by Wenke, John;
“I’m Polly,” Marsha says. “Short for Polly. Excuse me.”
She grabs her crutches and raises herself on one foot.
“Can I help you?”
“Nobody can help me. I need to see my son.”
She settles her chaffed armpits into the rubber rests. Her ankle hangs like a bulging mass of constricted foam. Kenny isn’t in the control room. Her eyes rotate to the rope ladder. There. Climbing hand over hand, Kenny nods his head and laughs. He points over his shoulder with his thumb. Reaching the top, he pauses at the entrance to the maze of tubes. Stepping aside and waving his hand, he lets his father go first.
“Are you all right?” Duff grips her elbow. He’s in her face.
Marsha spins and squints. Beneath the livid white scar, his missed whiskers sprout like clumps of black and gray spikes.
“I’m fine and dandy. I was just looking for my son, but I can’t find him. He must be going down one of the slides.”
Her head wobbling, she settles into her seat. “In about a minute I’m going to have to find him.”
“I don’t want to know what my kid’s doing, the son of a bitch.” Duff laughs. “If there’s any trouble, they find me.”
But now the thought of running from this lug irks her. Who’s he to make her scuttle? She’d hunt the hunter.
Her voice hikes to her business tone. “That boy did strike me as a problem child. I don’t think I could stand it. There’s talk now—I heard it on All Things Considered—of retroactive birth control. Besides, there are too many males in the world. Just go to any bar and you’ll see the surplus stock fattening up at the trough.”
Duff laughs, throwing back his head.
“You sound like a libber.” He slaps his knee. “But you got one thing right. He is a problem child, but I don’t have to see him much. Just every other weekend. I’d go back to court to change it to every third weekend, but my ex-old lady’d shoot me.”
In an open field, a fat lady in an oversized red and black flannel shirt steadies her rifle and takes careful aim. It’s a perfect day for a turkey shoot.
“Throwing him against the wall worked, but what do you do when you don’t have a wall?”
Marsha watches Boil Boy turn into a large balloon tied to a Thanksgiving Day float. A clown with a machete slices the strings. With a little wobble, the boy drifts toward space.
“Usually, I just let him do whatever he effing wants. I mean, hey, it’s only a few hours and he is my kid, you know. He likes to come to this place, so I bring him. At least he ain’t off smoking crack.” His laugh lines twitter. “Or maybe he is.”
Marsha’s inside the body of a gorilla, squatting on Duff, hindquarters to chest. Her long hairy fingers wrap around his throat, squeezing the laughing face until it bulges like a waterlogged tomato. Then it explodes. Splat, splatter.
“It’s been very nice talking to you, but I—”
“You want to know something? You don’t look like a mother.”
“Well, I am.”
“I mean, you don’t look like the other mothers, all burned-out and plain. Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”
“Pa-leese!” Then the gorilla snarls. “There really are too many men in the world. It’s why there are all these wars.”
Duff is scratching his head. Dandruff flutters like mist.
“I’m sure I seen you. You dance, right? At that Seaford place. The Come On Inn. You go by the name Autumn. I recognize the short black hair. How you move it. I always wanted to talk to you.”
“I’ve never been there and I don’t dance. Besides, why would I want to wiggle my butt and all in front of a lot of drunks? Didn’t your mother ever tell you? If you let losers look at you naked, you absorb them. It’s like you’re some kind of sponge.”
The shutter clicks and she’s atop the bar in front of Duff, decked out in her father’s old army fatigues, boots and all, kicking away drinks and stomping his fingers into flattened worms. She smiles. His brows twitch. Behind that wall, he must be sizing her up as a crazy bitch, pretty but nuts with a mouth the size of an effing tunnel.
“Hey, you know, it ain’t like that. Not everybody’s drunk. When you get down to it, it’s only about entertainment.”
“Well, it’s only about sex.” She smiles. “You should talk to my second husband. He’s your kind of fella.”
