by Meany, John
“Bridgette, this isn’t your fault.”
“I know it isn‘t my fault.” My mother now wailed hysterically. “Except I never should have let Billy hang around with someone that I didn’t know that well. I‘m so ashamed of myself.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Rudy tried to console. “No one in a million years would suspect that this sort of thing could take place.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she agreed, using a crumpled piece of Kleenex to dab her weepy eyes. “The thing is if Nancy Sutcliffe was a man, I never would have permitted Billy to drive around with her. I would have exercised more caution.” She and Rudy hugged mightily, like a couple of doting panda bears.
“Did this woman hurt Billy?”
“Not physically, no. Psychologically yes . . . For Christ sakes, my son is ten-years old. What could that piece-of-shit whore possibly see in someone so young? He’s not even developed. He’s not even in puberty, for crying out loud!”
“C’mon babe, calm down.” Rudy massaged her back.
“How am I supposed to calm down? Someone like that pervert Nancy Sutcliffe should not have a job around children. She’s filth. She needs to stay as far away from kids as humanly possible. That‘s another thing I‘ll do, I‘ll get the sick bitch fired. She has no business catering to minors in fucking Good Humor truck.”
Suddenly looking more stunned than he had already looked, Rudy released his embrace and then walked to the back of his flatbed truck. He picked up one of the air conditioners. I guess he wanted to try to get my mom‘s mind off the issue. “Bridgette, could you open the front door for me, please?” he called to her. “These air conditioners are heavy.”
“Yeah. Hold on.” Putting her drink down, my mother stood up and then pushed the door to the house ajar.
I watched Rudy lug the air conditioner up the paved walkway, before I had no other choice but to scamper back to my room, or be snagged red-handed eavesdropping.
***
Again, as soon as I lay down on my bed, I swiftly tugged the covers up to my head. Perspiration had formed on my body, especially on my hands and forehead, from both the sticky summer heat and the apprehension I felt.
I heard Rudy carry the first air conditioner into my mom’s room, his hard-soled black shoes thumped steadily across the hard wood floor. “Bridgette, at least you’ll be cool tonight.”
“Thanks for bringing the air conditioners over.”
“I told you I would. You’re my sweet honey muffin. You know I’d do anything for you.”
“Please, not now Rudy. As you could well imagine I’m not in the mood.”
Unlike when my mother had been conversing with the bad lady, it was not difficult for me to hear what she and Rudy, in her bedroom were saying, since Rudy had what I like to call ‘a wall-piercing voice’. And my mom, whenever she was in her boyfriend’s presence, would elevate her tone to match his.
“Sorry Bridgette. Okay, plug it in.”
“Does it work?”
“Yes,” he said. “Can’t you feel the cold air?”
“Now I can,” my mother replied. “Wow! That feels nice.”
“What do you want me to set the thermostat at?”
“What’s it on now?”
“Seventy.”
“Set it on sixty-five.”
“You’ve got it. Should we put the other air conditioner in Billy’s window, or would you rather wait until tomorrow?”
“We might as well put it in his window now,” my mom decided. “Billy’s been through enough today. No sense in letting him bake in this dreadful heat . . . But please just try to keep your voice down. Okay? I don’t want to wake him.”
“Sure,” said Rudy. “I’ll try to be as quiet as a mouse.”
It turned out that my mom would be the one who would make the most noise. When she opened my window, it made a bang. However, I still lay as still as a statue. Acting as if I were lost in dreamland. I even faked as though I was snoring.
“Look at how innocent my boy is,” my mother whispered to Rudy. “Look at how peacefully Billy’s sleeping. I just can’t help but wonder if his father was still around, if he never ran out on us, if something like this would have happened.”
“Bridgette, I told you to stop beating yourself up. This could have happened to anyone’s child.”
“Maybe so. Except it didn’t happen to someone else’s kid, it happened to my kid.”
