Mum ripped open the envelope while I looked up Pizza in the Yellow Pages. I wrote down all the stuff we wanted and Mum signed the back of the cheque and “extra cheese,” she said, “I feel gooey tonight.” I dialled Gigi’s Pizza—the trick was to not ask if they took welfare cheques until they showed up with a large with everything on it.
We polished off everything except one piece and sat on the bed, brushing off our hands over the box and laughing at what good scammers we were. Mum told stories about when she was young and I screened phone calls. She also let me take her old nail polish off and paint on new stuff. Her hands were mostly stopped shaking, but I liked to be the one to paint her. I had to get rid of two phone callers before I got a coat of Peach Caravan on every nail.
Being Mum’s secretary was practically my favourite thing to do. You had to have a good ear-memory and be able to tell who the voices were plus remember if Mum liked them right now or not. She was sick of most men and some women and my job was to say she was out and have no idea where she was and then pretend to take a number and hang up. I could tape-record almost the whole conversation in my brain, so after I hung up I could tell her the words exactly and how they said them. Once in a while I got to tell a guy to get lost, she didn’t want to hear from him again; that hardly ever happened, but it was the best.
Her nails were still wet from the second coat when her friend Doreen called. I held the phone to her ear while she drooped her hands out like rained-on flowers and told Doreen that her manicurist was on a tight schedule so be quick about it. I could hear Doreen’s loud gravelly voice from the earpiece.
I don’t know why they suddenly got to be friends, but it seemed like they liked each other best when they were drinking. Doreen was a friend of Alice and Ray’s, Sadie and Eddy’s parents, and I saw her around their house or sometimes at Rays used-furniture store. She was usually drunk and swearing and laughing at all the wrong times and wearing too-small clothes in super-bright colours that kept almost showing something every time she moved. She was around Mums age with long black hair, high on top like a country singer, bright blue eyelids and frosty pink lips. Doreen was the only one lately who could get my mum out of bed by just talking on the phone a little. Mum talked a lot of pig Latin with her and the ee-iz language.
After three or four minutes she said goodbye and I hung up the phone. Mum stretched. “Well, I’m feeling not-too-baggy now.”
“Wanna piece of chocolate cake? Actually, never mind, this one’s no good, it’s all salty, I think I must’ve put salt instead of sugar or something or maybe I put a tablespoon instead of a pinch or something.”
“Yick. Why do you keep making chocolate cakes anyway? Seems like you’ve made about ten in the last month.”
“I don’t know. It’s fun. I like measuring the stuff and I like icing it afterwards, making all those swirly-doos with the knife. And plus, it’s nice to offer cake to guests when they arrive.” I did like doing all the cookbook steps, but it was also because I kept hearing them say, “Tastes as if it was made from scratch,” on cake-mix commercials and when I found out what it meant, I never wanted to buy another cake mix. I wanted to make my own just so I could say, “Here, would you like some Scratch Cake?” whenever I could. It sounded cool.
Mum snorted. “Guests! Well, la-dee-dah. Like who? Who comes over here?”
“Like. Well, guests! Like Josh maybe, or like Sadie and Eddy. Or Doreen even.”
“You’re one wacky dame, kiddo.”
I cackled at her. I liked it when she called me a dame or a broad and I was just about to say we should pack up her pillows and blankets and go watch TV in the living room when she told me she was meeting Doreen in a while.
“Why! You’re sick.”
“Well, I’m not doing too bad now and I need some fresh air and the thing is, we haven’t got a dime in the house.” She sat up and pulled off her nightie and held it in front of her boobs. “Can you pass me my bra hanging on the doorknob there?—and a friend of mine owes me some money, so we’re going to go over and say hi and maybe I can get us a little moolah.”
