Copy Boy

by Shelley Blanton-Stroud

  Fought for you. You!

  She’d always sensed power in her corner, a loaned ferociousness.

  “I know, but listen! More reporters’ll . . . from other papers . . . they’ll be coming to interview Uno, cops too. You gotta get out of here before it happens. I’m trying to help you!”

  “You think I need you—you!—to tell me what to do?”

  She looked five-five, five-six, five-eight, when she said this, up above her actual body.

  “You don’t know the whole story,” Jane said. “There’s some things I know, you don’t know yet!”

  There are things she knows too.

  “You talking down to me, Jane?”

  “Listen. Uno’s made money he shouldn’t have. He’s connected with someone.” Her voice cracked. “Someone bad”— was Grete bad?—“He’s acted bad.”

  “You trying to ruin things for Elsie now? You wanna take down her daddy too?”

  Just get out.

  Jane looked at her sister, a bossy-looking thing, her hand all bunched up in Momma’s hair. There was something complaining, questioning, in that baby’s eyes. Still.

  “Uno’s dangerous.”

  “Bless your heart.”

  “Can’t you just accept I might be right about this? That I can help you?”

  “I see you’re trying to make yourself into your brother. Make up for what you did.”

  Now Elsie was wailing, wanting something she didn’t have.

  “Make up for what? What’d I ever do?”

  Okay then, you asked for it.

  “You . . . selfish! You know what you did! You pushed out first, took your time—you made him weak.”

  “I didn’t choose that! That’s not something a baby . . .”

  I wasn’t so weak.

  “What was I gonna do?” Momma asked. “Was I gonna save the weak one? No!”

  “You made me big! I didn’t make myself big. You . . .” Then she heard it, a beat late. “What do you mean, save?”

  “I saved you. I let him go because you claimed me! You showed me you were the one!”

  Hear that? Hear that!

  A mallet dropped on Jane’s head, cracking her skull. Her fingers flew there. She thought they’d come away bloody, but they didn’t. The injury was inside, not a clean break into halves, but a seismic fracturing, through all her body’s bones and plates, shattering her into a million pieces. Her eyes squeezed shut and she listened to the crackling sound move through her. When it stopped, she opened her eyes, ruined.

  “You let him go? You said he died before he was born!”

  “You wanna know? You think you’re grown enough to know?”

  “Tell me!”

  “All right then—it’s time. I chose you, not him. I laid him down. Side of the field. Left him in a cotton sack.” A sob broke out but Momma swallowed it, hunching her spine up, taking a new shape. “I was all by myself, no Daddy, no Granny—your precious Granny!—all by myself—always with nothing. I made a choice. I fed you and not him, held you and not him. It didn’t take long. I made the choice. Choices have to be made! You’re here because I did that. You were bigger, stronger—come out like a colt, ready to run. You made me choose you!”

  “I didn’t! You’re crazy!”

  “I was fifteen!”

  Time did that thing it almost never does. It stopped, leaving her mother frozen, hunched up, her mouth open, her breath a solid mass in the air, the worst possible thing solid in the air. No sound.

  You don’t remember before.

  The noise dissipated, just a muffled, watery sound, lapping.

  She remembered rocking in that saltiness. Bumping up against each other, kicking, struggling for space, but the fluid padding those bumps so it wasn’t bad.

  She remembered knowing he could have gone on like that forever, that he had everything he needed there.

  But not her. She wanted out. Too confining, no room to grow. She wanted to make noise.

  Then his kicking and jostling became more bothersome. They were squeezed from every side, especially the top, at Jane’s feet and Benjamin’s head.

  She remembered the sense of threat he vibrated.

  But the pushing invigorated her, a wave at her feet, like she was a swimmer heading for shore. With each new wave, her fingers grabbed the walls of her exit.

  His weak hands clasped her feet. “Stay!”

  “Let go,” she answered. “Let me go.”

  That’s what she saw, memory or vision, it didn’t matter.

  She chose you. She thought I wasn’t good enough, before she even knew me.

