Nobody's Family is Going to Change

by Louise Fitzhugh

  Willie looked up at him with bleary eyes. This guy has to be kidding, he thought. He can’t be talking about me. The best for me is what Dipsey can give me.

  “This is just a passing thing. As you get older, you’ll go through many things like this. It would be unfair to you if I were to take this seriously. When you get older and you have more judgment, I’m sure that you will make wiser decisions about your life.”

  “I’m not going to be any different,” said Willie.

  “I’m sure you will see, later, that I was right,” said his father, unperturbed. He smiled. “I think, probably, when you’re eighteen, you’ll even look back on this and thank me.” With that, his father turned and left the room.

  Thank him! Willie lay there, stunned. Thank him for messing up everything!

  His mother said, “Get your clothes off, dear, and get into your pajamas. It’s bedtime.” She smiled and closed the door.

  Willie lay there like a caught fish. They talk like crazy people, he thought. He wants me to thank him and she says it’s bedtime, when here I am with nothing left in my life. I could jump right out the window—that’s how much I care about anything. He tried to envision a life without dancing a step. He saw himself plodding to school. He saw himself plodding home from school, plodding back to school the next morning and home again the next afternoon.

  No. Life like that would be one long hell. He thought of never seeing Dipsey. He thought of having no dreams. What would there be to look forward to? What was all this, anyway? His father couldn’t possibly be saying that he, Willie, wasn’t ever to dance again. Could he?

  He thought of his father’s face as he’d talked to Dipsey on the phone. That’s just what his father was saying.

  His father was saying that he, Willie, wasn’t to dance any more, wasn’t to think about it any more, wasn’t to want anything to do with it, was not to dream.

  Fat chance.

  Mrs. Sheridan opened the door. “Come on, darling, get your PJ’s on.”

  “Mama?”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s the matter with Daddy?”

  Mrs. Sheridan came into the room and hurriedly shut the door after herself. “Why, darling, what do you mean?” She looked nervous.

  “What’s got him so angry?”

  “He’s not angry, dear. He’s concerned about you.”

  “Well, tell him not to be concerned about me.”

  “He wants the best for you. He loves you.”

  “He don’t love me. If he loved me, then he’d want me to do what I want to do.”

  “That’s not always so. What about children who want to do something that’s bad for them? Their fathers have to watch out for them and see that—”

  “What’s bad about dancing?”

  “Well, nothing at the moment, but if you have a life that’s like the life dancers have to live, then—”

  “Mama, that’s all I want. I just want to do what Dipsey does.”

  “Honey, Dipsey is a man. He can take care of himself.”

  “Mama, didn’t you tell me all about Granddaddy and how he was in vaudeville and how your mama was and what it was like?”

  “Yes, but that was a long time ago. That was a different world. And it wasn’t always pleasant. There were times we didn’t have enough to eat, or any place to stay, and no money at all.”

  Willie, who didn’t give a hoot about eating or money, pushed on. “But nothing bad happened, did it, Mama? I mean, nobody was killed and everybody was okay?”

  “It’s a long, hard life, Willie. There’s a lot of heartbreak in it.

  Willie was sitting there with his heart broken, so this didn’t make any sense to him.

  “You’re too young, darling. You don’t know enough about life yet.”

  Willie was thinking hard. If only they wouldn’t cut it all off completely. “Mama, couldn’t I just go back to having my one dancing lesson a week? I wouldn’t go to Dipsey’s again. He would come here. I know he would.”

  “Your father was mad tonight, but I’ll try to talk to him when he’s not so upset. It scared him, your going all the way across town like that.”

  “Nothing happened to me.”

  “But it could have.” Mrs. Sheridan stood up. “Get undressed now. I’ll talk to your father.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “When, Mama?”

  “Soon, dear.” She opened the door and went out.

  Willie got up and started for his closet. On the way he began to dance. He decided he was Fred Astaire and the number involved changing into pajamas. He danced his way out of his clothes and he danced his way into his pajamas.

