“Let go and let God,” she says, as she gathers her things to leave for a meeting.
* * *
THE HOUSE IS a mausoleum. It’s either too big or too small for only Mom and me and we are both aware of the people who were once with us and are now gone: Tony, Doug and especially Paul. We don’t talk about it but I know she’s lonely because she’s always at meetings or reading books with titles like Women Who Love Too Much and You Can Heal Your Life. I don’t like cleaning the house because when the house is clean it feels emptier, a place for ghosts to walk undisturbed by the clutter of people going about their lives. I’m allowed to use hot water now when I do the dishes because Mom got a raise and she’s “able to support this family” on just her income. We don’t use food stamps or eat the big blocks of government cheese anymore. She even buys me some new clothes. She sells the Vega and buys a red Honda Accord hatchback. We celebrate with salad bar at Chalet and I try not to bring up the breakfasts with Doug Brennan.
One day when I get home from school, he’s in the living room, sitting on the couch with Mom on his lap blushing like a teenager. There are cardboard boxes all over the floor.
“Hey, pal. Your mom and I made up.” As if they’d been in a fight. Maybe he thinks I don’t know that he just split one day without a word. Maybe he thinks children are too dumb for the truth.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, sweetie, Doug’s gonna be back with us and we’re gonna be a family again.”
“Oh.”
He says he wants me to meet his kids now that everything is out in the open. They can come over and stay with us sometimes.
“You hear that, Mick? You’re gonna have a new brother and sister.”
“Oh.”
Instant family. Just add water.
I wonder what wasn’t in the open before. I wonder what these kids are like. I wonder why I feel so strange, why Mom is so quiet, so clueless, why Doug thinks he can walk back into this house with this bullshit explanation.
She tosses that word around so casually. I wonder what she means by it. We have our roles. Am I the son? Is he the father now? Are we going to bury him someday and cry over his grave or are we going to pretend he didn’t exist once the tears are dry and the waffle maker is out on the curb again?
He kisses her on the lips and they stay locked for a moment. Paul would kiss Mom too but it was always funny because he’d dip her or peck her on the cheek or twirl her around and make us all laugh. Doug says, “Hey, pal, I guess we’re gonna be roommates again.”
“I’m gonna go ride my bike.”
* * *
DOUG DOESN’T LIKE that I swear at Mom. He doesn’t like that I’m always gone on my bike after school. He doesn’t understand where I get off speaking to an adult like that. He makes fun of the bandanna on my knee. “You get wounded in battle?” He makes fun of my Robert Smith poster. “What’s with the lipstick? Is he supposed to be some kind of cross-dresser?” He tells me not to eat his food. I eat it anyway, swiping a muffin or a Fig Newton or a bite of raspberry yogurt when I think he won’t notice.
When I make the Jaycee relay team, the track team for Englewood Elementary that competes in the citywide track meet every year at the stadium at Bush’s Pasture Park, Mom says, “Just make sure it doesn’t interfere with your chores.” I tell her about the tryouts on the dirt trail behind the school, how twenty kids showed up for the mile relay team and I got second behind only Mark Johnson, who was faster than everybody.
I like to pant and sweat, like I did on the long days when Paul used to take me to Minto-Brown Park. He said, “You know, in a long enough race, a man can outrun a horse.” Which doesn’t sound true but it is. I understand running in a way I never understood football or baseball, the sense that you could just go on and on forever, just you and your two feet, this normal body of yours suddenly capable of something amazing.
“Don’t they have a football team?” Doug says.
“Track is better than football. More natural. You use it in every sport. And anyway someone should be an athlete in this house.”
“Oh, yeah? You’re the athlete here?”
“Yes.”
“You know I played football in high school.”
“That’s nice.”
“We were pretty good.”
“Cool.”
“You don’t think I can play football?”
“You? No. You’re a pussy.”
“Mick! Don’t talk to your stepdad like that.”
“He’s not my stepdad. You guys aren’t married.”
“You know what I mean.”
“You think you’re faster than me?”
“Yes.”
“You want to make a wager?”
“That I’m faster than you? Sure. I’ll dust you.”
“Okay, let’s race. If you lose, you have to do the dishes for a week. If I lose, I’ll get you whatever you want for dinner.”
We shake on it and walk out to the street. “This is stupid,” Mom says and rolls her eyes.
We line up in the middle of Breys Avenue, leaning forward with our arms down, shaking our fingers. He doesn’t bother to put on shorts, just his baggy White Guy jeans. “To the sign for B Street,” Doug says, pointing to the intersection fifteen houses down.
