Welcome Thieves
Page 5
“So you didn’t like it? I mean, Mom said she heard you liked it.”
“Sure, why not?”
“Then how come you’re back?”
“Oh, I dunno. I guess it’s hard to go to class when you’re pregnant.”
I pick up the remote. Archie hits the turlet. Credits roll. Then a commercial for a Kawasaki that looks like a lunar lander. Maybe one day I’ll get a bike, ride it all the way up to Oregon, drink some of that good coffee, cut a hard line through the switchbacks along Route 1, take dumb chances in and out of every bluff.
“You know what’s weird, though? You don’t really look pregnant.”
Cher yawns.
“That’s because I got unpregnant. Okay, Dilly?”
HER SUITCASE STAYS next to the sofa for a month, every night TV and pretzels and not much to say. Especially about her chapped lips and bouncy knee and the hickeys that ring her neck like pearls.
Jonelle refuses to leave the bedroom: How much longer? and Isn’t this our house? and Some people pay this thing called rent. I bring up ice creams and sodas. I bring up magazines and kisses. Sometimes the magazines help, especially ones about the heiress who looks like a fish, or about Brad Pitt, who sleeps with this mannequin that adopted half of Equatorial New Guinea.
“What am I supposed to do, kick my own sister out?”
“Yes.”
I lay my palm on Jonelle’s stomach. “And what kind of example would that be setting for him or her?”
“Oh, please.”
After dinner Cher has an announcement.
Mom’s all, “What is it? Cancer?”
“I’m fine,” Cher says.
“She’s fine, Ma. It’s okay.”
“So you’re going back? Are you going back to school?”
Cher grabs three fingers of hair, arranges it on top of her head.
“Actually, I’m getting married.”
“To who?”
“Just a guy from the neighborhood,” Cher says.
“See? A guy from the neighborhood, Ma. It’s okay.”
“Is it someone we know?”
“Definitely,” Cher says.
WADE RENTS OUT the whole VFW and everyone just stands there, hot and sweaty in powder-blue suits, grumbling around the cash bar. Jonelle stays at home with Dilly Jr., new and perfect and healthy pink, so beautiful I can barely breathe, letting him exhale for both of us. Mom’s not feeling so hot, can’t make it either.
All the flowers say, COMPLIMENTS OF AMAYZING GRACE AND GROCERY!
All the Diet Cokes say, COMPLIMENTS OF AMAYZING GRACE AND GROCERY!
There are ten tables, ten couples, ten dudes who sling glossy triangles on ten corners.
Somehow I get through the dinner and the speeches, don’t say a word. My collar’s too tight, shoes too small, one beer follows another as Kool and the Gang Cel-e-brate, good times, c’mon while my sister and her train of lace spin across the floor, dancing, dancing.
On Monday Cher comes by for the last of her stuff, a shirt, a sock, the other earring. She puts her finger against her lips, shhh, but Mom hears, all, “At least take some soup, here’s a Tupperware,” and then also with the phonebook open to the section on annulments, “It’s not too late!”
“Who gives advice?” Cher says. “That can’t even come to a wedding in the first place?”
Mom makes a face like Pearl Harbor morning plus 60 Minutes being cancelled. Jonelle crosses her chest and spits on the floor, some eye hex even Gypsies don’t believe in. “You and your tore-up husband, pffft.”
“Wait, what?” Cher says, laughs.
Jonelle reaches into the sink and throws the clear disc that usually spins in the microwave but is currently soaking even though the atomized noodles and beans are impervious to hot water. It digs into the wall and then hits a stud.
The sound of glass.
Doors slam. Upstairs and downstairs.
Dilly Jr. starts to cry.
I sweep him up and press him tight against my chest. It’s possible he’s actually scared, has some internal meter that senses turbulence, but I think he just wants a hot dog and a ball and some soda and to take off his pants and throw rocks and scream with pure milky glee, so totally ready to evolve into a tool of nonstop motion and fun.
