by A. F. Brady
“It wasn’t nice, but it was enough for us. The elevated section of the 7 was nearby, so I could feel the trains coming all day and night. The walls would rattle and things used to fall off the shelves. I was sweeping all the time because things kept falling down and breaking.” Richard is looking at the men on the scaffold across the street; he’s rubbing his thumbs together. He shifts his weight and continues.
“My dad died when I was little and I don’t remember him. I heard the stories from Frances, but I don’t know what was true. She didn’t have any more family except for me because her brother and sisters moved away when Queens got dangerous.
“She told me they went to Ohio, where it was safer to raise a family, but that she stayed because she wanted to be with my father and he had a good job in Queens. When he died she could’ve left, but she told me her family didn’t want us in Ohio, because I was a ‘bastard child’ and that would reflect badly on them, so we couldn’t leave Woodside.”
“When did your father die?” I ask, sipping my coffee.
“I was a baby, so maybe ’62, ’63? I don’t know exact dates.”
“Did you ever find out what happened?” I instinctively pick up a pen and pull a pad to write his answers on. Before I jot anything down, I remember the deal; I’m not supposed to treat him like a patient, so I tuck the pen back into the mug on my desk.
“Well, I know that he was killed in an accident at work, but I don’t know the details. Frances told me that because she and my dad were never married that the company wouldn’t help her or me with any money or benefits. She was always mad about that. She never could let it go. Saying that she had a son because my father wanted a son, and now no one would be here to raise me. She hated that company.”
“What kind of work did your father do?”
“Construction. He was a roofer, I think. There wasn’t a lot of opportunity in the ’50s for Irish guys with no education. You went to work in pubs or construction. So, he was a roofer. I guess he fell off a roof or something, but I never found out exactly what happened. After he died, it was just me and Frances.”
“That must have been hard for both of you.”
“Are you going to write all of this down? I don’t want this story to be written down.” The notebook is still out on my desk, but I haven’t been taking any notes.
“I’m not listening to you as a therapist, remember? And you’re not going to listen to me as my patient. This is one human being talking to another. Just like you said.”
“So you’re not going to ask me how I feel about all this?” He twinkles his finger at me.
“I’ll try not to.”
Richard gives me an incredulous sideways glare and puts his hands behind his head. His elbows are stretched out on either side, and in my too-small office, he seems to take up the whole space.
“She was a teacher, so I got to go to private school until the teachers’ strike in ’68. She went to all the protests and waved a sign around. She got angry with all the other women, but she never really wanted to fight for anything, she just wanted to fight. When the strike was over, she refused to go back to St. Teresa’s because she said she had been too badly disrespected. She said she never wanted to see them again, and I couldn’t go to school there anymore. I left after second grade and I had to go to public school.
“There was a problem to get me into another school because my birthday is in the summer, so they didn’t know if I should be the youngest kid in fourth grade or the oldest kid in third grade. I could read pretty well, I wasn’t a disciplinary case, and because the schools got so crowded and confusing after the strike, I got to skip third grade. I remember Frances told everyone in the neighborhood that I was the smartest kid.
“I was doing fine in the new school and it was pretty close by, but I would have to change again soon, because PS 78 only went up to sixth grade. I had to make good marks because Frances wanted to show everyone that I was smart.
“Things got bad for her around then. She wasn’t working a real job, just cleaning houses some days during the week. She was so angry that she had to clean other people’s houses to make a living. Whenever I got home from school, she would force me to clean our house.
“She would sit in this yellow plastic chair in the kitchen with a scarf tied around her hair and smoke cigarettes. She would ash them on the floor and then tell me to clean it up. Then the train would come by and something would break. She would always put these little trinkets and vases and delicate stuff up on this shelf where she knew it would fall off and break.
“I remember one time, she had a flask of vermouth on the stool next to her yellow chair, and when the train came the flask fell down. She had been drinking all day and all that was left in the house was the flask of vermouth. That was the first time she hit me. I was nine years old.”
