by Frank Zafiro
Probably sports, he guessed. Cops were all the same. In all likelihood, arguing about the prospects of the Seattle Seahawks or the Seattle Mariners. Or, if they had a more local focus, the minor league hockey team, the River City Flyers. Some sort of knuckle-dragging sports endeavor that people with low IQs seemed to enjoy.
As he neared the end of the block, he signaled and turned right. A quick glance in his rear view mirror told him that the gray car was not following him. That meant they hadn’t even noticed him.
Good. That would make things easier.
Mid-block, he paused and peered down the alley. He saw no cars. No coverage. Could it be that they were only watching the front of the house?
He smiled. Things just went from easier to perfect.
The waiting would be the hardest part, he realized. He’d have to rein in those powerful emotions. He couldn’t afford to let them spill out anywhere. Not on those useless prostitutes. Not on any other deserving women. No, he had to save his energy for the one that got away.
He had to be smart.
He had to be careful.
He had to plan.
Most of all, he had to be patient. And he knew he could. He’d already proven it.
Part III
October 1977
Seattle, Washington
Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
EIGHTEEN
October 1977
Anticipation. As a child, anticipation ruled his life early on. There was no double-edged aspect to that particular brand of anticipation, either – not for a seven year old, at least. The joy of anticipating an event like Christmas (or in this case, his father returning home after a long deployment) occupied his mind and kept his thoughts alive all hours of the day. Nothing could dampen his enthusiasm. Not the long wait, which was usually where that other edge cut the other direction. No, waiting was just fine with him. In fact, the longer he had to look forward to something, the better the experience.
His mother seated sullenly in her chair didn’t leach away his happiness, either. He didn’t entirely understand why she wasn’t as excited as he was, but figuring that mystery out wasn’t a requirement for him to be excited for the big event.
He had a few strange memories from the last time, but they weren’t scary so much as puzzling, so he simply brushed them aside. Those shadowy recollections from when he was only five didn’t matter, anyway.
What mattered was that his daddy was coming home.
That was all he cared about.
It didn’t matter that his daddy hadn’t remembered his birthday back in August when he turned seven. He was an important man on a big ship. He was really, really busy. He had to watch over all the other sailors. And he had to fight the enemy. He couldn’t be asked to do all of that and still remember a birthday, could he?
Then again, a birthday was a super big deal. It was as big as Christmas and Halloween. Sure, he cried when his dad didn’t call or send a present. Then his mother gave him a sharp one across the cheek and told him to ‘button it up.’ She told him he was old enough to figure out what his old man was all about. She said that he could expect more of the same disappointment from him, if he ever came around.
He quit crying then, because he knew she’d lay another slap on him if he didn’t. He said, “Yes, Mother,” because she liked to be agreed with and she liked to be called Mother (never ‘mommy,’ she hated that word, said it was a peasant’s word), then waited for her to present her gift to him. His heart sank as soon as she produced the wrapped present. He could tell by the shape that it was clothing. He didn’t want clothes. He wanted Lego’s or Army men or maybe some cars, but not clothes. Clothes were awful. In fact, as far as a birthday gift went, clothes completely blew chunks.
His mother’s mouth hardened into a tight line. He knew what that meant, so he manufactured a smile. He pretended he was opening up a G.I. Joe complete set of action figures and tore off the wrapping paper with gusto. The plaid pants with reinforced knees and the matching turtleneck stared up at him in silent mockery.
Under his mother’s hateful stare, he managed a smile. He said, “Thank you, Mother.” Then he rose and tried to give her a hug. After all, even if her gift was the most stupidest gift ever, at least she got something for him. At least she said ‘happy birthday’ to him when she woke him up that morning. She even hinted that she might make some cupcakes, though he knew there wasn’t any cupcake mix in the cupboard and she wasn’t likely to go to the store because it wasn’t Wednesday and besides that, her ‘goddamn check’ hadn’t come in the mail yet (he always knew when that check had arrived, because for a day or so, the hard line of her mouth relaxed just a little bit and she seemed a little more at ease).
She allowed him a brief, cursory hug, then pushed him away. “Put your new clothes away,” she said, then motioned at the wrapping paper on the floor. “And clean up this mess.”
So he did, and that was it for his birthday. No cupcakes, either – he was right on that count – but she did make chili for him that night, which was his favorite. They sat in silence at the rickety kitchen table while he ate his chili and she drank her special stuff from a water glass. He wasn’t allowed to drink her special stuff, which was fine with him. He smelled it once and it hurt his nose. Besides, whenever she drank it (which was every day), it made her breath stink. Worse than that, it made her be mean to him.
None of that mattered now. Right now, he sat at the rain splattered window of their apartment and stared out at the gray street, waiting. His daddy was coming home. Everything was going to be better.
Maybe his daddy would bring his birthday present with him. Maybe he didn’t forget, but just couldn’t send it home. It wasn’t like there was a mailman who went out into the middle of the ocean to pick up mail, right? So they probably had to wait until the ship came into the dock before they could send mail. His daddy’s ship was out in the ocean for a long time, so that explained it.
