The Old Neighborhood

by Bill Hillmann

  “Hey, Mickey’ll be out in no time,” Lil Pat said with a low crackle in his voice. I almost didn’t recognize it. “Plus, you got Uncle Patty right here, anyways... OK?” Lil Pat’s bloodshot eyes strained in the rearview mirror.

  “OK,” Ryan muttered weakly. He looked out the window.

  We went to Montrose Beach. We didn’t feel like skipping rocks too much that day. Lil Pat had a few Old Styles, but he could barely drink ’em because of the tremors in his hands. He gave the last two to us.

  “You know I love you boys, right?” Lil Pat asked as he looked out across the lake at the gray horizon. “You don’t ever forget that, OK?”

  “OK, Pat,” we said in unison.

  “No matter what happens, OK?”

  Lil Pat turned and looked at me. I nodded.

  Even though I was just ten, I still knew what was happening. He was sick. It didn’t matter what he was sick with. I was losing my brother.

  •

  BLAKE WAS THE GOOD SON. The smart son. The athlete. The one who was gonna get himself out of the neighborhood, and he did. Got all the way to Des Moines, Iowa—Drake University—on a five thousand dollar athletic scholarship. But all it really was was free room and board. Back then, Drake cost about 15K per year, and my parents almost had to take out a second mortgage to keep him in classes. Ma took on another eight kids babysitting, and Dad worked his way up to Superintendent for McQue Construction. Blake was a good high school wide receiver but nowhere near fast enough to be scouted by a Division I school. Drake was Division I-AA, but at the time, they happened to be on an eight-year suspension due to a recruiting scandal. As part of that suspension, they were ejected from their conference and forced to function as a Division III school. This opened the door for Blake. His giant ego most likely propelled him toward Drake for posterity’s sake, as he’d always be able to say, ‘I played for Drake, a DI-AA school,’ when in reality, he probably couldn’t have been a towel boy for Drake without the suspension in effect. Blake was like that though—hyper-interested in providing a façade rather than substance. And that attitude was contagious. Everyone revered him, myself included. Grandma even started calling him “Blakey the Drakey.”

  All was well until the winter break of his junior year when his high school sweetheart and supposed ex-girlfriend, Karen, and her mother showed up at our front door and asked to speak to my parents. They sent us kids upstairs, but we all huddled along the carpeted steps in the dark. There, we listened and peeked in on the conversation in the brightly lit kitchen.

  “I’ll pay for the abortion,” Ma said in a matter of fact tone as she stepped slowly to the counter and riffled through her purse. “I’ll cut you a check right now—$500 bucks. Take her over to the place right on Peterson and get it done.” She found the checkbook and a pen and slowly limped back to the kitchen table. She sat down in her yellow-cushioned chair at the foot of the table.

  “My daughter’ll have an abortion over my dead body!” Karen’s mom said in a cold, rigid tone with her hands neatly folded over each other atop the oak table.

  Dad furiously washed his tall, clear glass in the empty sink. I heard the gush of water and the squeak of his hands and fingers slathering on the dish soap. The suds clapped to the tin sink basin, and his white mustache undulated under his hawkish nose.

  Karen cowered beside her mother on the bench, sniffling into a big, fuzzy ball of Kleenex. Her hair was done-up in a giant, blonde perm. Blake paced in and out of the passage between the kitchen and the TV room in his blue-and-white Drake University football letterman’s jacket. His sculpted face and long, narrow nose were crunched in a deep scowl. He passed from the dark TV room to the bright kitchen over and over like a defender masking a blitz.

  “He’s got one year left to graduate. How’s he going to do that with a child to raise?” Ma urged.

  There was a pop, followed by the sound of glass folding. Dad crushed his cup in his massive paws, and then he softly placed the broken pieces in the sink as not to make any noise.

  “He’ll have to drop out and marry her,” Mrs. Kerney snapped, contemptuously.

  “That’s not happening,” Dad declared, spinning around from the sink. A spray of soppy droplets whisked from his fingertips and clapped to the linoleum floor.

  “Well, he’ll be a father soon,” Mrs. Kerney said as she rose from the oak bench. Karen followed. “He better have a way to provide for the child.”

