The Shark Curtain

by Chris Scofield

  “You know how families are,” Mom cut him off. “And Paul? It was my third martini. We were all pie-eyed, don’t you remember?”

  * * *

  Mrs. Marks made Judy put her hair up so she’d “look nice at the convention’s big dinner” tomorrow night. I stare at the four soup-can rollers down her part line, the four stiff brush rollers—two on either side—and the three neat rows of pin curls at the nape of her neck.

  “You’re staring at me again!” Judy says, pushing her white and pink rhinestone glasses up her nose. “I don’t like people staring at me!”

  “Okay, don’t have a cow!” I pause. “Did His shadow have a halo?”

  “No,” Judy says. “Halos don’t have shadows; they’re invisible unless you look at a sainted person just right.” Did Jesus wear a halo when I saw Him? I don’t remember. Still, Judy reads a lot; she probably knows. She’s taking two fat library books on her trip.

  I hear the front door open and Mrs. Marks step outside. “Rusty!” she yells for Judy’s little brother who’s playing across the street. “Stop wrestling with that dog! Do you hear me? Rusty!”

  He loves to play with Louis, the neighbor’s black lab; they even sleep together when Rusty stays over, which he’s doing again tonight because Mr. Marks’s back is acting up. Judy’s mom says Rusty is too loud and “active” to be inside when the weather’s nice. He and Mr. Marks fight a lot so it’s a good idea.

  “Look what I did,” Judy says, drumming Tiger Beat magazine with her pencil. “I filled out the contest form to win a ‘Dream Date with Singer Teen Idol Bobby Sherman!’ This and this are true,” she adds, pointing at her neatly printed name and address, “but I fibbed about my age.” She points at 18 on the Your Age line. “If you’re eighteen you don’t need your parents’ permission.” She hugs the magazine to her chest.

  I wish it were Mrs. Wiggins sneaking around the neighborhood. The bump, where my tail grows, itches. I try to sound casual when I ask, “Half-person, half-dog. That’s a werewolf, right?”

  Judy runs her finger over glossy Bobby Sherman’s glossy lips.

  “A dog bite, or a scratch . . . If its blood got inside you—”

  “You’re talking about a werewolf, right? There’s no such thing. You just got cut up when your dog drowned, and even if her blood got inside you, it still wouldn’t make you a werewolf. God, Lily!”

  “But I killed her!” Suddenly I can’t breathe.

  “Okay, you’re a dog murderer! Does that make you feel better?”

  I stare at Judy’s starched white dust ruffle.

  “Listen,” she says, “you’re not a werewolf. You’re nothing, just a dumb girl like me.” She throws her magazine on the floor. “I’ll never win a dream date with Bobby Sherman.” She sticks her fingertips under her glasses and presses her eyes. “I’m so stupid.”

  “No you’re not. I’m not either.”

  “You are if you think you’re a werewolf. Maybe you like Hoss so much because you’re both stupid.”

  Mrs. Marks sticks her head in Judy’s room and says, “Your father’s home. Sloppy joes in half an hour.” She doesn’t look at either of us. After Judy’s mom leaves, the room feels funny.

  “I’m sorry, Lily,” Judy says. She lies on her bed, holding her knees.

  I wish Mom didn’t send me over. I don’t need anyone to watch me. Be nice, I tell myself. “I like sloppy joes,” I say. Judy must have them all the time; she’s glaring so hard at the closed door she could burn right through it like Superman. “I wonder if Jesus ever ate a sloppy joe. I bet Hop Sing could make them. He could probably make a Baked Alaska too. And one of those fancy chocolate cakes like I get at Rose’s Delicatessen on my birthday. Does your dad like sloppy joes?”

  Now I’m talking too much.

  “He’s not my dad,” Judy mutters.

  “I know.” Judy’s real father died in Korea.

  “Hey, Judy,” I say, arranging the magazines by date, “was there Baked Alaska before Alaska was a state?”

  Judy turns red. “Shut up!”

  My skin starts to itch. I scratch hard, making my hand into Mrs. Wiggins’s claw.

  “Stop scratching!” Judy shouts at me. “Jeez! Have you got fleas?”

  Kind of. Only it’s Mrs. Wiggins this time. “The dead want to be remembered,” Frieda says when she explains why she talks to dead Grandpa.

  “I can’t help it,” I explain.

