The Five Pearls

by Barry James Hickey

  “Yes. And I’ll chaperone.”

  Pete rubbed his beard. “I’ll bet you will. What you know ‘bout chaperonin’?”

  Alice smacked Pete in the leg with a wet clamp. “Shet the hell up and leave the man be before I take a belt to your sorry skinny hide!” She smiled at Battle. “Pete here’s real particular about our child care.”

  “You seem to be a very good father,” Battle placated.

  “I won’t ever treat the little bastard like my old man treated me!” Pete promised.

  “If there is a financial reason you think he can’t attend, such as the cost of a baby-sitter or a tuxedo…”

  Pete whistled loudly. “Tuxedoes? Is this thing some six star event?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Battle said. “But if it is, I’ll gladly pay for it all.”

  “You will?” Pete said. He was flabbergasted. “Now why the hell would you do a thing like that?”

  “So your son can attend the dance.”

  Alice started laughing like crazy. So crazy, her big arms started flapping off her sides and her second chin wobbled up and down like jelly in a jar. “You wanna put my son in a monkey suit? Mr. Battle, I like you! I like any man that can put my scrawny husband to the test and drive him crazy,” she spoke loudly. “Come here and let me give you a great big hug!”

  Battle stepped up to her. She reached around his waist from her seat and squeezed him tight with her thick arms while Pete gave him a dirty look.

  “That’s my wife you’re touching,” Pete said.

  “Actually, Pete, she’s touching me.”

  “That’s just a semantic,” Pete said.

  Alice released the teacher. “Now where do I sign?”

  Battle handed her the release form and a pen. Alice signed.

  “If our boy needs a tux, we’ll get him a tux,” Alice said. “If he needs shoes, we’ll get him shoes.”

  “Anything the little bastard wants, we’ll get him,” Pete promised. “Can I sign that paper, too?”

  The teacher let Pete sign.

  “It was very nice meeting you both,” Mr. Battle said.

  “You too, Brittles,” Pete said.

  Battle tucked the paper in his pocket and left the shop.

  “Imagine that?” Alice exclaimed. “Our boy is going to a dance.”

  “I went to three high school dances,” Pete bragged. “And I wasn’t even in school anymore.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The day was starting to wear him out, but Mr. Battle still had two more stops to make. The home of Toby Chambers was next. There was a sign on the street cautioning drivers that deaf children were playing on the block. When he went to ring the bell at the Chambers house, Battle couldn’t find one. He had to knock instead.

  Toby answered. He was very surprised to see Mr. Battle. “Hey, Toby. Are your parents in?”

  “My parents? What did I do, Mr. B?”

  “Nothing, Toby. I need this permission slip signed. You

  know, for that dance.”

  “Gee,” Toby said. He glanced over his shoulder towards the

  kitchen. “Nobody’s home right now. Can I get them to sign it

  and bring it to school next time?”

  “That will be fine, Toby.”

  Mr. Battle gave him a form and left the porch for his car.

  He didn’t know why the kid didn’t want him to meet his

  parents. He had seen them sitting at the kitchen table in the

  background.

  As he drove on to his last stop, he felt a sudden, severe

  headache boiling at the back of the head. He pulled over to

  the side of the road and swallowed some pain pills.

  The group home where Amber Beulah lived was in turmoil when Mr. Battle arrived. Miss Feely, the house supervisor, had just had a knockdown, drag-out, fistfight with one of the girls. The police were called (courtesy of the next door neighbor) and now all the girls were being interviewed so the agitated policemen could get to the bottom of the story. “What’s your version?” Battle asked Amber after the thirtyminute episode finally ended and the perturbed police had left with the girl that initiated the trouble.

  Battle and Amber sat with Miss Feely at the kitchen table and drank tea.

  “Miss Feely was just doing her job,” Amber said. “Miranda, she sneaked out last night and missed breakfast. When she came in this morning, she was high. So Miss Feely has to turn her back in to juvie for blowing her parole. Now Miranda’s gotta get locked up again.”

