by John Barnes
She was wiping her eyes, staring down at the table; sometimes she’d just put her head back and howl, sometimes she just shrugged, but for some reason, whenever the coon got one, especially when he chewed up a kitten, she’d be like this, quiet but so sad.
“Uh,” I said, wanting out of there, “I have to get my uniform and get to work and I have a ride waiting.” I let the last few words trail over my shoulder as I charged up the stairs to my room. The door had held; no cat crap to clean up. So far so good.
I yanked off my pants and shirt, pulled the thin polyester trousers over my shoes, zipped up the smock of my McDonald’s outfit. At least the army would mean a much cooler uniform.
When I turned around, Mom was standing at my door. Her makeup was still a little smeared from crying over Sunflower, but she had plastered on a big phony smile. She was making an effort; for some reason that always made me feel better. “So,” she said, acting all bright and happy and all, “how was—”
“School looks pretty good this year. I got all my homework done and got dinner at Philbin’s. I went to the dance, and danced several times, with girls. None of them had to slap me.”
Mom giggled, and now it was real. I could nearly always get her to giggle. “Karl, I wanted to ask you, do you think maybe we could take my paycheck off direct deposit, and stop all those automatic payments?”
“You haven’t bounced a check in six months since we put you on that plan, Mom, it looks like it’s working.”
“I bounced two checks at Mister Peepers last month and now they won’t take my checks.”
“That’s because we get your bills paid first, Mom, the things you have to pay. You haven’t bounced a check anywhere that counts. Did you sign the checks I wrote out for you?”
She held out a sheaf of unsealed envelopes—I’d learned to always check that she had actually put a check in there and not fucked it up somehow.
I took it. “I’ll record these and drop them by the trustee’s desk at the bank, tomorrow. And I’ll figure what’s in your account for you for your weekend.”
“It’s just kind of hard to have a social life when you and the trustee control all my money,” she said. “And it’s embarrassing to tell my friends that a boy is running my life. And that trustee fee is like a week’s groceries every month.”
Or an ounce of pot, I thought, but I said, “I’m just making sure you pay your bills. That’s all the trustee does, too. You know you didn’t like it when they used to garnish your wages. The judge said if we do this, you don’t have to do that. That’s all. I don’t like doing it either.”
“Maybe if you didn’t do it, if I could just have my check the regular way, when I needed some freedom and some space, I wouldn’t have to take money from your jars. I must owe you like a thousand dollars now.”
Actually, two thousand nine hundred thirty-seven. And forty-one cents. I shoved the thought away like a cat away from my plate. “You did that before.” You just don’t make as much money as you want to spend.
“I don’t see why I even pay a mortgage on this old place anyway. It’s too big for two people and the neighborhood is all falling down and we’ll never get any money for it when it’s time to sell it, and it just means you have to spend every Sunday working just to keep it up. So I don’t see why I have to pay the mortgage.”
“We’d have to pay someone somewhere anyway, Mom, just to have a roof to live under. Mortgage here is cheaper than rent anywhere else, and nobody’d let you have all those cats.”
She blew a cloud of cigarette smoke into my room, and sighed. “I guess it’s pretty weird that you’re being all adult and I’m being the kid and wanting my freedom. You aren’t going to let me just deposit my checks, are you?”
“Mom, I can’t. The judge says.”
“Yeah, the Man’s really got us all down, doesn’t he?” She sighed again. “Neil told me he’s dumping me, again.”
“He’ll be back, he always is.”
