by Van Thomas
Part 2
18
Saint Vincent’s
The sounds buzzed all around me, voices talking, a phone ringing, the ding of an elevator arriving to its destination, its doors closing again as it moved on, something passing on wheels, its cargo rattling loudly. I was suspended in that space between sleep and wakefulness, my mind trying to associate the sounds I was hearing to anything I might know or recognize. My eyes were shut against the bright artificial light.
“Sissy?” KiKi cried shaking me. “What have you done?” I heard her run out of the bathroom and then come running back. “Julie, Julie, sit up please.” I lifted my head off of the cold bathroom tiles and Kerstin held a cup to my mouth, coaxing me to drink it. “911 said to drink it, Julie, that you’d throw up what you took if you did.” I shook my head and lay it down on the same spot I’d been on for hours, waiting to die.
“One dollar and fourteen cents,” the cashier at Safeway said.
I paid for the Bic razors and walked home. Mom was still at work and KiKi hadn’t been dropped off by her bus yet.
The handle broke off easily, but I had to use Dad’s old hammer to pry the plastic casing away from the razor. After I’d mummified it in toilet paper and hidden the bundle in my back pocket, I gathered up all the bits of blue plastic and buried them next to the side of the house in the backyard. I didn’t want my plan to be blown because I couldn’t explain the plastic confetti in the bottom of the bathroom trashcan.
“If someone is nice to me today,” I told myself the next morning, I won’t go through with it.” No one was, though.
“She’s always like that,” my best friend then had said. “Ever since her brother died, she’s a walking basket case.”
I had walked into class teary-eyed and sat behind a guy she liked. He looked back at me and made a face and they both howled with laughter. Not the laughing with you kind, either. I saw this as a sign, if you’re into that sort of stuff. A sign that life without my brother wasn’t worth living.
19
Darius
Me and Mama and C.J., we’d been doing just fine without Darius. But, after Auntie Reneta died, Grandma and Uncle Bill, they’d pool their money together to buy us Peter Pan tickets to come back home. It took a couple of months before they could even have the funeral what with all the water and all the other folks that Katrina had killed. Mama was in a real weak state. And sure enough, Darius showed up at Grandma’s FEMA trailer they’d parked in the back of Uncle Bill’s, hair greased back, pants ironed, shoes shined, saying he was a changed man, that he’d come so close to dying himself, seen so much death around him, he wanted to make good on all he’d wronged. And, at the top of the list was Mama and their baby. Mama fell for it. Auntie Faith and Auntie Nellie and Grandma all tried to talk her out of it, but once the funeral was over, Darius came back with us to Columbus.
“Love ain’t just a word,” Mama told me after, “it’s a lot of hard work. And Darius and hard work don’t get along so good.”
I kept track of Darius’ drinking one month. He was almost regular like clockwork, drinking one night, too hung over and sick to drink the next. August 22,23,25,27,29,31, September 2,4,5,7,10,12,14, and 16 drunk. He’s a mean drunk, too. Always putting Mama down, putting our family down, leaving her notes on the kitchen table like:
Actually, why don’t you and your daughter and that baby you call my son just fuck off? You’re a useless piece of shit. All you’re good for is to look at. Useless shit. I don’t need you. Fuck off.
P.S. Ever try to get me for child support again, I’ll put a bullet through your head. That’s a Southerner’s promise, understand?
Last month, Mama’d put a pizza in the oven for me and C.J. to share. There wasn’t but one left in the freezer and Darius got mad there wouldn’t be any for him. It was September 23. He’d actually gone six days without drinking that week. That’s a long time for Darius.
“Well, what am I supposed to eat, woman?” he bellowed.
“Maybe if you’d help out by giving me some grocery money instead of spending it all on booze, there’d be a pizza for you, too.”
Mama walked into the living with her arms folded across her chest, looking miserable. She wasn’t in there two minutes before we heard the oven door open and close. Then the front door opened and slammed shut. Mama went running into the kitchen.
“What’d you do, Darius?” Mama cried.
“If you ain’t gonna feed me, them kids sure ain’t gonna get fed either,” Darius yelled.
“What did you do?” I heard Mama ask. Then, I heard the creak of the oven door as she opened it. “Where’s the pizza?” Mama asked.
