by Frank Zafiro
Jeffrey turned from the window to face her. “Daddy’s home!” he squealed.
Her face registered surprise for a moment, then her features sank into their customary hardness as she watched the figure pass in front of the window and try the door knob. It was locked.
“Aren’t you happy, Mother?” Jeffrey asked her.
“Thrilled,” she answered in a flat voice.
Jeffrey didn’t think she sounded too happy, but he was too excited to worry about it. When his daddy discovered the door was locked, he began pounding on it with his palm. Jeffrey sprinted for the door. His little hands fumbled with the lock on the doorknob, then he slid the chain aside and flung open the door.
“Daddy!” he squeaked.
His daddy’s eyes narrowed at the sound. “Is this my son or my daughter?” he joked gruffly.
Jeffrey’s jaw dropped. He felt as if someone had just kicked him in the stomach.
His daddy laughed uproariously and pointed. “Oh, that’s classic. You should see your face, kiddo.” He laughed, looking up at Jeffrey’s mother. “Really, Cora, you should get a look at this kid’s face when I said that. You’d think I took away his teddy bear or something.”
“Come in,” was all his mother said. “You’re letting in the cold.”
“S’pose I am,” he agreed, and stepped forward. He brushed past Jeffrey as he entered. The smell of cigarettes and sweat wafted over the boy, but instead of being repelled by the odor, he soaked it in. That’s how dads are supposed to smell, he figured.
“Close the door, Jeffie,” his mother said.
He obeyed, turning the knob lock and setting the chain. He turned around to see his mother and daddy eyeing each other in the living room. Jeffrey could feel the electric tension between them, even though he didn’t understand exactly what it was or why it was there. This was a mommy and a daddy. Aren’t they supposed love each other and hug and kiss and stuff?
“Glad to see me?” his daddy said.
“It’s been a long time,” she answered.
“Navy’s a tough life,” he told her. “You knew that when you signed on.”
She narrowed her eyes slightly and flicked her gaze toward Jeffrey. “Like I had a choice.”
He dropped his sea bag on the floor next to her chair. “You always got a choice, Cora. Hell, I could’ve chosen not to come home when they gave me leave.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Because this is my family. Now, how about a drink and a little boom-boom for the sailor long-time gone?”
She pressed her lips together, glancing over Jeffrey. He followed her gaze, then nodded knowingly. “Oh, yeah. Well, then how about the drink now and the boom-boom later?”
“It’s in the kitchen,” his mother said.
His daddy cocked his head at her. “Then go and get it,” he said in a low voice.
She paused, glancing back and forth between him and Jeffrey. Then she sighed, turned and left the room.
Jeffrey watched the exchange, astounded. His daddy turned toward him, saw his expression and tipped him another wink. “Sometimes ya gotta put a woman in her place, boy,” he said with a grin. “Deep down inside, that’s what really want, anyway.”
His daddy removed his Navy Pea Coat and tossed it onto the small couch. Then he sat down in the chair and eyed Jeffrey for a few long moments. The sounds of clinking glasses drifted in from the kitchen. Jeffrey squirmed under his gaze.
“How old are you now, boy?” he asked.
“Seven,” Jeffrey told him.
“Seven, sir,” his daddy corrected him, shaking his head. “Didn’t your mother teach you any respect?”
“No,” Jeffrey answered without thinking. When his daddy’s eyes narrowed at him, he added, “sir.”
His daddy laughed darkly. “Well, at least you’re honest, kiddo. But you look about as fucked up as a soup sandwich, you know that?”
Jeffrey blanched at the profanity. His mind worked frantically to understand what a soup sandwich was. He felt his lip quivering and put his hand over it.
His mother came back into the room with a single water glass. She held it out to his daddy. The man ignored her for a moment, studying Jeffrey closely. Then he turned to his mother. “Jesus, Cora. The kid’s a mess. What’ve you been doing with him?”
“I’ve been doing the best I’m able to do, Stan,” she replied evenly. “Here’s your drink.”