I passed her her bra. She looked tired, her eyes were deep in her head and the skin was drooping off her arm-bones. It took ages for her to get her bra on and I didn’t help, just told her, “Be careful of your nails.” She asked me to grab her a pair of underpants from her drawer. She wanted a good pair and I couldn’t see much difference. I said that and “Who’s going to see them anyway?” “Well, I might get in a car accident.” Then she got up and went to her closet, turned back around and went through the stuff tangled in sheets at the foot of her bed. She found her baby blue sweater and held it up in front of her, looking for dirt. She sat at the foot of the bed to scratch off some crusty yellow gook on the sleeve, then pulled it over her head and did a fast makeup job before the garter belt, stockings, skirt and shoes came on. Then more scrounging in her dresser while she tried to bribe me—she said, “How ’bout tomorrow night we get some junk food and play switcheroo—it’s a good TV night, isn’t it, isn’t tomorrow night when Happy Days and Good Times are on?” She dropped a string of beads over her head. Switcheroo was what we called it when we couldn’t decide what to watch and one of us jumped up and switched fast to the other show during the commercials or when we got bored. It was fun and there was action, but I was crabbed at her right now. I shrugged and looked at a hunk of pizza crust on the floor. I knew I should clean up a little, at least my own stuff, at least change the litter box, but I didn’t feel like it. I figured most of it was hers anyway—the bottles, and they were mostly her clothes chucked around the room. A lot were probably mine too, but I made chocolate cake yesterday, I cooked; my work was done. The sink was full of cake dishes and Strawberry Quik milk glasses and they were starting to stink, but I was more in the mood to bust them all and make her get new ones. I thought about going downstairs and remembered Josh had some hockey-thing tonight. He decided lately that he wanted to try and be a jock-guy. Which reminded me about my baton lessons starting and I figured maybe I should just stay in and practise. Last time I’d tossed my baton I busted a vase, so I definitely wanted to practise tonight.
It was getting light out when Mum came in the next morning. She stunk when she kissed me and I couldn’t get back to sleep. There was another hour before I had to get up and my eyes were stinging from staying awake to watch a horror movie.
I got up and tripped over a beer box she’d left in the doorway. In the kitchen I hucked the pizza box off the counter onto the floor so I could sit where it’d been and eat the last piece; cold pizza for breakfast was the best. I thought about getting Mum to order it more on school nights so I could have it for breakfast. Fast and good-for-you. She was snoring. She snored more when she was sick like this. We should go to Portland, I thought, maybe she’d go back to eating vitamins and brewer’s yeast and reading Adelle Davis and maybe she’d take up sailing and Ian’s dad would introduce her to a tall guy with glasses like George.
When I got home from school, nothing was changed. Except she had a bucket beside her bed again and she was whimpering. I still never did the dishes and everything smelled like sour milk and cat pee. Henry was sitting on the kitchen counter meowing. His litter box was in the corner of the kitchen and he went on the newspaper under it instead of in it today. I figured it was a hint that he’d go in my bed next if I didn’t do something. The phone rang and my mum whimpered again.
It was Eddy. “Hi, what’re you do—” and then banging and Sadie’s voice, “He said for me to call, stupid—Grace! Guess what! Your dad’s here.” I thought she was about to tell me some dumb joke until her dad grabbed the phone. “Hey, Grace? Hiya, uh, guess who’s here, I got Sadie to call in case your mum answered—your dad’s here! At the store! He’s sittin’ right in front of me, right this minute!”
I took the phone down the hall and whispered, “My dad?”
“Yeah! Can you get down here? He’ll be here for a little while. Don’t tell your mother, now,—can you g
et down here?”
“Um. Yeah. At the store?”
I hung up and tried to get his face in my mind. I could sort of see him. Or maybe just hear him. Actually, I didn’t know if I’d even recognize him. Mum coughed and asked who was on the phone. I told her it was Sadie and I was going out to play. Then the buzzer went. It was Doreen. Mum was too sick for her right now, but I buzzed her up anyway.
I opened the door to Doreen wearing a silver coat with a bottle of wine under one arm and a white bag that smelled like food under the other. Tons of makeup on, like she thought she was Miss America, as usual. She barged past me, saying, “Hi hon,” and tromped her high heels to the bedroom. “Jesus, Eilleen, you look like shit. But looky here, doll, I brought you a little hair of the dog and a scrumptious barbecue chicken.” Mum made a noise like she was going to barf. Doreen untied her coat. “Christ, open the window; joint smells like something died.”
