Make Believe

by Joanna Scott

  Jenny’s stepfather wouldn’t have her in the house anymore, so she moved with Kamon into the extra room at Taft’s place. Taft was Kamon’s twenty-two-year-old cousin. Kamon’s parents gave Kamon money each month so he only had to work part-time at the garage and could finish school and go to college. They all agreed that Kamon must go to college no matter what, though Jenny didn’t see the need and believed that Kamon could have prospered as a photographer without a college education. But she didn’t want to spoil his vision of the future any more than she already had. She sensed that she could never win the family over. White girl aiming to ruin Kamon’s life. They’d put up with her for Kamon’s sake, but they weren’t going to like her. White girl plopping herself down in their midst and asking them to take care of her. You can stay. Just don’t go bothering us.

  Saturday the twenty-second … Saturday the twenty-ninth … Saturday the fifth…

  And then one winter night Taft wanted a pack of cigarettes. Taft — all two hundred and eighty pounds of him. He’d come from Buffalo to go to technical school, lived with Kamon and Sam and Erma for a while, but he took to petty dealing and was busted for possession right in the Gilberts’ front yard. On probation now, he had his own apartment and had promised his family he’d stay out of trouble. He called Jenny Hey bitch, in light derision: Hey bitch, you want some pizza? Hey bitch, you seen Kamon? Hey bitch, get your ass up here!

  “Hey bitch, you go out and buy me some cigarettes and I’ll give you a big tip,” Taft said out of the blue one night.

  “It’s almost midnight, Taft. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Kamon, how about you? Come on, here’s an extra ten, bird on a wing, take it or leave it.”

  “Make it twenty and you got yourself a deal.”

  “Twenty fucking dollars, cousin? You a ballbreaker! Fifteen.”

  “Twenty, you lazy shit.”

  So that’s how much Kamon’s life turned out to be worth. Twenty dollars. Twenty dollars and a carton of cigarettes. Jenny had wanted a cigarette, too. And twenty dollars wasn’t nothing. The glance that she exchanged with Kamon before he left assured her that together they’d get rich off Taft’s stupidity. Kamon wore Taft’s parka and a bright orange knit hat, but he didn’t bother with boots. Jenny knew how he liked to walk on new snow in his sneakers, how he liked the silence of the streets, the light dancing in the salt puddles, cigarette smoke mixing with winter air, the taste of cold, the taste of Jenny’s tongue when he kissed her good-bye.

  She watched the basketball game with Taft while Kamon was at the store. She’d played on her own junior varsity team and had a special talent for stealing the ball from her opponent. She’d taught herself to use her left hand as a paddle and could sweep the ball away and take off downcourt, running free from the pack and leaping into the layup. As she watched the players on the television, she flattened her fingers and remembered the rough surface of the ball against her palm.

  The shots in the distance sounded like the popping noise of corn inside a microwave. Jenny wasn’t sure what she’d heard, but her heart went pop-pop-pop because she felt the force of it before she knew the truth, felt it as the beginning of the end of the world. Hadn’t she somehow known what would happen, as though she’d read through the book first a long time ago and when the movie started had a vague recollection of how it would turn out?

  The baby did a jig inside her, roused by Jenny’s fear. Taft kept watching the basketball game. Jenny wanted to tell him to go find Kamon and bring him home. She wanted to rip Taft’s chest open with a knife. She wanted Taft to take her in his arms while she wept. She wanted to go down the street and find out for herself what had happened, but she couldn’t rise from her chair.

  Funny how her intuition flagged, and she started to think, what if? What if those really were shots she’d heard? What if Kamon had been hurt? And gradually the what if changed to if. If Kamon had been hurt … if Kamon had been shot … if Jenny lost Kamon now…. For a long minute the street outside remained silent, and the silence reassured Jenny, transformed the if of catastrophe to maybe. Maybe nothing had happened and Kamon would be bouncing up the steps soon, one of Taft’s cigarettes hanging from his lips. Maybe Jenny was stirring herself up just so she’d experience the pleasure of relief. Maybe everything was perfectly fine. Maybe — she swallowed the word and waited for Kamon to hurry up and come home.

