by Diane Munier
“I want Danny to be safe. Stop life if that’s what it takes, stop the world. I want Danny to make it.”
“Life keeps changing. Because it is alive. Dead things…they don’t change, Hilly.”
“Are we talking about Eugene…you losing Eugene?” I asked. “I always feel like we are…maybe I imagine it…I don’t know….” I knew it was rude, I was over a line, but so was she. I thought so anyway.
She was quiet for a minute, rubbing her hand on the table. “If Eugene had come to me…with a tag like something from a store…a tag saying I only got him for twenty years…no longer. And I took one look, and even with that tag, that twenty year…shelf-life in this world…you know what I would say…all over again…full knowledge now that he wasn’t ever gonna see a full life…you know what I would say?”
I shrugged because I did know what she’d say but far be it from me to ruin her punchline.
“I would say…where do I sign up to know this boy…to have him in my life?” She had smacked the table, spilling her coffee but her eyes were on me, big and bright.
“So…it was worth all the pain. I don’t think Mama would agree.” I said it intensely and none too nice, but we were talking real and she was staring hard at me.
“Why you say that?” she said sitting back slow.
“It’s what broke her. I know it.”
“How do you know this? What did she tell you?”
“Tell me? Nothing. Like you. Nothing. But…she loved him. I’ve known…a long time. I just…wasn’t listening until…before she died.”
“I don’t know about that. What broke her,” Naomi said careful.
“You told her in the hospital she’d given up on herself. You said Eugene had done that too.”
She looked down. “They were friends,” she said. “But it didn’t do anyone any good to talk about it.” Then she did look at me, bottom lip jutting, a small tremble there, just once, “We are in the south. Things are easily misconstrued. That’s all. Another time…another place they might have had some things in common, close to the same age…and he loved to grow things. But here…then…and now…clear lines.”
“She said things…you heard her. He was inside of her growing…was it Eugene?”
“That was the cancer talking,” she said.
“She said it at the house.”
She stared out the window for a minute shaking her head and not looking at me. “When he died…well she’d known him. She knew it was a shame. She was very sad. But I was so sad…I lost track of others for a time. Yes I did. I…did not comfort her…as I should have. But…she had you.”
Oh, she had me. No comfort at all. But there were good days. Days she tried, long spells even. “I’m sorry about Eugene, too. I didn’t mean to bring it up…well, I want more than a short shelf-life for Danny.”
“You think I didn’t…with Eugene?”
I did not answer. I stared at her and felt weary.
“Love…there’s never enough. It’s never long enough. You can’t grab on enough. It leaves you wanting…. In its absence you hurt and suffer and you start to think while you rage…while you weep…and you realize something…if you’re lucky…if you win something…something in the end…you have to give love regardless of what you get back…regardless of what it costs you. And it always costs. But to not give it…to quit…well there they are…Eugene. Renata.”
She was off somewhere, in herself.
“I’m not my mother,” I said. “I do love. I love you. And I love Danny.”
She smiled at me, tired and sad. “As far as that young man goes you have to use your head…not just your heart. You have to put that love in the real world,” she said.
I didn’t want to be trapped now under her preaching lips, voice, eyes that no mortal could hold for long.
But in truth, I had used Mama and Naomi…I had bounced between them…used one to relieve myself of the other…each sympathetic to me for what I must put up with from the other…my two worlds. But having two worlds kept me from struggling through to really know and let myself be known. I’d had the sick luxury of hiding in these two places, running away before I had to do the dirty work of compromise.
“I love Danny,” I said again like that was the most intelligent thing I’d ever done and it was enough. But then I remembered Tahlila. Her spit and her slap. That was real enough. And Sukey. In the clubhouse. That, too, had been real. His looming return. Naomi had no idea of the reality this love was rooted in.
“Already you’ve spent the night with him,” she said between sips of her coffee.
Lonnie had blurted that. I’d wondered if it would come up. “Yes.”
“You’ve had sexual relations?”
My fingers were tapping against the table. “No.” My chin went up. “We’ve kissed. But…not what you’re asking.”
“You are familiar with him. That nightie. You are comfortable with him.”
“I didn’t think about it. The dog was barking.”
“You gave him something to think about. And he will. You have to be careful. Do not soon awaken love. He is going to war. There is no covenant…no promise for the future.”
“Should I ask him to marry me before he goes? Would that make you happy?”
“Are you ready to marry?” She sounded angry, too.
“I get it. You’ve got my dog and her puppies. You’ve got me…and you don’t want my puppies.”
She had to laugh a little, but I was still mad. And so was she.
I remembered Danny saying we were too young, when Annie asked if we were getting married. I had agreed, but in my heart I knew I would marry him. And that scared me—marriage. Mama and Lonnie. Marriage terrorized me so I was somewhat quelled from her infuriating question.
I started to play with the salt and pepper shakers that looked like small refrigerators. I’d always loved these things. “Just don’t get into preacher mode,” I said.
She looked a little hurt. She was aware she did this, and joked about it sometimes. I knew she tried not to, but she was going right in this morning.
