by mike Evans
“I ran to my room, and then you were here. Did you and Billy run to hide with me?”
“Uh huh, come on honey, get your coat we need to get your brother to the hospital. We need to find a ride to get help.”
Billy whimpered for a moment before finally coming back around. In a very soft voice he said, “I’m okay, Mom, I’m okay.”
“Then let a doctor tell me that, Billy, you got knocked or passed out. You most definitely are not okay, young man. You are going to the doctor, and they are going to check you out. They have the free clinic we can take you to at the hospital. It isn’t the best, but it’s better than nothing. You don’t give Mommy any trouble with it, because I’m doing my best not to lose my mind right now.”
She set Billy down on the bed for a moment, taking a coat out of the closet for each boy and buttoning him up in it. She took a few calming breaths, wiping at her face, trying to keep from losing her mind. She was beginning to think that this might be the Sunday from hell, literally. The three made their way to the boy’s door slowly, worried that it was not going to let them leave. She was already thinking of the church and that it would be her next stop after they left. Billy did not remember anything that happened, and therefore could not recall his father, nor himself, flying around the room.
The bloody family walked out, looking around and making sure that David was nowhere to be seen before venturing out completely. They went to their retired neighbors’—the Anderson’s—across the street. Mrs. Anderson gasped when she saw the two and screamed, making the sign of the cross. “Oh, Mother Mary—Ralph! Ralph, get out here. Get out here now!”
Ralph, who was watching the kickoff of the Bears game shook his head. “It’s almost like she knows damn it. This better be good woman.” He came around the corner, seeing the Parker’s standing there, looking like a wet, bloody mess; except for Tony, who was still in his Sunday best clothes and had managed to not get one scrape. Only his soul was being bruised.
Ralph adored the family, all but the good-for-nothing husband. He took his coat and hat off their hooks and found his keys and wallet. His wife kissed him on the cheek, knowing she wouldn’t have to ask him once he had seen the family. Ralph smiled a sickly-looking smile full of despair for the family, one that he prayed every Sunday would see their final hard day. “Looks like you’ve had a busy day today, Joan. Let me drive you down to the free clinic. Would that be okay with you? I assume that David is not going to be driving you today?”
Joan smiled a little, sad to admit to herself that him finally getting hurt for once did not do anything to make her heart happy. “Well to tell you the truth, Mr. Anderson, he’s probably on his way to the hospital as well.”
Ralph ushered them out to the street to his Impala. Tony tugged on Ralph’s coat pocket. “Hey, Mr. Anderson, can I sit in the front with you? This has to be the biggest car I’ve ever got to ride in, not counting a school bus once for a field trip for families that we went on for the church.”
Ralph opened the back door for Joan and helped the two of them in, then got them situated without reservations. He swooped down to pick Tony up and tossed the young boy in the front seat where he hopped up on his knees, ignoring the seatbelt and watching excitedly as he brought the V8 to life. Tony squealed when the engine started and the black puff of smoke exploded out of the muffler. Tony rolled the window down as quickly as his little hand could. He poked his head out the window almost falling out of it, but Ralph had a hand out, gripping the rear of the boy’s pants and pulled him back in a little.
“You fall out of that car young man and there’s gonna be three of you Parkers needing to see the doctor, not just two. You don’t want to get a shot in your rear end because you went and fell out of the car, now, do you? It’s a long way down for a little guy like you. I don’t think you’d be all that happy if you fell out of the car; now what do you have to say about that?” Ralph began rolling up the window as he backed up into the seat where he should have been in the first place.
Tony gripped both of his tiny butt cheeks with his hands shaking his head no. “No, sir, Mr. Anderson, I don’t want a needle in my butt.”
Billy snickered at this and his mom nudged him with her elbow. “Don’t even start young man, I assure you that I am in no mood.”
Billy shrugged lightly feeling his cheek, trying to decide whether his back or his cheek hurt worse. He knew that it was going to be a long day. His mother looked down at him, seeing the look of what she mistook as shame on his face. She bent over, pulling him in close to her, and placed an arm around him.
“It isn’t that bad, honey; it’s going to be okay. Maybe we will get lucky and he will stay gone this time. I don’t care how hungry I get, it’s still better than him being there and doing nothing good.”
Billy wiped at a tear, thinking about it more. It was the only thing he couldn’t stop thinking about. “I'm not sad that he is gone, and I'm not worried about him staying gone. I hope that he does. I don’t like being scared all the time and not knowing what is going to happen from day to day, Momma. I just remembered that we left the chili out, and it’s going to be bad by the time that we get home. We aren’t going to have anything to eat after today. What are we gonna eat? We are going to starve. I don’t want to have to go back and ask Father Michaels for more food, it just doesn’t seem right.”
Ralph overheard this and said, “You don’t worry, Billy, you aren’t going to starve. The missus and I still cook like we are feeding a small army. There’s probably more food she cooks that gets tossed than what goes in our mouths. If you want or need something to eat, you just come over. Mrs. Anderson would be more than happy to be able to feed a young man. We haven’t had our own boys home regularly for what has to be twenty years by now.” He looked at Tony just barely able to stay still, and the look of hope in Billy’s eyes after that statement. Minus the bruises, of course, the boys both reminded him of his own children; a much skinnier version, but all the same.
