Iron Balloons

by Channer, Colin

  I said, “Oh, my little husband, that was so nice. You say all those nice things about me? You make me feel so good, Pops. Bye-bye.”

  “Bye-bye, Mummy.”

  I start to cry again.

  When I left there, no one in that office knew that anything was wrong, for I’m a woman like this—I don’t show weakness. Everything could be wrong with me, but you’d never know.

  It was 9 o’clock when I get home. Roger was in his room finishing off his homework, lying ’cross the bed with a dozen model planes hanging from the ceiling like they going to bomb him.

  Fright take him when he saw me, cause I usually come home after midnight, and on top o’ that he didn’t hear me when I come in. What happen is that as I was driving up the road a voice just told me to leave the car outside and walk round the side to get a better understanding of what’s really going on. So instead o’ bringing the car into the carport and opening the front door from the veranda, I came in off the back porch, where we use to store old things, and Miss Noddy use to wash and press the clothes.

  “How you come home so early, Mummy?”

  I put my finger to my lips to make him quiet down himself.

  “Where is Miss Noddy?” I asked.

  “She gone to church. She soon come back.”

  “Where’s Andrew?”

  “Over by the Lee Yews. Bobby taking him up with econ.”

  “How come I don’t hear your sister?”

  Roger push up him glasses on him nose and say, “She’s in the living room … I think.”

  I sat down on the bed beside him.

  “Roger, beg you tell me. What she do since she come home?”

  Him start to hem and haw.

  “Well, I don’t know, Mummy, because I was doing my homework in my room. I ate my dinner at the table, but I did my homework in my room. So maybe you have to go and see for yourself.”

  “I see.” I kiss him on his cheek. “You finish your composition, Pops?”

  “Oh … yes. Yes, Mummy. Thank you very much for the help.”

  “Ahh, Pops. Life is not a easy thing. You hear?”

  So I’m walking down the corridor now. The house had three bedrooms on each side, with the living, dining, and kitchen in the middle going down, from front to back. When you come off the front veranda you’re right in the living room.

  Each side had its own bathroom. If you count Miss Noddy bathroom off the porch around the back, then call it three. My room was in the front, on the right-hand side. From the front door I had to pass through the living room and a heavy curtain to a passageway to reach it.

  As I was going into my room, I glimpse Karen through a crack in the drapes. She was in the living room. Still in her uniform, playing the radio, the record changer, and the TV same time, like we have money to waste, like deMercardo is my last name.

  Now, I don’t know ’bout you, but there is certain things that can’t happen in most West Indian house, and mine is one o’ them.

  1. You can’t gallivant in your school uniform. As soon as you come home you suppose to take it off. That is something you suppose to respect and revere. That is not something you just wear round the place like that and disgrace. Plus, they are expensive. When you start to drudge them out, before you know it they start to rip up here and there, and things start to stain them up. So when that happen, how you going to go to school in the morning like you’re suppose to be—neat and clean? And you better go to school neat and clean in the morning. If you go to school untidy it mean neither you or your parents have any pride or ambition. And let me tell you, if you don’t have pride or ambition, you ain’t getting nowhere in this thing name life. You have to reach beyond the span o’ your arm.

  2. You can’t watch TV before your homework done. School is your vocation as a child. So you can’t put fun before your studies. I hear these children nowadays complaining that school ain’t fun. Well, it ain’t suppose to be fun. Is like medicine. It ain’t suppose to taste nice. God gave man the brains to make medicine for cures, and education is a medicine to counteract the idleness that grows like mold on top o’ the brain. If you don’t counteract it daily, you’ll be sick with idleness and sloth all your life. When you finish your homework and your studies, you can do whatever you want to do—within reason. I like my little TV too. I like to watch this English fellow Simon on that show where the people try to sing and become a star. He’s a man that don’t put up with no foolishness. That’s a man who tell you straight. Some new people in my department call me so behind my back, you know … Simon. But you think I care? Who you think decide they bonus every year?

