by Jim Kokoris
“Okay,” I said. Benjamin was pressing against me hard, his breath smelling of hot toothpaste.
“I don’t give a shit how much money your old man has. He can’t buy my mom. And your big guard can’t help you in here.” He gave me another short push and walked away.
During the first part of Reflection class, instead of praying silently for the cardinal who was sick again, I began praying for Mrs. Wilcott to relocate out-of-state. I decided that it would be best for my family, and me in particular, if they just moved away Despite my best efforts, my prayer slowly dissolved into fantasies of vengence on Benjamin. Visions of me punching Benjamin in the face, pulling down Benjamin’s pants on the playground, or insulting him in front of the St. Pius cheerleaders filled my mind.
My fantasies were interrupted when the fire alarm went off, a loud piercing sound that made me jump. Looking up from her papers, Miss Grace said, “This wasn’t scheduled,” then quickly led us outside in a single file. A few minutes later, two fire trucks pulled up in front of the school.
We waited outside for more than an hour and watched as firemen entered, then left the school, moving at first in a quick and organized fashion, then noticeably slower. Miss Grace let us sit on the ground near the end of the playground and watch them. Johnny sat next to me and prayed out loud that the school would burn to the ground.
“Is there a saint of fire?” he asked. Then he said, “Hey, that’s your brother.”
I looked toward the school doorway just as Mrs. Plank, Aunt Bess, and Tommy were walking out. Within seconds Aunt Bess and Tommy disappeared into Maurice’s car and drove off.
When we were let back into school, I was immediately summoned to Mrs. Plank’s dark, dusty office again. She was walking up and down in front of her desk, holding a pencil. I looked up briefly at the Earless Jesus, then stared at the floor. I concluded, from the way Mrs. Plank was acting, that Tommy had done something terrible.
“Teddy, your brother started a fire in the bathroom,” she said as soon as I sat down.
She shook her head, twitched her mouth, then took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “This is very, very disturbing. It’s a good thing Mr. Sean Hill decided to use the boys’ lavatory, or else there could have been some real damage. He burned his hand though. Well, a finger.”
“How did he start it?” I asked. I was amazed that Tommy could master something as intricate as matches.
“He dropped a lit matchbook into the wastebasket,” she said.
“Oh.” On second thought, I concluded that Tommy was probably capable of doing something basic like that.
Mrs. Plank looked at me so seriously that I decided to study my shoes awhile. “Teddy, we’re very concerned about Tommy. Very concerned. Have you noticed any unusual behavior at home?”
I tried not to think of Tommy sticking crayons up his nose or barking like a dog. I was afraid that Mrs. Plank, through her centuries of living, had mastered the art of mind reading. “No,” I said after some time.
Mrs. Plank frowned. “Well, we’ll talk about this when your father returns from his trip. In the meantime, Tommy should stay at home. Your aunt knows this.”
I nodded.
“Please keep an eye on him, Teddy. I know you’ve all been through so much. I heard about the baby. I can imagine how frightening that was.”
I kept my eyes on the floor.
Mrs. Plank sighed. “Well, take care of Tommy,”
“Okay,” I said, “Okay.”
After school, on the way home, Maurice didn’t mention the fire or Tommy. Instead, he talked about the weather.
“Hot in the day, cool at night,” he said. “Yes, sir, a real Indian summer. I’m going to miss the warm sunshine though. In a few weeks, it will be gone and we got a long wait until we feel it again.”
We stopped at a corner and waited for the light to change. Maurice had a green baseball cap on his head that I had never seen him wear before.
“Why do you have that hat on?” I asked.
We crossed the street. “My lucky hat,” he said. “I wear it once in a while.”
“How come you don’t always wear it?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t be my lucky hat then. It would just be another hat.”
“Why do you have it on today? You didn’t have it on this morning.”
Maurice squinted. “Oh, I like to wear it once in a while.”
“Do good things happen to you when you wear it?”
