It wasn’t long after that, Mom pulled her hatpin out and took her swoopy daisy bonnet off. Mom spruced up her hair, put her cigarette out, spread some lipstick across her mouth, then stood up and walked across the banquet room and into the bar.
The way Mom walked, you could tell she had a purpose. When Mom walked like that, she had one thing in mind. That day she walked out of church after Aunt Zelda, then beat the crap out of her: Mom walked like that.
Up onto the empty stage and straight to the piano, Mom sat down. She started right in on “Chapel of Love,” then after that “Red Roses for a Blue Lady.”
It didn’t take long for the bar to quiet down. Pretty soon, you couldn’t hear nothing but Mom’s piano. Must have been a hundred people standing silent.
Billie passed the cigarette to me, and I was into a deep inhale when all of a sudden, Billie grabbed my hand, and I looked, and there was Dad standing real close. I mean almost shoulder to shoulder. I quick opened my mouth and let the cigarette fall from my mouth and onto the floor. He didn’t see me, though. Dad was just staring through the crowd at Mom up there in the lights on the stage. I never saw my dad look like that. He looked so young, like a kid like me.
Pretty soon people in the crowd were singing along, then everybody was singing.
When Rob Roy and the Cougar Mountain Four came back from their break, they didn’t go into their regular set, they started playing along with Mom. She was playing “Darktown Strutter’s Ball,” and the drummer was drumming and the fiddler was fiddling and the guitar guy was playing along and the bass. Rob Roy grabbed the microphone, said: Come on, everybody, sing along! Pretty soon, the whole room was singing: I’ll be down to getcha in a taxi, honey. Better be ready ’bout half past eight.
Dad wasn’t standing there anymore, and I looked around but didn’t see him.
Billie and I started jitterbugging the way Sis and I danced. Billie caught right on. There was this one dance move where Billie went under my right arm and started twirling, then I, holding tight onto Billie’s left hand up high, started twirling too, and the two of us were twirling, twirling, then we came together face to face and started dancing just like we’d been slow dancing. We did it just perfect.
It was right then things got slow. There was Billie, so happy to be dancing with me. Then through the crowd, across the room, when I looked over, there was Sis in her big white gown. She had bent over and picked up Gene, and Gene was in her arms the way the bride is supposed to be when the newlyweds cross the threshold. Gene was acting like a fainting bride, and Sis was growling like a horny guy. Everybody over by Sis and Gene were laughing their asses off. Then, when I looked, up on the stage, there was Mom playing “We Got to Get Out of This Place,” for chrissakes.
You can play anything as long as you find middle C.
Mom’s hair was flying back, and her rough, red farm hands, cut-to-the-quick fingernails, were playing the piano, her stocking feet banging the pedals. Mom was up on the stage playing with the band.
Looked like Grandpa Schmidt’s wild girl was having the time of her life.
If it’s the last thing we ever do.
Mom’s almond-shaped hazel eyes — that shit you thought was in them for good was totally gone, and Mom was smiling, smiling. In the middle of a bar, the world bright and loud and a little drunk all around me. People sweating and dancing and drinking. Everybody so happy. Mom was happy. Sis was happy. Billie was happy. Why couldn’t things always be this way? I loved God so much right then.
The only time Billie and I stopped dancing was so she could dance with Mr. Kelso, and Gene, and of course Chuck diPietro a couple of times.
Billie’s who pointed him out to me, though, through all the music and the noise and the smoke, Dad sitting at the banquet table with his Coke. He had his drut cow face on. My father, without his wife, so out of place in all the drunken fun. Mom up there in the spotlight and Dad cold and way off and alone, the old Mexican house out in the snow.
Who knows how long that song went on, everybody singing and dancing. We got to get out of this place must ’a been a hundred times. Then “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” then “Jailhouse Rock,” Mom playing right along.
The whole bar cheered, clapped, for Mom when Mom got up and took a bow. Still smiling ear to ear, Mom walked offstage, carrying her dyed-yellow shoes, like she was walking on clouds. At the banquet table, she sat down. But Dad wasn’t sitting there anymore. Mom lit another cigarette, and it wasn’t long, and the cocktail waitress set another double rum and Coke in front of her. The waitress leaned down and said something into Mom’s ear, then handed her something.
