by Amy Yamada
A child? Fuck! Was that the way children behaved? Is that what they were really like?
Coco felt like she was going to explode. There was nothing special about cooking for someone. People did it every day. But not Coco. It wasn't in her nature to cook for someone else.
"I don't want to try to be his mother. He's Rick's kid. I'm just trying to feed the little bastard."
"But that was your choice," said Kay matter-of-factly.
Coco was dumbstruck. She couldn't say anything. Kay was right. If she wanted to live with Rick, she had to accept that Jesse was part of the deal.
"Of course, I don't know much about this shit, but aren't kids just like that anyway? Don't they do whatever they want without thinking about it first? And especially a kid like Jesse, who has never had a mother to teach him right from wrong. But you know, everybody's asking the same question, girl. Why are you sticking with this guy? I mean, he's got a kid and all. And when did you start being his maid? Come on now, tell me the truth. What are you doing? Is it curiosity? Are you just doing it to be nice or what? Guys like him with a kid in tow—can he really be all that special?"
Coco didn't know how to put her feelings for Rick into words. She had never been in love like this before and she couldn't explain it. She was confused. When it was just sex, she found that relationships with men were very easy. But when they started to become a part of everyday life, things were much too difficult. Of course there was sex in everyday life, too; the hard part was learning to deal with the toothbrush side of things.
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"You're just not used to kids. That's all it is," said Kay.
She was trying desperately to lift Coco's spirits. Kay and Coco had been close for many years now, sharing their deepest secrets with each other, and now that they were adults there was little need to talk about the details. Kay just understood. Kay could sense that for whatever reason, Coco was falling deeply in love with Rick. Coco wouldn't admit it, of course. It was too embarrassing for her.
"I think I'm just feeling uptight," said Coco. "I'm sorry."
"Hey, I know you're in love with Rick, okay? But what about the kid? What are you going to do about him? If you don't think you can put up with him, you shouldn't let yourself get in too deep."
"Okay, I admit it—I don't like Jesse. For one thing, he's not mine.
His mother is some woman that Rick was in love with before me. Even worse, he's living proof that Rick screwed her. But Jesse's mother has dumped him, so if I care for Rick, I've got to accept that boy, too. Right now all I want to do is make Rick happy. I love telling him jokes and making him laugh, and I love teaching him stuff he doesn't know. I love giving him a good time in bed, and, really, looking after Jesse is just another part of that—it's just something I have to do."
Kay didn't believe a word of it. She couldn't understand how a girl like Coco whose self-centered attitude was one of the things that made her so attractive, could suddenly become so obsessed with making someone else happy. It just wasn't like her.
"Aren't you the same girl that used to look down on people who fell in love like this?" asked Kay.
"All right, don't rub it in."
"I can't believe you'd put raising a child and sex on the same level. It can't be that much fun."
Coco knew that Kay was right. She felt as though she was making a very big mistake. While Coco was deep in thought, Kay got up to make her a drink, and as she did so, Jesse came home, munching on french fries.
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"Hi, Jesse. How ya doin'?" she asked.
"Um, okay."
"Hey, I got you a present," she said, handing him a package.
Jesse tore off the wrapping paper and found a toy plane inside.
"I didn't hear you say thank you, Jesse," said Coco.
Jesse moved toward Kay to give her a thank-you kiss and suddenly Coco felt a rush of affection for him.
"Thank you . . . "
Kay's mouth fell open in disbelief. Coco looked at her, confused.
Kay's cheek was wet. As he thanked her, Jesse had spit in her face. When she realized what had happened, Coco grabbed hold of him by the collar and tried to slap his face. Although Jesse was smaller than she was, he was a strong boy. She tried to hit him several more times without success, and finally caught him with such a hard slap that it sounded as though the bones in her wrist had broken. Jesse quit struggling. He just glared at her in silence. Blood began to trickle from his nose.
Coco couldn't quite believe what she had done. She just stood there* |
rubbing her sore hand ruefully, and tears began to well up in her eyes.
Any regrets she had, however, evaporated when she felt Jesse kick her—hard, in the back.
Coco collapsed on the floor, bent over in agony. She pressed her hand into the small of her back in an attempt to reduce the pain. It hurt so badly that she couldn't breathe. Jesse was insane. He wasn't human.
Surely he'd been born by mistake. He was the devil incarnate.
From somewhere in the distance, Coco could hear Kay's concerned voice calling her name. She looked up and saw Jesse standing over her, the toy airplane still in his hand. His face was expressionless and the blood was no longer just trickling, but pouring down his face, a startling shade of red.
A shiver ran down Coco's spine.
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"What did you do that for?" she demanded hoarsely. "Please, tell me.
I don't understand."
Without an explanation from Jesse, Coco wondered how she could justify staying there any longer. Surely her love for Rick alone wasn't a good-enough excuse. Why did she have to put up with all this when all she really wanted was to be with Rick?
"D-un-no."
"What the hell do you mean, you don't know? Don't you know how to thank someone? Didn't anyone ever teach you how to say thank you?"