FOR A WHOLE YEAR stories waft around, different characters, different versions, Cher did this or Butterfly did that. How they’re the reason all those cats are missing. How Cher gained a hundred pounds and carries a TEC-9 in her purse. How Butterfly keeps monkey heads floating in pickle jars on a shelf made of bones.
Dilly Jr. doesn’t care. He’s busy learning. Up and around, trembly thighs and then step, step, flop. He’s got six hairs and two teeth, top and bottom, little choppers that bite my knuckle, ravenous with love.
After Christmas Mom gets sick.
Just a bit and then really. The doctors at first are all tubes and pills and Press here for the nurse, but after a while, practically, You might as well just go home, we could use the bed. The night she passes, Mom puts her hand on my neck and whispers that she loves me. I love her, too. Always has. Same here. I’m a good boy. Only because she made me be. Great things are coming. How badly I wish she could be there to see them.
The last thing is Tucson.
The church next to the plot next to her grandfather’s headstone, where she intends to be buried.
I promise her, absolutely, if that’s what you want.
THEY SEND THE BODY ahead on a refrigerated train, and who knew such a thing could be paid for or even existed? Then on Friday, Wade and Cher glide up in a new Buick. Jonelle refuses to go. “Fifteen hours? In a car? With them?”
“But it’s my mother.”
“Exactly.”
I put on my wedding suit and slip into the backseat, Cher with her hair up, a deeper red than usual, like it’s been dipped in the Ganges.
“Sucks and all, homes,” Wade says, a license to say stupid things since he’s covering gas. “But I liked your mother. She had style.”
Cher rolls her eyes. “Guess what Mr. High Roller did. Mr. Top of the Line? Just guess.”
When I don’t answer, she holds up a bouquet of flowers, shows the side of the wrapper that says, COMPLIMENTS OF AMAYZING GRACE AND GROCERY!
It’s quiet all the way to the interstate and then Wade goes, “Hey, Dillard?”
“Yeah?”
“Buckle the fuck up.”
And so I do.
JUST OVER THE BORDER a hose comes loose and we’re towed to the station. By the time it’s fixed we’re late for the viewing and Tucson is still two hundred miles, nothing but desert and the radio, I’m a cowboy and On a steel horse I ride.
“Man, you’d pound your nuts to jelly on a steel horse,” Wade says.
The funeral home’s dark, door locked. Cher hits the horn beep and then the door bang until a janitor comes to the window, some Russian waving his mop. “Is to close, you see? Is not open.” Wade flashes him a ten and then a twenty and then three twenties. The Russian lets us in. Red carpet and curtains and ceilings. Way in back, Mom. Still in her coffin, all powder and rouge, I never once in my life saw her wear makeup. She looks like someone graffitied her, THIS EXIT FOR REAL NATIVE CRAFTS!
“Sorry, Dillard,” Wade says, then goes and sits in the car.
It seems so dumb, tears. I wipe them from Dilly Jr.’s cheeks every day like they’re nothing.
“Shhh,” Cher says, nails on the back of my neck, tall in black stilettos. I nod and she scratches, a sing-song of mourning and comfort that somehow feels older than either of us. I put the flowers on the casket, too long in the car and now a powder gray. Cher fixes Mom’s dress but leaves her shoes, which are on the wrong feet. Upstairs there’s the sound of one of those floor buffers, a rotary thing that crosses the planks in wide, reverent arcs.
“Why?” I ask.
“I guess it was just her time.”
“No. Not that.”
Cher makes a face. “I’m Dilly. Ex
plain the world to me.”
“Not the world. Just Butterfly.”
She pokes me in the chest, hard.
“Because I didn’t want to come in second or third, okay Dillard?”
“What did you want?”
“To come in worst.”
She leans over. I’m shoved up against the casket. There’s a commiserating brush of lips. A sisterly acknowledgment of our mutual loss. For two beats. Three. Then the time to separate comes and goes. She moves closer. Cautiously exploring. It’s like being ten again, because all my friends were right. I did watch her take a shower, since she always pushed the curtain aside. There were special games in the basement, almost never a winner.
