The Boots My Mother Gave Me

by Brooklyn James

  To set out and see the world.

  Boy, did I get the eye on that one, insinuating he never saw me, as if he were offended or something:

  Jeremiah Johnson,

  His dad left him that day.

  I told him, come and go with me,

  We got no reason to stay.

  We said our goodbyes that night,

  Under the stars, skin to skin.

  Our bodies full of emotions,

  Our young minds could not comprehend.

  His chest rose and fell heavily, more quickly over the length of the song, the words bringing back memories, affecting him, as the chorus finished one last time:

  I left him there in Georgia,

  Bittersweet escape.

  I wonder, does he think of me?

  Does he even know I still call out his name?

  Jeremiah Johnson,

  I wonder, do you ever think of me?

  The music tapered off, ending the song. “I thought I heard everything you ever wrote. Cassidy brought this over today, your CD. Seems I never got one. Didn’t know there was one. You’d think if I inspired a song, I’d at least get to hear it.”

  “Maybe I know another Jeremiah Johnson,” I said, my voice low, slightly embarrassed. I had been found out.

  “Maybe,” he agreed. He sat there, still, staring at me, no particular emotion, just looking at me, through me, somewhere in my general line of sight.

  “You wouldn’t know anything about Joey Harper tied to the flagpole in front of city hall, would you?” I changed the subject, unable to keep my lips from smirking. The thought of it pleased me.

  “Nope.”

  “They brought him in this morning, to the ER, with frostbite and hypothermia.”

  “I had frostbite once...in Afghanistan. You wouldn’t think it gets cold there, being the desert and all, but up in the mountains it gets real cold. I cried like a baby, thawing out. He’s a tough-guy though. I’m sure he’ll be fine,” he said, the contempt in his voice clearly audible. “How is she?”

  “Okay. She’s home asleep.” I took my coat and gloves off, as I sat on the couch, catty-corner to his chair on the other side of the room.

  “So, you’re planning on staying a while?” he gathered from my gesture.

  “I don’t need to. If you’ve got plans or something.” I reached for my coat.

  “No. I don’t have any plans.” He got up from his chair, walking to the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door open, glass bottles clinking. “You want a beer?”

  “No thanks.”

  He returned from the kitchen, two beers in hand, and a chair in the other. He put the chair down across from me at the coffee table, the only thing separating his chair from the couch, where I sat. He placed a beer in front of him, and one in front of me. “Just in case you change your mind,” he said. “Have you ever heard of the truth table?” I looked at him, befuddled. I had no idea what he talked about, and I didn’t like his attitude, either, very nonchalant, but purposefully so. “It’s used in mathematics, to measure logic.”

  “That would explain why I’ve never heard of it. I’m not a big math fan. Completely right-brained, I am. I should get going, anyway.” I reached for my coat. He was up to something, sitting across from me, directly across from me, challengingly. If I felt like telling the truth, I would, on my own terms.

  He grabbed my coat from under my hand, tossing it into the recliner across the room. “You don’t have to be a math fan to use the truth table.” He took a drink. I watched him, suspicious, beginning to feel agitated, as he smiled at me provokingly. “This is a table,” he pointed out the obvious, tapping his hands on the coffee table between us. “We’ll keep it simple, no variables or coefficients. I ask you a question, you tell me the truth.”

  “I don’t think I want to play this game. How about Scrabble, Monopoly? Ya got anything like that?” I asked condescendingly.

  “Didn’t your mother teach you to share? You always pick the game. Now it’s my turn.”

  Who did he think he was? My shrink? “Go ahead. Ask anything you want,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest, sitting back against the couch. “Doesn’t mean you’re going to get the answer you want.”

  “Why did you come over here tonight?”

  “To ask you about Joey. Tell you about Kat. See how you’re doing.”

  “Why did you really come over here tonight?” I said nothing, just looked at him, my attitude completely readable through my body language. “Okay, let me rephrase the question. Did you, or did you not, come over here tonight with the intention of going to bed with me?”