“I am a preacher,” she said. “This free love idea floating all over the place isn’t new. If love was governed by intelligence as well as emotion we wouldn’t have so many babies without parents to guide them.”
“I know you’re the love expert,” I said hoping to snap her out of it.
“No,” she eased back in the chair and smiled sadly. “No.” She pointed up.
We sat in silence for a minute. “Hilly, give yourself a chance to finish school and develop some skills to be able to take care of yourself in this world. Use the gifts God gave you…not just your body…use your mind and be powerful. Love with strength and intelligence. Be able to do something for others. Love from a place of wisdom.”
“I’m just a kid,” I said. “You make everything so difficult…like I have to know all this…. I’m not a preacher. That’s you. I’m fifteen.”
“Nearly sixteen,” she whispered, trying to tease but I didn’t smile.
But she’d let go of my hand a few minutes before when we got mad. But this time when she took it, squeezed it, I didn’t pull away.
“You’re a young woman. Just starting to emerge. It takes time, baby girl, to understand yourself. You have to be thoughtful to give yourself time.”
“Danny is good. And I love him.” I looked at her. “Just…let me be with him and figure it out. I’m not stupid.”
She smiled at me. But it was sad. “I wouldn’t take him away. I’m not that powerful…am I?”
“I’ll be…thoughtful.” And I had no idea what that meant, but she seemed a little relieved that I’d used her word.
I was walking again, this time with Sooner, a rope leash, her agitated and breathing, teats huge. Dr. Cowlie lived two blocks over. He had a veterinary in his basement. He was old but kind. His backyard was an animal graveyard, a potter’s field for cats and dogs. It was creepy and caring and weird.
I went in and the
old lady he’d had as an assistant for a hundred years was behind a tall roll-top desk.
“I got a dog that I took in and it had puppies and I need to get it a license and so I need shots for her.”
“You have an appointment with Doc?”
“No Ma’am. Just…I walked her over here cause I have to get the license today.”
“You the Grunier girl?”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“I think you have an open account. Your mother. Some cats she took in…never paid Doc.” She rifled through an old card file long as a shoebox. Oh Lord would the torture never end?
“I don’t know about that. I only have the money for this dog.” I was thanking God Danny had not been here to witness my further humiliation.
“What’s the matter Nellie?” Doc came from the back room in his white coat.
Nellie told him the deal about my mama’s shameful running up the bill and I remembered the cat thing, the one we had got in a fight and got so sick and her bringing it here, and others, other times. “Well…how are you doin’?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Okay.”
“Well, bring this dog back in here. We won’t worry about that other, Nellie,” he said while she was clicking her tongue and talking under her breath about no wonder he couldn’t retire to Florida when he didn’t even have the sense to make sure….
Doc went on about how Sooner looked like she’d had pups alright. How many did she have?
I told him. “I was wondering…those dogs are so different. Can there be more than one father?”
He laughed. “Sure. There can be several fathers if she keeps breeding while she’s in heat.”
“I wonder if it’s the same with humans?”
“I have a doctor friend says it probably happens more than folks know.”
Doc said the puppies needed wormed and shots and I said I’d work on getting them in, but for now I had to take care of this one.
He asked me again how she’d come to me and I told him and he went to the board where folks posted pictures of animals they’d lost but no one was looking for Sooner and her pups, not at all.
She was old according to him. Too old to still be breeding and she’d had several litters.
Well, Sooner did not like Doc but she was intimidated enough to let him poke around some, but when he stuck that thermometer right up her butt-hole, next thing I knew they were waking me up from my new position on the floor.
I was feeling none too strong on the walk home. Like all my days, this one had proved taxing so far. I had thanked Doc and he knew the license was twenty-three dollars so he had charged me a neat ten, seeing as I told him I had twenty and I’d fainted so pathetically on his floor hitting my head on a stool he had there and now I had a big goose egg growing under my hair.
I had wormer for Sooner and she had her shots now and I had the tag and receipt. I took her to the police station and Bixby was not there, just the lady at the desk and I bought the license. I had tied Sooner out front and she had barked but without too much pep for the experience at Doc’s had also taken the starch out of her spine.
I heard the hooting behind me and I thought, what now? Dickens went flying past on his bike, did a dramatic arcing skid that left a mark on the road and came back toward me. He had his shirt unbuttoned and his skinny chest and belly showed over his cut off pants. His tennis shoes were raggedy and filled with holes from doing the Fred Flintstone brake work in his bike tricks. He was smiling at me, and his hair was long and floppy over his eye. He may not look like Danny, but he sure did act like him.
“Hey Hilly.”
“Hey Dickens. How you been?”
“Where’d you get that old dog? I seen her at your house when I go by.”
“She’s my Sooner. She’s got pups.”
So he straddled his bike mostly and accompanied me home, and wanted to see the pups so I took him there. Soon as my dog plopped down the pups were digging their ways over each other to nurse. We were about out of food she ate so much.
I went in and got us some cherry popsicles Naomi always kept for me my whole life and made an ice bag for my head and we sat with the puppies, me and Dickens. He was interested in all the colors and shapes of the dogs.
