by Drew Blank
While having a child turned me around and forced on me some much needed maturity, it turned Reggie into a terrible, hateful person. Her feelings towards Moxie were very difficult to translate. Although Reggie resented her daughter for depriving her of continued freedom from responsibility, Reggie also depended on her to an unhealthy degree. Too many times I had to leave work early because I would receive a phone call from Moxie telling me that her mommy was unconscious on the floor or mommy went to the store four hours ago and hasn’t come back or mommy locked herself in her room and she is crying or mommy got in a fight with a man and is bleeding.
Calling Reggie an unfit mother was truly an understatement. Friends and co-workers constantly questioned me, wondering why I never tried to take Reggie to court and get Moxie out of that situation once and for all. The truth was, besides the obvious lack of funds for an attorney, I was terrified of the outcome. Indeed, I could offer up hundreds of reasons why Reggie wasn’t fit to raise a goldfish, let alone a human child. The problem was, there was a chance Reggie could offer up one single, irrefutable fact that could take Moxie away from me forever. She could reveal Moxie was not mine. There was a good chance I was Moxie’s father, but there was also the possibility I was not. That was a risk I was not willing to take. Not only would I never see Moxie again if it was proven in court that I had no biological ties to her, but with all the evidence I would bring up against Reggie, surely our child would be taken from her home and put into the state’s hands. Things may have been far from perfect, but at least Moxie was mine. We had each other; rays of sunshine in a cluttered sky of toxic fumes and smoke filled clouds.
“All right, kiddo. Time to get going.” Opening my cell phone to get a look at the time, I whispered to Moxie as we rocked on the swing together. Running my hand through her hair, I made no effort to move yet.
“I wish we could just stay here forever.” She pulled my hand from her hair and clutched onto it, burying her dirty cherubic face into my fingers. That kid really knew how to tear me up inside.
“Okay, but going to the bathroom might be tough.” This made her laugh as she straightened herself up on my lap
and looked me in the eye.
“Daddy. You. Are. Silly.” She poked her tiny finger on my chest to the beat of her words. “And a little gross,” she added as she slid from my lap onto the sand.
“But you still love me, right?” I teasingly asked.
Her little feet carried her towards the sidewalk as she looked over her shoulder and simply said “maybe.”
“Maybe? Maybe?! Oh, you are in trouble!” Throwing the swing back and jumping forward, I chased after her as she sprinted down the broken concrete. Doubling her short strides, I caught up to her and swooped my right arm down, wrapping it around her waist and throwing the little girl I loved up into the air over my shoulder.
Pounding on my back, trying to catch her breath from running and laughing, she shrieked “Okay! Okay! I love you! I love you!”
“What’s that? I couldn’t hear you. Did you say something?” I yelled loud enough to drown out her shrill voice. Those were the times I cherished. My best friend in the world was a six year old girl and a doctor told me, in a more considerate and professional manner, that she might die. I needed to do something because I had a million more ‘I love you’s’ to hear.
As I slowed my run to a brisk walk, I pulled that little girl from my shoulders into my arms.
“I love you, Daddy,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms and legs around me.
“I love you too, punk.” I carried her all the way home, nestling my face into that matted, stinky hair. I love how she smelled.
It was four o’clock when I dropped Moxie off at home. We went through the daily ritual of parting hugs and tears and kisses and I love you’s. Reggie stood at the entry way to the kitchen, all the while glaring at us with her arms crossed over her chest, feet impatiently tapping on the floor, cigarette dangling from her lips. That was part of the ritual, as well. We rarely spoke anymore, unless it was about her needing money. The subject of Moxie’s doctor visit needed to be approached, but I didn’t think she was ready for that. I knew I certainly wasn’t. I simply gave Moxie one last kiss, put her back on her feet and nodded in Reggie’s direction.
The ride home that afternoon was a particularly tough one for me. Tears chilled my face as the brisk wind attacked my wet cheeks. Being responsible for another life is a daunting task for anyone, but when you throw in something as terrible as that, it seems almost insurmountable. How in the Hell was I going to come up with that kind of money? Insurance had already told me that only half of the treatments would be covered. Now all I had to come up with was half a fortune. My mind raced as I pedaled home, Moxie’s smiling face all I could see.
The streets of Cross were rough and always in need of work. The cold weather didn’t help, forcing the pavement to crack and buckle under my tires. It was just another glowing example of the city that everybody seemed to forget about. Officials once touted Cross as Little Chicago. Thirty miles out from the big city, Cross was retrofitted on promises and dreams made by businessmen and politicians in the mid-seventies. What was once a quiet suburban haven, practically lost in time with mom-and-pop stores and parks on every street corner, was turned into a town overrun with factories, funeral homes, second string restaurant chains and shitty run-down apartments. The city was supposed to be the next business hub for all of Chicago’s overflow. Instead, we just got the businesses Chicago didn’t want. All the people that couldn’t afford Chicago’s rising cost of living migrated south to Cross. Eventually, all hope of turning Cross into a miniature metropolis was gone. Any companies with clout pulled out of the renovation project, realizing Little Chicago was not attracting the promised demographic.
