Suburban Renewal

by Pamela Morsi

  “You’ve got to go for it,” I agreed. “They’re going to keep me really busy out here, at least for the next couple of years. While I’ve got the chance to make some money, you ought to be going after what you want.”

  It wasn’t hard to convince Corrie to do it, but it was nearly impossible to convince her to do it and not feel guilty about doing it.

  But I was happy just to get to talk to her. My life in California was terribly lonely. I was friendly with the other guys in the crew. A number of them, like me, were away from their families. We’d eat dinner together occasionally or drive into town to catch a movie, but once we’d worked all day together, we really weren’t all that keen about socializing in the evening.

  I read a lot. My year taking care of Mike had broadened my scope of reading interests and, in my off time, I pretty much always kept a book in my hand. That’s how I got my nickname. One morning at the restaurant I was enjoying a book with my breakfast when Diedre, one of the waitresses, passed by my table.

  “What about you, Mr. Bookworm?” she said. “Do you need some coffee?”

  I don’t remember what I answered. But none of the guys within earshot could forget what she called me. Within the space of three days, every man and woman on the crew called me Mr. Bookworm. It quickly spread up the corporate chain until even Cy, who’d known me as Sam for twenty years, began calling me that.

  “Diedre, you’ve ruined my life,” I told her a few weeks later.

  I was just kidding with her, but I guess I shouldn’t have been. She was a cute girl, probably in her mid-twenties. She always wore a bright smile and too much makeup.

  She leaned her hip against the edge of my table.

  “You give me a chance, Mr. Bookworm, and I can make it up to you,” she said.

  I was momentarily dumbstruck. Everybody back in Lumkee knew that I was very married. It had been so long since a woman had hit on me, I just didn’t quite expect it.

  “I’ve got some free time this weekend,” she continued. “We can have a few beers together or something.”

  “I don’t think my wife would like that much,” I replied.

  My answer dimmed her smile. “You’ve got a wife?” she asked. “You don’t wear no wedding ring.”

  “When we got married, we couldn’t afford to buy one,” I told her. “We were lucky to get the plain gold band my wife wears.”

  Diedre didn’t give up easily. “How come she’s not out here with you?”

  “We’ve got two kids in middle school,” I said. “And Corrie’s going back to college.”

  “Corrie? That’s your wife’s name?”

  I nodded.

  “How long you been married?”

  “Fifteen years.”

  Diedre’s eyes widened. “I didn’t think you was that old.”

  I wiped a hand across my hair. “That Grecian Formula—it’s like a miracle.”

  She laughed then and went on her way.

  I sighed a little in relief, but I felt a little sad as well. It would be nice to have a woman to talk to, to laugh with.

  I went back to my room and called home. Corrie wasn’t there. Lauren said that she’d gone to the library. Nate was out somewhere, as usual. I talked to my daughter for a few minutes. Then I was alone in my room again.

  Boredom was to be expected when a guy was far from home. The important thing was not to give in to it and not let it give me permission to do something really stupid.

  I became determined to “un-bore” myself. What would I do for fun if I were at home?

  “I’d be making tamales,” I answered myself aloud.

  I got up, put on my jacket on and headed to the grocery store. Fortunately, a lot of Mexicans live in Bakers-field. I found everything I needed. And I bought two six packs of Dos Equis to insure that I was going to have some help.

  I invited over all the on-the-loose guys in the crew. I put a basketball game on the TV and talked them into helping me. They turned out great.

  “These are real Texas tamales,” one of them told me.

  “Forget that, Mr. Lone Star State,” I answered him. “These are genuine Okie tamales.”

  We ate the leftovers the next day.

  It was early Monday morning and I was just getting ready to walk out the door when the phone rang. It was Corrie.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked as soon as I heard the tone of her voice.

  “Sam,” she said calmly, “your father passed away last night.”