Every night, Bill had to pump her, like it was the law or something. But he didn’t do that right away. The Bermuda honeymoon was okay. But after they got back, Kenny started talking to Sam and Bill got mean. He didn’t like it when Marsha asked Kenny about Sam as if Sam was in the room. It was a sick game that brought Sam back, but she stopped playing when she saw it wasn’t a game to Kenny. She can see why it got to Bill. After four dates, he had quick-married a widow, who wouldn’t change her name and preferred the company of her dead husband’s ghost. His response was to turn himself into a machine, all spindle, shaft and piston. Bill liked to twist her into a Gumby doll—legs up there, arms out there, bend over, sit up. On the day Marsha broke her ankle, Bill started calling Kenny “Spook.” “Hey, Spook, what’s the ghost wearing?” He’d also started singing the Ghostbusters jingle. “Who do ya call? Ghostbusters!”
What ended it, what got her out of bed and running down the stairs, was when Bill taunted Sam.
He had just pumped her with Marsha slabbed on her back and then he told her to roll over and kneel. She punched him in the chest and told him to bug off, but he flipped her over and propped her up. His thing slapped her from behind.
“Okay, Sam Flinders, watch this! Marsha, time to bark!”
“Whaddaya mean, husband?” Duff grunts. “You don’t have a husband. You don’t have a wedding ring.”
“Wanna bet? I got an engagement ring, a wedding ring, and a five-year anniversary band. They’re off being sized. I recently lost fifty pounds. I’m a champion biggest loser. I’m going on tour a week from Friday. It’s a wonder what the power of positive thinking and no ice cream can do. By the way, I promised my son we’d have some ice cream. It’s been a lovely time.”
“You need a hand? I could get people out of your way.”
“No thanks. People hear me coming. Clack. Clack. Clack.”
“Hi, Mommy.”
Kenny has her straight black hair, but not her round face. His eyes sparkle. Talking to his father has made him a happy child, though he constantly pulls his fingers as if plucking flowers out by the roots. Maybe one of these days she’ll take him to see somebody. Her mother says it’s his way of adjusting. Her father thinks Kenny’s psycho, that moving Bill in knocked his screws loose. When she was in the emergency room, she told her dad she was done with Bill. He said, “You’re finally thinking right. All that bum ever did was grab. He’s after your house and insurance money, but I’ll see to it he don’t get a dime.”
“Hey,” Duff laughs. “Now you don’t have to find him.”
“Mommy, I need to go to the bathroom. They’re going into the party room soon.”
“You having fun, darling?”
“It’s great. Daddy’s waiting in the tunnel.”
Kenny runs off.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” Duff mumbles. “I didn’t think you were telling the truth. I didn’t think you were still married.”
“I am. More than you know.”
“But I didn’t think they let adults inside that thing. Me—I wouldn’t effing fit.”
“My husband’s on the small side. You could be right next to him and not even know he’s there.”
“Well, hell, I guess I’ll see you.” Duff slaps both knees, gets up and drifts backwards. “Take care of that leg, Polly. By the way, how’d you do it?”
Marsha grins. “You wouldn’t believe it. Last week we were skiing in Aspen. I was bending left to take a curve and my bindings flew off. I just lifted into space and did
n’t think I’d ever come down.”
As soon as Duff sidles into a mob of kids and adults, Marsha Flinders claws into her pocket. The pills rattle. She squints: “This medication may impair your ability to operate machinery.” Her ankle, however, is a pulsing pod of pain. With a push and a spin she lifts the cap. Two little pills skitter into her palm. She’s due one pill at five. Two more now puts her four over the limit. With a nod of her head, she resolves not to take any more till ten.
Slipping the pills on her tongue, she hoists herself up, crutches to a water fountain and laps the arching stream. She gags. Swallowing is getting harder all the time. Everything she tastes is just another burger choking Sam to death.
“Hey, Marsh!”
Sally Cooble is there, happy as hell to be of service.
“It’s time to get to the party room. Let me help.”
“I’m fine.”
Sally shoves and kicks the plastic chairs.
“Comin’ through! Out of the way, people!”
The way opens. In clear space Marsha achieves a metronomic rhythm. Children and parents wait behind a young man in a silver space suit. Sally waves them on and they turn down a corridor, heading toward pizza, song, games and cake. At Space Station Three, they file in. Twenty chairs span the perimeter. With Sally gripping her elbow, Marsha settles into one.
