Harry Sue

by Sue Stauffacher

  A loud smack shook the tree house. Instinctively, I rolled away from it toward the center of the bed. Homer’s body rolled in my direction.

  Then the sound of J-Cat’s voice calling, “Stan! I marked it right between those lines.”

  A man’s voice answering: “Gotcha.” The sound of a machine starting up. “All clear?”

  “What’s going on?” Homer screamed over the drone. I put my arms around him and held his head, protecting him from I don’t know what.

  As if to answer the question that was right in the front of our minds, a chain saw sliced through the side of Homer’s tree house at exactly the same moment J-Cat pulled herself up through the hatch.

  “No need to panic!” she called out over the noise. “Just a little remodeling.”

  “Just what do you think you are doing to my house?!”

  Homer was yelling about as loud as he could, but he couldn’t compete with the noise of the buzz saw. He kept yelling himself hoarse until it sputtered to an end and a square the size of a Monopoly board fell out of the side of his tree house. A rush of cold air replaced it and then the head of Stan.

  “I repeat …,” Homer said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Now, don’t spit in my face, Homerboy,” J-Cat dished back. “Technically, this structure belongs to one Ariel Dinkins, and I’ve got a permit.” She held up a piece of paper with what looked like a child’s crayon drawing of the tree house. Only in addition to the skylight in the roof, there was a window down near the floor.

  “With this new window, you’ll have a bird’s-eye view of the underworld.”

  I looked at the hole. Stan was now working away at the edges with a big file, sending wood shavings all over the place, and putting a level on the line to see if it balanced. Behind him, I could see Homer’s house and the kitchen window where his mother stationed herself 24-7.

  “Before the window goes in, I got something to show you,” J-Cat said, swooshing her big fabric tulips around the bed and hopping on.

  “Got it hooked up to that winch, Stan?”

  “Check,” Stan said, and went back to his filing.

  “Hand me that rope, Hairball, and make yourself useful.”

  I looked hard at J-Cat, trying to figure out what Baba might see in her. I didn’t think too much that way—you know, romantically. Far as I could tell, it didn’t lead anywhere good.

  I mean, look at my mom and dad. Look at the Tin Man.

  But loving J-Cat … that was just, well, Category J.

  And at that moment, I was less into whatever new rock she wanted to hoist into Homer’s tree house than I was his new view. It made me think about the two of them—Homes and his mom—in a whole new way. Lying there, looking down, I realized that Mrs. Dinkins had lost a child just like I had lost a mother. Homer was too wrapped up in his own self to notice the mother always searching the sky for him.

  Or, maybe, she wasn’t the mother he wanted to find.

  But J-Cat noticed. And she was trying to bring them back together.

  I got down off the bed and took the rope that Stan had tossed through the opening.

  “I got a dancer on the end of this line, just like I promised, Homer. You’ll see.” J-Cat gritted her teeth. “Pull,” she barked at me, and, hand over hand, we hauled up whatever was on the end of that rope.

  “Get out of the way, Stan!” she yelled. “These things are heavy.”

  Stan’s head disappeared out of sight and suddenly I could see Mrs. Dinkins clear as day down below. She stood down there, hugging herself and shivering, her worry just like rays of light.

  I glanced over at Homer, who had stalked out of the room in his mind. He was turned to the wall, away from the hole Stan had cut through and away from J-Cat, whose legs were braced against the pull on the end of the line.

  “Get ready to haul her in, Hairball,” she said as a television set came into view, suspended in midair, wrapped all around in ropes like an old sea chest.

  “Help me out here,” J-Cat grunted. “I’ll hold.”

  A cord dangled from the bottom of the set and I lay flat on my stomach as I reached through the hole to grab it and guide it in. A long orange extension cord was attached to the TV cord, and I followed it with my eyes as it swayed all the way down to the little silver cap that covered the outlet on the outside of the Dinkinses’ house.

  It shocked me with a memory of Mr. Dinkins, standing there in a Santa cap, making me and Homer climb this very tree and tell him how the lights looked from above.