"I did say thank you."
"So why did you spit at her, for Christ's sake? What the hell is wrong with you?"
"I don't know. My mama always used to do that to my dad."
For a moment there was silence. Then Coco burst into tears.
Jesse went to his room and closed the door behind him, leaving a trail of blood that led from the kitchen to his bedroom door. The conversation was over.
When Coco had slapped him, she was sure her hand hurt more than Jesse's cheek, but she had hoped it taught him a lesson. Now she realized that all she had done was hurt her hand.
"They must have really hated each other, Rick and his wife," said Kay, gently rubbing Coco's back. "How can people say all kids are born out of love?"
Coco shivered. Jesse may have been born out of love, but he had been brought up with hate. And Coco was the one who had to deal with that hatred. She wondered what Jesse was really like underneath it ail. She was frightened that if she peeled off the layers of hatred one by one, like peeling an onion, she would find nothing but hatred all the way down to his bone marrow.
For now Coco was able to avoid facing that fear by crying, but she knew she would not always be able to run away. She was grateful that Kay was there to comfort her, but she knew there would when she would have to face her fear alone, and the thought of it terrified her.
When you are kind to people, you expect kindness in return.
That was the way Coco understood the world. Hugs, kisses,
' compliments—there is a certain beauty in the idea of giving things away and expecting nothing in return. But at the same time, there is a distinct sadness in giving and not receiving. It was for that reason that Coco could not deal with Jesse. She could not show him love and affection if all she got back from him was hate.
Jesse didn't spit at people anymore, but he continued to run out for hamburgers, ignoring the fact that Coco was cooking, and he treated her like an intruder. Although, to be fair, he treated all of her friends and all of his own friends in exactly the same way. Jesse treated people like objects.
Jesse's fri
ends were all adolescents, all on the verge of manhood, and when they were around Coco they had bashful smiles that young men get when they are around women. A couple of the braver ones would wink at or sneak a kiss from her as they came and went. They were at the age when they were naturally curious about the opposite sex, and to Coco's amusement, they were particularly curious about her.
The boys were all much taller than Coco. They left their sneakers I $ d A M Y Y A M A D A
strewn all over the hallway and she noticed how much larger their shoe were than hers. As she tidied up their sneakers she began to think about Jesse and how small he was compared with his friends. He was dwarfed by them. They grew as rapidly as if they were willing themselves to grow. Jesse, on the other hand, had no interest in getting older and seemed almost to be suppressing his growth.
Sometimes the boys would watch videos in Jesse's room. But when there was a love scene, even though it was nothing hard-core, just a part of the story, Jesse always got irritated, stood up, and walked out of the room, leaving his friends jeering behind him.
"Hey, what's wrong with you, man? This is the best part," they would holler, whistling at and cheering the girl on the screen, just as grown men did. Then Jesse would storm back into his room, screaming at them to get out.
At first, of course, they didn't take any notice of him, but when they realized he was serious, they switched the video off, cursing under their breath as they left. Heading back to the hallway, some of the kids would say they were angry with him and swore they would never hang out with him again.
They were all just ordinary boys, all looking forward to leaving home and getting away from the influence of their parents as quickly as possible. But they weren't able to do that just yet and they didn't really know what to do with all their excess energy. In a way, they were still just kids, and when they got back home their mothers would be yelling at them to do their homework. At the same time, they were old enough to have their own social network, but because of the way he treated them, Jesse was on the verge of being shut out of it.
Once, Coco looked into Jesse's room after the boys had left. He was lying facedown on the bed, thinking. He looked so vulnerable that she suddenly felt a twinge of sadness. But that sadness quickly turned to dismay as she realized it was the same vulnerability she saw in Rick J E S S E / 6 9
when he was just sitting and smoking. Instinctively, she went in and sat down on the bed at his feet. They were unexpectedly large, and she noticed that there was a hole in one of his socks.
Coco just sat there. She felt as though she couldn't say anything until Jesse spoke. She couldn't break the silence. Minutes passed, and the silence became awkward, almost painful. She considered mentioning the hole in his sock, but when she looked up, she saw that his face was wet.
He lay there silently, tears streaming down his cheeks and off the end of his nose. His tearstained face looked just the way Kay's face had looked when he had spat at her. Now it was as though he were spitting on himself.
Coco pulled off the sock without a word, and Jesse let her. He didn't move. He didn't make a sound. It was the first time she had ever touched him, and it pained her just to look at his bare foot. She couldn't believe it was the same hateful thing that had bruised her back so badly. With the sock gripped tighdy in her hand, she stood up and left the room, closing the door silently behind her.
Coco went to the kitchen and took out the sewing box. She opened the lid and saw that all of the needles had been bent. Jesse. It couldn't have been anyone else. She sighed. But she couldn't bring herself to be angry at him for it.
C H A P T E R S I X
Life's an odd game. There are certain things that are instinctive to all living creatures—like eating and sleeping, the things you just can't live without. And in the case of human beings, communication is an integral part of everyday life, too. Words.
