“How was school today?” asked Miss Irene, as she checked on her beans and cornbread. She asked to make sure I’d actually gone. I usually did. I was a decent student. Mostly B’s. A few A’s. And a C here and there just to add a little flavor.
“Same o same o.”
“Mmm-hmmm. How’s your mom?”
“You know how she is. She’s in here every night, Miss Eye.”
“She was surely in here last night. She was madder ’n ever at me. I meant how is she today?”
“Haven’t seen her yet. She was asleep when I left. Why? What happened?”
“The same and more of it. Thought we was gonna come to blows.”
“And that’s okay with you, even if you’re paying her?”
“I will admit—I’m tired of it. There are times when I wish she’d just leave and never come back.”
“Careful what you wish for. She tends to disappear enough as it is.”
“But she always shows up for work. Slugger, that woman never missed a night of work that I can remember. No matter what you think of her, she’s always worked hard. “
“Yeah, as a cleaning lady.”
“You watch it, son. She’s kept a roof over your head, such as it is.”
“Yeah, such as it is.”
“Last night we had more words than usual. I might have actually said something about not wanting her back. She might have said something about not coming back. Honestly, I’m not really sure. I hope she comes in tonight, but I might have fired her. Or she might have quit.”
“Appreciate the clarity.”
“Chicken’s getting brown.”
Mom and Miss Irene had known each other for decades. They used to be like sisters—one white and one black. Miss Irene respected my mom for being such a hard worker and for cleaning her restaurant better than anyone else could. Customers would comment about how clean everything was and Miss Irene would say, “That’s because I got me the best cleaning woman in all of Tacoma.” Some of those customers even hired my mom to start cleaning their businesses or houses, too.
Miss Irene also used to talk about how she liked Mom’s wild side. When Mom would blow a paycheck on something frivolous—a dinner at Primo Grill or a new Stetson for ChooChoo, Miss Eye would say, “She’s a free spirit. When she ain’t cleaning, she does what she wants without thinking about tomorrow.” But she’d say it with sadness in her voice, because she knew when Mom blew a whole paycheck on a single meal, that meant Mom and I would be counting on food banks and handouts to feed us for the next two weeks. And Miss Eye also knew that sometimes Mom blew our rent money on darker stuff.
Then, six months ago, Mom came into Shotgun Shack, right before closing, to start cleaning. A few minutes earlier, Checker Cab had dropped a plate of pork chops in the kitchen doorway. He’d picked up the food, but left the grease there. When Mom stepped on that grease spot, her feet went out from under her. On the way down, she hit her head on the edge of a table and broke a front tooth in half. When she saw herself in the mirror, she was mad. That front tooth was right in the middle of her smile. She and Miss Irene and Checker got in a shouting match over who was going to pay for that tooth. Mom and Miss Eye haven’t talked much since, except to yell at each other.
I pulled out the chicken and let the hot oil drip. Then I dumped the chicken into a basket lined with wax paper. Miss Eye scooped a serving of macaroni and cheese and nestled it next to the chicken. She set the basket on the sill of the window to the dining room and hit the bell. “Order up.” From the other side of the window, Checker Cab grabbed the basket of chicken and walked sleepily toward a waiting diner.
All the customers were fed, so I made chicken for Miss Irene and myself. We ate it in the kitchen. Miss Irene would never let the help be seen eating in front of customers. She said it was unsightly. While I was eating, I asked Miss Eye if she wanted me to stick around for the dinner crowd that was less than an hour away, thinking maybe it would help patch things up between Mom and Miss Eye, but she said she and Checker had it covered.
“Not sure what you see in that guy, Miss Eye.” I nodded in Checker’s direction.
“He may not be the fastest worker around,” she said, “but he gets it done. Eventually.”
The story was that Miss Eye had first hired Checker years ago, when he was little more than a chubby street kid hanging around looking for free food. According to my mom, nobody really knew why she had taken him on, but he’d been at Shotgun Shack so long, he was as much a part of it as the Open sign. It always seemed to me that Miss Eye was half Checker’s employer and half his mother.
