South of Main Street

by Robert Gately

  Wheezy gave Dixie a fist, then opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t on account of the congestion and being out of breath.

  Henry took his hand out from his pocket and shrugged.

  “Come on, Mister …”

  “Henry,” Henry said with a strong tone. “You all can call me Henry.”

  “Come on, Henry. I gotta take care of …” Wheezy pointed down the embankment at Joe. “Just a dollar.” She was breathing heavy, but managing. “For myself and ol’ Joe down there. Two unfortunates needin’ some do-re-me.”

  “Leave us alone, you pest,” Dixie said.

  Wheezy scowled like a baboon and swung her arm as if she planned to knock Dixie’s head clear into New Jersey. But she missed. “Come on, Mister. You done it before.” Wheezy said, undeterred. “You live in that fancy house … up on the hill. You can spare some do-re-me.”

  Henry reached into his pocket again and took out a five-dollar bill. With the speed of a frog’s tongue, Wheezy flicked her elbow and the money disappeared into her hand. Clutching the prize, she shifted her weight and a stone under her foot slid. About to tumble down the embankment, she howled like a thousand wolves. Dixie bolted to Wheezy’s aid, grabbing her shoulders, then turning her around and forcing her to sit.

  Dixie bent down and whispered into her ear, “I told you not to cause any trouble, you bitch. You don’t listen very good.” She stripped the five dollars from Wheezy’s hand, then forced her shoulders to the ground and pushed her down the embankment. “Adios, amigos,” Dixie said.

  Henry rushed to the shoulder of the dried-up riverbed and watched Wheezy’s descent. He glanced under the bridge and saw Joe’s motionless feet clad with faded, torn socks.

  * * *

  WHILE WHEEZY SLID effortlessly to the bottom, she yelled and cursed with a tone of resignation, knowing she didn’t have another climb in her. As she rumbled down, the dust and pebbles collected in her shirt. She sat motionless for a second at the bottom, then stood. The dirt and rubble and sand slid down her back and settled into her pants. She took off her clothes and inspected her naked body, now covered with a new layer of loose dirt and coal dust from years gone by. She used the palm of her hand like a washcloth and scrubbed the loose earth off her skin. She smelled herself, then sniffed her clothes.

  “Hard to tell which is worse,” Dixie yelled down to her.

  Wheezy flicked her fingers off her chin, sign language, a message for Dixie.

  “We bathe tonight,” she said to Joe, her voice mixed with a bronchial wheeze.

  “Aagh,” Joe responded. Which Wheezy interpreted to mean, “Too cold, leave me alone.” He turned his back to her.

  As Wheezy dressed again, she inspected the sky, as if she could predict the weather. She shot a look up the embankment. Henry and Dixie were gone.

  “A lost opportunity,” she mumbled. She dragged the cushion into the shade and sat. She smelled a new rancid odor and instantly determined it was Joe.

  “We bathe tonight, Joseph. And that’s final.” She turned her back and tried to get some rest.

  * * *

  DIXIE GLANCED back at the bridge. “Good riddance to bad garbage.” She handed Henry back the five dollars. “She makes more money begging in a week than most people make in a month.” She laughed, but saw Henry wasn’t laughing. “She’ll get over it. So … what were we talking about?”

  He stopped and turned back towards the bridge, but Dixie grabbed his arm and pulled him forward. “Come on,” she said. “Wheezy’s okay. She’s a survivor. Hey, I caught her when she slipped, didn’t I? She looked like she was going to take a nasty fall back there. I might’ve saved her life even.”

  “You think,” Henry pondered.

  “Hey. I didn’t want her dead. I just wanted her lost.”

  They walked for a while without saying a word. Dixie spotted Duffy’s Funeral Home down the road.

  “Chocolate,” Henry said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “We were talking about you coming up to the house for some chocolate.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I will. I will. Say, Mr. Wolff … I mean, Henry. I know you gave me money yesterday, for that loan I told you about.” Dixie looked left and right, a nervous habit when she was about to say something that was embarrassing, as if someone might be listening, although she knew no one else was around. “You think you can give me something today?”