“The best you can?” He shook his head and took the drink from her hand. “That’s a pretty piss-poor excuse, you ask me.”
His mother said nothing.
His daddy took a large drink from the glass. After he swallowed, his face contracted in a grimace. “Vodka? Good Christ, that’s a whore’s drink. Don’t you have any whiskey in the house?”
“I drink vodka,” she answered quietly.
“Like I said, a whore’s drink.” He took another sip. “Damn. It doesn’t get any better as you go, either.” He lifted his chin in her direction. “Go to the liquor store and get a bottle of whiskey. Get the good stuff. Jack Daniels.”
“I don’t have any money,” she whispered.
His daddy catapulted from the chair and struck her with the back of his hand. She yelped and fell back onto the couch atop his coat. “Don’t start out by giving me lip, bitch,” he growled at her. “Just because I’ve been gone a while doesn’t mean I’m not still the man around here.”
Jeffrey stared on in shock while his mother pulled herself up into a sitting position, holding her cheek.
“I’m…sorry,” she said quietly, avoiding her husband’s gaze.
“Goddamn right you are.” He sat back down in the chair and took another pull from the water glass. Then he asked, “Why don’t you have any money? My checks should be coming regular.”
“It gets used up,” she said.
“On what?” He jerked a thumb toward Jeffrey. “Ballet lessons for him?”
“Food,” she whispered. “Rent.”
His daddy laughed. “Food and rent? Yeah, maybe, but you manage to have some vodka in the house, too, don’t you, Cora?”
She didn’t answer.
He pulled roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off several, tossing them at her. “Now go get some whiskey. And make it quick.”
She slowly gathered up the money, folded it and slid it into her dress pocket. Then she rose and walked to the door. “Come on, Jeffie,” she said as she slipped on her jacket.
“No, he stays here,” his daddy said. “Christ knows he needs to spend some time with a man. Looks to me like you’ve turned the kid into some kind of queer or something.”
At the word ‘queer’, the kick to the stomach sensation repeated itself, only much harder this time. Jeffrey heard himself whimper, unable to hold the sound inside.
“See?” his daddy said over the rim of his water glass. “He needs some toughening up.”
Jeffrey felt the tears rise up in his eyes. At the same time, his cheeks grew hot. His stomach roiled.
This wasn’t supposed to be how it went. His daddy was supposed love him and hug him and fix everything. He wasn’t supposed to be mean. He wasn’t supposed to laugh at him and call him the same names the kids at school did.
“Ah, Jesus, now he’s going to cry.” His daddy shook his head. “This just proves my point. What are you, three?” He waved his drink at Jeffrey. “You got a room of your own?” he asked.
Jeffrey nodded dumbly, tears rolling down his fiery cheeks.
“Then go there. Get out of my sight until you decide to be a man and not some kind of little crybaby.”
Jeffrey fled to his room. He leapt onto his bed, buried his face into the lumpy, thin pillow and cried. Vaguely, in the distance, he heard the door open and close and then it was silent except for his tears. His sobs racked his chest, tearing at his little lungs. He was aware of a giant pain in his chest, but it wasn’t until his tears slowed down a little that he realized what it was. He’d heard of it, but n
ever experienced it until now. His heart was breaking.
A while later, his mother returned, but she didn’t come to him. More than anything, that was what he wanted right then. He wanted her to come to his door, sit on his bed and gather him up in her arms. He wanted to press his face between her breasts and finish his crying there instead of the poor excuse of a pillow on his bed. She would stroke his hair and comfort him and tell him how it was just the two of them against the world and how she would make his daddy go back to the ship or make him stop being mean and she would stop being mean and then everything would be all right.
Instead, he was left alone to cry into his flat pillow.
Eventually, his sobs ran out. He lay on the bed, curled up into a fetal ball. His cheeks remained hot, but the salty tears were drying. As they dried, he felt a tightness on the skin of his cheeks. Every once in a while, he gave a little hitch.
In the small apartment, he could hear their voices carry.
“This is the first leave you’ve had in two years?” his mother asked, her voice stronger than before but still a pale imitation of what he was used to.
