by Diane Munier
Easy says, “I signed up and Mom was okay. She would get sick but she seemed okay when I left. I knew I had to get some money to get us out of there and it was always the army for me. I knew I could be a good soldier and maybe get them far away…back here maybe. Then she died and he was alone there and they were just working him, like they do. He’d have to fight to stay in school, and he wouldn’t. I don’t want him to end up like them. And he’s looking for a way to get out. He’s just a kid. So I went by and told him to pack up. I told them I was taking him and they said don’t come back.” He goes back on the chair legs again, but there’s just a hard look this time.
I am so angry.
“What are you going to do with him while you’re serving? You are leaving in two weeks!” Granma says.
“Disbro’s granma will let him stay,” Easy admits. And you could cut a knife through the silence after that.
“Easy,” May says, “you are telling us there is no one for that boy?”
“I don’t have anyone normal,” he says, his Adam’s apple working.
And so is Aunt May’s.
“Well…,” Granma doesn’t finish it, but what’s true is that Disbro and his granma are hardly what you’d call normal. That place is just a hang-out. Cap would have to be like Easy to make it there, and I’m pretty sure he’s not that disciplined. Disbro pretty much runs the place. He talks to his granma like she’s a dog.
Granma looks at Aunt May and she looks back.
Aunt May blows through her lips. “I already have two to keep my hands full.”
“He gets sixteen he can go in like me,” Easy says. “He’s not sure he wants to.”
“Well…,” Granma doesn’t finish that either, but what she’d probably say is, who in their right mind would want to go in the military with Vietnam raging?
I don’t know if they can feel it like I do, Easy’s desperation.
“Is this best, Easy? It may not be the best place but that’s what Cap knows back home. Someone back there may love him and want to keep him. There’s his school and friends,” Granma says.
“It’s small, the school there, but I ain’t going to lie to you, he got in trouble a couple of years ago and it’s so easy to get in trouble again. I’ll be sending money for his keep. He just has to go to school and do his work. He’ll be all right. Maybe one of you could ask after him from time to time.”
Even I can see that hope of Easy’s is built on sinking sand.
“Well he could stay here,” I say.
Granma looks at me, and so does May. Here we go again.
“We didn’t help before. Not like we should have,” I say. I am talking right in front of Easy and Granma’s eyes are bugging. But May folds her arms and looks at Granma like she needs to do something.
“What are you looking at May?” Granma says.
“An ostrich,” May says.
Granma looks more like a fish the way her mouth is moving. “I have a fourteen year old young lady under my roof,” Granma says to Easy.
“I ain’t asking you to take him,” Easy says. “Disbro….”
“Hush about Disbro,” May says. “Does this brother of yours listen? Is he foul-mouthed? Does he smoke that marijuana?”
Easy is speechless for a minute, then he laughs a little. “He’s all right. I can make him listen.”
“Does he respect women?” May says.
If May is worried about that she could work more on Ricky. But I don’t say it.
“I think so,” Easy says. He’s looking at me like maybe I could help him out.
“Um…he’s a nice boy,” I say, but I have no idea. He looked pretty rough and I don’t imagine he’s had to walk too much of a line, like no priests or nuns up his ass ever, no ten commandments held over his head. Probably no guilt a person could crank on when the need arose—like I just did with Granma and May.
“Well for how long? You think he’ll go in the army?” Granma says.
“I don’t know. Couple of years though. Maybe one,” Easy says.
“He’s a sophomore in school?” Granma says.
“Freshman,” Easy and I say together.
“Oh,” Granma says like that’s terrible or something.
But Granma calls May an ‘arm-chair activist,’ well the shoe fits. If you want to change this world you have to start with what you can touch. Least it seems that way to me.
“Well May you’ve put me in a fine pickle,” Granma says.
“You’re confusing me with your own conscience,” May snaps back and I’ve no idea what got into her and her attitude but I take Little Bit and Easy laughs and reaches for her and yep, she loves him just like time stood still.
