Just In Time

by Joan Lindstedt Jackson

  “Which street?” Steve asked.

  “Howard Street,” Howard said.

  “I know where that is,” Steve said. Howard Street was the one street known to whites as the heart of the black neighborhood. Since Steve was a kid, it had a scary, “stay away from there” danger about it. “Howard on Howard?” Steve snickered and turned to him sitting in the passenger seat, “Must be confusing.”

  “Used to be for some, but my momma said that’s cause you’ll never forget where you live. Damned if she wasn’t right about that!”

  “I’m glad mine didn’t name me Hastings.” Steve mumbled, “Hastings on Hastings.”

  A few streetlights that looked like they’d been there since the fifties cast a dim light on the cracked sidewalk. The house had a front porch with an old porch swing that reminded Steve of his grandmother’s home in another somewhat rundown section of the city.

  “Do you want to come in for a beer?” Howard asked.

  “Oh no, I don’t drink. I should get home anyway,” Steve fluttered his hands as he spoke. “Can’t drink with my meds.”

  “I’m on meds too, but I drink beer anyway. Just wanted to offer it since you gave us a ride. You want something else? Like coffee or iced tea?”

  Steve sat a minute. He was really thirsty but didn’t have enough money on him for the vending machine at the courthouse. But he wasn’t sure if he felt safe. Could they do something to him? He didn’t have any money to steal. But he had a car. Could he leave his car on the street? “I am kinda thirsty.”

  “Hell, c’mon in then.”

  Steve hated that he swore so easily, like every other word. “Where should I put my car?” he asked.

  Howard pointed to a gravel driveway with a strip of grass down the middle, “You can pull it in here.”

  Steve bumped the back tire over the curb as he awkwardly angled the car into the drive.

  “Don’t think you’ll be gettin’ a job parking cars anytime soon,” one of his buddies called out.

  Steve struggled to remember their names. Leroy? Lerner? Why are their names so different from ours? he wondered. He thought of the black guys he ran track with back in the day. Lots of presidents names: Lincoln, Washington, Cleveland, Jefferson. Did they really think they could end up president some day? Never in a million years. Following them up the steps, he took a deep breath. Steve looked around as he entered. “You have a nice house,” he said to be polite. The living room on the right was small with room only for the sofa, coffee table, two chairs, and a console TV, like the first one Steve remembered having.

  “This isn’t mine. It’s my parents,” Howard said.

  A woman called out from upstairs. “That you, Howard?”

  “Yeah, Momma, we’re back.”

  Howard waved them all to the kitchen in back. He grabbed three Pilsners from the fridge. “I guess we don’t have iced tea.” He looked at Steve, “How about a Pepsi?”

  “That’s great.” Steve could tell that he sounded a little too eager to please. He took the can from Howard and gulped it down fast. A belch worked its way out. Nobody reacted.

  “Shit, I’m outta cigs.” Leonard turned to Steve, “Got any I could bum?”

  Steve pulled out his pack of menthol Newports and passed it to him, watching as Leonard passed the pack around. They all lit up. Now I’ll have to get some more, Steve thought.

  “Wanna go down to The Cue?” one of them asked the others. They started talking about playing pool and meeting up with some girls.

  Steve shuffled his feet and felt like he wanted to go. He finished his soda, “Well, I guess I’m off.”

  “Wanna drop us at the bar? It’s about a mile down the road.”

  “I really should go,” Steve said.

  “It’s on your way,” Leonard said.

  “How would you know that?” Steve asked. Then he thought it came out wrong, like it always did when he hung around too long. He could make somebody mad. “I didn’t mean it that way, I mean, you don’t really know where I live so when you said . . . oh, never mind. I can’t talk right.”

  “Shoot, man, you worry too much,” Howard said.

  Leonard stuck out his chin a little. “Ever been to a black man’s bar before?”

  Steve shook his head. He pushed the bridge of his glasses to bring them closer to his face. He should never have come inside. He just wanted to go home. He played with the keys in his pocket.