  “And she blamed Miss Feely?”

  “Sure. Miss Feely could have let her slide, but Miranda is a screw-up. Better now than later.”

  “Teenagers,” Feely smirked. “So much fun to be around on a daily basis.”

  One by one, bitter girls drifted through the room, tossing their keeper an angry, hateful look.

  “See how they love me?” the woman said after number five. “You just wait, Amber! In ten years, you’ll remember me as a positive influence from your youth. Maybe I’ll be your favorite!”

  “After Mr. B,” Amber counter-offered.

  Miss Feely raised her eyebrows and looked at Battle. “You got this kid on some miracle drug I don’t know about? Because this isn’t the Amber Beulah I knew a couple of months ago. She doesn’t drink or smoke anymore. She follows house rules. Amber even cleans her room without my asking.”

  “I’m doing it for the baby,” Amber confessed. “I figure whoever adopts it deserves a healthy one.”

  Mr. Battle stirred his tea and rested the spoon on the saucer. “Amber, are you sure you want to give up your kid?”

  “If I kept the baby, I’d have to be with it for at least a year before I could find a job. After that, who would hire me, Mr. B? Some fast food place maybe, at a minimum wage. Just enough to pay for day care, probably. I’m already two years behind in school. Keeping a kid means I never graduate. Which means I never go to college. Which means I never get a decent job ever. Which means I live in a group home until I’m fifty or me and my baby live on Welfare the rest of our lives. Right, Miss Feely?”

  “Her options are limited,” Miss Feely told Battle.

  “What if you were rich?” he asked.

  “Oh... You mean like what if I win the lottery someday? That’ll never happen, Mr. B. I’m cursed. Go ahead, Miss Feely. Tell him.”

  “Amber is cursed.” Miss Feely rolled her eyes.

  “And nobody loves me,” Amber said. “Tell him, Miss Feely.”

  Miss Feely rolled her eyes again. “Nobody loves her…”

  “I love you, Amber,” Mr. Battle said. “And I’ll bet Miss Feely does too.”

  Miss Feely engulfed Amber in a big bear hug and shook her. “I love you! I love you! I love you!”

  “Dike,” Amber nearly giggled.

  “Little bitch.” Miss Feely laughed, releasing her grip.

  “Miss Feely? With your permission?” Battle asked. “Mind if I see her room?”

  “It’s just a room,” Amber said.

  “Go ahead,” said the counselor. “Watch out for spiders.”

  Mr. Battle left the kitchen table and followed Amber back to her room.

  “This is freaking me out!” Amber laughed in the hallway. “Nobody has ever wanted to see my room before!”

  She led him into her room and offered him a seat in the small rocking chair while she sat at the edge of her bed. “I do all my reading in the rocker.” Amber smiled.

  Battle folded his hands in his lap and started rocking. “I’ll bet you’ve taken a few naps here, too.”

  “Yeah, a few. Want to see my picture album?”

  “Sure.”

  Amber dragged a thin album out from under the bed. She knelt at the side of the rocker and put the album in Battle’s lap. She opened the first page.

  “My life,” Amber said. “Or what I know of my life. This is a picture of me as a baby, I think. At least that’s what I’m told. One of my foster mothers said it was me, but I d
on’t think so. Do you think the baby looks like me?”

  Battle looked at the picture. It wasn’t a picture of Amber. “I see a resemblance,” he lied.

  “Good.” She smiled. “Then I’ll keep it. Now this next picture… This is me and Moe. Moe’s a Cocker Spaniel. I loved him so much! But then my foster parents decided to separate and out I went to a new home.”

  “Who kept Moe?”

  “I don’t know. He was real smart. I hope he ran away to dog heaven.”

  One picture at a time, Amber slowly flipped through the book that depicted her short life. They were inane pictures, mostly of kids with names she had forgotten and dogs and cats that were long gone. In the back, she thumbed through a thin stack of pizza receipts and bowling and miniature golf scorecards. Finally she unfolded an old worn out piece of paper.