“It’s all right,” Easy says, Little Bit licking his chin. “He’ll be okay down there.”
Then he winks at me, Easy does. And if I didn’t know better I might think he meant for this to happen all along. But that would mean I didn’t crank the lever of guilt on Granma and May until Easy cranked it on me.
I am looking at him and he smiles while he pets my happy little dog.
He’s his own kind of altar with the truth trapped inside.
Darnay Road 49
Easy leaves to get Cap, and May and Granma fight it out then. “Don’t leave,” Granma says to me because I am in a hurry to get upstairs and try to look presentable. Do they know I had no inkling at all that Easy was coming and I’ve not been able to so much as look in a mirror? I’d like to get out of my uniform at least. I can’t imagine any man, even one wearing his own uniform, finding a Catholic school uniform attractive or anywhere close to really cool on a dumb high school girl.
“The two of you ganged up on me,” Granma says.
I can barely care to defend myself. My hair--braided or lose? Blue eyeshadow maybe? Abigail wears some, not too dark. Or maybe brown. I’ve got it…I just ain’t very good at using it.
“Are you even listening to me?” Granma says.
“We failed him the first time…,” May is saying.
“We? So you’re taking in this fifteen-year-old hooligan we haven’t even met?” Granma says, emphasis on ‘you’re.’
“I’ve met him,” May says. “He came around for Ricky. Just another stray living most of the time in Easy’s shadow. He’s quiet. Stick skinny. He’s trouble and you already know it Vi. You think you have one more good deed in your bones before you leave this earth?”
“How about you, May? I’ve raised my family and I’m doing it again!” Granma calls out.
Now I am listening. “Granma,” I say.
“Pay me no mind,” she practically yells at me. “But you’ve had a hand in this. What would your dad say….”
She flops her hands in her lap and leaves off on that one. We’ve already decided Officer Stanley doesn’t care to have a say and even if he did I wouldn’t want to hear it.
But I am kind of stuck there on this day of firsts. I called it that, didn’t I? This is the first time I get an idea that maybe it was really hard for Granma to have raised Stanley then started over with me. Maybe she wanted to do something else. Maybe…that’s why she’s always in her stories because she’s just…babysitting and she’s about bored out of her mind!
“Granma,” I say again. I barely have time to contemplate what should be a horrible discovery. I barely have the time!
“Now I didn’t mean it like you think,” she says in that voice she uses when she’s lying as in LYING!
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a terrible burden,” I say with a ton of emotion that isn’t even coming from this alone, but from everything else all the way back when stupid Tim said there was a soldier there to see me. Maybe I’ve been storing it up and now it’s all coming out. I feel about ready to pop. But one thing is for certain, I am not going to that basketball game looking like a turd so everyone can just wait to go crazy!
I run upstairs to my room and they are calling after me.
I go straight to my mirror and everything else falls away. And here’s why
. Easy is not the only one that can run through the maze that is my granma and Aunt May and even myself without getting his, or in my case her, own way. My granma will take on Cap now. She’ll be about dying with guilt over letting me know what a burden I’ve been, and I am not happy about it, I’m downright sorry to have been born, but not really, but if Easy taught me anything in this world it’s to use it, all of it, to make something good happen at least.
So that’s what I’m doing as I pick up the little case of eye shadows I’ve never had the nerve to wear. I’m letting her and Aunt May fight it out while I try to beautify cause either way—Cap is staying with us.
Aunt May drives us to the game. I sit up front with her and Easy sits in back and he’s no longer wearing his uniform but regular clothes, jeans and t-shirt and jacket and they are not as raggedy as in days past, not at all.
We are being so careful. And it’s all new, he’s new, and I feel shy sometimes and I’m fighting with myself to just be normal but I imagine he’s looking at me and my head might blossom into a cactus flower any minute. Or something.