  “Maybe you should come with us. Always a first time,” Leonard said.

  Howard told Leonard not to bother Steve. “Let’s go,” he said. “Steve’s gotta get home.”

  Steve thanked him for the Pepsi, mumbled a good-bye, and rushed out the door. He started his car and bumped it again over the curb as he pressed a little harder than usual on the accelerator. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard them laughing. He didn’t care. The streets were unfamiliar and he was lost, but he just kept driving. He’d find his way home again. At least he was out of there.

  7

  JUNE 1999

  Sylvia arrived in Ohio the second week of June. She timed her visit with the finalizing of the estate settlement. Fortunately, she and her brother, Scott, had no disagreement on the purpose of the estate monies—to take care of Steve. Because of his mental disability, Steve would receive forty percent and she and Scott thirty percent each, as stated in their parent’s will. At the moment, the money was still in one stock portfolio, but upon disbursement, the investments needed to be adjusted to generate enough dividend income to cover all Ohio expenses: house maintenance, utilities, Steve’s car and health insurance, his dental and psychological care, and groceries. With his Social Security benefit, Steve could pay for his gas, cigarettes, iced tea, and fast food meals. Steve’s stock portion wouldn’t generate enough dividends, so Sylvia and Scott would need to regularly supplement his support from their respective accounts, once the monies were disbursed. Unfortunately, since they’d need to use every dollar of dividend income to support Steve, the dividends couldn’t be reinvested, and the portfolio couldn’t increase in value. The situation was precarious. If the market didn’t hold steady, they’d be sunk.

  Their father had managed to pay off the mortgage years ago, and they were thankful for that. Still, the house was almost fifty years old. The light beige carpet was badly soiled—darkened pathways, almost black in color, trailed through the dining room to the two downstairs bedrooms and bath, and smudged the edges of each step to the upstairs. The walls, once eggshell, were dingy gray, sheer curtains were shredding at the windows, the Formica counter tops in the kitchen were lifting at the corners, and the dishwasher leaked, so it sat unused. Nothing had been upgraded in twenty years. Like Sylvia’s own life, everything was unraveling.

  Nancy rearranged her schedule so she could pick Sylvia up at the Cleveland airport. On the forty-minute drive home, Nancy chatted away about how well Steve was doing, with the exception of going to work.

  “I never expected him to like going, but I didn’t think he’d resist. Isn’t he scheduled for three times a week?” Sylvia asked.

  “Yes. Two to four hours each night, but he barely manages to go once a week.”

  “So how does he get out of it?” Sylvia asked.

  “He says he’s sick to his stomach. I’ve heard him throw up, but I figured it was nerves,” Nancy said. What neither of them knew—and what Steve admitted much later—was that he often stuffed himself with three or four McDonald’s hamburgers an hour or two before work and then purged to fake illness.

  “I know I haven’t been around long, but I’m not so sure the work is good for him,” Nancy said.

  “He’s been working there for at least five years, so I don’t know why it would bother him so much now,” Sylvia said. “He needs to do something outside the house.”

  “But if he hates it so much and the guys he works with make him uncomfortable, I’m wondering if it does him more harm than good. Especially if he’s getting sick over it. Maybe it makes him feel even
worse about himself.”

  “I never thought about it that way. I just accepted what Mom and Dad had set up for him. He always refused to go to support groups or social functions for the mentally ill, because he didn’t want to see himself as one of them. Maybe you’re right. It might make him feel worse about himself,” Sylvia said. “You’re good, Nancy. You should’ve been a shrink.”

  “Just common sense and observation. After all the hard knocks I’ve been through, you start to pay more attention.”

  Sylvia nodded. For her, always anticipating another shoe that might drop, it was more like being on “high alert” than just paying more attention. She told Nancy she’d contact Dr. Nora again, the psychologist Dr. Rita recommended, and ask her how to persuade Steve to at least consider meeting with her. If Sylvia presented it to him in the right way, maybe he’d go along. But, like Dr. Nora said, his acceptance after learning about Dr. Rita’s death might take time. Time Sylvia didn’t have, so she needed to tell him right away.

