Simply, Mine

by Jane Carrington

  We rounded the corner and started down the last row of trailers. It was quiet and so were we. It was rare that silence fell on the trailer park. There was always a couple arguing or a screaming baby, a neighbor dispute or someone with their TV turned up way too high. Sirens and police. Sometimes all of the above. It could be maddening.

  I linked my arm through his. He put his hand on it with a pat. For a moment I thought of how we must look like a Victorian couple, out for an evening stroll.

  I wondered if I wasn’t the luckiest girl in the world to have such a wonderful best friend. I could tell Jake anything, felt safe when he was around and though I had a feeling he held some things back, he trusted me completely. I couldn’t imagine a girl best friend providing the same solid comfort that Jake did. I didn’t really have any girlfriends, and that was okay with me. Most girls were competitive, moody, catty and gossiped to no end. I didn’t have time that. Jake was just there. And that’s just what I needed.

  I was interrupted from my thoughts by Denny. He called out and then walked right up to us. Jake tightened his grip on my arm and stepped in front of me.

  “What’s up, Den?” He asked, dropping his voice.

  It wasn’t until Denny got close that I could see his eyes were swollen and bloodshot. He looked scared.

  “My cat…have you seen my cat? He’s black with white paws. He got out after I left for school this morning and no one has seen him since.” He wrung his hands with his head on a swivel the whole time he talked.

  “No, sorry. Haven’t seen any cats tonight,” Jake said.

  This did not look like the Denny we were all used to seeing and being afraid of. He looked like a small boy, except for the leather, piercings and backyard tattoos, distraught over his beloved missing pet.

  “If I see him, I’ll bring him by your place, okay?”

  Denny nodded and walked around us calling his cat’s name in every direction.

  “Wow,” Jake said as we turned around and headed back to our row.

  “I know. I’ve never seen Denny like that before. I hope he finds his cat.” I looked over my shoulder but couldn’t find him in the darkness.

  Poor people are selfish. Not like it is their personality to be mean, selfish people, but when a poor person has something, their pride, a cat, a new pair of shoes, an opportunity or an amazing best friend, they do whatever they can to protect it. It’s theirs, no one else’s, no one can share it, and no one can take it away. They will fight for it, when it is all they have. I could understand Denny’s reaction over his cat. I looked up at Jake and smiled. If I lost Jake, I’d be wandering the streets, too, calling his name.

  Chapter 3

  Late that night I had just drifted off when I heard a gunshot. My eyes flew open but I didn’t move. It wasn’t the first time I had heard a gunshot in this neighborhood. It happened every now and then. A year ago, there was a murder-suicide on the last row. An elderly couple who couldn’t afford their medication anymore and their pain was too much to bear.

  This was only one shot which, for some reason, seemed more sinister in the long silence that followed.

  I waited for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was probably only five minutes, and then I heard the sirens. Soon flashing red lights filled my room. I dared to crawl up to my knees and peek out the frosted metal-framed window. I could see in between the trailers behind us a fire truck, three cop cars and an ambulance. I lay back down and closed my eyes.

  ♥

  The next morning Jake met me before I got to the bus stop.

  “Have you heard?”

  “No, what?”

  He took my arm and led me a few steps away from the bus stop full of chatter.

  “Did you hear that gunshot last night?”

  “Yeah, it woke me up.”

  “It was Denny.”

  “Oh, no, did he kill someone?”

  “Yeah. Himself.”

  “Oh my-”

  “I know. I can’t believe it either.”

  “But, what…why?”

  “I guess he found his cat. It had been hit by a car out on the main road. He went home and shot himself in the head.”

  “Over a cat?” I asked incredulously. Then I stopped and remembered where we were, who we were and what the love of some small living thing might mean, to someone like us. Apparently to Denny, it meant everything.

  “So how do you know all this?”

  “My dad went over there after he heard the shot.”