“Yeah.” She dropped her cigarette butt on the carpet in front of my room and crushed it with her toe. “Fuck, first you comfort me ’cause my kitty got killed, and take care of burying it, and then you make sure the bills are paid, and oh god, now you’re consoling me about losing a boy. And I do mean boy. We’re so fucking backwards, you know that?” She looked like she might cry again, but then she reached out, put her hand on the back of my neck, and rubbed gently, like I remembered her doing when I was little. “Try to relax. Don’t let it all get to you, Tiger. Your neck is one big ball of tense, you ought to see Judy about some herbal tea or some yoga lessons since you won’t smoke up.” Her hand on my neck felt good, even if I didn’t like her cigarette smoke and we’d just been quarreling; it was something she still did just like when I was a little kid. “Don’t be out too late cleaning up after corporate America. You have better things to do with your life than mopping out bathroom stalls. You are a special child of the universe, and the starlight falls on you. Never forget that. ’Cause if you do, Tiger, Mama gon’ kick yer butt.” Mom had read some book about how to talk positively to your kids, but she had too much of a sense of humor to be any good at what the book said. “Do you know a girl named Martinella? Martinella Nielsen?”
“Uh, yeah, new girl. She’s in a couple of my classes.”
“Well, I met her mother today when she came in to get some office supplies. Rose Lee Nielsen is just a super super lady. We got to talking about, you know, things, and she and I are going out for a little drink later this evening, and I’m going to explain the town to her, and we’re both interested in each other’s projects. So I might not be home when you get back from work. You take care of yourself, ’kay, Tiger?”
“I’m glad you found a new friend, Mom,” I said. I gave her a peck on her soft, clean, dry cheek. My mom was still real pretty whenever she took care of herself; that was what everyone said.
“Um,” she said, “when Neil dumped me—he called me an old bitch and he—”
I reached for my wallet. “Did he hit you or hurt you, or make any threats?”
“You’re not going to the cops about any of my friends.”
“He doesn’t sound like that good a friend to me, but suit yourself. He took the money you had left, didn’t he?”
She looked down at the floor. “Yeah. Yeah.”
What the hell. So I’m an enabler. That’s why I go to AA but not to Alateen. Got an opinion about that? Fuck you.
I handed her a twenty, which would get her drinks and some lunch the next day. “Now don’t be out late and don’t go past second base with boys you don’t know.”
She giggled again and hugged me. “Have a good time, oh Favored Heir of Ronald McDonald.”
“Are my feet growing and is my hair orange?” I asked, walking backwards down the stairs. “Because I’ve always been afraid there was something you wouldn’t tell me about that pair of striped socks you keep pinned to a dried rose in the back of your closet. Pull that door closed tight, please—thanks!” I waved bye-bye and nearly fell over that fat orange hairy slug of a cat. I bent to scritch his ears, said, “Guard, Hairball,” and darted out the door.
Safely back out on the dark street, I plunged into Marti’s car. “Hope I wasn’t too long.”
“Two songs and four commercials. I like the ‘We came up the hard way,’ one. From the way you came out of that house I feel like I’m driving a getaway car.”
“Yeah, well.” I fastened my seat belt. “Hey, Marti? I really appreciate this.”
“You’re welcome. And you’re keeping me from getting home, which is more than returning the favor.”
“If it makes any difference, your mom isn’t going to be there. She’s going out drinking with my mom.”
“Shit,” Marti said.
“Sorry I gave you the bad news.”
“It’s okay, really,” she said, like any Madman said when it sucked right down to the root.
We turned the corner and went three blocks. In the flashes of blue-white li
ght from the streetlights, between the dark under the trees, I could see she wasn’t crying or anything but she seemed to be far away, inside herself. We pulled onto Rolach Street and headed toward the interstate exit where McDonald’s was. After another block, she said, “Can I ask you something personal?”
“Six inches but I tell everyone eight.”
She laughed, that weird fizzing noise, as we pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot.
I said, “They don’t mind if a friend hangs around and talks with me while I clean.”
“That would be cool!”
“Watching a guy clean out McDonald’s is cool?”
“First day of school and I’m out late talking with a friend. I feel so normal I could just shit.”
“Well, do it before I clean the ladies’.”
The night crew had left five regular cheeseburgers, a very soggy Big Mac, a heap of dried-out fries under the warming light, and two Quarter Pounders, plus an urn of hot coffee.