“Okay.”
“On your mark. Get set.” My legs feel like wound springs, like I could practically fly down the street.
“Go!”
I put my head down and pump hard toward B Street. When I look up, he’s already ten feet in front of me and pulling away. I charge hard, trying to will myself down the street as fast as I can but as his baggy jeans and white T-shirt and old tennis shoes get farther and farther in front of me, I slow down to a walk. He crosses B Street with his arms up and circles back.
“You know who was the star wide receiver on that football team?” He points both thumbs at his chest. “Me.” We walk back to the house.
“Congratulations,” Mom says. “You’re faster than a ten-year-old.”
“He wanted to race. It was all for fun.” We walk into the kitchen and he points at the dishes in the sink. “I guess you’ll be getting to work on those.” He takes a drink of water and places it on the counter. “Wash this one too.”
When I’m finished with the dishes, I ride to the trail in the woods next to the school, drop my bike and run until my legs ache, my head is dizzy and my lungs burn. It’s nearly spring and the Jaycee Relays are still two months away. I probably don’t even need to train because it’s just some dumb race. But here in the woods, in the crisp dusk air as the sky turns from dark blue to black and I see my breath come out in clouds in front of me, I don’t even care about the race. It isn’t the point. Here beneath the trees I can become a shadow and just run.
* * *
DOUG IS THREE times my size. I’m made aware of this by the way he stands over me to get his cereal off the top of the fridge. He crowds close and says, “You need anything?” looking down. It’s less a threat than a reminder like the way he lifts my bike with one hand over his head from the back porch and puts it in the barn that still smells like rabbit shit even though the rabbits are gone. When Mork poops on the stairs because he has diarrhea and nobody let him out, he drags him by his collar, points his nose at the pile of shit and hits him across the snout, “Bad dog!”
I scream, “Don’t you hit him! He didn’t know!”
“He needs to learn. This is the only way dogs learn anything.”
When I go to the woods next to the school to train on the dirt track with the Jaycee Relays team, I can feel my body getting stronger, the power in my lungs as I fly down the dirt trail. Mark Johnson is faster than I am, but I’m not far behind. We do wind sprints and long laps and practice handing off the baton without dropping it. There isn’t much that feels better than knowing you can use your own two feet to go wherever you like. Running is simple. That’s what I like about it. It’s something a caveman could understand. Who’s the fastest to that rock?
Go.
There is a crowd in the stands at the cinder track at Bush’s Pasture Park on the day of the Jaycee Relays. The bleachers are filled with parents, teachers, friends, little brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, some with flags, some in T-shirts matching the ones worn by the teams of kids from every school for thirty miles. Orange slices are handed around and cups filled with water. At the end of each race there’s a good-hearted cheer from the crowd as the first graders then second graders then third graders receive their medals. As I warm up with Mark Johnson and the other kids on my team, I think this really is a great little town sometimes.
Rounding the final turn of my leadoff leg, I hear that crowd of mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles yell and clap for me and I feel my heart leap up into my throat as I become the shadow, the breath, the weightless messenger and I hand off the baton in third place. I grab my knees and feel the red blood in my face, the comfort of the grass. I am awake. I am alive. I stand and scream for Mark Johnson as he crosses the finish line second, running his anchor lap in sixty-three seconds, nearly catching the sixth grader from Four Corners Elementary who out-leans him.
I get a red ribbon with a medal and a small trophy to carry home. After the race, when everyone is leaving with their moms and dads, some on shoulders, some carried into station wagons and pickup trucks, Mark Johnson says, “Hey, Jollett, good race!”
“Thanks, man! You too!”
His dad says, “You need a ride? Where are your folks?”
I feel a flush, a warmth on my neck, a wrongness spreading to my knees like I missed something critical. “Oh, they’re still in the stands.”
“Well, we’re going for pizza if you want to come.”
I didn’t think this far ahead and I know the lie sounds clumsy. I just forgot. There was the race and the crowd. The cinder track is so much faster than the dirt trail in the woods behind the school.
“Okay. I’ll tell them. I’m not sure if we’re busy because they said they were going to take me to Sizzler.”
His dad looks at me. He’s wearing a thin nylon blue jacket and jeans, the door to his station wagon open, his dark skin bunching around his eyes beneath a handsome shaved brown dome. I can feel them on me. “You sure you don’t need a ride, son?”