“I understand that. But getting annoyed at yourself isn’t going to change the situation.”
Even though they were whispering, I wanted to put my pillow over my head to drown out their words.
***
“Well,” Rudy declares a few minutes later, “Billy’s air conditioner is in. Except there’s one problem.”
“What?”
“I don’t think the plug will reach the outlet. Do you have an extension cord?”
“I’m not sure,” my mom answers. “Hold on a second.” I heard her saunter into the kitchen and rummage through the junk drawer near the sink, where she stored tools, sandpaper, batteries, all kinds of stuff. “Unfortunately I don‘t. Do you think you might have an extension cord in your truck?”
“It‘s possible.”
“Want me to look?”
“No. That‘s all right,” Rudy replied. “I’ll go out there. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure I might have one under the seat.”
As he went to check, I was stunned to hear my mother, once more dial Nancy’s phone number.
“Miss Sutcliffe, don’t you dare hang up on me again.” This time she did not turn the intercom on; therefore, I could not hear Nancy‘s response. “Do you realize how repulsive a person you are? Yeah, I know I told you that before. It‘s true . . . What? Get out of here. Are you fucking with me? Do you think it’s fair that you won’t even discuss this matter? Don’t shout at me. What am I supposed to think? Why would a ten-year old boy make something like this up? No, no. Why don’t you just shut the hell up? Before my son met you, he didn’t even know what sex was. How could he?”
It was quiet for a long tense moment. I thought my mom might have slammed the phone down in frustration, or that Nancy, like before, had been the one who had abruptly ended the call.
“Listen to me, Nancy. Your unwillingness to address this issue only serves, in my opinion, to render you guilty.”
Again, silence reigned. I sensed that Nancy was giving my mother a ferocious earful.
“No, no, no! I said don’t you dare hang up on me again. And stop calling my son a liar . . . Yeah is that so? Then why did you ask Billy to feel your tits? Told him to not be afraid? That it was only natural for a young boy to want to touch them?”
I wished to God that I could hear Nancy’s side of the story.
“Don’t you understand,” my mom resumed, “that a boy Billy’s age doesn’t have the intellectual or emotional capacity to imagine something so perverted like this? Listen lady don’t talk back to me. Don’t you get it; your disgusting, inappropriate behavior may have scarred my son for the rest of his life?”
There was another uneasy hush. I wondered what was taking Rudy so long to find an extension cord. I wanted him to come back inside fast, and tell my mother to get off the phone.
“Yeah. Go ahead and hang up,” she raged on. “Nancy Sutcliffe, you’re a coward. A despicable human being. And regardless of what you say, what you deny, this isn’t over yet. You’ll be hearing from me again. And soon!”
This fiery resentment caused me to shudder. I did not understand how what Nancy and I had done could possibly scar me for the rest of my life?
Just then, I heard Rudy finally return. “Bridgette, we’re in luck, I found one. I actually had two extension cords in the truck, the other one was too short, so I brought this one in.”
My mom, who I speculated must have still been in the kitchen, did not say anything.
“Bridgette?”
No noise.
“Oh. There you are,” I heard Rudy say. “What are you doing?”
“Chopping vegetables.” All of a sudden, the racket of a knife began to go tap, tap, tap, like a woodpecker, on the cutting board.
“You’re chopping vegetables now, at ten o‘clock at night?”
“Yes,” my mother answered strangely.
“For what?”
“Tomorrow’s breakfast. I‘m cooking omelets.”
“Were you just on the phone?”
“I was.”
“Who were you talking to?”
“Her.” My mom’s voice sounded out of character. It wasn’t the bad lady speaking, her voice just sounded different. Sort of zombie-like, as if she were in a trance. I don’t know of any other way to explain it. I’m fairly certain that Rudy noticed the same thing I did.
“Bridgette, what did you think you would possibly resolve by calling that woman on the phone again?”
The knife slammed down hard against the cutting board. Whack! “Apparently nothing.”