  It was unbearable.

  She thought, Everything’s over. There’s nothing I can do.

  You’re here, ain’t you?

  You’re the lucky one. Dead’s better than this.

  Load of crap. Dead’s not better. You think you’re tragic— you ain’t dead.

  Time began to melt again, everything coming back to movement, noise, Momma’s yelling, Elsie’s wailing.

  A hoarse scraping came up through Jane’s body, out her mouth. “How long did he cry?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You do.”

  A long time.

  “Watch yourself,” Momma said.

  “This ain’t my fault!”

  “You turning against me now? After I chose you? You turning against your sister?”

  Elsie’s screaming reached a new register.

  “You’ve been lying my whole life. This whole life . . . one big lie. You could have saved him! You could have saved both of us!”

  Could have kept us both.

  “There was something wrong with him! He was damaged.”

  She could have saved me.

  Momma went on, “You listen to me, there is only, ever, so much to go around. Everybody chooses. That is what it takes!”

  “I didn’t ask for that. Never . . . not . . . my . . . fault.”

  She heard wheels on gravel.

  Momma bounced Elsie hard on her hip so Elsie’s head bobbled and she quieted.

  “Get out,” Momma said, looking over Jane’s shoulder at the car. “Out the back window.”

  Jane turned and saw the Chrysler from Topsy’s parking lot.

  She turned back. Momma was holding Elsie too tight, her pink flesh marked with white handprints from squeezing.

  It’s him. Get out.

  “Momma, Uno tried to kill a girl, get Daddy blamed for it! Then he tried to kill Daddy! He shot at him while we were talking.”

  Elsie threw her head back, kicking her feet, pushing against Momma’s shoulder.

  “Shot at Abraham? Talking to you?”

  The door opened and Elsie stopped screaming to look, her lips quivering.

  Uno stepped in, a pistol tucked in the left side of his pant waist, his good-hand side. He took off his hat, setting it on the table. Jane noticed how long his arms were for a short man. She saw his fingers shaking.

  “Well, well. Beauty queen’s home. ’Cept now he’s the beauty prince, I guess.”

  He kissed Momma’s cheek, pushing a curl behind her ear, and then nuzzled Elsie, hiding his face in her neck.

  Momma walked away from him, took a bottle from the icebox and gave it to Elsie. She latched onto the bottle, and Momma carried her into the bedroom. Then she came back.

  “Jane needs that cabin the Smiths left, Uno. She’s back.”

  “I didn’t think . . .” Uno’s eyelid twitched, his mouth turned down.

  “I said she’s back.”

  Elsie squawked from the bedroom.

  “I ain’t back,” Jane said. “I’m not coming back. I’m somewhere else.”

  Uno nodded, up and down, fast.

  “You don’t appear to understand,” Momma said. “The city’s mean, meaner’n here. When they find out who you are, it’s over, whatever you got yourself for this bit of time. Over.”

  It ain’t over.

  “I have a boss. I have to . . .” Though this wasn�
��t true. She didn’t have a job.

  “This is who you are, here. Who you’ll always be.”

  This ain’t everything.

  “Baby doll,” Uno interrupted. “It’s best she go back. We got . . .”

  Elsie hollered from the next room, then was quiet, the bottle back in her mouth.

  “Uno, hush.”

  “I’m just sayin’ . . .”

  “Uno!”

  The skin under his eyes puffed up, injured by her tone. His eyes rounded, his pupils so big. He loved her, God help him. He did love her, a love that led him to do stupid, horrible things.

  Momma changed her face, put on forgiving, wrapped her arms around his waist, laid her head against his shoulder so he relaxed, placed his arms around her shoulders.

  “I know you try hard,” Momma said. “I ain’t saying you don’t try. And I know you mean well, but you keep messing up.” She lifted her head and looked him in the eye, his pistol in her right hand, up against his temple.

  His lips disappeared into the skin around his mouth.

  “Momma, no.”

  “Did you shoot at Abraham? Or were you shooting at Jane?”

