Going Down Swinging

by Billie Livingston

  “Nothin’.” Sadie took a bite off her melon and scratched some paint off the porch with her shoe heel.

  Eddy poked at his paper and said, “I saw you swallow a seed, y’know, you’re gonna grow a watermelon tree in your stomach, y’know.” And she spat a black gooey one at his head.

  “Achgg, frig off!” he screamed. Eddy balled up some spit as if he was going to gob it at her.

  Sadie stared at him. “Try it, y’ little turd, and you’re dead.” Eddy swallowed and went back to his paper.

  When I got to the top step, I looked at the pieces of grass and twiggy things Eddy had glued on yellow construction paper. Sadie chucked the melon skin into a bush. “I hope one of ’em bites ya!” she said and went into the house, banging the screen door behind her. I was Sunday-sad again and I even had it worse because Sadie and Eddy were my only friends now if Josh wasn’t around and they didn’t even act like they liked me. Eddy stuck his tongue out the corner of his mouth while he added more glue. They were legs he was gluing, not grass: spiders, flies, earwigs and one moth. Around half of them were still alive; most of them were stuck by their backs and wiggling their other stuff.

  “Go get me a spider.” He always tried to boss me when Sadie wasn’t around to do it.

  “Get it yourself.”

  He glared and threw the page at me. I “eww” ed and wiggled out of the way. It landed on the welcome mat.

  “What’s your beef, jerky?” That was my new comeback I picked up off Josh’s mum. Eddy didn’t think it was so great. “Why do I cast my pearls before swine?” I asked the air. I got that one off my mum.

  “You and Sadie, you think you’re so big and Sadie super-even-more now she’s friends with dork-head Sarah.”

  Sarah was the girl from ballet. I almost never saw Sadie lately, not since starting at the new school. I brought Josh over a couple times in the summer but the three of them seemed different together. The last time, Josh said we should all play doctor up in Sadie’s room. He explained how it worked and I never brought him again. No one was taking out or touching or looking at any of my underclothes stuff.

  Sadie came back out and walked down the steps. She was carrying a purse.

  “What’s in your purse, lady? Kotex?” and Eddy laughed the way he usually did just before he broke something.

  Sadie sucked in an ahhh and said, “That’s it! Say you’re sorry or I’m tellin’,” and she ran back up the steps and caught him before he could get away, slammed him down with her knee in his back and twisted his arm till his elbow went to his backbone and he yelled, “Mawwwwwwm!” She twisted harder till he squeaked, “Sorry,” and their mum hollered from inside the house. Sadie let him go and yapped, “Yeah, you better run,” when he dived for the screen door.

  I asked her if she wanted to go play or something.

  “Play?” she said, as if it was the most babyish thing she ever heard. “Nope. Can’t. I’m going to Sarah’s. Her mum’s out and she’s got tons of makeup. So. I’ll see y’around.” She started down the steps.

  “Um, hey, are you still gonna take swimming lessons at Riley Park?” I said. I didn’t want her to just go and me be alone with only Eddy. I kept having the sour beer smell in my nose and it made my mouth taste like sick.

  “Yup, Sarah and me are starting Intermediate together.”

  “Oh.”

  Eddy came up to the screen door, still bawling his head off. “You’re in trouble, y’know. You’re getting grounded for sure.”

  “Get lost!” and she practically waltzed down the block. I heard Alice call her and Sadie kept going like nothing happened. By the time her mum was on the porch, Sadie was a block away and Alice mumbled and slammed back inside. Why didn’t Sarah want me to be her friend and put on her mum’s makeup? and swim with her. Sadie wasn’t going to get grounded for practically breaking Eddy’s arm. She’d just go around being cool and everyone would do what she said. Including me.

  Eddy didn’t even look mad any more. He kneeled over his paper; there was hardly a bug leg wiggling any more. “Wanna help me get more bugs?” he asked. So I did until it started to rain and it seemed even worse to be stuck with Eddy in his house than to go back to mine. He went inside and I started down their steps and tripped when my name got whispered in my ear. I got up off the ground getting ready to be laughed at for being accident-prone. I tried to laugh before anyone else did, but there was no one there. Then a Grace-whisper came over my other shoulder, but I didn’t turn this time. My knee was banging from the pain and I scrunched my mouth and tongue tight to keep from crying. I figured maybe I should go home and have an orange.

