Right by My Side

by David Haynes

  “Get some ice,” Artie orders, “the sandwiches are almost done.”

  “Any luck on the phone?” Betty wants to know.

  Artie shrugs in a way to let me know that Betty already knows everything. Which she would anyway since she’s almost always home, and Artie tells her absolutely everything, and anything else he can think of as well. That boy and his big mouth.

  Betty knows everyone’s business anyway. She doesn’t work, except occasionally relieving her mother at the store. This house is widely believed to be Miss Ida’s, and it sits in such a way so that out its front window you can keep up with everyone in Washington Park. That’s how Betty spends most of her time.

  I tell Betty that the phone was a bust.

  “Poor Rose. She always wanted more.” Betty absent-mindedly irons some Barbie doll socks.

  “Who? More what?” I demand. I’m sure you can’t be talking about my mother.” Even I am surprised by my sudden burst of family loyalty.

  “Cool, blood. Remember I be knowin her longer than you. We all come up together, albeit she is just that much older than me.” Betty Lou makes this last crack real sassy, as if anyone cared about her age or Rose’s either. She puts the ironing away and takes over the lunch serving from us boys. Artie resumes his role as lord of the manor, placing himself at the head of the table—Christ, she even serves him first.

  With no encouragement from me, Betty goes on:

  “Your mom: they broke the mold when they made that girl. Let me tell you.”

  And she did, but first she pops open and sets in front of each of us a cold beer. You have to love Betty. Miss Ida, Big Sam, and every P.W.T. in Todd’s family would have a stroke if they saw us now, sucking on cool ones. Does Betty care? Hell no. She’d tell them where to stick it and how far up, too.

  So, there we sit with our Bud Lights, Betty just going on:

  “Rose had what you call aspirations. I bet she couldn’t quite say what it was she wanted. Money. Fame. Whatever.” Betty is alternating drags on her Kool with bites of the ham and cheese sandwhich.

  “You boys got everything you need?” she asks, but she’s asking this of Artie, and if he’d asked for a cherry pie, she’d have been up right then baking one.

  “She met your daddy—and let me tell you right here and now that this was one fine looking nigger back then—oohwee and with a good living and a house too?”

  Here she’s talking and I’m wishing she’s not. How am I supposed to be hearing this? Are these two strangers she’s talking about here? Or characters on that “All My Children” show she watches like it was God’s truth? This is Sam and Rose.

  Todd who has sat there staring at Betty Lou without saying a word, is completely caught up by her tale. His freckled head is tilted to the side and he’s got this look on his face—the look you get when you expect someone’s about to tell you a dirty joke. I get the idea maybe that P.W.T don’t carry on like this at lunch, though who knows what goes on down there. I only went down there once, and there wasn’t too much talking when I was there. Betty Lou’s thrilled to have such an interested audience and may never stop. I shoot Artie a nasty look.

  “Cissy, do you think I could have some of mom’s corn relish?” he says by way of saving me.

  Corn relish. Jesus, who eats corn relish. It half works, though, since Betty gets up to serve him. She comes back and keeps on with her story.

  “Yes, yes, yes. One fine nigger indeed.” She plops a little ice cream dish with a clump of yellow mess in front of each of us. “And, despite whatever else she might have wanted, she set her mind to getting Big Sam Finney. Even with his being five years older and what have you. You know what I’m saying?” Betty Lou smirks at her own question.

  I’m sitting across the table from Todd who, sensing I’m just about to go off, shakes his head ever so slightly to distract me. Artie nervously eats all three bowls of corn relish. Betty forges ahead, so wrapped up in her tale is she.

  “Now I’m going to tell you something you don’t know.”

  “Please, don’t,” I say flatly, and under the table I feel Todd kick me. Betty Lou doesn’t hear me anyway.

  “For many years now Mr. Sam Finney has had to keep that girl’s reins pulled in tight. And, I know for a fact that at least once she has packed up and been on her way. To God knows where.”

  “That’s a goddamn lie,” I say. I know full well it might not be.