I went home, thinking how that chicken felt good in my stomach, thinking how happy my mouth was. I could still taste the grease and garlic in the corners of my lips.
I thought about Azura, too. It surprised me that she came forward from the back room of my brain, but there she was. I could see those big eyes peeking around the doorway. I could smell the hint of perfume that brushed the air when she left the room. I was still thinking about her when I walked through the door of ChooChoo’s boxing gym.
ChooChoo had been Mom’s off-and-on boyfriend for the last decade. Years ago, ChooChoo converted a crappy, second-story storeroom into a crappy, second-story apartment. Mom and I had moved in and out of that apartment half a dozen times since she first met ChooChoo. When they first decided they were in love, we left behind the motel room we were living in down on Pacific Avenue and moved into the gym apartment. Six months later, they got in a fight when ChooChoo thought Mom was flirting with one of the trainers. Mom and I moved back into the motel. Then ChooChoo grew lonely and they made up. We moved back in. He’d grow jealous again and back to the motel we’d go. They’d make up. We’d move back. They’d fight. Out we’d go.
Still, that gym was what I thought of as home. I didn’t think of ChooChoo as my dad, but he was okay to me most of the time. His temper sat right on the edge of his brain and he could lose it at the smallest things. When he did, his dump-truck shoulders and boulder-sized fists would scare the breath out of me. He never hit me, but I thought he was going to a few times. Then a gentle mood would wash over him and he’d become as soft and safe as a stuffed animal.
On my seventh birthday, which happened during a time when he and mom were all huggy and kissy, he bought me a pair of bright red Everlast boxing gloves. They were youth sized, but still too big for me. I loved those gloves. I ate my birthday cake with them on and slept in them that night. In the morning, my hands were pruny from sweat.
Later that same day, ChooChoo started teaching me how to box. When he bought the gloves, I think he figured he’d turn his true love’s only son into a boxing legend, like he used to be. He hefted me up into the ring and started showing me how to hold my hands. I picked up the basics instantly. “Lookit th’ stance o’ this kid,” he’d say, proudly. “Lookit how ’e bobs but still keeps ’is chin tucked in.” When ChooChoo talked, his words ran together. He left out every letter he could get away with. I figured it was because he talked like he boxed—fluid and fast.
I’ve always had a perfect stance. About two years ago, ChooChoo was training a fighter who went by the pro name of Hector Heat. Hector was a brawler who could take a punch and shrug it off. But he stood in the ring like an overweight cop. One day, when Hector was sparring, ChooChoo yelled at me, “Seth! Come over here an’ show this kid how t’stand!” Hector Heat stared at my skinny arms and bony chest and started laughing. ChooChoo slapped Hector so hard on the back of the head that he knocked him straight to the mat. “Don’ choo laugh at this boy ’ntil you getta decent stance y’self.”
I never developed the muscle to be a real fighter. And I never developed the quickness. ChooChoo realized this in less than a year. But he kept teaching me. He’d say, “Y’ got th’ sense for it—jus’ ain’t got th’ body.” Still, all those lessons kept me from getting beat up too badly on the walk home f
rom school. I got in my share of fights, but I won enough to earn some neighborhood respect. And it probably didn’t hurt to be living above the business of one of the biggest, scariest men on the Hilltop.
When I walked in, ChooChoo was in the ring buckling headgear on a couple of young fighters. “Now I tol’ you,” he said to the bigger one, “y’ got t’ change things up. Y’ can’t throw a cross after ev’ry two jabs. Y’ got to wait fo’ yer opp’tunity.” The kid nodded. ChooChoo hit him playfully on the side of the head and the two young men started boxing.
I walked over to the ring. “Hey, Chooch.”
“’Sup, Seth?”
“Big one’s your prospect, huh?”
ChooChoo nodded and sipped coffee from a Styrofoam cup, grimacing with each sip. “A.J. can punch like a jackhammer. But I can a’ready tell he ain’t gon’ cut it. One round and Li’l Ronny a’ready got ‘is number.”
