The lady in the apron bending over the table flashed into my head and I tried to get her the hell out of there.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it, I shouted to myself. God is going to fry your keister.
There, I did it. I said keister again.
God, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to say keister and I didn’t mean to think about the lady.
I saw the lady again.
Get lost, get lost, lady, I told the lady in the apron.
The harder I tried to get her to go away, the more she kept bending over that table. Like a movie you watched over and over because you liked it so much. Only this movie I didn’t like. I didn’t. I didn’t.
But the truth wouldn’t go away.
I did like it.
I felt Tina’s elbow jab me again.
People were leaving the hard stools for the hard pews. I clambered back onto the pew, wondering if God had made Tina elbow me so I would stop thinking my bad thoughts.
I tried harder to pay attention to the priest. He was now speaking my language. He talked about Christ dying on the cross and pointed to a cross with a bloody man nailed to it.
Blood Feast popped into my brain again. I saw the bloody woman hanging by her arms, and pushed her away.
It wasn’t easy getting bad stuff out of your head. I could see that now. That must be why it was so hard to be a good Catholic and only a few people like Susan ever qualified.
The priest kept going on and on about the cross. He said God the father loved his son so much he had to make him suffer. He did this so people would understand sorrow.
“What did he say about Zorro?” Tina whispered.
“Sorrow, not Zorro, numbskull,” I shot back, happy that I understood something a priest said and that she didn’t.
Then it was time to go eat the body of Christ and drink his blood.
I sat there watching the people go up to the altar. Only a few heathens like me didn’t go.
When Tina came back she stuck her tongue out so I could see the melting cracker. Her mother told her to shut her mouth.
After that, men began passing around big silver plates. I expected the plates to have doughnuts on them. Tina had told me they passed out doughnuts after church to reward people for showing up. But these plates didn’t have any refreshments on them. People were putting money on them. I started to panic. Hank’s buck was stashed in my sock. Tina and I had planned to go to the Temple Market after church to buy candy.
I wondered if God really wanted me to put my dough on the plate.
I didn’t want to. I wanted Chuckles.
My heart pounded as the plate got closer. I slipped my hand in my sock and grabbed Hank’s buck in my fist, not knowing what I would do when the plate got to me.
Finally, the dinner plate was at our row.
The lady in the apron flashed through my head, how I had touched my Shame flashed through my head, what I had made my poor stuffed animals do flashed through my head, and I thrust my fist out, ready to pay for my sins.
But before I could drop Hank’s buck on the plate, Tina’s mother reached across me and put an envelope on the plate.
“Don’t worry. That’s for all of us, dear,” she whispered to me in a kind voice. And she passed the plate down the row.
God had spared me. He had seen that I was sorry and had forgiven me and was rewarding me with Chuckles.
Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I sang it loud.
Candy Land
After church I ate a cruller and a maple-frosted and then we went off to buy candy. Tina’s mother gave Tina a list of what she wanted at the store and told us not to dillydally.
We pushed open the door to the Temple Market. Horrible Heddy, the woman who worked the cash register, looked up from her movie magazine and frowned.
“Hi, Heddy,” I said, trying to butter her up. “We’ve just been to church.”
“Pick out what you want and twenty-three skidoo,” snapped Horrible Heddy. “I got no time for shenanigans. I got paying customers in here.”
The store was empty except for us.
Tina grabbed a shopping cart with wobbly wheels and started rolling it through the cramped aisles, scanning items on her mother’s list. We filled the cart with Devil Dogs, Ring Dings, Marshmallow Fluff, Skippy peanut butter, Bosco, Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks, Cheetos, Cheez Whiz, Wonder Bread, and Swanson TV dinners in both the fried chicken and Salisbury steak varieties.
Horrible Heddy kept her peepers glued to the big round mirrors mounted on the ceiling, watching us like we were a couple of convicts just outta Sing Sing.
Finally, Tina and I headed for the candy display.
The Chuckles were all gone.