  “You have a pretty high opinion of yourself.”

  “Just answer the question.”

  Leaning forward, I twisted the cap off my beer. “Sure. I thought it might lead to that,” I said, taking a drink.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. Do you trust me?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “You lie.”

  “What’s the point of this...truth table, if you’re going to answer the questions for me?”

  “You don’t trust me. I guess you trust me in your bed, when you want me. That’s the only time you ever give me anything, any part of you of any real significance. Are you afraid? After everything we’ve been through, you think I’m going to hurt you?”

  “This has got to be a first.” I threw my hands up in the air, letting them fall into my lap. “I never knew a man to have a problem with sex exclusive of a commitment.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Harley.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I am not your father. Not every man is your father. And it’s time you realize that.”

  “I’m not this way because of my father. I am the way I am because I choose to be so. I like me. I don’t have a problem with me,” I countered. “I do trust you. And yeah, maybe I think you might hurt me. Not intentionally. Not on purpose. It would just happen. It always happens. That’s the nature of things. The bottom always falls out, Jeremiah. And that’s the truth.”

  “But can’t you trust me enough to put the pieces back together, when everything falls apart?”

  “Don’t you ever get tired of rescuing people?”

  “No, I don’t. I like having people depend on me.”

  “Maybe it’s not your responsibility to rescue me, to put it back together. Maybe I don’t want anybody to put it back together.”

  “But I can do it, Harley. I can carry the weight. I can be everything you need me to be,” he said so calmly, so assured. “I’m not some skittish guy who doesn’t know what he wants out of life. I know who I am, what I’m capable of, and I’m telling you, I can deliver.”

  “It’s not your place to deliver. It’s mine. I make my own decisions. I make my own messes. I make my own happiness. Nobody can do everything for someone else. Nobody can be everything to someone else. And to expect that is completely delusional.”

  I continued to argue, my arms flailing about in time with my mouth, “Where does it say in the manual of life, everybody has to have someone to complete them? That’s too much pressure to put on anyone, know me, love me, support me, want me, be my friend, be my lover, have my children, give me your time, your energy...your everything. What is that! To ask that of someone else? To expect it?”

  “I believe that is called a relationship, a commitment,” he said.

  “Sounds more like a job contract to me.”

  “Maybe. What’s so bad about a contract, a promise? I know you’re spontaneous and carefree, but really, is it that bad? To have to be with someone, share your life with someone?”

  “I never said it was bad,” I defended. “Maybe it’s just not for me. Why does it always have to be about falling in love? The American Dream, find your soulmate, have a successful career, a house with a white picket fence, two-and-a-half children, and a dog. Maybe that’s not everybody’s dream. Maybe it’s not mine.”

  I stood, pacing the living room floor, finding my thoughts, talking through them. “I
don’t even know what my dreams are anymore. Look at me. I’ll be twenty-eight years old next month, and I haven’t really accomplished anything I set out to. I wanted to write music for a living. And here I am, back in the same damn place I fought to get out of, freaking Georgia, freaking Pennsylvania.”

  I stopped, leaning up against the living room wall. “I thought I was meant to live for so much more. What on earth gave me the idea that I was different...unique? What made me think I deserved more? It sucks, ya know, accepting the truth about everything...about myself. I’m not so special after all, no different from anybody else.”

  “What if you were made for me,” he said. “Would that be so hard to believe? Unacceptable?”

  No, it wouldn’t. What woman in her right mind wouldn’t want to be put here, for him?

  “No. Not right now, here, as I stand. But what about five years from now, ten years from now?” I returned to the couch across from him. “Here’s your truth, the one nobody wants to see, the one everybody thinks they’re immune to.” I tapped my hand on his truth table, leveling my field of vision with his. “How many people who’ve been in a relationship for years, with the same person, are truly happy? How many of them have anything left to talk about after all that time? How many of them stayed together just because it was the thing to do? How many of those people, sitting on their front porch swing at eighty years old, would give anything to go back, and do it all over again, differently?”