  “You’re lucky it didn’t cause him to have a flashback,” I said. I knew the fourth of July was almost always a problem and I would imagine a real live gunshot would be, too.

  “Yeah, I know. I got scared when he took off like a bat out of hell in his bathrobe, but he came back later and told me what happened. He said he was going to stay with Denny’s dad for the night and get some of the neighbors to help him clean up. We were the last ones to see him alive, Meg.”

  I felt slightly nauseous on an empty stomach at what ‘cleaning up’ meant.

  “I just feel so bad,” Jake said. “I keep thinking maybe I could have been nicer to him or something.”

  I glanced around the ragtag group of adult children at the bus stop.

  “We could all stand to be nicer to each other, I suppose.” That’s when I noticed a new kid. The guy that was moving in with his family under the cover of darkness.

  “Hey, there’s that new guy. Maybe it would make us feel better to go talk to him. Do for him what we didn’t do for Denny?”

  Jake nodded. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

  It was one thing to spend years here, some growing up their whole lives here. But I suppose it was a different kind of hard to have to come here, after knowing a different life. Judging by the looks of his clothes, he had to have known a whole different life.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” Jake nodded as we approached. The guy looked scared, grabbing onto his backpack like we were going to steal it or something. “I’m Jake. This is Meagan. You’re new here?”

  “Yeah,” the guy said quietly. “I’m Sam. We just moved in last night.” His face was awash with shame.

  “Well, welcome to the neighborhood I guess.”

  Sam nodded and looked us over carefully. “How long have you guys lived here?”

  “About five years,” I said. “Six for Jake.”

  He nodded. “Long time.”

  “Too long,” I said. I suddenly realized it would be awkward to try to get backstory out of this guy, though we were fairly certain we could piece it together.

  “Are you new to the school, too?”

  “Yeah,” he said. Visible dread replaced shame. He looked miserable.

  “Well, I’d be happy to show you around the school if you want? I’ll show you all the jerks to avoid, too.” Jake laughed.

  Sam looked him up and down, literally, looked as if he were debating and then shook his head. “I think I can manage, thanks.”

  I knew judgment when it was being passed and damn if this newbie punk wasn’t judging us on how we looked and had decided he didn’t want to be seen with us. I turned on my heel and walked away.

  “Meg!” Jake called after me.

  “Can you believe that?” I seethed. “We offer a friendly hand and he snubs us!”

  “Yeah, well, he’ll be back. He thinks he can hide where he lives behind the nice clothes but it will come out, he’ll be ostracized and then he’ll need us to be his friend.”

  “Well, maybe we don’t need him to be our friend.” I folded my arms.

  “C’mon, Meg. Don’t be so grumpy. He’s obviously new to being poor and once he realizes that we don’t bite, or have lice, he’ll open up a little.”

  I snorted a muted laugh and looked down the road for the bus.

  “Hey.” He touched my chin and turned my face towards him. “I thought we were doing this for Denny?”

  I sighed. “Yeah.”

  “Then, when this guy comes around, we’ll gi
ve him another chance. For Denny.” He pinched my chin and I smiled.

  “Okay.”

  ♥

  At school, not a word was mentioned about Denny’s suicide, formally. The halls were a flutter though with gossip, giggling and whispering. The worst part was so many people were looking at us now. Like we had some kind of connection and some inside information on how it all went down. We didn’t know him. We just happened to live in the same trailer park. He was a loner. He acted like he hated everyone.

  I convinced Jake to eat lunch in the library so we weren’t swamped by nosy gossipers who otherwise hadn’t spoken a word to us. I had an uneasy feeling the last few semi-comfortable weeks of being invisible were over.

  ♥

  The next day my mother was already awake when I stumbled out of bed. She had made some weak coffee and burnt some muffins for breakfast.

  “Hey, Meggy, I’m gonna need your help today.”

  “Well, I get out of school at three.”

