by Arlette Lees
“Uxoricide,” I said. “U-X-O-R-I-C-I-D-E.” So far so good. Icide. Icide. Icide. My head spun. Pesticide. Homicide. Matricide. Had something to do with murder. But, what the heck was an ux? Time was running out. Latin. Think Latin. It wasn’t until I decided to give up that Et Ux leapt across a synapse in a remote fissure of brain. It rose like a bubble from the depths and broke the surface with a pop. Et Ux. I’d seen that somewhere. Old Da’s deed to the house. The property belonged to Patrick Edwin Bulger, Et Ux. Et Ux had to be Grandma. Three seconds to go.
“The act of murdering a spouse,” I said, just under the buzzer.
There were gasps from the few people in the audience who were familiar with the word. The English teacher from Cooley held up a hand for silence.
“I’m sorry, Miss Bulger. That is incorrect. Mr. Lu. Uxoricide.”
I held my breath. If Wang Lu missed the word we’d go on to the next word and I’d still be in the game.
Wang Lu’s father leaned forward in his front row seat looking anxious and hopeful. I looked at Miss Silverwein, who smiled and gave me a wink. Lu was trembling. “Uxoricide. U-X-O-R-I-C-I-D-E. The act of murdering a...a...wife,” he said. A moment of utter silence followed.
“That is correct young man. Congratulations, Mr. Lu.” I thought he would faint. I congratulated him and shook his small cold hand. His father had tears in his eyes.
“You provided him with most of the answer,” said Miss Silverwein on our ride home. “I suppose you’re aware of that.” It was still raining and the click of the windshield wipers made it hard not to fall asleep. During the competition I’d forgotten about the dress, the shoes....everything but the words.
“He won fair and square,” I said. “I can work this summer to cover my first year at Community. It’ll get me out of the house.”
“How do you feel? You did great you know.”
“I sweated in my new dress. I hope it’s still okay for the prom.”
“What word did you stumble on?” asked Mama, as I hung my new dress in the closet and slipped into my jeans.
“Uxoricide. I spelled it but didn’t know the definition.”
“That’s an easy one, Rosemary, like when Cousin Eddie shot Nonnie and did seven to ten in the State Pen.”
“My memory doesn’t go back that far, thank God.”
“Old Da told him before he married that girl that she’d slept with every shanty Irishman this side of Shannon Street. You couldn’t tell Eddie nothing. Not a damn thing.”
I laughed out loud and hugged her.
“So, who beat you, that Jew boy they call Little Einstein?” I put my new shoes on the closet shelf so they’d be nice for the prom and stepped into a pair of worn tennies.
“No Mama, it was Wang Lu from Chinatown.”
“Chinatown? You mean you couldn’t beat out a foreigner? They smoke opium, eat their cats.”
SMOKE OPIUM! EAT THEIR CATS!
“Oh, Mama.”
I put on my rain jacket and ran a brush through my hair.
“Get your coat. We’re meeting Uncle Pete and Aunt Rose across the street. Cooney ordered a cake to celebrate my big day.”
“Pete, Rose, and all those Shanty Irish brats of theirs. I’m just not up to it.”
“Here’s your coat. Put it on.”
“Rosemary, my bunions are killing me.”
“You’re coming if I have to carry you.”
I worked at the shoe store in the strip mall that summer. I read Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, The Color Curtain by Richard Wright, and every book the Catholic Church told me to stay away from. I paid my own way to Community College and finished my degree on a scholarship to State.
The next time I saw Miss Silverwein she was Mrs. Adler and I was Mrs. Nolan. She sat at a table in Stenglers drinking a latte and reading a book with the morning sunlight on her salt and pepper hair. She wore a new perfume, something spicy and expensive.
“Miss Silverwein?”
She looked at me over her glasses. There was no sign of recognition in her expression.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s been awhile. I’m Rosemary Bulger. The spelling bee? The new shoes? Uxoricide?”
The light went on in her eyes.
“Oh my God, Rosemary! How are you. You look wonderful. I imagine you’re teaching these days.”