  The muscles in her face twitched and she rubbed her forehead and cheeks to stop it. Asking for a handout, even a loan, made her feel … dirty. Her eye-lid twitched so she ground the heel of her hand on her eye and stopped it. She didn’t like using Henry this way because he was different. His very presence made her want to become a better person. It was a strange feeling; one she didn’t understand. Still … she needed the money, and she had nowhere else to go.

  They stopped walking. She faced Henry, and then looked towards the funeral home, imagining an invisible line in the road ahead, one that separated her world from the north side dwellers. She felt uncomfortable, all of a sudden, being on the wrong side of the town.

  Mrs. Aldrich’s car burst into view. She honked her horn several times, like she had lost control of the car.

  Dixie jumped out of the way. “You crazy old bat!” she yelled.

  Mrs. Aldrich slowed down and, as she passed by, she shook her finger and babbled something. Dixie saw her waving her hand indicating Henry should get in immediately, as though he was in some kind of danger. He waved back, casually, pointed in the direction of Duffy’s, as if Mrs. Aldrich couldn’t find her way and needed directions. Dixie could see Mrs. Aldrich’s face as she passed by, the grimmest of looks.

  “Who the hell is that?” Dixie asked.

  “Mrs. Aldrich. My neighbor. A friend of Mary’s.”

  * * *

  HENRY KNEW from the look on Mrs. Aldrich’s face that she disapproved of Dixie and of him talking to her because of her reputation of doing drugs. No doubt, she was going to tell Robin.

  Chapter 3

  The outside porch of Duffy’s Funeral Home faced Main Street and one could see down Belmont Avenue all the way to the bridge. The porch was covered with a sloping canvas top, which blocked the noon sun. It was where people congregated to smoke or to take a break from the dreariness of the viewing rooms.

  Sharon and Robin Wolff opened the door and walked out onto the porch. Robin rested her arms on the rail. A small breeze rustled through her long brown hair. She brushed it from her face and looked out onto Main Street, thinking. Sharon rustled her fingers through her short-cut blonde hair, styled on the frizzy side this day. She stood two inches taller than her sister.

  Robin looked up at her. “A little heavy on the makeup today, aren’t you,” she quipped.

  Sharon pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her pocketbook. “Cigarette?” she offered as she held out the pack to her sister.

  “No thanks.”

  They both stared out into town in two different directions. Sharon noticed their father talking to Dixie on Belmont Avenue. “Look! Look!” Sharon pointed.

  Robin spotted Henry talking to Dixie halfway between Main and the Black River Bridge. A van came into view and almost hit Dixie.

  Sharon laughed. “Give that man ten points for trying.”

  “You can’t control who Dad talks to,” Robin said.

  “Yeah, well, if I could, what’s-her-name would be on top of my list.” Sharon took another drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke out the side of her mouth. She put the cigarette out in the ashtray next to her.

  Robin watched Dad talking to Dixie and noticed how he lavished attention on her.

  “Life is so simple for Dad,” Sharon said. “He doesn’t have a care in the world. Talks with anyone who listens. Sinners. Thieves. Prostitutes.”

  A pang of guilt flushed through Robin like a sudden autumn chill. “You know,” she said, “I see how civil Dad is with Dixie. In all my years of growing up with her, I don’t think
I ever showed her the time of day.”

  “That slut,” Sharon quipped.

  “Her name is Dixie,” Robin said. “Anyway, I can’t ever remember speaking a civil word to her. We were not very nice to her, you know. I feel guilty about that.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s a druggie. A loser.”

  “Mom didn’t think so.”

  “Mom was a civil servant to everyone except … me,” Sharon said.

  “Oh, please. Mom was tough when she had to be.”

  “Really, now? Mention one person who she got tough with besides me.”

  “Okay. Pastor McMillan.”

  “Reverend McMillan?” Sharon laughed, then suddenly stopped, and nodded. “He was always submissive to Mom, come to think about it.”

  “Not always. Mom had to … what’s the right word … coach him.”

  “Really. What happened?”

  Robin laughed as she remembered. “I’d never forget that one Sunday when gave a sermon about the wrath of God and how important it was not to anger Him ‘else fire and brimstone and eternal damnation would be our rewards’. When we left the church, Mom shook the Rev’s hand and wouldn’t let go. She told him the sermon was so powerful and carried such a barbaric message that she was going to have to keep her children home for a few weeks to debrief us from the metaphorical horrors that would most surely cause us nightmares.”