I shoved my hand way in the back and came up empty. Now I didn’t know what to do. I picked up a Baby Ruth and put it back and picked up a PayDay and put it back and picked up the Baby Ruth again.
Horrible Heddy came up behind us and made sure no Baby Ruths had ended up with the PayDays.
“Something don’t look right,” she said. Then she figured it out. “The Chuckles are missing.”
“You’re all out,” I replied.
“That’s a likely story,” she barked. “Empty your pockets.”
“I didn’t swipe anything,” I insisted. “I didn’t.”
“She didn’t,” Tina backed me up. “Me neither.”
I started to feel all clammy. What if a Tootsie Roll had fallen in my pocket when I wasn’t looking? What if Horrible Heddy found an old gumball in there that I had forgotten about?
“Empty your pockets, both of yous, or I’m callin’ the cops,” she snapped.
She bent down so her face was right next to ours. Her breath smelled like she had just smoked a carton of Kool menthols while sucking on a Vick’s cherry cough drop.
Tina quickly dug into her pockets. She pulled out the crumpled shopping list, the money her mother had given her, and the necklace she called rosary beads.
“See, I don’t got nuttin’,” said Tina.
Horrible Heddy turned away from Tina and zeroed in on me.
“Now you,” she said. “What’re ya waitin’ for, Christmas?”
“No. I won’t,” I blurted out.
Tina looked like she was about to keel over.
“I didn’t swipe anything,” I repeated.
“We’ll see about that, Little Miss Liar,” Horrible Heddy shot back. She grabbed the phone and made like she was about to dial the fuzz.
I felt my lower lip quivering and bit it to get it to stop. I didn’t want to bawl. I wanted to strangle her with my meat hooks. I wanted to whack her with a Swanson Salisbury steak.
But instead I turned my pockets inside out.
There was nothing in there. Not a frickin’ thing. Not even Hank’s buck. I had stashed it back in my sock in case I got my pocket picked at church like had happened to Shirley once at the racetrack.
Horrible Heddy patted me down. I stood there with my linty pockets hanging out vowing to return to the Temple Market one day when I was a world-famous writer/stewardess/lady doctor. I would show Horrible Heddy I wasn’t a project kid anymore. She’d be so surprised she’d have a heart attack right then and there and I’d have to save her life even though I hated her guts. Then she’d get down on her knees and thank me and beg me to take anything I wanted in the store—anything. To take the whole damn store.
And I’d tell her to take her crappy store and shove it up her keister.
She finally took her mitts off me.
“Hurry up and get what you’re gonna get,” she said, looking unhappy that she hadn’t found anything.
I grabbed the Baby Ruth and the 5th Avenue and a few Tootsie Rolls and a couple of Archie comic books. I’d show her I had dough. I wasn’t just some project kid without a pot to piss in.
“You got enough to pay for all that?” she asked, hanging over me.
She didn’t think I could add two and two. But she was the one. Always adding things in her head and gypping you.
I could see Tina’s face drop when I said somebody else was my best friend. I felt like a traitor, but I had to straighten Heddy the hell out.
“Don’t lie,” she said. “Don’t be a little liar. You probably stole that money.”
“I did not,” I insisted. “Hank Piasecny the millionaire gave it to me.” I choked back the sobs welling up in my throat again.
Tina backed me up. “It’s true,” she said. “I seen his Cadillac parked right outside her house.”
“She doesn’t live in a house, she lives in the projects,” said Horrible Heddy.
I started lying my head off and couldn’t stop.
Hank Piasecny gave me money all the time. Hank Piasecny took me to Benson’s Wild Animal Farm. Hank Piasecny bought me bunk beds for my birthday. Hank Piasecny was taking me to Disneyland. Oh yeah, and Hank Piasecny and his whole family were coming up to Maine with us to have their pictures taken in the winner’s circle when our racehorse won.
“Well, that’s a real whopper,” Heddy snorted. “People in the projects owning racehorses.”
“You wait. I’ll bring you my picture in the winner’s circle. You’ll see. You wait.”