“I changed my major. I’m a social worker. My husband Tommy is a civil rights lawyer. We’re getting ready to leave for Mississippi to help with the voter registration drive.”
“You’re sure you want to stir up that hornet’s nest? Do be careful.”
“We will!’ I laughed. “What are they going to do, shoot us?”
“Last I heard your mother wasn’t doing well.”
“I lost her a year ago. It was her heart,” and Eddie Malone and the ‘unknown.’
“I’m sorry, dear. Why don’t you sit?”
I took the chair across the table from her.
“May I ask you a question?” I said. “You told me something on the evening of the countywide. It helped me get through the competition” and more, much more.
“Shoot.”
“Did you really grow up above the bakery on Lower Division?”
“Did I say that? I spent my entire childhood on Lighthouse Hill.”
“You LIED to me!”
Her eyes danced.
“It was true as long as it needed to be. Aren’t I terrible?” she said, and laughed and laughed.
LAST CHANCE IN GUNNAR
My eleven-year-old brother Duke Wayne and I lit out of the trailer as soon as the ashtrays started flying. We hid in the pickup in the carport as neighbors gathered at the curb in gossipy knots. It’s hard when you’re a kid and people think you’ll never amount to a hill of beans. It’s not like we picked Heidi and Gaylord out of the social register. We got stuck with our parents just like they got stuck with us. Deputy Wittler pulled up in his patrol car, the light bar flickering red and blue on the pocked metal skin of the trailer. He’d been here so many times that we called him Jason like he was a member of the family. He ignored the sounds of fighting and breaking glass and walked straight over to where we were hunkered down on the bench seat.
“What got ’em going this time, Bossy?”
Bossy, that’s what they call me because Evangeline sounds like an old granny in her rocking chair. For now I’m stuck with it, but someday I’ll change it to something fancy like Cheyenne or Turquoise.
“Gaylord gave her money for groceries and she bought a bottle of gin and a blonde wig. We have half a box of Lucky Charms and a pint of sour milk.” Jason exhaled noisily and shook his head. Duke Wayne sat bottled up with his arms crossed over his chest, muscles knotting in his jaw. He wasn’t much for letting off steam but I think things bothered him real deep.
Heidi was my worst nightmare but Gaylord was no prize either. At least he never whooped me with the buckle end of the belt like Heidi does. When she isn’t mad at us kids she’s ragging on Gaylord for having the seven-year itch for all twelve years of their marriage. He says it’s beyond his control, that when he steps into his cowboy boots and button-fly jeans and rolls that pack of Camels in the sleeve of his Budweiser t-shirt the ladies around the watering holes of Gunnar just can’t keep their hands to themselves.
“Let me see your back, Bossy,” said Jason.
“Not again,” I moaned.
“It’s either me or that old bat from CPS.”
I dutifully pulled up the back of my shirt so he could have a look at the latest pattern of bruises.
“Those cigarette burns are from before,” I reminded him. “Heidi told the social worker it wouldn’t happen again.”
“So she threw you back in the ring for one more round.”
The trailer door burst open and Gaylord shot onto the dirt patch out front. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead. Heidi stood in the doorway, a cigarette dangling from her lips. She wore silver spike heels with a tattered bathrobe and the chain of a silv
er fish scale purse looped around her wrist. When I saw her like this, with her hair all tangled and mascara smeared beneath her eyes, it was easy to forget how beautiful she was when she was all dolled up and sober. She swung a gin bottle and let it fly, but instead of hitting Gaylord it exploded against the door of the patrol car. Jason stiffened but kept his cool.
“Well, that’s one she won’t be drinking,” said Gaylord, sauntering over.
Heidi lost her footing and ended up in a heap below the stoop. She looked toward the truck with eyes that refused to focus.
“You kids get in there and clean up that mess:”
“You stay right where you are,” said Jason. He walked over and slapped the cuffs on her small wrists as a second patrol car pulled up and Deputy Barnswallow got out.
