Sucking Up Yellow Jackets

by Jeanne Denault

  That day, he came home with torn pants and bloody, mud-covered knees and elbows. He mumbled that he tripped and fell then darted up to his room.

  After school the following day he ran home from the wrong direction. He was out of breath and hid in his room. Linda told me what had happened. “Three sixth-grade boys followed him home yesterday and kept shoving him and tripping him. He’s so dumb he helped the crippled kid again today. They were waiting for him down on Linden but he ran home another way. They’ll get him tomorrow.”

  “Why didn’t the teachers stop them?”

  “Sixth-graders are too smart to get caught.”

  “I don’t imagine it would do any good if I spoke to the teacher.”

  Linda just rolled her eyes, heaved a deep sigh and walked away shaking her head. She hated being linked with Max.

  I called after her. “How come you told me?”

  “Because they know I’m his sister. If they can’t get him, they might come after me. I wish we had an ordinary name so people didn’t know I was related to Max.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.” I didn’t realize I was talking out loud until Linda stopped and stared at me.

  It wasn’t an adult reaction but I shrugged and rolled my eyes. I knew how she felt. Like me, Linda liked to fade into the woodwork until she had time to check out the interactions of a new group of people. Max made this impossible for both of us. I felt ashamed of myself for cringing when someone met me and said, “You’re Max’s mother?” The shocked voice was bad enough but what really got me was when they inadvertently stepped back as though I were radioactive.

  Max’s teacher called the following day and asked to meet with me during lunch. Seth was in kindergarten by then so I collected him and brought him with me. She didn’t waste time with pleasantries. She said, “I’d like to have Max evaluated by the school psychiatrist. He’s obviously extremely intelligent but he has a problem relating to other people. He’s not good at working in a group.” She squinted and tipped her head as though trying to bring me into focus. “You don’t seem surprised. Do you have a problem with the idea of Max getting psychiatric help?”

  “No. I just wish we had enough money to get him a tutor.” I tried to keep the bitterness I felt out of my voice. “He’s usually good with one adult at a time.”

  “Yes but the real world won’t come at him one by one.”

  She gave me the name of the psychiatrist the school used. Max spent two hours with her. He had a great time. She said she wanted to meet with me and with Max’s father before she set up a treatment schedule. Pete went without his usual protests. I was surprised but decided it was best to act as though this was nothing unusual.

  She spoke to us together then said virtually the same thing that the child psychiatrists had said in Philadelphia. Max was comfortable with me and freaked out by Pete. She phrased this in shrink-talk but that was the gist of it. She said she didn’t feel there was any reason to see Max or me again but set up a series of appointments with Pete. He not only went to these but he actually talked with her. He said she told him he was unconsciously doing what his own elderly, remote father had done and suggested he find some activity he could share with Max.

  Absorbed in his job, he didn’t have the time or energy right then. He was someplace else much of the time. He came home from a month scouting locations for commercials in Hawaii. The soles of his feet were sunburned, the rest of him was deeply tanned and he had put on a few pounds. He mumbled a few platitudes about missing us but that didn’t convince anyone. Not usually gregarious, he couldn’t stop talking about the stunning vistas, friendly people and wonderful fruit and seafood in Hawaii.

  I was depressed enough without this blithely happy, suntanned man around. I was pretty certain I was pregnant. Seth was going to begin first grade next fall and the idea of starting all over again appalled me. I felt as though I were being sucked into a bottomless quagmire.

  This was eleven years before Roe v. Wade. You couldn’t get a baby sitter and make a quick visit to an abortion clinic without anyone being the wiser. The attitude of the era and place was different. If I had had enough money to dash over to Sweden where abortion was legal, or if I had a serious medical condition that would make a pregnancy potentially deadly, or if I was carrying a child conceived as the result of rape, I would have had the procedure. But I knew myself well enough to realize even then that I would have felt haunted by a sense of loss. Once you have borne children it’s impossible to think of a conceived child without investing it with a personality.