  The apartment smelled even worse after being outside. It was quiet, though. There was no one in the living room. And in the bedroom, my mum was curled up under her blanket with a bucket beside her bed. I went down the hall to the living room and my chest jumped when the droopy-moustache guy came around the corner from the kitchen. His shirt was all unbuttoned and he had these shiny-from-dirt ripped jeans on. A cigarette hung out under his moustache and he scratched his sideburn, took his cigarette and held it lazy in his fingers. He was the skinniest man I ever saw. “Hi,” he said, kind of shaky, and flicked ashes on the floor. “How y’doin’? Grace? Is that right?”

  “Yup.”

  “Right.” He said it like ry-eeet. “Your mum’s still sleepin’,” and he nodded and chuckled. “Rough night I guess, eh?”

  “Yup.” I sat down on the couch. The TV was on with no sound. I stared at another preacher-guy waving like crazy on the screen. He looked like he should be glued to a piece of construction paper.

  Moustache-guy wandered over and sat on the couch beside me. “So,” he said. “Mine’s Gary. My name, eh?” and he chuckled again. I looked at the TV. He took a drag and I watched him blow smoke without turning my head. “So. You’re not a real talker, eh? Shy?” I shrugged and kept watching the preacher. “What’s this? mm, September? School’s in, right? What grade ‘re you in?”

  “Four.”

  “Right. Huh. So uh … so you got a boyfriend?” I shook my head and got up off the couch. Went to the window where Henry was on an end table, resting his front paws on the sill, staring out at Main Street traffic. I ran my hand down his fur, watching what he was watching. Gary stood up, so I looked back and saw him stick his cigarette back under his moustache so he could give his arm a good scratch on his way over to Henry and me. Henry and me looked out the window. Gary did too. “Nice pussy,” he said, then giggled at himself. “Oops, I mean pussy cat, kitty cat. What’s her name?”

  “It’s a he.” I wished I had the guts to gob a seed on him, like Sadie. I opened the window instead.

  “Oh yeah? … his name then … ha.”

  “Henry.”

  “Humm. Good name. So. Grace. So what’re you gonna be when you grow up?” I shrugged some more and kept looking out the corner of my eye to see what he was doing. I wondered if he knew that drinking alcohol and eating chocolate bars was probably making him into a juvenile delinquent. He smoked and looked me over. “You gonna pose for Playboy? You got a cute little ass,” and he patted my bum and did that dumb laugh again, flicking his cigarette butt out the window.

  My arms went tight and I thought about being in every car that passed on Main Street. I forced my shoulders back; they hurt like hair being brushed the wrong way. I squinted at him and said, “Pff, no!” to Eddy in the Sadie-est voice I could and saw him for the stupid-friggin’-nature he was, then turned and walked to the kitchen. My bum felt clumsy and naked stuck out there behind me.

  In the cold air falling out of the fridge, I stared at the milk and some shrivelled potatoes. I wanted to crawl in the fruit bin and pull the door closed. But I was Sadie. Sadie turned me around to look at him follow me into the kitchen. His eyes flicked and he picked up a deck of cards lying on the table, lazy-shuffling while he looked out the window into the building next door. I poured myself some milk, imagined the moustache it would make on Sadie’s dark skin and then, bored
as she could look, I took it down the hall to Mum.

  “Mummy? Mum? Do you want some milk?” Nothing. “Mummy!”

  “Grace?” she croaked like she couldn’t move. “Please, let me sleep. I’m sick.”

  I couldn’t decide about what he said yet. Maybe it was just “ass” that bugged me. I should’ve told him the same way I would Josh. Sadie would’ve. I put her milk-moustache on as thick as it’d go and went back, acting normal, to the living room. I looked at him and his scrunchy-rumpled shirt and his reddy-brown whiskers and watched him walk around, shuffling cards. Sadie folded my arms.

  “Know how to play cards?” he asked me.

  “Duh. Everybody knows how to play cards. What about you? Can you do anything with them? Like magic tricks?”

  “Na, not really …” He kept sliding them in on each other.

  My Sadie-self was disappointed. I wasn’t sure if it was to make him change his mind or if she was just miffed that he wasn’t answering like she wanted. “You can’t do any tricks?!” she said.