  “If I ever want to find my parents. Only if, mind you… then maybe this will lead me there.” She handed him the paper.

  Mr. Battle looked at it. It was a birth certificate with the name of Amber Beulah born to proud parents John and Katherine Beulah.

  “I’ll bet it’s fake,” she said. “Just like everything else in my life.”

  “I don’t think so,” John said. “I think this is the real deal.”

  “You’re just saying that, Mr. B.”

  “No I’m not, Amber. Look through it when I hold it up to the light. See the watermark?”

  “I see a very light image.”

  “Want to know a little secret?”

  “Sure.”

  “I used to be a lawyer. And you know what that means?”

  ‘What?”

  “I cannot tell a lie.”

  She pulled her book and birth certificate away from him and shoved them back under her bed. “Lawyers are notorious for lying!” She laughed.

  “Not this former lawyer.”

  She plopped down on the bed across from him. “Okay, Mr. B. Tell me everything about you.”

  He was going to. He really was. But Miss Feely came by and reported, “Time for dinner. Amber’s on potato peel duty.”

  Mr. Battle regretfully left the house. His confession to his daughter would have to wait until another time.

  Driving home, Battle was excitable and anxious. He was so close to telling his little girl that she had a father, that she came from somewhere, that she was validated. He had been warned by Mrs. Powell to control his emotional state, to avoid stress as the days went on, but these were feelings and thoughts Battle couldn’t control.

  After he pulled the Toyota into the Loomis House garage, he reached to turn the ignition off. The old headache was still there and without any warning he vomited on himself.

  Then he lost consciousness.

  That was all he remembered until the next day. “How did you get me in the house?” He asked Mrs. Powell from his bed.

  “I called the guy who cuts my lawn and shovels my snow,” she said.

  “What happened this time?”

  “My guess is a small hemorrhage. You’re lucky you didn’t have an aneurysm.”

  ‘Is that how it ends for me?”

  “Most likely. It will be a happened but more intense. You might possibility slip into a coma you can’t come back from.” It was time for more bad news. “John, you must avoid physical efforts of any kind right now! Your condition has worsened rapidly. Just the simple act of coughing or going to the toilet is life threatening.”

  “That bad?’

  “That serious.” She picked up the SUV keys from his dresser. “And as of today your driving privileges have been suspended.”

  similar feeling to what just

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  It took a dozen calls from Mrs. Powell and a half dozen visits to local schools before Mr. Battle was able to get his one and only approval to bring his students to a dance. The high schools that turned him down all had the same rote answers for not allowing his kids to attend.

  “Troublemakers.”

  “Bad seeds.”

  “Too much work.”

  “They don’t understand our student culture.”

  “We don’t do charity work for other schools.”

  “If Garfield High wants their students to attend a dance,

  they can pay for it themselves.” In the end, the one school that did accept his students seemed to be the perfect choice, Battle hoped. “This dance should be a real test of character for my kids,” he told Mrs. Powell.

  “ My kids?” Nothing escaped Mrs. Powell’s ears.

  “Our kids,” he smiled.

  “I haven’t even met them,” she reminded him.

  “You will in time.”

  On the day of the big dance, Mr. Battle let Mrs. Powell drive him around town. He did some Christmas shopping, had a haircut and picked up his blue suit at the dry cleaners. A snow flurry with high winds started right before dark. Not enough to stick to the ground, but enough to hint at a white Christmas. Mrs. Powell and John sat in the sunroom, enjoying the death dance of the heavy white flakes, smashing into the warm glass of the windows before melting.

  After he showered, Mrs. Powell sat him in the kitchen and applied a light dose of makeup to hide the light bruises and veins that had become apparent on his face.

  “My, my! Look at you! You look twenty years younger!” She pinched his cheeks.

  “Ah! The magic of cosmetics! You're sure you don't want to join me?” he asked for the fifth time.

  She refused, of course. “This is your night, John!”

  A stretch limousine arrived at six-thirty. Before John could escape the house, Mrs. Powell pinned a boutonniere to his lapel and had the limo driver snap a Polaroid picture of them together. She handed him his small bag of Christmas presents for the kids and presented him with a card.

