“Chris would have waited for me for that.”
“ ’Cause you’re strong?”
“As an ox.” He flexed his muscles, then said, “You look tired. Let’s take a break.”
We sat on the couch and looked around. It wasn’t quite the Huxtable abode but we were making progress.
“My giant Wish Book of a home,” I said.
“So that’s why you freaked out.”
“So much useless stuff.”
I went to the window. “My dad left right before Christmas. He left all his stuff behind.”
“They’ll be back, Nishim.”
“I hope so.”
“Come here,” he said. “Let’s braid that hair before we get back to work.”
I kept my ear out for the sound of gravel popping under the car wheels but it never came.
By lunchtime, Busker Boy’s forehead was covered in wrinkles.
“They left, didn’t they?” I said.
“No,” he said. “They didn’t.”
“Then why do you look so worried?”
I moved over to his food pile. “Did you kill the landlord?”
“I don’t think so. But I hurt him bad.”
“He hurt me.”
“I know.”
I picked a tin of beans off the floor, ran my thumb across an indent near the rim. “Am I damaged goods? He said I was.”
He took the tin out of my hand and said, “We’re all damaged, in a way. But it’s nothing that can’t be fixed. You just have to kick out the dents from the inside.”
—
It was almost two when we heard the popping sounds. We waited by the front door like TV parents waiting for their late teenagers. When Chris walked in with a basket full of neatly folded clothes, I was going to say, And what time do you call this? but Busker Boy lunged at him and pinned him to the wall. Laundry tumbled to the floor.
Chris said, “What’s your problem?” and Busker Boy said, “You just had to go to the Laundromat, didn’t you?” and I said, “Who wants to have a siesta?” and Busker Boy said, “I can’t believe you’d put us at risk like that,” and Chris said, “Let me explain,” and Busker Boy said, “Explain what? That your pansy ass can only sleep on pristine bedding?” and my heart felt tight like someone was squeezing it, and then Big Eyes came in with a load of groceries and said, “What the hell? Let go of him right now!” so Busker Boy did, with a shove. Then he said something that sucked the breath right out of us. “Stupid faggot.”
Hypoxia. That’s what it’s called when you’re low on oxygen. Within minutes you can be brain damaged.
When everyone got their breath back Big Eyes said, “That was uncalled for,” and Busker Boy said, “I am so sorry,” and everyone’s chests were going up and down, and I thought, Good, breathe in that oxygen, people. But then I looked in Chris’s eyes and saw the biggest pang I’d ever seen, so I held my breath on purpose, hoping the lack of oxygen would go straight to my hippocampus and destroy my memory.
Chris pushed past us and ran upstairs.
“Chris called his father today,” said Big Eyes. “We told him everything. He said he’d ask around, find out what’s going on with the landlord. He was the one who did the laundry. And the groceries. We stayed in the car.”
Busker Boy knelt down, stared at the bedding strewn across the floor. “I should have trusted him.”
“Yeah,” she said, as she walked out the door, “you should have.”
I sat next to the laundry basket, brought a comforter to my nose. “This smells real good.”
I put it in his face. “Smell.”
“Bun—”
“Smell it.”
“I’m not really in the mood—”
“Smell the damn blanket!”
Busker Boy looked up. “I’m sorry, Nishim.”
I hugged the comforter to my chest. “It’s not me you should be apologizing to.”
“You know I didn’t mean it.”
I looked him right in the eyes. “I know that. With all my heart.”
He gently tugged the comforter from my arms, brought it to his nose and smelled it. “This does smell good.”
I nodded to the sunny spot on the living room floor. “You can fix this, you know.”
He smiled. “It won’t be that easy.”
I gathered some sheets and blankets, pushed them into his hands. “Will you try? Please? I’ll go get Chris.”
I found him in his room.
I said, “You look like Rudolph.”
He wiped his eyes. “My damn nose always gives it away.”
I said, “He didn’t mean it.”
“I know.”
“He’s scared. If he gets put in jail, he’d miss us.”
Chris’s voice went soft. “I’d miss him too.”
I held out my hand. “Will you come to the living room? He wants to make it up to you.”
When we got downstairs they stared at each other till Busker Boy said, “I was angry and I wanted to hurt you,” and Chris said, “Mission accomplished, look at the state of my face,” and Busker Boy said, “There’s no excuse for what I said,” and Chris said, “It’s not like I haven’t heard it before,” and Busker Boy said, “You should never have to hear those words, especially from people who love you,” and Chris raised an eyebrow and said, “You love me?” and Busker Boy pointed to the floor. “Enough to make you a communal hippie siesta space.”
When I was a kid and the snow was melting, I’d open the windows, and the breeze would come in all fresh and clean. That’s what our siesta smelled like. Big Eyes said she had work to do, so it was just the three of us, and Chris said we were a hunk sandwich ’cause Busker Boy was in the middle, and I thought, Wow, Busker Boy was right, forgiveness really does heal. The sun beat in from the window and we basked in it. Chris said, “My dad was amazing today. I couldn’t wait to get home and tell you,” and Busker Boy said, “You’re a good friend, Chris,” and just as I was drifting off I heard Chris say, “You should be thankful my pansy ass likes clean bedding. These blankets smell friggin’ amazing,” and I thought, Like spring.