Maurice shook his head, thinking. “No, not really. But nothing bad ever seems to happen. And, the way I see it, if nothing bad happens to you, well, you’re pretty lucky. I was in Vietnam for nine months and the best thing that could ever happen to me over there was nothing. I got this hat over there, in Saigon, right before I got married.”
This revelation startled me. “Married? You’re married? You told my father. . .”
Maurice squinted his eyes again and looked straight ahead. “Well, almost got married.”
“Why didn’t you get married?”
He shook his head. “Well, she was Vietnamese and I was an eighteen-year-old boy from Chattanooga, Tennessee,” he said. He looked down at me and smiled. “Anyway, that’s a story for a longer walk than this.”
We walked in silence the rest of the way home, the leaves crunching underneath our feet. When we turned into our driveway Maurice softly said, “Tommy is a lonely little boy. We have to keep an eye on him. We got to help him where we can now. He’s too young to ask for that help. He’s trapped inside himself. We have to help him get out.”
I looked up at Maurice and saw an unfamiliar look of concern crease his face. Then he patted me on the head once, turned around and walked away.
When I got inside, I found Uncle Frank sitting on the leather couch in the living room with a glass of wine in his hand. I hadn’t seen much of him the past few days and was shocked by his appearance. He looked run over, and at the end of things. He was wearing a tight-fitting gray suit and red tie, which was unusual for him. Up until this point, his wardrobe had consisted entirely of black shirts and black pants and this sudden change to clothes with color worried me.
“What the hell happened at school today?” he asked when I walked in. His voice sounded thick and wet, slippery like a just-mopped floor.
“Tommy started a fire,” I said. I looked around the room. “Where is he?”
“Your aunt wanted to take him to the doctor. She thought maybe he was sick.” He took a long swallow of his wine. The large circles that had been forming under his eyes looked darker than ever. “She thinks he’s a pyromaniac,” he said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Someone who sets fires all the time.” He belched softly. “For the hell of it.” He took another drink.
“Oh,” I said.
Uncle Frank sunk lower into the couch and leaned his head back. He seemed to be studying the ceiling. “Teddy,” he said. “I’ve come to the conclusion that I am a phony.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t like the way his voice sounded.
“There’s nothing real about me,” he continued. “I have no center. No foundation. I am a fake. A fake person. You have a fake uncle. Everything about me is false, made-up. Look.” He reached up to his head and pulled off his black hair.
My jaw dropped. Uncle Frank was bald.
“Don’t look so shocked. It’s not like I pulled off my leg, for chrisssakes. It’s a toupee. A wig. It happens,” he said. “Cost me thirty-five hundred dollars.” He looked at the hair in his hands, then tossed it onto the coffee table. “Thirty-five hundred bucks for goddamn hair.” He sighed. “You can’t be bald in my business, though. I don’t make the rules.”
I stood in the living room, staring at what was once Uncle Frank. With his wrinkled forehead now pressing down on his eyes, he looked like a small, well-dressed ape.
“I just thought that you would like to know this,” he said after some time. He sipped some more wine. “Let me ask you something here, Tedd
y, just a quick question, real quick. Do you believe in God?”
The question didn’t surprise me. I thought that at that moment Uncle Frank was capable of doing and saying anything. “Yes,” I said. I kept looking at his barren head and was reminded of a picture of a forest after a fire.
“You do. I find that interesting, very interesting. I really do. Me, I accept the randomness of life. I could have won the lottery, I could have been born taller, with hair, good hair, permanent hair. Your mother might have hit the brake instead of the accelerator.” He stopped here and ran his hand over his face. “Hell, I shouldn’t have brought that up. I’m a goddamn insensitive idiot.” He closed his eyes. “I’m forty-nine years old and all I got to show for my life is a goddamn toupee.”
I felt sorry for my uncle for reasons I didn’t totally understand. Gone was his fierceness and energy and all that remained was a sadness I had never noticed before. For the first time, I saw my father in him.
“Can you tell Aunt Bess I’m in my room?” I finally said. I decided to leave before Uncle Frank pulled something else off his body.
I walked toward the hallway stairs. “Teddy,” Uncle Frank said. “I shouldn’t have brought up your mother. I’m sorry about that.”