  “What’d she tell you? She’s . . .” His eyes flashed at Jane, furious, scared. “It warn’t my fault, Kate, I didn’t know she was . . .”

  “Were you trying to kill my girl?”

  “Baby, come on. I tried to give you papers. I want to give you my name.”

  Elsie screamed through the open door.

  “I got a name, Uno. And I got Jane back too.”

  Even in that moment, what Jane heard was, “I got Jane,” and it meant something to her. It made her weak, she knew, this desire, but she couldn’t help it.

  But still, she said, “Wait.”

  Momma looked back at her, the pistol at Uno’s head.

  “Did the photographer make you do what you did to Vee and Daddy?”

  His eyes flitted back and forth between them. He didn’t know the right answer.

  “Honey, I done everything for you . . .” He giggled—giggled—afraid of his wife.

  He’d done it for Momma, not Grete.

  Jane had blamed Grete.

  “You chose to do it. To keep the lights on. To keep me and Daddy away.”

  Jane had attacked Grete, physically, and in the paper, thinking she was the root of it all, which was partly true, but not the absolute root.

  The crowbar Uno used on Vee—it was a message, a warning to Daddy and her, too.

  Chaotic new information, all out of order. He did it, not Grete, out of love and fear. He was a coward, a vile coward, which makes a person dangerous.

  Momma didn’t wait for the rest of his story.

  She lowered her arm and pulled the trigger, firing one shot into his thigh as he was standing right there next to her, spraying bone and blood all over herself, the kitchen, and Jane.

  He cried out and fell. Momma pulled up the skirt of her apron to wipe her hands.

  Both Jane’s hands covered her mouth, muffling her own voice.

  Momma stepped up close to Jane.

  “I’ll say this so you understand. You take one step, then another, and another, until you don’t worry about the next. Until you’re done deciding whether you’ll fight. That’s how you do it.”

  Uno’s moaning and crying nearly drowned out her lesson.

  “So, Jane, you in charge? Where you taking us now you ruined this?”

  Cain’t trust her! Leave her!

  “I’m not taking you now!”

  She’ll ruin everything.

  “You deserting your sister?” Momma asked.

  Jane felt a sinking—God, will I never. . .

  She couldn’t cut this cord, couldn’t escape. The connection was real, permanent.

  Don’t let her . . .

  I have to, Jane thought. I got no choice. I’ll keep ’em close. It’s safer.

  What about me?

  I’m sorry. Really, I am.

  She wiped her eyes, went to the bedroom and picked up Elsie, who dropped her bottle and grabbed Jane’s nose with wet fingers, surprisingly strong fingers.

  Jane carried her past Elsie’s crying father on the floor, and the three of them walked out the manager’s cabin door, past all the empty porches, tenants hiding inside.

  One stringy old lady came out of her cabin, stepping into the mud in front of them, holding a broom like a rifle.

  Jane stood there for a beat, her sister in her arms.

  “He hit her and I shot him. He ain’t dead. You can go on in there and call the cops. They’re coming anyway.”

  The old lady looked like she recognized something in Jane, the same kind of thing that pulled her out of the cabin herself, alone, the only one in the camp, with a broom for a weapon. She lowered it and stepped aside.

  BEFORE Jane had steered the car onto Tower Bridge, Momma was asleep. Not fifteen minutes after firing a bullet into the thigh of her pathetic second common-law husband and leaving him crying on the porch and she was snoring like a puppy in the back seat with Elsie in her lap.

  “No conscience at all,” Jane said.

  No response from Ben.

  Come on, she thought.

  Still nothing.

  He was always talking, telling her what to do, creating all that noise in her head. Now she wanted to talk, and where was he?

  Listen, if you’re gonna live in there, we’re gonna need a system, she thought.

  No answer. Just the sound of the road and car engine.

  You can’t always be in charge. I get to make decisions.

  Silence.

  Really?

  Then she thought, Maybe that’s it. He’s gone. Maybe I get to be alone in here, make the choices. It’s just my voice in here now.

