The Leap Year Boy

by Marc Simon

  He read the section titled, “From Across the Pond,” where armies were massing in France, Russia, England and Germany, and he thought, when my big brother Arthur gets there, he’ll beat up the Germans, he said he would. But Benjamin says Arthur doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and Daddy said yesterday he might get his fool head blown off which means he’d be dead like Mommy and Grandma, and that thought made his head hurt. His missed his brother’s sweaty smell and cigarette laughter, and he wished he were right there so they could play checkers or wrestle on the floor. Arthur always let him get him in a headlock before he surrendered. “Benjamin?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is Arthur going to get his head blown off like Daddy said?”

  “What? No!” Benjamin bit his lip. “I mean, I don’t think so. He’ll probably come home today or tomorrow when they find out he’s only sixteen.”

  “But what if he doesn’t?”

  “Well, Arthur’s pretty tough. He can beat up almost any kid in his grade, and some older kids, too. So don’t worry about it, all right?” He bounced a pinky ball on the floor. “Wanna play catch?”

  The boys were on the front walkway when they saw Delia, dressed in her maid’s uniform, walking down Mellon Street toward them.

  *

  Belle grunted as she pulled weeds from around the tomato plants, flipping dandelions and chunks of crabgrass into a corrugated tin bucket. On the opposite side of the yard, Lillie, wearing a floppy sunbonnet and tan gardening gloves, tied pole bean shoots to tall wooden stakes. The dog slept on the bulkhead doors.

  The sisters had been working for two hours after a breakfast of herring and eggs and prune Danish. The Liberty Theater was featuring a movie starring Mary Pickford, whom they both adored, and so if they worked diligently enough, they could get the gardening done and still have time for a sponge bath and light lunch before the two o’clock matinee.

  “Aunt Belle, Aunt Lillie, good morning.” Hannah sprang from the back door, her hair loose, in her nightgown and bare feet.

  “Good Lord,” Belle said, “put some clothes on.”

  Lillie put her roll of twine in her apron pocket. “Hannah, dear, it’s time to get dressed. It’s eleven o’clock already.”

  “I know what time it is.” She squatted down next to the dog and kissed him on the head.

  Belle crushed out her cigarette. “Don’t you want to come see Mary Pickford with us? She’s your favorite.”

  Hannah hugged the dog to her as if it were her dance partner and twirled like a ballerina across the lawn. “I have to see Papa right away.”

  Belle looked at Lillie. Lillie looked at Belle. The sisters moved closer to each other and linked arms, as if the sum of their physical presence would lend more weight to their words. “Hannah, what’s going on?”

  She stopped twirling and set the dog down. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Her dear old aunts, they’d been so good to her for the last few years, they really should be the first to know of her good fortune, even before she told her father. “I have such wonderful news. Magical. Abe and I are getting married! Isn’t it glorious, wonderful? Oh, Momma and Papa will be so thrilled. Finally they’ll be proud of me.”

  Lillie said, “Oh my.”

  “I have to tell them right away, today. There’s so much to plan, so much to do. I know they’ll want to throw me a big wedding—that’s what I want, too, of course. It will be at the synagogue, and we’ll invite just everyone, even my cousins from New York, and you two will be my maids of honor. Or is it matrons of honor? I want to wear pink baby roses in my hair…no, yellow…and my gown, heavens, it has to be striking—you must help me pick it out. And the cake! What about the cake?” She was hopping up and down.

  “Hannah, please calm down.”

  “But I am calm! And Alex, oh my God, the dear sweet little thing, he’ll be the ring bearer, oh won’t it be precious as I walk down the aisle with pink baby rose petals strewn in front of me. Maybe I’ll even be barefoot. Oh.” She put her hand to her mouth, her teeth to her knuckles. But would her Papa love Abe and Alex the way she did? Abe was a bit rough around the edges, yes, a bit uncultured for their tastes. They would prefer she marry a banker or a doctor, or even a lawyer or a college professor or a business owner, she’d heard that from them since she was eight. But her Abe was so nice and upright, and look at all he’s suffered through, and besides, he has Alex, her little boy. Momma and Papa would understand it, they must. “Do you suppose Papa will see me right now? We have so much to discuss.”