  He looked up at us. “Well, yeah, maybe a couple, if you’re good.”

  “Oh yeah? Why don’t you do a disappearing act.” His bottom lip dropped open and his eyes squinted. Sadie got super-smug; I got butterflies and tried not to smirk.

  “You’re a little cheeky, if you ask me. Your mother know you talk like that?”

  “Where do you think I got it from?” Sadie was getting him good. I started to giggle and joined her. “So? Come on, Gar … disappear.”

  “I leave when I’m good and damn ready. You better watch your lip or I’ll tell your mum.”

  “She’s not gonna care. Maybe I should go tell her myself.” Then I raised my eyebrows the way my dad’s ex-wife, Gloria, used to do, and paused to get a good effect, then turned and walked down the hall to the bedroom. I closed the door behind me and sat as quiet as I could at the foot of the bed. Five minutes or so went by till I heard shoes come toward me, shuffle, and the apartment door open and slam. He stomped down the stairs of the building, down each one of my ribs until he exploded in a thousand tickles in my stomach.

  Eilleen Seven

  OCTOBER 1974

  TAKE OFF YOUR COAT and get a drink down your gullet; steady your nerves. You get down on your hands and knees and gawk into the pot-and-pan cupboard for wine—ridiculous having to hide your own wine. Just seems like Grace is happier when she doesn’t actually have to see it, though. Everybody’s happier when you pretend you’re not drinking—everybody’s a hypocrite, all with their own crutches and they have the nerve to knock you. Stupid buggers. You stand up with the bottle and brush crumbs off your knees, grab a glass off the shelf, pour yourself a half a one and slop burgundy back at your blouse. Shit—dab it with cold water. You’ve got great tits, Eilleen. Chuck the cloth back in the sink. Screw it. You look back down, run a hand over the left one: tits’ll get you a lot in this town. Tits’ll get you a lot in any town. You take a big gulp. Reach into your purse on the counter, pull out the white prescription bag. 25 × 25mg Noludar Dr. L.B. Henighan.

  Twenty-five.

  Should’ve given you a hundred, the fat fuck.

  You down what’s left and pour another one. It’s not that big a deal. Pretty clever really—how many other women could’ve done it? You’re no victim. You are a cunning seductress: This is the third time this month, Eilleen, I don’t know that I can do anything for you. Asshole Henighan. If Peterson wasn’t pulling his high and mighty medical practitioner routine lately, you wouldn’t have had to see Henighan in the first place—him and his third-rate Hastings Street dope-fiend’s paradise. Not to mention Goldberg and Chan —every goddamn quack you know is pulling this ethics shit, this holier than thou, I’m-sorry-but-I-can’t crap. Going to have to put together a new stable, that’s all. Screw ’em.

  You fight with the bottle cap. Childproof lids, only way you can get the damn things open is to get your kid to do it. Push and lift, no push and twist and—fuck! Push and twist and lift. Huh.

  Sit down at the table and pull out the cotton batting, tilt the bottle around in your hand, sip some wine and look at their little two-tone selves rolling around in there, twenty five of ’em. Little coloured cylinders, like teeny tiny cocks. Not much smaller than teeny tiny Henighan. Only teeny thing on him. You stare into space and watch black flecks float past your eyes like water bugs, until the kitchen blurs and you’re standing in Henighan’s examination room again, sitting up on his table with your legs crossed. Maybe we should give you a physical today, Eilleen, rather than just rattle off another prescription. A physical, he says, and starts jotting down god knows what on his clipboard, burying his first chin in all the others. Three pig-foot fingers slide the pen back in his breast pocket. Why don’t you take off your clothes, Eilleen.