I told him what Doc said, about different fathers. Then I watched him play and I was thoughtful, thinking about Danny, so dark in his family…and me now so pale in mine…and Eugene and Mama walking the line, toeing over and Naomi making them stay back, stay away. Like with me and Danny…Naomi rushing in with her stop sign.
And I wondered, was I in heat? Is that what Naomi saw? What she’d seen before…what she knew?
It was only partly her words, so much more, her lip that twitched, her eyes, her silence, a word given and twenty more thrown out.
Finding My Thunder 27
That evening when Danny pulled behind Naomi’s house, he had already been home to clean up from working for Lonnie. He had on jeans that didn’t smell like oil, a black t-shirt that was torn a little on the shoulder, and his scuffed up boots. Perfect as always.
Sooner came barreling from behind the house to bark at him. I had to run to the gate to get her away so Danny could enter. Dickens was still there as he’d pretty much fallen in, and he dove onto Sooner and put his arms around her neck.
“What are you doing here?” Danny asked his brother working the latch and entering the yard. “They’ll be having supper soon so you need to get.”
“I’m hanging out with Hilly and the dogs,” Dickens said making the swooping motion with his head like he did to get the hair out of his eyes.
Danny sighed. “I told you not to bother her.”
“I’m not,” he defended, his tongue a deep red from the popsicles.
I told Danny right away about the shots. I tried to give him the seven dollars I had left over but he said we’d use it for dog food. Lonnie had paid him finally, he said, so he’d filled the car with gas and wanted to buy me some supper.
“Oh man, me too?” Dickens begged. “I want to go with you guys.”
Danny sighed. “We’re not ‘The Mod Squad.’ No.”
“Oh, come on,” Dickens whined.
“So, I guess you still have your job,” I said, checking his beautiful face for bruises and to change the subject.
“Yeah. Lonnie even shook my hand,” Danny said. “He wanted to make sure I understood there were no hard feelings. But he didn’t want me spying…like I’m the Man from Uncle and his shop is Commie headquarters. Then he went on about how it’s gone down at the house, and I just said, hey Lonnie, I’m temporary until the army gets me, and I will do you a good job and all. Just…let’s not ever talk about Hilly. Or talk much at all except about work.
“And I stared at him hard ass and he just shut-up.”
I was so impressed and tried not to look or sound too worshipful but geez…he’d picked up that pipe for me…and so many things…now this. I wore Mama’s skirt again and I was running my sweaty hands over it. “You said that?
“Yeah. It pissed him off…but what doesn’t?”
I nodded. “You’re like,” I checked to make sure Dickens was messing with Sooner and not big-earing, “…my own personal Illya Kuryakin,” I whispered.
He grinned a little. He looked at Dickens too, and that one was rolling in the dirt in front of Sooner. “You can…think of how to reward me later…baby.” His tongue was poking out his cheek. He was so cute I almost couldn’t breathe.
I laughed and shrugged and said dumbly, “Okay,” which sounded about as cool as ‘shucks.’
He flushed a little too, then. “You’re lucky my brother is here.”
He laughed some more, but he got close enough to kiss me quick.
Dickens said, “Ew,” and Danny said, “Get your butt home.”
They argued some more and Dickens managed to still stay around because he insisted he had to go in back and say good-bye to the puppies.
“Somebody is gonna be sorry when they have to sleep in th
e monkey cage,” Danny said.
I supposed that’s what Dickens must have called the room he shared with the younger brothers.
Once Dickens went around the house Danny said, “We have to take them tonight, Robert said. To…okay…don’t laugh…to the council.”
“Take the dogs?” I said a little panicked.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, let me go,” Dickens begged, suddenly back and having heard us.
I went to the porch and plopped onto the steps. “I don’t think I’m ready.”
“You know it’s best,” Danny said kindly.
“What…what council?” I asked.
He smirked. “A hippie council…a meeting where they make their rules…where everyone votes…. So it’s like…they’re Indians or something.”
“Oh, I gotta go,” Dickens whined.
I felt so sorry for the kid. I could see Danny ready to run him home, but I said, “Just let him go.”
The heat had lifted and it was a beautiful evening. We pulled up to a rural setting, a big house, not fancy at all, looking like it was on a second life, maybe had been abandoned but was being shown some love, on a budget and with a definite psychedelic flavor as huge peace signs covered one side of the two-storied stucco.
Jefferson Airplane blasted over funnel shaped speakers attached to the front corners of the house masking the sounds of nature, if there was any nature now that sheer volume had pretty much run every animal, insect and bird out of the area, no doubt.
But across the yard, beyond, a pond and even with the music, the voices of a group of people having a good time splashing and partying.
We walked to the house and a woman in the doorway, her shirt hiked and a kid, like two years old, its legs wrapped around her waist, its lips attached to her naked breast. The mother was tall and lanky, wearing short cut-offs and black sandals. She said Robert was swimming with ‘them all,’ at the pond. She pointed at Sooner, “That’s the dog comin’ in tonight and she’s got pups?”
I thought it a little weird that Sooner’s teats were dragging and this woman’s were kind of doing the same thing, not dragging but making milk. But she was nice, so passive, and Dickens was running Sooner all over the yard just to get away from the boobs I think.