I turned back to face him. “That’s okay.”
“You’re a good kid, you know that? A good kid. You’ve been graced. You’re overcoming everything. If I ever had the balls to have kids, the goddamn courage, I would have liked to have had one like you. Now I’m going to ask you a question, Teddy, and I want you to tell me the truth. Do you like me?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, you probably say that to all your drunk uncles who wear rugs.” He took another drink and finished his glass. “I remember the first time I saw you. I was back from L.A. You were about two years old when you moved in here. You looked scared. I remember telling your father not to do it, but he did it. You’re too old, I said. She’s too young. He did the right thing, though, because he got you and your brother out of the deal.”
I nodded again and kept walking. I really didn’t want to look at his head any more.
“Tommy, I mean, Teddy, one more thing. And it’s important,” he said. I stopped and turned again to face him. He was holding the toupee in his hands now, looking grave and lonely. With his eyes down and his chin trembling, I thought he might cry. “The toupee,” he said. “It’s, well, it’s our little secret, okay?”
“Okay,” I said and hurried up the stairs.
When Tommy came home from the doctor, Aunt Bess put him to bed, even though it was early. “Maybe he’ll stay there until he’s eighteen,” I heard Uncle Frank say. I went downstairs to see if Aunt Bess would give me a piece of cake. When I walked into the kitchen though, I found Uncle Frank rummaging through the cabinet next to the sink, looking for more wine. I was relieved to see that his hair was back on, snug and secure, held in place by some unseen gravitational force that must govern all toupees.
“He has a fever,” Aunt Bess said. “His forehead is hot.”
“He probably burned himself,” Uncle Frank slurred. “What happened to that bottle I bought last week? That merlot?”
“I threw it out,” Aunt Bess said.
“You what?”
“I threw it out. It’s in the garbage in the garage.”
Uncle Frank stared at her. “That’s what I thought you said.” He teetered to one side. “I think I’m going to go lie down for awhile,” he said and went down to the basement. Within seconds, I heard him snoring loud, wet snarls.
Aunt Bess stood by the basement door and listened, her head cocked like a robin’s. “He passed out,” she said. She disappeared into the basement, returning a few moments later with a disgusted look on her face. “He’s out like a light,” she said, shutting the basement door.
“Is he okay?”
“He’ll be all right.” She began taking carrots and tomatoes and celery out of the refrigerator, sighing loudly every few seconds. “This house is becoming a crazy house,” she said. “I wish your father would come back. I don’t know why he still thinks he has to work. This is ridiculous. Everything,” she said, “is ridiculous.”
Dinner was a quiet affair. Since Tommy and Uncle Frank were presumably both unconscious, it was just my aunt and me, and Aunt Bess said little. When I tried to ask if she had had any more dreams recently, she said, “I dreamt I was on The Price Is Right last night.”
“What does that mean?”
She shrugged. “Nothing. I never liked that show.” Then she went back to slurping her soup, an indulgence she allowed herself when my father wasn’t around. He once quietly had told her that people, other than himself, might find slurping soup pedestrian.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said after an especially pedestrian slurp.
“About Uncle Frank?”
“No, your brother. He needs to see a psychiatrist. He has problems. We have to nip them in the bud or else he’ll grow up deranged.”
“What’s deranged mean again?”
She began to explain but changed her mind, waving her hand at me. “It’s not good,” she said. “Just finish your soup.”
After dinner, Mrs. Wilcott called. “I just heard the news about your brother,” she said when I picked up the phone. “Is he all right?”
“He might be deranged,” I said matter-of-factly. “And that’s not good.” Aunt Bess grabbed the phone from me. “Who is this? Oh, Gloria. He’s fine. He’s sick, but he’ll be okay. He’s fine.” Then she said, “Oh my God. Why won’t they leave us alone?” She quickly hung up and turned on the television, where a newscaster was talking urgently about a school blaze. Suddenly, Mr. Sean Hill’s wild-eyed face filled the screen with the word “hero” written below his smiling head.