In no time at all, Mom’s yellow-dyed shoes were back on, her swoopy daisy hat was in her hands and her brown purse. Mom walked right up to me and Billie. Her almond-shaped hazel eyes were green. She didn’t say a thing to Billie, didn’t even look at her.
Rigby John, Mom said, come with me. You’ve got to take me home.
Then Mom was out the door of the banquet room just like that, leaving me standing there wondering what was what.
Billie went right for a cigarette. I was lighting Billie’s cigarette when Sis came up to me.
Sis had an aura of tragedy about her. When Sis ain’t being cute, she’s being tragic.
Dad’s gone missing, Sis said. He left the keys to the Buick with the cocktail waitress.
Her dark Roosky eyes, breathing fast bad breath, tears rolling down her cheeks. Tragic.
Where’d he go? I said.
Who knows? Sis said.
You better take Mom home, Sis said. She’s had a lot to drink, and she shouldn’t drive.
As if he hasn’t, Billie said. Meaning me.
What? Sis said.
I had to step in or there’d be a bitch fight right there and then for sure.
I’ve got to take Billie home, I said. My voice was high, and I hated it.
Sis said: I’m sure Dad is probably home. My God, what if Dad isn’t home?
Sis looked over to Billie the same time I did. The cigarette was a whirlwind by her ear.
Gene and I can give Billie a ride home, Sis said. Is that OK with you, Billie?
Billie was just about to say something. Who knows what. There was a lot going on with her face, and I couldn’t tell.
Just as Billie was about to speak, as fate would have it, Chuck diPietro stepped up.
He smelled of sweat and Elsha. Across his shoulders, he made two of me.
Don’t worry, Chuck said. I can take her home.
It was strange driving home in the Buick. I hardly ever drove the Buick, and never with Mom sitting next to me on the front seat. I drove forty-five miles an hour, the speed limit. Mom sat with her knees curled up under her. It was a warm night for April, and Mom had her window open, her hand out the window, rolling her arm along in the warm night air. Her new perfume smelled nice.
It wasn’t like Dad to do anything spontaneous, and I was worried. But Mom wasn’t worried. I hadn’t seen her so exhilarated since Aunt Alma came to visit with Theresa, her artist friend from Portland. On Philbin Road, Mom reached down and turned on the radio loud to KSEI. They were playing Mom’s old songs. She still had a cigarette going, and right at the moment when the song on the radio said, Just let the smoke rings rise in the air, you’ll find your share of memories there, the smoke from her cigarette rose in the air. Mom laughed a little then at the smoke, then let the wind come in onto her and blow her hair.
The house was dark when Mom and I drove into the yard. The way the headlights hit the house, the house looked haunted. Tramp started barking, and the cats ran out of the garage.
I followed Mom up the four steps into the kitchen. The kitchen door, how it always sounded opening. When Mom went to hit the light switch, from out of the dark, Dad’s voice was too loud: Leave the light off, Dad said.
Sudden quiet in us, Mom and me.
I’ve got some things to say, Dad said. And they’re better off said in the dark.
The kitchen door
closed behind me quiet. For a moment, Mom’s shoulders went down, and she turned in toward me like she was a kid too, afraid of Dad in the dark. Her daisy bonnet and her brown purse in her hands went up to her breast, and she held them there.
Out of the dark, Mom’s voice was low and whispery: Rigby John, Mom said. You go down to bed.
Then Dad too loud again: No, let the boy stay. What I have to say is for him to hear too.
The moon and the stars made light that came in the kitchen window. Dad still in his new black suit sat in his chair at the head of the table. His elbows were on the table, and now and then his hands came up to his face and covered it.
Come over here and sit down, Dad said.
Mom and I both had to pass by him so we could get to our chairs. I tried to think of a way of getting around him, but there was no way.
Mom laid her daisy bonnet on the table, her brown purse. The sound of Mom’s chair and mine against the blue and white tiles.
