No Sad Songs

by Frank Morelli

  “Me?” I ask. I look around to make sure I’m still the only other person in the waiting room.

  “No, I’m talking to that guy.” She points to the table where a stack of magazines is topped with a Mr. Potato Head figurine. Poor guy is faceless and only has one ear. I feel a little sorry for him, to tell you the truth.

  “Yeah,” I say. “That guy’s been chatting me up all morning. Doesn’t even have a damn mouth, just that one lonely ear.” She pops off the ear and slips it in a tiny pocket on the sleeve of her leather jacket. She smiles without showing her teeth—just a few sly wrinkles at the corners of her mouth.

  “That better?” I nod. “Good,” she says. She continues to stare at the crinkled page of my notebook.

  “I’m not that deep, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “That’s not what I’m thinking.”

  “Oh, well I saw—”

  “Not exactly. It’s complicated. And you’re not … deep, that is. Nothing about you really suggests it. Plain t-shirt, blue jeans, a pair of sturdy track shoes. Nope. Not deep.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “So now you want to be deep?”

  “No, I don’t want to be deep.”

  “Oh please,” she says, and it’s the most emotion I’ve seen out of her in two waiting room visits. “The withered red leeeeaaaaves,” she cries in some ghostly, Cockney-sounding moan. “Does that sound like a guy not trying to be deep?”

  “It sounds kind of like a drunken ogre if you want to know the truth,” I tell her.

  “I sound like a drunken ogre?”

  “A little bit.”

  “Well, I like it.”

  “Sounding like an ogre?”

  “No, the poem. Even if it does sound all fancy and full of shit.”

  She smiles again. This time she flashes teeth and a twinkle in her eyes—like a mannequin that’s suddenly come to life.

  “If it’s shit, how can you like it?”

  “It’s not shit exactly. It’s just that it’s full of shit. It takes a simple idea and makes it complicated so the d-bag who wrote it can blow smoke up his own arse.”

  “Arse?”

  She smiles. “It seemed to fit the moment. I like the message though. Like we’re all sitting around just getting older and getting more and more bothered by it every day … and still we do nothing about it.” The words trickle from her mouth in a continuous stream. She takes a deep breath to replenish herself. “No future,” she says.

  “What?”

  “No future. Like the song.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Your poem. It’s just a long, annoying, hoighty-toighty way of saying the same thing the Sex Pistols say at the end of ‘God Save the Queen.’ Listen.” She pushes her Walkman across the table to me.

  I give her a look and then hold the phones to my ears and press “play.” There’s a splash and a clatter of drums, a rash of guitar, and some maniac screaming “No future! No future! No future for you!” over and over again.

  “So, you’re into punk?” I ask as I slide the Walkman back to her.

  “Boy, you really are deep. What gave it away?”

  “Well, the—”

  “Oh God. Please don’t answer. Just tell me if you liked it.”

  “Yeah it was great. Couple of aspirin and it would have been perfect.”

  “Lame,” she says, but for some reason it doesn’t feel like a dagger through my heart like it would have if someone like Marlie had said it to me.

  “Are you sick?” I ask.

  “What? Because I like punk music?”

  “Uhh, no. Because you’re in a hospital.”

  “Oh. No. It’s my mom. Cancer.”

  I’m staring down at my notebook again and trying to remove one of my giant-ass shoes from my mouth. Idiot, Gabe. “I’m, uhh … I’m sor—”

  “You don’t have to apologize or anything. It’s not like it’s contagious and you gave it to her or something.”

  “Yeah,” I say, trying to play off my twitchiness as stone-cold aloofness, “of course not.” She’s not buying it, Gabe. Time to change the direction of this conversation. “I’m not sick either. I’m here because my grandfather—”

  “I know. I was here last time … for the escape from Alcatraz.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” I say rubbing my eyes, “you saw that?” That feeling is rushing in again. The Marlie feeling. The one where I’m this tiny, little ant crawling around on the kitchen floor and she’s towering above me ready to crush me without even knowing it.