A present between his birthday and Christmas. The prospect of a gift during that long present drought amped up his level of excitement even more. That would make up for a lot. It would make up for his daddy being gone, for the smacks and whacks he took from his mother, for all the troubles at school. A present in between his birthday and Christmas might just solve everything in the whole world, at least for a little while.
He figured his daddy could solve the rest. He could tell his mother not to drink any of her special stuff and then she wouldn’t be so mean to him. Maybe she’d even stop slapping him. And since his daddy was a boy, too, maybe he could help him with some things.
School, for instance. That was his biggest problem besides his mother. Maybe his daddy could help him with school. Maybe he could tell his mother that he didn’t have to go to school anymore. He hated going now, but his mother made him go there anyway. He was in second grade and it was terrible. He’d liked Kindergarten. They got to play and take naps and eat snacks. The teachers never got mad when he had an accident or did something wrong. Miss Reed had been his favorite. She was really, really tall and pretty and had long, long hair and she smiled at him and called him ‘Jeffrey’ instead of ‘Jeffie.’ She always liked his art projects that he made, too. He tried to give them to her, but she made him take them home to his mother.
“I’m sure your mommy will want to put them on the refrigerator or something,” she’d said, and because she was so beautiful, Jeffrey wanted to believe her. So he took the colorings and the finger-paintings and the macaroni projects home. He showed them to his mother (never ‘mommy’), who gave them a critical glance and tossed them on the table.
“Miss Reed said you should put them on the fridge,” he told his mother.
“Miss Reed does not run this house,” his mother snapped back. She took another drink from her water glass full of her special stuff. “Go do your chores and I’ll think about it.”
He did as he was told, but the colorings and finger-paintings and
macaroni projects only sat on the table, never on the fridge. Sometimes, they sat for a day or two, sometimes for weeks. Her water glass full of special stuff made little ring marks on some of them. He imagined those to be like the little happy faces Miss Reed drew on papers when he wrote his numbers and letters really good.
Eventually, though, all of those papers all ended up in the kitchen garbage, covered in coffee grounds and empty bottles of her special stuff.
Once, he drew a picture of his family. The three figures took up the entire piece of construction paper. He made sure his mother and daddy were standing next to each other, holding hands. He gave his mother a giant smile, but then he drew the eyebrows wrong. They slanted inward toward the center, giving her an angry look. He tried to fix it, but everything he did just made things worse—
“All you ever do is make things worse!”
—so that his mother looked like she was enraged. There was nothing he could do, so he moved on to his daddy. He made sure to draw his Navy uniform as best that he could. He used the one picture he had as a guide, even making certain that he put the right number of stripes on his sleeve. Three below, then one on top with an eagle. After that, he carefully colored it in, taking his time and staying mostly inside the lines he’d drawn. When he’d finished, he thought it was perfect. In fact, it was probably the best drawing he’d ever made. Miss Reed agreed with him, putting her gentle, warm hand on his shoulder when she told him so.
“It’s a beautiful family drawing, Jeffrey,” she said, her voice soft and comforting.
He tried to give it to her, but she declined as always. “It belongs on your refrigerator, for your family to see.”
She was right, of course. Miss Reed was always right. She knew everything, he figured, or just about everything. So he took it home. Instead of presenting it to his mother so that she could toss it on the table on top of his other work, he found a piece of tape and put the drawing on the refrigerator himself. He stood in the kitchen and looked at it. After a few seconds, he realized that he’d started to cry and he didn’t know why. The picture made him happy when he looked at it, but it made him sad, too. That was confusing. He wasn’t sure what to think about it, but he didn’t know who to ask. His mother would probably slap him and tell him to ‘button it up’ or ‘zip it.’
He left the picture up. Maybe it would make his mother happy. Maybe she would agree with Miss Reed that it belonged up there.
By dinnertime, his mother discovered it. She ripped it from the refrigerator and shoved it into his face. She screeched about how he’d drawn her, asking him if he thought she was really that evil. She asked him if he wanted her to die and called him an ungrateful bastard. He thought the ‘pain you’ve caused me’ speech was coming, but then she veered into a series of insults against his daddy. She called him names he’d never heard and didn’t understand, but he could tell all of them were bad.
He stood in the kitchen, shocked at her rage. Inside, all the happiness that had come from drawing the picture seeped away and that part of him filled with more of the same sadness.
Near the end of her tirade, she tore the drawing into strips. She forced him to put the paper into his mouth and chew it up. He cried and begged her, but she slapped him hard and pressed forward. He chewed on the paper, his mouth quickly drying. He feared that she would make him swallow it. He knew that he’d choke to death on the huge wad in his mouth. Instead, she directed him to spit it into the garbage, take another strip and chew some more. They stood in the kitchen for fifteen long minutes while he chewed up and spat his entire drawing into the garbage can.
“That’s your goddamn family,” she snarled at him, pointing at the clumps of chewed up paper.
He didn’t understand exactly, but somehow he knew she was right.