“He’s a crazy little character,” Mr. Sean Hill said. “Crazy as they come.”
The newscaster was interviewing a child psychologist from Wilton Memorial Hospital about “sudden wealth syndrome” and its effects on young children when the phone rang again. This time it was Mrs. Rhodebush calling to see when Tommy was being sent to a prison for young nymphomaniacs.
“You mean pyromaniacs,” Aunt Bess said. “And no he’s not.” She paused. “Yes, I know your house is made out of wood. Yes, I’m sure it’s safe. No, no one has left any more babies today. Yes, I checked.” She slammed the phone down and stomped around the kitchen like an old bull. I thought smoke might start coming out of her ears, she looked so angry.
“The nerve of some people! They think they can say anything! I wish Theo would move away from this neighborhood. It has a bad feel about it. The people here are rude!” She shook her head and let out an exasperated breath. “I’m going to go up and take a bath. Keep an eye on your brother. And your uncle. Call me if either one of them starts moving.” Then she stormed off.
A few minutes later, while I was standing at the top of the basement stairs, listening to Uncle Frank’s snores, deciding if it would be all right to use the computer that stood inches from the couch he had passed out on, the phone rang. I answered it in the front hallway. It was my father calling from Atlanta.
“Gloria just phoned me. Is your aunt there?” he asked. He was talking fast and breathing hard.
I could hear the bath water running upstairs. “She’s in the bathroom.”
“Teddy, exactly what happened with your brother?”
“He started a school blaze.” I thought the word blaze might sound less alarming to my father than fire.
“Was anyone injured? Is he all right?”
“He’s sleeping.” Then, since I was concerned that my father had forgotten his antiheart-attack pills, I said, “It was just a small blaze. Mr. Sean Hill was burned a little, but no one was killed.”
“Killed? Dear God, I hope not. Tell your aunt to call me at my hotel as soon as she is able.”
“Okay,” I said. I was about to hang up the phone when Aunt Bess screamed.
“Dear God, what was that?” my father ye
lled. Somehow, my father had been able to hear her.
I ran upstairs, two steps at a time, the cordless phone at my side. When I got inside the bathroom, I found Tommy standing by the sink, innocently drinking a glass of water. Aunt Bess was sitting in the half-full bathtub. She was trying to cover herself with her arms, but I could still see her big wrinkled breasts, sagging and hanging low like popped balloons. She kept screaming.
“Privacy, please! My God, I’m taking a bath!”
“What is going on there?” my father asked again, his voice tiny and loud.
“Aunt Bess is screaming because Tommy is drinking some water.”
“Why is your aunt screaming then?”
“I’m naked!” Aunt Bess screamed. She struggled with one arm to pull the shower curtain. Tommy wandered out, his eyes half closed.
“Because she’s naked.” I had to yell this to be heard over Aunt Bess’s screaming.
“Dear God, Teddy, you are being vague. Is your uncle at home?”
“He’s in the basement. But he’s passed out.”
“What?”
“Out like a light,” I shouted.
My father hung up and within seconds it seemed, Mrs. Wilcott and Benjamin were at our front door. Benjamin was holding a pie.
“Your father called me and asked that I come over to help settle things down,” she said. She looked worried and expectant as she walked inside, stepping carefully as if a wrong move might trigger some type of explosion. “Everything seems to be quiet now,” she said, though she still looked worried.
“Can I go then?” Benjamin asked.
“Why don’t you stay and visit with the boys?” Mrs. Wilcott asked. She kept looking around the front hallway, waiting for Tommy, I was sure, to emerge from behind the drapes, holding a flamethrower.
A few moments later, Aunt Bess came downstairs, wearing an old white bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a towel. Underneath the robe I saw a “Save the Cap” T-shirt, extra large.
“Hello,” she said, then she took a deep breath and looked at the pie that Mrs. Wilcott silently extended to her. Aunt Bess met Mrs. Wilcott’s eyes. then looked down at the pie, then back up to Mrs. Wilcott. “Why not,” she finally said, resigned. She accepted the pie and headed toward the kitchen. “Follow me,” she said.