  Because Kamon had been killed on a city street Jenny moved out of the city a month before her son was born, and because she couldn’t afford to rent a house of her own she had to settle for half of a double in a run-down neighborhood in the town of Arcade. Because she lived way out in Arcade she bought a used Ford Escort with the money her mother had sent her, and because she had a car she could take a job at the mall. Because she worked at the mall she had to drive a total of twenty-eight miles to get home — from the mall to the fourteenth ward in the city to pick up Bo and back to Arcade. Because she had such a long, boring drive ahead of her she liked to relax at a bar with some friends before she set off, and by the time she got home she’d be feeling so tired that when she settled down beside Bo to sing him a good-night song she’d often fade into sleep herself. She’d sleep for a few hours, and then she’d wake with groggy surprise to find herself still in her clothes. Usually it would take her an hour or more to fall back to sleep in her own bed, and during that time she was good for nothing but some middle-of-the-night B movie on television. While she watched she’d get to thinking about the shambles of her life and how her sister, Ann, who tried to help out with baby-sitting now and then, blamed her for the mess. Once Ann had even tried to prove her point by dumping all of Jenny’s beer down the drain of the kitchen sink. Seven dollars’ worth of beer!

  You’re a goddamn drunk, Jenny! You’re gonna end up like Tony!

  But Ann didn’t know what she was talking about, since she had no idea what happened to Tony. She remembered him only as a giddy, celebrating drunk, a ridiculous clown whom you had to beat over the head with a pillow to wake up. But Jenny remembered Tony beneath the overpass — Tony the hobo, the vagrant, the wanderer. And Jenny would lie awake imagining the satisfaction she’d feel if she could really fulfill her little sister’s expectations. Okay, so she’d end up just like Tony: penniless and drunk and nobody’s fool, free as the wind.

  Just watch me! Bo, pack up your suitcase, we’re going on a trip.

  I want to go to Disney World!

  We’ll go there and everywhere else. Now you be a good kid and hang out over at Ashley’s until I get back. Mama has to do something.

  She’d drive the twenty miles southeast to her mother’s house in Hadleyville, sneak in through the back door, and slip Marge’s wallet from the purse hanging in the vestibule. Then she’d drive back to Arcade and bring Bo back to their side of the house and set to work packing his bag and hers. Oh, she’d be in an ugly mood by then, one of her monster moods, she called them, and Bo wouldn’t dare open his mouth to ask her what she was doing. He’d just sit on his bed and watch her, and the silence would be tense with anticipation.

  But nothing happened without incident, Jenny knew. Sooner or later there’d be a knock on the door, a knock that meant she’d have to postpone her plans.

  And then the knocking would turn to pounding, pounding, pounding, hammering against the door, as though someone were firing a cannon, or driving a backhoe into the side of the house. Bo would watch Jenny, and Jenny would pretend to hear nothing.

  Jenny, open up! You’re in there, I know you’re there. Open the door. I said open the damn door!

  She’d let him go on for a long five minutes, and then she’d open an upstairs window and throw an empty beer bottle onto the sidewalk. She’d return to her bedroom and continue stuffing clothes into the suitcase, cursing all the while — you fucking Eddie, you leave us alone!

  Bo had never met Eddie, fucking Eddie, Jenny called him, the only thing she ever called him. If Jenny really ever did steal her mother’s wallet, fucking Eddie would leap
into his car and drive to Arcade and try to force his way into Jenny’s house. Eventually he would succeed. He would grab Jenny and tear her head from her neck and without even wiping the blood from his hands he would come searching for Bo to do the same to him. That’s what happened on the television at three A.M. That’s what would happen to Jenny and Bo, unless Jenny had the prescience to whisper between her teeth, run, Bo, go on, run! and maybe threaten him with a hairbrush so he’d do what she told him to do. He’d hop down the stairs with his head turned to make sure his mama was following, he’d run ahead of her through the kitchen and out the back door, and he’d leap from the top step into the open arms of the man waiting for him, that fucking Eddie, who would stagger against Bo’s weight, steady himself, and stand there looking like a long-lost husband returning home with a huge turkey in his arms, like Tony Templin would have looked if he’d ever attempted a reconciliation, all traces of humility lost to his sense of triumph. Aren’t I something, appearing on the doorstep with a turkey after all these years…

  Give him back to me, Eddie!