“Do you remember what happened?” I interrupt.
“Of course I remember what happened. No matter how much I try to forget it, you can’t forget it. I remember what everything smelled like. I remember the color of the tiles and the specks in the grout. I remember wondering if linoleum can break. She had one shoelace untied, and I was afraid that if she saw that, I would get hit again, so I tried to tie it while I was cleaning up the ash by her feet.
“When the flask went down she screamed at me to pick it up. I was holding the broom and I was in the doorway to the other room. I walked to pick it up and she kicked me in the ribs when I bent down. She told me I was wasting it. She said that it was spilling and I needed to pick it up faster. I held it up to give to her and she slapped it out of my hand. She kept slapping the side of my head over and over again telling me I wasted her medicine. I don’t remember if she hit me hard or not, but I remember the sound it made when she got my ear. I didn’t say anything back because she was drunk, and I knew it would get worse. She pushed me away and told me to start cleaning again from the beginning.”
The telltale ringing that only comes from getting slapped that way is rising in my ears, and I squint away the pain. I know this sound so well, and as I hear Richard telling the story, I can imagine myself in his position.
“We didn’t have any cleaning gloves, so my hands were raw and sore from all the bleach and scrubbing. She would fall asleep then get back up and tell me to start again. I cleaned all night until I went to school the next morning. I had bleach all over me, and the knees of my pants had torn.” His gaze returns to the men outside the window, and his voice begins to get small. He leans forward and looks at my desktop clock. “If I keep going, there won’t be any time for you to talk.”
“That’s okay. This session can be all for you,” I say, feeling that he’s telling my story along with his own.
“That wasn’t the deal.” He readjusts his position. He’s sitting ramrod straight with his feet tucked under the chair and his arms crossed over his chest. “What are you going to tell me?”
I shrug and throw my hands in the air, wide-eyed. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know why you had all these bottles hidden in your drawer.”
“Well,” I begin, letting my guard down, “I needed them at the time. Everything was falling apart and the booze was all I could find to hold myself together. You already called it; I’m an alcoholic.”
“That’s it?”
“No, that’s not it, but we’re out of time, and if we’re going to be breaking all the rules like this, then you’re going to have to give me a minute to get used to it.”
“Are you going to tell me what really happened to you?” he asks genuinely.
“Maybe I will tell you next time.” I shuffle my papers and straighten my desk. “I don’t tell my stories, either, you know,” I say, wagging a notebook in his direction. “It’s not an everyday occurrence that a patient blackmails me with my own bottles of alcohol, then feeds them to me and asks me the gory details of my life’s story. So,” I scoff loudly, “forgive me if I don’t take to this like a duck to water.”
&nbs
p; “I don’t have to feed it to you. I’m depleting my own warranty by bringing you these bottles. I just figured you could use a drink if you’re going to spill your guts.”
I throw the notebook into my desk drawer. Richard picks up his papers, puts his hat back on his head. As he walks out my door, I realize he didn’t tell me anything about killing his mother.
JANUARY 31ST, 11:02 A.M.
Richard has settled into his seat in my office. His cap and newspapers sit on the corner of my desk. Four tiny bottles of Grey Goose have materialized.
“Frances started working at Shea Stadium in 1970. After the Mets won the World Series in ’69 she figured she would make money at Shea because the team got so popular. The only job you could get there as a woman was waitressing or bathroom attending. She worked as a waitress. A beer maid, they called it. She would bring beers and hotdogs and whatnot to the fans in their seats. Sometimes they would be drunk and she would get a big tip; sometimes they wouldn’t give her anything.”
“Did you ever get to go to games with her?” I ask.
“Nah, I’ve never been to Shea. I guess I never will. You a Mets fan, Sam?”
“Nope, Yankees fan.” I reach for a Yankees flag behind my computer and wiggle it in Richard’s direction.