“I won’t hold my breath,” she said.
“My Swansons are melting. My mother’s gonna kill me,” Tina said. She began pushing the cart with the wobbly wheel toward the checkout counter. Horrible Heddy followed, giving her a little shove.
I wanted to put my candy back and tell Horrible Heddy I was never shopping in her Mickey Mouse establishment again. I wanted to tell her I was taking my frickin’ business somewhere else. But there was no somewhere else. No other store I could walk to or even ride my bike to. The closest was out near the cemetery and Jimmy didn’t let me go that far.
I suddenly remembered those dago gangsters in Revere. The ones Jimmy had said would pop off my teacher’s kneecaps. I realized if I went home and told Jimmy all about Horrible Heddy, all about her making me empty my pockets and calling me a little liar, and trying to gyp me by adding in her head, he would do something. Something really bad. He would take all my hurt and make it his ’cause we were family and nobody hurt one of us without hurting all of us. That was the Greek Code, something the dagos apparently believed in too.
The dagos would probably torch the joint ’cause that’s what they did to get even. Plenty of times Jimmy had pointed out blackened buildings in Revere where somebody had tried to gyp a dago and had been taught a goddamn lesson.
I pictured the Temple Market bursting into flames. I pictured Heddy’s lacquered hair lit up like a Roman candle. I pictured all the Baby Ruths melting and the Richie Rich comic books burning.
But then, where would I buy my candy?
Revenge was sweet, I heard Jimmy say once.
But candy was sweeter. So I kept my big mouth shut.
I laid my purchases out on the counter and Horrible Heddy added them up in her head.
“One dollar, missy,” she said.
I reached into my sock and took out the dollar that I had folded and folded and folded into a small square. Horrible Heddy cursed and unfolded and unfolded and unfolded the dollar.
It wouldn’t lay flat in her cash register drawer.
It was my only sweet revenge.
Jimmy’s Lucky Horse
Sure enough, Jimmy got Victory Bound eating his oats again. The horse had just gotten depressed, Jimmy explained when he returned from Maine.
Until a few weeks ago, Jimmy had been visiting Victory Bound almost every day. The horse had been living on a pretty farm not far from Manchester. The lady who owned the farm had been fattening up Victory Bound and exercising him so he could go out and win races and we could get our picture taken in the winner’s circle. Now that Victory Bound had been moved to the track in Maine, the only people he saw were ding-dong grooms and Uncle Bobby the Trainer, who the horse had not warmed up to yet.
So Jimmy had talked to Victory Bound and told him not to worry. Told him we’d be up there in a week. Then Jimmy tied the old shirt he wore when he gutted fish onto the door of Victory Bound’s stall. Apparently the horse, due to his superior sense of smell, could make out Jimmy’s odor underneath the rotting fish smell. He began nuzzling that shirt right away. Then he ate all his oats, with an extra helping of molasses, while Jimmy rubbed the white markings above his eyes just the way he liked it, and whispered all gentle in his velvety ear.
He told Victory Bound he was the most beautiful creature on the face of the earth. He told him he could run like Seabiscuit and nobody could beat him. He told him he loved him more than anything in this godforsaken world.
I listened to Jimmy’s story and began to feel all down in the dumps myself.
I wished I wasn’t a crummy little pip-squeak.
I wished I was a big, beautiful horse.
I wished I was Victory Bound.
Goin’ to a Beach Party
A week later, I packed up Lambykins, Poochie, Barbie, and Chatty Cathy. Virginia packed up the record player and her OJ-can hair rollers. We dropped Squirmy off at YaYa and Papou’s house because Jimmy said we could only bring one goddamn pet, and Sylvester was going because he could gobble up any fish guts left over from Jimmy’s planned fishing expeditions on the Maine coast.
I could tell YaYa wasn’t too happy about hamster-sitting. She told us to stick Squirmy in the basement. I kissed his furry belly good-bye and left him in her cobwebby dungeon, promising I would feed him a hunk of feta cheese when we returned.
