“Heard you got moved over to the ingot plant. You doing okay over there?”
“Sure. Hunky-dunky.”
“Heard Carl Bingington’s retiring over there next summer. Good lead-man job coming up.”
Trudy laughed. “Man union, man world, ain’t it, Leo.”
Leo turned his head, put a finger to one side of his nose, and blew out onto the sawdust. Wiping his nose on his sleeve, he looked at Ted. “Not so much as it used to be.”
“Since when?” she said.
“You’re a good worker.”
“That and a nickel’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
“Times change, Gertrude.” Leo smiled. “I expect Ted’s had enough for one night. Don’t you?”
“I expect. Just feels so good puttin’ the hurt to the son of a bitch, I hate to give it up.”
Trudy pushed Ted away from her, and he fell forward, his arm still wrenched behind his back, his face plowing through the sawdust.
Trudy met Leo’s eyes for the first time.
“I’ll be taking Teddie to his mom,” she said.
“Me and Teddie’s going to have a talk with his dad first,” Leo said. “A little man to man.”
“Man to man? You’d do better talkin’ to Teddie if you want man to man. Anyhow, Lorraine’ll be wanting Teddie. I best be taking him to his mom.”
Leo shook his head. He rested his bulk against the bar, lacing his thick fingers in front of him. “Teddie’s fine with his grandpa. His mom’s the one needs looking after. Best be looking after his mom, Gertrude.”
I buried my chin in the collar of Leo’s shirt, studied Trudy’s face with my cheek pressed to Leo’s ear. Trudy put her hands in her pockets and looked at me for a long while.
“You know, Gertrude,” Leo began, “there ain’t nothing like family to piss a person off. Family gets under your skin like nothing else in the world, really sticks in your craw. Wife wakes you up, middle of the night, hauls your butt out in the cold. Drive clear across town and find your grandbaby up to his ears in drunks and whores … Cuts a man’s fuse right down to the short hairs, Gertrude. Even a long-fuse man like myself.”
Trudy opened her mouth to speak.
“Right down to the short hairs,” Leo went on. “You ever had that kind of family troubles?”
“I just think Lorraine wants Teddie with …”
“Gertrude, I’m at the point where what anybody wants, anybody thinks, don’t mean a hill of beans.” Leo said this softly, in the voice he used to tell me that he had told me something for the last time. “When I seen what I seen coming through that door tonight … Comes a time where the bullshit has got to cease. You ever reach a point with family where the bullshit has got to cease?”
“I guess.”
“Well, I’m way past my point.”
Trudy took her hands out of her pockets and pushed her cap to the back of her head.
“It’s family, Gertrude. From here on out, it’s family.” He patted my face and pinched the end of my nose with his calloused fingers.
Trudy took a can of Copenhagen from her back pocket, put a pinch under her lower lip, and walked past Leo on her way to find Lorraine.
“Gertrude,” Leo called.
Trudy stopped. She tensed, but did not turn around.
“Tell Bobby bring me a bottle and three glasses. Please.”
Trudy lowered her shoulders and walked away.
Bobby arrived with an unopened fifth of rye and three water glasses.
“Lorraine’s busted, but not as bad as I thought. Doesn’t look like it needs setting.”
Leo nodded. “Gertrude’ll see to her. She’s a good friend to Lorraine.”
“I don’t recollect Trudy ever putting up with anybody calling her ‘Gertrude’ except you, Leo,” Bobby said.
Leo broke the seal on the fifth and moved one of the glasses in front of Bobby. “That a fact?” He started to pour, but Bobby put a hand over the top.
“I don’t while I’m working.”
“You always was a smart man.” Leo splashed rye in a second glass and pulled it in front of him.
Bobby looked down at Ted. “What the hell’s the matter with these people?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Bobby.”
Leo took the stub of cigar from his mouth and flipped it toward Ted. It hit him in the back, and sparks flew as it bounced away—Ted mumbled something, but did not move. Leo took another from his coverall pocket, peeled the plastic, and wetted the shaft by running it over his tongue and lips. When he bit the end and spit it out, Bobby struck a match and held it out to him. Leo cupped his hands around the flame, drawing until the cigar caught, until the air between them billowed with clouds of blue smoke.