“My, oh, my, how the time does pass. You enjoy this time if you can with them Joan, it’s going to be gone before you know it, and they’ll be the ones driving you around until they find a woman of their own; and then they come home on Sundays for church and lunch. I never thought I’d see the day, but now it’s one of the things I look forward to most,” Ralph said.
Tony made a gagging noise. “I ain’t ever marrying no smelly girl, I mean it; never, no girls, they are gross!”
His mother caught his eye, shaking her head. “And what exactly do you think that I am, Anthony Henry Parker?”
“You don’t count: you’re my momma, Mom. You smell real nice most of the time. I just don’t want to marry any of them other girls at school. Besides, they wouldn’t be good for nothing; they can’t reach anything, they’d be too short.”
“Why thank you, Tony, I'm glad that my hygiene and height is up to your standards.”
Ralph was shaking in his seat and could hold it in no longer. He started laughing a laugh that he hadn’t experienced since his own kids were home. He laughed so hard that he couldn’t hold in his other bodily functions and let out a fart. Billy and Tony could not stand this and burst out into a laughter that would see them all the way to the hospital. Joan did her best to remain ladylike, but she too could not contain the fit of giggles. She covered her mouth, but it did little good, and her cheeks turned to a lovely shade of red because of it.
Ralph pulled up to the emergency room drop off lane. Joan said, “Mr. Anderson, they should name a saint after you. I don’t know what I would have done if we would have had to walk that far today. I know for sure that I'm in no condition to walk that far. I will come over and thank you again when we get home tonight. Please tell Mrs. Anderson that I appreciate her as well, will you?”
“You can damn well tell her yourself!”
“I don’t understand, Mr. Anderson?”
“You think that I'm going to abandon you and your two sons down in Chicago’s ghetto? You must not know me ve
ry well then, huh?”
“Well, I couldn’t ask you to stay down here until we are done. It’s a day of rest.”
“I can sit on my old ass in the waiting room and watch the game just as well as I can at home. Probably going to keep me from sleeping through half of it, if I stay down here with you all. Now, you quit saying thank you or I'm going to start thinking that I did something more than just being a good Catholic. I’ll be over in a minute. The two of you get in there and once Tony and I get a spot, we’ll meet you inside. Won’t take more than a few minutes. I’ll take him down to the cafeteria; maybe we can get someone to fetch up some soup if there isn’t already some in there. Maybe I can get his tummy to stop growling. Keep thinking that a lion is sitting next to me.”
“What did we do to deserve such caring neighbors, Mr. Anderson?”
“Well, I’d chalk it up to you three going to church twice a week, and God pays special attention to the lot of you. You keep on doing that, and I think you’ll have even better luck coming your way. Now, you said that he was out of the house—are you expecting him to come back? A few of us neighborhood men are gonna have to have a talk with him if it gets this bad again. I think you know what I mean?”
“I do know, and he isn’t. He left shortly before we started walking outside your house. He said he wasn’t ever coming back, but I’ve heard that before.”
“All right, well, I can’t ever sleep worth anything anyways. I’ll keep a window cracked for you this week, dear, you yell and I’ll come running. If the police don’t care about this type of thing, then someone else is going to have to step up and do something about it.”
Joan nodded; she was on the verge of tears. She couldn’t complain about her circumstances when she had people like this in her life. She gripped his shoulder, smiling before her lip started to quiver and she broke out into a full on cry. Her shoulders began to buckle, and she leaned forward, having a full on emotional breakdown in the car. Joan rested her head on the seat, gripping it like she hated it and trying to regain her composure.
Ralph said, “It’s all right, dear, sometimes we all need to get one of those out. The misses does that from time to time too, but it’s usually when I try cooking something for her; never get that quite right.”
Joan started laughing at this, wiping at her tears with her sweater. Ralph handed her a handkerchief that she gladly accepted, and she blew her nose. “I’ll wash it, I promise.”
“Real men have got a million of them. Keep it. If you are okay, then I’d suggest heading in, Joan. Who knows how many people are going to be ahead of you in line.”
She nodded, taking a couple of long, deep breaths before finally opening the door. “Now, Tony, you be a good boy and you listen to Mr. Anderson. You don’t give him any trouble, do you understand, young man?”
“I’ll be real good, Mom, go on in so they can make your head quit bleeding.”
She nodded, pulling Billy out behind her, and they disappeared into the emergency room. Ralph looked to the boy and asked, “So, it looks like you got lucky, didn’t you? Looks like you are the only one that didn’t take a beating. You must have had a pretty good hiding spot, huh?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. I don’t remember anything until my momma was up in my room screaming my name. I’ve never seen her look so scared before.”
Ralph, who thought he understood what the boy was talking about said, “Well, when a man can’t keep his hands down when he drinks, that is just too bad. That is something a lot of women are scared of.”
“She wasn’t looking scared of my dad, sir. She was looking at me.”
