by Liz Murray
It was a man Ma was seeing.
“Oh Jeanie, don’t let go of a man who makes you feel good. I wouldn’t. Men with careers are so much more mature.” Leonard whispered the next part: “Go for it, Jean. You deserve better.”
I could have thrown Leonard out of the house with my hands. There he was, one minute smiling in Daddy’s face and the next, telling Ma to go for another man. He was as two-faced as he was mean. Listening to them continue, it took me a while to fully grasp what had been going on, but I soon understood that Ma had been seeing this man for a while. I eavesdropped, hearing her describe the money he spent on her, their lovemaking, and how much she liked the fact that he didn’t use drugs at all, he just drank to ease his nerves sometimes. The descriptions became more fleshed-out as I stood there, each detail bringing Brick closer to being a real person, all the while threatening Daddy, and the foundation of our family.
Brick made a good living, with benefits, working as a security guard at a fancy art gallery in Manhattan. Ma boasted that he had been in the navy. In a neighborhood much nicer than ours, Brick had his own, large, one-bedroom apartment and was single. And apparently, I was not the only one spending nights far from home. I got the sense this must mean that Daddy knew.
My eyes made a full sweep of the apartment. In my absence, the house had gone from bad to awful. Everywhere, there were signs of deterioration: busted lights, empty beer bottles, and cigarette butts littered the carpet, more so than ever before. Moistness hung in the air. The grime had an airborne weight that you could feel as you breathed. With Leonard there as Ma’s new shoulder to lean on, with his money, my parents were getting high two and a half weeks out of the month, nonstop. Guilt struck me for all of my drifting; I’d abandoned my role in the apartment and in doing so, I’d let things fall apart.
Daddy came in through the front door, whistling. Ma and Leonard got quiet. I opened and shut my own door, coughed, took a step out into the living room. Ma walked through the room and went to remove her worn-out leather belt from a doorknob to use for an arm tie. “Just a second, Petie,” she called over her shoulder. Daddy was counting off change for a twenty to Leonard.
I opened my mouth, intending to say something to her, but shut it quickly when I realized I had no idea what. The beginning credits to The Honeymooners filled the TV screen, the theme music crackling. In no way did Ma’s gestures suggest that she knew I was in the room. I coughed, loudly. She glanced at me, for just a moment. “Petie, I’m getting first,” she said, marching back in with the belt.
Something had stolen away the affection between Ma and me and reduced our interactions to casual, distant ones. Since her diagnosis two years ago, our dynamic hadn’t been the same. I never discussed with anyone what Ma told me that night. Most times I told myself I might have dreamed it; I figured she never told Lisa because otherwise, I was sure she would have said something. It felt as if Ma and I shared a dirty secret, and this seemed to make her afraid of me. The distance she kept told me so. We hardly knew what to say to each other anymore, maybe because so much went unspoken.
Daddy got Ma high first. I could hear her begin to sniffle. Leonard Mohn was next. Daddy took his high to the bathroom, away from them, as he often did. I stood up to go meet Rick just as Leonard began wailing through his high again.
Telling me about her HIV had made me part of the landscape of painful things Ma shot up to escape. I was as certain of this as I was heartbroken by her abandonment. And when I was being honest with myself, despite tremendous efforts not to admit it, the knowledge of her disease made me want to avoid her, too. Being in Ma’s presence was being near the disease, near the knowledge that I was fast losing my mother—information that was just too painful to feel.
I slipped on my backpack, passing the kitchen. Leonard whined from inside, shouting, “Oh, God, Jeanie, my heart is beating so fast. Hold my hand.”
Seeing her clasp his hand sent an ache deep through me. I left quickly, just in time, I was sure, to avoid hearing that same, awful conversation again.
It was a weekday, less than one month later, when I met Brick. Ma let me cut school and brought me down to the art gallery where he worked so that the three of us could eat lunch together, his treat. As we exited the train on Twenty-third street, Ma began fidgeting and appearing obviously uneasy.
“Lizzy, do I look all right? You think this sweater is nice?” She wore a fuzzy pink V-neck sweater and hip-huggers, and she hadn’t had a drink or shot up all day. Her long, curly hair was pinned back neatly. It was the first time in years I’d seen her out of her T-shirts and filthy jeans.
