The Key That Swallowed Joey Pigza

by Jack Gantos

  “Till tomorrow night,” she agreed. “Only because I prefer to hitchhike in the dark.”

  “In the dark?” I remarked. “That is dangerous.”

  “That’s what you love about me,” she said, and raised her blind-girl stick up above her head. “I’m dangerous—and you never know when I’ll strike!”

  I liked that because I was naturally jumpy.

  When I woke up I had no idea that so much of Dad was inside of me. Maybe putting that key in my mouth unlocked all the hidden little parts of me that were just like him and I was his key as much as he was mine, and somehow we were locked together. All I knew for sure was that I had to return to his apartment if we were ever going to unlock everything bad between us.

  When I left Olivia and Carter Junior I quietly locked the door behind me and ran through the cool morning air across town to Alley O and his old door. I knew he might have a new key and be inside but I had to take that chance because of what I was desperate to do. Before I unlocked his door I flipped open his mail slot and sniffed the stale air that drifted out. It didn’t smell of coffee. Maybe he was still asleep, or maybe not. I stuck my key in the lock and slowly gave it a turn. It clicked open and the door chirped toward me.

  “Dad?” I said quietly.

  There was no reply and I was relieved, because once I closed his door behind me I marched directly to the crib and climbed in and curled up under the blue blanket with my head on the special pillow faster than I could ask myself why I was acting like the baby when I should be acting like the man. Someday I was going to be a man and Carter Junior was going to be a boy and I didn’t want my dad to still be a baby. I wanted him to be my father. That’s what I was thinking as I slipped my thumb into my mouth for the last time because I knew when I woke up I was going to have to be a man.

  But I woke up screaming like a baby. It wasn’t all my screaming. Dad was screaming too. His face was twisted up in horror and pressed against the bars of the crib as if he was a trapped prisoner in a terrifying prison. When I saw him I started screaming louder and leaped up onto my feet and wobbled around on the mattress like I was standing up in a canoe and about to flip over. Then he stepped back and staggered for a moment before he wilted straight down like a stack of paper cutouts of himself. His body just seemed to fold up into a neat pile of clothes, like everything else perfectly placed in his apartment—except for his leathery face. When he finally turned toward me his expression was a wordless mask of pain, and that’s when I could see he was more afraid of me than I was of him.

  “Dad,” I finally said. “Are you okay?” And the moment I said his name I could feel something shift in my heart, something as tiny as a little gear in a watch, and I knew that gear would turn a slightly larger gear, which would turn an even larger gear until bigger and more powerful gears began to turn the special gift in my heart, and I knew I better hang on to the crib railing because suddenly I could feel what he was feeling and when it hit me I had to grab the bars of the crib to steady myself and bite down on my lip to keep from crying.

  He lifted his head and peeked out at me with one eye like a dog that had been bad and beaten.

  “Dad,” I said softly. “Are you okay?”

  “I heard you the first time,” he replied coldly. His lips were peeled back as if his mouth had been carved out with a can opener. He sat up a bit more. “Now tell me, what are you doing in my house?”

  “You can’t steal Carter Junior and keep him here,” I said. “If you want the baby you have to come home. That’s what I’m here to tell you.”

  He seemed to think about that as he unfolded himself and stood. “He’d be fine with me here,” he replied. “I’m a new man. I’m not the old bad dad I was. I’ve hit bottom and bounced back up and am better for it.”

  “Well, it looks like you hit bottom face-first,” I replied, reaching out to touch the wormy-red scars where seams of patchwork skin overlapped.

  He stepped back and looked away from me. “My face is still healing,” he said, sounding wounded as he scratched at a flap of skin by his ear. “It will smooth over, given time.”

  “It doesn’t look so good,” I remarked. “You should go to the hospital.”

  “I already have,” he replied. “I got some medicine and while there I even tried to see your mom and tell her I was getting better, but she took one look at me and pitched a fit.”