As we were leaving, Jimmy invited YaYa to come up to Maine and get her picture taken in the winner’s circle. YaYa spit on him to ward off the evil eye and told him she couldn’t get away from the beer joint. Jimmy insisted she could get somebody to cover for her for a night, but YaYa said he was a dreamer and a fool and that the horse would probably fall and break its leg.
Let’s get the hell out of here, Jimmy said to Shirley.
And we were off on our vacation. Off to win a race.
We were all wearing our Foster Grant sunglasses—quality-control rejects with a few missing rhinestones or off-color speckles in the plastic or misshapen earpieces so they sat on your head funny and you were always adjusting them.
The car was crammed with horse feed, binoculars, liniment, Jimmy’s lucky hat, fishing poles, tackle boxes, waders, and the boat motor. Virginia was holding Sylvester and I was balancing a box of groceries on my lap. We were lugging our own groceries because the stores in Maine charged tax on everything and Jimmy would be damned if he was gonna pay it. New Hampshire had no taxes and the state motto as much as told you so: Live Free or Die. Maine’s license plate said Vacationland, but Jimmy said they oughta change it to ClipJointLand.
We drove and drove forever. After a while the box of groceries made my legs feel numb. I tried to shift the weight from one thigh to the other. Virginia took pity on me and shifted half the weight on her leg. Sylvester didn’t like being crowded off her lap, but we all had to suffer a little.
Finally, we made the turn onto the main drag of Old Orchard Beach and I forgot all about my suffering. I remembered the priest at Blessed Sacrament describing how people would feel once they reached the promised land and now I knew what he was talking about. I breathed in the smell of saltwater taffy, clam grease, and coconutty Coppertone and my spirits soared. I ogled the souvenir shops as we drove past and wanted everything, absolutely everything—the giant towels that said BEACH BUM, the Styrofoam surfboards, the candy-striped umbrellas, the itsy-bitsy teenie-weenie yellow polka-dot bikinis on hangers swinging in the breeze.
Bam! Jimmy slammed on the brakes.
Hordes of people were strolling around with their beach gear, crossing the street where they felt like it, forcing the line of cars to stop and let them cross. Jimmy said the ding-dongs were in the goddamn road whe
re he had the goddamn right-of-way. I wished he’d just wait, just look at the people and see how much fun they were having. Instead, he blew his horn, swerved around the ding-dong drivers, and plowed through the ding-dong crowd. The tourists were shocked out of their beachy trance and scattered like ants when you poured Kool-Aid on their anthill.
“Maybe I’ll hit a few and do the world a big favor,” Jimmy cracked. “A few less goddamn tourists.”
“Aren’t we tourists?” I asked hesitantly.
“No, we’re not goddamn tourists. We’re goddamn racetrackers. In a few days these dubs are gonna be paying money to watch us have our picture taken in the winner’s circle.”
As Jimmy swerved to get off the main drag, Sylvester leapt from Virginia’s lap and tried to dive out the open window. Lucky for us, his leash got caught on the lever that moved the seat forward. Halfway out the window, he strained at his collar, his eyes bugging out with disbelief that his escape had been foiled.
“Don’t let that putty tat get away or I’ll moider you!” Jimmy shouted at Virginia, in a voice like Sylvester the cartoon cat.
Virginia wound the leash around her hands and held on for dear life.
Sylvester’s meows of misery filled the car the rest of the way to our apartment.
Deflated
We unpacked our crap on the double. Jimmy supervised the operation, barking orders like we were a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears merchant mariners who needed to shape up or ship out. I arranged Poochie, Lambykins, Barbie, and Chatty Cathy on my cot in the living room. I placed them far apart so they wouldn’t engage in any hanky-panky. Then I opened the crammed suitcase that Virginia and I had borrowed from YaYa. It smelled like her basement and made me think of Squirmy. It didn’t seem right he was stuck in a dungeon while I was going to be sprawled in the sun working on my Coppertone tan. I prayed to God to forgive our family for abandoning Squirmy and reminded God it was not my doing.
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