We slept soundly, toasty and warm, and when I woke I was happy ’cause Dragon Man never came. I figured he was like a vampire and I wondered if there was a way to lure him to my next siesta so that the daylight would destroy him.
—
Big Eyes called us into the kitchen.
“I found something while you were sleeping.”
She laid some photos out on the table.
“They were in a shoebox, in the cupboard over the fridge.”
In every picture a little girl posed on various pieces of furniture. The sofa and chairs were a mixture of upholstery and wood that stood grandly on legs that were curvy and carved. Each piece was set neatly around a large rug. Cabinets with glass doors lined the walls and on their shelves were vases and glasses and porcelain statues. It didn’t look cluttered, though, and I bet if I dove in the picture I wouldn’t see a speck of dust.
“Looks like a dollhouse,” said Chris.
“Yeah,” I said. “And that kid’s the doll.”
Chris laughed. “A sad, creepy one.”
“I think that kid might be your mother,” said Busker Boy.
My mother? In frills?
“She looks like a prop,” said Big Eyes.
I stared at the unsmiling girl with the fixed eyes. “She looks like a ghost.”
Chris fanned the photos out on the table. “This is fascinating. A young girl grows up in a pristine house, where everything is breakable, untouchable, held behind glass. Tormented by the sterile conditions she rebels, turning her house into a hoarder hell.”
Busker Boy rolled his eyes.
“Do people burn themselves ’cause they were tormented by sterile conditions?” I asked.
They had wrinkles on their foreheads so I explained.
“She’d sit in the corner with a clothes iron plugged in next to her and she’d hold her hand against it to see
how long she could last. It was like a game. I thought it was weird. I mean, why would you hurt yourself like that?”
They looked at each other and then Big Eyes said, “But, Bun, you did that exact same thing. With my curling iron.”
“Yeah, that was weird, wasn’t it? I don’t know why I did that.”
They were quiet for a minute and then Chris said, “Did she ever hurt you?”
“No. But she’d pretend to. Like, once I told her that the daily caloric intake of an average woman should be two thousand calories ’cause I’d read it in a magazine article called ‘What Every Woman Should Know,’ and she raised her hand like she was going to smack me. But it was good in a way ’cause otherwise how would I know I’d said anything wrong?”
Busker Boy stood up.
“Don’t go,” I said. “It’s no big deal. Mostly she ignored me.”
He paused, then kept on walking.
—
I stared at her garbage bag nest till I saw her.
I said, “Why do you hate me?”
Chris appeared behind me. “Who you talking to, Bun?”
“My mother.”
He put his hands on my shoulders.
“Is that where she’d sit?”
“Yes.”
He took my hand and brought me closer. We knelt near the indent.
“I sat here once. When she was out. I ate one of her doughnuts and shouted, ‘Bring me a Pepsi, retard.’ I didn’t know she’d come home until she was halfway across the room. She said, ‘Get out of my sight,’ and when I didn’t move fast enough she yanked me up and gave me a shove. I fell on a sink and bruised my ribs.”
Chris got a pang, I could tell.
“Don’t worry. I was a ghost. Ghosts don’t feel much.”
“Bun…”
“Yeah?”
“I think you’re in denial.”
“About what?”
“You weren’t a ghost. You were a human being, with feelings. You’ve been traumatized.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Children are supposed to be loved, nurtured…”
“Mr. Rogers told me I was special every day.”
“You can’t get love from a television character.”
“He sang a song, about how much he liked me, every part of me.”
“Bun, it’s not the same.”
I pulled my hand away. “Why are you trying to make me feel bad?”
“I’m trying to help you. You need to come to terms with what’s happened.”
“Nothing’s happened.”
“Then why are you talking to a ghost?”
She was still there, giving me that look. It was the same look the rotten bad people gave Busker Boy that day.
I guess my mother was rotten bad too.
I reached out, poked a hole in a plastic bag with my finger. The material underneath was rough. Like denim. I scratched it with my nail.
“I looked up the word retard once. It means ‘to slow down the development of something.’ I figured she was making fun of me, ’cause I was small. But then, I saw an episode of The Facts of Life where Blair was tutoring a boy who wasn’t very smart. They called him retarded and I thought, Am I retarded, too? My Merck Manual said people with mental retardation have sub-average intellectual functioning. I thought, If I have sub-average intellectual functioning would I be reading the Merck Manual? Probably not. So I figured I wasn’t retarded. My mother was just mean.”
Chris took my hand away from the garbage bag. “Come here, Bun.”
Chris had blue eyes and a tiny scar on the side of his nose. He told me once he got his eyes from his mother and the scar from falling off his bike when he was seven. I knew lots of things about Chris.
He pulled me to standing and we moved to the couch.
I said, “Were the garbage bags making your skin crawl?”
He laughed. “You know me well.”
All I knew about my mother was that she liked powdered doughnuts and Elvis.
“I thought my dad left ’cause of the junk. But maybe he left ’cause of me. ’Cause I’m different. Maybe that’s why she hated me.”
