KooKooLand

by Gloria Norris

  Sylvester took off like a bat outta hell.

  Jimmy went to get his rifle.

  Shirley yelped at Virginia and me to go upstairs to our bedroom. We were too scared to leave her down there alone and only went as far as the living room.

  What had set Jimmy off was that Shirley had been late getting home from work. She said she was working overtime, but Jimmy was convinced she’d been cheating on him. Shirley told him to call Foster Grant and check the time she punched out and he told her he’d punch her out. But then he went ahead and called. Sure enough, the woman said Shirley had worked an hour later. But Jimmy wasn’t satisfied. He said maybe Shirley had gotten the woman to lie for her. He said women were like that. He said they stuck together like two pieces of dirty flypaper.

  Jimmy returned to the kitchen with his rifle. Virginia and I snuck closer and crouched in the hallway. I slipped Jimmy’s rat-shooting pistol out of the closet and hid it behind my back.

  I couldn’t hit a rat at thirty feet, but I figured I could hit him at ten if my hand would stop shaking.

  Please God, don’t let me miss. Please God, don’t be asleep. Please God, do something.

  I edged forward and peeked into the kitchen.

  Jimmy was pacing around, crunching the broken dishes under his rubber hunting boots and tracking egg yolk across the floor. The rifle dangled at his side. Shirley was huddled next to the stove.

  Jimmy started ranting about The Honeymooners.

  “You know what Ralph Kramden says. ‘To the moon, Alice.” Well, forget the moon. You’re going past the moon. You’re going to goddamn Pluto. You’re going into the great goddamn beyond.”

  “Jimmy, I was working late. I promise—”

  “You promise? You promise, what? Not to be a whore? How’s that possible? That’s not possible. ’Cause you are a whore. So how can you promise to be something you’re not?”

  “I’m not— I didn’t—”

  “Don’t contradict me. Don’t you ever contradict me. I’m the man in this house. Do you see another man in this frickin’ house? I’m the only man in this house. I’m the only man ’cause you couldn’t even give me a frickin’ son. You couldn’t even do that right. You’re useless, you know that? Nobody would even miss you if I blew your frickin’ brains out.”

  Right about then Hank walked through the door.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said when he saw Jimmy, Shirley, and the broken eggs.

  “I told you I’m not going hunting,” Jimmy announced.

  “Gimme the goddamn rifle,” Hank growled.

  Jimmy shook his head, pointed the gun at Shirley.

  “They’re all alike. Shirley, Doris, the whole bunch of them,” Jimmy said.

  Hank snatched the rifle from him.

  “Sit the hell down, Norris!” Hank barked like a drill sergeant.

  Jimmy sat the hell down.

  “Call the goddamn doctor,” Hank ordered Shirley. “Can’t you see he’s in a bad way?”

  Shirley rushed for the phone. She slid on some egg yolk and went down on one knee, then got up and made the call.

  She got Dr. C on the phone and explained the situation and he said he’d be right over.

  While they were waiting for Dr. C to show up, Jimmy gave Hank some advice.

  “Do me a favor. Don’t get another goddamn ball and chain, OK?”

  “I don’t want another goddamn wife,” Hank replied coldly. “Now shut up.”

  “They just break your heart,” Jimmy continued. Then he flashed a goofy grin. “Oh, I forgot. You’re a mean old Polack. You got no goddamn heart.”

  “That’s right, Greek. I got no goddamn heart.”

  “Goddamn Doris ground it up in a goddamn meat grinder along with your goddamn balls,” said Jimmy as he rooted around in his shirt pocket for a Librium.

  “Lay off those goddamn pills with the goddamn booze,” Hank said.

  “They don’t do a goddamn thing,” said Jimmy as he popped another itty-bitty black-and-green capsule.

  Just then, he spotted Virginia and me peeking around the corner.

  “Get in the other room or I’ll belt you!” he yelled.

  We scurried out of sight. Virginia sat on the couch and rocked back and forth. I stayed close in case Jimmy got a notion to snatch his rifle back from Hank and I had to rush in and shoot him.

  Dr. C finally arrived, carrying his black bag.

  By now, Jimmy was so worked up he was panting like Victory Bound after he won that race. Dr. C took one look at Jimmy and pulled a needle out of his bag.