  “I beg your pardon,” says Betty, finally stopped. Her face freezes somewhere between confusion and indignation.

  “That’s not how you speak to my family, mister.” Artie tries to puff out his little chest. Todd whispers that he thinks it’s time to leave for the movies. Betty Lou rises behind Artie and pets him as if she were soothing a mad dog. A distracted look comes over her—like a person who’d forgotten why she’d gone to the store or something.

  I’ll call around,” she says sweetly. “I know some folks Rose knows. Maybe I can find something out for you.”

  I don’t say anything.

  Todd—quite unlike himself with politeness and words—smothers Betty with thanks for all her hospitality and guides us to the door.

  “Uh, Marshall,” Betty says. She says “Marshall” like she’s forgotten that was my name.

  I glare at her.

  “It’s just that, you might’ve seen this coming, no?”

  I walk away from her toward the bus stop up by the store.

  *

  We sit in a 70mm Dolby space movie which I don’t see or hear at all. Todd sits between Artie and me, walks between us, separating us, all in all trying to keep the peace. As usual he’s got to be calming the waters, changing the subject. He chats in a funny and sad way about how fat and ugly all the former child actors are, about how they really do grind worms into hamburger meat to extend the protein. Todd is good at this: this smoothing over and distracting. As if he were afraid the worst would happen if he stopped. All the girls from Eisenhower who have a crush on Todd’s red hair and gray-blue eyes go out of their way to bump into us at the mall. He whispers “slut” and “cow” behind their backs. Todd doesn’t like your run-of-the-mill shopping mall girl. He says they are ignorant and only good for one thing, and for that, he says, with those skags, you would have to worry that afterwards you would get some kind of disease and your thing would fall off.

  “Look at those two,” he says. It is a couple of fat girls with halters. He makes snuffling noises as they pass.

  I cannot focus on his nonsense. Just how was I supposed to “see this coming?” What: are they making Cliffs notes and score cards for family trauma these days?

  Sure, Rose rode her high horse, and Sam eased through life, every day the same as the day before. I could have been their toaster or any other useless kitchen appliance—that’s how much I mattered. All families are like this, and the truth is: so what? A bored and unhappy woman goes her way and does her own thing. Sam will survive eventually, and my life will get better or it won’t. These things just happen.

  Up on the screen silver ships dodge and duck missiles, and a whole world explodes. I don’t even know how they make that happen, yet, somehow I should have “seen this coming.” I lean over to tell Artie that his sister is full of shit, but Todd pins me to my chair.

  *

  I interrupt the silence on the bus ride home.

  “I really hope she never comes back,” I say.

  Todd says please not to talk about this anymore. I tell him I want to. To say it now. Say it so it won’t need to be said ever again.

  “What sort of person does something like this? Runs off. Leaves her family. I mean, everyone thinks their parents are weird, but this is too much. It’s mean. Selfish and mean.”

  “I don’t think you believe that,” says Artie. As if he’d know what anyone believed. Artie: always saying what he thinks he ought to.

  I tell him it’s so. I’m through with her. If this is her attitude, fine. She can go on about her business. Whatever that is. Good l
uck to her.”

  “What about your dad?” Todd asks. “There’s more people involved in this than you.”

  “Don’t you worry about my dad. I’ll take care of him.”

  *

  Big Sam is waiting for me in his orange chair.

  “Your Aunt Lucille called.”

  Oops. Before I can b.s. as to how calling her slipped my mind, how I’d decided not to call, how I didn’t get an answer, Sam says:

  “I guess the old bitch caught wind on the family grapevine that we were looking for your mama.”

  Lucille is Rose’s mother’s sister. She could smell family trouble across the continental divide, and the Central West End is a lot closer than that. There’s been bad blood between her and Sam ever since she floor-showed at the big wedding. I understand that names such as “heathen” and “dried up old heifer” were exchanged, and that Rose herself fainted dead away—organdy, orange blossoms, and all.

  “Let’s get our stories straight,” Sam says. “I told her you were upset and confused and that everything is fine.”