As usual, Jesse treated Coco very coldly and that really irritated her.
But try as she might, she could not ignore him. He kept leaving the water running, too. At first she put up with it and said nothing, running to the bathroom or to the kitchen to turn off the tap, but Jesse would just go back and turn it on again. Eventually the very sound of running water began to irritate her, until she reached the point where she thought that she would go mad if it carried on much longer. In the end, Coco was forced to confront him.
"Stop leaving the damn faucets on, okay? When you're done with the water, just turn it off!"
The tension between Coco and Jesse got worse and worse. She knew that it would be far better if she just sat him down and talked to him before everything broke down completely, and she also began to realize that she needed to employ a different tactic if she was to communicate I $ d
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with him properly. So eventually, out of sheer necessity, Coco started talking to Jesse more often.
"Will you be eating at home tonight, or going out?"
"Do you want a bath tonight, or a shower?"
"How much lunch money do you need?"
"Do you need me to sign the homework you left in your room?"
Even on this basic level, Coco found it incredibly difficult to commu*
nicate with Jesse. It was especially hard because she had always found it so easy to talk with anyone. But she knew she had to keep trying.
She continued to ask him questions every day, and although he just ignored her at first, gradually he began to respond.
"I'm having butter-fried fish with broccoli this evening. I suppose you'll be going to get a hamburger as usual."
"Nah, I'm staying in tonight. There's something I want to watch on TV."
"So you're eating here tonight?"
"That's right. Hey, have you seen Eighteen ? Mr. T's in it. It's great!"
So that night they ended up watching a third-rate drama on TV together. Although she was bored by the show, Coco sat and watched it.
Every couple of minutes Jesse would burst out laughing and look over to see her reaction, the look on his face saying, See, I told you it was great, didn't I? And Coco had to laugh, too.
There's a knack to looking after kids, she thought to herself. But that just started her thinking about Rick because he was so easy to deal with.
Rick still wasn't back. He had already taken quite a bit of time off work to go visit his father, and Coco was certain that his extended stay meant that his father's condition must be getting worse.
From time to time, left together with Jesse in this strange atmosphere, she began to wonder if Rick had ever existed at all.
As their conversation increased beyond what was absolutely necessary, Jesse's efforts to rub her the wrong way began to taper off a bit, too.
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Which is not to say they stopped altogether. For example, once when she wanted to write a letter, she found that the points of all of her pens had been broken. And another day, when she was in the toilet, Jesse was outside with a screwdriver, trying to break the lock.
By now, Coco had started to see these things more as childish pranks than as acts of malevolence, and she stopped taking them so seriously.
Before she had felt that Jesse was trying to hurt her feelings, but now she comforted herself that he was just trying to irritate her. When she screamed in reaction to one of his tricks, he waited in great anticipation for her to start shouting at him. She no longer let every little jab hurt her; rather than thinking of it as psychological torture, she began to see it as little more than physical inconvenience. When it got to the stage where it was nothing more than a minor irritation, she resigned herself to simply accepting Jesse as he was.
"My mother is beautiful, you know," he said while watching TV in the living room one evening.
"Really?" Coco said, not raising her eyes from the book she was reading, all the while thinking, Uh-oh, here we go again.
"Yeah, and she keeps her house clean, too," Jesse continued. "She collects Japanese pottery with pictures
on i t . . . . "
"You don't say?" said Coco, feigning disinterest, but thinking bitterly, Sounds like she has no taste.
"Her house never gets messy like this," continued Jesse.
Well, that's because she never reads any books. And she's ten years older than me— so of course we're going to like different things.
"And she's a great cook, too. My mama can do anything, she's the best mother in the world."
So why does your wonderful mother refuse to take care of you then? thought Coco. And if she's such a great cook, how come all she can manage to throw together is some god-awful concoction of rice and raw eggs?
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"I think my dad should go back to her."
For the first time in quite a while, Coco lost her temper.
"Just shut up!" she shouted. "If your mother is so great, why don't you get the hell out and go back to her? I love your dad and I volunteered to look after you out of the goodness of my heart. Not because I care about you, but because I love your dad. Do you even know what it is for a woman to love a man? Shit, you don't know the first thing about women, so don't start that with me. If you love your mother so much, what's keeping you here? You lived with her before, didn't you?"
Jesse glared at her. And while the echoes of her outburst were still ringing in her ears, Coco realized that he was just an eleven-year-old boy, after all. She immediately regretted everything she had said, and in her head she could hear Rick's voice telling her how, after he'd split up with his wife, Jesse had lived with his mother and she had agreed to take care of him, but after a month he had packed up all his stuff, tied it to j his bike, and come to Rick's place. Jesse had told him, "Daddy, I can't live with her."
So you might expect him to hate his mother, but Jesse never had a bad word to say about her. By putting Coco down all the time, maybe he was just trying to make himself believe that his mother was better than she really was. Maybe it was just a dream he desperately wanted to see come true.