Cross almost had a sky scraper; Carrier Steel was going to move their headquarters to the growing suburb and construct a towering example of corporate success that would begin Little Chicago’s soon to be impressive skyline. However, Carrier Steel suffered a major economic crisis after it was revealed the company’s CEO was bilking millions from its stock holders and lying about profits that weren’t there. Production on the giant tower was halted and all that remained was a twelve story skeleton of girders and beams, reminding the people of Cross what could have been. Years later it still stood, unfinished. Every day I biked past the rotting planks acting as a privacy fence to the abandoned work site, making a very weak attempt to keep vandals and thieves out. The sad excuse for a tower eventually became a dangerous hangout for the unmotivated kids of Cross to get high, fuck and fight. The tower was a constant reminder of just how hopeless Cross was.
CHAPTER THREE
After turning down Byrne Avenue, I pulled my bike over the curb of Mama Mema’s and latched the back wheel to the NO PARKING sign out front. Mama Mema’s was a small Italian restaurant right in the middle of downtown. It was owned by Carmela Severi, inexplicably known by everyone as Mema. She was an older woman, but how old no one was really sure. Mema made it abundantly clear that a lady never reveals her true age and a gentleman never asks. Though her face showed an elderly woman, she was as energetic and spry as any thirty year old girl you would run into on the street. She had always been slightly reclusive and generally focused her life on running the restaurant. However, she once took a chance and opened her home to a teenaged orphan within whom she saw great potential. That poor whelp was me and, to this day, I am not quite sure what it was she saw in me, but I was glad she did. Until Moxie came along, Mema was the closest thing I ever had to a family.
My childhood had always been a bit of a mystery, even to me. My close friend Dominick, a city cop with access to some archived files not readily available to the public, had done some snooping for me once. He was able to dig up a file that best explained my origins. Two weeks after my presumed birth date, a homeless man was arrested for trying to sell a baby to a young couple in a gas station parking lot. As the report reads, the hobo had found a wailing newb
orn lying in a milk crate behind a McDonald’s wrapped in newspaper and tin foil. Obviously not suited for parenthood, the bum tried to pawn the baby off on a pair of twenty year old newlyweds for enough money to purchase his next bottle of whatever the “in” drink for street urchins was back then. Finding this behavior a little odd, the couple notified the authorities immediately and the hobo was taken into custody along with his two week old friend. Since the baby had no identity, one clever cop used the name Drew A. Blank on all the paperwork. Through the years, any files on the case had been lost or misplaced so any information on where I had been or how I got where I was falls solely on my patchy memory.
I do know I spent all my years before the age of thirteen either in foster care or group homes. Nobody likes the term ‘orphanage’ anymore because of the negative connotation it brings with it, but that is essentially what a group home is. By the age of ten, I was officially deemed “not placeable” into foster care. I was considered an insurance risk that no family was willing to take. I was never a troubled child. For a kid who had no idea where he came from, I would say I was pretty level headed. The issue the state had with me was I was fearless. According to the files they had on me, I had jumped from a third story window, climbed up a chimney, attempted to teach myself to juggle with a set of steak knives, made the effort to befriend a neighbor’s rottweiler by rubbing its belly when it was chained outside sleeping, filled a Millennium Falcon toy with gasoline and set it on fire. I was told that last one wouldn’t have turned out so bad if I hadn’t done it in the foster parents’ garage. The list went on and on, each instance with its own lengthy report. Curiosity is a child’s greatest asset, yet also his or her biggest weakness. My inquisitive nature was no different from that of any other kid’s, I just had no inner voice telling me “this is a bad idea”. It was my fearless nature and my willingness to follow through with the craziest of plans that eventually, as a ward of the state, got me placed into The Donnelly House.
Not having many group homes to compare it to, I always remembered The Donnelly House as being a pretty decent place. It wasn’t until many years later, when I broke into a federal prison (that story is for another time) and had that to compare the Donnelly House to, that I realized just what kind of rat hole I had been living in. It was said many times to me as a child, “it’s better than living on the streets.” In retrospect, I would love to tell those people to get screwed. I would have been better off on the streets. The Donnelly House was a school from which I learned to read, do basic math, recite all the states and their capitals and how to endure massive amounts of pain at the hands of sadistic juvenile delinquents. As I said, I was not a troubled child. Most of the kids placed in Donnelly were devoid of any sense of right or wrong. I was surrounded by teen and pre-teen thieves, rapists, arsonists, drug dealers, drug addicts, carjackers, extortionists and, according to rumors, even a few murderers. It didn’t take long for me to learn how to defend myself. I did not fit in with the other inhabitants of Donnelly. Having little respect for the budding criminals I was surrounded by, I made every effort to distance myself from that type.