“Yeah, Ma, you look real nice. Don’t worry. Why are you worried whether or not he thinks you’re pretty? Who really cares what he thinks,” I said.
“I do, pumpkin. I like him.”
The words, in their directness, shocked me. It had been a while since Ma and I had been straight with each other; it felt like she was testing it out on me.
“Your ma likes somebody. I haven’t had a crush in years.” She smiled nervously, discarding Daddy altogether.
I knew it was more than Brick making her nervous; it was me, too. After Lisa left for school and Daddy went downtown, it had taken me at least half the morning to convince Ma to let me join her. For the first time in a while, it was just the two of us—even if only for the time until we met up with him and right after, it was just us. I knew she felt awkward because so did I. And though I found myself snapping at Ma, I longed for her to hold my hand, to talk to me, to walk me through this experience. I wanted her to want my opinion, to ask how this whole thing made me feel. But instead, all the way over she’d spoken only about him; of how he was career-oriented, stable, a real family man. I kept quiet and worked out a half plan in my mind: I would check Brick out, and by my disapproving response, Ma would see his flaws, see the flaws in her thinking, too. Our family would be saved.
While we walked, Ma’s descriptions of the gallery seemed full of awe and admiration, as though its professional status were somehow a testament to Brick’s stability. We crossed the street toward a narrow and very tall building, the levels of which were divided floor-to-ceiling by large windows, through which I could already see paintings and sculptures. Ma rushed me in through the side door, an employees’ entrance leading to the gallery’s coat check, where Brick worked, nine to five, alternating between hanging people’s overcoats and standing watch over art.
“Everyone has to get a ticket if they wanna walk around inside the gallery during a show, Lizzy. Normally, you have to pay for ’em, but don’t worry, Brick will get us those for free.” She spoke with pride. I found that the more familiarity she expressed with him, the more of a stranger she felt to me. It made me regret spending so much time being distant. I panicked at the thought that she’d found something more exciting than us. She’d never talked so much about me or Lisa, or expressed pride over how hard I worked. As I watched Ma expertly navigate her way through the employee area and confidently maneuver a path to his post, I was suddenly aware of the numerous private visits she’d been making to the gallery. I felt somehow betrayed.
Brick was a bald, stout chain smoker who said very little, but nodded in agreement to most of what Ma had to say. He wanted her; I could tell by the way he stared openly, shamelessly, at her face, her body. I didn’t trust him. I was suspicious of strange men who bought you things; I assumed they were out for something, like Ron.
We ate together at a nearby diner, down the block. I was allowed to pick whatever I wanted from the selection of soups. With my complimentary gallery ticket stub set on the table in front of me, I ran my spoon in circles through my cream of mushroom soup and watched them flirt. Brick slid his hand over Ma’s at the lunch table, right there, rubbing it while she talked, in front of me. His nails were deep yellow, chewed to the quick. Even his fingers looked a bit gnarled at the tips, as though he chewed those as well.
She stared into his eyes while she spoke, not breaking away for a moment. I hadn’t
known Ma was capable of such a long attention span.
“I told Lizzy about how big your apartment is, how you get lonely living there by yourself,” she said.
He gave her a confused smile and said in his five-packs-a-day voice, “Jean, I’m okay.”
She slapped his shoulder playfully. “Oh, I know you get lonely, Brick. He tells me he does, Lizzy,” she said, looking back at me for a moment. “You get lonely, Brick, you told me so.” Her laugh was nervous.
When we initially entered the gallery, headed for coat check, I had mistaken a younger man for Brick, a mildly handsome, dark-haired man standing beside him, until Ma approached Brick and threw her arms around his thick neck. He’d been stuffing a tip in his pocket when we arrived. Over Ma’s shoulder, as they hugged, he’d given me a small “Shhh,” with a wink and a smile that revealed a damaged set of yellowish teeth, as he pointed above to a tiny, silver sign that read: NO TIPPING, PLEASE. Ma couldn’t stop smiling and holding on to him, while I’d stood there, waiting, shifting my weight from foot to foot.