  “What the hell is that?” asked Jimmy.

  “Medicine. Don’t move,” said Dr. C as he jabbed Jimmy in the arm.

  “I gotta go,” choked Hank, once he laid eyes on that needle. He shoved Jimmy’s rifle back in the closet and took off.

  Jimmy’s panting started to slow down. Dr. C turned to Shirley.

  “What happened?” he asked Shirley. “Did you have a fight? I told you to go easy on him.”

  “I did. I did go easy on him,” replied Shirley, her voice sounding all tight. “I just worked a little later to pay for the horse. I thought it would make him happy.”

  “Happy, my ass,” snorted Jimmy. Then he turned to Dr. C. “That’s what I really need. A happiness pill. You got that in your little black bag?”

  Dr. C grabbed Jimmy’s shoulders.

  “Dimitrios!” he bellowed, calling Jimmy by his Greek name. “Straighten the hell out! You’re a tough, proud Greek, not some weak Yankee!”

  Then he talked to Jimmy in Greek until Jimmy’s head started to droop like a dead daisy.

  Dr. C turned back to Shirley.

  “Take him upstairs, lay him down, and then make him something nice to eat.”

  “Lamb and orzo,” said Jimmy, slurring his words. “Not too much tomato.”

  “I’ll make that farina cake you love, too,” said Shirley, trying to sound cheerful.

  Dr. C helped Jimmy up and he and Shirley each put an arm around him.

  “My wife’s the best goddamn Greek cook around, you know that?” Jimmy mumbled to Dr. C.

  Dr. C nodded. “Maybe if I’m lucky she’ll make me a farina cake too.”

  “Two farina cakes, coming up,” chirped Shirley.

  As they headed upstairs, I heard Jimmy say one more thing to Dr. C before he passed out.

  “Mark my word, Doc. One day she could slip some poison into that cake. You know, like Medea. If you find me dead one day, you’ll know what happened.”

  Worried Sick

  God woke up and answered my prayers and Jimmy seemed better.

  “I just had to blow off a little steam,” he assured Shirley a few days later as he gave her a double-decker box of chocolate-covered cherries, her favorite sweet.

  Shirley took the box like it was radioactive.

  Jimmy hooked his arm around her neck, kissed her tenderly, and then took off for the bookie joint.

  Shirley opened the box. There was a note inside written on a page from the Daily Racing Form.

  You’re the best thing in my whole crummy life. Love, Jimmy.

  “Poor Daddy,” said Shirley, melting like those cherries on a hot day. “He tries so hard.”

  “I don’t care. I hate him,” I said.

  “That’s a terrible thing to say about your own father.”

  “He’s mean.”

  “He’s sick. He can’t help it.”

  “I wish he was dead.”

  “Don’t say that! Think how you’d feel if something bad happened to him.”

  I thought about it. I pictured him outta the picture. And all I could feel was sad that it wasn’t true.

  Shirley thought I was feeling sorry about what I said.

  “It’s OK, honey. Daddy loves you. And he loves Mommy. You know that.”

  “He almost shot you.”

  “He was just making believe. Trying to scare me. Like in a scary movie.”

  “He wishes I was dead. He wishes I was a boy.”
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  “He’s just joking when he says that. Don’t pay any attention. Just let it roll off you, like water off a duck’s back.”

  “I hate ducks.”

  “You hate everything today, I guess. But I know there’s one thing you still love.”

  She held out the box of chocolate-covered cherries, giving me first dibs. That’s what she always did. Fed everyone else first. Took the smallest piece of pie, the one burnt biscuit, the gristliest piece of lamb.

  Normally I would’ve gobbled down four or five of those cherries and then snuck a few more later, spreading out the remaining ones so the box wouldn’t look so empty. But my stomachache had gotten so bad I couldn’t even look at them.

  When I shook off the box of cherries, Shirley knew something was up and I finally blurted it out.

  “I hurt bad,” I said, terrified my appendix was gonna burst like Jimmy’s had when he was a pip-squeak like me.

  “Where, baby? Where do you hurt?”

  “My stomach. It’s been hurting for a long time.”

  Shirley pressed lightly on my belly and I cried out. The look on her face got me even more scared.