“Oh, no no no no no. No. My parents are just over there. Good race, Mark!” I turn away. I can feel his eyes on me as I jog back toward the track, toward my bike which I locked to a pole beneath the stands. I ride my Huffy two miles home to the house on Breys Avenue, holding a grip in one hand and the trophy in the other. The house is empty so I put the trophy on the bookshelf next to my bed and make myself some scrambled eggs with sliced hot dogs. I put on my headphones and my copy of Pornography by the Cure.
“How was your running thing?” Mom asks when they get home from their Al-Anon meeting.
“We got second.”
“Who got first?” Doug asks.
“Four Corners. But they were all sixth graders. Mark and I think we can take ’em next year.”
“Better hope you grow.”
“I will.” I shoot him a look. “Even if I don’t, I’ll get faster. It’s just training.”
“Boys and sports,” Mom says, beating on her chest.
“Sports are cool, Mom. And girls play sports too, you know.”
“It’s all just testosterone and proving who’s the biggest, baddest alpha male.”
“Running? No it isn’t. It’s raw speed and seeing who worked the hardest. That’s fucking stupid.”
“Don’t talk to your mother that way.”
“She’s my mom. I can talk to her however the fuck I want.”
“Mick, go to your room,” Mom says.
“Fine by me.”
Doug stands between me and the stairs to the basement. He stares down at me and says, “Apologize to your mother.”
“For what?”
“For calling her stupid.”
“I didn’t call her stupid. I said what she said was stupid.”
“Doug, let him go. It’s fine.”
“I don’t understand why you let him talk to you that way, Gerry.” I brush past him and go downstairs to look at my trophy, to feel the smooth red ribbon with my fingers, to put headphones on and hear Robert Smith scream, “It doesn’t matter if we all die!” while I punch the mattress with my fist.
On Sunday, which is chore day, I procrastinate all morning, finding little things to do instead of dishes and mopping and vacuuming while Mom says, “Time to get to work. You can’t put this off forever. How about you start now. Then you’ll have your whole day to loaf off?” She reads a book in the bedroom. When I finally finish the dishes and the bathrooms and mopping and vacuuming, it’s nearly dusk and I decide to go for a bike ride to Bush Park to run a few laps around the cinder track. As I’m leaving, Mom says, “You forgot to vacuum behind the couch in the living room. You have to move the couch to make sure you get the space beneath the window.”
“I already vacuumed. I’m leaving now.”
“Not until you vacuum the floor by the couch.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Mom, you’re always complaining. I’m leaving now.” Doug walks into the kitchen from the back porch to wash the small hand shovel he used to spread the compost over the vegetable gardens on the side of the house.
“I don’t want to. I already did my chores.”
Mom looks at Doug. “I’m not letting you leave, Mick. It’s your responsibility to clean the living room and it’s not done and if you want to test me, I’ll take away your bike.”
“It’s my bike. I bought it with my own money. You can’t take it away.”
“I can and I will. Now go vacuum by the couch.”
“God, Mom, you’re such a fucking bitch.”
I start for the vacuum in the hall closet. I hear something drop, a loud clang from the kitchen of metal on metal. I turn to see Doug walking toward me, his lips tight and his right hand raised. “You can’t talk to your mother that way.”
He pushes me hard in the chest and I fall on the ground. He jumps on top of me and pins me by my shoulders under his knees. He’s heavy, way heavier than Tony and I feel a pinch in my back. It’s hard to breathe. My fingers are trapped beneath his knees, bent at a strange angle. It feels like they’re going to break. “Get the fuck off me!” I scream.
He rears his fist back and I feel a crack across my skull. My eyes go watery and a lightness fills my head. Through the liquid haze I see him above me, inching his face ever larger into my field of vision until I can’t see anything but his angry mouth, the line of white spit forming between his teeth. He points a finger into my face and says, “Don’t you ever talk to your mother like that again! You hear me?!”
Mom screams, “What are you doing?! Get off him!”
“Do you understand?” He turns to Mom and says, “He needs to learn! How else is he going to learn?”
She pushes him. “What are you thinking?!”
“What?! He called you a bitch!”
“I don’t care! You can’t do that!” All I can see is the mop of her permed brown hair, her fingers pulling on the collar of his blue T-shirt.
He stands up and looks down at me, turning his head slowly to look at my mother.
I feel a wetness dripping from my nose as I try to flex my sprained fingers. I wipe my eyes. My nose and mouth throb in unison like they’re being pumped with air. I feel a slippery warmth over my tongue and teeth.