  Lillie said, “You can’t go anywhere unless you get dressed.”

  Hanna shook her nightgown. “But I am dressed.”

  Belle whispered to her sister, “You take her left arm, I’ll take the right.”

  *

  Delia let herself in and went up to the bedroom. Abe’s chest was bare, and the sheet was twisted around his waist. She thought about stroking him awake, getting him all hot and bothered with her hands in his crotch, wouldn’t he get a thrill out of that, and she would, too, but that kind of stuff would have to wait.

  She thumped his shoulder. “Wake up, sleeping beauty.”

  Abe rolled on his elbows. “Delia?”

  “It ain’t the Holy Ghost.”

  He leaned up against the headboard. “But how’d you…my boys, you seen ’em?”

  “They’re outside playing ball.”

  Abe rubbed his eyes. He managed a smile. “Delia. I’ll be damned. Not that I ain’t glad to see you, but what are you doing here? I thought you was working today.”

  “So did I.”

  Delia explained how, when she reported to the mansion at seven that morning, the caretaker hustled her into her little office and told her, in no uncertain terms, that she was shit-canned. She handed her an envelope with her week’s pay, less the deposit for her maid’s outfit, which she would get when she returned it cleaned and pressed. “The nasty broad, I could scratch her eyes out.”

  “But what happened? You do something wrong?”

  “According to them, I did.” Apparently, she told him, a society friend of the lady of the house who happened to be downtown shopping recognized Delia as she marched with the suffragettes, and reported it to her employer. If there was one thing the matriarch of the manor wouldn’t tolerate, it was anything to do with women’s suffrage. The very idea was ridiculous and obscene to her, and a headstrong maid that marched with a bunch of sign-carrying lesbians? That woman had no place in her employ. “Can you believe it, Abe? I should have spit in her face, but I need the money back for this damn uniform.”

  “Geez, that’s tough, kid.” Abe scratched under his arm. “You look like you could use some coffee.”

  Delia took his hand. “Thanks.”

  Once Abe got the coffee going, Delia sat down at the table. She took off her maid’s cap and shook her hair loose. She ran her hand over the letter from her old friend.

  “Black, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  He stirred his coffee. “So last night you was telling me something about big plans for the two of us. You wanna tell me?”

  “Not here.” She reached for a cigarette but let the pack lie on the table. “Abe, would you bring Alex to The Wheel with me?”

  “You mean right now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But it’s closed.”

  “I have a key.”

  “But what for?”

  She put a finger on his lips. “Shush. I’ll show you when we get there.”

  “Boy, you’re sure acting cagey.” What was the big secret? His birthday was in two weeks. Maybe she was throwing a surprise party for him, with a keg and a big cake and all the boys there—hold on, that wasn’t Delia’s style. Plus, she just got canned, so how could she pay for it? No, something was up, or she wouldn’t be so insistent. “Give me a hint at least.”

  “I’ll give you more than that later on. Let’s go.”

  Half an hour later Delia unlocked the front door. Their footsteps echoed on the
linoleum as they walked by tables stacked with chairs. Small pools of light dotted the floor. Beer and cigar odors hung in the air.

  Delia spread the newspaper out on the far end of the bar. “Alex, you want to read the comics?” She poured a bottle of sarsaparilla in a beer mug for him and added a straw. “Your daddy and I are gonna talk in the kitchen, all right? You call us if you need anything.”

  Alex was curious as to why they would leave him, but he was more interested in the serial adventures he followed in the funny pages.

  Abe and Delia leaned their backsides against the metal sinks. She said, “You’re worried about Arthur, I can tell, but don’t be. He’s a big boy. He’ll be all right. He’ll make his way in the world, we all do.”

  Abe shook his head. “Maybe yes, maybe no. But you didn’t bring us here to talk about Arthur.”