“If I knew what gets into people,” Leo said, “I’d be one of them gen-u-wine genie-uses. Like one of them Whiz Kids on the radio.”
Bobby laughed but his face remained hard. “Sorry to say it, Leo, but I’ve just about had it with your Ted.”
“You and everybody else.”
“I cut him a lot a slack around here ‘cause of you.”
“Wasn’t necessary.”
“Out of respect.”
“I expect old Ted’s done jerked his slack up around his nuts, don’t you?”
“Nothing bad to you and Marge, Leo.”
“I understand.”
“Thanks, Leo.”
“Cigar?”
“Don’t use ‘em. We’re closin’ down, but we’re open as long as you need.”
“Thanks, Bobby. We won’t be long.”
“Sure. G’night.” Bobby ran his fingers through the change in his apron and walked away.
Leo swirled the rye at the bottom of his glass and took a small drink. He dragged on his cigar, rolled it between his fingers, blew a smoke ring above my head. I stuck my finger through it, and it tattered and disappeared.
“How you doing, Mr. Teddie?”
“Blow another one,” I said.
“Think you can sit here and mind your P’s and Q’s while me and your daddy have a talk?”
I nodded.
Leo smiled. “That a boy. We’ll talk with your dad a minute, then me and you’ll head on home to Grandma’s.”
“Okay.”
“You listen what I tell your dad.”
“Okay.”
“This is all man to man. Just me and you and your dad. Some day when you’re all growed up, I don’t want you wondering what happened, who said what to who. I want you to hear it right from the horse’s mouth.”
Leo turned and looked at Ted for a long while. Ted had gotten up onto his knees, and he was rocking slowly back and forth, his head pressed into the sawdust. Leo tapped him in the ribs with the toe of his boot.
“Get up, Ted.”
Ted moaned and sat up. There was a clot of sawdust stuck to his forehead. His face was streaked with dirt and hair oil.
“Lorraine and Gertrude come by looking for Teddie,” Leo said. “Lorraine raised some serious hell with your mom when she seen Teddie was gone. Your mom come and got me out of bed. She was bawling her eyes out, Ted. But I guess that don’t matter none to a gutless wonder like you, does it?”
Ted looked up. “That bull dyke near to broke my …”
“C’mere.” Leo lifted Ted by the collar and shoved him against the bar. Leo filled a glass half-full with rye. “Drink up.”
Ted looked down at the glass but didn’t touch it.
“You’re the big, tough drinkin’ man. Since when did you need a goddamn invitation? Drink up!”
Ted closed his good hand around the glass and drained it.
“You told your mom you was taking Teddie to Jerry Lambuth’s.”
“We was. We was stopping here for a minute.”
“For a minute.”
“One thing led to another.”
“I stopped at Lambuth’s about ten minutes behind Lorraine. Jerry lied for you to Lorraine, but he knows better’n to shit me. He didn’t know nothing about
you coming over.”
Ted’s eyes were fixed on his glass. “Must of got my wires crossed.”
“Look at me when I’m talking to you, Ted.”
Ted slowly turned his face. He tried to harden his eyes, but when he looked, there was only fear and pain.
“You lie to me one more time,” Leo said, “and Marge or no Marge …”
“I took me and Teddie for boys’ night out! I’m sick of Lorraine telling me what I can and what I can’t with my own kid!”
“That why you brung my Teddie around these whores and drunkards? To stick it up Lorraine’s ass?”
“They ain’t no whores and drunkards. They’re my friends.”
Leo took a small drink. He looked at Ted, but he spoke to me.
“Teddie, most folks around here is okay. Hard-workin’ folks like Bobby and Phyllis. But some’s drunks and whores. When you get big, you’ll figure it out. But, for now, here’s the deal. Your daddy ain’t bringing you here no more. Matter of fact, he ain’t even taking you out of the house. He’s sober, he can come see you at Grandma’s—any time he wants—long as I ain’t home. But I hear he takes you away from Grandma’s, or he bothers your mom over at her place … there’ll be serious hell to pay—Marge or no Marge.”