“First one that was long enough to come home,” his daddy answered.
“Your ship was in port just this Spring.”
“So?”
“Why didn’t you come then? If your family is so important?”
“You want another goddamn smack?” he snapped at her.
“No,” she said. “I just want to know-”
“I was in the fucking brig, all right?”
It was silent for a few moments, then she asked, “That’s why one less stripe? You were demoted?”
“I lost two stripes,” he said, a tinge of pride in his voice. “I’ve earned one back since.”
“That explains why the check got smaller.”
“Are you starving?” he barked at her.
“No.”
“No, I didn’t think so. You’ve got enough for this shithole apartment and for food and your precious vodka, so I’d say I’m providing pretty goddamn well.”
It was silent again for a little while, then he could hear them talking in lowered voices. After that, there was the rustle and clinking of items being moved. He could hear the chair slide on the kitchen floor. His mother yelped. It was quiet some more. Then came some more noises he didn’t understand, sounds that he was pretty sure his mother and his daddy were making with their voices, but they weren’t words. He thought about going into the kitchen to see if they were all right, but he stayed put. He didn’t know who he wanted to see less at that moment, so he decided he didn’t want to see either one of them.
After what seemed like a long time, the noises stopped, then changed to hushed voices again. He heard his daddy laugh derisively. “It might give him an idea what it means to be a man, that’s what,” he said.
The apartment grew dark as his parents talked and drank in the kitchen. He could hear their voices and sometimes the actual words, as well as the clink of glasses. Sometimes the tones were quiet, almost gentle. Other times, his father’s voice boomed with laughter. Still other exchanges had the sharp edge of anger to them.
Hours later, his door swung open. He hoped it was his mother, there to comfort him, but expected it was more likely his father, there to tell him that lying on his bed like that was queer and that he was a crybaby.
“Jeffie?” his mother’s voice had a softness to it, and for a moment he thought his hopes might be realized. Then she spoke again and he realized that gentleness was simply the way her voice turned when she drank a lot of her special stuff. “Wash your face and come and eat.”
He roused himself from bed. In the bathroom, he splashed his face with water. Then he made his way to the kitchen.
His daddy sat with his elbows on the table, his arms crossed, holding his drink. An edgy smile hovered on his face. Jeffrey looked into his red, watery eyes for some sign of the daddy he’d been waiting for almost forever.
“Well, Jeffie,” he said, his voice softened in the same way his mother’s was. “Done with your little crying fit?”
Jeffrey swallowed and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
His daddy’s eyebrows shot up. “Hey, he’s a quick learner.” He glanced over at the stove where Jeffrey’s mother stirred dinner. “At least there’s that, Cora. I can teach this boy to be a man someday.”
His mother didn’t answer. She served dinner in silence, the hard line of her mouth returning. She slopped some beans in front of his daddy, then Jeffrey and finally herself. The three of them ate quietly. Once they’d finished, she cleared the plates from the table.
Jeffrey’s daddy poured another drink and sipped it. He eyed the boy over the top of his glass. “So you want to learn to be a real man, kid?”
Jeffrey felt a surge of joy in his chest. “Yes, sir!”
His daddy chuckled. “All right. Good. We’ll start with lesson one right now. Stop acting like a goddamn sissy. That means no whining. No crying. And stop looking like you’re afraid of everything and everybody. You have to show the world you’re tough, kid. Sometimes you have to prove it, too. But if you look like a little sissy, then you’re going to get screwed with all the time by everybody.”
Jeffrey swallowed, but nodded that he understood.
“And no more of this ‘Jeffie’ shit. Understand? The next kid that calls you Jeffie, you punch the little bastard right in the nose. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” His daddy took a long drink, then sighed afterward. “Things are going to change around here, yessir.”
Jeffrey grinned. Maybe his wish was going to come true after all.
At the sink, his mother washed dishes in silence.