The two boxers circled each other. Little Ronny was a good twenty pounds lighter than A.J., but he was quick. He danced around the ring, shuffling his feet back and forth. A.J. kept following Ronny with his eyes, but wasn’t close enough to hit him. Little Ronny moved in and started jabbing away at A.J. and A.J. took the punches. Then he jabbed with his left. Ronny bobbed out of the way. A.J. jabbed again, then threw a right cross, but only hit air. He jabbed again, then again, then threw another right cross. This time, Ronny ducked the cross and threw a vicious counterpunch, hitting A.J.’s unprotected chin right on the nut. A.J.’s head snapped back. Ronny hit him again, then again. A.J. fell to the mat.
“Maybe Little Ronny is your real prospect.”
“Maybe. Small but smart, eh?” ChooChoo grunted as he pulled himself into the ring to tend to A.J. I walked through the gym to the back stairs, which led up to our apartment.
I opened the door. Mom was sleeping on the daybed in the corner. I plunked onto the couch and turned the TV on, volume down low. I watched the early news for a few minutes. A Seattle cop had killed a homeless guy. A New York congressman was caught in an investment scandal. The house fires in Centralia looked like arson. I flipped the TV off, went to the kitchen table, and thumbed through today’s stack of mail.
The envelope was third from the top. Pale blue, like always. No return address, like always. This time the postmark said St. Louis, Missouri. Did that mean he was living in St. Louis again?
I tore open the envelope and removed the money. Five fifty-dollar bills, just like every month for as long as I could remember. On the top bill was a yellow sticky-note. Plain, block letters said, “The world is dirty, so what’s the point of staying clean?”
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
I opened the fridge. In the back was a yellow Gold’n Soft margarine tub. Mom didn’t trust banks, so this was where we kept our savings. I pulled off the lid and pulled out the rest of the money. There was four hundred and thirty dollars inside. I added the two-fifty, bringing our total savings to six hundred and eighty dollars.
“That you, hon’?”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, baby. How was school?”
“I did all right on my history test.”
“Knew you would, honey. Anything else?”
“After school I ran an errand for Nadel. Did a little cooking with Miss Irene.”
Mom was quiet for a while, then said, “That’s fine.”
I nodded toward the refrigerator. “The envelope came from the mystery man.” She smiled, but was looking across the room, staring at nothing. She did this when she was upset about something. It was her version of crying. “What’s wrong? What happened?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.
“Oh, nothing you need to worry about.”
I sighed. “That means there’s something I need to worry about. What?”
“No you don’t need to. It’s nothing. Never had a problem finding work. I can just get another customer. Most everyone needs something cleaned. There’s some leftover pizza in the fridge.”
“I already ate. I talked to Miss Eye. She wants to work it out with you.”
“Not this time. I’m done with that place. That woman. What time is it?”
“Five.”
“I’ve got to go to work. I’ll go and clean for her at least one more time. And the rest of my customers still want toilets scrubbed.” She rolled onto her feet and kissed me on the cheek. Her breath smelled sour and there were dark circles under her eyes. “I bought you a new pair of shoes. At the end of the bed.”
“You bought shoes on the same day you lost a customer? Mom, you two got to work things out.”
She ignored me and pointed toward the shoes. “I think you’ll like them. Try them on while I take a shower.”
Mom had four cleaning customers right now, if Shotgun Shack still counted. Trinity Presbyterian Church, where she vacuumed up fishy crackers crushed into the carpet by the after-school kids. Pastor Vandegrift was a hard guy to read, but had always been nice to Mom and me. Allied Allstar Drivers’ Academy was a new customer. I’d never met the man who ran that place. The other two were Nadel and Miss Irene.
I picked up the shoes.
