by Jauss, David
He didn’t want to go inside while Mrs. McClure was there, but it was so cold he went in the dark, musty entryway of the old house and climbed the steps up to the second-floor landing. Outside their apartment he hesitated a moment, then opened the door quietly. He hoped he could sneak through the kitchen and down the hall to his room without Mrs. McClure seeing him. Carefully he set his book bag on the rug and hung his jacket on the coat rack. Then he heard his mother’s voice coming from the living room.
“So I had a glass with lunch. I don’t know what’s the big hairy deal. Who appointed you my savior anyway?”
“Now, Marjorie, I don’t think of myself as—”
“Look, why don’t you just get the hell out of here. I’m sick to death of your stupid face. Just get out and leave me alone.”
During the silence that followed, Jimmy’s jacket suddenly slipped off the coat rack and landed with a muffled thud on the floor. “Jimmy?” his mother said. “Is that you?”
Jimmy sighed. “Yes,” he said, and stepped to the doorway of the living room. Mrs. McClure turned in her chair. “Why, hello, Jimmy! Aren’t you getting to be a big boy?” She said things like that every time she saw him, as if she hadn’t seen him just the week before. He hated that, and hated even more the times she tried to act like she was his mother. Last month, when it was time for parent-teacher conferences, she’d gone to his school and talked to Mrs. Anthony about the Unsatisfactory he got in Conduct. She had no right to do that; that was his mother’s job, not hers.
“Aren’t you going to say hello, Jimmy?” Mrs. McClure said.
“Hi,” Jimmy answered. But that didn’t satisfy her; she kept looking at him, as if she were waiting for him to say something else, and he thought again how her long nose and chin made her look like a witch.
“Come on in and sit down,” she said then, as if it were her apartment, but Jimmy stayed in the doorway. Finally, she turned back to his mother, who was lying on the couch in her flannel nightgown and blue terrycloth bathrobe, an arm crooked over her eyes to block out the light slanting through the tall windows. Mrs. McClure always opened the drapes when she came. “No wonder you’re down in the dumps,” she’d say. “You keep this place too dark.” Now she said, “I suppose I should be going. But don’t forget what I said about a new hairdo. I think you’d be surprised how much better you’d feel about yourself.” She nodded her bangs at his mother’s greasy brown hair to emphasize her point. “And the Rosary Society at St. Jacob’s is sponsoring a clothing drive. Perhaps you’d like me to bring around a few things in your size?” Jimmy looked at Mrs. McClure and tried to imagine his mother wearing her pink dress and nylons, her hoop earrings and silver and turquoise bracelets. But he couldn’t and he started to giggle. He didn’t think it was funny, but he started to giggle anyway.
“Shush,” his mother said, without removing her arm from her eyes. Some days, that was the only thing she said to him. She got headaches easily, so he had to be quiet around her. Sometimes he even watched TV with the sound off, guessing at what people were saying. It was kind of fun, watching the mouths move and no sounds come out, and sometimes in school he’d pretend he was deaf and dumb until Mrs. Anthony threatened to send him to the principal’s office. Just thinking about how red Mrs. Anthony’s face got when she was mad made him giggle more. He wished he could have seen her face when she first saw all the broken windows. He imagined it getting so red that steam blew out her ears, just like in the cartoons, and he started laughing. His mother gritted her teeth. “I said, Stop it.” But he couldn’t stop.
Mrs. McClure turned to look at him, her head tilted a little, like a bird listening for worms underground, and he began laughing hard. But then—he didn’t know how it happened—he was crying. His mother didn’t get up, but she pointed at him. “Now look what you’ve done,” she said to Mrs. McClure.
“Look what I’ve done?” Mrs. McClure said. “Can’t you see why he’s crying? He’s just come home from school and you haven’t even said hello to him. All you’ve done is snap at him.”
“Why don’t you just shut the fuck up.”
“I have a job to do, Marjorie, and I intend to do it. But if you’re not interested in helping yourself, how can I possibly help you?”
His mother sat up slowly and leaned toward Mrs. McClure. “You can help me by getting the hell out of my apartment.”
“Marjorie, you know that—”
“I said, Get out.”
Mrs. McClure sighed and shook her head, then she turned to Jimmy. “Don’t cry, honey,” she said. “Everything’s going to work out in the end.” She held out her arms. “Come here, sweetie.”