“I threw it out,” Darius laughed. “What are you gonna do now?”
“Darius!” Mama screamed. “How could you do that? That was for your baby, too,” Mama cried.
“Stop calling him that,” he hissed. “I told you he ain’t mine. I’m getting out of here,” he told Mama, “and when I come back, I’m gonna teach you a lesson.”
20
Crash
Abuelita pointed to my baby shoes she kept on a stand next to her bed. “I wish I could have bought you better shoes when you were a baby, Jorge,” she said softly.
That was just like my grandma, even as she lay dying, she was still thinking about what more she could have done for me.
“I don’t want you to be sad when I die,” she whispered. “I want you to remember all the good times we had together. I want you to remember me with a smile.” I was sitting on the edge of her bed and I nodded. “I worry about you, Jorge,” Abuelita said softly. “You’ve lost so much already. I worry what you’ll do without me. It’s you I worry the most about.”
After Abuelita died, I didn’t care about nothing anymore. Not my art, not my grades, not my family, nothing.
“You’re killing this family,” Mom cried. “Your drinking and smoking and staying out all night and the friends you hang out with. I know you feel bad,” she added. “I know you miss your grandma,” Mom then inhaled deeply because the next words cut her like a knife to say, “and I know you miss your brother.” She exhaled. “I can take you to the doctor,” Mom whispered. “I can take you there and maybe they can give you something to help.” Mom whispered because to my dad, going to a doctor for help was a sign of weakness. The only time he’d ever gone to the doctor’s was when he had kidney stones. And even then, Mom and me and Alfonso had to force him into the car. Mom thought he was dying he was in so much pain.
“Look, Jorge,” Mom said evenly. “I’m not, Dad’s not, this family’s not going to keep living like this. I’m offering to take you for help and you say no. Dad grounds you and you sneak out. I send you to school in the morning, and then the school calls me to report you’re not there. And, how many times have the police brought you back home in the middle of the night? Three? Four? Your brother and your sisters can’t stand you. Dad says you’re a disgrace, Jorge. A disgrace to the family.”
It was those words, “You’re a disgrace,” that ran through my head as I stole Dad’s truck keys off the counter. I’d taken his truck out before, lots of times. I couldn’t believe how stupid he was not to figure it out. What a pendejo.
“Sweet, Jorge!” Juanita screeched as she and Precious hopped in the front with me and Pablo. Juanita straddled the stick shift and opened her purse on her lap, pointing to a big bottle of Bacardi. “We’re going to get messed up, chicos!” Juanita yelled.
“This of Officer Stone from the Columbus Police Department. I’m looking for Pedro Rodriquez in regards to your vehicle. If you could give me a call back at 442-0488, I’d appreciate it.”
Mom had played the message to me to make it real clear just how bad it was for them to wake up to a police officer banging on the door at one in the morning. They were both asleep. When Dad didn’t call back, an officer came for him.
“Are you Pedro Rodrique
z?” the officer asked.
Mom said she thought I was dead. That the officer was there to tell them I’d been killed in an accident.
“Yes,” Dad answered.
“Sir, do you know where your truck is?”
Dad looked over the officer’s shoulder and saw his truck wasn’t in the driveway where he’d left it.
“No,” Dad said alarmed.
“Mr. and Mrs. Rodriquez, there’s been an accident involving your son and his friends. They are all being transported to the hospital now.”
“Oh, mi Dios,” Mom said taking Dad’s hand in hers.
“Sir,” Officer Stone began, “do you have a way to get to the scene of the accident?”
“No, that’s our only vehicle,” Dad said.
“Alright,” Officer Stone replied calmly. “I can take you both.”
Mom slipped on her shoes and Dad went into the bathroom to put on his jeans.
“Are there any younger children in the house who shouldn’t be left unattended?” the officer asked.
“No, Jorge is our youngest,” Mom said sadly looking at Dad standing in the hallway. “He’s the last one, the last,” she whispered, barely audible over the static from Officer Stone’s walky-talky.
21
Drunk
“Quick, Raven,” Mama called from in the kitchen. “Get C.J. out and dried off. I want to get him into bed before Darius comes back. Ain’t no use scaring the baby; it’s bad enough the two of us are scared.”
“I’m not scared of