Chris pulled me in close.
“Bun?”
“Yeah?”
His voice was a whisper as he sang.
“It’s you I like…”
He sang it all, word for word.
Mr. Rogers was great.
But being nurtured by a real, live person was way better.
—
I thought I’d like to remember my mother as a hummingbird but in my dream she was a hippo with tiny wings that kept flying around my head, buzzing and buzzing and driving me mad. Dragon Man was back too, as a snake with a cigarette in its mouth that moved from the right to the left and back again. I woke up shivering and shook Busker Boy’s shoulder, and I felt bad ’cause he was sound asleep, but I needed to tell him about the thought I’d been having, sometimes, not all the time, just at night in the dark, so I shook him, not roughly but gently, and hoped he would wake.
“What is it?”
“I want to talk about Wolverine.”
He turned on the flashlight. “Back to bed. I’ll come over.”
I climbed back under the covers and made room for him to sit.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m listening.”
“I went to the drum dance ’cause I’m a stupid, gullible bird.”
“You went to the drum dance because I let you down.”
“You told me not to and I went anyway.”
“What is done is done. There is no looking back, only forward.”
“Sometimes I wish Wolverine had twisted my neck.”
He was quiet. “It pains me to hear you say that.”
“Sometimes I wonder what it’d be like, to be Chef living a happy life somewhere with no bad memories. I figure, if I wasn’t here it wouldn’t hurt.”
“If you weren’t here, I would hurt.”
“I’d come back as a kitten and I’d live with you.”
He smiled. “I don’t want a kitten.”
“They’re not much trouble.”
He looked at me in his thoughtful way. “Do you know what Nishim means?”
I shook my head.
“Little sister.”
Not having layers was hard.
He caught a tear with his thumb. “Close your eyes now and get some sleep.”
I missed the crop-topped girl with the rainbow eyes, so when I found my mother’s People magazine, the one with Princess Diana on the front, I carefully pulled out the Duran Duran article and gave it to her.
“Maybe you can hang it in your room,” I said.
She barely looked up from her VHS pile.
“Thanks.”
I said, “Are you mad at me?”
“No. Why would I be?”
“You haven’t asked to do my hair or anything.”
“It’s not you, Bun.”
“Then what is it?”
“If you tell her,” said Busker Boy, “it might help.”
“Tell me what?” I asked.
Big Eyes looked at Busker Boy. “I’m not sure.”
“Go on,” said Chris. “It’ll be good for both of you. Go upstairs and have a chat.”
As Big Eyes passed Chris he grabbed her hand and I thought, Wow, who needs words? ’cause they had a silent conversation of small smiles and encouraging nods, and it was beautiful even without knowing what it was all about.
She fluffed the pillows at the top of the bed and patted the spot next to her.
“Did the landlord hurt you too?” I asked.
“Not the landlord. Somebody else.”
“Who?”
“My uncle.”
“Did you tell him to bleep off?”
“I didn’t know how to fake swear when I was five.”
“You were five?”
“And six. And seven. And eight. He didn’t stop until I was eleven.”
I wondered if she ever wanted to be
a spirit, like Chef.
“What made him stop?” I asked.
“I told. My mother called me a liar and told me to ask for God’s forgiveness. But at least he kept his distance from then on.”
“Every cloud.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been out of sorts,” she said. “It’s just, what happened with the landlord brought it all back, you know? My head’s been all over the place.”
“Claire Huxtable would’ve kicked your uncle’s ass.”
“Who?”
“You know, the mother from The Cosby Show. TV moms are way better than real moms.”
She laughed. “Oh, Bun, I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too.”
She put her arm around me and pulled me in close.
“If I had any inkling about the landlord, I would’ve warned you. I thought the guy was a pimp, not a pedophile.”
I pictured the word pedophile in my head. In Britain, it has an a in it. Between the p and the e. I wasn’t sure that Big Eyes would find this fact interesting so I didn’t share it. Plus, she was running her fingers through my hair and I didn’t want to ruin the moment.
“I didn’t know the landlord was a pimp,” I said. “He doesn’t look like the ones on TV. They wear fedoras and platform shoes. I’m not surprised though. He’s a rotten person.”
“He’s a lot of things,” she said. “The bleepin’ bastard.”
I smiled ’cause I hadn’t heard bleepin’ in ages, but then I covered my mouth ’cause smiling during a pimp and pedophile discussion seemed inappropriate.
“Did you think what happened with your uncle was your fault?” I asked.
“I did for a while. Especially with my mother bringing me to church all the time to repent my sins. I always wondered if what happened with my uncle was one of them. And when she wanted me to be a nun, I wondered if deep down she believed the stuff about my uncle and thought the convent was the best place for me. But as I got older, I was able to see that I had no control over what happened. And neither did you.”
“I don’t want to go back to St. John’s. I’m scared to see the landlord.”
“He’d be a fool to touch you again, after the beating he got.”
“Did you ever see your uncle again?”
“He came into the candy shop last year. Bought a bag of malted milk balls. Waltzed up to the counter, as if nothing ever happened and said, How ya doin’?”
The Agony of Bun O'Keefe Page 12