“Take Mrs. Draper in and let her sleep it off,” said Jason.
“How about him?” said Barnswallow, nodding toward Gaylord.
“He’s sober enough, I guess. Get something out of the trailer that she can be released in. Can’t have her walking through town in her nightgown.”
The neighbors clapped and whistled when Barnswallow pulled away from the curb with Heidi banging her head against the side window like a crazy woman. Her eyes were glassy and a cut opened above one eye.
Jason turned to Gaylord. “So, what’s your plan for these young’uns?”
“Well, we’re not going back in there,” he laughed. Big joke.
“You’re not driving anywhere either.”
“I’ll walk over to the Stardust for the night.”
“What about the kids?’ I won’t have ’em sleeping in the back of the truck.”
“They’ll work something out with one of the neighbors. They always do.”
Gaylord leaned into the truck window. He ruffled my hair and gave Duke a playful punch on the shoulder. “I’m not fit company right now,” he said, with a lopsided smile. “I’ll hook up with you and your mom tomorrow.”
I watched him walk into the October night toward the lights of Centennial Blvd, the dead leaves swirling around his ankles until the shadows swallowed him up.
“We have school in the morning,” I said. “My homework’s in there.”
“I’ll go get your stuff,” said Jason. “You kids got two choices. Either I release you to a responsible adult or it’s CPS again.”
Duke looked up. There was a spark of determination in his dark brown eyes. “I want to go to Uncle Dan’s,” he said.
* * * *
Dan was standing beneath the porch light when we pulled up in front of the ranch house. Duke walked into the house with his baseball glove and bat, me tagging along with our school books. Jason sat our box of clothes inside the door.
“How long this time?” asked Dan.
“She’ll be out mid-morning.” said Jason.
“Fair enough.”
Dan Wellstone was a respected figure around Gunnar. He took pride in raising tough-as-nails cattle on the piss-poor homestead that had been passed down through his family. Heidi said he was a handsome sort if you liked the noble over-the-hill type.
Dan had light green eyes and an old-fashioned handlebar mustache that he kept neatly trimmed and waxed. I’d never seen him in anything but work clothes and a big cowboy hat but he kept a suit in the closet for funerals and jury duty. When Heidi and Gaylord went on a toot, he’d take us out to the ranch until things settled down.
That night the wind blew hard and cold off the reservation that backed onto the ranch. Sand and tumbleweeds piled up against the back of the house. He fed us stew and biscuits from an iron pot on the wood stove and settled us in blankets by the fireplace like pick-of-the-litter pups.
The next day Duke and I got off the school bus in front of the trailer park. The pickup was gone from the carport and Mrs. Raley, the park manager, was sweeping broken glass out of the coach door into the dirt. Liquor fumes drifted out to the sidewalk.
“What’s going on Mrs. Raley?” I asked.
“What does it look like?” A metal curler popped out from beneath her flowered scarf.
“Where’s our parents?”
“I have no idea,” she said, with angry tears in her eyes. “You people are out of here. You can tell that dad of yours that I’ll see him in court. This coach is ruined.”
“We can help you clean it up,” said Duke.
She shook the broom at us and we backed away. “It’s people like you that give trailer trash a bad name.”
“I’m a straight-A student, Mrs: Raley. I’m not trash,” I said.
“Just wait a couple years,” she said.
“Come on,” said Duke, “before the old witch climbs on her broom.”
We ran until we came to the truck stop in front of the Silver Spur Cafe. After asking around a bit we hitched a ride with a trucker who was pulling a load of hogs to New Mexico. He showed us tattoos he’d got in seven states and said he was shooting for all the lower forty eight. He pumped his brakes and let us out in front of the mailbox.
When we came to the top of the driveway, Dan was knocking dirt off a shovel against a fence post. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with a blue bandanna.
“Don’t go behind the barn,” he said. “I killed me a mean old rattler and where there’s one there’s bound to be more.”
“We been kicked out of the trailer,” said Duke. “The truck’s gone and nobody’s there.”