“The way I see it,” Rudy says. “You either need to go to the police and press charges against this woman, or call the child abuse hotline and find out what they suggest you should do. Because other than that, I‘m just as confused as you are in terms of what can possibly be done here.”
“I‘m considering doing that,” my mother explained. “Although I‘m leaning more toward contacting the child abuse hotline.”
“You should. Do you want me to call information and get you the number?”
“Not yet. I’ll do that tomorrow. Let Billy sleep for now. Plus, I need time to calm down, to pull myself together. I‘m too drunk.”
“Drunk? How many drinks have you had?”
“I don’t remember. I lost count.”
“Babe, what were you drinking other than Jack Daniel’s?”
“Vodka.”
“Straight?”
“Yes. That’s what I started with.”
“I understand. Anyway Bridgette, what did the woman who drives the ice cream truck say this time?”
“It was the same scenario,” my mother explained irritably. “She flat-out denied everything.”
Rudy coughed, and hacked. Not surprising. He coughed and hacked all the time on account of his, two packs a day smoking habit. “It figures. What do you expect her to say? It’s not as if she would actually admit to doing anything.”
“Of course not.”
“Seriously Bridgette, even though I know it’s late and you said you’ve had a few drinks, I think you should notify the police. I mean, instead of waiting until tomorrow, notify them right now.”
“Why?” she says. “And waste my time? I told you, they‘d never believe a ten-year old. All the cops will do is tell me to keep my kid away from the filthy whore. Besides, if I press charges I‘m going to have to go down to the station and probably have to fill out a long report. I can‘t do that now, because even if you drove me down there, I still have Billy to worry about. Like I said, I want to let him sleep.”
“All right. Then go down to the cop station tomorrow.”
“I will. Even though I’m not confident at all that they’ll be able to do anything.”
The more I listened to the way my mom was talking, with such blatant pessimism, the more it became clear to me that she definitely must have had more to drink than just the one small glass of whiskey I had seen her sipping on the front porch.
“What about a lawyer?”
“Rudy, you watch too much stupid TV. Without proof, there’s nothing an attorney or the police could do. I don’t think I need to keep repeating that. That’s why I’m so infuriated.”
“Babe, do you want me to spend the night, keep you company?”
“You can stay if you want,” my mother said, while still chopping vegetables.
“Okay. I’ll stay,” Rudy tells her. “But remember I have to leave for work early in the morning.”
“What time?”
“I’m supposed to be at the garbage in between seven-thirty and eight. I have to repair and engine by noon.”
“Rudy thanks.”
“I love you honey muffin.”
“I love you too.”
They probably kissed and hugged. Yeah. I could picture it. My mother and Rudy were always doing that, always necking like love struck teenagers. I swear it was so corny. Then again, at least Rudy Knorr wasn’t a phony like some of the other men that my mom, over the years, had dated. I never liked any of those other guys. They never gave a damn about me either. Not at all. They were just like the father that I never knew, selfish. Yeah, that’s the word I‘m looking for, selfish. They only cared about themselves.
“As soon as we wake up I’ll make you your favorite omelet. Cheese, bacon, tomatoes, onion, and peppers.”
“Can’t wait.”
“So that extension cord you brought in is long enough?”
“Definitely. It’s at least fifty feet.”
Rudy returned to my room, hooked up the extension cord, turned the air conditioner on. The portable machine in my window, which droned softly, took a minute or so before it commenced to pump out cool refreshing air.
Although my mom and I, this evening, would not have to toss and turn in the abysmal heat, I heard her sigh for like the hundredth time, and from the corner of my eye, I detected her standing in the entryway with her arms crossed, shaking her head. Then I popped my other eye open and glimpsed at Rudy.
“Perfect,” he says, holding his rugged hands over the vent. “This air conditioner works as decent as the other one. It’s a little bit of an older model so I wasn’t sure if it would or not.”