  He didn’t tell us that he’d set down the lights like a landing strip, heading straight for the chimney.

  “Old Santa’s not going to have any trouble with this one,” Homer had said, punching me. Only that was when he was still Christopher.

  “You think he’ll bring my presents here again?” I asked.

  Mr. Dinkins told me that Santa got all confused with Granny’s home being a day care but me living there all the time.

  “Some reason or another, he’s got the crazy idea you live with us, Harry Sue,” he’d said, taking off his Santa cap and scratching his bald head. “Well, I don’t suppose it’s much of a problem to pass on your gifts….”

  I got good presents right up until Homer dove himself off the Grand Haven pier.

  The memory of it all was like electricity coursing through my arm and I almost didn’t have the sense to get out of the way as J-Cat performed her sumo-wrestling move to get the TV onto the bed.

  It wasn’t just a plain old TV set. It had a slot for a DVD at the bottom.

  “Now, Homer,” she said, pressing the power button and ejecting the DVD that was already inside. “I know you’re mad at me. And you got a right. But I was mad first, see?

  “Why? Because you don’t honor your mother, that’s why. I don’t know nuts about your father, but your mother is right downstairs, in a manner of speaking.”

  Homer kept his face turned to the wall.

  “So in addition to your miracle, I got another present for you, Homeboy. And I’m going to speak plain. My goal is to get you out of this tree. I admit it! And this window here is to remind you there’s a whole ‘nother world you been missing.

  “Your goal is to stay up here in a cocoon. Fair enough. But,” she continued, pulling a remote control out of her pocket, “you’ve at least got to make an informed choice.”

  J-Cat examined the DVD for fingerprints, rubbing it hard on her thigh before she pushed it back into the slot. The set wobbled dangerously on the wadded-up covers at the foot of the bed.

  “So here’s your present. Stan’s not just going to put in a window,” she said, “he’s going to insulate your little hideaway, and I got an old ceramic heater we can stick up here that’ll make you as snug as a piece of toast in a toaster all winter long. Of course, the heat’ll fog up the windows and you’ll feel like you’re floating inside a cloud, but something tells me you got the idea that would be Homer heaven.”

  Slowly, Homer brought his head around to face J-Cat. He glared.

  “Sometimes I think about hurting you real bad,” he said, his voice still hoarse.

  “I’d like that.” She was smiling. “I’d really, really like that.

  “Maybe you could get Hairball here to saw on the rope so it breaks when I’m trying to climb up. Or maybe when I’m reattaching my TV set to the winch, she can push me out of that hole…. Well, it’ll be a window by then. But if she’s clever—”

  J-Cat broke off and looked me up and down.

  “You know what you need, Homer? You need some new henchmen. You ever notice how ineffective Hairball is? She couldn’t scare the pants off a duckling.

  “How’s the shoulder, by the way?” she asked, turning her attention toward me. “I don’t suppose you’d let me …”

  J-Cat wiggled her fingers at me. I glanced over at Homer. He was giving her the death stare. I gave it to her, too, even though my whole body ached to be cracked by J-Cat one more time.

  “I
don’t see any dancers,” Homer was saying through clenched teeth. “You weren’t supposed to come back until …”

  “Oh, he’s here,” J-Cat said, sticking the DVD into the slot. “He’s right here. And so, without further ado …” She checked to see that the cord was still plugged into the back of the set and pressed the “play” button.

  You could tell right away we were in a home movie. The camera operator was not real steady and the way the picture swayed and the television, too, I felt a little seasick.

  “This place is swank,” the guy with the camera was saying to himself. “Check out the garden … Okay, okay, but just one.” The camera, which had been focused on a dusky garden with stone benches and a tall green hedge, dipped down as we heard the sound of a match striking cement and then someone inhaling.

  “That’s better…. Now check out them roses.” He panned over to a wall of pure white blossoms, their faces shining in the pale light. “I could maybe live here,” he said, sucking again on the cigarette.

  “Marty! Would you get your sorry butt in here! You already missed Anna throwing her bouquet. She nailed Granny Perkins.”