We say nothing, send messages like we used to, when words were for parents and teachers and friends too dumb to know an entire life existed beyond homework and sneakers and bikes, too busy talking shit and throwing punches that wouldn’t matter until they gained fifty pounds. I never wanted any part of the thefts and lies and fights because there was always the plaid couch against the far wall, the broken lamp, me and Cher giggling while Mom chuffed around upstairs, calling our names.
She pulls me closer, tap tap tap with the point of her tongue. I send gentle replies, like walking heel-toe toward a deer on the lawn. Slowly, slowly. Careful not to spook. Pull aside a branch. Wait for it to sniff the air, go back to chewing leaves.
I open my eyes. Hers are closed.
I absorb the pressure of her lips, the heat of her everything.
“Dilly,” she whispers, and somehow hearing my name collapses a scaffold of restraint that had already begun to buckle.
I run my hands up her sides, under her dress, too hard, too fast.
“Jesus,” she says, spins away.
“Wait.”
The door slams.
I wipe lipstick from my chin, thinking it’s weird how almost everyone does the worst thing, every time. Gives in to their essential natures without thought or complaint. Our little brains suckered by the first shiny thing. And then, when we have a chance not to be, a real and obvious chance to prove we’re actually half-human, still fuck it up.
I’m looking at Mom when the Russian cracks the door. “Finish?”
“Yeah.”
He holds out his hand. “You want to see another, is sixty dollars.”
THE BURIAL IS SHORT and quick, the priest drunk or in a hurry.
Ashes to ashes and so forth amen.
Handfuls of dirt, palms dried on slacks.
A walk along a gravel path.
AT THE BORDER we stop at a Tas-T-Grill. Cher leans against the car with a cigarette, one long line of smoke floating straight up, like there hasn’t been any wind in the desert for a hundred years.
“You coming?” Wade asks.
No answer.
“You want me to get you something?”
No answer.
There’s a plastic table under a plastic umbrella. It’s too small. We slap down trays, touch knees. I’d forgotten what it was like to watch Wade eat, the stop-motion animation from scalp to cleft, the butterfly dancing from cheek to cheek.
“Something on your mind, Dillard?”
“No.”
“You sure? Now’s your chance. Dead mommy buys you a one-time pass.”
“For what?”
“Being way too honest without I’m kicking your ass after.”
A family comes and sits. The kids stare, get scolded. They get up, decide to eat in the car after all.
“I guess I have been thinking.”
“Proceed.”
“Just how you should get out before you get busted.”
“Yeah? You worried about my career prospects?”
“Maybe head back down to Santa Monica or whatever. Stay one step ahead.”
He starts in on the second burger. “So I can sling drinks for drunk frats? Pocket wet quarters like you?”
“No one leaves change anymore.”
“Or, hey, maybe I could go back to school. Volunteer on weekends. Listen, kids, don’t forget that everyone’s special in their own special way.”
A pair of hornets crawl around the edge of his soda. One falls in.
“I didn’t say school.”
“You’re right. My apologies. But here’s what I’m wondering. In this scenario where I hit the bricks, does Cher happen to stay behind?”
“How should I know?”
“Yeah, I guess I can see how it’d play out. Her all sad without me around, figures it’s probably time to move back on over to Dilly’s place.”
I try to get up, but he slides forward, pins me against the bench. It hurts.
“Anything else you need to get off your chest?”
“No.”
“You’re making a really weird face.”
“Stop.”
He pushes harder. “Why? Something wrong?”
I take a swing that misses, scrape my knuckles on the table.
Wade smiles, lets go. We’re six inches apart. His scar seems angrier with the sun directly above, looks like spilled tea, burned and peeled away, again and again.
“Hey, Dilly, you think you could carry this weight?” He runs his fingers gently around the wings, knows exactly where the perimeter is. “You got the shoulders for this?”
He’s right. I would have folded a long time ago.
“No. But at least you’ve got my sister.”
“You dumb shit. No one has your sister.”
WE MOTOR THROUGH the night, without a word, and then drop Wade just outside town.
“I got business.”
He hands me the keys. I adjust the seat. There’s no traffic for once. We’re almost at their place when I’m finally like, “Hey, you wanna get a beer or something?”