  When Floyd Braydon had walked into my life ten years earlier, he’d turned everything about my world upside down. I’d wanted to believe in him so badly, I had done it in the face of lots of evidence to the contrary. But now that he was gone, I couldn’t help but feel sorry. Not sorry that we hadn’t been closer. I’d known more about the man than I wanted to know. Not sorry we hadn’t had more time together. I was glad I would never have to see him again. But somehow I was sorry that he’d been the man that he’d been. He was half of me. Half of everything that made me human. And he was half of everything I’d passed on to my children. I was sorry that his half was something about myself that I could never be proud of.

  I called my boss, got a week’s leave and caught a plane into Tulsa. Corrie met my plane and filled me in on the details as we drove to Lumkee.

  “It was a heart attack,” she told me. “He’d stayed late at the bar. Cherry Dale made pasta for dinner and had already fed the kids.”

  Corrie glanced over at me. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

  “Everything you know,” I answered.

  “Floyd came home drunk and got mad that she’d fixed pasta. He beat her up really bad. He had her down on the floor banging her head against the bottom of the refrigerator when Cherry Dale’s kids pulled him off.”

  Her words actually made me queasy.

  “After he got control of himself, he told Cherry Dale to fix him something to eat. She heated up a can a chili. He ate it and lay down on the couch to watch TV. Cherry Dale didn’t disturb him until morning. When she realized he was not breathing, she called old Dr. Billups.”

  “She called Billups?” I was surprised. “Why would Cherry Dale call that old quack instead of the EMS?”

  Corrie shrugged. “I guess she thought he was closer, or maybe she just wasn’t thinking.”

  “Dr. Billups said that Floyd just fell asleep and never woke up. He had a heart attack and died right there on the couch.”

  By the time we got to the double-wide, Cherry Dale was behaving very calmly, but she did look like hell. One eye was completely swollen shut, her mouth was at a strange angle, and the lower part of her face so black and blue I worried that something might be broken.

  “Did you have Dr. Billups look at your jaw?” I asked her.

  “Billups? No, I never use him. I went to my usual doctor in Tulsa. He’s patched me up several times,” she said. “I’ve got a black veil I can wear to the funeral. Nobody will know.”

  It was a weird thing for her to say. And, of course, anything that happened in Lumkee everybody already knew.

  I didn’t remind Cherry Dale of that fact. I just sat there, wishing that I could think of something to say. She had always been so cheerful and funny when she was visiting with Mike. Now she was as ill at ease as I was.

  “This kind of thing happens a lot,” she said finally.

  I was momentarily startled. Of course, I knew that. You couldn’t read the paper or watch the TV without being familiar with domestic violence.

  “It’s mostly middle-aged guys,” she said. “But Floyd wasn’t much older than that.”

  “Middle-aged guys?” I repeated, uncertain.

  “Yes, they talk about it in the exercise magazines all the time,” she said. “Middle-aged guys often overexert themselves, but they don’t have the heart attack during the exertion. It’s afterward, when they rest.”

  When I realized how wrong-tracked I was, I had to stifle the impulse to chuckle. My father was dead. His girlfrie
nd was beaten to a pulp. There was nothing about it that was remotely funny. It was a serious moment and I had something very serious that I had to say.

  “I’m sorry that my dad beat you like he did,” I said. “It was wrong of him to do that. I’m sorry he did it. And I’m sorry I didn’t do anything to stop it.”

  I could see the tension in Cherry Dale’s shoulders relax.

  “Thank you, Sam,” she said. “You couldn’t have stopped him.”

  “I could have got him thrown back into jail,” I said.

  “Not for long,” she answered. “And that wouldn’t be a thing that I’d want you to have on your conscience. He was your flesh and blood, no matter what. I don’t blame you. Believe me, I don’t blame anyone but myself.”

  We didn’t have much of a funeral service. Although I was the official next of kin, Cherry Dale suggested a cremation. It seemed all right to me. It was quick and inexpensive. Floyd never had any interest in churches, so we had a little private memorial for him at Cherry Dale’s house. Not many people showed up. There were a half dozen of his buddies from the bar, the assistant principal from the middle school where he worked, Corrie’s parents, Corrie and the kids, Cherry Dale and me. Though I was told that his other children, my half sisters, had been informed of his death, neither of them made an appearance. Even Cherry Dale’s own kids spent the afternoon elsewhere.