  My mother was an agnostic who had brought her children up as Roman Catholics because of family pressure. She had an odd mixture of free-thinking and superstition cobbled from traditional Catholic schools in a German-speaking section of Pittsburgh, two years in a Catholic boarding school in West Virginia and a progressive public high school back in Pittsburgh. Somewhere along the line she picked up the odd belief that sex was a sinful gamble and merited penance or the threat of punishment of some sort. This was particularly true for women who had the temerity to enjoy it. She liked sex, once confiding it was the only consistently good part of her marriage with my father. She practiced birth control but never lost the feeling she might have to pay occasionally for enjoying sex by getting pregnant.

  Some vestige of her odd beliefs tinged my subconscious. The familiar “what did I do wrong to deserve this” haunted me. I knew someone’s diaphragm had to fail to account for the three or four percent failure rate but why did it have to be mine? What could I have done that was bad enough to deserve this?

  I knew I would cope and even enjoy this baby but a part of me was ticking off the number of years I would have to get through before I could do some of the things I wanted to do for myself. Seven more years had just been added to this purgatory.

  I had easy pregnancies. I didn’t even get morning sickness. The closest I ever came to it was six weeks of vague unease if I went too long without eating. And I only had that with Max. When this sensation began with this child I was terrified. Was I carrying another Max?

  Visions of another small, vibrating creature climbing out of bed night after night and sucking all my energy plagued me. Even though I knew this pregnancy might be my last chance to sleep for years, I lay awake each seemingly endless night staring at the ceiling. I saw little of Pete; we communicated with notes and phone calls. Once again, I had no idea what I should name this child. A month or so before the baby was due I got a book of baby names from the library. Names were too subjective. I picked and rejected one after another but finally decided on a short list of boy’s and girl’s names. I left the list on the kitchen counter where Pete couldn’t miss it and asked him to circle one for each sex. He circled Matthew and Andrea.

  He no longer said much about wanting six children. He was so caught up in his own life he didn’t have time for the rest of us.

  I arranged to have someone cover me for the few weeks I wouldn’t be able to teach. There was no such thing as maternity leave in 1963. I was informed that The Art Institute only covered substitute’s salaries in the case of an accident. I told the Dean this pregnancy definitely qualified as an accident but he said the insurance agency wouldn’t buy this logic.

  I started worrying about a baby nurse for the two days I would be working. Ann was a capable woman who wasn’t fazed by Max. But adding an infant to the mix seemed a bit too much to ask. Fortunately she was thrilled at the idea of a baby to care for. She told me little babies and senile old men were the people she liked to care for most. I found this a bit scary.

  When Andrea was born, the doctor checked the waiting room and couldn’t find Pete. Disconcerted, he asked me where he was.

  “I imagine he’s at home asleep.”

  “How long have you been married?” The doctor sounded affronted. He called Pete.

  Pete had hung out with me as much as the hospitals allowed through the first two deliveries. Their rules were pretty barbaric. With first babies, fathers were
encouraged to wait at home until the mother actually went into the delivery room. Even then, husbands sat in a waiting room and smoked with other waiting fathers. When Linda was born, Pete was a nervous wreck but kept the nurses entertained because he absent-mindedly tore off the bottom of the pack and kept lighting the filter end of his cigarettes even after they pointed this out to him.

  Seth’s delivery was the first one where he was actually allowed to participate. He kept me company in the labor room and was asked if he wanted to come into the delivery room. When he turned gray at the offer, it was quickly rescinded.

  When I went into labor with Andrea, Pete was having a bout of rheumatoid arthritis and had difficulty walking. I gathered things were becoming stressful at work. I didn’t want to add to his problems so I suggested he get some sleep. Our house was only a five-minute drive from the hospital. I decided this would be easier for both of us. Unless we were talking politics or his job, we didn’t have a lot to say to each other these days.

