I figured he’d heard the knock and I waited anxiously for him to open up. Instead the toilet flushed … and then I heard another tearing sound. And then he grunted a little, as if he were lowering himself to the floor. Now it sounded like he was scrubbing the tub.

  Christ, I thought, he’s cleaning the bathroom.

  I turned in the half-light of the hallway and saw a clown portrait on the wall staring back at me. Mom had brought it home from the Ben Franklin recently and hung it there. I don’t know why she wanted that thing, clowns always gave me the creeps. And then I realized something. The thing looked like Stan, all sinister, weird and drug-addled.

  I tiptoed back to bed.

  My brother is on drugs, I thought. There’s no reaching him…my own brother.

  25

  WHEN I WOKE UP I went to the creek, not the creek next to Anya’s but a more communal creek in the woods north of our house. I took a pack of cigarettes and smoked a couple and waited for other kids to arrive and no one did. It’s a curious thing, but whenever I was at the creek, kids who as a rule preferred to scorn me sometimes spent a pleasant hour hanging out. We were like enemy pickets fraternizing during truce. Class conflict requires so much vigilance, I guess, that even the hardest veterans need an occasional break.