  Mrs. Kerney briskly stepped past Dad with her small button nose jutted toward the ceiling. Her eyes pursed, nearly closed, and Karen scuttled after her, still sniffling into the Kleenex wad. Karen followed her mother’s gray heels as they clicked sharply down the hall to the front door. Us kids scampered back up the adjacent stairs. Mrs. Kerney swung the heavy door open and slammed it shut behind them.

  •

  I SAT NEAR MY BEDROOM WINDOW one night when Blake and a few of his friends rambled down the front porch stairs.

  “She still pregnant?” one said.

  “Yeah,” Blake said. “Those things don’t go away on their own, ya know.”

  “Just shove her down some stairs,” Blake’s friend Steve said, and the group erupted into laughter. “Hell, I’ll do it!”

  “You’d do that for me?” Blake sighed. “Damn, Steve, you’re a real friend.” They blasted into more laughter as they sauntered away down the sidewalk.

  It made me sick to my stomach to think of it. I saw the protesters outside the abortion clinic on Peterson sometimes. Ma had had one. The child before me was diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome, and they chose to terminate it. Even today, I don’t know what I’d have done. The quality of life, all the terrible consequences of having a child with serious special needs—it’s tough.

  I guess teenage girls get abortions all the time, but with Blake, it was different. He was in a relationship with Karen. They were supposed to love each other. And the baby inside of Karen was going to be my nephew or niece—my family, ya know?

  I ended up leaving the house and walked down the street toward Hermitage. Hyacinth was out on her front porch doing her homework. I walked up to her, and she frowned at me. I still felt bad about what I’d done to Angel a couple weeks before.

  “Hey, I’m sorry about fighting with Angel.”

  She sighed.

  “I shouldn’t have.”

  “That wasn’t a very nice welcome to the neighborhood, ya know.”

  “I know.” I hung my head. “Can I sit with you?”

  She scooted over, and I sat beside her. It was a cool night. The wind blew in slowly off the lake.

  “Something bothering you?” she asked.

  “Yeah, well I, I don’t know.” I dragged my hand through my hair.

  “What is it?” She smiled at me.

  “My brother, Blake.”

  “The football player?”

  “Yeah. He got his girlfriend pregnant.”

  “Wow, jeez. That’s tough.”

  “Yeah, he’s got a year left to graduate college. He’d be the first to do that in my family since, since, a while, I guess.”

  “What are they going to do?”

  “I think they’re going to get an abortion.”

  “They’re gonna kill the baby?”

  “Yeah, I think. I think they stick a vacuum inside and suck it out.”

  “Oh my God, that’s horrible.” She gripped her stomach.

  “My Ma wants to do it, and Blake does, too, I think.”

  “That’s really sad.”

  “I don’t think Karen wants to. I think she wants to have the baby.”

  “That’s so sad.”

  “I know. Everybody’s so proud of Blake. Me, too. I’m proud of him. I want to be just like him and go to college.”

  “But you’re not so proud anymore?”

  “I, I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  She patted me softly on
the back.

  “Maybe it’s better if they do it and don’t have the baby and he finishes college and can get a good job, and then they could have all the babies they want.”

  “Maybe. I just think about the baby that’s inside Karen. What about the baby?”

  I started to cry a little, and I was embarrassed. I looked away and dug my fists into my eyes to squelch the tears. I started to get up to leave, and she reached out and held my arm with her soft, warm hand. She slowly pulled me close to her, wrapped her arms around me, and hugged me. I slid my arms around her and hugged her back. She kissed me on my cheek, and suddenly, my heart was beating quickly, and I wasn’t sad anymore. My whole body started to throb. Her front door cracked open, and I shot to my feet and said, “Thanks for telling me the homework for today.” Her father scowled down at me from the doorway.

  I turned rigidly and walked away quickly. Maybe she really does like me. I was confused, all mixed up. I looked back, and she waved with a sad smile. Maybe she just felt sorry for me. I guess it’s pretty sad. I hope they keep the baby.