“It’s three o’clock,” I said. “Has Heidi come by?”
“Not yet. Why don’t we call the jail? Maybe they’re going to hold her one more day.”
We walked up the path toward the house.
“One more thing,” said Dan. “I don’t want you kids hitching anymore. Even after your parents pick you up, you need a ride, you call me.”
Dan put in a call to the jail but they said Heidi had been released about eleven that morning.
“If the truck is gone I Imagine she hooked up with Gaylord,” said Duke.
“Even if they pick us up we can’t go back to the trailer,” I said.
“I think we better make up the beds in the extra bedroom,” said Dan, “Just in case. Now, who wants to help me put the new water pump in the truck?” Dukes eyes lit up. Mine did not.
“I’ll make up the beds,” I said.
That night at dinner I ate so much chili and cornbread it was downright painful to breathe. It was dark by the time I finished drying the dishes and Heidi and Gaylord still hadn’t come. I felt an unsettling mixture of concern and relief. Uncle Dan didn’t have a TV or video games but I could sleep through the night without Heidi dragging me out of bed by my hair to clean up the trailer or see Duke Wayne get a whipping just because she was in a bad mood. Dr. Moss said that Duke was the youngest ulcer patient she’d ever seen.
“Get your jackets,” said Dan, reaching for his hat. “We’ll drive into town, see if that new water pump does the trick.”
The manager at The Stardust Motel said Gaylord checked out early and headed in the direction of the trailer park, so we decided to check out the bars along Centennial Blvd...the Do Drop Inn...The Cave...The Dead Man’s Hand. We were standing outside the Leprechaun Lounge, plum out of ideas.
Uncle Dan looked up and down the strip and gave his mustache a thoughtful twist. “I don’t think we’ll find them until they want to be found.”
Duke became quiet. He looked at me, then at Dan, then at me again.
“You two have the very same shade of green eyes,” he said.
“I think you’re right,” I said. “Same color as Mrs. Raley’s cat.”
“Don’t that beat all,” said Uncle Dan. “Bossy takes after her Mom’s side of the family, just like you take after Gaylord’s.” We walked back and got in the truck. “How about a nice big piece of pie at The Silver Spur?”
* * * *
A month later an envelope came from Gaylord. It had arrived at the trailer park before it was forwarded to the ranch. He said he’d been working at The Lucky Friday Mine in Idaho’s Silver
Valley. A one hundred dollar bill was enclosed.
“That’s weird,” said Duke. “Heidi can’t be with him if he thinks we’re still at the trailer park.”
Dan made an effort to track him down, but when he reached the office at the mine, he was told Gaylord had headed up to Post Falls with a Shoshone woman.
Dan smoothed out the one hundred dollar bill on the kitchen table.
“Well,” he said, “it won’t put you kids through college but we could splurge at that big bookstore in Phoenix.”
The bookstore was bigger than some of the dusty little towns I’d been in. I got a book on raising rabbits and Duke got one on repairing farm equipment. We had dinner at Denny’s before heading back to the ranch.
A week after our trip to Phoenix, Deputy Wittler pulled up in his patrol car, sending a big dust cloud over the corrals. Duke was fiddling with the engine of an old tractor and Dan and I were throwing down some flakes of hay for the horses.
“Any word on Heidi?” asked Dan.
“That’s what I was going to ask you,” said Jason.
“Not word one on Heidi but Gaylord is up Idaho way.”
“We gotta do something permanent about them kids. Can’t have CPS crawling down my neck, Mr. Wellstone.”
“Seems to me they’re doing right fine where they are. I feed ’em right and their grades are up.”
“You seem to be the only relation they got.”
“Seems so.”
“Their uncle, right?”
“That’s a fact.”
“And which side of the family would that be on, sir?”
The men stood in silence for a moment, their eyes locked and unwavering. The way they looked at each other made me a bit edgy.
Finally Uncle Dan said, “I’m closest to the mother.”
Jason looked at the toe of his boot and kicked up a puff of dust.