  For once, Emma didn’t knock on the wall and say she’d cut his feet off. He was so tired he didn’t notice. He danced his way to bed, fell into it and into sleep.

  The next morning was Saturday. Willie stayed in his room all day. His mother kept coming to the door trying to get him to go out into the park, but he wouldn’t budge.

  Emma went to the library. She took down four enormous books from the legal section and sat with her head buried in them until it was closing time.

  On Sunday, Willie went out for the Sunday paper as usual. He eame back and, without a word, handed it to his father. His mother watched him as he went slowly back into his room and closed the door.

  Emma was coming down the hall and saw Willie go into his room. “William, I’m worried about Willie,” she heard her mother say. “Don’t be,” said her father. “He’ll get over it. You’ll see.” Emma continued on her way to the fridge.

  On Monday morning, Emma, who was consuming two fried eggs, bacon, sausage, and three pieces of toast, looked over at Willie, who sat, his plate full and untouched in front of him, chewing slowly on a corner of a piece of toast, looking out the window at the river.

  They were alone in the dining room. Mr. Sheridan had left for work very early, and Mrs. Sheridan wasn’t awake yet.

  Emma looked carefully at her brother. She noticed for the first time that his eyes were sad eyes, that his neck was thin, and that his hands, holding the toast, were small. Seven isn’t really very old, she thought to herself. Maybe he doesn’t know what he’s doing. On the other hand, he seems to know. She could see that he must have cried during the night. His eyes were swollen. He was chewing, but the toast didn’t seem to get any smaller.

  “Uh, are you going to see Dipsey any more?”

  Willie looked at his sister. What he didn’t need this morning was any fat lip from her. “What’s it to you?” he asked, then jammed the toast back into his mouth and looked at the river again.

  “I don’t think it’s fair.” Emma said this while eating a sausage.

  Willie turned his head to take in his sister’s curious eyes. He remembered then that she had said something similar to their father. Could he trust her?

  Emma saw that her brother’s eyes were deep with sadness, great brown wells ready to spill over. He seemed to be examining her as though he’d never seen her before.

  “I think something should be done about it,” said Emma softly, so Martha in the kitchen couldn’t hear.

  Willie’s eyes hardened. The moment was past. “What?” he said scornfully.

  “He’s got to see he’s wrong.”

  “Who?”

  “Dad.” Emma couldn’t say Daddy. It made her feel like a pickaninny in a bad movie running across a cotton field yelling “Daddy, Daddy.”

  “Ha.” Willie couldn’t be roused from his pit. “How you expect to do that?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I think there’s a way,” said Emma mysteriously.

  Willie shrugged. “He not going to change his mind. Not him.”

  Martha came in. “Out, out. You’re going to be late. Both of you.”

  Willie dragged himself off the chair, picked up his briefcase, and slouched toward the door.

  Definitely, thought Emma, definitely a possibility for a committee. She determined to push something th
rough as quickly as possible, even if she was a new member, and even if her father would throw them all out the window.

  Saunders and Goldin were waiting for her outside of school after her last class.

  “Can you go to the park?” asked Goldin.

  “Yes,” said Emma.

  “We’ll wait for Ketchum,” said Saunders.

  Ketchum appeared then, all frightened and loaded down with books.

  “Let’s go,” said Saunders.

  They marched four abreast down the hill to East End, then up the avenue to the park. Nobody said a word. They walked into the park and sat down on a bench.

  “I have some literature here,” said Saunders, pulling a sheaf of papers out of her bag. “That girl Cathy gave it to me over the weekend. I contacted her.”

  Get you, thought Emma, contacted, like a spy movie.

  “She says we ought to look this over.” It turned out to be only one piece of paper, because Saunders had gotten it mixed up with her history assignment. She passed it around.

  When it was Emma’s turn, she saw that it had only one line written on it. It said: INNER PROGRESS BEFORE OUTER PROGRESS.

  “Is that all?” asked Emma. She had thought there would be instructions, like go to the Eighty-sixth Street station of the IRT and follow a man in a gray coat.