The children living within Donnelly’s walls were not required to attend classes. Although it was encouraged, the state simply figured keeping them off the streets until they turned eighteen was good enough. Instead of teachers, Donnelly hired volunteers to manage a basic curriculum. From time to time a professional would be brought in to hold a seminar. Cops would come in and hold classes on law enforcement. Local whack job artists would come in and try to spark our imaginations with clay or paints. A few hippies would come through and try to teach us about our environment and the importance of conserving natural resources. Sometimes, I suspected the volunteers were told the Donnelly House was some sort of private boarding school where they would be able to inspire and mold young minds. Instead, the young men living within Donnelly’s walls would typically break the spirit of the volunteers and send them running, a little more disenchanted with the state of the world.
One volunteer became a regular at the Donnelly House. Her classes were always the highlight of my week. Miss Carmela Severi would hold a weekly cooking class hoping to expose the general population to some culture. Attendance at Miss Severi’s cooking class was twice that of any other seminar the Donnelly House sponsored. I would love to say the popularity of the lessons was due to the children’s desire for cultural expansion in the culinary arts. In reality, it was just a way for the kids who attended to get a meal that did not consist of limp gray burgers on crunchy stale buns, the mighty repast Donnelly typically fed its students. I did not stand out as the only kid who showed up to every one of her seminars. There were plenty of hungry kids that attended regularly. However, I was the only kid that would consistently pay attention and do the work.
The weekly “Cooking Foods From Other Cultures” class was held in the same room we held all our science classes. I dissected a frog, dug through an owl pellet for rodent bones, learned the effects of hydrochloric acid on common household items and even rolled a condom onto a cucumber in this classroom. The latter seemed pointless to teach a bunch of pre-teen boys that would likely not see a girl in any social setting for at least four years. Certainly in my case, its lessons proved ineffective. Maybe the fact that “Human Sexuality:Your Body And You” was one of the few classes required by the state, is what made it so forgettable. Perhaps it was the teacher, who was very obviously there against his will (most of the students suspected community service) that made it impossible to concentrate on the produce being wrapped in prophylactics. I suppose what irritated the unwilling attendees most was the constant innuendo by the instructor that these were skills we should implement into our daily lives immediately, as though every last student at an all boys group home was a lasciviously insatiable homosexual. Though I obviously did not retain the information given at all seminars, I soaked up any knowledge Miss Severi could deliver. Every week we would learn to make a new and exotic dish on the black epoxy resin countertop of the science lab tables, which usually had FUCK THIS PLACE or some similar sentiment angrily carved into the ebony surface.
After a few weeks of regularly attending her class, Miss Severi asked me to stay late one day so she could speak with me. As all the delinquents shuffled out of the class, full from heaping portions of bolognese stuffed peppers complemented by an asparagus and parsley pesto risotto bake, I remained seated. Miss Severi stood at the front of the class, wiping off her instruments and utensils, sliding them into her over-sized brown leather satchel that seemed to hold the contents of three kitchens without ever getting any bigger. Had she pulled a full-size gas burning stove from that bag, I would not have been shocked. She was a sweet woman. Grandparents are not a luxury an abandoned orphan has, but if I did have a grandmother, I would have wanted her to be just like Miss Severi. Leaving a baby next to a dumpster at a fast food joint, I can only imagine the caliber of person my biological mother was. Assuming the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I am sure my biological grandmother was nothing like this particular Donnelly House volunteer. Her plump face always had a subtle smile. Even as she was dealing with pre-teen hooligans that had little to no interest in listening to a word she said and would frequently yell out “just give us the food, you old bitch!” during her lessons, she always seemed to be glowing with a contentment that no one living within Donnelly’s walls could comprehend. Behind her thick owl-like glasses were piercing hazel eyes. I had not come across many old people in my limited travels, but the ones I had met always had a very glossy stare, as if death was standing right before them and his opaque shroud was muting any sign of life from their gaze. Miss Severi always looked alert. There was wisdom and experience behind those spectacles. Her chestnut brown hair was unnaturally bold, all except for two shocks of skeleton-white hair that ran from root to tip on both temples. She moved with a grace and determination that defied her age. I sometimes watched in amazement as she would glide around the make-shift kitchen with the elegant dexter
ity of a ballet dancer.
Once the room was empty, I slowly approached her.
“Ma’am. You wanted to see me?” Although it technically was a statement, it certainly served as a question.
“Yes Drew, dear. Have a seat.” The only feature on Miss Severi that truly showed maturity beyond her years was her hands. As she invitingly outstretched her slender fingers, you could see the age in their grayed skin. Following her direction, I sat on one of the wobbly metal stools with the corkboard seat, anxious to hear what this private meeting would entail.
“I’ve noticed you have taken quite an interest in my lessons. Some of the other boys seem to enjoy themselves, but it is apparent you are taking more out of this class than anyone.” Her voice could best be described as an amplified whisper. From clues dropped during her classes, I would estimate she had been in the states for at least fifty years, but there was still a hint of an Italian accent mingled in with her speech.
“Yes ma’am. Your class is all I have to look forward to.” I wasn’t lying. Between getting in, starting, breaking up or finishing fights, my weeks were filled with very little mental stimulation. I tried reading in my free time, but that is a difficult hobby to keep up in a place where any sign of literacy is greeted with massive amounts of ridiculing, typically followed by a beating of some sort. “I never thought I would enjoy cooking, but you make it fun, ma’am.”