  “Sure thing,” I say, nodding, sealing the pact.

  “You cover the phone. You know when to come get me.”

  “Yes, sir.” More nodding.

  He calls me a good boy and rubs me on the head before ushering a six pack to his room. I won’t see him again today.

  *

  About eleven the phone rings. I turn from Johnny Carson, and there Sam is. His eyes are bleary red and he is halfway into a rumpled pair of pajamas. He nods at the phone. I just look at it. It rings some more; Sam nods again.

  “Hello,” I say.

  “Marshall. Is that you, Marshall?”

  Lying with my eyes, I shake my head at Big Sam. I say hello again.

  “Please put your daddy on the phone. Please.”

  “No, I think you have the wrong number.”

  Big Sam crumples his fists in disappointment.

  “Marshall.” Rose’s voice sounds distant and vague.

  “That’s quite all right,” I say, and I hang up. I put a hand on Big Sam’s shoulder and walk him to bed. The phone rings again.

  “Go on to bed. I’m sure it’s that same wrong number. Let it ring. She’ll give up sooner or later.”

  4

  SO THIS IS what I do next.

  I figure what Sam doesn’t miss won’t hurt him.

  I start cleaning house. Spring cleaning, but I do it from the bottom of the pile up. Quite the trick. And I do it fast and on the sly, in the morning after Sam leaves, and just after school before he comes in from the landfill.

  I turn on MTV. Loud. I play it through the stereo. You don’t need the pictures, anyway, once you’ve seen them. They get stuck in your head.

  I go fishing around in these stacks of towels, pulling out one or several to wash. What you do when you pull off the bottom is, fluff up the top of the pile so it looks like nothing much has changed. The music blasts, the house rocks.

  Here are some things I learned:

  TEN BEER CANS look like twenty when they are arranged just so.

  YOU CAN’T TELL dirty overalls from clean ones when they’re thrown back on the floor. Well, maybe from the smell you can.

  That’s how I fool Big Sam and that’s how days turned into weeks. Sam becomes more of a zombie, and days on end go by when he doesn’t say more to me than “ug” or “pass the salt.”

  He stops the “leave it be,” and after a time I make the house livable once more. So bold am I, I begin to make the place the way I’d like it.

  Such as:

  Why is it better that all the towels match anyway? I put them out in patterns to suit my fancy—stripes with flowers, black with pink. Hell, poor people would be happy just to have clean ones. Also, I take all of those wimpy face-sized towels on which you can’t hardly even get a good nose wipe and stack them way the hell in the back of the closet where they’re out of the way for good. Rose bought those rags because she saw them in Better Homes and Gardens. If they showed silk toilet paper, we’d be sittin pretty.

  Further:

  If I want my socks and underwear in the same drawer, well, dammit, that’s the way it’s going to be. And I lay my socks side by side like nature intended. Not in those crappy little balls that Rose makes which cause the top of one sock to lose all its elastic and ride on your ankle like an old tire. Where do women learn that crap anyway?

  Miss Ida bags up dinner groceries for Big Sam almost daily but for some reason he doesn’t want me handling them. I make my wishes known when I stop by the store after school and say things like “that Polish sausage sure looks nice” and “I’ve been craving chicken nuggets lately.” Like magic, whatever I want shows up in Sam’s dinner bag.

  Sam sets the bag on the table and even starts to cook sometimes, but I figure either he doesn’t quite know how to cook or else it’s just too damn discouraging. Before long he’s back sitting with a Bud listening to Dan Rather drawl on about the world situation or some such thing. I finish up myself, stirring and frying. One thing about being the only living heir to the Finney estate: learn to cook young or starve for sure.

  I try for a while setting a nice table, but figure, what the hell—especially since sometimes Sam eats what I cook, and sometimes he just picks at it. So, I serve myself a big helping of whatever and sit right in front of the TV and eat it up. By and by here’s Sam doing the same thing. We’ve got ourselves a regular bachelor pad going. Sometimes we watch the news. Sometimes we watch videos. Sometimes we watch everything. Zip, zip, zip, up and down the dial. It’s magic.