“Yeah, Frances wasn’t a Mets fan, either. She just went there for the money; she didn’t care about baseball.”
“How old were you when she started working there?”
“Well, it was 1970, so I must have been eight or nine. I was already at PS 78 then, I remember because all the kids there loved the Mets and everyone got so excited that my mom worked at Shea Stadium. They always asked me to bring them shit because they figured I got to go to games for free. I told them I did. I didn’t want anyone to know that I had never seen a baseball game before.”
“You never went to a ball game?”
“I couldn’t go when I was growing up. Then I was in prison, so I don’t get to go to baseball games.”
“I guess that makes sense, but you’ve got to go. It’s the best thing in the world. It’s freedom, it’s America, it’s sanity. You have to go.” I twirl the flag between my fingers.
“I’m stuck in a mental asylum and you’re telling me about freedom and sanity?”
“Yes. Sometimes it’s the only place I can go to feel alive.” I’m imagining the field of Yankee Stadium; I’m trying to get the smell in my nose. I’m listening to Bob Sheppard and the crowd screaming. I’m watching the scoreboard light up, and suddenly, Richard brings me back.
“When I get out of here, I’ll try to get to a game.”
“You really should. Sorry, continue your story.” I’m back in my office now, and the sounds of baseball have faded.
As Richard opens his mouth to continue, the back of my seat is bumped by my office door opening. I hear the creak of the hinge and the door swings open, and I turn around as fast as I can and scramble to my feet.
“Shawn!” I can’t believe I left my fucking door unlocked!
“Hi, Doc. Is it time for our meeting?”
“Shawn, you startled me!” I push his shoulders and stumble over my chair, moving us into the hallway. There are four bottles of Grey Goose prominently displayed on my desk. I slam my door behind me. “I am in session with another patient now, Shawn. I can’t have you just barging into my office like that, okay? I need you to knock on the door before you come in.” I’m wild-eyed and disheveled, fearing I’ve been caught red-handed.
“Sorry, Doc. Thought it was time for our meeting.” Did he see them? Did he see the bottles?
“Not now. Our sessions are at 2:00 p.m. Okay? It’s not even noon yet. Go ahead and check your schedule. I have to get back to my other patient now, alright?” I’m sweating and out of breath. I turn into my office, lock the door and test the lock. I pull back the knob and it doesn’t open. We’re safe. I drop back down into my chair, and I see that Richard scurried the bottles away somewhere.
“Did you hide them?” I demand. “Jesus!”
He pulls open one side of his jacket like a man on the street selling stolen goods and shows me the necks of the bottles poking out of the inner pocket.
“Thank God.” I let my head fall back onto my chair. I’m already hanging on by a thread here, and if Shawn saw this booze and says anything to anyone… My stomach is roiling with adrenaline, and my throat aches with worry.
“Where was I?” Richard says, pulling the bottles back out. He doesn’t realize how close to caught we are, or seem to care.
“Shea Stadium, 1970.” I’m still out of breath.
“Right, Shea. Frances started working there after the Mets won the World Series. Even though she didn’t have to clean houses anymore and she had some money coming in, she still didn’t get any happier.
“She would still sit in that yellow chair drinking all night, and she would still make me clean… I guess it must have been a really hard time for her, because when I was cleaning the kitchen, she would cry and tell me how no one appreciated her, and that she was always there doing things for everybody, but no one did anything for her.
“She never seemed to get a good night’s sleep. She had headaches, and she would make me turn off all the lights and close the curtains when her head was hurting. She would tell me to shut up and get her some ice, and then she would lie on the couch with her feet up and moan. When the trains came by she would make a face like she was dying. I remember I wanted to help her so badly, but I was scared to go near her.”
“Migraines, huh? I get those. Were you scared she was going to freak out if you approached her?”
“I never knew what she was going to be like. Even when she was in all that pain, she could still scream and hit me. Other times she would tell me I was the only person she cared about in the world. It was confusing, and I was too little to understand. So, it made me scared. Whenever she got nice, I was excited and I hoped it would last, but then she would pull the rug out from under me. It’s like one day she loved me and needed me and the next day she hated me and said I ruined her life.”