  When they pulled into the driveway, Sylvia saw the condition of the yard and decided that before she did anything else, she had to find a gardener. The grass was higher than her ankles and weeds were taking over the flower beds as well as sprouting throughout the gravel driveway. At least Scott was coming soon to help her. They had appointments with Steve’s psychiatrist, the attorney, and social worker. Scott was only staying four days, but she’d take whatever he could arrange.

  The last time Scott had come to Sylvia’s aid was a year ago, when she’d gone home on the first anniversary of their mother’s death to hear her dad play a trumpet solo at the Sunday service at their church, in honor of her passing. Overwrought from her son’s drug relapses, car accidents, and disappearances, Sylvia needed to get away for a while and, desperately, had been looking forward to the peace and quiet at home with her dad, and even her brother. When she arrived, her dad had opened a new bottle of Gilbert’s and asked if she wanted “a snort”—gin with Bitter Lemon, his favorite summer drink—which she did.

  While he fixed their drinks, she wandered through the living room to the family room, half expecting to hear her mom’s cheery voice sing out her welcome before bounding over for a big hug. Sylvia stood behind the desk, staring out the picture window at the expanse of green that canopied the backyard, the cardinals, her mom’s favorite bird, darting from one tree to another. She tried to absorb the loud, unsettling absence. Glancing down at the desk, she saw a large foot-high pile of unopened mail. Beside it, an empty bottle of gin. She looked around the room—stacks of magazines and newspapers sat on the floor next to her dad’s La-Z-Boy, even more on the coffee table and in front it. She went back to the living room—more of the same. The general mess was out of character for her dad.

  No sooner had he handed her the drink than the phone rang. She answered it. An overly friendly man asked for her dad. The conversation she overheard seemed odd, as if her dad was speaking to someone he didn’t know very well, yet was happy to hear from, like a new friend. He’d settled into his leather recliner with his drink, a signal that he’d be in conversation awhile. “Yep, it sure is nice to have my daughter home—she lives in LA now. Used to be in Oregon but got married to a guy from high school and moved.” He went into more detail, their plans during her stay, his golf game, and seemed genuinely glad that someone had taken an interest in him.

  Since he was on the phone, Sylvia went back to the family room to glance at some of the unopened mail. Many had return addresses in Florida or Canada, with professional looking names of investment houses. The envelopes had an official appearance too, as though a government document or a check were enclosed. She opened one. A form letter requesting one hundred dollars for a lottery in British Columbia tripped her suspicion. When Steve came in, she’d asked him if he knew anything about it.

  “Dad says he can make a lot of money. These guys call all the time,” he said, exasperated. “I told him they didn’t seem on the up and up, that maybe they just wanted his money.” He fiddled with his hands, “But why would he listen to me? He’s so much smarter and experienced in business. He’d know better than me.”

  “You’re very smart, Steve. And I think your hunch is right.” Sylvia couldn’t imagine their dad getting sucked into giving money away, or rather, gambling. “How long has this been going on do you think?”

  Steve had looked up at the ceiling and put his hands on his hips.

  “Not that long—a couple months? Maybe since March. I’m not sure.” He turned toward the garage and opened the door, “Look in here.” A dozen or so shipping boxes, each about the size of a microwave, sat next to the garbage bins.

  Sylvia looked inside a couple of them. They were filled with cheap plastic kitchen items like splatter guards, drinking cups with fruit decals, small colanders, and corn holders, or vinyl jewelry boxes with faux gold bracelets and earrings with glass stones the color of sapphire or amber. “What’s all this?” she asked.

  “He says he won these by betting on the lottery.”

  It was preposterous to her. And worrisome. “But he hates a lot of ‘crap’ sitting around.”

  Steve chuckled in a wheeze through his teeth, “You’re right—he always says that.”

  “Is he drinking a lot?” she asked.