  “That’s true. I want to talk about the future.”

  The future? He wondered if she meant her future, or theirs. He tried to be solicitous. “Hell, I’m sorry you got canned, but I’m sure John will give you more hours.”

  “I don’t want more goddamn hours.” She picked up a steak knife and stared at the edge. “Did you ever say to yourself that you wanted something different than what you got now, that you wanted to get the hell out of this town and this life? I have.” She stared up at the ceiling, then right into his eyes. Her voice was measured. “There’s a big world out there, Abe. I seen it—well, part of it at least, when I was in New York. People there, they ain’t all like us, working stiffs and fat women with six kids where a big time is going to a baseball game once a year or watching the fireworks up at Highland Park on the Fourth of July. I’m talking about skyscrapers and museums and plays and big automobiles, and women wearing furs and fancy hats, and restaurants where you can get any kind of food there is, and people from all over the world doing things, really doing things, making fortunes. I seen it, Abe. It’s for real.”

  “What are you saying, you wanna go to New York again?”

  She grabbed his arm. “Do you really like busting your ass every day for Shields, working like a slave? The sweat off your back has made him a rich man, and what has he given you, besides a few crumbs every week you call a paycheck? What does he care about the workingman as long as he’s making his money? Look, all I’m saying is, don’t you ever wish you could go places, see things before you die? I swear, five more years of this here life and we’ll all end up like Davy O’Brien, drunks, our bodies broken, just trying get through another lousy day.”

  Abe let his breath out slowly The last few years had been a blur, with Irene’s death and Ida’s fire and the constant enigma of Alex, and now Arthur was gone God knows where, and who knows, maybe Benjamin was next, and he couldn’t get the touch of Hannah’s hands out of his head even though he was standing two feet away from Delia. The one constant in his life was work. At least he had that dull certainty to wake up to every morning, like they say in marriage, for better or for worse, but now here was Delia, her eyes blazing, upsetting his world even more with her wild ideas that he should quit and go gallivanting around the country somewhere. Skyscrapers. What the hell was she saying?

  “All that sounds just peachy, Delia, New York and automobiles and all, and gallivanting about here and there, but where’s the money gonna come from? My name ain’t Rockefeller.”

  “I already thought of that.”

  “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Listen to me, will ya?” Delia took out the letter. “I have this friend, a very good friend that works in the circus, Ringling’s. She goes all over the country, Abe. She sees things, she does things, she’s out in the world. Plus, she makes money, Abe, damn good money, way more than you and me combined.”

  Abe laughed. “Well, good for her. But what’s that mean to me?”

  “It means this.” Delia stuck the steak knife into a butcher’s block cutting board.

  “What?”

  “All you have to do is give me the o.k., and I’ll write a letter to my friend about how Alex can throw knives and darts like nothing else.”

  Abe’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you want me to turn my son into a carney freak?”

  Delia put her arms over Abe’s shoulders. “Not a freak, Abe. An act. An attraction is what they call it in The Greatest Show on Earth. People will go crazy over a little boy, a tiny little boy that can throw knives like he can. All he has to do is toss a few knives and we sit back and collect the dough. Good money, real good money, from what my friend tells me. $75 dollars a week! You’ll be able to buy him things you otherwise could never afford. You grew up poor, just like me. Don’t you want better for your sons?”

  His throat was dry. Sure, he wanted better for his boys. He’d give them the goddamn world if he could. She made it all sound so easy. “So you got it all figured out.” He poured a glass of water from the sink. “What about Benjamin?” As he said it, it hit him that he’d forgotten to mention Arthur.

  “What about him? Bring him along. You say he’s a smart kid, right? There’ll be something for him to do, to learn about everywhere we’d go—the Statue of Liberty, Washington D.C., the Mississippi River… He can write a report for his school work. Hell, he’ll probably end up writing a book. Besides, it’s only until the end of the fall. If it don’t work out, your boys go back to school, Shields takes you back, or you find another place. There’s always work for a good metal worker like you. I mean, what’s so holy about Shields Metals, anyway?”