For a second, he saw himself sitting in her lap, her arms around him, and he almost started toward her. That fact surprised him so much he stopped crying.
Mrs. McClure dropped her arms and sat there a moment, looking at him, then she slowly stood up. “Maybe I’ve done all I can do here,” she said to his mother. “Maybe it’s time to take your case to another level.”
His mother glared at her. “Just what is that supposed to mean?” she asked. But Mrs. McClure only shook her head, then gathered up her manila folder and purse and started toward the door.
“You and your damned threats,” his mother said to her back. “You can just go to hell.”
Mrs. McClure didn’t answer. She merely stopped for a second to tousle Jimmy’s curly black hair and say, “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you.” Then she went out the door and down the steps.
“‘A new hairdo,’” his mother said then. “She can just go fuck herself.” Jimmy looked at her. Normally her round face was pale and her eyes looked wet, as if she had just finished crying or was about to start, but now her skin was splotchy and her eyes looked fierce. “What are you staring at?” she said.
Jimmy wanted to ask what Mrs. McClure meant by “another level,” but he didn’t dare. “Do you want me to make you supper tonight?” Jimmy asked. “I can make hot dogs if we got some.”
“Just shut the damned drapes,” she said. “Shut all the goddamned drapes and leave me alone. I’m tired and I want to sleep.” She lay back on the sagging couch and hugged herself. “And get me a blanket. It’s cold in here.”
“Okay,” Jimmy said, and went around the room, closing the drapes. Then he got a spare blanket from the linen closet and started to cover his mother with it. Her eyes were closed and he thought she was already asleep, but she opened them and said, “You’re a good boy, Jimmy. I’m not mad at you. You know that, don’t you?” When he nodded, she gave him the smile he loved so, the one that made her eyes crinkle up. “It’s you and me, kid,” she said. “You and me against the world.” And then she closed her eyes again and turned toward the back of the couch.
For the next two weeks, no one mentioned the windows, and Jimmy began to believe that he wouldn’t be caught after all. Then one day he came home from school and heard his mother talking on the phone in the kitchen. “Think about Jimmy,” she was saying, her voice wavering. “He doesn’t deserve this.” Then she was silent a long time before she said, “I’ll be there. Just give me a chance to explain.” When she hung up, he went into the kitchen. His legs felt funny, as if his knees had turned to water. He was sure she’d been talking to the principal, or maybe a policeman.
“Oh, you’re home,” she said, and wiped her nose with a Kleenex.
He was about to tell her it wasn’t true, someone else broke the windows, when she suddenly said, “Look at this mess!” She gestured at the dirty dishes piled on the table and counters. “We’ve got to clean up everything right away.” Then she began to fill the sink with water, but before it was even half full, she abruptly turned off the faucet. “We’d better do the bedrooms first,” she said, and hurried to her room, where she started picking up clothes and newspapers and empty wine jugs from the floor. “Just look at all of this!” she said. She carried the load out into the living room and dumped it on the sofa. Then she straightened the sofa pillows and wipe
d dust off the coffee table with her palm. “Don’t just stand there,” she said then. “Help me clean up this mess!”
“What should I do?”
“You can do the dishes while I do the laundry.” She led him back into the kitchen. “First,” she said. But then she closed her eyes and shook her head slowly back and forth. “Oh, God, why did they have to come today? Just a half gallon of milk and a jar of jelly in the fridge. And me still in bed…” Then she looked at Jimmy. Her eyes were red and swollen, and he could smell the wine on her breath. “Damn it,” she said. “Who the hell do they think they are?”
Jimmy realized then that the principal and the policeman must have come to the apartment looking for him. That frightened him, but he was relieved his mother seemed madder at them than at him. She must not believe that he broke the windows. Maybe she thought he was too normal to do it, and maybe that meant he really was normal. She was his mother and she would know, wouldn’t she? “What’s wrong?” he finally dared to say.
“Nothing,” she answered. “Nothing for you to worry about.” Then she said, “To hell with the dishes. We’ll do them tomorrow.” And she went to bed and stayed there the rest of the night. Every now and then, Jimmy heard her crying, and then she’d begin cursing. Finally, she fell asleep, and Jimmy lay in his bed across the hall, listening to her peaceful breathing and wishing he could dream whatever she was dreaming, so he’d know what could make her happy.