  Judy closes her eyes. “I’m too old to be your friend anymore. You’re weird.”

  I wish I hadn’t said I’d stay for dinner. “Stop being mean to me! I’m going home if you don’t stop!”

  “So go! I don’t care. Go home to your beautiful family! I don’t want to talk to you anymore! I don’t want to talk to anyone!”

  “I don’t want to talk to you either!” I yell, as I lock myself in the bathroom across the hall.

  I open the medicine cabinet, take out Judy’s red toothbrush, and spit on it. The cabinet’s shelves are neat and clean, no powder, toothpaste, or cough syrup rings. The Markses have lots of pill containers, some with Judy and Rusty right on the labels.

  “Lily?” Mrs. Marks says, tapping gently at the door. “You okay?”

  “Yes,” I squeak.

  “Dinner, girls,” she announces. She presses herself against the bathroom door. “Lily, sweetie, why don’t you give Judy a few minutes to think things over and join Mr. Marks and me in the family room? It’s almost time for Bonanza. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  I stand on the edge of the tub and stare longingly out the window up the knoll toward our house and Mom’s new redwood fence.

  Jesus is a jerk, Mrs. Wiggins is dead, Judy doesn’t want to be my friend anymore, and I can’t go home until after dinner. “Mrs. Marks?” I ask through the crack in the door. “Would you please tell Judy I’m sorry?”

  “Ah, sweetie, don’t worry. Judy’s just, our family is kind of . . .” She walks away without finishing her sentence.

  * * *

  Judy joins us while the Ponderosa map is still burning. She kisses her stepdad, but ignores her mom before sitting down in front of her cold plate of sloppy joes.

  Mr. Marks gives her a mean look. “For God’s sake, Jude, do you have to wear those damn things to dinner?”

  Judy touches her rollers nervously.

  Mrs. Marks pours him another beer. “You want her to look nice for tomorrow night’s big dinner, don’t you?”

  He smiles and turns to me. “Did Judy tell you that we’re flying to San Diego in the morning?” He looks at her. “It’s the annual convention. There will be salesmen from all over the country, old friends, new products. Should be lots of fun, huh, kiddo?”

  Judy stares at the TV.

  “Just the two of us. A special father-daughter time.”

  “Stepfather time,” she corrects him.

  Everyone eats quietly, watching TV.

  I’ve seen this Bonanza episode before: A big strong guy standing at the bar is a famous boxer from Ireland. When Hoss and Little Joe, who are in town for supplies, wander into the saloon, the Irishman walks up to Hoss and tells him to “put up his dukes.” Hoss tries to talk him out of it. He even offers to buy him a drink, but once the saloon is hooting and hollering and placing bets, Hoss takes off his hat and shirt and agrees to fight him. When there’s a big saloon scene like that, I start looking for the tattletale who’ll run out of the bar to tell the sheriff. Sometimes it’s the town drunk. This time it’s a little kid who sticks his head in the door when he hears the excitement.

  Judy frowns at me before saying, “Lily likes Hoss Cartwright best.”

  “Me too,” Mrs. Marks adds. “Such a sweet man.”

  Mr. Marks laughs. “The man is a pig! Look at him! What about Little Joe? Or Adam. All the girls think Adam is sexy, don’t they, Jude?”

  Judy looks down at her plate. “I guess so,” she says. “Hoss is fat.” Maybe Judy isn’t a liar. Maybe she’s a copycat like Lauren, like how she and her
friend Karla wear the same outfits on the same day.

  Suddenly there’s a TV news bulletin about a civil rights demonstration in Memphis earlier in the day. Dr. King, a young Negro minister, locks arms with other Negroes and a few white people and walks right down the middle of the street, singing and chanting. When they approach a diner, the group is surrounded by police and everyone is arrested.

  Mr. Marks pushes his dinner plate aside and lights a cigarette. He points it at the TV. “Can’t they read the goddamn sign? It says, No Niggers, plain as day.”

  He said nigger. At school, kids get sent to the office for using that word.

  Mr. Marks likes Cassius Clay, Jackie Robinson, and Nat King Cole; all the grown-ups in our neighborhood do. What’s wrong with Reverend King?

  “They knew what would happen when they walked in there, didn’t they? I hate to see any man treated like a dog, but I don’t feel sorry for them.”