  “Can you blame her? Take a look in the mirror,” I suggested, and pointed to a small table mirror on his dresser. “You won’t see the face of a man who looks like he is getting better.”

  “The face doesn’t tell the whole story,” he said.

  “Then what does?” I asked. “What could possibly tell me something different than what I already know about you? What?”

  “Well, do you know that old Frankenstein movie?” he asked. “With Boris Karloff playing the monster?”

  “I know it,” I said.

  “Well, remember the part,” he said, “where the monster goes into the forest and finds the blind man—and they drink wine and smoke a cigar and then the blind man says, ‘Before you came I was all alone. It is bad to be alone.’”

  I cut in. “And Frankenstein replies, ‘Alone—bad. Friend—good,’” I said, remembering it well because Olivia used to play the blind man and I would have to play the monster. She liked the way I could imitate his voice.

  “And then,” Dad said enthusiastically with the blood rising through the canals of his face like the climbing red lines of a thermometer. “And then,” he repeated, “the blind man and Frankenstein shake hands in friendship. And if they can shake hands then we can shake hands.” He reached out to shake mine.

  I looked at his hand as if it was on fire.

  “Friend?” he said hopefully.

  “Remember what the blind man says,” I reminded him. “‘There is good and there is bad,’ and Frankenstein repeats, ‘There is good and there is bad.’ And he says it like he means it—like he knows there is a difference.”

  “I know the difference,” Dad said.

  “Then act like it,” I shot back a little too sharply, which made me feel bad because I’ve had my own thousand and one troubles and other people put up with me even when I knew the difference between good and bad and right and wrong but couldn’t act the right way.

  “It upsets me that your mother won’t let me have Carter Junior,” he said, getting back to that.

  “Because you scare us,” I replied.

  “It’s just my face that’s scary,” he countered.

  “It’s not just your face that’s the problem—it’s what’s under the skin,” I said.

  “Don’t think I haven’t looked into the mirror,” he said, squinting unevenly. “I have. Believe me, I’ve had to look past my face for something deeper inside me that was better—something I did that was good—and that something good is Carter Junior.” He turned and pointed toward the baby photo of Carter Junior on his desk. “He’s named after me,” he said firmly. “He’s my second chance. My job is not to screw him up.”

  “You mean like you did to me?”

  “You know, Joey,” Dad said. “You might not like what I’m about to say but maybe you aren’t as screwed up as you think you are. Maybe when you look into the mirror you should look a little deeper and see what is good about yourself. Maybe you are hurting yourself by walking around thinking that everyone thinks you are a mess.”

  “Mom doesn’t think I’m a mess,” I said. “She thinks I’m the man of the house.”

  “And I suppose that being a mess in the hospital makes her the woman of the house?” he asked, sneering a bit as he nervously picked at the pleats of skin on his face as if he was removing the bits of crust on a sandwich.

  “She’s getting better on the inside,” I said. “And when she comes home she will be the boss.”

  He pulled off a strip of dead skin.

  “Don’t pick at your face like that,” I cautioned. “You’ll only make it worse.”

&
nbsp; “Nothing could make it worse,” he replied, and balled the skin up between his fingertip and thumb. “Except for one thing—everyone can see how much I’ve changed for the worse on the outside, but no one can see how much I’ve changed for the better on the inside.”

  “Then stop trying to steal the baby,” I repeated.

  “But we’d be happy here together in this place,” he said, and waved his arm around to show it off. “I have it all set up for him and he’d slowly get used to me, and see the good in me.”

  “No. That is not going to happen. If you want to be with Carter Junior, then being home is the best place for you,” I said. “You might look like a monster, but if you don’t behave like one then your family won’t care what you look like.”

  “But when I came to the house he was afraid of me and he screamed,” he said sadly.

  “He didn’t scream at your face. He only screamed because you grabbed him and ran down the street,” I replied. “But if you showed up and were nice then he’d just think you were nice.”

  “What about you?” he asked. “Don’t I scare you?”

  “Yeah, but I came to find you anyway,” I said. “I’d rather have you at home than have you creeping up on us all the time.”