So all the way to the game Aunt May asks questions. I don’t have to make small talk, or stupid talk in my case. Cap is meeting us at the game. I know he won’t be with Disbro because Disbro goes to the games at public on Friday night and they start later. I don’t know why Cap couldn’t have come early and ridden with us to make a good impression on Aunt May but I get the feeling Cap doesn’t care about good first impressions. But Easy might. And I do for sure. One thing I know, Cap won’t be taking advantage of Aunt May’s kindness nor my granma’s. I plan to keep that ‘hooligan,’ in line.
“If Georgia will look at me,” Easy is saying.
I’m Georgia so I turn around. Who is this handsome man in our backseat? It’s just ridiculous.
“Miss May asked if I’ve ever been to Sacred Heart before today and I said you gave me a tour years ago,” he says with that old half-smile.
“Oh…yeah I did,” I mumble, then I give him the other half of that smile and turn back around and take a really deep breath which I let out quiet and slow and images of that day flood me, one after another.
Darnay Road 50
Once we get to school, I dig out my student pass and my money for buying my ticket, but Easy goes into the line ahead of us and tells me and Aunt May, “I got this.”
It’s nearly preposterous, and I try to argue but he doesn’t listen. He just smiles at me. When he turns around I can stare a little. I like the back of his neck. It’s…handsome. I like his hairline, his ears, his jaw. I don’t know why I like so many parts of Easy. I never pulled someone into pieces before and thought about every little thing.
I would like to put my hand on the back of his neck. I’d like to know how warm it is. It’s embarrassing to think all of this. It’s taking my mind and my words and tying them up. But he is a head taller than me, and his shoulders are wide.
He gets the tickets and motions for me and Aunt May to go ahead and we go into the gym and get in the herd making their ways to the seats. Catholics do love their basketball. I look at Easy over my shoulder just to make sure he hasn’t evaporated or something, and I smile. He has the best face. It is always interesting. I could just look at him, but if I do too long I get shy. I end up walking into Aunt May and mumble ‘sorry,’ and I don’t plan to turn around again. Aunt May is wearing slacks and her winter coat and her hair is poofed up with a ponytail in the back. Granma says May should get a new style because Granma has and she says it is no longer the fifties and someone should tell May and that’s funny cause May is the one that talked Granma into cutting her hair then May balked on getting hers cut.
So I am following along and Easy is behind me and I feel him poke my back and I turn around and he says, “What?” and we laugh a little, he does. I probably turn red, and with my blue eye shadow and pale face I probably look like the American flag or something.
So we get to the bleachers and have to climb about midway up and we file along the bench and then we can sit. It’s pretty squeezy and Easy and me are so close our arms are touching, most embarrassing our legs also. Maybe I can’t breathe so well now. When he talks to me he’s right there. “Hello,” he says.
“Hi,” I say.
“What’s that?” Aunt May says leaning forward.
“Nothing,” I say.
She barely pays attention she is looking all over. The band is playing tonight, and it’s loud and bright.
“Take your coat off?” Easy says and I feel his fingers move my hair a little like he’s going to help me take my jacket off. I know it gets hot in here but I’m not ready to take my jacket off just yet. It’s just too much. I don’t know what I’m talking about but I do know some of the girls have noticed Easy there beside me and they are looking at me like they want my autograph.
“No,” I say. And I smile at him again. I don’t know why we’re doing all this smiling.
So the cheerleaders come out, and there she is, Abigail May. I never get used to this either. She’s jumping up and waving her poms. She sees me and Easy and probably Aunt May and she waves and I about love her but I don’t always understand her, but if anyone in this gym could understand what I might be feeling about now, it is Abigail.
She is grinning so big. Then she takes off doing cartwheels and showing her shorts. All eight of them are doing that, going in eight directions and I remember how I did that for Easy at Bloody Heart and I look at him and he is watching all those girls, some of the prettiest Bloody Heart has, but he looks right at me. “That Abigail May is about the same,” he says and he’s laughing a little.