  She imagined the sound of emptiness.

  This is best, she thought. I can think what I want.

  I’m still here.

  “Dammit, Ben, go to hell!” she yelled.

  “What’s that?” Momma roused to ask.

  “Nothing,” Jane answered.

  Momma rolled over, pressing her forehead against the window, Elsie snuggled into her strong body.

  MOMMA squinted suspiciously at the floors and surfaces of their flat, fancy but dirty, unkempt.

  Rivka’s bedroom door was closed.

  Jane put her finger to her lips and pointed to the bathroom. She took Elsie from Momma.

  “Wash up here.”

  She rubbed Elsie’s back, listening to the sink water run. Elsie wasn’t so disagreeable sleepy. Her little body warmed Jane’s chest. The weight of her felt reassuring, draped on her shoulders. Brother in her head, sister in her arms, Momma in her bathroom. Where was Daddy?

  Momma came out, damp, Uno’s blood rinsed off her skin. She took Elsie back and washed her up, dropping her wet diaper on the floor on top of the soiled towel, wrapping a clean one around her bottom, pinning it, nice and fresh.

  Jane led them down the hall, past the kitchen, to the sunporch room, and gave Momma the nightgown from the hope chest. Momma dropped her ruined housedress and slipped into the nightgown, which fit just right. Jane turned down the covers and Momma got into bed with Elsie, sweet as you please.

  Jane didn’t bother washing up—she just couldn’t. She lay down on the parlor sofa, where she’d first sat, wounded, three months before, running away from home, when Sweetie and Rivka saved her. She closed her eyes and fell to sleep.

  “SOME column,” Rivka said, yesterday’s paper spread out before them.

  “I didn’t . . .”

  “I saw Lambert sneaking around. I know . . .”

  “Long story.”

  “And them?”

  “My mother and my sister.”

  “Affrettando.”

  “What?”

  “In music—everything pressing forward,” Rivka explained.

  “I guess so.”

  “What happens next?”

  “I’m going into the paper, get my job back, the
n to the police.”

  Jane told her all about it, every angle, from what had happened to what she planned to do, as Rivka made her an egg and coffee.

  Jane got up her nerve. “Little surprising about Oppie.”

  “We are many things. You are. I am too. Neither of us is finished.”

  Jane showered and tended her face, all her injuries.

  When she came out, Rivka opened her closet. “My dresses won’t fit you.”

  “The pants are fine.”

  They’re perfect. No dresses.

  “Not really.”

  Rivka spot-scrubbed Jane’s suit pants. They were dark, which hid the bloody spots, so that helped. She pulled a silk blouse out of the closet, a pretty, expensive version of the man’s shirt Jane had been wearing all this time.

  Not that.

  But when Jane put it on, it felt so light and fine, its fabric against her skin gave her goose bumps, so she ignored Benjamin’s dread. Rivka added a cream sweater, pushing up the sleeves, which were too short. She finished it off with clunky-heeled black shoes, with leather bows on top.

  “Use my toiletries. I am no expert there, but I have best goods.”

  In the bathroom, she felt her face, careful around the gash. She opened the cabinet, where she found a toiletry box, full of unused products in shiny pearl and tortoiseshell cases. She dug around and pulled out one lipstick after another, twisting them up, holding them close to her skin. She chose a raspberry color and pressed it against her lips. It looked like her mouth had taken over her face. She found a shimmery green cream the color of her eyes and rubbed just a little along the lid, above her eyelashes. Her brows were too thick, but she wasn’t getting into that now. She tried to draw a line around her eyes with a dark pencil but couldn’t do it right so she wiped it off and redid the green eye shadow. She was all eyes, lips, and gash, spiky, dark hair. She looked like a different kind of girl. She pulled her bangs down over her gash but that didn’t work, so she pushed her hair back all the way, letting it show. Rivka came in with a black beret and arranged it on her head, smoothing her hair behind her ears where it was poking out. She clipped pearl earrings from Sweetie’s left-behind jewelry box to her earlobes.