  •

  IT DIDN’T GO WELL FOR BLAKE after that. He’d switched to strong safety from receiver, where he’d been getting less and less reps. He was second string, and by that next camp, he was coming full-bore for the spot. He beat out the starter, and after the first scrimmage game of the season, he ended up at a local college bar. Blake ran into the guy he’d beaten for the position—a black guy from (ironically) the West Side of Chicago. A few choice words exchanged, then Blake made a mistake with his textbook pompous demeanor. He puffed his big chest out, and a wide grin spread on his smug lips. Then, he popped his chin up, turned to one of his pals and said, “Dis guy thinks he can take me.”

  The West Side brotha did not hesitate to dig his heavy, dark fist into the base of Blake’s jaw. All before Blake’d even finished his sentence.

  One side of the bottom row of Blake’s teeth folded over, and Blake crumbled to the beer-soaked hardwood floor. He missed the first half of the season, and that West Side brotha who’d dropped him got his starting position back. Blake watched from the sidelines with his jaw wired shut and a pair of scissors in his pocket just in case he vomited and started choking to death ’cause there was just nowhere for all that bubbling-hot, mucus-drenched bile to go. Maybe it could erupt from his nostrils, but those two little passages were never gonna be enough.

  Blake’s son, John, was born around then. Karen moved out to Des Moines, and the two lived in a rented house with several other students. After the season, Blake, who had barely kept his GPA up high enough to be eligible to play football, just stopped doing the work. By the end of the spring semester, he’d failed out completely. He came home to Chicago and got a job as an assistant at an accounting firm by lying and saying that he’d earned his accounting degree at Drake—a degree that he’d completed about half of the coursework for in his four years there. He wouldn’t complete the degree until little Johnny was in high school.

  CHAPTER 8

  SEAGULL

  FOR SOME REASON, they’d marched the whole grammar school over to the church for Mass every week. Single-file lines of kids filtered across the school parking lot: the boys in navy-blue slacks and baby-blue, three-button collared shirts; and the girls in their army-green plaid skirts with white, button-up blouses and white, knee-high socks.

  I kneeled on the little, cushioned, flip-down bench in my pew. My chin barely cleared the top of the pew in front of me. I stretched and reached my arms up and rested my elbows on the rounded oak that’d been worn smooth by touch. I clasped my palms flat against each other and touched my thumbs to my lips. Mass continued. Thoughts flowed through my head. Jeez… I hate church… Then, I realized where I’d be if I wasn’t there. But I hate school even worse!

  Father McCale stood at the altar in his ankle-length, black cloak. His round, bald head and pudgy face beamed red in the low light filtered through the stained-glass windows above. He raised his outstretched arms, palms up.

  “We lift up our hearts,” he said, his voice booming into the massive emptiness above us children. The heads in the pews slowly ascended. The first graders up front gave way to the higher grades. The heads stepped upward all the way to the eighth graders in the rear pews. The choir balcony hung over the eighth graders. An immense, yellow and red stained-glass window prevailed above the balcony with an image of Christ with a golden crown on his head.

  I sat around half-way back through the pews with the fourth graders. Father McCale fixed his eyes in a dreamy gaze far above my head. Why does he always look up there when he says dat? Can he see God up dere or somethin’? A huge white marble wall of statues rose up behind Father McCale. It held the figures of Jesus and Mary and the prophets in descending order. Above the white statues, near the steep-pitched apex of the ceiling, two angels were painted in profile facing one another. Their skin was opaque, and their retracted, white-feathered wings were laced with gold. The wings sprouted from high on their backs, and their shape curved way up above their heads, then sleekly flowed down the length of their bodies. At their feet, the wings curled out and away. I wondered what it’d be like to fly, to levitate up out of the pews.

  I floated upward. As I did, I noticed the intricate designs in the ceiling. A dashed line ran the length of the pinnacle of the ceiling’s apex that looked like a miniature roadway. Suddenly, the room inverted, and the road was in a canyon at the base of two steep mountain ranges. I floated down into the canyon on my belly. Now, I faced the direction Father McCale stared at, and I saw why he looked there. The sunlight struck the stained glass—yellow, gold, red, two stories high and wide—and the flipped image looked like some strange, warped galactic landscape. Nebulous clouds collided. It must be heaven.