  Nothing doing. You just sauntered into our house, stole your mother’s purse, and sauntered out three hundred dollars richer. I say that’s about the cost of this plump little rascal here. Three hundred buckaroos. See you later, Missy.

  You let him go!

  Eddie would keep on clutching her little boy in his arms, and Jenny would just stand there on the threshold, knowing that she should give Eddie’s arms a tug, maybe kick him in the groin and wrench Bo free. All she had to do was fight for her son. But she wouldn’t fight. Instead she’d just stand there whining like the Harwoods’ dog when he’d gotten his leash tangled around the trunk of a tree, whining for Eddie to give Bo back while she watched him carry Bo down the couple of steps to the concrete path.

  Here, Eddie, here’s your money!

  She’d throw greenbacks over the rail, though you didn’t have to know Eddie well to know that money meant little to him. He’d rather have Bo than three hundred dollars. Who wouldn’t? Too late to change your mind now, Jenny.

  What would happen next? Would Eddie take Bo to Candyland or to the Worm King’s dungeon?

  Caught in the trap of cause and effect, Jenny would try to comfort herself thinking about how Aunt Ann would be waiting at the end of the driveway on Hanks Lane, ready to welcome Bo. And Marge would be there beside her. Marge, after all, was the kid’s grandma. She’d lift him out of the car and give him such a big hug that Jenny would feel comforted by the scene as she imagined it. And it was only imagined, wasn’t it? Selling her son to Eddie so she could head off alone to Disney World? Jenny would never do that, but even if she did, Ann would keep him company and take him to look for rocks down by the lake, Grandma Marge would cook him macaroni and cheese, and the next day Eddie would get to work building him a tree house. He’d make sure no nails were sticking out of the boards, then he’d lift Bo into the tree house, hand him up a bag full of red licorice, and leave him there while he went to work. Maybe he’d leave him there all day. Yes, that’s what would happen and Jenny couldn’t change it: no one would come for Bo no matter how hard he cried, no one except Grandma Marge, who would pass him up a blanket and maybe a peanut butter sandwich and say she loved Bo but couldn’t help him. They didn’t want to make Eddie angry, did they? No, you don’t want to see Eddie get angry. He’s a good man, except when he’s angry. No matter what, you don’t want to make him angry, for Eddie doesn’t hold back and has been known to pick up a cat that scratched him and throw it against the wall.

  Stop!

  What’s wrong, Ho-bo-bo?

  It’s too scary.

  You keep listening to this story, listen to how the sparrows bring you bottle caps and snail shells, and the spiders spin their webs into thick silk sheets to keep you warm, and the raccoons bring you chocolate chip cookies, and the squirrels take turns lying still so you can hold one against you while you sleep. Spring turns into blazing summer, and from the fort Eddie made you can see the lake, you can watch the sailboats while you eat wild strawberries that the crows bring you, buckets of strawberries, then peaches and plums, then the first wind-fall apples and it is fall, the nights grow cold again, and —

  I’m not listening. — the snow comes, soft as sifted flour falling through the open window of your little tree fort, then —

  I’m not listening. — sleet, a blizzard of ice, so the next morning you wake up to find the trees around you all shimmery. Remember that ice storm, Bo, when the world turned to glass? Well, this will be just like then —

  I don’t want to hear anymore! — and the squirrels will come cut of their nests and puff their warm breath to thaw the walls and warm you.

  Stop!

  You’re a lucky kid, you were born lucky and will always be lucky, Bo, for you are your mama’s baby and will be taken care of no matter what. Even though Grandma Marge and fucking Eddie stop taking care of you. Even though Aunt Ann moves away because she can’t bear living in that goddamn house anymore. Don’t cry, Bo. One day you’ll look across the snow-covered yard and see, standing by the back door of the house,a scrawny old man in a red baseball cap staring at you, just staring, and even though he doesn’t make a move to help, try to remember that when he disappears he will go to find someone who can help you, he will walk for days through the snow, his toes will freeze and turn gray inside his worn-out shoes but still he’ll keep walking, and you’ll wait for him, you’ll know that he’ll return with someone who can save you, your very own gran, and Pop, too, he’ll track them down and lead them back to you and everything, I promise you, everything will be all right.