  Mr. Howell, the assistant principal, agreed to say a few words. Steering clear of any mention of Floyd’s personal life, he made it sound more like an annual employee evaluation than a eulogy.

  Every soul in attendance was dry-eyed except Nate. He cried for his paw-paw as if his little heart was broken.

  The ladies auxiliary from Gram’s church, where my family still attended on an irregular basis, catered the dinner with a big ham, potatoes, greens, fresh bread and warm berry cobbler. It was a better send-off than the man deserved.

  After everyone had gone, Corrie sent Cherry Dale to bed with some pain medication. She was still far from healed. I sent the kids home with Doc and Edna and stayed to help Corrie. I wanted to be near her, to hold her. In some strange way, I needed to be comforted.

  Corrie was quiet and distant.

  “I’d really rather do this myself,” she said.

  I was hurt, but I shrugged off her mood as a result of the funeral atmosphere, coupled with Cherry Dale’s beaten face.

  “I just want to do something to help,” I said.

  “Why don’t you go clean up that mess of garbage by the alley,” she said. “Cats or dogs or something got into it and they’ve spread trash all over the backyard. It needs to be done before tomorrow’s pickup. You know they only come once a week these days.”

  “Sure,” I agreed.

  If she wanted space, I could give it to her. Even if it meant picking up trash in the alley.

  I grabbed a garbage bag from the carport and walked back there. There were old smelly cans, ripped-up cereal boxes, banana peels and bathroom tissues.

  Suddenly there was a strange tug on my memory as I picked up, from the tall grass around the edge of the trash can, a wide-mouthed, plastic-topped brown medicine bottle. The familiar Maynard Drugstore label was blank except for the name Mike.

  Corrie

  1993

  My graduation should have been a time of celebration. I’d worked so hard and waited so long. It had taken me six years to get a bachelor’s degree, but I’d finally done it. It was a tremendous accomplishment. It should have been one of the happiest, proudest moments of my life. What it felt like was just one more event that I was expected to show up at, this one wearing a robe and mortarboard.

  Sam had gotten a job. That was great news. I admit, I’d begun to wonder if he liked not working so much that he might just hang around forever. I know it’s unfair of me even to say that. He couldn’t find a job, and then, thank God, he was unemployed and able to stay with Mike and take care of him. Still, after the first little glow of pride at being sole support of my family, the honor wore thin.

  Sam inherited Gram’s house after Floyd’s death. Or rather he didn’t inherit it. We found out that we’d owned it all the time. Although Sam had signed the title transfer papers, Floyd had never gotten around to filing them. We don’t know if he was balking at the title transfer fee or if he just didn’t want those pesky tax bills coming in his name.

  Either way, we were able to take possession of the house and set up a payment schedule to catch up the taxes on the place. It had been so long since we’d had a place of our own that we’d weeded our possessions down to the essentials. Only the children’s rooms were significant moving challenges.

  Gram’s house was small. Since Lauren and Nate both needed their own rooms, I decided that Gram’s sewing porch, a little multiwindowed room that had been added to the east side of the house, would serve as our master bedroom. It was small, but with Sam living his life in some distant motel, it was plenty big enough for me.

  Lauren was gearing up to start high school in the fall. She was more able to take care of herself and help around the house. She loved being at Gram’s place. The neighborhood was in the middle of a revitalization. Lots of the new people, moving into the area for Tulsa’s high-tech jobs, liked the big trees, sidewalks and picket fences that evoked memories of small town America. Though it was all just window dressing. The city sprawl now spread far past Lumkee. The new high school had an enrollment close to 1,500, almost three times the size it had been when Sam and I attended.