“Great. Do you want me to mix you a drink?”
“What’d you have in mind?”
“Jack and Coke. That‘s what I‘m gonna have.”
“All right. But only one. Like I said, I have to be up early. And Bridgette, you should probably make that your last drink as well.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to mix this last drink in a bigger glass,” she offered sarcastically.
I was tremendously relieved that they had finally exited my room and had closed the door; I did not know how much longer I could possibly lay there without moving. My legs had started to cramp.
CHAPTER 12
Despite the fact that my mother and Rudy had gone back outside to the porch to enjoy their Jack and Cokes, and listen to the crickets, I had made up my mind that I was finished spying for the evening.
With the air conditioner now propelling refrigerated ventilation into my dark, quiet room, I thought I might be able to sleep for real. However, it did not take long for me to find out that I could not, at least not peacefully.
Here’s why.
While mesmerized by the continuous drone of the air conditioner, I floated into what I can only describe as the strangest nightmare I had ever had in my life. In the dream there were evil circus clowns laughing at me uncontrollably, calling me childish names like ’Naked Boy’, and ‘Suntan Lotion Kid’.
The clowns, there were four of them, had yanked off my shirt, shorts, underwear, and sneakers. This was a sick game to them. The clowns were harassing me to no end.
“Naked boy,” the one who seemed to be the head clown taunted. Since she, yes it was definitely a she, had no name, I’ll refer to her as Bozo. She looked like Bozo anyway, with the Chia Pet orange hair, the big red nose, the smirking red lips. The weird outfit with the colorful frilly thing around her neck and the fuzzy round buttons running down the front of the clown suit. The oversized rubber feet. “Be careful of the sun, you silly little thing, you don’t want to get burned. No. Especially when you have such nice young skin.”
“Give him the lotion,” another sinister clown mocked, while laughing so loud that it seemed to echo a hundred miles away. This particular clown was male and reminded me of the serial killer John Wayne Gacy. “That’s why we call, Billy, The Suntan Lotion Kid. Right?
Because he loves to rub it on.”
“Do you want to rub it on, Billy?”
The two clowns who had yet to speak burst into hysterics.
“You know he does.”
“C’mon Billy, Take the lotion and rub it on.”
“Get away from me,” I said, backing up.
“Oh no. Are you afraid?”
“Nah. The Suntan Lotion Kid isn’t afraid of anything,” the Gacy clown teases.
This was mad. Sheer madness.
I urgently wanted to put my clothes and shoes back on because, in this terrifying dream, I was out in public, in the middle of the street somewhere, in a suburb like Hampton, Ohio but not exactly. Overhead, the otherworldly sun, shun as bright as a spotlight, giving me nowhere to hide.
With one hand, I immediately tried to cover up my penis, and with my other hand, my nude caboose. I did this, as, with petrified eyes, I frantically searched the unidentified road for my clothing.
Suddenly I spotted them.
My clothes were lying on someone’s lawn, in a wrinkled heap, near a fire hydrant. With my hands still concealing my privates, I made a quick dash for them.
No dice! The clowns stopped me.
The giggling, red-nosed freaks had my garments now, and had formed a circle around me. They were playing keep away. Each time I would try to grab my shorts, shirt, and underwear, the menacing, grinning faces would toss my clothing up into the air; and my shorts, shirt, and underwear would fall into the awaiting hands of another ball-busting joker. These horrible clowns were unmistakably getting off on torturing me.
“Let me see your pee pee,” the female Bozo said, while standing directly in front of me. “Take your hand away, Billy. You can trust me. I want to see your pee pee. Please!”
“Go away!”
“Not until you show me what‘s behind your hand.”
Meanwhile, in this nightmare there were cars driving up and down the cartoon-like street, with motorists looking at me in shock, pointing their fingers, saying things like, “Hey kid, where on earth are your clothes?” or “For Christ sakes, young man, put your pants back on.”