  Saunders nodded. She waited for Ketchum to finish reading the paper. Ketchum handed it back, no expression on her face.

  “What does it mean?” asked Emma.

  “What does it appear to mean?” asked Saunders, who seemed to be under the impression that she had turned into her own English teacher, who was well known for saying exactly that, in exactly that way.

  “Oh, come off it,” said Emma.

  Saunders looked affronted, and Goldin leapt into the breach. “I think what Saunders means is that it’s saying just what it seems to be saying. I mean, this country is always talking about progress, like new buildings, new roads, new machines, and look at the people. Nobody grows up.”

  Ketchum burst out laughing, inexplicably. Everybody turned to her. She stopped laughing and went back to her strange glancing around.

  It was then that they all realized that Ketchum had been swiveling her head around, darting her eyes back and forth, and generally looking frightened to death ever since they came into the park.

  “What’s the matter with you?” asked Emma.

  Ketchum started, grabbed her books, and looked ready to run out of the park.

  “Wait,” said Goldin. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m not supposed to be here,” whispered Ketchum, her eyes flying around in her head like frightened birds.

  “Where?” asked Emma.

  “In the park.” She hugged her books.

  “You supposed to be somewhere else?” Emma felt amused. Ketchum looked so tiny huddled there, her eyes flying.

  “A man was murdered here,” whispered Ketchum. She leaned forward so far that she almost fell, and all her books dropped.

  Emma helped her pick them up, noticing as she did that Ketchum had spidery little white hands, covered with freckles. Emma was fascinated by the ugliness of them. She thought white skin ugly anyway, but Ketchum’s hands took the cake. She tried to hand the books back without touching them.

  “My father told me not to set foot in this park, even in the daytime.” Ketchum was breathless with her own deceit.

  Emma looked around. There were nannies with baby carriages, children being pushed on swings. Everything looked the way it always did.

  “I think we’ll be all right,” said Saunders. Goldin nodded.

  “But a whole bunch of guys came across from Eighty-sixth Street and killed this guy,” said Ketchum.

  “At night?” asked Emma.

  Ketchum nodded. “Well, then,” said Saunders. “What I think we ought to talk about,” she continued, dismissing murder, “is whether we have any complaints. Cathy said that the best thing to do was to talk over complaints with friends and choose the really important ones, you know, so nobody is embarrassed in front of the whole brigade by some, you know, dumb complaint, like they don’t like their breakfast cereal and they want it changed.”

  Emma laughed her silent laugh. They all watched her shaking and making no noise, until she saw them watching her. She stopped laughing and said, “That’s ridiculous. Who would do that?”

  “Obviously, she didn’t really mean that,” said Saunders, looking superior.

  Emma became aware that Saunders had mean eyes. Mean eyes and a dull mind, she thought. “Obviously,” she said. “Okay, who’s first with a complaint?”

  Nobody said a word. Everyone looked at the river as though they’d never seen it before. Ketchum must have moved, because all her books fell again. Emma helped her again.

  “Uh, Saunders”—Ketchum leaned over Emma, who was picking up books—“could I speak to you privately?”

  “Certainly,” said Saunders. She stood up and walked over to the railing. Ketchum followed her. They stood, leaning over the river, talking.

  Emma felt like a fat frog, sitting there watching them. She looked at Goldin. Goldin was watching them too. Goldin was looking only at Saunders, as usual.

  “Nice day,” said Emma. Goldin was too engrossed in watching her master to answer.

  Saunders put an arm around Ketchum and led her back to the bench.

  “This is definitely a serious problem,” she said, and sat down next to Emma, making a place for Ketchum beside her. Ketchum seemed to have picked up Goldin’s disease, because she looked up into Saunders’ eyes adoringly.

  “Ketchum’s uncle is posing a problem. This uncle is her father’s brother. He’s out of a job all the time and is always coming over and hanging around the house, especially the afternoons, when Ketchum is home alone after school.” Saunders paused for drama, checking everyone to see if they were paying attention. “This uncle makes indecent proposals to Ketchum.”