  “I can imagine Mom saying that,” Sharon said.

  “Oh, there’s more. The Pastor had to pull his hand away from her, like it was stuck in a jar, or something. I can remember the look on his face. Whew! He was pissed, but Mom kept us home from church as she promised. I didn’t realize it then, but her weekly contribution also stopped, which caused so much consternation from McMillan that he personally came to visit her. He begged her to come back. I remember that night. Mom sent us to bed early and I remember vividly hiding in the hallway, listening to the words and the tone of their voices. There was a cowering tone to the Pastor’s voice, very different from his booming, sermonizing voice that scared the hell out of me on those Sunday mornings. Mom was so self-assured; her words were pointed like daggers. That’s where you get your tongue from.”

  “Please. Finish the story.”

  Robin pointed her finger into Sharon’s shoulder. “‘Do you realize what you are doing to my children?’ She pounded her finger into his shoulder like that, pushing him back into the wall. ‘Do you know you’re scaring the children with all your hell and damnation talk? What’s the matter with you?’ It was great. She promised the Reverend we all would go back to church and she would resume the contributions if he would preach peace and love.”

  “Aagh, I see. Money talks, even to God,” Sharon scoffed. “The Wolff family’s contributions would continue to lace the Pastor’s coffers if he toned down his flaming message that God kicks butt whenever He feels like it.” Sharon pounded the pack of cigarettes against the banister. “Money talks … it’s the number one criteria for human existence.”

  “Oh, good grief!” Robin held out her hand. “Give me one.”

  “Ah, you’re so easy.” Sharon opened the pack and took out two cigarettes. She handed Robin one and lit them both up.

  Robin took a drag without inhaling. She watched her sister take a slow easy drag, as if the smoke gave her strength. Robin took another drag and spit out the smoke as if it were a pit. “I can’t believe you would do such a thing to your own father,” she said.

  “Don’t be so melodramatic,” Sharon countered. “I’m not trying to commit him; I’m only trying to stop him from pissing away Mom’s money.”

  Mrs. Moyer, sixty-ish with an Einstein hair look, entered the porch and walked right up to Sharon and hugged her. She quickly turned to Robin and hugged her as well. “I’m so sorry about your mother,” she said.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Moyer,” Robin said.

  “Yes. Thank you,” Sharon echoed.

  “I can’t believe it,” Mrs. Moyer said. “She died so suddenly. It was the old ticker, wasn’t it?”

  “No, Mrs. Moyer,” Sharon said. “She had cancer. It took a long time for her to die.”

  “Oh, dear. That’s right. I’m thinking of Sherwood Pentagast. He died of a heart attack, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, I believe he did,” Robin confirmed.

  “What a shame.” Mrs. Moyer gently held her chest and continued to mumble to herself as she walked inside.

  “What a flake,” Sharon said. “Pentagast died over a year ago.”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  Sharon groaned. “Dad can’t take care of himself. Period. End of story.”

  “I disagree. Dad can take care of himself just fine. He doesn’t need us to do that.”

  “Oh, you know this for a fact, do you? Well, did you know he withdrew five hundred dollars the day before yesterday?”

  “What are you doing, spying on him?”

  “No. Dennehy from the bank told me Dad came in and took …”

  “So, what’s your point? He took money out of the bank? So what!”

  “So I asked him what he did with the money. He told me he gave it away to that drug addict …” Sharon pointed down the street.

  “Her name’s Dixie,” Robin interjected.

  “For crying out loud, Robin. Mom has taken care of Dad all my life. He can’t …”

  Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins walked up the steps of the funeral home and approached the sisters. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Jenkins interrupted while Mr. Jenkins stood behind his wife, respectful, keeping his distance. Mrs. Jenkins, the representative of the duo, stepped forward and hugged Sharon and Robin.

  “Thank you,” Robin said.

  “Yes. Me, too,” Sharon said.