Most of my clothes come from two places: the Goodwill or the clothing bank at Trinity Church. It sucked, but I wasn’t the only kid in town who dressed that way. “Tacoma is a good place to be poor,” Mom liked to say. But we’ve always spent money on my shoes. In my neighborhood, it didn’t matter so much what a sixteen-year-old boy wore from the ankles up. I tended toward baggy jeans from Goodwill and tight, white tank tops I bought at K-Mart. But your shoes were a sign of your status—that you either mattered to someone or to no one.
Mom knew it. She’d never complained when I’d drop one hundred and twenty dollars on a pair of high-tops, even though that was money we needed for rent and food. I opened the box and saw a beautiful pair of black-on-black Nike LeBrons. Last time I checked, they were one-forty. But they were worth it to me, because LeBron was The Man and just his name made the shoes cool. I laced them up and put them on.
Mom came out of the bathroom dressed for work in faded blue Dickies, a man’s white dress shirt, and a pair of old sneakers. “How do you like them?” She smiled toward my new shoes, broken tooth and all.
“You shouldn’t have bought them. You know we can’t afford them. Rent’s due in just a couple of days.”
“We can’t afford a lot of things, Seth, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have them.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.”
“Well, you’re welcome. I gotta go. You on your own for the rest of the night?”
“Yup. Alone and out of trouble.”
“Come give me a kiss good-bye.”
I kissed her on the cheek, then hugged her. She smelled like bleach. Like the work she did to keep me clothed and fed. “Thanks for the shoes. I do love them.”
“Not as much as I love you, hon. Be good.”
She left. It was the last time I’d ever see her alive.
Three
I spent the evening dozing in and out of TV shows, instead of doing my history homework. We were supposed to be reading about Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War, but I was two chapters behind. It was a few minutes after nine o’clock when I heard a knock on the apartment door. I yelled, “Come in,” because I figured it was ChooChoo letting me know he was going home. The door opened and a rough female voice said, “Your directions were exactly right.”
Azura was inside my apartment and closing the door behind her. Her big eyes made the room look small and her fine clothes made it look shabby. I jumped up to my feet and said, “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.”
“I don’t think I know you well enough to have you in my home.”
“You were in mine. And you’re the one who told me how to get here. You wouldn’t have told me if you didn’t want me to com
e.”
“Don’t go all psychology on me. I was in your entryway. You’re in my bedroom.” I pushed her back out the door and closed it behind me.
“Hey!” said Azura. She stepped away from me. “You’re not being nice.”
“Welcome to the neighborhood.” I wanted to kick her all the way out of the gym. I wanted to do other things, too. “Can we at least go somewhere else?”
She nodded toward the door. “My car’s outside.”
We walked downstairs. ChooChoo and his friend, a trainer named Manny, were the only ones still in the gym. Manny whistled, but ChooChoo cuffed him on the ear. “Don’t tease the kid, Manny,” ChooChoo said. “He doesn’t get many girls in here. Especially ones that look like that. Damn, Seth.” Azura smiled nervously.
Outside was a black Lexus coupe. Not a BMW maybe, but awful close.
“This is yours, isn’t it?” I said, running my fingers along a shiny fender.
She chirped the doors open and threw me the keys. “You know how to drive, don’t you?”
I slid across the leather seat behind the wheel. This teenager’s car might have been the nicest vehicle I’d ever sat in. I turned the key and “Good People” by Jack Johnson started coming out of her stereo, which was okay with me, because it was decent driving music, even if it was a little chick-ish. We drove the Lexus down the Eleventh Street hill to Pacific, then turned left and followed Pacific through downtown until Pacific turned into Schuster Parkway. We drove past Thea’s Park, where the late-night skaters were jumping their boards down the big cement stairs. We went by the dark silhouettes of the grain terminals and the navy freighters that hugged the edge of Commencement Bay, past Northern Fish Co., and past the old fireboat I used to play around as a kid. We drove along the waterfront restaurants and parks to the far end of Ruston Way, where the ruins of a concrete pier made the abandoned beach look like an industrial Stonehenge. I turned off the ignition and stepped outside.
The Shadow of Seth Page 2