  “It’s the same old song and dance with you, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “Miss Fly By the Seat of Her Pants, can’t see past her own fear to take a chance on something. I used to think you were the bravest girl I knew, Harley, running here and there, new towns, new jobs, new experiences. I thought, man she’s gutsy. But you’re just running on empty, scared and spinning your wheels.” He leaned over the table toward me, his body language intense. “And don’t give me this crap about being like everybody else. I’ve never known anyone like you.”

  “Oh, you get me, do ya? You know who I am? Understand me?” I challenged, leaning onto the coffee table, mimicking his body language.

  He met my ante, raising me some space, as he encroached even closer into mine, his gaze intent, unwavering. “I always had you, Harley. I’m just waiting for you to find what you’re looking for.” I couldn’t decide if I wanted to kiss him or smack him, he was so close to me, his lips inches from my own. He smelled good. He looked divine, like a dream, the candlelight flickering off the side of his face.

  “And just how long do you plan on waiting?”

  He looked at me as if he would take me right there. I wanted him to, sure he would. Everything about his body language said he wanted me, from the enhanced rise and fall of his chest to his sultry stare. “I’m about done.”

  He pulled himself away from me, leaning back into his chair. “I want you, all the time, every time. And these occasional romps in the sack, love them, live for them. But, it’s not enough anymore.”

  “So, is this an ultimatum?”

  “When did you write that song?” he asked. I said nothing. “When did you write it?”

  “When I left town.”

  “Which time?” he alluded sharply.

  “What does it matter?”

  He got up from his chair. “Good night, Harley,” he said, as he headed down the hallway.

  “The first time,” I answered. I walked to his recliner, picking up my coat. He stopped, returning from the hallway, just inside the living room. “I wrote it the day after graduation. The first time I left.” I turned to look at him.

  “Yes,” he said. “In your song, you said you wondered if I thought of you,” he explained. “Every day.”

  I started to put my coat on. He stepped to me, taking the jacket from my hands. “I know you think you keep me at arm’s length. Mind over matter, right? Did you forget I was in Mr. Yumani’s science class with you? Your lab partner, your beaker buddy.” He smiled. I chuckled lightly with the memory. We broke so many beakers in that class.

  He lay my jacket back in the recliner, continuing, his voice soft and low, “You can’t control everything, Harley. I know you’ve got walls, brick upon brick. We all do. Even animals run on self-preservation. But I know I’m in there. You and me Harley-girl...that’s the way it’s always been.” He leaned up against the wall across from me.

  “Where do we go from here?”

  “That’s up to you.” He shrugged his shoulders. “You can stay, tonight. Anything after that, it’s solid. You come to me after tonight, consider yourself committed, tied down, had, however you want to take it. No more tiptoeing, getting your feet wet, jumping in, then out. You’re in it for the long hall, you and me. Maybe even a few kids down the road, blonde-headed, green-eyed, strong-willed little girls, tomboys. I’d like that,” he said.

  How could I not jump into his arms and profess myself to be his, right then and there? This man, strong, capable, understanding, everything a woman could ever dream of, beautiful man offered himself to me. What the hell was wrong with me!

  “That’s it, huh? All or nothing?” I asked. “Not even friends?”

  “Not just friends,” he said definitively. “I have all the friends I need, Harley. If I see you on the street or something, I’m not going to walk by like I don’t know you. But I don’t need you around me all the time, in my line of sight, infecting my thoughts, stirring me up. If I can’t have you, you don’t want me, then do me a favor, and stay away from me.”

  “After tonight?”

  “After tonight,” he confirmed. Taking my hand, he led me down the hallway into his room.