“No.”
“No?”
“But maybe coffee.”
I find a spot and then a booth. Cher orders two donuts. The cooks watch and wish, press themselves against the counter, never bring my tea.
“Well?” She says.
I know there’s an important question full of layers and meaning. A statement or an apology, I’m so so so whatever. But it’s like how I always laugh instead of being the one who makes the joke. How I stand and watch while someone else puts out the fire, rescues the baby. I’ve always known I’d have exactly the life I do. That Dilly, he’s a good guy, everyone slapping my back and picking me for their team and inviting me to the movies first even though there were better, cooler people, but at least with me there’d never be any surprises.
She licks her fingers.
“It wasn’t a monkey, it was a capuchin.”
“Huh?”
“All these years we’ve been saying monkey. That’s fucked up, don’t you think?”
“I guess.”
“You know, those first nights after I came back, I kept thinking you were secretly winking at me. Like you were acting dumb, but still in on the game. All Where you been? What was it like? And so I figured one night you’d finally break down, laugh in my face. But you just sat there sucking your thumb.”
“I never sucked my thumb.”
“You know what an analogy is, Dillard?”
“A fancy word for none of it was real?”
“Exactly.”
“What about L.A.?”
“I mean, it exists.”
“What about Terrence?”
“He runs a dozen websites. Guess what kind?”
“But we went to his agency. He gave us Moët.”
Cher stands, drops three dollars on the table, leans close enough that I can smell myself on her.
“I mean seriously, Dillard. Who in fuck ever heard of a school for models?”
IT’S MAYBE A YEAR later and we’re sitting in the kitchen. Dilly Jr. is under the table going vroom vroom with his little cars and grr grr with his little bears. I have the morning shift, since Manny had a stroke Fourth of July and bumped me up to manager. First thing, I got rid of all the Christmas lights a
nd beer signs, the pinball and ashtrays. Put a little stage in the corner. We have live music, trivia, rich-fucker whiskey. Cute girls bringing drinks to dudes who come in for the drinks and cute girls.
I’m talking to the guy owns the building about maybe buying the place.
Jonelle can’t believe what’s gotten into me.
I’m like, “Nothing’s gotten in, it’s gotten loose.”
She shakes her ass, winks, says, “Daddy, I know that’s right.”
Then we let Dilly Jr. watch Curious George for a while, lock the door.
But not this morning.
She kisses my neck, slides the paper next to my eggs.
“Sorry, babe, but you should probably read this first.”
It’s in the metro section, no picture. The whole thing only rates half a column. Someone unbeknownst to authorities shot someone beknownst to authorities, a certain Wade “Butterfly” Belkowitz. In fact, they shot him four times and then stole his little triangles in what authorities are referring to as possibly drug-related. There’s a mention of Stu Mayse, second chances, the collapse of the social safety net, some editorializing about the takers not the makers in this world.
No warning about keeping monkeys as pets.
We don’t go to the funeral.
I try to call Cher but no one answers for a long time, and when they do it’s someone pretending they don’t speak English but in any case understanding enough to tell me she hasn’t been there in months.
“What did you expect?” Jonelle asks, takes the paper away, combs my hair. I can feel her belly, getting bigger again, pressed against my back.
“Nothing. It’s why I’m never disappointed.”
Dilly Jr. crawls into my lap, makes his time-for-snack face.
“Did you know Mommy married a philosophy professor?” Jonelle asks.
He actually considers.
“No.”
“Well, honey, neither did I.”
D.C. Metro
There’s just no way Penny can hack crashing another squat. With the incessant house meetings, the humorless stances on bacon and Kurdistan and stripper poles. The weird rules like no using the soup pan to cook freebase or stay off the hammock after dark. Who gets kicked out of a squat, anyway? Who has the power to make unilateral decisions in what is theoretically a leaderless community of equals? Penny has no idea who stole the money, but Sad Girl is still pissed. Razr and Roy Boi say they’re gonna kick Penny’s ass if she even thinks about coming around again, tries to sneak into a show.