  The nurse brought in the baby girl as soon as Pete arrived. She was sleeping. I was delighted when she didn’t startle awake when I dropped my spoon. Maybe she wouldn’t be another Max after all.

  Pete looked at her. He was clearly worried about the same thing. “She’s got that milk-white skin like Max but seems a lot calmer. What are you going to name her?”

  “Andrea. That’s the name you circled on the list.”

  “What list? I never saw the name before.”

  I started to reiterate that it was the name he chose but stopped. Why bother. By the time he came home most nights, he was operating on auto-pilot from exhaustion or a stop at a bar. He wouldn’t remember and would just get irritable. “Is it okay? Do you have another name you like better?”

  He said Andrea was fine but called her Andrew.

  I was relieved to find the little girl loved to be hugged and snuggled and didn’t mind being confined to a crib or a playpen. She was herself, not another Max.

  Max seemed fond of her. He would pick her up and let her sit on his knees if she came up to him and put up her arms. He didn’t actually play with her but he bought her a teddy bear with his allowance money and often watched her with a bemused expression on his face as though trying to picture what it was like to be a baby.

  Chapter 30

  Pete sat at his drawing board in our bedroom drawing what looked like a small house with a tree growing through its middle. Assuming it was something to do with work, I asked what the drawing was for.

  “I’m going to build a tree house for the kids. I always wanted one so I could have a secret place up above everyone else that was only mine.”

  “Didn’t you have one?”

  “No. The only big tree in our yard was Ma’s apple tree. I started nailing boards on the trunk so I could climb up to the crotch but she made me pull out the nails before I got the third step in place. She said she had planted the tree for fruit, not for fool kids to fall out of and break their legs.”

  I felt sorry for Pete. From what little I knew about his childhood, growing up in his household hadn’t been easy. “That’s a shame. My brother and I built one in a really old wild cherry tree on the edge of the woods below our house. We could see our house through the leaves but if we climbed up far enough, Mom couldn’t see us unless she came into the woods and looked up. I used to climb up high and pretend I was invisible.”

  When he was satisfied with the design, Pete marked the corners and I dug holes for cement piers and the base for the ladder. I did all the yard and garden work. I was used to digging. I enjoyed pitting myself against jobs requiring hard physical effort.

  Unlike Massachusetts, this part of Illinois had few stones so it would have been easy to dig four foot holes if it weren’t for the many oak roots that got thicker the deeper I went. The only tool we had to cut the hard roots was the long-handled ax we used to split logs. I managed to cut the roots without difficulty for the first one-and-a-half feet but when I took a full armed swing at the next one I uncovered, I was at such an oblique angle the heavy ax skidded along the top of the root, continued through its long arc and grazed my calf. I washed the resulting skin tear, covered it with a large Band-aid and continued digging but I realized I had better ask for Pete’s help with the rest of the roots. This irritated me. I hated to admit I was too small or too weak to complete any physically demanding task I started. Born hopeful and willing to try anything, I constantly fought the nagging fear I wouldn’t be able to finish a project without the aid of someone bigger or smarter.

  My brother, Bob, was only 21 months older than me but he was much larger. There weren’t many kids in the neighborhood so Bob and I spent a lot of time playing together. He was full of wild ideas and a lot of fun but had a strong need to assert his superiority over the little sister who took his place as the youngest child in the family. Small and scrawny for my age, I spent much of my early childhood trying to prove I could keep up with him and failing because he was so much taller and stronger.

  A neighbor boy sidled up to Pete when the tree house was far enough along so it was obvious the structure was built around a tree but not attached to it. The boy hemmed and hawed then blurted out that it was not really a tree house.

  Pete stepped back as though aghast at this discovery and said, “Oh, my God. It isn’t?”

  The boy’s eyes widened in alarm at this strong reaction. He looked ready to bolt but stood his ground and tried to make amends. “But it’s really nice anyway.”