  “What about your mom?” he asked. “She hates me.”

  “Yep,” I said. “She sure does. But she knows what it’s like to try to get better for the family,” I said. “So if you are trying to get better then I think she’ll give you another chance.”

  “But she really hates me,” he repeated. “Deeply.”

  “Don’t be a coward,” I replied. “She deserves to hate you even more. Just say you are sorry and mean it.”

  He stood motionless as he thought about something while the pink scars on his neck stretched and closed like fish breathing through gills. “But what if I just want the baby and my own fresh start?” he said. “What if that is all the family I want?”

  “That’s up to you,” I replied, and climbed out of the crib. He looked at me like he wanted to rush forward and hug me or wrestle me to the ground. I couldn’t tell what he wanted to do and I didn’t think he could either so I sidestepped around him and headed toward the hallway. Then before he could say anything more I turned and lobbed the key onto his bed.

  “I won’t be back here,” I said, and I meant it. “But you know where we live. Right now I’m the man of the house and my rule number one for you is, no family, then no baby. It’s up to you.” After that I walked out the door.

  I slapped on a fresh patch like I was snapping a seat belt around my middle. I had bathed and fed Carter Junior and put him to sleep upstairs in his donut doggy bed, and then I tiptoed downstairs and carried a chair into the middle of the living room and stared at the inside of the front door like it was a movie that hadn’t yet started. It had been a crazy day so far and it wasn’t over yet, because once the sun goes down around here it seems like all the action starts up.

  But when I ran back from Dad’s this morning, with the sun high in the sky and a flock of birds chirping in the backyard, the telephone had rung. I looked out the kitchen window where Olivia was wearing a pair of my jeans and a T-shirt and Carter Junior was wrapped in a blanket and wearing a hat as they played the game Olivia now called “human birdfeeder.” She had sprinkled bread crumbs all over their clothes and about a hundred birds seemed to be sitting on them. They were smiling. I was smiling, and I picked up the phone and then I was grinning.

  “Joey?” Mom said excitedly.

  “That’s my name!” I said like a cartoon woodpecker. “Don’t wear it out.”

  “You sound full of life,” she said brightly in her old playful Mom voice, and instantly my special gift nearly floated me off the floor as my lungs filled with the hot air of happiness.

  “You sound super extra-great,” I said.

  “I am,” she said. “I feel like an old junker that went into the shop and I’m coming out all snazzed up.”

  “Snazzy!” I repeated because I love words with extra zz’s in them. “That sounds pawzzz-i-tive.”

  She laughed. “How’s Carter Junior?” she asked.

  “Perfectly Pigza! Bigger and better and looking for you,” I said. “He’s talking now and eating steaks and smoking cigars and he wants his sweetheart mom!”

  “Hmmmm,” she hummed, like she could taste him. “Can’t wait to kiss his belly.”

  “I’ll give him a bath,” I said. “So he doesn’t taste like one of the dogs.”

  “Is Olivia still there?” she asked. “It was so nice of her to visit me.”

  “Yes,” I said, “But I’m bummed out because she’s going back to school.”

  “You’ll be doing the same,” she said, reminding me. “So give her a kiss goodbye for me.”

  “Will do!” I said snappily, and smiled because now I had a reason to kiss her.

  “Have you seen your dad around?” she finally asked.

  I knew that was coming. “Yeah,” I said.

  “Oh,” she replied coldly, and her voice changed so quickly that right away I felt like someone poked a hole in my lungs.

  “Did he try to steal the baby?” she asked.

  “He borrowed him for a moment,” I said quickly, “but I got him right back. It was like a tiny visit between them,” I added so she wouldn’t get worked up.

  “Oh,” she said again, and went silent. I didn’t think silence was a good place for her so before she could get all knotted up about Dad I blurted out in my happy voice, “So when are you coming home so I can bake you a cake?”

  “Tonight,” she gushed. “I’ll be home for dinner. I’m packing up my stuff and I’ll see my therapist and after that I’m dropping by the hair salon to get my nails done and a pedicure and I’m coming home all dolled up to see my boys.”