Chapter 9
One hour later
The young resident straight out of medical school walked down the hallway, looking at his chart. The nurse was standing out front of the door to the Parker’s room. “So, what’s up with this room?”
“Stitches, and you probably should look for concussions, doctor.”
“Were they in some sort of accident, nurse?”
“Just the normal everyday kind of accident around here.”
“I’m sorry, nurse, I don’t understand—what kind of accident is normal that a mother and boy are both in the emergency care unit on a Sunday?”
“The type that will leave them looking terrified even after you are done working on them, doctor.”
“Because they are scared of people?”
The nurse took a calming breath. She’d been a nurse at the hospital for twenty-five years and seen little know-nothing doctors like this—that came for their mandatory time of learning how to not kill people and leave—time and time again. “No, doctor. Well, yes, in a way; but these people aren’t scared of you. They are scared of who they have to go home to.”
The doctor looked at the chart, seeing it was marked as married. The bells, however quiet, started to ring in his head. “It says that she is married on her form. Let me guess, the husband did not drive her to the hospital?”
“He’s probably at home waiting for her to come back, and even madder that he had to not have her and the boys around for the entire day.”
“So, what do I say to them?”
“You ask them where it hurts and fix it, doctor.” She looked at the badge hanging from his lab coat pocket, seeing that it had been printed a week ago.
He smiled awkwardly, heading into the room. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Parker, how are you doing?”
She let the ice pack down that she’d been holding to her head, smiling uneasily, unsure how to answer that. “I’m okay, doctor. I really wanted you to look at my son here, Billy.”
The doctor pulled up a stool in front of Billy, examining his cheek first. He looked at the boy’s bruise, seeing it was almost the perfect size to be from a hand. “What else seems to be the problem with this young man, besides a nasty bruise on the face?”
“He fell and was knocked out, he doesn’t remember anything about it, and I want to make sure that his head is okay.”
“Can I ask how you got knocked out, Billy?”
Billy looked to his mom who was ever so slightly shaking her head no. He said, “Yeah, I fell, I don’t remember how though.”
“You realize we can call the police for you.”
Billy, who didn’t get the meaning said, “We got a ride home, sir, we don’t need a ride.”
“What I mean is, you don’t have to live like this.”
“Sir, you probably ain’t ever been in my neighborhood. Bruises and black eyes aren’t really too uncommon in my parts. Am I okay, though?”
The doctor opened his mouth to say something and the nurse ever so gently squeezed his shoulder. “Doctor, can I get you anything?”
Realizing that she meant he was there to fix what was on the outside and not the problems at home, he went to work, looking Billy over. He checked his head, his pupils, and lifted his shirt to see that he was going to have one nasty bruise in the morning. “You might want to consider letting him pass on a day from school Monday, Mrs. Parker. I fear he’s going to have quite the bruise in the morning and is going to hurt like the dickens. His head seems okay, his pupils look healthy. Reactions are what they should be for a boy his age. I’d say that you’re going to make it, son.”
Billy went to put back on his shirt and his mother saw two bruises. The first was the bruise on his back, that looked like it had been there longer; but the second looked like his cross had burned into his skin. She wished that something very bad would happen to David, and did not care if she needed to work three jobs for seven days a week, she would still prefer that life over one with that son of a bitch in it. Joan patted his shoulder and said, “Honey, do you think that you could find your way back out to Mr. Anderson and your brother?”
“I’m not a baby, Mom.”
She gave him the look that he did not need any explanation to tell him that yes, he should shut up. “William Patrick Parker, do we need to have any further discussion on this?”
The nurse smiled, taking his h
and and said, “You don’t worry none about your boy. I’m going to make sure that he finds who he needs to. This is a big, old hospital, lots of places for little boys to go and get lost in. We wouldn’t want that happening, now would we?”
“No, we wouldn’t; bless your heart, nurse. Thank you very much.”
“Now, doctor, you take good care of this lady. She’s had a real rough day, we don’t need to be adding any stress to it, sir.”
The doctor—who’d expected to be treated like a man of great power when he’d graduated and was set to start his residency—realized a few things. The first was that the nurses saw five patients for each one the doctor did. The second was that long after he was gone and at an upper-class hospital, or started his own family practice for those that would pull up in Mercedes, she would still be here, seeing the next round of doctors who knew less than they should to be dealing with patients on their own. “I’ll do my best to see that she survives, nurse, thank you.”
Billy headed out, looking back at his mother, smiling, trying to let her know everything would work itself out. The doctor stood, looking at the side of her head with a light and said, “You said that you both tripped, huh?”
“Sir, I don’t think you understand the way things are for some of us.”
He pulled back the sweater around her neck, seeing the red bruises forming, and knew what they were from. He shook his head, trying to think of something he could say, and realized he’d probably be best to just fix the woman up and let her go.
“Well, I have to admit, I don’t have a lot of experience with this type of thing. It’s too bad that some men don’t know how good of a woman that they have at home.”
“Well, sometimes I think that brown bottles have a tendency to make what they see a bit blurred and confused. Not that I'm blaming the booze; they are the ones who put it to their lips and do the rest of the damage to themselves after that.”