  Everything will be all right.

  “Bo, sweetie.”

  Face as shiny as a leaf of myrtle, eyes like huge painted pearls, brown irises surrounding targets of black.

  “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “Do you know us, Bo?”

  Another face beside the first. Faces like two rubber balls he’d lost so long ago — and finally found again.

  “You rest up now. Gran’s gonna stay here night and day until you’re ready to come home. I’m not leaving this room, child. Not without you.”

  Didn’t I always tell you everything would be all right, Bo?

  Yes you did. You did.

  PART THREE

  For practical purposes we could say that Bo liked to change his position with respect to a stable surface — e.g., the floor, any floor, first the one in his hospital room, then in the corridors, then in the parking lot, then in Gran and Pop’s living room. Aristotle would have described it as a violent motion, since it involved a change produced by human agency. Galileo would have applied his law of inertia and described the transition from motion into rest, from rest into motion. Newton would have pointed out that Bo’s action and reaction were equal and opposite. Einstein would have introduced the notion of relative time. And the one and only Mr. O2 Man, the B-man, Bart Kowalski, would simply have used the word hop to describe the motion, did in fact say on Bo’s last morning in the hospital, “You sure like to hop, don’t you?” and Bo proved the accuracy of the word by hopping, hopping, hopping until the spectators in the room, including Bart, and Bo’s gran and pop — Erma and Sam — were worn out just from watching.

  Just don’t hop on Pop!

  And off Bo hopped into a better world, nothing to show for the trauma that nearly cost him his life but a butterfly bandage on his cheek and a little pink seam down his middle, where the surgeon, Dr. Platt, had cut him open to repair his lacerated spleen. Bo was whole again, though missing a mother, it was true. Who didn’t feel sorry for him now? Who didn’t want to reach down and pat him on the head and let out a whistling sigh of sympathy?

  He’d had so many visitors back in his hospital room — the B-man, Gran, Pop, his aunts and uncles and cousins and doctors, nurses who arrived laden with pudding and apple juice, gray-haired women who brought him picture books. But despite the attention Bo was glad to put the hospital behind him a
nd hop hop hop into the cozy future, the real future, and see what he could see. Everything would be all right in the real future, even though his mama had gone off without him, leaving behind only Bo’s idea of what she would have wanted him to do.

  She would have wanted him to mind his gran and pop. So when they said, Wake up! he woke up and saw the basket hanging from his bedpost. A basket full of purple grass and hollow chocolate eggs and a windup bunny that went hop hop hop across the floor. This was only the first morning of Bo’s future and everything was already all right, simultaneously strange and familiar, new and old, just like Bo himself.

  Bunny hop, bunny hop, bunny bunny bunny hop.

  He’d get around to talking again one of these days. Not quite yet. He enjoyed hiding behind the stamp of a silent face, preferred not to tell what had happened, all that had happened. What he really wanted was to go to the toy store as soon as possible. Please? He practiced the expression with his eyes, climbed onto the rim of the bathroom sink to check the success of his efforts, decided that as long as he raised his eyebrows just so, in a high arc, and plumped his cheeks with a smile, no one would be able to resist him.

  Gran was downstairs in the kitchen, busily filling the house with the smell of fresh coffee and bacon. Pop rattled the windows with his snores. Bo hopped down two stairs, then three to the landing, then hopped stair by stair to the ground floor, hopped across the living room, and froze.

  There on the windowsill behind the couch, sitting between the gauzy white curtain and the glass, was the image of all that he wanted to ignore, a shadow, form without substance, a cat, an ordinary cat, his cat, Josie, back like Bo from the land of the dead. How did he know from the outline that it was Josie? From her stillness. She’d always liked to do just that: to play statue. And there she was on the windowsill, Josie the Statue, Josie gazing proudly at the world, believing that it all belonged to her, waiting for Bo to approach.