  “No, you’re gonna need to stay home. The social workers comin’ and this house is in terrible shape. I need help gettin’ ready.”

  I stopped and stared at her. “It’s Friday. I have a test.”

  “So. You can make it up, can’t you? This is more important. Listen, go over and rent Mrs. Beiderman’s vacuum, would ya?” She tossed a dollar on the table.

  “I can’t miss today. I have important stuff to do.”

  Her false morning niceness wore off quickly and her face contorted with a scowl.

  “What’s more important than your family, Meagan? The social worker is doing her quarterly visit and taking a list for Christmas. Now if you don’t want to help Kyle and Kaylie have Christmas, then you’re more of a selfish brat than I thought!”

  My mouth fell open in shock and disgust. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

  “How are you going to explain why I’m home from school? Isn’t my attendance part of the reason the social worker is all over your case in the first place?”

  She stopped, apparently not having thought of that. “You’ll just have to go to your room while she’s here.”

  “I don’t want to stay home. Why couldn’t you have started cleaning days ago? You knew this appointment was coming.”

  “I haven’t been feeling well, Meagan. You know that. Those new meds the doc gave me are messin’ with me.”

  The excuse of the day.

  “Well, if the social worker sees the house trashed, she’ll know you’ve been sick and need help. Maybe she’ll pay for someone to come help you. Like the home help the old people get.”

  She stopped wiping the counters and rolled this over for a moment, no doubt debating the likelihood.

  “Nah. Cuz if I look like I can’t take care of the house then they’ll think I can’t take care of the kids and they’ll take away my benefits.”

  “You mean they’ll take away your kids.”

  “I mean both!” she yelled. “Now go rent the vacuum and then I need you to give that bathroom a good scrub down.”

  I turned to my room to get dressed, scowling and grumbling the whole time. Not going to school meant not seeing Jake all day. My luck he would have to work this afternoon and I wouldn’t see him at all today.

  I threw on old jeans and a ratty t-shirt for cleaning. Kyle and Kaylie were stirring and when I stuck my head in their room, the smell of urine pinched my nostrils.

  “Great.” They had wet all over everything. I walked back into the living room. “Kyle and Kaylie are wetting the bed because it’s so cold at night,” I said.

  “It ain’t that cold.”

  “It isn’t in your room because you have the space heater. But the rest of the house is freezing.”

  “The heat gets out all over the house. Didn’t they teach you that in science class? Heat rises and floats all over. They’re just lazy. Don’t wanna get up in the night.” She went about wiping food and fingerprints from the cabinet fronts.

  “Kyle is two! He isn’t lazy. He needs those night diapers for toddlers or something.”

  “Do you know how much those cost?”

  About as much as the movie rentals and chips you got last night for you and your good for nothing boyfriend.

  As much as I wouldn’t mind working her up into an inconsolable mess right before the social worker came—so someone else could see what we saw—it would make my whole day hell, and I just didn’t feel like dealing with it today.

  “If you think he needs ‘em so bad, why don’t you buy ‘em smarty-pants?”

  “Maybe I will. I got a job at Hank’s. Maybe with my tips or my first paycheck I’ll buy him some.”

  “Oh!” She whirled around with a surprised, elated look on her face. “You got a job, Meggy? Oh, that’s wonderful!” She started to come toward me and I turned.

  “I’m gonna put their sheets in the wash.”

  She followed me.

  “So does this mean you’re quittin’ school? Gettin’ the GED and just workin’?”

  “No, I’m not quitting school. It’s only part time. Not that much to start.”

  “Yeah, but it’s somethin’. It’ll help, Meggy.” She threw the dishtowel up and then smacked it on her thigh. She had a big, stupid smile on her face. “Why didn’t you say something sooner? This is just gonna make things so much easier for us around here.”

  “I am saving for college.”