The next morning, his mother surprised him by coming into the kitchen in a lacy lavender dress with puffy sleeves. Her hair was combed, and she had put on lipstick and rouge. She frowned and said, “Do I look all right?”
“You look pretty,” Jimmy said, and took a bite of his toast.
“But do I look like a good mommy?” she asked. “Do I look like I clean my house and go to church and love you more than anything in the world?”
He started to smile, thinking she was teasing him, but the frightened look on her face made him stop. He looked down at his plate.
“I think so,” he said.
All that week and most of the next, his mother dressed up each morning and left the apartment. She was looking for a new job, she told him, but every afternoon, when he came home from school and asked her if she’d found one, she said no. “But I’ll keep trying,” she said one day, then knelt down and hugged him tightly. “I won’t give up. No matter how hard I have to fight, I won’t give up.”
But eventually she stopped dressing in the morning and started staying in bed all day, drinking wine, just as she had before. When Jimmy asked her why she wasn’t looking for jobs anymore, she said, “What are you talking about?” Then she said, “Oh, that. Forget about that. There aren’t any jobs for bad mommies, not a single one.”
Then one morning Mrs. McClure came to the apartment for the first time in weeks. It took Jimmy a few minutes to realize she had come to take him away. “You’re going to live somewhere else for just a little while,” his mother said, her voice quivering. “It’s all for your own good.” Then she took his small face in her hands and kissed him goodbye. “Remember I love you,” she said, and her mouth twisted as if the words made it hurt. “Now go.” Then Mrs. McClure took his hand and led him outside to her car.
It was several months before Jimmy learned he had not been taken away from his mother because of the windows. That morning, though, he believed they had finally proved he’d done it and, because he was too young to go to jail, they were punishing him by sending him to some strangers’ house, where they would watch him to make sure he didn’t break any more windows. As he rode away from his home, he thought of telling Mrs. McClure he was innocent, but he was sure a teacher or janitor had seen him. And he knew that none of the excuses he had made up would work. So he didn’t say anything; he just sat there, looking straight ahead while Mrs. McClure went on and on about Mr. and Mrs. Kahlstrom and how they had fixed up their spare room just for him. “They’ve painted the walls sea blue and they’ve put a huge toy box at the foot of the bed and filled it with Transformers and Lincoln Logs and everything else you can think of,” she said. “How does that sound?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “You don’t have anything to worry about, Jimmy. Everything’s going to be just fine. You know that, don’t you?” Jimmy nodded, so she’d leave him alone. “That’s good,” she said then. “I’m glad you’re being such a big brave boy.”
But at the Kahlstroms’ house, he wasn’t brave for long. Standing in the entryway, Mrs. McClure cheerfully introduced him to the strangers who would be his temporary parents. Mrs. Kahlstrom was a small, bird-boned woman, and even though the house was warm and she was wearing a bulky turtleneck sweater, she kept hugging herself as if she were cold. She said, “Hello, Jimmy,” and smiled so big he could see her gums. Mr. Kahlstrom shook his hand when he said hello. He was tall and thin and had an Adam’s apple like Ichabod Crane in the story Mrs. Anthony had read to Jimmy’s class. Jimmy was so scared he wanted to turn and run out the door, but his legs were trembling too much. He didn’t know what to do, and he surprised himself as much as the others when he suddenly lay down on the rug and curled up like a dog going to sleep. The three adults hovered over him, startled looks on their faces. From the floor they looked so different it was almost as if they weren’t people at all but some strange creatures from another world. Mrs. McClure took his elbow and asked him to please stand up like a good boy, but he jerked his arm away. They all tried to talk him into getting up, but he stayed on the floor, even when Mr. and Mrs. Kahlstrom tried to tempt him into the house by showing him some of the toys they’d bought. Finally Mrs. McClure said it might be best just to let him lie there until he was ready to get up. “I don’t know what to say,” she told the Kahlstroms. “I’ve never seen a reaction like this.” Mrs. Kahlstrom offered him a sofa pillow then, but he shook his head, so she just set it on the linoleum beside him. Then Mrs. McClure shook their hands and said goodbye, and Mr. and Mrs. Kahlstrom went into the living room to wait for Jimmy to get up and join them.