  “I’m Sofia,” she says. Wait. What? She’s actually a witness to me dragging Grandpa out of there like some abusive prison warden from Hell … and then she tells me her name? Maybe I do like punk music.

  “I’m Gabe,” I say before any drool can roll down my chin. Right at that moment, a door slams in the bowels of Dr. Weston’s offices and I hear someone shout, “Hold him there!” It’s a low, gruff voice like the one that demands things from a perch on my couch every morning. Uncle Nick. Two sets of footsteps clomp down the back hallway, clearly gaining on the waiting room.

  I glance over at Sofia. Her eyes are dark circles and her face is vampire pale, like she’s been avoiding sun her whole life. She looks over my shoulder at Nick and Dr. Weston, who’s standing in the doorway with his clipboard in one hand and a paper towel pressed to his nose in the other. The paper towel is wet, and a red stain spreads slowly through its fibers.

  “What the hell happened, Nick? You were supposed to be watching Grandpa.”

  “I was doing everything but strangling him.”

  “I don’t want to hear it! I knew I should have—”

  “Gabe,” Dr. Weston says in a low growl that evaporates the rest of my statement. “He did all he could. It was an accident and I assure you, I’m not going to die. But I would like to have a word with the two of you in my office. My nurses will attend to your grandfather and keep him busy.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen him in there,” Nick says. His voice is all strained now, like he just competed in a full decathlon. The guy can put on quite a show. “We better make our chat quick,” he says, “before my father terrorizes those poor ladies.” Then—right on cue—there’s a loud crash and the recognizable scuffle of nurse’s shoes on linoleum. We all look in the direction of the examining rooms. The battle has apparently begun.

  “I agree,” says Dr. Weston. He motions to us with a jerky head movement—since both his hands, and probably his nose, are full. The folding chair squeals on the tile floor as I rise to my feet. There’s a plastic sheen of total and unmistakable disinterest on Sofia’s face, which reminds me: I have shitty luck.

  “It was nice meeting you,” I say to her over my shoulder—all suave and manly, like I meet girls in waiting rooms and parking lots out of habit.

  “Yeah,” she says, still in a trance from the commotion and Doc’s bloody nose. “It was cool. Even if you’re a lame, poet geek.”

  She smiles and I’m about to come back with something all casual and flirtatious, something you’d hear in one of those romantic comedies where the man and woman pretend they’re total enemies but then end up in bed together. I hate those movies, because stuff like that never happens to guys like me, but I’m about to say something all mysterious and drenched in irony—something perfect like, “I’d agree … if lame, poet geeks were into labels.” I don’t know. Maybe not that, but I would have thought of something.

  Instead, I hear, “Look at my nephew go, Doc! Hitting on broads right here in your waiting room. Takes stones.”

  “Shut up, Nick,” I say in place of my line.

  “You read poetry to her already? He works quick, that nephew of mine—”

  “Nick!” I grab my notebook and start the long walk from the waiting room to the hallway. I can feel her eyes on me. Her cheeks are probably puffed out like a blowfish and her chest is probably heaving with the laugh she’s saving until she hears Doc’s door slam shut. And I can’t tak
e it anymore. Something about this crazy girl with the dark makeup, leather jacket, and pierced everything forces me to do it.

  I turn around.

  There’s no laugh, but she’s smiling. Not a teeth-showing smile, but I can tell she’s amused. I guess amused is better than mortified. Something tells me this girl doesn’t do mortified. And I like it. Scratch that, I admire it.

  Dr. Weston’s office is the typical medical chamber. Carved panels encase the room in dark-stained oak. An oppressive-looking desk takes up most of the room and any open areas are covered by shelves with rows of leather-bound medical books stacked on them. There are a bunch of picture frames on the desk, all facing Dr. Weston—presumably his wife and kids.

  I snag a starlight mint from a small bowl next to the picture frames and slump down next to Nick on a brown, leather chair facing the doctor. He squeezes a tissue around his nose, so when he talks his voice comes out sounding like what you’d expect to hear if someone tried to smother the Keebler elf.