When I got to the store, my chest was killing and my spit tasted like blood from running so hard. I shoved open the door and the bell jingled. Everyone was at the back of the store, so I moved through the faded junk and old armchairs and lamps, throw rugs and wood cabinets, being careful not to bust anything. Someone whispered “Grace” behind me. I turned fast and knocked my head against a lampstand, then grabbed it before it wobbled right over. But there was no one there. There was no time for them now—no whispers, no voices. I turned around fast to make sure no one saw. I kept going to where Ray was chuckling and Sadie and Eddy were hollering at each other about whether white chocolate was really chocolate. Then the English Lady laughed in my head and said, “You are little more than a dog.” Something got knocked over and what sounded like a million beans bounced on the floor. “Shut up!” I was grateful for her sometimes, like now when everything was loud like Sadie and Eddy and the beads bouncing and whispers. Except that I said “Shut up” this time, not her, I think. Because it got so quiet I tripped and fell on one knee.
A man on a stool swivelled around and watched me get up. It was my dad all right. “Yeah, you kids shut up back there,” he said in a babyish voice over his shoulder at Sadie and Eddy. He grinned at me and stood up and held his arms out. I stayed where I was a second with my knee aching until I could breathe again and went to him, not knowing what to do with those arms—shake hands? Stand between them and get hugged? I couldn’t remember us hugging before.
Sadie and Eddy were quiet a second, one of them poured another handful of the buttons back in the jar and they both said hi. Ray grinned from me to my dad. “She’s big, eh! Skinny as a bloody Biafran, but she’s gettin big.”
Dad was still grinning. “Com’ere and say hi to the old man,” he said and put his palms on my ears. He didn’t hug me exactly, he sort of patted my arms and shoulders like I just fetched a stick. He leaned down and we kissed each other’s cheek. It was stiff kind of, and I was nervous about being there, telling lies and being a traitor, and worried the Shut Up Lady would start yapping at her dinner people again and I’d get all confused and he’d think I was stupid. So he said, “Hiya, how y’doin’? Sure are gettin’ big. You’re gonna be tall like your mother.”
I smiled. Didn’t know what to say. I wished he didn’t bring her up. So Ray talked again. “She looks like you, though, eh Danny? Same kinda crazy eyes. Eilleen’s always sayin’ she looks like a wolf,” and the two of them chuckled. Sadie and Eddy were back to arguing. Ray told them to simmer down and go play in the traffic.
“You like school?” my dad asked. “What’re you in now, grade 3?”
“Four,” I said, bugged that he didn’t know. I stood a bit away from him now; I couldn’t get comfortable being too near; I couldn’t make him and “Daddy” go together. It would’ve been easier over the phone. Now it was all weird. He asked how my mum was. And then I got a big hunk of guilt where I used to have butterflies. She was fine, she had the flu today, I told him and felt like I said too much. He watched me and asked if I was ever going to come back to Toronto to visit him. I said maybe, then probably not, then that I probably wasn’t allowed. The least I could do was show that she still said what went. Even if we were sneaking around behind her back right now, she was still Mum and he’d be stupid not to know it. I wanted to say how she was better than anybody he knew—smarter, funnier, prettier and taller, with redder hair and nicer nails and bigger boobs and higher heels, and she was crazy about me. And plus: if it wasn’t for me she’d be dead because she told me so and that’s more than I can say for you, buddy. “So I can’t be here too long cuz I’m helping out around the house today.” He smiled and nodded fast, then reached for his back pocket. I all the sudden noticed how perfect his slacks looked, how they fitted exactly to his waist, with no wrinkles except where his legs bent, and the shirt, how clean and orange it was. The collar was big and pointed and perfect. He took out his wallet and flipped it open.
It reminded me of this time in Toronto when I went with him to the used-car place he worked at. Four or five guys were there in the office, sitting at a round table, smoking and telling stories, laughing crackly laughs and talking like the guys Mum pointed out in old movies. Guys she called heartthrobs, like Frank Sinatra and Tony Curtis. My dad’s friends held their cigarettes and cigars the same kind of way, with their shoulders and heads tilted the same way, their eyes squinting, smoke curling up beside their noses. I wondered if they were like TV or TV was like them. Dad said, “Hi, what’s doin’?” to the guys at the table and hung his coat on the rack. He told me to have a seat for a minute while he talked to Minky, in the back office.