For a time after Mrs. McClure left, Jimmy could hear them whispering. Then he heard a sudden sharp sob, and Mr. Kahlstrom saying, “There, there, dear. Just give him time.” Then they went into another room, farther away, and he couldn’t hear them anymore. After a while, a phone rang somewhere, and Jimmy heard Mr. Kahlstrom answer it, then say, “No, not yet” and “We’ll let you know as soon as anything happens” and “Thanks for calling.” A long time later, Mr. Kahlstrom came, squatted down on his haunches, and set a plate beside the rug. “It’s lunchtime, Jimmy,” he said. “Mrs. McClure told us you liked Sloppy Joes and potato chips. I hope that’s right.” When Jimmy didn’t say anything, he let out a long sigh, then stood up and went away. Jimmy was hungry, but he wasn’t going to eat anything until they took him back home. He’d starve himself, and if that didn’t work, he’d just break all the windows in the house. And if Mrs. McClure took him somewhere else, he’d break all the windows there, too; he’d break all the windows everywhere, until she’d finally have to take him back to his mother again.
A half-hour later, when Mr. Kahlstrom returned, Jimmy still hadn’t eaten anything, but he was sitting up now and crying. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I won’t break any of your windows, I promise. Just let me go home, please. Please let me go home.”
Mr. Kahlstrom knelt down beside Jimmy. “Sorry? You don’t have anything to be sorry about. And you don’t have to worry about breaking any of our windows, or anything else either. Just feel free to play and do everything you do in your own house. And if something does break, don’t worry about it—we can get it fixed. All right?”
Jimmy looked at him. Maybe he didn’t know about the windows, maybe Mrs. McClure didn’t tell either of them. “All right,” he said.
“Say,” Mr. Kahlstrom said then, “I bet your Sloppy Joe is cold. What do you say we head into the kitchen and make you another one?”
For the next two months, whenever Mrs. McClure asked, Jimmy told her that he liked living with
the Kahlstroms. And mostly, he did. Mr. Kahlstrom taught music at the high school, and he played songs for Jimmy on the big upright piano in the living room. Jimmy’s favorite was one called “Down at Papa Joe’s.” Mr. Kahlstrom showed Jimmy how to play the melody—he took his small hand with his big one and helped him poke out the notes with one finger—and Jimmy liked that. But he didn’t like it when Mrs. Kahlstrom sat down on the corner of the piano bench beside them. She had scared him his third night there, when she tucked him into bed, by telling him that she and Roger—that was what she called Mr. Kahlstrom—had once had a little boy very much like him but that he had swallowed some gasoline and died when he was only three. It had been eleven years since he died and they still missed him, and that was why they had decided to become foster parents. She reached out her bony hand when she said that and brushed the hair away from his forehead. “He had curly hair too,” she said, “only his was blond.”
The Kahlstroms were nice to him. Mr. Kahlstrom took him up to the high school on weekends and let him play with all the different drums in the band room, and he bought him a Nerf football so they could play Goal Line Stand in the living room. Mrs. Kahlstrom worried about the furniture and lamps, but she let them play anyway, and when Jimmy tackled Mr. Kahlstrom she’d clap and say, “Way to go, Jimmy!” Mrs. Kahlstrom made him bacon and eggs for breakfast nearly every day and helped him with his homework and took him to the matinee on Saturdays, but she was so nervous all the time that she made him nervous too. And she was always talking about love. She had loved him even before she met him, she said. And at night, after she read him a story, she’d kiss him on his nose just like he was a little kid still and say she loved, loved, loved him so much she could eat him up. Then she’d sit there a moment, as if she were waiting for him to say “I love you” back, before she’d finally get up and turn out the lights. And the stories she read bothered him too. They were stupid stories, little kid stories. Once she read one about a dog that was on the ark with Noah. The dog seemed to think the flood came along just so he could have a good time, sailing around and playing games with the other animals. He never even thought about all the dogs that got drowned. His own parents had probably drowned in the flood, and his brothers and sisters too. But he didn’t seem to care. And when the flood was over and Noah picked him for his pet, he jumped up and down like he was the luckiest dog in history.