by Nancy Rue
I didn’t start off with that with Hank because we got into my experience at the Watchdogs meeting. She nodded when I wound up with a recap of my outburst.
“You certainly have a way with people, Al,” she said.
“A lot of them do find me hard to take. I know I can give off a vibe.”
“A ‘vibe.’”
“When I was working as a waitress at a truck stop in Palatka, this driver called me over to his table and told me I should smile more because when I was serious I looked like I was about to hold up a liquor store.” I shrugged. “I try to keep that in mind.”
“I was thinking more of that way you have of looking at somebody like you’re reading their mind.”
“I get that a lot too. Some people ask me straight out what I’m looking at. I notice people checking their noses, I guess to find out if I’m staring at a booger hanging or something. I don’t know.”
“So are you?”
“What—looking at boogers?”
“No. Reading our minds.”
“No. I guess I’m usually just waiting to see if somebody has something to say. I’ve never been that good at small talk—you know, party chatter, conversations with strangers in checkout lines.”
“Which is what I like about you,” Hank said. “However, unlike me, most people aren’t ready to jump into in-depth conversations after five minutes of being introduced to you.”
“Or after five years, evidently.” I felt the sadness drain me again. “It was different with my group. But last night it was like they changed right there before my eyes.”
Hank chewed thoughtfully on a mouthful of the Walk the Plank omelet she’d tried again to talk me into. I’d gotten away with just a café au lait. “Have you considered that maybe you’re the one who changed?”
“Yeah, well, there’s that, only I don’t know where it’s all coming from.”
Hank held up two fingers on the hand she wasn’t eating with. “One, yes you do, and two, that isn’t the point.”
“You going to tell me what the point is?”
“No. You’re going to tell me.” She turned to Patrice. “Hon, would it offend you if I asked for just a drop more of Tabasco sauce?”
While hippie-haired Patrice assured her that the only thing that offended her was people turning down her food, I got no closer to the point. I shook my head at Hank as she sprinkled hot sauce on the remains of her eggs.
“All right,” she said, “we’ve established that God is behind all this, yes?”
“Yes.”
“It hasn’t been my experience that God gives an assignment and then leaves you to figure out how to carry it out by yourself.”
“He’s not saying anything.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have to. Maybe you already know.”
“I already know how to take care of somebody who’s basically dying.”
She was nodding before the words settled between us. “Yeah, Al, you do.”
It was worth a shot, and it made even more sense when the longer Geneveve went without using, the sicker she seemed. She showed no awareness of what was night and what was day. She never remembered to eat on her own. And she clearly saw no point in brushing her teeth or bathing or doing much of anything but wander restlessly around the house, touching everything and feeling nothing. She showed every mental symptom of a dying patient letting go of her spirit. I had to turn my house back into a hospice.
I set up a routine for her of rising and going to bed, taking regular naps, soaking in Celtic salt baths, just as I’d done for Sylvia. I set out the toothbrush with the paste already on it—curled her fingers around a glass of water every time she licked her lips—sat across from her at the bistro table and fed her apple slices and almonds until she figured out how to pick them up and put them into her own mouth.
By Saturday afternoon she started to thank me, with long, embarrassing hugs and lengthy paragraphs about how I was saving her life and how she was never going to use drugs again. She always ended with tears, and, “You are an angel.”
Any chance I had of actually believing that was dashed on a regular basis by Desmond. Two days of middle school had evidently exhausted his witty repartee and wiped out the energy he normally used to work me. He had moved on to finding all my buttons and mashing them. Over and over.
He emptied the snack drawer, and, I suspected, flushed some of the contents down the john, judging from the backup I had to deal with Saturday morning. The TV, the CD player, and the radio were all going at full volume, simultaneously, every time I left the first floor. I found him wearing my yellow Harley T-shirt, with the neck and sleeves cut out, caught him sifting through my jewelry box and mumbling about my bling not being worth a thing, and discovered him looking at porn on the computer in the den. Within a twenty-four-hour period I could have had him arrested for theft, destruction of property, and attempted crazy-making. I was glad I now knew a good attorney, because I was going to need one to defend me when I committed homicide. Mary Alice was the one who was right about this one: I did not know how to handle this kid.
The one thing I found interesting—rather than just stupefying—was that he never tried to run away. He could have split any of a number of times when I was occupied with Geneveve, and the way I was cramping his style, he had to want to. But every time I thought—and, admittedly, hoped—he’d slipped out the side door or taken off out the front, I would come downstairs to find him eating the bag of mini-marshmallows I was saving for hot chocolate or trying to order from the Harley catalog over the phone. I just kept locking things in cabinets and hiding them in closets, and took to keeping my debit card and cell phone on my person at all times. But the one thing I didn’t keep a close enough eye on was the key to my Harley.
Late Saturday afternoon, when Geneveve was napping and Desmond had at last fallen into a stupor in front of VH1, and I was sure everything valuable was nailed down, I decided that clumsy as I still was, I had to go for a bike ride or I was seriously going to lose it. When I reached for the key on the brass hook by the kitchen door and it wasn’t there, I did. Loud and long and livid.