Mom sat in the chair that usually was Sis’s chair. She moved slow and careful. I sat in my chair across the table from her. In the dark she was inches deep, soft.
Mary, Dad said still loud, I want a divorce.
Shock and surprise in me in a way I’d not known in myself yet. Crazy weird.
The shock of Mom without Dad.
But other things weird in my chest too. Old hunks of stuck shit, gray old bats hung upside down, sudden butterflies, hummingbirds, shit exploding, flying up and out of me, fireworks.
For Mom and for me.
At last she could breathe.
What Dad said next, he said in one long stream of words, like he’d been sitting in the dark and practicing the words. Not just all night, but for a long, long time.
Mary, Dad said. You’re too headstrong. You’ve always got to have things your way or else. And I’m tired of it. I’m always pussyfooting around here, wondering if something’s going to tick you off. Walking around here on eggshells half the time, always afraid that you’re going to have one of your migraines or one of your menstrual cramps, your change of life, or who the hell knows what can go wrong with you. There’s always something.
Dad put his head in his hands. His black hair was shadows on his face.
Grandma’s clock ticking, ticking.
The light from the night in through the window on Mom’s face and shoulder.
You’re a hard woman, Mary Schmidt, Dad said. I knew that when I married you. But I thought you’d change. But you haven’t. You turned out the spitting image of your mother. I’ve worked hard for you and these kids, and I don’t get any thanks for it. I get my dinner on a plate, but I don’t get a smile with it. It’s all gloom and doom to you, and hard luck. Ain’t no relief from it. We’re always kneeling down praying our asses off for some kind of calamity or another. A man can’t live like that. He’s got to have something besides cake to keep things sweet. And these kids. Look at the way they’ve turned out. Spoiled rotten. I’ve told you over and over again, but you won’t listen. Hell, all their lives, you’ve been herding them like a sheep dog, always at them to be special and differnt. Well, they’re differnt all right. A knocked-up daughter and a momma’s boy.
Momma’s boy.
Spineless ass.
Grandma’s clock ticking, ticking.
All because of you, Dad said. You’re always talking about God and praying to God, but you don’t have a ounce of faith in you. If you did, you’da let these kids be and trust in the ways of the Lord instead of riding them to the ground.
Dad’s fist came down hard on the table.
Saddle-room Daddy, the shadow of him a puddle around his feet. Some part of me jumped right out of my skin. Another part had never sat so square in one place.
Tonight at the bar, Dad yelled.
His voice was too high and sounded like my voice when it went high.
You were drunk as a sailor, Dad yelled. Son of a bitch this, and son of a bitch that, it’s downright embarrassing. What self-respecting man lets his wife act like that? You ain’t never had any respect for me or for your children, it’s always you, you, you. Well, I’m tired of it. I want a divorce. Monday morning I’m going into the lawyer’s office, and I’m going to sign the papers. Make myself a free man for once. For once, I can live my life the way I want to live it, instead of yoked up to a willful woman who won’t have things any way but hers.
That night, the silence behind Mom and Dad’s bedroom door, silence in the hallway into the kitchen, silence across the blue and white tiles of the kitchen, down the stairs to my bedroom door, the silence of Sis gone. Silence at my bedroom door pressing hard up against it. Kept me awake all night.
Sunday morning, that very next morning, the three of us in the Buick driving to church for nine o’clock Mass. Same as ever, Dad drove. Same as ever, Mom sat under her church hat and big plastic glasses. Nobody said a word. Usually driving to church, that’s the way things were, nobody saying a word, but that Sunday, all that was unspoken was so full on, you liked to suffocate.
Inside the Buick it still smelled like the night before. Despite Dad’s Old Spice, despite Mom’s new perfume, inside the Buick smelled like the Green Triangle. Sex and booze and rock and roll.
When we parked in the Saint Joe’s parking lot, when Dad got out of the car, I took a good look at him. His face was drut cow face, and he was feeling stupid. You could tell.