  She got right on the phone and called the doctor. Not Dr. C. My doctor. His name was Dr. Joy but Jimmy called him Dr. Killjoy. When Shirley got him on the phone he said to come over to the hospital, where he was looking in on his patients.

  “I don’t wanna go to the hospital,” I wailed.

  “It’s the same as his office. He’s just not in his office right now, so we’re gonna see him at the hospital.”

  “I don’t feel so bad,” I lied.

  But Shirley wasn’t buying it. She called a cab and brought me to the hospital.

  They laid me on a table in the emergency room. Dr. Joy pressed on my stomach with his big mitts and I screamed bloody murder and started blubbering.

  “Is it her appendix?” asked Shirley, looking as white as the sheet I was lying on.

  “I don’t know,” said Dr. Joy, which wasn’t very comforting.

  “I don’t want it to b-b-burst like my d-d-daddy’s,” I cried, picturing a balloon filled with blood exploding in my breadbasket. I was blubbering so hard it was tough to get the words out.

  Dr. Joy stroked my forehead.

  “That’s not going to happen. You’re in a hospital.”

  He pressed on my stomach again and I yelped some more.

  “Did you swallow anything you shouldn’t have? Something in a bottle? Or a toy? A marble?”

  “I didn’t do n-n-nothin’.”

  “She said she’s had the pain for a while,” Shirley told him.

  “I’m afraid we’re going to have to keep her.”

  “You t-t-tricked me!” I screamed at my mother.

  “I didn’t think you’d have to stay, honey,” she said.

  “I w-w-wanna go home,” I wailed, but nobody listened.

  They brought me up to a room and I wailed the whole way. They stuck me in a bed and I kept on wailing.

  A nurse pinned me down and another nurse took some blood and I screamed like Fuad Ramses was draining me dry.

  Shirley held my hand and I clutched hers like a life raft.

  Finally, she stood up to leave and I went totally bonkers.

  “I have to go, baby. Daddy’ll be worried sick if he comes home and no one’s there.”

  “Don’t tell him I’m s-s-sick! He’ll k-k-kill me!” I cried.

  “What a silly thing to say. Daddy loves you.”

  Shirley flashed the nurse a stiff smile.

  “She’s just scared,” she said.

  “You run along. We’ll take care of her,” cooed the nurse.

  Shirley leaned in and kissed me.

  “Go quickly,” the nurse whispered. “It hurts them less that way. Like pulling a Band-Aid off a boo-boo.”

  Shirley nodded and twenty-three skidooed, blowing me a final kiss.

  As soon as she was gone the nurse turned to me.

  “No more crying, young lady,” she snapped. “Big girls don’t cry.”

  “Oooo, I love that song,” said the pretty teen-rager in the bed next to mine. She didn’t look sick at all. In fact, she started singing.

  Big girls do-on’t cry-ay-ay.

  “F-f-f-rankie Valli’s a f-f-f-fairy,” I said through my blubbering, repeating information I’d gotten from Jimmy.

  “We don’t talk about bad things like that!” scolded the nurse.

  Then she twenty-three skidooed too.

  I didn’t know how fairies could be bad. They brought you dough when your teeth fell out. Besides, they were just make-believe.

  I kept on blubbering.

  “I want my m-m-m-ommy.”

  “Whatsa matter wit ya?” asked the Frankie Valli fan. “Are ya dyin’ or sumpthin?”

  “L-l-l-leave me alone, n-n-numbskull,” I replied.

  “Jus’ my luck. Gettin’ stuck with a kid,” she snorted, and then picked up a movie magazine and left me the hell alone.

  After a while, a man came and wheeled me away for X-rays. He told me to make believe I was on a ride at Disneyland.

  “I n-never been to D-d-disneyland,” I told him, all the while thinking that now that I was dying I would never get there or anywhere else in KooKooLand.

  After the X-rays, the man brought me back to my room. I was so tired from all the crying I finally konked out.

  When I woke up, Dr. Joy was pressing on my guts again.

  “Well, hello, Sleeping Beauty,” he said.

  “Am I gonna kick the bucket?” I asked straight out.

  “No, you’re going to be fine.” He smiled, and for a moment I believed him.

  Then I saw Jimmy standing at the foot of the bed.