  Peaches

  The next week passed at Benny’s. My head buried under the hood of a car, changing out an alternator, my hands worked effortlessly as my mind focused on Jeremiah. I left the morning after, like I always did, and I had yet to return, convinced I would not.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe I let fear get in the way. Some people can’t imagine being alone, without someone to love, even if it requires them to put it all on the line. I couldn’t imagine putting it all on the line for someone.

  “Harley,” Benny’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Phone’s for you. It’s your dad.”

  Unfortunately, he didn’t mean Dad waited on the phone for me, as I had initially hoped. The call came from Kat, as usual. She was on her way to the Veteran’s Administration hospital, where Dad had been admitted. A nurse from the facility called her upon his request, once he regained cognizance and remembered the number.

  His sister, Clara, took him to the facility days ago and gave her name and number as his only contact, insisting we were estranged and desired to remain so. He bled internally, surely a side effect of copious alcohol consumption. His weight extremely low, he had bruises on his forearms, his shins, and his face from falling down multiple times while he stumbled around, drunk. They placed him on a detoxification protocol after lab tests indicated he needed to be so. The medical picture differed tremendously from the rosily modest report given to the contrary, from him and Aunt Clara, stating he only drank a couple of beers daily.

  By the time we got the news, he was weaned off his detox medications, and his emotions bubbled to the surface. Every time I talked with him, he cried. He told the nurses about Kat and me, his daughters. I was shocked, simply beside myself to hear he actually talked about us, admitted we belonged to him. The nurse said he cried every time he mentioned Kat and me. I didn’t want him to cry. Everything was going to be all right. It would all be okay.

  I spoke with the nurse about getting him into rehab, again. He would have a schedule, individualized and group therapy, everything he needed, kind of like a mini-village with others who shared similar experiences, a built-in support system. He declined.

  “Can’t you just make him go?” I pleaded. They could not. It was up to him, as it had always been.

  Meanwhile, Kat and I went to the house, his house, thinking we would get things tidied up before he got back from the hospita
l. Such a distressing feeling, walking into the place and knowing that’s where he lived. The last time I was there in August, he had it cleaned up. Now, the beginning of December, it looked like the rats lived there, the whole place in shambles.

  The walls yellow and thick with nicotine, it smelled like cigarettes and urine. The carpet and furniture had burn marks in them, apparently from lit cigarettes, either clumsily dropped or ones he fell asleep with. The fridge stood bare, except for two boxes, once containing thirty cans of beer each. Empty beer bottles were strewn about, along with a few broken chairs. The garbage sat heaped and piled out onto the floor. Dishes formed like a mountain in the sink, food caked on them from who knows how long ago.

  It was far removed from the home I grew up in, the one my mother took much pride in maintaining. As a kid, I never understood why she cleaned so adamantly. Even now, as an adult, I kept a clean house, but not a meticulously tidy ship. My opinion, an overly clean house equated to a waste of time. Don’t sweat the small stuff, I thought.

  I had another light bulb moment as I looked around the wreckage, at odds with my childhood home. Maybe Mom cleaned a lot because she cared a lot, respected her space, our space, took pride in it.

  Looking back on it now, it was a privilege, a constant. When I woke in the morning, the clothes I put on for school were clean. They smelled good, they looked good, and I felt good in them, regardless of whether they were brand new or hand-me-downs from a yard sale. My mom made them special.

  When I got off the big yellow bus after school let out and walked in the front door of our home, it smelled good, it looked good, everything had a place, always the same, because Mom made it that way, familiar. When I went to bed at night, I was clean, I smelled good, and I felt good, because my mother had bathed me. And as I grew, she required me to bathe myself, take pride in myself, and take care of myself, love myself.

  I looked around at the mess, completely befuddled, and I wanted to know when my father stopped caring, stopped loving, stopped living?

  Before we knew it, Christmas encroached upon us. Mom came home from Wyoming, and Dad made it home from the hospital. He did as well as could be expected, getting his strength back and working on his sobriety. Kat endured, amazing with him, nurturing and helpful beyond compare. Megan reveled, simply ecstatic to spend time with her Grampy again.