From the middle of the ceiling hangs a beach ball replica of planet Earth. The walls are covered with red, purple, and orange planets stenciled on a black field dotted with stars. There are yellow constellations and clustered galaxies, tumbling asteroids and fiery meteors, wayward moons and cruising comets. A spaceship, outward bound, bears the name Party Express.
“This guy Gil’s a major flake,” Sally whispers.
Captain Gil is scattering nine children around eight chairs.
“I hate musical chairs,” Marsha fumes. “It’s so predatory. I was always the first kid out. The music stopped and I’d freeze.”
The Star Wars theme explodes, and the children march in circles. They all touch the chairs, ready to pounce.
“By the way, how’s Kenny doing?” Sally’s voice lilts, as if nothing’s intended. Everybody knows Kenny talks to Sam, though nobody mentions it. They all think she was crazy to marry Bill, though everyone acted excited.
“Tell me the truth, Sal. Do you think he needs a shrink?”
This bluntness clogs Sally up. Nobody’s ready for the truth. She sputters, “What do you mean?” Her words are fish bones snagged in her throat.
“Is he nuts because he talks to Sam? Mom thinks it’s a phase, but Dad says I made Kenny crazy by marrying Bill. What do you think?”
Already, Kenny has been squeezed from the game. He stands next to Saturn. His mouth is moving. He laughs.
“I don’t know. I figure it’s something he’ll grow out of. If you take him to a shrink, they’ll just put him on Ritalin. It happened to my niece. If I were you, I don’t think I’d do anything. I’m with your mother. How is she, by the way?”
“I haven’t done anything because maybe Sam really is there, and I just can’t see him. I don’t have the eyes.”
Her chair dips eight feet, but her mind lifts off like a zigzagging kite.
“I’d try not to worry about it. He misses his father. A lot’s changed.”
The kite collides with a comet and flops to the ground. Marsha decides to feed the hens some high caloric gossip. Fat to chew. Fat to burn.
“It’s still changing. The night I broke my ankle, I kicked Bill out. I’m afraid he might come back, and if he does I’ll kick him out again. Even if they make me split the insurance money, he’s a goner.”
Two children huddle next to Kenny. Marsha’s head wobbles.
“I see now he was just a predator. Right after Sam died, he called me to talk. For three months, he nagged me to go out with him, and then I figured what the hell. It turned into a loopy back-to-the-past thing. It was crazy. He wanted sex all the time. He’s one of those sex addicts. It makes me sick.”
Sally beams. Later the phones will fry.
“You should’ve talked to me about it. Sure, you went to the prom with him, but in the meantime, Bill Mellon had those three other marriages. Mert and I always figured he was after the money. By the way, you should talk to Mert. When it comes to business, he’s all shark.”
“Thanks, but Daddy has lawyers. He hates Bill.”
“I think when marriages last less than a month, there’s some kind of legal mumbo-jumbo where they can wipe the thing away.”
“I need to rest my eyes.” Her head has become a cinderblock. “I take these Percocet pills and suddenly just get sleepy.”
In a half-snooze, she barely notices the party rushing on. Nan’s daughter Jill wins musical chairs. The children sing six or seven party tunes. They get in a circle and play Hot Potato. Occasionally, Sally pats Marsha’s wrist. Sarah Hart sits in a Captain’s chair and opens her presents—a profusion of Barbie dolls, Beanie Babies, books, pajamas. Marsha hears the party sounds as if muffled by a thick wall. She’s conscious of Captain Gil herding the children to the table, where they sit and ogle the cake. They sing. He cuts the cake. As cold air wafts her neck, Marsha lifts from her swoon to see the children being turned into dogs.
“Everybody get your face right into the cake,” Captain Gil giggles, “and let’s see who can eat it the fastest.”
Every child chows down, slavering and burrowing, muzzle white and lapping. Marsha tilts up, aggravated, and looks down the line to see most of the hens laughing and pointing, though Sally Cooble is telling Mr. Hart on her right, “This just makes my blood boil!”