  “When you gonna quit frickin’ around and slice her open?” he barked.

  Dr. Joy didn’t look happy about Jimmy being there. “Where’s Shirley?” he inquired, sidestepping the whole question of slicing me open.

  “She has to work tonight. I told her to stay home to get some sleep.”

  That was a big lie. I knew he just wanted to keep her away from me. Keep her from pluck pluck plucking over me like a mother hen.

  “We’re not operating on her. It’s not her appendix,” said Dr. Joy. “I have to do a few more tests.”

  “Oh, Christ,” said Jimmy. “Leave it to Dracula to get something nobody knows what the hell it is. She’s always causing trouble.”

  Dr. Joy gave him a stern look.

  Jimmy faked a laugh.

  “Relax, Doc. She knows I’m just kidding around. I’m just tryin’ to take her mind off that pain in her gut. Just tryin’ to make her feel better. Right, kiddo?”

  My gut was feeling worse, but I forced a grin.

  “Right, Daddy.”

  Dr. Joy patted me on the shoulder.

  “She’s a great little kid.”

  “Oh, she’s a regular Shirley Temple,” Jimmy replied.

  Dr. Joy gave him another sharp look.

  “Let’s step out into the hall,” he said to Jimmy.

  Jimmy looked surprised. He sauntered out after Dr. Joy, lighting a cancer stick.

  “I’m dyin’ for a ciggie myself,” announced the numbskull in the next bed before she disappeared into the bathroom.

  I ignored her, my eyes fixed on the doorway, hoping Jimmy would take a powder and Dr. Joy would return with a toy like he did when I went to his office.

  But it was Jimmy who came back in, looking ticked off. He walked up and hissed in my ear, “Just when I was feeling better you had to go and ruin it, didn’t you? Well, I know what you’re pulling.”

  “I—I’m not p-pulling anything,” I said, trying with all my might not to start crying again.

  “Go ahead. Cry, little crybaby. They’ll blame me for that too. Like they’re blaming me for your bellyache. You always wanna get me in trouble, don’t you? And I know why. You want me outta the picture. You want your goddamn mother all to yourself. Well, get this through your conniving little squash.
One of us will end up gone, but it won’t be me.”

  Then he pinched my arm so hard I yelped.

  “Oooh, poor little pip-squeak. Guess you still got that bellyache,” he said loudly.

  “That all she got? A bellyache? I thought she was dyin’,” said the teen-rager as she came out of the smoky bathroom. She sashayed back to bed in her bobby socks and hospital gown.

  Jimmy noticed how cute she was and turned into Mr. Charming.

  “You don’t look so sick yourself. What’re you in for? Being too pretty?”

  The teen-rager giggled.

  “I’m gettin’ my wisdom teeth out.”

  “Baloney. I bet you’re just playin’ hooky. You got better things to do than go to school.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  Jimmy spotted the movie magazine she was reading. Sandra Dee was on the cover.

  “Anybody ever tell you you look just like Sandra Dee?”

  “I do not.”

  “Do too. Spittin’ image. ’Cept you’re prettier.”

  She giggled again. I was right. She was a total numbskull.

  “I’m dying for another ciggie,” she told Jimmy. “But I’m all out.”

  He removed a Lucky Strike from behind his ear and slipped it and a book of matches under her sheet.

  “Don’t set yourself on fire under there,” he said.

  “I won’t,” she promised.

  “And don’t tell Nurse Ratched where you got it, OK? Don’t get me in trouble like my pain-in-the-ass kid here.”

  “My lips are sealed,” she said, pressing her lips together in a pout that made her look like a trout.

  A nurse came into the room and Jimmy stepped away from the teen-rager’s bed. The nurse told Jimmy visiting hours were done.

  He kissed me gently on the forehead and whispered one more thing in my ear.

  “Wait till you get home, troublemaker.”

  Then he took off, giving the nurse a little wink.

  She came over and took my temperature.

  “You’re a lucky girl to have such a nice daddy, aren’t you?”

  Fortunately I didn’t have to answer ’cause I had a thermometer stuck in my trap.

  After the nurse left the room, the numbskull put in her two cents.

  “Your dad is sooo cool.”

  “You don’t look like Sandra Dee one bit,” I snapped, and turned my back on her.