“He’s my own damn kid! Nobody can tell me what with my own damn kid!”
Leo found my coat and my other shoe. He watched as I put them on.
“Hat,” he said. I took my hat from my pocket and pulled it down over my ears. Leo flipped up the front so I could see.
“That a boy.”
Leo picked me up and yelled down the bar. “Bobby! Thanks!”
Bobby waved, but did not look up from the till. “God damn it, Leo!” Ted shouted.
Leo walked in front of him and stopped.
“You lost the right, Ted,” he whispered. “You lost the right a while ago, but, on account of your mom, you was cut some slack. But, with this deal tonight, the way I figure it, you’re all slacked out. It’s a damn shame for your boy and your wife. I suppose you ain’t a truly bad man, Ted. You just never been much of one.”
Leo carried me out to the car and slid me next to him on the front seat. He cracked the window, turned the heater on high, and drove us away into the freezing night. I lay with my face turned toward the blowing warmth of the heater and fell asleep to the smell of the dirt and diesel on his lap.
I awakened in bed, tucked under a mound of covers in the back bedroom behind the kitchen. The room was dark except for a sliver of light coming in beneath the door; all was quiet except for the distant rise and fall of Marge’s tears, Leo’s angry words. I listened from beneath the covers, finally drifting back to sleep on the sound of their voices, the silences between the shouting.
I did not wake until Marge climbed in bed beside me. She did not come in under the covers, but lay next to me in her housecoat and slippers, her hair wrapped in a scarf. The first light of morning was coming through the bedroom window; we could hear the sounds of a radio, of Leo making his breakfast in the kitchen.
“You awake?” Marge whispered.
I nodded.
“Grandma and Grandpa keep you up all night?”
“No.” I sat up, but Marge pushed me back down.
“Hungry,” I said.
“Let’s wait ‘til Grandpa goes to work.”
“How’s come?”
“Oh, he wants to read his paper. We’ll let the man read his paper in peace.” She pulled me close to her, tucking my face into the wrinkly folds of her neck.
From that night, and for many nights thereafter, Marge and I slept together in the back bedroom whenever I stayed over. We would talk and read and tell stories in the soft lamp light before we slept. We would wake in the morning and go to the kitchen, and I would have coffee-milk and toast while she fixed Leo’s breakfast and packed his lunch. It was almost a year before Marge returned to Leo’s bed.
EIGHT
Lorraine fluffs her pillows, patting and smoothing them into various shapes, tucking them about her limbs and hips until she is cradled perfectly in her nest. She has rolled a hand towel into a narrow bolster for the back of her neck, and I have taped it with duct tape to relieve her of the task of constant re-rolling. These pillow rituals are crucial, for they maintain her body in that critical position where she may breathe, undisturbed, until her dream-sweet moments find her. If even one of her supports is out of place, she will drift and skim and hover, but never sleep.
Lorraine signals with her index finger. I change the channel to her all-night movie station. She makes a face and circles her finger in an exaggerated winding motion until I lower the volume to the place where she hears the words, but not their meaning. She points to the rickety floor lamp beside her chair. It has a three-way switch, and I pull the chain until the bulbs go dark.
Lorraine closes her eyes and waves me away, shooing me in the general direction of the couch. She covers her mouth and removes her dentures, then slides them down the inside of her glass, allowing them to fall into what remains of her bourbon and water.
I stand over her for a moment, watching from the shadows as the television lights the ruin of her face: the coarse gougings between her eyes, the snarlings that twist across her forehead and down her baggy cheeks. When she sighs, her lips fall back upon grey, shrunken gums, and the crinkling wrinklets about her mouth gather and plunge downward like a waterfall of years over a precipice, digging wide fissures deep into her neck. It occurs to me that I should gather this face in my hands, lift it to my mouth and kiss the heart of it. I should press my lips upon the sagging, desiccated flesh and wait with her through the lonely hours of dissolution. But because I am her son, because I am a man of my generation, I will merely kneel and check the gauge on her oxygen tank.