  “Gentlemen, I brought you back here for obvious reasons,” he says, and immediately I can tell this little conversation is not going in a positive direction. “The incident last week putting in Ernest’s stitches was a pretty clear indicator. Today’s boxing match was confirmation.”

  The doctor pauses for a moment and looks down at the page of notes on his desk. I know this move. It didn’t work on Sofia and it’s not about to work on me.

  “What are you saying?” I ask before he drags this out any longer.

  “I’m saying I don’t think you and Nick are capable of taking care of your grandfather. I’m saying it might be time to seek professional help.”

  “Now wait just a minute,” Uncle Nick says, and I can’t believe it. He might literally have the eye of the tiger right now—wide and full of fire. He sits on the edge of the couch cushion, like he could spring forward and attack the doctor at any moment. A few veins bulge out from beneath the stained neckline of his t-shirt. “My nephew and I take good care of my father. He might be difficult at times, but no one is going to—”

  “Nick, Nick,” Dr. Weston says in a soothing voice—he’s trying to diffuse the land mine currently perched on his new couch. “No one is trying to say you don’t know how to care for Ernest. That’s not the point. But, did you see what he did to us in there? He’s not himself. He’s still strong as an ox, but his brain, Nick. It’s not the same.”

  “We understand that, Doctor,” I say, and I can’t believe I said we as if Nick and I were somehow a team. “But there’s no way we’ll give up on him.”

  “You wouldn’t be giving up on him. Patients like your grandfather are unpredictable. They can become disoriented and their fears often result in violence. They can become a danger to themselves and to anyone they come in contact with. It’s purely a matter of safety.”

  “You heard my nephew. There’s no chance. My father stays with us.”

  Good, old Nick—the number two in our one-two LoScuda punch. Suddenly, I’m bolstered. “And I can never break the promise my father made to him,” I add. “That man will die with dignity. He’s a damn war hero.”

  “That’s your decision,” Dr. Weston says, “and I will do my best to support you both. But please know I’ll be writing my recommendations here in my notes. I need you to understand they could become relevant if anything were to happen in the future.”

  “The future,” I whisper.

  “Son, you need to face it. He has no future.”

  “Well, if he has no future,” Nick says, “he’s sure as hell gonna spend it with us. Come on, Gabe. Let’s get Grandpa.”

  And, for once, Uncle Nick and I agree on something.

  7

  IT SINGS OF FREEDOM

  Each day I spend as a teenage nursemaid makes me realize Mom and Dad were complete badasses. They were like a pair of crazy street jugglers you’d find in Baltimore Harbor. A mortgage, two jobs, a marriage, Grandpa—all shiny, enameled bowling pins to be flipped through the air and never allowed to touch the ground. And then there was me, the flaming baton—only to be tossed in at the precise moment every pin dangled in its most perilous position. How my parents kept the act in business for all those years, I’ll never know. But at least they had each other. Here I am trying to figure it out on my own.

  I woke up this morning at six, emptied the garbage, washed Nick’s dishes from last night, caught up on a late homework assignment for Mastro’s class (we’re studying modern poets these days), ate a peanut butter and banana sandwich, and force-fed Grandpa his morning meds. Did I mention it’s Saturday? Apparently none of this matters to Nick, who’s currently wedged between the couch cushions like a sloppy helping of cellulite taco. He’s out cold and the classifieds section is nowhere in sight. But he’s trying. I have to give him that. Putting his foot down in Doc’s office showed me that somewhere, beneath the neck rolls and the ever-questionable blood alcohol content, Nick cares about what happens to Grandpa. I can work with that, which is actually what I plan to do. Get a job. It’ll be some tough-juggling when baseball season rolls around—what with school and Grandpa still shaking me down every day—but that won’t even come close to the type of act Mom and Dad pulled off for almost two decades putting up with my garbage. Besides, it’s kind of hard to expect Nick to join the ranks of the employed if I’m not there with him.