  “Not that much, but I did take the car keys from him once because he was so tipsy. Maybe I did the wrong thing.” Steve looked away and took a deep breath, “But he wasn’t walking straight, and he was slurring his words. I was worried that he might get in an accident.” He looked at his sister wide-eyed, eyebrows raised. “And he was going out for more gin!”

  Sorry that her brother had been dealing with this alone, she couldn’t decide which was more surprising: that her dad was drunk or that Steve had the courage to take away his keys. “Steve, you absolutely did the right thing. I’m so glad you were here,” she said. She hadn’t seen Steve this lucid in a long, long time. Was it possible that he was the one taking care of their dad more than the other way around? Maybe he finally had a sense of purpose in life. “Did he argue with you about it?”

  “A little at first, but I stopped him from going into the garage.”

  She touched his shoulder and he didn’t back away, “Good for you. That must’ve been difficult.”

  “Yeah, it was. Anyway, I think you got here just in time,” he said.

  “I think so, too.” She made eye contact with him, “I think Dad might have a drinking problem, Steve.”

  “No way, not our dad,” he said as if the idea were absurd. “He’s just depressed since Mom died.” Steve started to laugh to himself and mumbled that maybe Dad should be on meds like him, then he said, “I’m tired. I’m going to take a nap.”

  Syliva thought their dad probably was depressed, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t developed a drinking problem. She thought back to phone calls when she could hear the tinkling of ice cubes as early as noon. He’d talk about their mom and how nobody called him anymore. “Everybody liked her better,” he’d said. Choked up and weepy, he’d confessed that one of his biggest regrets was that she never met his mother, who died before they got married. Sylvia had tried to comfort him, but losing his partner of fifty-five years was too much. His sorrow was palpable, and if he was overindulging, she couldn’t blame him. Still, she’d have to talk to him about the lottery and maybe the drinking, but she dreaded the thought. She needed to gather more information, something concrete to open up the discussion. Their dad was a gentle soul with a crusty edge, but he’d listen to her. That she knew.

  The next morning, she’d gone to the kitchen cupboard where he kept his booze and her heart sank. Not even twenty-four hours had passed since her arrival and the new bottle of gin had only an inch or two left in it. When he left to play with his orchestra group at a nursing home, she took advantage of his absence to look through his checkbook. Sure enough, numerous checks were written to lotteries or sweepstakes. Nothing was over one hundred dollars, but there were dozens of them. The entries st
arted in February and increased almost exponentially each month. Here it was June. She roughly totaled them in her head— easily eight thousand dollars. When she found a post-it note on his nightstand with the handwritten amount of fifteen thousand dollars and an address in Quebec, she panicked. The stock account statements! She searched through his neatly organized files that he’d kept since the seventies, and flipped through the pages of the current year. And there it was—a withdrawal in May for that very amount.

  Their dad wasn’t a wealthy man, but he’d provided a comfortable life. His stock portfolio amounted to six hundred thousand, and his monthly pension was four thousand. Sylvia tallied his losses at thirty thousand dollars—an enormous sum, but not his entire fortune, at least not yet. Feeling guilty about exposing her dad’s secret, Sylvia hesitated, but then decided she had no choice. She’d called his doctor, his stockbroker, and the family attorney, who recommended that she contact the state attorney general’s office. And lastly, she called Scott. He was dumbfounded and said he’d fly out right away.

  Later that day, the mailman had come to the door to say there was too much to deliver, the mail would need to be picked up at the post office. Sylvia collected an entire bin filled to the brim with only five days’ worth of mail. It was staggering. Sylvia became the guard barring the scam artist’s access to her father. The game was over. Sylvia was nervous when she sat her father down to explain that she’d discovered what had been going on and the amount of money lost. He hadn’t tallied it, he’d said, and he seemed surprised by the sum. He was contrite and ashamed and looked down at the floor as he spoke. “Your mother always entered the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes, so I wanted to keep it going after she died. Sort of to honor her,” he said quietly. She told him Scott was to arrive late that night, and a representative from the attorney general’s office would meet with them the next day at the house.