“They do that so I can eat what I want and throw the rest out. If you sit here, we can talk while I work. I just clean the customer area, counters, and bathrooms—Pancake Pete cleans the kitchen at four A.M.”
“Don’t they leave food for him?”
“Naw, he gets a huge breakfast after he finishes up. We all call him Pancake Pete—he gets a kick out of it—because sometimes he’ll put away like six orders of pancakes and sausage. He’s a retarded guy, real nice.” I moved all that food to the table on one overloaded tray. “Usually I just grab food and gulps of coffee as I go by, and I’m not fussy about what I grab, so just help yourself and try and make sure your hand doesn’t look like a cheeseburger.”
“My hand’s the one that contains actual meat. I’m not eating your supper, am I?”
“There’s always tons more than I can eat—don’t worry about it.”
I shot around the room, getting tables, counters, and edges wiped down and making sure the sticky spots were gone, grabbing food as I went by, and we talked about everything while I mopped and scrubbed.
“You’re practically done and it’s only been half an hour,” she said.
“The bathrooms and the food counters will go slower, but yeah, these places are designed to be cleaned really fast, and I went through and read the manual, mostly ’cause I got real bored and tired one night and forgot to bring a book and it was snowing like a crazy bastard outside, and I knew I was locked out, so I stayed here to have somewhere warm to sleep and I needed something to read. McDonald’s has this whole system—like, I can finish in about an hour, but they pay me for two and a half, so I study or read till it’s time to clock out. The time I spend studying here, and over dinner, is about all that keeps me afloat in school.”
“I was talking with that girl Bonny and she said you’re always working somewhere.”
“Yeah, Bon’s that way too. We kinda compete to see who can have the most jobs.”
“How many jobs do you have?”
“Uh, five.”
“Five?”
“That’s a lot, I guess. One, this one. Two, moving couches for Mister Browning the upholster. Three, I take care of the heavy work in four old people’s gardens plus do some handyman stuff for them and their friends. Four, I sell ads for WUGH, the country radio station here in town. Five, starting Friday night I’m going to hop the counter at Philbin’s for the after-the-movie crowd, weekend nights. I guess that’s all.”
“ ‘That’s all’? Do you sleep?”
“Some, but they don’t pay me for it.”
“Are you saving for college?”
“Naw, I’m going into the army. But if I don’t get right in, I want to make sure I can live for a while in a strange town. Because I don’t want to come back here, at all, ever.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody that wanted to join the army before.”
I shrugged. “Well, shit, I want out of Lightsburg. I’ll always be the Shoemaker boy, here. And I’m not one of your peace-and-love never-comb-your-hair never-take-a-bath never-finish-a-sentence just be-be-be me-me-me free-free-free and love-me-’cause-I’m-so-mellow-groove-a-delic hippie freak types, anyway. A reliable paycheck with free bed and food, and a ticket out of town for good? And all they want me to do is char some babies? Well, all right then, a deal’s a deal, line up the cradles, hand me the flamethrower, and fetch me the barbecue sauce.”
Marti started laughing.
“God, that’s a relief, I wondered how far I’d have to go before you knew I was shitting you. Talk loud, I’ve got to clean the food prep counters now.”
“Thought you didn’t do the kitchen.”
“Food prep counters get two cleanings, me and Pete both. Keeps the burgers from getting cooties, or it drives away the evil spirits so they can’t possess the French fries, I forget which.”
I went back into the kitchen and Marti moved a burger and her coffee to the service countertop, keeping napkins under everything so as not to make a mess where I’d already cleaned.
“Hey,” I asked. “What was that super-personal question you were going to ask me, that I got away from with that dumb joke?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t ask you. It might piss you off.”
“I promise I won’t get pissed off,” I said, “or even if I do, I promise I will get over it and still be your friend.”