“Desmond, get in here! Now!”
I was answered with a mild expletive and, “Big Al, you ever considered switchin’ to some decaf?” At which point I catapulted myself into the den and yanked him out of the chair by the front of my yellow Harley T-shirt.
“In there now,” I said.
“You don’t got to get all up in my dental work about it.” He shook out the shirt as if he’d just spent an hour ironing it and sauntered into the kitchen. I cut him off halfway across.
“Where is the key to my Harley?” I said. “And don’t waste my time telling me you didn’t take it because you’ve had your hands on everything else I own. Give it to me. Now.”
Desmond shoved his hands into the pockets of his baggy shorts and for an insane moment I thought he was simply going to hand it over. But his head went back, and challenge gleamed in his big eyes. He was no longer a cute kid. And I was no longer his understanding keeper.
“I’m not playing with you, Desmond,” I said.
“C’mon, Big Al, we always playin’. I’ll give you a hint—”
“You’ll give me the key.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You don’t even want to know.”
He tried to laugh, but he didn’t get far. I curled my fingers around his left ear and pulled him sideways toward the ground. With his hands in his pockets, he had no place to go but down, which he did while I grabbed his right wrist and pulled out his hand. It was still fisted around the key.
“Make a choice,” I said. “You can give up your ear or you can give up my key.”
His fingers opened and the key clattered to the floor, but not before I saw surprise, anger, and fear flip through his eyes like c
ards in a Rolodex. There was no satisfaction in it for me, not only because I felt like a playground bully, but because it had been so easy to do. Too easy. For a kid who’d grown up on West King Street, he had no moves, no strength, no toughness quotient whatsoever. How he’d survived this long I had no idea, but I did know one thing: He wouldn’t have made it out there much longer.
I stood up and put a hand down to him. He didn’t seem to notice that it was shaking as he glared at it.
“Game over,” I said.
If he knew I was giving him a chance to save face, he wasn’t having it. He pulled the shirt off, revealing ribs that climbed his chest like rickety ladders, and tossed it to me.
“You can have that back,” he said, and took himself to the den, visibly trying to keep his tail from disappearing between his legs.
I looked away, ashamed for both of us.
Desmond didn’t speak for the rest of the night, and the silence was unnerving. Somewhere in the midst of it, I decided there was no way I was taking those two to church the next day—and even less of a way I was leaving them in the house by themselves. What was it going to accomplish for me to go anyway? More grief from my community of believers? More discouragement expressed as concern for my safety? Another invitation from Garry Howard for us to sit down and discuss our “misunderstandings”? I was surprised he hadn’t already called me to dismantle my word from God; surely Frank or Mary Alice had informed him of that by now. And seeing Bonner would just send me running for the Oreos—if I’d had any left.
I dipped into my hidden stash of cocoa instead and took it, minus marshmallows, to the side porch in my bare feet and pajamas. Almost October. Miz Vernell had a pot of fiery-colored mums on both ends of every step to her house and a wreath of autumnal leaves on each door. If you wanted a gold-and-red fall in Florida, you had to import it. I usually headed up the pumpkin-carving with the kids at church.…
The cocoa wasn’t doing it for me. It was going to take more than guilt-assuaging chocolate to make hunkering down on my porch on a Sunday morning okay. I’d rarely missed a service in seven years. If I did, I never missed checking in with Mary Alice or India to tell them why I wouldn’t be there. The emptiness was as new and raw as fresh grief.
When the phone rang, I was sure I’d see Bonner’s number on the screen, but it was Chief. As usual he dispensed with the pleasantries.
“You coming to the HOG meeting?”
“No. I’m being held prisoner.”
“Say again?”
“I can’t leave Desmond here unsupervised.”
“Bring him with.”
“Seriously? I have a life-size picture of him—”
“Let him wear your helmet and you can pick up another one for him here.”
“I love how you’re spending my money.”
“Starts at noon,” Chief said. “Meet you there.”
“Riding Guide” apparently meant, “I get to tell you what to do with your day—not to mention your bank account.” But I was only slightly irritated when I hung up. This had to be better than trying to fill the emptiness with a cup of cold cocoa.
Fortunately Desmond didn’t drag himself out of his den until noon, and he didn’t break his vow of silence over Rice Krispies or my directive that he put on jeans and his one long-sleeved shirt. He only spoke when I opened the garage and handed him my helmet.
“We’re going for a ride,” I said.
As I recited the rules for being a passenger on a motorcycle that I’d just memorized from MOM, it was hard to tell whether he was listening. A shimmer of sheer reverence lit his face.
“You sayin’ we both goin’ for a ride. Me and you?”
“That’s what I’m sayin’. And just so you know—I’m driving.”
“Sweet,” he whispered. It could have passed for a prayer.
I was a little shaky as we pulled onto Palm Row, enough to forget to keep the bike in low gear until I was ready to turn on St. George. The only rider I’d carried was Geneveve, and the one I was hauling now was likely to try to grab light poles or stand up on the pegs, despite my litany of rules. Chief wouldn’t have suggested it if he didn’t think it was safe. But he hadn’t watched Desmond turn into Clyde Barrow over the past two days.