  “It’s been a hundred years,” Mrs. Marks says. “Negroes have the right to more than just . . .”

  Mr. Marks glares at her.

  “I’m just saying—”

  “Let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?” He chuckles to himself. “Those brilliant men that signed the Constitution had slaves. I bet they called them niggers.”

  “Things are better these days, Mom,” Judy says.

  “I can’t believe you two,” Mrs. Marks says, choking back her words. “You’re quite the team, aren’t you. You two really are . . . you really are . . .”

  “Change takes time, Connie. I’d like somebody to explain to me how giving uneducated, backward-thinking poor people the same rights as the rest of us is good for this country. Can you do that, Connie? Can you explain why them sign-toting niggers—excuse me all to hell—Negroes should . . .”

  I’m shaking so hard I can’t eat. Before I know what I’m doing, I stand up. I feel Mrs. Wiggins stand up beside me, looking at Mr. Marks too when I say, with a trembling voice, “Nigger is a bad word.”

  Mr. Marks puts down his cigarette and gives me a hard look. “A man’s home is his castle. I’ll say whatever I damn well please in my own house, young lady.”

  “You’re being hateful and prejudiced and mean. On purpose.” It feels good to say what’s true. “I want to go home.”

  “White people still have rights in this country. Go home if you want to; I won’t stop you.” His eyes grow tiny and dark when he picks up his cigarette and takes a long slow drag on it. I’ve never talked to an adult like this before. My heart’s beating so fast it fills my ears and I almost don’t hear him when he says, “Maybe you’re in need of a semantics lesson, Lily. Lesson one: there are polite words and coarse words, but they mean the same goddamn thing.” He throws his head back, finishing his beer. “I’ve got a bad back, right? I could say it feels like . . . shit, and wonder why the fuck I got such a raw deal and still have to work my balls off.” His words are slow and sharp like he wants to hurt me with them. “While some people carry a goddamn sign all day. Niggers or Coloreds or Negroes, same thing.”

  “Nigger’s just a word, Lily,” Judy says.

  “No it isn’t!” I yell at her. “Liar!” I feel myself turn hot and red all over. “Liar!” I repeat. “You didn’t see Jesus either, did you? You lied to me.”

  My friend blushes and looks away.

  “You said you saw Jesus?” Mr. Marks laughs. “What’s gotten into you, Judy?”

  I glare at him. “She doesn’t want to go with you on your stupid old trip, either.”

  Mr. Marks drops his smile. “What have you girls been talking about?” But before Judy can answer, her mom appears with another beer and a clean ashtray and says, “That’s all right, dear, girls talk,” and Mr. Marks changes his expression.

  I pick up my plate and milk glass, but when I fold up my TV tray and place it in the stand next to the TV, I don’t hurry to get out of his way. I want to block the TV. I want him to see me the way the Negro protestors want the angry white people to see them. I feel him frowning at me but I don’t care. I’m going home.

  Mrs. Marks walks me to the door, trying to convince me to stay for dessert and forget what was said. “It’s the beer, Lily. And the pain pills for his back. Don’t be too hard on him; he’ll be a different man in the morning.”

  But in the morning Mr. Marks is going to California with Judy. They’ll stay in a motel for five days, swim in the pool and the warm ocean, eat at restaurants, go to the zoo. Judy can wear a swimsuit under her clothes all day long if she wants to, and she’s not even taking homework with her, just two fat books from the library.

  Her mom gives me a hug; I feel dampness through her blue blouse. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Tell your mother I’m sorry too, will you?”

  “Don’t be mad at me, Lily,” Judy says, suddenly crying.

  But I don’t look at her when I slip on my jacket. “Thanks for dinner,” I say over my shoulder. I feel strong, like Martin Luther King.

  Walking home, I’m not as scared of the dark as I usually am.

  I pretend I’m with the Negro marchers, arm-in-arm. We walk slowly, like they did on TV, down the sidewalk toward my house. I hear Mr. Marks’s bad words rise up between our chanting and singing, but we keep walking anyway.

  At home, we squeeze through the front door. “Lily?” Mom calls out. “You’re home early. You want to watch Bonanza with us?”

  “No thanks,” I call, and squeeze down the hall with Reverend King and the others, walking past Lauren’s bedroom with the matching pink-and-white–striped bedspread and curtains. When I whisper how her room is the cleanest room in the house, the marchers nod their heads in respect.