After church, when Mom was making breakfast, the pots and pans were getting slammed down extra-hard, the silverware drawer was getting slammed shut, and the refrigerator door slammed shut, the mush a big lump of glue, and the eggs were cooked hard, and when I asked for more toast, Mom said: Get your own damn toast.
When I left the house to go do the chores, as soon as the screen door slammed behind me, inside the house, all hell started breaking loose. Yelling and screaming and things getting thrown around, dishes breaking, you name it.
Damn hick! Mom yelled. What did I do but go and marry a damn hick!
The chores took me extra-long that day. After my Viceroy, after whacking off and breaking the sixth commandment, after listening to the top-ten countdown, after I fed the cows their twenty bales of hay, I didn’t have anything better to do, so I went into the Mexican house. The wood box that was the front step, the blown-out screen door, the two bare rooms smelling of cookstove, tortillas, sweat, cigarettes, and instant coffee. I sat on one of the two double beds, then lay back. The springs made a pinche racket. The sun from the window was warm on my face and red in my eyes when I closed them. I wondered which bed Flaco and Acho slept in. I wondered where they were now. I wondered if the stain on the ceiling looked like a terrible blossom to them.
That night, Dad didn’t come in to watch Bonanza. He stayed out in the machine shed and didn’t eat dinner. There wasn’t any dinner to eat. I had a bologna sandwich and a glass of milk. I tried to call Billie, but there was no answer. Dad didn’t come in that night at all. Slept in the truck, I guess.
It was weird lying in bed thinking about Mom lying in bed alone, and Dad outside in the machine shed or the barn lying alone somewhere.
Monday morning, Dad didn’t go to the lawyer. He sat at his end of the table, sipping his hot tea with two sugars, reading the Idaho State Journal same as ever. I looked hard across my mush at Mom. Behind her big plastic glasses, her almond-shaped hazel eyes weren’t giving up a thing.
It went on all week like that. One evening, walking down the hallway, the bathroom door was open. Dad was standing at the sink with his long johns top draping down over his Levi’s. From his shoulder to his Levi’s was a long scratch. When I looked at the scratch, Dad was looking in the mirror at me to make sure I saw that scratch.
Billie still wasn’t answering my calls, so when Wednesday came along, I drove to Billie’s house and parked and walked up her windy sidewalk past the lamp with the ivy growing on it. When the world falls apart, you can pretend it’s not and make it look good from the outside, or you can try and move forward, even if all you take is
one step.
I rang the doorbell.
C not for Cody, but for cunt.
The man who pushed open the aluminum door wore a gray work shirt with CODY PLUMBING on the pocket and a matching pair of gray pants. He was short like Billie with big shoulders and chest and arms. A way of staring that made me forget what I was going to say.
All I could think was, if I married Billie, both Sis and I would be married to plumbers.
Billie’s dad had a toothpick stuck between his lips, and he was chewing gum like he had a wild animal in his mouth.
What can I do ya for? he said.
His left arm with the gray sleeve rolled to the elbow, the dark hair on his forearm, held open the aluminum door.
Is Cunt here? I said.
Yes, it’s true.
Really, that’s just what I said.
I said, Is Cunt here?
I know. I know. Can you fucking believe it? Even now, just thinking about it, I have to put my arms over my head.
Homer Cody’s index finger drilled his ear. He took his finger out of his ear, looked at his finger, sniffed his finger.
Then: Speak up, son, he said. Who you looking for?
Billie! I blurted out. I’d like to see Billie!
Homer Cody’s eyes looked at me the way you look down the sights of a gun.
Young man, he finally said, I don’t like you.
Sir? I said.
Then over his shoulder, Homer Cody yelled: Hey, wife! Someone’s here to see you.
From the back of the house, a woman’s voice: Who is it?
Homer Cody’s blue eyes were square into my eyes when he yelled: Some dipshit!
Mr. Cody turned back into the house, and then it was Mrs. Cody at the door. Her brown hair cut short in a bubble around her face. She pushed the aluminum door away, and I was freestanding again.
Bare feet and little toenails. Thirty-six years old. Twice the age of Billie. The cigarette in Mrs. Cody’s hand.
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