“Remember,” I called over my shoulder, “no messing around.”
But the Desmond I’d been ready to bind and gag an hour before became a different child within the first quarter mile. I could feel the excitement racing through the hands that gripped the sides of my jacket and the amazement in the wiry body that leaned with every curve like he was born to it. I could have forgotten there was even anyone sitting behind me if I hadn’t heard the laughter winding out of his helmet. The kid was giggling. I was sure I’d never giggled in my life, but I felt delight bubbling up into my throat now, and I laughed with him. It didn’t occur to me until I was parked, tailpipe first, in a parking slot at the dealership that it was the best riding I’d done so far.
As promised, Chief met us inside at the helmet display. By then Desmond had recovered from temporary normal boyhood and took to inspecting the key chains that dangled from their hooks practically shouting, “Steal me! Steal me!” I told him to put his hands in his pockets and leave them there.
“This is what they have in your size,” Chief said to him.
“What do they have in my price?” I asked.
Desmond went immediately for a shiny black one engulfed in orange flames. “Now that is what I am talkin’ about.”
“Try it on,” Chief said.
He took care of adjusting the strap while I snuck a peek at the price tag. Another week of macaroni and cheese. But if it meant the kid could have a few minutes to forget he was supposed to act like a gangsta.…
“Check it out, Big Al,” Desmond said, voice muffled by the gray-tinted visor.
I stifled a guffaw, because the thing made him look a cross between Darth Vader and a cartoon cockroach. It obviously made him feel like Somebody, though, because he stood still and tall and, thank the good Lord, quiet.
“You make it look good,” I said, although I registered a mental note to have his hair cut. It was puffing out the bottom like tufts of sofa stuffing. “All right, let’s take it to checkout.”
Desmond wore it across the store and leaned over so the clerk could run the scanner over the tag still hanging from the strap. She, too, hid the laughter that danced in her eyes.
“You gonna sleep in it?” she said.
“You’ll need these, too,” Chief said. He dumped an armload of items on the counter beside me. “Reflective clothing for both of you. It pays to get noticed.”
My cheeks burned. “Have you seen my bank balance?” I hissed to him.
“I’m buying.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
He gave me a fatherly look. Not my father’s fatherly. More like Bill Cosby’s fatherly. It was beyond my experience, which was why I just nodded.
“Free food out front,” Chief said when he’d put away his wallet.
“Let me treat y’all to that.” Desmond grinned through his visor.
I lifted the visor to the top of his helmet. “Your generosity is overwhelming. Keep this thing up so I can see your eyes.”
“Why you got to see my eyes?”
“So I can tell what you’re going to do next,” I said.
“Next” involved piling a paper plate full of runny baked beans and hot dogs on Styrofoam buns as if it were Hank’s gourmet fare. The way the kid ate, I’d expect him to have gained ten pounds since I started feeding him, but if anything he looked scrawnier than ever. Might have been the helmet.
“Where’s Hank?” I said to Chief as we settled into one of the long tables set up on the parking lot.
He paused, I thought, to make sure he wasn’t imagin
ing the conglomeration of condiments Desmond had piled on his dogs. I tried not to look, myself. It was nauseating.
“Why do you ask?” Chief said.
“Just curious. Desmond, aren’t you even going to take your helmet off to eat?”
“Nah. The boy’s a real biker. Eats with his gear on.”
I looked down the table to see Ulysses grinning at me. Leighanne, whom I’d met before, sat next to him. I recognized her by the spillage from her tank top.
“Sign him up,” she said.
“That all I got to do?” Desmond said, spewing pickle relish from his helmet. “Just sign somethin’?”
“You tell him,” I said to Rex, who sat on the other side of Leighanne. “Sounds like a presidential duty to me.” I turned back to Chief.
“Hank’s still at church,” he said. “Interferes too much with her biking life if you ask me.”
“I don’t have to ask,” I said. “You’ve made your opinion about organized religion pretty clear.”
“Have I?”
“Yeah, and right now it’s about the same as mine.”
“Which is?”
“I’m fed up with the whole hypocritical, judgmental, afterlife -obsessed thing.”
“Preach it sister,” Ulysses said.
“Uh, what’s-your-face—”
Leighanne was snapping her fingers at me. The Hispanic woman on the other side of her rose from her chair and looked like she was about to go over the table.
“Isn’t that your bike that kid is—”
Even as I whipped around I heard my Harley start up. So, apparently, did everyone else, because heads turned—and mouths formed horrified O’s.
Desmond sat astride the Classic, and I watched, paralyzed, as his left foot pawed at the gears. Even while I tried to shout “No!” the way you do in a delirious dream, the bike shifted into second and lurched—off the kickstand and over onto its side like a wounded horse. Its landing shook the parking lot at five on the Richter scale.
I shoved four HOGs aside, my heart slamming its way up my throat, my arms stretched out as if I could stop Desmond from going with it. I got to him at the same time Chief did, and it was myself I heard this time, screaming the kid’s name as Ulysses and Rex pulled eight hundred pounds off of his leg.