  Mrs. Jenkins stepped aside and gave a slight head-nod to her husband. Robin sensed that he was reluctant to step forward. Mrs. Jenkins gave him a deadpan stare. He stepped forward and hugged Robin from a half step away.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Matthew,” Mrs. Jenkins said. “She doesn’t have germs.” He turned to Sharon and hugged her too, and then nodded and backed off, as if waiting for his next instructions.

  “Thank you, Mr. Jenkins,” Robin said. The Jenkins turned away with heads bent. Properly solemn, Robin thought.

  “Now there’s one submissive man,” Sharon said. “I gotta get me one of those.” She puffed on her cigarette and leaned into Robin. “How long do you think Mom’s estate would last with Dad doling out money to every street-wise whore?”

  Robin put out her cigarette. “Dad showed some responsibility in taking care of Mom this past year, don’t you think? He never complained. Why don’t we just leave him alone and give him a chance.” She turned to go inside, but Sharon grabbed her arm and pointed down the street. They both witnessed Henry handing money to Dixie.

  “How long do you think it will last?” Sharon asked. “Dad has no … no …”

  “What, Sharon? Your father has no what? Careful. This is the man who loves you a lot … gave you everything he had within his soul. He always tried his hardest to please you. And you’re angry with him because he … what? Because he told his ‘baby-head’ joke every time your friends came over to the house?”

  “That was a stupid joke. It was embarrassing.”

  “How many fathers would take the time to sit down and play ‘Chutes and Ladders’ every night for a month because his two little girls fell obsessively in love with the stupid game? How many daughters had a father sit with them to watch SNOW WHITE ten thousand times and recite lines with his children and act out the cartoon like ROCKY HORROR cult-heads? And for this, you petition the courts to freeze his assets so you can be his financial guardian. I don’t think so, little-sister-of-mine. At least Judge Brady had enough sense to make me temporary guardian.” Robin was losing it and she had promised herself she wouldn’t. Not today.

  Sharon squeezed Robin’s arm tighter and moved closer so they were almost nose-to-nose. “Why are you getting so up in arms, you witch? You’re a fanc
y, schmancy lawyer. You’re making enough money so you don’t have to worry about your future. I got squat.”

  “You could’ve finished school if you had the heart,” Robin declared. “Nobody forced you to quit and marry Mr. Potatohead. And no one is forcing you to work at a collection agency, although it fits your personality quite well.”

  Sharon released Robin’s arm and the two just stared at each other for a few seconds. Robin broke eye contact first and proceeded into the parlor. Slowly, Sharon followed.

  * * *

  SHARON SAT quietly in the front row next to her sister in the main parlor. Her mother lay peacefully in a coffin a few feet away. Sharon’s mood had changed. More reflective. She felt her nondescript life, at thirty-one-years-old, had to change. She was tired of resenting Robin, her benchmark of achievement while growing up. Teachers and relatives and neighbors always compared progress in Sharon’s life to Robin’s successes and accomplishments. Sharon never measured up. A college dropout with little prospects of carving out a prosperous future of her own, she could hardly compete with a graduate from Harvard Law School. She settled into a career as an agent for the Clarion Collection Agency, which seemed to validate her public image as the wayward daughter, the sister with lesser abilities. Yes, she must work on her image. She was committed to doing that.

  “How are you two holding up?” Mrs. Aldrich asked, interrupting the two sisters’ solitude. She sat next to Robin.

  Sharon nodded, lifted her hand slightly, a greeting gesture.

  “I didn’t want to bother you on the porch. You two looked like you needed your privacy.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Aldrich,” Robin said.

  “Your father is a bad boy.”

  “Why? What has he done now, Mrs. Aldrich?” Robin asked.

  She leaned closer to Robin, looking around as she prepared to divulge a secret. “He’s dressed in a sweat suit. And he’s hanging around with that … floozy girl.”

  “You mean Dixie, Mrs. Aldrich?”

  “Yes. Yes. That’s the one.”

  While Robin and Mrs. Aldrich talked, Sharon sat quietly next to them thinking how negligent her mother was for not leaving some kind of legacy to her daughters. It wasn’t as if Mother didn’t have time to reflect on her last will and testament during those months before she died. If she had made promises to her mother to change her focus in life and finish college, maybe that might’ve made a difference. A missed opportunity, Sharon thought.