  * * *

  After Mom tucks me in that night, every shadow that races across my room makes me jump. Every sound gives me the willies.

  Waiting for Jesus is scary. What does He want?

  I lie in bed and listen for His footsteps in the flower bed outside my window. It’s like waiting to get spanked: you don’t know how bad it’s going to be, you just want to get it over with.

  Where is He? Jesus was once lost in the desert for forty days, so He must not have a good sense of direction. Maybe He needs glasses. I’ll make Him a map.

  I get up, sit at my desk, and reach for the Bonanza pencil cup I got at Carson City two years ago. Dad didn’t want to leave the casino so we were too late for tickets to tour the Ponderosa that day. “Next time,” Mom promised. She’s already looking at brochures, calling up motels, and talking about how Bobby Darin and Bob Newhart are performing in nearby Lake Tahoe this summer. Sammy Davis Jr. sold out the first week.

  Lauren loves Sammy Davis Jr.

  Come on, Jesus, where are you?

  I run my finger around the cold tin lip of the cup with its picture of pine trees and horses, and Ben, Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe. When I trace Hoss’s ten-gallon hat, he smiles at me.

  Most nights, at 11:55, if Jesus were to look through our living room window, He’d catch me racing through the house in my underwear, checking all the closets and cabinets—opening drawers and closing them again.

  Someone has to check. Things get out—I imagine telling Jesus when He cups His hands around His eyes for a better look—things get in.

  Most nights, when I’m done, I dash down the dark hallway past my sleeping parents’ room, past my sister’s with the hissing humidifier, and into the bathroom where I push the pee out as fast as I can (even if I don’t have to go). Standing at the threshold to my bedroom again, I make my arms into bony wings for a broad jump and leap from the hall rug across the watery carpet, to the rag rug island in front of my bed, to the sanctuary of my blankets, before the twelve deep tones of the living room clock are finished.

  Things happen if you don’t pray right too—if you forget the order or lose your place during the who-to-thanks and what-fors. I press my palms together until they forget which one is right and which is left, and I start my eyes high on a corner of the bedroom wall and pray. My fingertips jump with the words, p
retending they remember what I practiced on Gramma Frieda’s typewriter. My prayers are long and wrap themselves around the room, over and over, like ticker tape. I apologize for being selfish. I apologize for worrying and embarrassing my parents. I apologize for hurting my sister and Judy. I apologize for being a weirdo and having a big imagination. And then I add out loud, “Please, God, don’t let the bomb drop on our house.”

  I’m scared of the bomb most of all. Before I killed Mrs. Wiggins, the bomb prayer was the biggest. It wrapped itself around the room dozens of times and I had to bite my arm to stop it from swallowing everything up.

  Tonight, though, I’m too scared to run around the house. Waiting for Jesus, I’m too scared to get up and check on things, too scared to leave my bedroom in case He’s sitting at my desk or hiding in my closet when I come back. Maybe He’s a “practical joker” like Mom says Dad is. Maybe Jesus is sad inside, like Judy. After hearing prayers for a thousand years, He probably is.

  Either way, I’m mad at Him for two major reasons:

  1. He took away Mrs. Wiggins and made me a murderer. Gramma embroidered a bunch of pillows with the Ten Commandments and gave five to Lauren and five to me for Christmas last year. Thou shalt not kill keeps falling off my bed.

  2. My body’s changing. I don’t like it, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

  That’s big stuff for any kid. Even a teenager.

  So tonight, when I kneel beside the bed with my mouth in the covers so no one else can hear me, I talk to God instead—not Jesus—because I heard you go straight to the top when you need extra help. I need a big prayer because big stuff keeps happening.

  With every word the prayer train picks up speed, zooming around my bedroom like a toy racecar, knocking smaller prayers into the bushes. Until there’s a tap at my window and I jump with surprise.

  But not really.

  So Jesus found me, so what? Still, I bet He doesn’t go around scaring Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

  I take a deep breath and, thinking of the Negro marchers, decide to ignore the tapping. I can be brave too, so I push my knees into the floor extra hard, and press my hands together till they hurt. Until finally, I peek between my praying fingers and watch as Jesus, inside my room now, throws shadow puppets on the wall over my bed. The more I look at Him, the more I feel my brain turned upside down, erasing everything on top like an Etch A Sketch.