She gave me that great smile. “Back at the dance, just before the band started up again, I said something about getting to keep the friends I had made, and you said something kind of strange about how that was a problem. And you just looked so—sad. I thought I hit a raw spot. So I was wondering if maybe you’d tell me what the matter is? I mean I know it isn’t really any of my business, and you don’t have to, like if it’s too personal, but you really looked so sad, you know?”
I only thought for a second. Some people you just know are cool, from the first second you meet them. “Well, you know how Gratz called a bunch of us together after class—the Monday first-period therapy group?”
“It’s hard to forget.”
“Well, we’ve all kind of been like family with each other for ages. You know Paul Knauss, the super-skinny guy with the light brown fro? You danced with him—”
“I just knew his name was Paul.”
“Well, Paul started calling it the Madman Underground . . .” I filled Marti in on the basics. “It’s not all that cool, really, just kind of a club for weird kids that know each other’s sad stories. Anyway, Paul and me were playing together when we were too little to remember, our dads were friends forever, Paul’s my best friend . . . you know.” There was a sticky spot I had to rub extra hard. “I’m just—well, lately—well, just today, I don’t know why, but he’s definitely avoiding me.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yeah. I don’t have—”
Tires and brakes shrieked. Bobby Harris’s ancient cream-colored Ford Galaxie roared through the big rutted puddle out front, slapping brown muddy water all over the big windows. It made a sound like having your head in a bucket that someone whipped with a big wet towel. Harris fishtailed hard left and accelerated out of the lot, back onto Rolach Street.
By the wall clock, 11:30 on the dot.
Over the fading roar of the ancient engine and scream of bald tires, Marti said, “Shit, shit, shit,” looking down at where she had dropped her coffee onto her pants and the freshly mopped floor.
“Are you all right? You didn’t get burned?”
“No, the coffee was practically cold. Just startled and wet. Sorry about your floor. Would you mind if I rinsed my pants out in the women’s room? I’ll make sure it’s spotless when I’m done.”
“No problem. Sorry I didn’t think to warn you that that was gonna happen.”
“Thanks.” She went into the women’s room. I mopped up the spilled coffee, then rolled out the big trash receptacles and flipped them over into the Dumpster. If Harris and Tierden were going to make a second pass they did it within five minutes or so, so I allowe
d enough time before I got out my bucket, squeegee-stick, and hose, and cleaned the front windows. I hadn’t had to redo the windows in months.
It never occurred to Harris and Tierden that I had figured out their favorite trick. But then it also never occurred to them that no one liked them. Or that they were a pair of assmunches. They just weren’t real occurrable kind of guys.
As I was putting the bucket and the squeegee-stick away, Marti came out of the bathroom in wet pants, did a big mock salute, and said, “The bathroom is ready for inspection, sir.”
I looked inside and it was perfect.
“Who was the asshole?” she asked. “You sounded like he does it every night.”
“Assholes plural, or is that assholi? Harris and Tierden, those two creepy guys—”
“That call me the titless genius.”
“Yeah, them. They have a nasty nickname for every girl in the school. They’re petty and mean and hateful and if you listen to them for even one second, you’re really not a genius.”
She smiled again. It was so cool.
“What they are,” I explained, “is pure raw fuck-me-up-the-butt small-town dumbass dickweed loser assholes. I don’t like them, by the way. Anyway, they do that. That’s why I wash the windows last. They think I don’t know who does it; they’re always hinting to see if they can get me to complain about having my nice clean window splashed and having to work extra time. Besides, they’re so proud of figuring out how to splash a window—must’ve took ’em weeks. They pick on the Madman Underground when they can—we’re like their little wet dream of being able to hurt people who are better than they are, and get away with it.”
Marti made a face. “We had nasty guys who thought they were hot shit in genius school, but most of them were geniuses.”
“Well, these guys sure aren’t.”
“So are they going to hassle me all year, like they started to today?”
“Probably. They have minds like steel traps, get hold of an idea and never let it go even if it’s dead. But they won’t dare to hassle you too much. Last year we kind of took care of that.”