  She was right about one thing, he knew he could always get a job working with his hands, if not with Shields, with someone else. The words New Orleans came into his head for some reason he couldn’t understand.

  “I don’t know. This is all moving too fast.”

  She took his glass and took a sip. “You don’t have to say yes right now. At least say it’s ok for me to write the letter.” She kissed him hard on the lips. “It’s gonna be an adventure, Abe, for you, for me, for your boys. Life ain’t supposed to be all work and no play. You’re supposed to have some fun in this life, am I right? There’s just one more thing.” She held three knives in her palm. “Let’s make sure Alex still has it.”

  *

  Belle was able to finally convince Hannah that she needed to at least have something to eat and fix her hair before she went to visit her parents. Lillie buttered a piece of toast for her and asked her when and where Abe had proposed.

  Hannah sipped coffee milk and held her cup in midair, in front of her mouth, and stared at it, as if it contained some fundamental truth.

  Belle lit a cigarette. “Hannah?”

  “What?”

  “When did Abe propose to you? Your father will want to know.”

  She chomped on a piece of toast. “Oh, that. He didn’t ask me yet, but I know he will. You know how I can sense things about people, see into their minds. He’ll ask me tomorrow, maybe, or Wednesday, but soon, surely by the end of the week. Fate has brought us together. Fate has brought my little boy home to me. He adores me, you know.”

  “And we adore him, dear,” Lillie said. That much was true. The sisters doted on Alex when they could pry him away from Hannah. They had carved out a garden plot for him, and set up a large tin washtub in the yard for a wading pool. Lillie also had him reading passages from the Old Testament in hopes of quashing his Christian leanings. “But, Hannah, wouldn’t it be prudent to hold off telling your parents until Abe has actually said the words? Don’t you think that’s best, dear? I mean, this is such big news, and so sudden. You want everything to go perfectly, don’t you?” Lillie could imagine the expressions on her brother’s face when she told him during their weekly lunch at the Chinese Pagoda that Hannah had set her sights on marrying a common laborer. Even though he had declared he wanted nothing to do with Hannah since her “transgression,” as he called it, he and his wife relied on Belle and Lillie to keep them apprised of every aspect of her life. They had approved of Hannah taking care of the litt
le boy only on the condition that Belle and Lillie monitor the situation, and that perhaps the responsibility would help her mature.

  Hannah stood up. In a precise parody of her mother’s voice, she said, “Oy, what was I thinking, you are so right, and besides, although this Abraham fella is very sweet on me, just because a fella asks doesn’t mean a girl should say yes just like that, no? Better I should play a little hard to get.” She brushed crumbs from her dress and switched to her own voice. “Lillie, help me pick out a nice dress for the movie. It’s Mary Pickford, after all.”

  Belle sighed. “Of course, dear.”

  It could have been the stagnant air or too much sarsaparilla that made Alex’s head hurt. More likely, it was because Alex’s brain had begun to grow faster than the size of his skull could accommodate.

  He began to explore the shelves behind the bar. On the one slightly above his head hung an open padlock. He pulled with both hands and jumped up to see what was inside. It was John’s pistol. Alex said, “Bang.”

  Here was the perfect present for Arthur. He remembered how his brother had admonished him months before for stealing, but maybe that was because he hadn’t given him something he really wanted. The gun, though, he could take it to the war, and he could shoot the bad men with it, and every time he shot one he would remember it was thanks to Alex who gave it to him.

  With his long arms, the pistol was in easy reach, but it took both hands to lever it out of the drawer. The weight of it sank his arms to the floor. He raised it up on the bar top and stared into the muzzle, his eye touching the barrel opening. It was dark inside and he wondered where the bang sound came from. He held the gun out in front of his face. He could see the bullets in the chambers, but the bullets wouldn’t come out, no matter how hard he pulled on them. How did they go out of the gun when the gun went bang? Maybe he had to hit it on the table. He could do that.