These are the moments of Lorraine’s repose, and still, her face will twitch and fret in tiny spasms of anger. For there is so much more Lorraine has to say—so much anecdotal evidence of failed lives and sons who forget tool boxes. Thankfully, she is exhausted, and we are unable to continue. She is capable of nothing more than making fists while reviewing my remarks, formulating the piercing rebuttals with which she thinks to greet me upon my next visit.
And she will remember. When I return, we will begin again, in our usual way, and end at a similar point.
I walk to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. When the flame is hissing blue beneath the pot, I move to the refrigerator and pry a Macho Man TV dinner from the frosty bottom of the freezer. I switch on the oven, twist the dial to broil, and slip the dinner onto the rack, setting the timer for twenty-five minutes.
I move to the counter and turn on the radio to the classical station, turn it low. I sit at the kitchen table, upon the crackling, disintegrating vinyl cushions that I have taped to preserve the shredded stuffing. I slide an ashtray across the scarred formica table top, light a cigarette, and wait for the coffee. When I have eaten, when I have finished a pot of coffee, I will run a hot, sudsy bucket of Spic-and-Span and scour the counter tops, the stove, and the refrigerator. I will wipe down the cupboard doors and scrub the grease from around the light switches. I will mop the kitchen floor and release my mind unto a flood of rationalizations about my drinking. I will distract myself by considering my current status in the hierarchy of Lorraine’s affections.
It seems I am recently re-indicted in the court of Lorraine’s love, re-tried for crimes of inadequacy. I have been held before the template of her love and failed the standard. I do not take it personally. For all of us—acquaintances, friends, and family—have been so judged over the years. We have been sentenced to live, now and again, outside the precincts of her forgiveness. But in the past, our sentences have been lightened or even commuted by our throwing ourselves on the mercy of the court; it has been sufficient to offer a small penance in the form of kind words or affection.
In our last few visits, I have listened as Lorraine has reopened each of our cases, reneged on previous amnesties. I have watched as she
has re-tried and re-sentenced each of us, living or dead, while the soft television light falls upon the perfect devastation of her face. Each of us, it seems, except for Trudy. Not merely in storied recollections, but even in the heat of our most contentious moments, only Trudy retains Lorraine’s unwavering endorsement. Her sacred imprimatur. This does not surprise me, for I watched over the years as Lorraine found ways to accommodate Trudy—even as they fought over such weighty subjects as love. Or the raising of a son.
Once, during the early part of their relationship, a short time after the night Lorraine spent sewing on Ted, Trudy drove us across town to Marge and Leo’s. Lorraine could never afford a car, and we would have to transfer twice when we rode the bus. Lorraine said Trudy taking us in her car was “pure luxury.” Trudy was pleased to do this for Lorraine, pleased to be able to look across the front seat and see Lorraine sitting beside her in her frilly white blouse, hands folded neatly on the lap of her pleated cotton skirt. Trudy glowed with pride each time her eyes fell upon Lorraine’s glossy hair—the way she brushed it straight back and pinned it with the tortoise shell clasp Trudy had given her for Mother’s Day.
These were the days when Lorraine rarely surrendered to Trudy’s relentless invitations, so Trudy must have decided to make the most of her good fortune: she had dressed in her best white cowboy shirt, starched it stiff, and carefully blocked the sleeves over her muscled forearms. Her shirttails were tucked into her newest pair of jeans, her hair wetted back and combed tight around her ears. She had polished her wingtips, and a fat turquoise set in a silver dollar glittered on the buckle of her belt.
The sun was shining, the sky was clear. Leo had tuned Trudy’s Chevy a few weeks before, and it was purring along the streets, gliding through the gears. Trudy seemed as happy as I can recall her being. She had turned the radio loud and kept time with the music by thumping the flat of her hand against the steering wheel; Lorraine kept reaching over and snapping down the volume, so she could “hear herself think.”
Trudy would grin, look at Lorraine over the tops of her sunglasses, and twist the volume back up.
“Shit bird,” Lorraine would say, smoothing her skirt and looking out her window.
The Violent Child Page 10