Captain Gil is on his feet, clapping hands.
“Who’ll be first? Who’ll be first?”
Kenny chokes once and gags. His hands flail. When he tries to spit and can’t, Marsha pushes to one foot. A horde of parental hands seem to flap in space. One man slams Kenny’s back. With eyes bulging and still unable to breathe, Kenny grabs his throat. Marsha leaps across the table, her left ankle knocking the edge. He is shaking his head back and forth as she slides chest first across the table. Marsha grabs Sam by the back of the neck and shoves her forefinger—flayed cuticle and all—down his throat. She rakes out a gob of packed cake. With her other hand, she smashes his back. His face bulging red, Kenny gags again and the rest of the cake spews into Marsha’s face. His breath heaves and he sobs, sobs, and sobs again. Marsha gathers his face in her hands.
Mr. Hart is snapping his fingers under Captain Gil’s nose.
“You almost killed this kid and wrecked my girl’s party.”
Captain Gil pushes over and pats Marsha on the back.
“Is he okay? We were only playing.”
When she feels his fingers rub her bra strap, she spins and clamps her hands around his throat. She tries to squeeze, but he backs off and pushes her away. She loses her grip and totters from the table. Sally reaches to catch her, but she falls right through her hands. Landing full weight on her left foot, she screams, twists like a top and tumbles.
“Grandpop and Grandma are coming to get us.”
She gets off the phone and flops next to Kenny. She sets her crutches against a mailbox and shakes her head to fight off the gravitational pull of slumber. They are sitting on a bench down the strip from Space Mania. The management was very sorry, though not sorry enough to give Mr. Hart his money back. He’s still in there screaming. “They ought to be here in about an hour. Grandpop’ll drive our car.”
“Can I drive with him?”
“Sure.”
“Where we going?”
“Home with them.”
Behind them is Delmar Pizza. She intends to buy a large pie with everything on it. While they are waiting, maybe she’ll be able to help Kenny eat it. Above the sea of dirty cars, the late afternoon air drifts hazy and white under the blue sky.
/> “I’m glad. I like Grandma’s house.” Kenny shakes his bag of party favors. “I like it better than ours.”
“Maybe we’ll have to get a new one.”
“Is he coming back?”
Marsha hugs him and clears the swelling in her throat.
“Daddy can’t come back, darling. Not so I can see him, anyway.”
“I mean Bill.”
“Don’t worry about him. It was Mamma’s big mistake, but we’re through with him.” Her father is getting a locksmith to change all the locks. Monday he’ll get his favorite lawyer in on the hunt. Everything else will be numbers. “I need to rest for awhile and you need to go out with Grandpop and tow some cars. Earn us a living, for God’s sake.”
“Grandpop lets me push the button. Daddy used to let me beep the horn.”
Marsha pulls in her breath and steadies her head.
“Is he here, Kenny? I mean, right now, the way you see him.”
She looks hard at the mailbox and wonders if Sam’s ghost is sitting on top, feet dangling, arms folded. It’s the sort of thing he’d do.
“He’s not here right now. He was in the party room. When I was choking, he was holding me and hitting me on the back, but he left before we did. He said he had a lot to do. He said we all had a lot to do.”
Closets
When the banging on the front door started, my father was in the middle of one of his TV tantrums.
“You gave the thing away!” he screamed, flinging himself backwards on the couch. His foot knocked the glass top of the coffee table. A decanter filled with marbles spun, tumbled, and shattered. The marbles spilled, clattering and rolling across the hardwood floor. “I can’t believe it! Again! You gave the thing away! It’s fixed. It’s gotta be fixed.”
In the last two minutes, the Sixers had turned the ball over three times and missed four free throws. With 4.8 seconds left, the Sixers had no time-outs and had to inbound the ball under the Lakers’ basket. Garner made a perfect inbounds pass to the wrong team. Kobe crossed in front of Iverson—thank you very much—drove the lane and dunked. Slammo jammo. Lakers 101, Sixers 100. When the horn sounded, my father went bonkers. Then the front knocker clacked and now the chimes were ringing.