“She’s a card,” I say. But I don’t know if I should say that cause it’s something Granma always says and who wants to sound just like their granma?
He nudges me with his shoulder. “Sorry about that deal with the cop.”
“It’s okay.”
“I thought I was going to have to use my combat training.”
I don’t exactly know what that is, but I kind of do. “That cop was an idiot,” I say, like I know all about it.
Easy said earlier I was still pretty. I don’t have flash, not like Abigail and those others. I’m just a dull lump of girl, but I’ve got something, I mean you have to give it…me time is all. I mean I have a good mind and I’m a good person. I’m probably annoying sometimes, but I can tuck it in if I catch myself. He asked if I missed him. He said he wanted to spend time with me. Did I have a boyfriend? It’s all pretty great and embarrassing too because I could barely say anything interesting. Like now.
“But you were making him mad,” he says like I’m the cutest thing, making that cop mad. I didn’t have a plan in case he thinks I did.
“He reminded me of Stanley. My dad.”
The players come running out then and the crowd stands and shouts and applauds each one. Ricky gets a big roar and I see him scan the audience and May is waving and calling to him and he looks at us quickly, then again in the seconds his team mates run out he’s looking our way with that scowl of his.
Dennis is on the team and he also gets a good roar from the home crowd. Everyone likes him. I say to Easy, “He’s my friend,” meaning Dennis. “He doesn’t think he is very good but he is.”
“What about Ricky?” he says.
“He’s the big cheese,” I say and we laugh a little.
But we are standing and we sing the song that I love about the country that I love beside the boy that I love. Yes I love him. That hasn’t changed. We clap after the song and there are a couple of boos shouted out, and “Stop the war,” is shouted, “Stop Nixon’s war. They are killing children. They are killing your children.” Then that is booed and there’s a scuffle across the way and the long-haired speech-maker is dragged out by two rent-a-cops.
When we sit we are still smashed against each other. I smile weakly at Easy. I can see the war stuff upsets him. But he throws it off quick and gives me the same weak smile. “It’s…everywhere,” he says.
&
nbsp; “Did anyone…?”
“Yeah. Every time we leave the base. It gets old,” he says.
Aunt May stands clapping and shouting because Ricky won the coin toss, “Yes Ricky.” My granma wouldn’t believe how May carries on at the games.
Then Ricky has made a basket in the first few seconds of play and the protestor and maybe the war are quickly forgotten.
“I guess love of country is different things,” I say, and I’m speaking more loudly for a moment.
“No it isn’t,” he says back also more loudly to be heard. “You wear a uniform you feel hate for this country.”
“It’s because people care.”
“No it isn’t, Georgia. Do you really think that?” he says like I’m naive.
“I said it,” I say, and everyone stands around us again, cheering and yelling, but Easy and I sit in this pocket, this hole in the crowd.
“You don’t know,” he says shaking his head. “If you’re in…it’s guys you know. Tell your aunt I’m going outside for a smoke,” he says. He stands then and pushes his way out, and he hasn’t asked me to go along, but I stand too.
Aunt May yells, “Where are you going?”
I say, “Be right back.”
She has Ricky the magnificent to distract her and Abigail bouncing all over the place. I get out and I see Easy on the side of the court and headed for the doors.
I catch up to him in the lobby. There are groups here and there, but he crosses that quick and I don’t call out I just keep going to get to him. He gets outside and he walks forward toward the end of the cement walkway and further out on the lawn of Bloody Heart, near the statue of Mary, the big one with the two spotlights on it, the rent-a-cops have the guy that caused all the trouble before the game and a cop car is pulling up in the parking lot off to the left and he’s getting out.
I get beside Easy. He’s just lighting his smoke and he takes a drag and uses it to point toward the guy who shouted about the war in the game. “Looks like Abbie Hoffman is getting his ass kicked.”