  Her face went flat with coldness. “So, you’re gonna hog it all to yourself? You’re not gonna share with your family?” She threw the dishtowel all around like a depraved cheerleader. “Well, that’s fine, Meg. Be just like your father. Get your job and take all your success and then run off and leave us to starve!”

  Kyle and Kaylie were standing next to the bed, looking scared.

  “I’m not running off!” I tried not to yell. “And I’ll help with what I can, but I have to save for college, too.”

  Her nostrils flared and she grunted like an angry bull. “I blame your father. He always had these grand ideas he wanted to go off and chase. He wasn’t satisfied with just workin’ and providin’ for his family. Oh, no. He was gonna be somebody, and now you think you are, too, Meagan. He even insisted your name be spelled all fancy like. Plain old Megan wasn’t good enough. No, it wasn’t.” She was full on raging now, and blocking the doorway. I stood with pissy sheets in my arms, waiting for her to finish. “What about us? What are we supposed to do? What about those babies?” Suddenly her eyes were full of tears and her face quaked as she pointed to my brother and sister. “How can you not help your own brother and sister? And me! I’m your mother! How can you not take care of your mother?” She let out something between a cry and a yell and ran out abruptly.

  “It’s okay, Kyle. Kaylie.” I touched her head and she looked up at me. “It’s okay. C’mon. Get dressed. There’s a muffin for breakfast.” They shifted gears quick enough and Kaylie started helping Kyle find his clothes. I heard a loud thump that shook the entire trailer, followed by mournful sobbing.

  I walked out in the living room and she was there, lying on her back in the middle of the living room, wailing to the ceiling.

  I rolled my eyes. It was the ultimate temper tantrum. Kyle came up and hugged my leg. I looked down at him. Even he had a more stable range of emotions than this woman.

  I stepped over her, leaving her to her irrational grief and put the kids at the table. I cut the burnt bottoms off the muffins and mixed up some powdered milk.

  She still wasn’t speaking to me when I returned with the vacuum. I got busy picking up clothes and crumpled papers, empty food containers and a pile of empty soda cans while my mother wrestled with the uneven load in the washing machine down the hall. Kyle and Kaylie squealed and ran toward the couch when I fired up the vacuum, landing with a bounce and scrambling their feet underneath them. For some reason, watching me vacuum and letting out little yelps when it came near them was extremely entertaining. I smiled at the simple pleasures they enjoyed.

&n
bsp; My mother stomped through the living room then, with her nose high in the air, refusing to look at me. Her foot snagged the vacuum’s cord and yanked it out of the wall. She ignored it and began to pile up dirty dishes beside the sink as loudly as she could. I mustered every ounce of patience I had, plugged in the cord and continued to vacuum.

  Vacuuming the whole trailer didn’t take long; it was sparsely furnished to begin with. I returned the vacuum to Mrs. Beiderman and carried out three bags of garbage.

  I was turning away from the battered metal can when I noticed Jake’s father’s truck sputtering uneasily down the lane. He turned into his driveway slowly—too slowly—and I walked down to check on him.

  I was standing outside the truck door when he slid out looking dizzy and confused.

  “Are you alright Mr. Nichols?”

  He swayed, got his bearings and then found my face. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” His speech was slightly slurred.

  “My mother needs my help today. Are you sure you’re alright?”

  He nodded. “Just out gettin’ my Jake a Christmas present.” He smiled proudly and held up a CD player.

  “But Christmas isn’t for nearly three months.”

  “I know. But I’m not gonna get caught unawares. Not going to let it sneak up on me again. I’m gonna have a present for him this year.” He swayed and grabbed the frame of the truck for balance.

  “Mr. Nichols, have you been drinking?”

  His head whipped around and he stared at me with bloodshot eyes. For heaven’s sake it was barely past ten in the morning. And most likely he had started drinking when Jake left, gotten the idea to buy him a present, spending money meant for a bill in the process.

  “It’s my meds. For my knee.” He pointed to the left one. “Meds make me tired. But I’m fine.”