Before we could go to lunch, I was instructed, because of my sharp vision, to be lookout while Brick snuck us to a deserted area and pulled a large bottle of beer out from under a trash bag in a black wastebasket, quietly, secretly. While he went to the men’s room to drink it down in a locked stall, Ma assured me, “He just has a few every now and then to calm his nerves. You know, working a full-time job has got to be real stressful.”
Watching them at the diner table, it was difficult to stomach their physical contact. Seeing Ma slide her hand playfully over Brick’s thick, uniformed thigh, I realized that in my whole life I’d seen my parents kiss only twice, a brief peck both times. Now her roaming hands over Brick’s thick body seemed not only a violation to Daddy, but of who Ma was. The difference made me lonely. I almost reeled in my seat when she continued discussing Brick’s extra living space. I couldn’t help interrupting. “Can we go now, Ma? Please?”
When the full hour was up, we walked Brick back to the gallery, where Ma kissed him affectionately. Then she and I circled the floors together for a long time after. I refused to look at her, but kept my eyes trained on the walls as we walked. She kept trying to talk to me, but I pretended not to hear. When we made it to a section that a nearby employee called “contemporary art,” which was only splashes of paint or solitary shapes on stark white canvases, Ma was up to the part about how wonderful Brick was, if I’d only get to know him, for the third time.
I continued to pretend not to listen as we moved along from the first floor to the second, until finally, when we entered an area dedicated to an artist’s re-creation of historical Egyptian artifacts, I cut her short.
“Ma, I’m sorry, but I don’t really want to get to know him. I’m fine with not knowing him.” I kept my back to her and let my eyes trace the details carved onto a contemporary version of a mummy. “I know he’s your friend, but maybe you shouldn’t spend so much time with him. Okay?” She took to silence, a moment passed, and she asked a stranger for the time. We walked into a clay rendering of a small tomb, the ceiling and four walls covered in pink hieroglyphics turned orange by track lighting.
“He gets off work soon, maybe we can all take the train together,” she suggested, standing so that she blocked the entrance of the tiny enclosure.
“This is nice, right, Ma?” I asked, scanning hieroglyphics inscribed in clay for several rows in front of me. “We had a worksheet translating some of these in school once. Maybe I can remember a few. You know, some of them are spells to scare off grave robbers. Creepy, huh?”
“Look, Lizzy, I’ve been thinking about getting off of drugs . . . I am, I’m going to get off drugs.”
“I know Ma . . . ,” I said gently, hoping not to discount her. “Any way I can help, you know I would.”
“You mean that, pumpkin? Because this time it could be for real. I just need to be somewhere where there are no drugs. Ya know?” she asked, crouching down to the floor where I sat crossed-legged, pretending not to know what she was getting at. Her face was clean and her eyes were wide and aware. It occurred to me then that she actually hadn’t shot up in almost a week, even if she had been at the bar several nights consecutively, drinking White Russians, her new favorite. I wondered if maybe she was serious this time.
“If you don’t want drugs around you, then don’t bring them into the house,” I said, turning my head away from her again. “It’s simple, if you really want that.”
“But your father will bring ’em into the house, Lizzy. He’ll keep using, and then I won’t be able to keep from using too. I can’t see that stuff in front of me and not do it, no way. Not a chance.” No response came to mind, whatsoever. I knew she was right, and I couldn’t remember ever hearing Daddy say a thing about stopping. I began feeling claustrophobic within the small space. Speechless, I ran my hand over the Plexiglas that protected the delicate art, tracing my fingertip to a stiffly drawn, armored soldier who looked out bravely into nothing in particular.
“I don’t want to move, Ma. I don’t want to leave Daddy,” was all I could think to say.
“I’m not just going to go, Lizzy. I’ll give your father a chance. Maybe he’ll stop using too, and then we won’t have to go anywhere.”
Her hand appeared on my shoulder. “You know, Lizzy, I’m not always going to be here. I’m not well, baby, you know that. I need to stop living like this. I want to be around to watch my girls grow up. So . . . some things have gotta change.”
Tears gathered in my eyes, fell from my cheeks. I finally turned to face her. Ma let herself fall on her butt with a thump. Sitting on the floor across from me, she took my hands in hers and squeezed them tightly; her touch was warm and reassuring. The rare thrill of Ma being totally present to my needs was something I wanted badly to last.