  3. You can’t have on three big appliances at once, especially when is things for enjoyment and not for work. Electric current isn’t cheap. So when you’re watching one show on the TV, and listening to another show on the radio, and playing music on the record changer same time, you’re just being wasteful and greedy. You can’t even enjoy the three o’ them same time. And even if you could enjoy them, what you could absorb? To even think about that is idle, and as you know, the devil find work for idle hands.

  I went into the bathroom to bathe but I change my mind. The water was running and everything, but I change my mind and turn it off. I just went into my room and lay down. I didn’t even turn on the light. I just lay down in the dark. I start to roll from side to side to twist myself out o’ my clothes. I was so down I couldn’t bring myself to sit up. To tell you the truth, I never even care ’bout neatness. As I take off the clothes I just fling them down. When I scatter them now, I just lie down plain in my panty and brassiere, just listening to everything going on.

  A little drizzle had come down earlier, and the rain smell was coming through the louvers from the flowerbeds. Every now and then a bus pass by. But what I mostly heard was cars. Somebody’s dog just wouldn’t stop barking. Just arr-arr-arr-arr-arr. The crickets were going and the tree frogs too. When they start, you know, is like a video game. But the loudest things to me were in the living room. I could also hear the shower crackling like fire. You’d think it was a flame.

  The radio was playing reggae music. I never use to listen to it, so I couldn’t tell you what group. To me, every song use to sound like boogooo-doop-boogooo-doop-boogooo-doop, so I couldn’t bother with it. And I didn’t like that radio announcer, a fellow by the name of Errol Thompson who use to make a lot of noise with this stupid rubber ducky. I hear he use to smoke a lot o’ weed.

  I could follow what was on the TV too. She was watching this Burt Reynolds show—Dan August. To me the show was stupid. Whenever Burt Reynolds chasing down a criminal, the same thing happen every time—him going to run upstairs or climb on something high, then dive on the criminal back like Tarzan.

  But the worst thing though, was that she was using the record changer to play out my Al Green. Now, I don’t know ’bout you, but my records is my records. I know is CD time now, but still. The children know I didn’t like them to play my records, because just like how they didn’t like to full back the ice tray, they didn’t like to put back my LPs in their case.

  Is either they don’t put them back or they mix them up. But something always have to go on. One time I find a Curtis Mayfield and a Engelbert Humperdinck force up in a jacket for The Student Prince. What could Curtis Mayfield and Engelbert Humperdinck have to do with The Student Prince? And I won’t even tell you what they did to my Mantovanis.

  Let me tell you—to this day I love my Mantovani. If I don’t play a Strauss waltz every couple o’ days, is like I don’t feel too good.

  But anyway, I really wanted to say something to Karen when I was lying down. But I didn’t know where to begin, because you know what? I began to feel a little rage. You know why? I stayed in the bed and hear Roger go to her and ask her if she did her homework. The way he was asking her, you could tell he was trying to warn her, or make her come to her senses … hint her a little bit, you know … give her some help. That is what I pick from it. And you know what she said to him? Ungrat
eful little wretch?

  “You little informer, you. What? Your mother call you from work and send you to spy? Well, I don’t do any homework. You hear? I don’t do any. And you better move out o’ my way before I t’ump you. Don’t I told you and Andrew not to come out here?”

  “But Mummy—”

  “Roger. You must be think I ’fraid for Ciselyn Thompson. She like to go on like she bad, but I don’t ’fraid for her.”

  “Karen—”

  “What happen? You going wring out my name?”

  “But, Karen, Mummy—”

  “You don’t hear I say must leave me alone? You want a t’ump?”

  “I going tell Mummy.”

  “Yes, double-oh eight. Tell your mooma when she come home tonight.”