  “Crap!” Marty said. We heard the sound of his shoe scratching out the cigarette and were forced to jog back inside with Marty, the camera bobbling all over the place. He made his way through a kitchen and then a set of double doors when suddenly, everything went dark.

  I glanced over at J-Cat. She was completely absorbed, just like the crumb snatchers when they’re watching a good TV program.

  “Marty’s gonna be late for his own funeral,” she said to the TV.

  The ballroom was dim and as the camera adjusted to the light, I could just make out the people: their shiny shoes, their shimmering pearls, tuxedos, long dresses. They stood in a circle, talking quietly and pressing their hands together.

  Marty focused on an old man with a microphone.

  “Now Danny Boy will have the first dance with his new bride to the heavenly sounds of ‘Some Enchanted Evening.’”

  “This is it!” J-Cat said, punching me on the arm. “Don’t blame me if I cry. I always cry at weddings.”

  There was a moment of silence, then an electric noise that I thought at first was the camera.

  But it wasn’t. It was a wheelchair.

  Marty whistled “Here Comes the Bride” as something strange wheeled into the dim light. It took me a while to see that it was two people, a man in a wheelchair with a woman in a huge wedding dress in his lap. You could hardly see him the way her dress hung over them both. She was hugging him so tight, her arms locked around his neck the way that Moonie Pie latched on to me when I let him. Her legs were tucked up so they wouldn’t get in the way of the wheels.

  The sound of a whole orchestra swelled up in the background and the chair started to move, not like some mechanical thing, but like something real. Something alive.

  It swayed back and forth the way I’ve seen people do who are slow dancing.

  I guess we all knew who the bride was. Hard to mistake the hair. Still, when J-Cat looked into the camera and smiled, I heard Homer suck in his breath.

  She was wedged between us now, her eyes locked onto the screen.

  “Some enchanted evening …,” she sang in a scratchy voice, reaching up and pulling the television closer to us.

  It was really impressive the way he could move that wheelchair. Now it was making lazy circles around the edge of the dance floor. J-Cat picked up the hem of her dress, all dainty, and waved it as they sailed across the floor.

  All the faces they whirled past seemed so happy, like a little light went on inside each one as the wedding couple passed. Marty was getting better with the camera and we saw the groom’s face a couple of times, pressed against his headrest, laughing, stealing a kiss from J-Cat’s cheek.

  It was just like in the story. When you get to Oz, you have to put on the green glasses. They make everything perfect. Nobody seemed to notice that the guy couldn’t put out an arm to catch her if she fell. They didn’t notice that he had wheels instead of legs. The happiness of the two people in that wheelchair was the green glass making everything perfect.

  “… you will meet a stranger. He will be stranger … than anyone you’ve ever seen….”

  I stole a look at J-Cat. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  She picked up the remote and froze the picture. “You see, Homerboy,” she said, tapping a grubby finger on the screen. “You think you can’t feel anything, but you can. You can feel love. But right now your fear is weighing you down, like a big ugly blanket. It’s smothering you, Homes. It’s the bushel over your light.”

  “Where is he now?” I asked, thinking of the other night, of J-Cat and Baba.

  J-Cat stared at me with a look I couldn’t figure. At first, I thought she was scared. But then I knew I guessed wrong when she burst into a fresh round of tears and threw her arms around the television set.

  “He’s dead,” she said, sobbing as if her heart would break open right there, as if underneath all that craziness she was as soft as me.

  We stayed quiet while she cried, the whole bed shaking with her grief.

  Finally, she stopped and yanked on the hem of her sundress, rubbing it all over her face before using it to wipe her nose.

  J-Cat looked at Homer and said, “He’s dead, Homer. But before he died … he lived.”

  She rubbed at her eyes like a tired kid and hiccuped.

  “If you’d just try … just a little … it wouldn’t seem like he was so dead.”

  Chapter 28

  The only time I get to think is on my way to and from school. At Granny’s, you’ve always got to watch your back. I even know how to sleep with my eyes open. It’s good practice for the joint if you have a mind to go.