“You were so young then, Richard. There was no way you could understand.” My heart is hurting for him. I have this image in my head of a tiny boy with ripped pants and a dirty muscle shirt holding a mop and staring at his ailing mother as the train passes overhead. All I want to do is jump inside this story and protect this little boy.
“Yeah. I remember feeling so confused. There was this one day, it was a bad day. It was a Saturday or Sunday, and the Mets game was in the afternoon. Frances was up for the whole night before, making me clean over and over. She had been drinking and crying again. Even when she was drunk or sad, she wouldn’t ever go out in public looking a mess. And she wouldn’t ever let anybody in the house unless she was ready for it. So she had gone to work at the game with her face all made up and a clean uniform on, and she was very pretty.
“It was a sunny day, and I went out with some of my friends in the neighborhood and we were horsing around. Frances always had me home before she got back from the games because she said she didn’t want to worry about where I was, and she didn’t want to burden the neighbors and ask them to look after me. I remember I was having fun with my friends that afternoon, and nobody had a watch on, so we kept guessing the time by looking at the sun. Nobody actually knew how to do that, but Jesse, a kid in the neighborhood, he always said it was noon so that none of us would have to go. Jesse was older, so we listened to him. After it had been noon for a few hours, we all said our goodbyes and went back to our houses.”
I’m listening to Richard telling me the story, and scenes from The Sandlot, A Bronx Tale and The Basketball Diaries are playing in my head. Scenes with dirty boys playing outside. I’m imagining Richard again in a dirty muscle shirt, playing in a dusty lot, throwing big silver hubcaps like Frisbees.
“When I got in the front door, Frances was in her yellow chair. I said I was sorry that I was late. She was smoking cigarettes, and I remember the light kept catchin
g the smoke coming out of her mouth, and I thought she looked like a dragon. She told me that something special happened at Shea Stadium that day. She told me that if I cleaned myself up, she would show me. I went to put on different clothes and wash my face, and I didn’t hear her coming into my room. I was pulling up my shorts when I saw her in the doorway.”
Richard is getting a faraway voice and isn’t facing me anymore. He has his eyes fixed on the men up on the scaffold across the street. He’s rubbing his thumbs together.
“She walked into my room with a big baseball bat in her hands. She held it out for me to see and told me it was Bat Day at Shea Stadium. When I reached out to touch the end of the bat, she started swinging it at me. She didn’t swing it like a ball player; she choked up really high and hit me like she was hammering a nail. I tried to cover my head and duck and she yelled at me to stand up like a man. She said if I was going to disappoint her like a man, I should take a beating like a man. She just kept swinging and swinging. She finally stopped and fell on the floor crying. My room was all messed up now and everything was everywhere. She said, ‘Look what you made me do.’ Both of my arms were broken.”
I can’t help but gasp and cover my face when Richard says this. I blink away the tears that are forming in my eyes so he doesn’t see them. His arms were broken; that’s why he can’t bend the left one properly and it juts out at that angle. He turns to me to finish the story.
“She saw that they were broken and I needed to get help. She went to her room to change her clothes and fix her makeup, and I tried to pull on my clothes even though it hurt so much to move my arms. I couldn’t manage to get a shirt on, but I had on my pants and slip-on shoes. She came back to my room to get me; she wrapped her scarf around my shoulders and took me to the doctor down the street.
“In those days, the neighborhoods always had a doctor who took care of the kids when they got hurt. I don’t know if anyone ever paid him or what. I never had an X-ray or a cast because we never went to the hospital. The doctor made me splints with pieces of wood wrapped in cotton and gauze. Then he bent my arms at the elbows and strapped them into slings. We walked home that night, and she told me that I couldn’t tell anyone what happened because if people knew how bad I was they would take me away from her.”