  If there are leftovers—a rare occurrence—I wrap them up and pack them away. I wash the dishes, and then finish up the night with more TV and homework. Sam dozes in front of the set. A good shoot-em-up will keep him awake, but not much else. The whole time we say hardly anything.

  *

  Homework from Eisenhower H.S., the educational truck stop of the Midwest. Sometimes I know everyone there teachers, students, big shots—is just putting in time, waiting for their real lives to begin. At least Kathleen Marie O’Hare manages sometimes to teach as though life was about more than filling out forms and standing in line. She is at least interesting sometimes, and it is easier to forgive her for going off, which she still does on a regular basis. The rest of the day at Eisenhower is all crap and lies, smug rich white kids and deadly dull teachers. I swear to God, by the time Ohairy’s class rolls around in the afternoon, if Todd weren’t behind me all day, whispering to me to stay calm, assuring me I can survive even this awful place, there’d have been already many a dead Pinhead all over the high gloss floors of this tank.

  I’m not all talk, you know.

  O’Hare boasts of the deals she makes with the administration. Teach Tom Sawyer so they’ll let you teach J. D. Salinger. Bullshit, right? I have the feeling she’ll do what she damn well pleases. Regardless.

  Many days even she goes on and on-with gerunds this and participles that—and many days I want to strangle her, too. But just when I make a ring of my hands and start to aim for her long pink neck, she opens a book and she reads in a voice that is almost hypnotic:

  The girl goes dancing there

  On the leaf-sown, new-mown, smooth

  Grass plot of the garden;

  Escaped from bitter youth,

  Escaped out of her crowd,

  Or out of her black cloud.

  Ah, dancer, ah, sweet dancer!

  W. B. Yeats, she says. It’s April. Look around: we are all in love with her, with life, with language and with love.

  Well, for about five minutes, some of us are.

  Tell me this broad doesn’t always know exactly what she’s doing.

  Still:

  I find myself standing at her desk after class, ever-silent Todd dragging at my heels.

  “Yes, Marshall,” she says. She looks me in the eye and laughs.

  “That poem …” I start, and see: she’s already got me off balance.

  “No one wri
tes English like Yeats,” she says. “Reading him you understand how our language should sound.”

  “Any other poets like that? Like me, I mean. Black. I figured if anyone would, you might know.” I shrug my shoulders to let her off the hook in case she doesn’t know. Also, you never let them think it’s that important to you.

  She sighs and makes this little face like she’d heard a rude noise in the room. “As a matter of fact, yes, there are wonderful poets of all nationalities,” she says, and signals us to walk with her. “But you miss the point, Marshall.”

  As usual when dealing with this woman I am now humiliated. And thank God here’s Todd, three steps behind and to the right should I vomit or something like that.

  “You limit yourself. Life isn’t black or white, and yet you react to everything as if it were. See me tomorrow during study hall and we’ll talk more. Bring your watchdog too,” she says, laughing, and—get this—Todd barks at her. Barks at her. She raises her eyebrows at him.

  *

  “You barked at a grown woman in a public place. Your brains have turned to shit.” I say this to Todd, who’s sitting there on the bus with his mouth hanging open and this silly half smile on his face. His cleft chin will be soaked over in drool at any moment.

  “Poor boy’s in love—hurting with it,” Artie says. He is as bad as Betty Lou about this stuff. He reaches across the aisle with his foot to push Todd’s knee, and he does it in a way that sickens me. Like a dirty old man on a bench would. All the same Todd exhales a ripe, mushy sigh, and I convince myself not to reach back there and slap him in his freckly face.

  “Kathy, Kathy, Kathy.” Todd says this looking off into the graffitied roof of the bus as if it were the Milky Way. “What a woman. I bet she’s hotter than a firecracker: a regular seething volcano.”

  Artie, always a sucker for anything smutty out of Todd’s mouth, almost falls off his chair, cackling at this nonsense.