  I hear when Roger walk off and come like he was coming to my room door, but for some reason him turn back. And in my mind I see when Karen cut her hazel eyes and use her hand and flick back the light brown hair I use to wash and condition every week because it was too long for her to manage. Before I authorize her to cut it to her shoulder, it was tall, way down her back.

  I stay in the room and call to her.

  “Karen.”

  She didn’t answer me. So I sat up in the bed and call her name again. This time with a question sign—“Karen?”—for I was trying to ask her if she forgetting herself.

  At the same time, I was trying to ask myself if the person outside was really and truly the first child I bring into this world or a alien. Because the way the anger had me trembling, whatever it was out there, whether it come from my womb or not, I was ready to take its life.

  A voice inside my head was telling me to take the bedside lamp and go out there, that I shouldn’t even bother to put on a robe, to just march out there in my panty and brassiere and take the lamp and bus’ her head. Just kill it!

  But thanks be to Jesus, God stayed in heaven and stretch forth His hand and take the thought away from me. That’s all I can say—God stop me. Because I know my daughter heard me. Because I know my voice. And I know that house. And I know that child. So although the radio was playing, and the TV was on, and the record changer too, I know for sure that child heard my voice in that house.

  But the damn gal was feeling so powerful after she put me down in front o’ her friends that she thought she was on top o’ the world. Like she was some kind o’ … you know … royalty … like she could do anything she want without considering the price.

  A piece o’ heavy breathing take me in the bed, you see. And the room start to feel like it closing up. And my head start to beat like somebody put a speaker box inside it like a car. And I quick time put on a duster and run down to Roger room and ask him to go over next door to Mrs. James, who was a pharmacist, and get a Valium for me.

  When Roger gone I went out on the back porch to get some fresh air. Karen heard me in my panic—she had to—but she didn’t come to see what was wrong.

  When Roger come back I told him to use a razor blade and cut the ten milligram in two and give me half, then I send him to make some green tea for me. After that I turn off the light and si’ down in the dark.

  When I take the pill and drink the tea now, I say to him, “Pops, I’m going to tell you something, and I hope you wi’ remember it when you grow up … the parents who do the most get the least thanks. I’ve done everything a mother can do to make that girl happy, to make that girl’s life a success. But she hate me like I do her something.”

  “Mummy, she don’t hate you. That’s not true.”

  I say, “When she took her exam to go to high school, she took it three times and never pass. Now, if I was like most other mothers, I would make her go to a junior secondary school or a technical school, which you know is where you go when you fail. But I couldn’t make her feel shame like that. I know she had it hard when me and Daddy didn’t work out. Then shortly after that, God took him away. She was the oldest and she remember him the most, and she was very close to him, so she feel it more than you and Andrew. You two were too small. I didn’t want to give you children a broken home. Roger, I didn’t want that at all. As there’s a God, I didn’t want to do that to you. But what I was suppose to do? Stay with the man and make him carry we down?”

  “No, Mummy.”

  I say, “You know how many nights I clean piss and shit off the floor down at Deanery Road, Pops? You know is from cleaning shit and piss why I start to smoke? You know when Karen fail her last chance to pass her exams I drive around to every single high school in Kingston that take girls, and beg the principal to take her? You know I tell all those principals is my fault why she never pass her exams, because I was the one to leave the marriage and break up the home, and that is why she couldn’t concentrate?”

  “No, Mummy.”

  I say, “Pops, you know how many times I tell your father to come and look for you children, and him promise me him was coming, and never come? You know how many times, Pops? You know how many times? Pops, you think I like working two jobs?”

  “No, Mummy.”

  “I hate it down to the ground. But is what I have to do to make life for you children … so you can come out better than me. I can’t believe your sister denounce me like that in front o’ her friends, Pops. After everything I’ve done. The parents who do the most get the least thanks. Pops, you love me?”

  He said, “Yes, Mummy,” and came and hug me up.

  I said, “Pops, you think your mother pretty?”

  He said, “Yes, Mummy. Of course.”

  I said, “Inside and out?”