I know the script of this movie. I know what I’m supposed to say. He looks at me like he’s asserted something. Like I’ve crossed a line and he’s shown me where the line is and now that I know it, it is my job to acknowledge the line. To cower or whimper or ask for forgiveness, as if I’m supposed to thank him for pointing out where the line is. But all I can think about is Dad. How much tougher Dad is than he is, how Dad would beat the crap out of him if he were here.
I don’t know what he would’ve done if Mom hadn’t intervened. I can feel his hatr
ed, but it doesn’t really feel like I’m the thing he hates. I’m just the thing he can hit, the thing he can pin to the ground and whale on.
“You need to learn you can’t talk to your mother that way. You owe her an apology. Well?” He stares at me with his arms crossed.
I stand up from the floor, squaring my legs beneath me as I spit and wipe my face.
“My dad is going to beat the fucking shit out of you!” I clench my fists with my head down and walk toward him. I don’t have a plan or a thought in my head. “He’s gonna fucking kill you! You hear me! He’ll kill you!”
“Your dad isn’t here.”
Mom stands between us. “Stop, Mick. Calm down. It’s okay.”
“Fuck him! Fuck you! Fuck this!”
“Honey, stop.”
“He can’t hit me, Mom! He can’t fucking hit me!”
“I know, sweetie. You’re right. Let me talk to him.” I move toward him with my fists up.
“Fuck you, you fucking loser!”
“He’s lost control, Gerry. You can’t let him act like this.”
“This is my house! I can act how I want! Big man! Big fucking man you are!”
“Stay here,” Mom says to me. She grabs Doug’s hand and leads him to the backyard for a Big Talk.
I run out the front door. My bike is leaning against the porch. I turn right and pedal up the hill on Breys Avenue.
The cars on D Street have turned on their headlights and the sky is a midnight blue. It’s a hot night for Oregon in late spring. It’s almost summer and all I can think is I need to run away. How dumb I was to stay when I should’ve just run away a long time ago. Pedal hard. Watch the cars. I drift into lanes aiming at the headlights down the block, swerving left and right when they honk their horns. I head toward downtown, past the high school and the train tracks, past the cars whisking families, quiet families, happy families home on a Sunday night. The mall downtown is closed and the streets are abandoned except for the lights coming from the Y and the gold man standing with his ax on top of the marble dome of the state capitol. When was it that we first met? When I saw you standing guard over us with your golden ax? I cross the bridge to West Salem and skip a few rocks on the shores of the Willamette where Paul and I used to fish. I wonder where he is. I want to talk to him, to just sit quietly next to him while he drinks. That doesn’t sound so bad. I can live here. Right here at this spot. I could camp in the woods, sleep beneath a pile of leaves in the forest. I’ve got twenty bucks and a stash of cigarettes in my pocket. That’s at least enough for a few days. I walk back up to the bridge and light a cigarette, watching the tip turn red as I take a drag. I lean against the edge. What would break my fall? Could I flap my ears and fly? When did I stop believing that? I can almost hear Mom calling from the front porch of the house the way she used to when Tony was here and Paul was still alive. The mall downtown is closed and he is lying in a riverbed somewhere. I know it. The later it gets, the more I wonder if I should go find him. Is he even dead? Are you here somewhere? I see the faces of the women and men in their cars, staring at the boy smoking a cigarette alone on the West Salem bridge on a Sunday night. I know there is nowhere to run and no place to sleep. I think the house is an illusion. Under it is frozen ground, beneath that a lake of black water. I can disappear into the current like a rock falling off a bridge. The boys in those cars on their way to Sunday dinner, to mashed potatoes and pot roast, rolls with butter. I feel sorry for them. I am a shadow. I am the shadow of a shadow. It feels good to let the nothingness fill me. What breaks your fall? I toss a rock and watch it arc over the river and disappear. I know how the conversation will go if I go home. Where have you been? What have you been doing? Come on, out with it. You don’t deserve to know. You smell like cigarettes. Did you steal them? Are you drinking? You know you’re at risk for becoming an alcoholic. It’s a family disease. Yes, I know that. Tell me the truth. Don’t you lie to me, mister. The truth, the truth, the truth. Come on, out with it! I don’t have an answer. No words make sense. Paul is dead. Doug is a monster. The house is an illusion. There is only this frozen ground, this river of black water, this empty well, this blankness, these ghosts, nothing to do but forget about shelter and become the storm.
Hollywood Park Page 18