“Yeah Ma, maybe Daddy will stop using,” I said.
“He just might, Lizzy.”
We sat in silence for a moment, both knowing full well that neither of us believed he would.
I didn’t expect to graduate sixth grade and go on to junior high school, given all of my absences, but somehow I did. Apparently some of my classmates shared my surprise, because the day that they saw me receiving a diploma alongside them, comments flew. “They passed you, Elizabeth?” Christina Mercado had commented, turning to her friends. “Damn, wonder why we even bothered to show up if they were just givin’ these things away. Know what I mean, girls?” For years, each time I sat down near Christina or any of her friends, they collectively fanned papers in front of themselves and coughed excessively, to draw attention to my dirty clothing and obvious need for a shower. Or they’d hiss at me in the halls and sketch pictures in which bugs infested my hair and waves of bad smells rose from my body. As I sat in the auditorium, sweating in my shiny graduation gown, and the principal called each student’s name, they laughed at one of the last comments Christina would ever make at my expense. I was glad Ma, Daddy, and Lisa weren’t there to witness it.
While I accepted my diploma, Ma lay flat on her back in bed, recovering from a night of White Russians. Daddy was off on one of his private excursions downtown, one of his infamous outings that used to irritate Ma, back when she cared what he did. After the service ended and parents were snapping pictures of their children with their teachers and friends, I left quietly through the side door. In the hallway of my building, I removed my cap and gown before entering my apartment so that Ma wouldn’t feel bad for missing the ceremony. When Ma woke up later that evening, apologizing for not showing up, I assured her, “It was so boring, Ma, you would have hated it. I was glad to get out of there. I wish I could have stayed in and slept, but I didn’t want to make my teachers feel bad, ya know?”
It seemed like no time at all between my graduation and the day that Ma stood over my bed wearing a form-fitting T-shirt, her hair combed back neatly, asking again and again for me to come with her to Brick’s apartment.
“Pumpkin, I gave it my best shot,” she sa
id. “Please, baby, come with me.”
But I clutched my pillow and did not budge from my bed. “I’m not going, and you shouldn’t either! We’re a family, Ma. You can’t leave!” I shouted. “Please, Ma, stay here,” I begged her, crying. “Stay home, stay here with me, please.” I didn’t stop pleading; I even shouted at her from my bedroom window until she and Lisa got into the cab. I couldn’t remember ever being so honest about something I wanted before, and still it had no effect on her. It seemed Lisa had been as ready to go as Ma was, because she placed two pillowcases full of clothing in the trunk, stuffed so full that they told me she had no intention of coming back. Before pulling away, Ma rolled down the taxi window.
“I’ll be waiting for you, pumpkin!” she shouted. “Whenever you want to come, you can.” And with that, the cab drove off, and they were gone.
Throughout those first few months that Daddy and I spent alone in the apartment, I busied myself with upkeep. Using ripped-up old T-shirts and scalding hot water, I wiped down the tabletops of the living room and kitchen. I cleaned the dishes and took out the trash. Each night, when our favorite shows aired, I went over to our black-and-white television and snapped it on, turning the volume up. Whenever it got dark outside, I flipped on the lights in every room of our three-bedroom apartment, and I turned on Lisa’s abandoned radio (too large for her to take with her) so that it spun pop music into her empty room. The noise and light imitated a full household in my mother’s and sister’s absence.
Daddy never said he was sad that they left. He never complained. Though he was quieter than usual those days, even for him. When he wasn’t getting high, Daddy slept throughout the day with the curtains drawn and the lights off in his room. Most of the time when he was awake, he wore his loneliness on him like an old jacket. I could see it in the hunch of his shoulders, and in the way he avoided any mention of their names.
Sometimes when Daddy left for downtown, the moment he vanished over the bend of University Avenue, I opened a drawer that held a few pieces of Ma’s old clothing and selected an item to wear around the apartment. Mostly, I enjoyed sitting in Ma’s rose-colored robe—which dragged on the ground wherever I walked—and eating bowls of cornflakes while watching The Price Is Right. I was sure she’d return any day to join me, sorry for her absence, ready with assurances that she would never leave us again. Wearing her clothing was my way of summoning her, just for the meantime.