That night, Jeffrey sat up late at the kitchen table while his father drank and told stories. He told Jeffrey and his mother about the ship he was on, which he said was the best damn ship in the Navy, and that was mostly because of him, since the entire ship was filled with idiot officers. He described the ports he’d been to in faraway lands. Jeffrey listened, wide-eyed. His mother joined them, sipping her special stuff without a word, looking down at the kitchen table. She didn’t react to any of the stories, but Jeffrey figured that maybe she’d heard them before. She did shift in her seat slightly when his daddy described some of the women in the different ports he’d visited, but didn’t say a word.
Jeffrey learned about port and starboard that night. He learned that a man stands up for himself. That was how he got respect. Respect meant that no one touched you or called you names.
Jeffrey thought respect sounded like the greatest thing ever invented. He started to tell his daddy about the things some of the kids at school did and said to him, but stopped when he saw the disapproval in his daddy’s eyes.
“You can’t let them get away with that,” his daddy told him. “They’ll turn you into a total wimp.”
So he stopped before he got to the Pee-Pee Pants story or the dodge ball story. Instead, he promised his daddy he’d “take care of business” at school the next day.
His daddy reached out clumsily and clapped him on the shoulder. “Thas’ a good boy,” he said.
His mother rose from the table. “Time for bed, Jeffie.”
“Jeff!” his daddy bellowed. “No more of this Jeffie shit!”
His mother didn’t reply. She gave Jeffrey a withering look and pointed toward the bathroom. He slipped out of his chair, headed for the bathroom and got ready for bed.
“After I tuck him in, I’m laying down, too,” he heard his mother say.
“Fine. I’ll be in for a repeat performance after I finish this drink.”
“I’m a little tired,” she said.
“You better get un-tired,” he told her.
Jeffrey put his toothbrush away and went into his bedroom. He crawled into bed, pulling the covers over him. He wasn’t sure what his mother meant by tucking him in. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d put him to bed. Usually she just let him give her a quick hug whi
le she sat in her chair, watching her programs with a water glass in hand. But he was surprised when she showed up at his bedside, sitting down next to his small form.
She leaned down, her breath strong with her special stuff. Even though she hadn’t tucked him in for what seemed like years, he still expected a kiss on the forehead and a whispered ‘good night.’ Instead, she grabbed a handful of his hair at the base of his neck and pulled it taut.
“Remember,” she whispered in his ear, “he’ll be gone soon. Don’t you go getting any big ideas.”
She gave his hair a painful tug for good measure, then released him. A moment later, she’d stood and left the room, leaving his head spinning with questions.
What did she mean?
How long would he be here? Would he have enough time to teach Jeffrey what he needed to know?
Exhausted and confused, he dropped off to sleep.
The next morning, he woke up on his own. Both his mother and his daddy slept through him making himself breakfast. He buttered his toast next to a nearly empty bottle of brown special stuff (the label said ‘whiskey’, so he figured that was what his mother had retrieved from the store for his daddy last night) and a pair of water glasses. Both still had some special stuff in them. He sniffed his daddy’s glass and jerked his head back in surprise at how strong the smell was. He wondered how his daddy was able to put that stuff in his mouth, much less swallow it. Then he realized that it was because his daddy was tough.
He wanted to be tough, too.
He wanted his daddy to be proud of him.
He wanted his daddy to stay forever.
He reached out and picked up the glass. With a shaking hand, he brought it to his lips. Before he could drink any, the strong odor assaulted his nostrils again and he had to put the glass back on the table.
I guess I’m not tough enough yet.
Besides, he figured that his daddy might be mad if he drank any of his special stuff without asking. So that was a good reason to leave it alone, too.
He finished buttering his toast. After he ate, he crept into the living room and turned on the television. He kept the volume as low as it would go and still allow him to hear anything. Quietly, he changed the channel knob from station to station. There were only four channels to choose from. One of them had a preacher. Another one looked like a news guy. The Sesame Street channel had more news guys on it, but the final channel featured a Bugs Bunny cartoon. He smiled and sat just a few inches away from the T.V., laughing at the antics of the ‘wascally wabbit.’ Just to be careful, he covered his laughter with his hand.