  Wouldja quit saying my goddamn name! is what you want to say, but you just start unbuttoning blouse. He puts down your chart and watches. There is no nurse in the room. He watches each button slip through its hole; you raise your eyes and watch his jowls shift as he tilts his head. You slide off the table and unzip your skirt, let it fall to the floor, step out of it. He doesn’t say anything yet, just looks at your crotch. You look down, flesh is buckling at the top of your pantyhose, tummy’s sticking out a little. S’pose I could lose a few pounds, you say. Not necessarily, he says, you’ve got great tits, Eilleen. You hold your head up. Well thank you Doctor, how kind of you to notice, smile like you know what’s what and wonder what the hell this bastard’s up to. About three hundred pounds you figure, and chortle before you can stop yourself. He doesn’t reciprocate, just takes two steps and puts his stethoscope to your breast plate. Pardon the cold, he says, looks at the floor; it’s dead silent until his breath catches on something in his nose. He cups the metal in his palm, slides it into the left cup of your bra; his fingers wrap around as much boob as they can get. He shuts his eyes just longer than a blink, tucks his lips together, opens his mouth and you can see his tongue flicking lonesome hungry in that fat head of his. Then you see the cost of Noludar has just gone up. Your heart sounds OK, he says. OK, Eilleen, what I’m going to get you to do is run up and down the steps and then I’m going to check your heart rate again. Steps? Look around the room and step out of your shoes. You never had to run up and down anything before. This is ridiculous, if it’s a f(ee-iz)ucking blow job he wants, why doesn’t he just say so so you can get the hell out of here.

  He walks to a block against the wall with two steps built into one side. He drags it out. All right now, I just need you to run up and down for about sixty seconds and then I’m going to take your pulse. You might want to take off your pantyhose. And if you wouldn’t mind removing your bra. Son of a bitch—does he have to make you look like a goof in the process? You sigh, look at him. He looks back. His face is stone with a faint twitch at one corner of his mouth. You know a put-out-or-walk smirk when you see one.

  Starting at the waist, you roll your pantyhose down, trying not to look like a moose when you pull them off your toes and throw them with your skirt. You reach back and unhook your bra, let it slide forward off your arms, feel your breasts falling. A sound comes out of Henighan, a kind of whimper, and your shoulders crunch forward like protective dogs; there is nothing you can do to call them back. You turn to the steps, put your hands to your breasts, try to hold them up, keep things from drooping and jiggling.

  This is, this is silly, I can’t do this, you say, turn and look at him.

  Just for a minute, Eilleen, one minute, he says. Keep your arms straight out to your sides.

  Foolish. You step onto the first step, boobs sway, the next step and back yourself down.

  —and you step up and your boobs stay down—feel like they’re trying to wrench themselves free and leave on their own if you’re not going to take them.

  —and back down you go and they slap to the side, flop up and down, stupid-stupid-stupid exercise in idiocy and it’s starting to hurt—

  —and up—

  —and down
. They fall hard again and your hands leap to cradle them and you stop and say over your shoulder, OK, this is—I’ve had enough and Henighan steps fast to the block before you can get to the floor. Good girl, he says, good girl and he pulls you backward into his barrel belly, one arm round your ribs, bringing your feet down on cold tile, other hand fumbling with something, the stethoscope, over your shoulder he brings the cool metal to your chest, his breathing is getting harder in your neck. He leaves the scope dangling and jerks his hand back around and under so that both his arms are under yours, one holding you steady while the other mashes the stethoscope into your boob. He’s lurching and shoving you forward with his stomach, pushing you to the examination table. Good girl, he says, good girl, listen to your heart, I’m not gonna hurt you, bend forward, put your tits on the table, oh your heart, lemme feel your tits on the table, lemme pull your panties down, but you’re not wearing any and he brings his empty hand between your back and his belly, thrashing around back there, trying to get his belt undone, he can hardly get his breath now. Christ, what a production, all that grunting to get his pants open, trying to get it out, listen to your heart, Eilleen, let me in, let me in, and then this wee bony thing poking from behind, good girl, good pussy, and he starts to cough and you think it must be a finger inside until that bulbous gut thumps twice against your tailbone and there’s a thin kitten mew against your back. He collapses on your shoulders, squashing your face to the paper on the table, his arms splay past your ears and he lies back there, breathing, breathing. You got off, now get off, you think, but you want your goddamn prescription. You try to get some air when you realize there doesn’t seem to be any in or out of him. It’s dead quiet again and you feel his slow drizzle down the inside of your thigh. Hey, how you doin? you say, terrified he’s had a heart attack or passed out and you’re not going to get anything out of this—or worse, you’ll be left to suffocate—no one’ll find you until they get enough people together to cart him away. This isn’t the bang you wanted to go out with.