  Which I don’t anymore. Sorry, Fish. We’ve done hard time together. But now it’s time for me to get sprung.

  And the first rule for life after the joint is this: Everything’s always changing. Prepare to be surprised.

  It was hard to know how to feel about it all. I mean, there went all my career plans. Up in smoke.

  Like my belief in Mary Bell’s letters.

  Like the leaves Homer willed to jump into Granny’s burn pile.

  I always thought learning to be tough would be just as helpful on the outs, but J-Cat had me all messed up about that. Her big thing was opening up, even if it felt like taking a sucker punch to the heart.

  What I really couldn’t figure was what she had left over for Baba. After I saw how sad she felt about Danny, I replayed what I’d seen the night before. I mean, there was no way another lady could step in and be Mary Bell, was there? How could you love two people that strong?

  For some reason, it didn’t hurt so much to remember her comforting Baba.

  Jeez, maybe I saw it all wrong. Maybe he was the one comforting her.

  “Harry Sue! A word.” Mr. Hernandez put a hand on my shoulder as I took my place lining up for class. He was winded, and his tie had flapped over his shoulder. For some reason, the smell was really bad today, like a load of plugged-up toilets had been dumped in the yard.

  Mr. Hernandez put his tie over his mouth as he spoke.

  “The Marshfield EMS wants to honor you at a special ceremony this afternoon down at the Fire Station,” he said, trying to catch his breath and not breathe in the fumes at the same time.

  I looked at him, so surprised I forgot my catalog of looks altogether.

  He looked at me, too, like he was seeing me for the first time: my faded white painter’s pants, the T-shirt with the rip in the sleeve, my shoes two sizes too big.

  “Reporters are going to be there,” he said. “That the best you got?”

  “These are my Sunday clothes,” I said, conjuring up a pretty lame “mad but dumb.” “Doesn’t matter anyway. I got detention today.”

  I put my hands on my hips, trying to cover a purple Kool-Aid stain.

  “Tell ‘em thanks, though.”

  “Oh, you
can make it, Harry Sue. I’ll excuse you from detention and I’ll drive you. The mayor’s looking for more good news out of the public schools and, like I said, they’ve got a photographer coming and everything. What about your grandma? Don’t suppose she could find it in her heart to be there?”

  “She would have to have a heart,” I said, “to be able to find it.”

  I did not cover for Granny. She wasn’t my road dog.

  Mr. Hernandez didn’t lecture me for talking trash about Granny. He knew the score.

  “I figured she wouldn’t be able to make it,” he said. “Still, we’ll swing by at lunchtime and get you a change of clothes.”

  I thought about telling him not to bother. There wasn’t anything in my drawers that could top what I was wearing. But then I thought about how it would make Granny squirm, and I warmed up to the idea.

  I was starting to feel a bit partial to Mr. Hernandez. Before we went back to Granny’s, we swung by Jukebox Joe’s and he bought me a Manly Meal: double cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke so big it could float the Titanic. I allowed myself four bites of the burger, seventeen fries, and sixteen sips of the Coke before we crunched up Granny’s driveway.

  The crumb snatchers could smell the food on me as soon as we came into the hall, and before Granny could move her lard out of the chair by the TV, I slipped the bag—Coke and all—to Wolf Man, knowing he’d share it out fair and square.

  Too late, I realized I should have counted the fries. At Granny’s, food you could actually eat was as valuable as tailor-made joes in the joint. Wolf Man would have an easier time of it if I gave enough fries to divide equally between the crumb snatchers. I hoped he remembered Moonie Pie, too, who could easily jaw a fry.

  “I told you she was nothing but trouble,” we heard Granny say to Sink and Dip, flipping off the TV set on the kitchen counter. Granny and I had avoided each other since I tried to do her in with the ash can. Not that I was afraid. She had nothing on me in the felony department, and if she chose to drop a dime on Harry Sue, I could drop a dollar on her to the cops. The only thing that concerned me was what she might do to the crumb snatchers.