  He said, “And upstairs and downstairs too.” But he didn’t tell me, “Yes.”

  Years later, some time after his first book come out, Pops and I was talking ’bout what happen that night. By that time he was in this thirties and was teaching English at UCLA. I had gone to visit him just to see what was going on.

  When I let him know how much I needed him to tell me I was pretty, Pops said he couldn’t understand it at all, because he use to think I was a gorgeous girl, so gorgeous that he use to be in love with me when he was small.

  Now, I could have said to him, Well, how come none of your girlfriends ever look like me yet? How come is pure fair-skin girl with long hair you like? But I didn’t want to make him feel bad. What would be the point? He was doing his best to butter me up. So why try to catch him in a lie?

  But that night, though, out on the back porch—let me tell you—that little darling really help to calm his mother nerves. Yes, I had my tea and Valium, but they were not enough.

  Listen to me. Let me tell you something. Don’t make ghost fool you. Nothing can lift you like the love of a child, any child, but especially a child who’s yours. I had two in that house, but only one was showing me any kind o’ love.

  I’d be the first to tell you I was defeated, that I found myself in the situation where what Karen thought of me was the thing that mattered most in life. If at that moment she’d come to me and told me she wanted to spend the rest o’ the month up at Claudia, and if I felt that it would make her come and tell me that she love me, and she not ashame o’ me, I would drive her up to Claudia myself. And if she say she was going up there to live for the rest o’ her life, I would crawl on my knee and beg her not to go. I’d tell her to stay and I’d let her do as she like. I’m not ashame to say it, now. That is how I felt. No lie!

  And let me tell you, if that girl had used her common sense, or even humbled herself a wee, I might have been her slave for life. For let me tell you—when your child has you in the kind o’ position like Karen had me, you’re her slave for life, like that woman I saw today in Duane Reade; and whatever they want to do, they do; and whatever they don’t want to do, they don’t do. And if they turn out good in the end, they’ll say it was in spite o’ you. And if they turn out bad … well, of course, it was because o’ you. Any which way you turn, you lose.

  Pops went to bed around 10 o’clock. I heard his brother come in through the front door at 10:30.
He said hello to his sister two times. She didn’t answer him at all. All the time I could hear her moving through the house. Going to the pantry, the fridge. Then at 11 o’clock, I hear when everything in the living room just one by one shut down.

  I called out softly, “Karen?”

  She didn’t answer, so I called again. This time my voice was louder, but even more loving in tone.

  Who says I didn’t try? You know what Karen do? She slam the bathroom door. And before she slam the door, I hear some teeth get suck.

  I didn’t want the boys to know I was crying, so I walk down by the back fence. You want to see me feeling in the dark. For if you move too fast and the clothesline catch you, head gone clean, one time.

  So, I feel and feel until I found the stand where we use to bleach the clothes. And I drop my face into my hands and bawl. You’d think somebody dead or I just got a telegram that I lose my job. I don’t remember how long I was bawling for, but it was a good amount o’ time, and is while I was bawling that she made her big mistake.

  At first I didn’t hear it. Then I hear it, but I didn’t know is what. Then I figure out is what, but I couldn’t believe that what it was is what I hear.

  My fellow classmates and professor, I could hear it just as you can hear me now. Clear, clear, clear, clear, clear. But let me tell you, when I really decide for true that I was hearing what I hear, I cock my head and listen it good to be more sure again. And when I think of what Karen was doing, and how what she was doing indicate where she was going to go, going end up down the line, a spirit rise inside me and a voice say—and when I say “say,” I mean “say,” like how I’m saying this to you here now—“You better get off your ass and go in that house and do what you have to do. Otherwise, you going to lose that child. Don’t care if she hate you. Don’t care if she never talk to you for the rest o’ your life. Don’t care if she even go as far as change her name so nobody won’t know she’s your blood—go in there and do what you have to do. You can’t make this pass. You can’t make this pass. You can’t make this pass at all.”