  Emma couldn’t believe her ears. Ketchum? Who would make any kind of proposal to Ketchum, let alone indecent. She searched Ketchum’s face. Was Ketchum making this up?

  “Ketchum wants him stopped,” finished Saunders.

  “Naturally,” said Goldin.

  “Let’s take a vote,” said Saunders. “Is this serious enough for presentation?”

  “Has this happened more than once?” asked Emma.

  Ketchum looked petrified, but nodded.

  “Is your family—are your mother and father aware of this?”

  Ketchum said, “Oh, no,” and tried to get to her feet, presumably to run out of the park.

  “Ketchum can’t tell her family,” said Saunders. “She’s tried, but she can’t talk to them, about that or about anything else.”

  “Would they be violent if approached by a committee?” Emma pressed on. As she did this, she was thinking of her own family and how she would answer these questions.

  “I don’t think so,” said Ketchum. “They never hit me or anything.”

  Who would hit a frightened thing like you, thought Emma.

  “Let’s take a vote,” said Saunders. “I vote yes, that this is serious enough.” She raised her hand.

  Goldin raised hers immediately, then Emma.

  Ketchum gave a sort of little screech. “Oooo, you mean they’re going to come to my house?”

  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” asked Goldin.

  “Oooo, I don’t know,” squealed Ketchum.

  “We’ll come back to that later,” said Saunders. “Goldin, you have a problem, I believe?”

  “Yes,” said Goldin. “I have three brothers. My father thinks everything they do is wonderful. My mother is dead. Like, when they bring home report cards, he makes a big chazzerei over every B they get, and when I bring home my report card, which is all A’s, he doesn’t say a damn thing, like that’s what I should get, that’s what’s expected of me. And my brothers can’t stand me, like they trip me all the time and hide my clothes so I’m late for school
, and they steal all my pens and pencils and notebooks, and my sweaters. One of them likes to dress in girl’s clothes and he’s all the time stealing my sweaters.”

  “And you can’t talk to your father about this, can you?” asked Saunders, prompting.

  “God, no. He thinks the boys hung the moon. When I was little, I couldn’t even say one of them hit me, even when I was bleeding from it. He wouldn’t believe me, he would make out like I walked into a door or something. They never do anything wrong as far as he’s concerned.”

  “So there would be your father and three boys for the committee to face?” Saunders seemed to have thought about all this before. Emma figured they had talked about it together before this.

  “That’s right,” said Goldin. “And they’re big, too. My brothers are big guys, at least two of them are—the one who likes to dress up is smaller.”

  “Does your father know of this tendency?” asked Emma.

  “What do you mean?” asked Goldin.

  “Does your father know this boy has a tendency toward transvestitism?” Emma was proud of her vocabulary.

  “What?” asked Ketchum abruptly.

  “Oh, right,” said Goldin. “No, he doesn’t know it goes on all the time. He saw him once dressed up for a school play like that and he told him he was beautiful. I tell you, anything they do is just perfect with him. They can’t do any wrong.”

  “What do you want the committee to tell him?” asked Emma.

  “I don’t know, exactly,” said Goldin. “I mean, he’s not going to listen, I’ll tell you that right now. I guess he should be told to change his attitude, but I don’t think he’d listen for one minute. I mean, he doesn’t see anything wrong with his attitude.”

  “Let’s vote,” said Saunders.

  “On what?” asked Emma. “We have to know what she wants accomplished first.”

  “I think we just have to vote on whether it’s serious or not,” said Saunders.

  “The point is,” said Emma, “it has to be clear-cut that the committee can do some good, like something she could ask that the father stop doing, not just his attitude, but something he does to her.” Emma knew she was right, but her heart sank as she said what she said, because wasn’t it her own father’s attitude that was at fault? If he would just change his attitude about Willie—but no, he had done something too. He had said that Willie couldn’t take dance lessons any more. The committee could get the dance lessons reinstated.