  “We’ll be here waiting,” I replied, with a big smile on the inside. She sounded just like my old mom because when she had a manicure and a pedicure it was like she also had a mental-cure.

  “Love you and see you soon,” she said, and the moment the receiver went down I was in a hyper-panic.

  “Olivia!” I hollered out the window. “Have you ever baked a cake? I need a cake for Mom—like a cake the size of a whale.”

  “Shush,” she said softly from where she and Carter Junior were together like statues of Saint Francis with birds eating out of their hands. “Just call the bakery,” she said in a half whisper, “and order one. That’s what we do at our house.”

  That made sense because I didn’t want to mess up the kitchen, so I picked up the phone and ordered Mom a carrot cake and when the baker asked if I wanted to write something special on the icing I knew exactly what to say. “Inner Strength. Self-Love. Pigza Pride. You have it!”

  “How about just saying, ‘You are the number one mom in the world’?” the baker asked.

  “Nah,” I replied. “She’s number one in her own way.”

  Hearing from Mom and ordering the cake was a really extra-cheesy, extra-good start to a day that I knew was going to be a rough ride down a long road, and I wasn’t sure what would be waiting for me at the end.

  In the early evening Olivia and I took Carter Junior and walked quietly down to the bakery and picked up the cake, but it didn’t feel like a cake for a celebration because when we got back home Olivia said, “It’s time for me to go.”

  I put the cake in the roach-proof refrigerator while Olivia put on her black school dress and folded up her extra panties and shoved them in a pocket. Then she hung her HELP! Blind Girl Hitchhiking! sign around her neck. “I’m ready,” she announced, and stood by the front door. “Do you want to say goodbye?”

  “I’m holding Carter Junior in my arms, so don’t hit me with your blind-girl stick,” I said. “But I just want to say that I really love having you as a girlfriend.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to kiss me goodbye?” she asked. “Because if not, I’m out the door. I can’t stand a lingering exit.”

 
I stepped toward her. She reached out for Carter Junior and I handed him over.

  “He’s first,” she said, and gave him so many kisses that I was jealous. When she gave him back to me I thought she had used all her kisses up. But she had one more.

  “You’re next,” she said.

  I held Carter Junior on my hip and stuck my neck forward. I closed my eyes and we carefully moved closer like two real blind people kissing. It seemed to take so long to reach her face I wondered if I had missed it and might just kiss her on the earlobe as I passed by. But it turned out okay. It was like closing your eyes and slowly pressing your fingertips together. It was a perfect kiss. Then I kissed her again for Mom.

  “Take care of Carter Junior,” she said.

  “I will,” I promised.

  “Be good to your mother,” she said. “She needs you.”

  “I will,” I replied.

  “Learn braille and write me,” she said. Then she leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “Send me secret Pigza love letters that I can keep in a drawer wrapped in black ribbon and sprinkled with rose perfume.”

  “Perfumed Pigza?” I yelped, and made an icky face. I really wasn’t ready for that. Plus I had another problem. “I have lousy spelling,” I said.

  “Guess what? I have really lousy reading,” she replied. “Relax. You worry too much.”

  Then she turned the lock on the front door and pulled it open.

  “Sorry the porch light is out,” I said in a goofy voice.

  She smiled, then in an instant she lifted her blind-girl stick and cracked me hard across the shin. “Don’t forget me,” she said.

  “Never,” I whimpered. “I think this one will leave a scar.”

  “That’s body-braille for love,” she said. “It should hurt until I return for Christmas.” And then just as she had arrived she turned around and tap, tap, tapped her way down the steps and thwack, thwack, thwacked her way to the corner and took a right and my heart went with her, but since I was the man of the house I had to take care of Carter Junior plus I had a guest arriving so I went back inside and locked the door and got his dinner ready and bathed him and put him to bed and then I got the chair and set it in the living room and from that moment I have been staring at the door.