  A sharp slap struck the top of my head as I craned to see above and behind me. The shot sent me suddenly face forward again. I looked up—it was Sister Angelica. The bitter snarl on her saggy, wrinkled face let me know exactly where I was headed. She grabbed hold of my collar with her thin, boney hands and led me to the back of the church. Her hard-soled shoes clicked on the marble floor as my rubber soles squeaked across it. As we passed the eighth graders, Jan smirked sadistically at me with her chunky cheeks. My face burned red, and my stomach went hollow.

  Sister Angelica led me through the open doors into the entrance corridor. She made me kneel on the cold, hard marble floor near a gray porcelain fount filled with bubbling holy water. The only light was a gray-blue glow that seeped through the edges of the oak doors of the main entrance.

  “Twenty ’Our Fathers’ for not paying attention to Mass!” she hissed in a cutting whisper. Father McCale’s voice boomed on in the giant vault beside us.

  “Our Father, who aren’t in heaven,” I began as she loomed behind me. Her golden crucifix tapped on her green, fuzzy sweater, and after I had said a few “Our Fathers,” Sister Angelica edged back to the doorway of the main room to watch Mass. I waited until she was just out of ear-shot and settled my weight down on my feet to take the pressure off my sore knees. Then, I looked up into the darkness above the fount.

  “Our Father, who aren’t in heaven, why the heck did you name her Sister Angelica anyway? She should be named Sister Sourpuss. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, with going to church and school, so I could play all day with my friends and not have to do multiplication tables. And why did you make Jan’n’Rose so big and strong and mean? And why did you let Dad punch Richard and knock him out? And why did you let Lil Pat kill somebody? Why’d the Assyrian guy have to die? Why couldn’t he have lived? Does that mean Lil Pat has to go to hell? What about me, do I have to go to hell, too? And why did you let Lil Pat become a junky? And what’s a junky, anyways? And why did you make Da sick, and why can’t you make Da better?” Suddenly, a chill swept through me like the wash of a cold wave at Loyola Beach. My eyes got itchy, and a lump formed in my throat as the thought of what death was slowly set down on me. It bec
ame heavier and heavier until it clamped down on my throat from all angles like a massive iron vise. I realized Da would die and be gone forever, and I realized I was going to grow old and die one day, too. Or maybe, I wouldn’t grow old at all. The sudden horror of that dark, inescapable contract sent tears rolling down my cheeks that splashed my light-blue shirt. By the time Sister Angelica led me back to my pew, my face was puffy and damp, and there was no question that I’d cried. As I passed, a fifth grader named Marty Espinosa giggled, so later at recess, I slugged him in the mouth and gave him a fat lip. Then, I called him a wuss when he started to cry.

  •

  I REMEMBER FISHING on the stardock at Montrose Harbor where Da kept his small white sailboat. I cast a minnow lure into the big circle at the center of the dock. The lure jerked and twisted in the greenish water. The shadow of a seagull cut and slashed through the lure as I lazily reeled it in. Da and Grandma were on the boat cleaning and getting ready to take it out. There was a sudden shrieking cry from above and an explosion of feathers in the place my lure was.

  “Ahh, no!” Da yelled from the helm of the boat.

  I reeled as the seagull flapped, clutching the lure in its beak. It tried to fly and got a few feet out of the water before it wound and twisted in the line and plunged back into the lake. It cried there in the center of the circle of water, and I dropped the rod at my side. Da rushed beside me and snatched the line with his hand and pulled the bird onto the dock beside him. He unfolded his pocket knife and knelt over the squawking and writhing bird. He cut the line furiously as it wound and entangled him. He slit his own palm. Blood lifted up on his dark-brown skin. The bird wouldn’t hold still and bit Da’s wrist and chest and smacked him with its wings. He cut the line where it wound tight on the bird’s neck. Feathers plumed up everywhere. The three prong hooks of the lure clung deep to the bird’s beak, face, and neck. The seagull screamed like a child. Da delicately unhooked them as the bird’s wings fluttered intensely with the pain. Then, it was free, and it flapped and awkardly flopped back in the stardock’s center. It swam around in a slow circle, squawking angrily as Da stood beside me watching. Then, it tried with a great slow flap and rose low out of the water, cut between two sailboats, and soared up into the bright blue sky. Da put his hand on my shoulder.