  “Remember, John. The principal's name is Mrs. Ledger. She's absolutely thrilled you’re coming. Have a wonderful time!” She was so happy.

  “See you in the wee hours,” he said.

  “Nothing too strenuous!”

  John’s shoulders sagged as he took his cane. “I just hope it all turns out.”

  Matt Golden arrived at the Garfield school first. He wore a used tuxedo that Pete and Alice had bought for him at a Salvation Army secondhand store. It was white with black lapels. His parents even found a pair of shiny black patent leather shoes. They were half a size too small and the only pair available, but Matt insisted on wearing them to match the ensemble. He had an instant camera in his pocket to capture the event.

  Marie arrived in a modest ankle length blue satin dress with long sleeves. Bejeweled Julio showed up in white painter’s pants and a ruby-colored open-collared shirt under his dad’s black sport coat. Toby strutted up to the school in a blue suit with a cream colored shirt and ruby tie.

  When Miss Feely delivered Amber just before seven, all the kids whistled and catcalled as they approached the school. Under her matching shawl, Amber wore a satin champagne evening gown with a plunging v-neck and spaghetti straps.

  “Movie star on the premises!” Matt yelled.

  “No autographs, please!” Toby insisted.

  “Very elegant!” Julio whistled as he spun her around. “You

  can’t even tell you’re five months pregnant!”

  “Oh my God!” Marie squeezed her hands. “That dress is so

  hot! How did you get it?”

  “It was a present,” Amber said.

  “From who?”

  “I don’t know. It arrived this morning.”

  “Not even a note?”

  “Yes, there was a note. It said, ‘for a night to remember.’” “What else did it say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How exciting!” Marie jumped up and down. “You have a

  secret admirer!”

  Julio raised his hand. “For the record? I know I didn’t buy

  her the dress.”

  “We know that,” Matt said.

  “How do you know that?” Julio asked.


  “’Cuz you ain’t got no class, bro,” said Toby.

  “Look at you!” Matt told Julio. “You look like a big

  Mexican pimp daddy pinăda with all that bling-bling on your

  neck and white pants in the winter.”

  “Nobody wears white pants in winter. It isn’t fashionable,”

  Matt said with a dignified air.

  “Well shut my ass up, Mr. Goodwill Industries

  ambassador,” Julio said. “In case you didn’t notice, your tux is

  as white as my pants, and the reason I am wearing what I am

  wearing is so I can bust some moves on the dance floor. You know, slide and glide!” He clutched Amber to him and held

  her cheek to cheek, arms extended and lips pursed. “Don’t break the dress,” Amber warned.

  Miss Feely returned from her mini-van with a camera.

  “Okay, you bums. Let me get a picture of all of you together

  on the steps.”

  The Tadpole gang gathered and struck a pose for the

  flashing camera just as the stretch limousine arrived. It was a

  long black Cadillac. The chauffeur jumped out of the driver’s

  seat and hurried around to the rear right door, holding the

  door open for Mr. Battle.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, your chariot awaits you!” Battle

  called out from the backseat of the giant car.

  The kids hurried up to the limousine and examined it front

  and back, inside and out.

  “It has a wet bar in the back!”

  “And a sunroof!”

  “Where’s the Jacuzzi?” Julio asked the driver.

  “Sorry, sir. No Jacuzzi.”

  “You hear that?” Julio reminded the other Tadpoles. “He

  called me ‘sir’.”

  Matt handed Miss Feely his camera. She had the kids strike

  a few more camera poses around the car before they piled in.

  Matt got in last.

  “Anybody ever been in a limo?” he asked nervously. “I was in a hearse once,” Julio remembered.

  “There’s a first time for everything,” Mr. Battle said. “Can we use the wet bar?” Julio asked the driver. “Fully stocked with sodas, sir,” said the chauffeur as he slid

  behind the wheel.

  Julio opened the refrigerator and passed out drinks. “A