When Kindergarten ended, he remembered how sad he was. He cried and clung to Miss Reed’s leg on the final day. He wanted to ask her to be his mommy instead of his mother, but even back then he knew that wasn’t the way the world worked, so he didn’t bother to ask. He just cried and hung on until she gently pried his fingers away.
“You’ll have lots of fun in first grade, Jeffrey,” she told him, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “You’re a nice boy and everyone will love you, just like we all did here in this class.”
He believed her, and that represented the first real betrayal besides his mother that he could remember in his life.
The lie hadn’t been immediately apparent. First grade had been all right at first, even though the elementary school was much bigger than where he’d gone to kindergarten. He got lost on the first day, but a nice woman almost as pretty as Miss Reed found him wandering and took him to his class.
He soon discovered that there were no naps or any snacks. There was recess, which somewhat made up for it, but not completely. And the boys and girls in his class seemed to like him. Some of them, at least. But then he discovered that there were second-graders, third-graders and fourth-graders at the school, too. Some of them liked to pick on the younger kids.
The fourth-graders were the worst. They pushed him down. They took his milk money away. When it was his turn to play four-square, they made him go to the back of the line. Sometimes, they pretended to be nice and let him play dodge ball, then all of them hurled the red rubber balls at him at the same time. Once, the force of Hugh Jessup’s throw knocked his head backward and into the wall. He fell to the ground, dazed. Black walls rushed in from the edges of his vision, collapsing toward his center. He may have passed out – he couldn’t remember. He remembered that no one noticed, though. The fourth-graders who’d thrown the balls (except for Hugh Jessup – he was a third grader who was big and so they let him play, too) scattered. The foursquare games, basketball, tetherball and tag all continued around him while he sat against the red brick wall, blinking. His head throbbed and when he reached back, he felt something warm and sticky. He looked down at his fingers and saw blood. The sight scared him at first, but what he worried about even more was everyone knowing. Everyone laughing. So he wiped the blood behind the knee of his Toughskin jeans and sat still, collecting his senses.
When the bell rang, he went inside and told no one. He sat in class and pretended everything was fine. Then, just five minutes into class, Laurie Phillips, who sat right behind him, yelled out, “Ewwww, gross!” and pointed at the back of his head. Everyone turned to stare at him. The kids behind him followed Laurie’s finger and made disgusted sounds themselves. Kids to the side leaned backward and tried to get a look at it.
All of this attracted the attention of Mrs. Piper, his new teacher. She stalked to his seat, turned his head and gasped. Then she yelled at him and sent him to the school nurse. He felt every eye in the room upon him as he rose from his seat and slunk out of the classroom.
The nurse cleaned him up, dabbing gently at the back of his head with a washcloth. She told him it was only a small cut and wouldn’t need any stitches. Heads bleed, she said. She was nice, he decided. Maybe there were only so many nice people in the world. Maybe that was it. Then she called his mother and he decided that nice people didn’t know everything. When she asked him how it happened, he briefly considered telling her. He knew instinctively, though, that the worst thing in the schoolyard world was a tattletale. He knew she couldn’t save him from the fourth-graders and if they knew he’d tattled, then things would get worse. So he told her he tripped. He wasn’t sure if she believed him, but she didn’t ask any more questions.
When his mother saw it, she flew into a rage. At first, he thought she was angry at him, the way she snatched his hand and dragged him out of the apartment. But as she stalked down the street, jerking him along behind her, he realized they were going back to the school.
Once there, she found her way through the mostly empty building to the office. The principal was still at his desk doing paperwork. His mother barged into the principal’s office, screaming and pointing at the cut on the back of his head. She hollered about things he didn’t unders
tand like “improper supervision” and “negligence.” She threatened to “sue the whole goddamn city.”
Jeffrey watched her in amazement as she railed against the principal, who sat stiffly in his chair, absorbing the verbal barrage. He realized that, despite the fact that he didn’t understand half of what she was saying and that she used some bad words and that he could smell the strong wash of special stuff coming off of her while she yelled, she was sticking up for him.
She was defending him.
And it felt good.
The principal waited until her ranting tapered off, then apologized. He said that the school’s insurance would pay for any medical costs. He said he would have a meeting with all the teachers about playground safety. He offered to give them a ride home.
His mother stared back at the principal, showing no reaction to any of his entreaties. Finally, she raised her finger in the air and waggled it at him.
“My son gets hurt again, mister, and I will own this school!” Then she took him by the hand and strode out of the office without a backward glance.
On the way home, he positively floated along the sidewalk, his feet barely touching the ground. His mother grumbled about the conversation she’d just had with the principal, her head lowered toward the ground. When they got home, she poured a second glass of the special stuff, even though she still had one that was half-full next to her chair in the living room. After a long drink, she sat down at the kitchen table and wept.
Jeffrey hadn’t seen her cry for as long as he could remember. He stood off at first, unsure what to do. Eventually, though, he was drawn to comfort her. He reached out with his small hand and touched her shoulder.
She looked up, saw him and opened her arms.
Gratefully, he fell into them. She pulled him tight to her bosom, sobbing.
“It’s just you and me, Jeffie,” she said between sobs. “You and me against the world.”