  Pete frowned and looked worried. “You really think it’s okay even though I forgot the tree part?”

  The boy nodded. “Yes sir, yes sir. I think it looks just fine.”

  Pete gave a dramatic sigh of relief, grabbed the startled boy’s hand and shook it. “Thank you. That’s good of you.” The boy had no idea what to say. He did his best to make his mouth turn up into what was meant to be a smile but looked as though he was trying not to vomit. We didn’t see much of him after that.

  It was an elegant tree house. Pete had a wonderful eye for proportion and design. It became a popular meeting place for kids all over Wilmette.

  Our children enjoyed it but it was never a place to hide and dream. I’m not sure private places outside are possible in the middle of a densely settled suburb full of tall oak trees where the lowest branches are level with the second story of large houses.

  Chapter 31

  My sister Susie and her husband gave wonderful presents. The Christmas Max was ten and Seth was seven, they gave both boys handsome brass carbide cannons that were considered safe but made enough noise to satisfy any red-blooded boy.

  Both boys were delighted. I was relieved to see there was a solid chunk of brass between the explosion and the barrel of the cannon so Max couldn’t use it to fire missiles. Max seemed satisfied to use the cannon as a good source of loud noise.

  Two weeks later, I was in the kitchen. A noise I couldn’t identify came from the basement. It was a loud whining whir that reminded me of going to the dentist when I was a child. By the time I got the tray of muffins out of the oven and opened the cellar door, the noise had stopped. I went halfway down the stairs. Max and Seth were playing pool. The only thing I heard now was the clicking of pool balls banging together and the boys arguing. They both looked at me with blank faces when I asked them if they knew what made the whirring sound earlier.

  Andrea was taking a nap so I had a respite. I sat on the cellar stairs and watched the boys. The basement was large and would have had good head room if it weren’t for the fat pipes carrying hot water to the radiators. The room reminded me of the German submarine at the Science Museum. The pipes and floor were painted red, the ceiling was cream colored and the walls were a glossy institutional green.

  When we bought the house, the owners asked us if we would mind keeping the pool table. We were thrilled. It was in poor shape: the leather pockets were broken and sagging, the cushions were hard, and the once bright green felt was water-stained, filthy, torn and ridd
led with moth holes.

  The table had a Brunswick tag on the underside. Pete called the Brunswick Company to have it refurbished. He was a good pool player. He hoped to share this skill with the boys. The man from Brunswick ran his hand over the battered surface as though he were stroking a desirable lover. He offered to buy it.

  I was mystified. “Why? It’s in terrible shape.”

  “Four slate tables are rare. This was built when freight was carried in horse drawn wagons.” The table was expensive to fix but Pete was adamant. It turned out to be a good investment. It got a lot of use over the years. Pete’s efforts to show Max how to hold the cue and where to aim ended up with Pete irritated, Max sulking and a lot of divots in the new green felt. Max was hard to teach. He hated to acknowledge he didn’t already know how to do everything. He eventually learned how to play pool quite well but he did it his way.

  Times when the two boys weren’t fighting were rare. Seth only played pool with Max when his friend Kevin was busy. He and Max usually ended up pummeling each other. They approached everything they did together as though they were engaged in Olympic caliber competition but without the rules that kept athletes alive.

  Max bitterly resented Pete’s easy affection for Seth. He couldn’t attack Pete so he beat up Seth on a regular basis. Two-and-a-half years older, Max was larger than Seth, and he took advantage of this and usually ended up sitting on his brother’s chest. This didn’t do much to forge warm, fuzzy feelings between them. One of Seth’s fiercest desires was to grow larger than Max so he could beat him senseless. I tried to break them up before the first thud but they both ended up with scars.

  When I went back upstairs, I left the door to the basement open. I could hear Max and Seth talking. There was urgency in their voices but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I heard the whirring noise again, so I tip-toed over to the open door and listened.