  Lauren was popular and had lots of friends. She also participated in nearly everything, which brought its own share of conflicts. She loved ballet, but worried her horseback riding was making her look too muscular. She had been first-chair flute in the middle school. But if she was in the marching band, she couldn’t go out for cheerleader. She was elected president of Salon France, but bemoaned that all the athletes and the really cool kids signed up for Spanish Club.

  Nate’s problems were different. He had few friends. He spent most of his time in his room. While I was thrilled that he enjoyed computers and bragged that my “geeky son was destined to be the next Bill Gates,” I also worried. Since his paw-paw’s death, Nate had become increasingly more isolated. I was aware of several occasions when he’d stayed on the Internet all night. He was also quite capable of cutting classes, or even the entire school day, to sit in front of his screen. I didn’t know if he was hacking into the defense department, viewing porno or just chatting with lonely kids like himself. Just not knowing was disturbing enough. And I was not likely to find out.

  The anti-woman, especially anti-Mom, seeds that Floyd Braydon had nurtured in my little son had come into full bloom. Nate was way too smart to openly defy me, blatantly disobey me, to talk back to me or to show me disrespect. He knew just where those lines were and he kept to them with great care. But he didn’t like me. He didn’t want to see me. He didn’t want me in his room. And he had nothing whatsoever to say to me.

  “I think he should see Dr. Muldrew,” I told Sam one evening on the phone.

  “What does Nate say about that?” he asked.

  “He says he’s not interested,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t mean that we just sit on our hands.”

  Ultimately we decided that if Nate was unwilling to go, the sessions, which weren’t covered by insurance and which we really couldn’t afford, wouldn’t do him much good.

  Sam decided that as soon as school was out, he’d take Nate with him to California. Not yet fourteen, there was no way that he could be out at the job sites. But Sam was going to look into some summer day programs for teens in Bakersfield.

  So, on the day of my graduation, I could look at my life and say that it was busy, full, complicated.

  It was also messed up. I’d messed it up. I’d fallen for another man.

  I never meant for that to happen. Never thought it could happen or would happen. I don’t even know how it happened.

  I guess it really started even before Sam left for Calif
ornia. That’s when I met him. That’s when we struck up a friendship.

  I was sitting at a table in the library, surrounded by books and papers. I took notes in class on my laptop, but there were always little pieces of paper where I’d jotted down things from books and I liked to enter those into the computer so that I could organize everything together.

  I smelled him before I saw him. A faint whiff of woodsy aftershave caught my attention. My fellow students weren’t all that keen on shaving. I glanced up and he was looking at me. He was tall and slim, with nice features, reddish-brown hair and wonderful blue eyes.

  “Hi,” I said immediately. I grew up in Lumkee, where there was no such thing as strangers, just people you hadn’t met.

  “Hello,” he answered. “Are you putting together your final exam?”

  The question momentarily puzzled me. “I’m studying,” I replied, uncertain. “Oh, you think I’m a professor.” I could see immediately that I was right and I laughed. “No, no, I’m old enough, but I’m still a student.”

  He smiled. It was a wonderful smile. And then he sat down across the table from me.

  “Well, aren’t we always saying that learning is lifelong,” he pointed out. “That must mean that I’m a student, too.”

  “Good save,” I told him.

  “I do my best.” He offered his hand across the top of the table. “Hollace Rivers Harrington, my friends call me Riv, but I always use the whole name when I introduce myself, so people will recognize it when they see it on a book jacket.”

  “Book jacket? Are you a writer?”

  “I’m a novelist,” he answered. “An unpublished novelist with a time-consuming and humdrum second job as an English professor.”

  I laughed. “Time-consuming and humdrum? Hey, mister, I’m studying to be a teacher.”

  “Oh, I like being a teacher,” he hastened to clarify. “I’m just not that enamored with actually teaching.”

  He was fun and flirty and I enjoyed his company. It couldn’t be a bad thing to make a new friend. Just because he was a man didn’t mean he wasn’t friend material. The whole thing was completely acceptable and aboveboard. We both revealed up front that we were married. We each had children. I cannot stress to you enough how totally innocent it all was.