I sat down beside Dad’s friend Jacky. Jacky’d been at our house once. He took a drag off his cigarette and tilted his chin back to have a look at me. His eyes were sparkly blue and he had eyelashes like a pony. “How old are y’ now, kid?”
“Seven.”
“Huh. Got lots of boyfriends?” I shook my head and made a barf-face. They all chuckled and sipped their drinks, or flicked their smokes in the ashtray. Jacky reached in his pocket, took out a quarter and slid it to me with one finger. “That’s for you.” I grabbed it and said thankyou fast.
When Dad came out of the back room, I showed him and he made me give it back. I handed it to Jacky, grounding my teeth. From now on, I was keeping my mouth shut. Jacky picked some tobacco off his tongue, flicked it and winked at me. He glanced over his shoulder at my dad’s back as he put his coat on. “Well, good to see you again, sweetheart,” and he took my hand in between both of his, squishing the quarter against my palm. He winked one of his squinty eyes again. I winked back and dropped the money in my mitt before I put it on.
My dad’s baby finger stuck out with a fat gold ring on it as he pulled a ten-dollar bill out. “Here. This is for you, yer birthday’s comin soon. Y’can get yerself a present.” I took it and felt my chest falling into me. I wanted to get the money out of here before he changed his mind.
I said, “I think I’ll put it in the bank.”
His eyes sparkled up. “That’s good. That’s real good,” as if I just did a perfect handstand or fetched a stick again.
I kept going. “Is my bank account that you opened for me in Toronto still open?” He said it was. “Cuz I was thinking maybe I should get that money and bring it to my bank account here. So I can really save it, you know? Could you maybe send it to me? Cuz there must be lots now, with the interest, huh?” I figured the five dollars he opened my account with would be around a hundred by now. After all, he told me he put a few more bucks in at my birthday last year and it’d been almost two years since we opened it. He chuckled and nodded.
Ray smiled hard and leaned against the counter, tapping a pen. “Chip off the old block, eh Dan—apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” And they both laughed. I figured laughing was a good sign and I’d have my money in no time flat. As soon as he got back, he’d send it and Mum and I could use it to do whatever we wanted. I folded the ten and put it in my back pocket, then took it out again. “Maybe I should hold it so it doesn’t fall o
ut, huh?” My dad nodded and Ray laughed. “OK, um, well, I have to go, cuz I have to help out around the house.” He patted my back and Ray told his kids to pipe down back there before he brained them.
Walking back home, I was all weird and quiet inside. I hugged my arms around my middle—sometimes that helped make the voices go away. They got tricked into thinking someone was with me, I guess. There were no voices then, but I just wanted to trick myself anyway. I wasn’t with him hardly any time. And I didn’t know if it should be a secret. Or nothing. Just a visit. Just another way to get ten bucks. And maybe she’d be proud of that. Or maybe she’d get mad and sicker.
Doreen was gone when I got back and Mum was curled on her side with a plate of chicken and rice beside her on the bed and a glass of wine on the nightstand. I stuffed the ten in my back pocket again. Mum said hi without moving. I asked where Doreen was. Mum said she took off without hardly saying goodbye but that I should have the chicken and rice she brought. I took the plate in the light to make sure it didn’t have any spilled wine or hairs on it. Didn’t look like Mum even touched it. I bit off some chicken and then spilled my guts—“Daddy’s here. He was at Ray’s store and I went down to see him.”
She was quiet a second, then, “Son of a bitch,” and quiet and then, “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to see him? I probably would’ve said no.”
I forked some rice in. “Well. Good that I didn’t ask then.” She glared at me and grumbled something in her pillow. “It was just for a minute and he gave me ten bucks.” The chicken skin was the perfect crispiness and I folded it and stuffed it in my mouth.
She lifted her head. “Oh, he did, did he? Ten whole dollars. Stupid bastard.” She reached for her wine, took a sip and set it back. “Ten bucks! Isn’t that charming as hell. He doesn’t pay a dime for child support but he can dole out a pittance and look like a big fucking shot. This … shit hole—and he gives you ten bucks. La Dee Dah.” That was twice she said la-dee-dah. It bugged me. Doreen said la-dee-dah. And usually Mum never said stuff like “shit hole” either.
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