  It’s still early, so I figure I’ll get a jump on next week’s reading for Mastro’s class—and actually know what people are talking about for a change. It’s from Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She’s the National Poet Laureate. She even read her poetry at President Clinton’s inauguration. I guess anyone who gets recognized for poetry needs a little respect. I mean, I write my own poetry but it’s not like I’ll ever let another soul read it. Good old Maya’s out there sharing her deepest and darkest thoughts with the world. Even the freaking president knows them. That’s a pretty heavy weight to carry, don’t you think?

  I figure I might as well read the stuff out loud to Grandpa. Doc says patients like him are soothed by the human voice—so I’ll learn some crap and mellow out the old man at the same time. How’s that for juggling?

  I read a bio piece from the front jacket that says Angelou’s writing was pretty influential during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. She was even pals with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I didn’t think Gramps was all that much into civil rights. At least he never mentioned anything about them, or the fact that he lived through the era, but he didn’t seem to mind. He just lounges back against the headboard—shoes off, eyes half shut—and listens to me read.

  Thing is, the more I read the more charged up I start to feel. The more Angelou’s words begin, like all good poetry, to speak directly to me. The more I want to chirp them loudly from my swinging perch. The more I want to peck my way out of the cage.

  But a bird that stalks

  down his narrow cage

  can seldom see through

  his bars of rage

  And I think about it. Not too many months ago my biggest worries were passing my driving test and learning how to hit a curveball. Now people’s lives, including my own, are nothing more than products of the decisions I’ll make. An invisible cage, maybe. But still a cage. One that’s been holding me hostage from the man, no the kid, I want to be. I knew what had to be done. Even if my new life had completely obliterated the old one, at least I could take small trips back in time—like little vacations from reality.

  his wings are clipped

  and his feet are tied

  so he opens his throat to sing.

  I pull Grandpa’s afghan up over his chest. He’s only half awake, so I figure I have a good hour of freedom before he needs my services again. Nick is sitting up on the couch when I pass through the living room. Progress. He shovels palms full of Cocoa Puffs into his mouth straight from the box. His watery eyes are glued to the television where bugle calls and gunfire tell me the cavalry has arrived in whatever matinee western he is wat
ching.

  “I’m going out,” I say as I pass. He grunts something unintelligible, so I know he hears me.

  I creep into the garage and untangle the old Mongoose from its cobwebby tomb. Haven’t been on the damn thing since I got my license. Standing here, with the garage light reflecting off its chrome frame and the smell of cracked rubber wafting off a thin tread on the blue tires, it seems strange I traded it in for the Trans-Am so quickly. There wasn’t much thought to it, I guess. But it feels nice to perch on the pedals and hop a few curbs like the old days—so nice I decide to pedal it over to Perdomo’s for an early slice.

  Perdomo’s is only a few blocks into town, but the scenery is like a trail back in time through the trials and tribulations of Gabe’s life. Seriously. The sign read “Maple Street,” but it could probably be changed to “LoScuda’s Shameful Way” and no one would notice. I could see it now:

  An old, married couple reaches the street corner. They look up at the sign. She says, “Oh yes, honey, that’s the boy who crashed his bike into the hydrant near the dry cleaners.”

  “Are you sure, Dolores?”

  “Oh yes. Don’t you remember? He skinned his knee. Left the bike there and everything. Ran screaming all the way down the street. Scared my girlfriend Mabel half to death.”

  “Over a skinned knee?”

  “Yep. All over a skinned knee.”

  I’ll spare you any more horror stories, this being a tame one. My exploits are known far and wide along the Maple Street corridor. Just another bullet point to tack on my list titled: Reasons Why I’m at Home Playing Video Games on Friday Nights. Only, I’d give just about anything to abandon the juggling and get back to weekend Madden marathons as soon as possible. Since that won’t be happening, a slice of pizza might ease the pain.

  I lean my bike up against the brick façade at Perdomo’s like I’ve done since I learned to ride a bike and eat a slice at the same time. It’s kind of early for lunch, but there are already a few patrons inside. Kind of an odd mix. There’s a middle-aged guy in a business suit sitting at a table for two near the front window. His briefcase sits on the empty chair and he’s craning his neck back to suck in a glob of cheese before it lands on his tie.