The Bad Lady (Novel)

by Meany, John

  ***

  A year or so later, I would learn that that disturbing dream had no doubt been symbolic to me having been molested.

  The connection being, from a subconscious point of view, the Good Humor truck conveyed a circus vibe.

  You had, on the truck itself, the bright showy colors, the carnival-like music, and the fact that the Good Humor truck, for the most part, sold ice cream to mainly children, which one could easily associate with a circus, since children are their main fan base.

  For that reason, I had hallucinated seeing those clowns.

  Those hideous, menacing clowns.

  CHAPTER 13

  Early in the morning, at fifteen minutes to eight, I awoke in a freezing sweat, and my head felt woozy. The air conditioner made my room so chilly that I did not want to roll out of my warm blankets.

  When I opened my lethargic eyes, I was temporarily blinded by the dazzling sunlight streaming in the window, not the window with the air conditioner in it, the other window.

  As I sat up, casually pushing my covers away, I thought, in my mind, that I could still hear the evil circus clowns teasing me about the suntan lotion. Ha! Ha! Ha! Thankfully, when I looked down, I saw that I had my pajamas on.

  Of course, wanting to quickly escape the remnants of that creepy nightmare, I stood up, pushed my bedroom door open, and then stepped into the hallway.

  I knew my mother must have already cooked breakfast, I could smell eggs and bacon. My hungry stomach instantly growled. Eggs, bacon, omelet’s, whatever, that was much better than what I normally ate, cold cereal. Cheerios or Raisin Bran.

  I slithered into the kitchen, expecting my mom and Rudy to be sitting at the table eating, and sipping hot, freshly brewed coffee, but they were not there.

  I inspected the sink and right away noticed their dirty dishes, the plates stained with tiny scraps of egg and leftover pieces of buttered toast. On the stove, in a nonstick frying pan, there was another omelet, which I assumed must have been for me. The spatula lay beside the pan on the counter.

  After opening the refrigerator and chugging a big mouthful of Tropicana orange juice straight from the container, I wandered over to the front door and glanced outside. There they were, my mother and Rudy, parked on the porch once more, just like they had been the night before, chatting.

  Wanting to say good morning before Rudy left for work (he already had his mechanic’s outfit on), I was about to step out there when I overheard, yet again, that they were discussing me and Nancy.

  “I told you,” my mom was saying, “I made Billy brush his teeth until his gums bled. I don’t know what I’ll do if he catches a sexually transmitted disease. Who knows what kind of lewd individuals that slut has been with?” My mother had her robe on. Underneath her eyes there were black circles; I doubt she had slept at all. She greedily gulped her cup of hot coffee.

  “Bridgette, I wouldn’t worry about that. The odds of your son catching a disease due to that are probably slim to none.”

  “Hah!” She scoffed, raising an eyebrow. “That Good Humor whore had Billy perform oral sex on her; he could catch something from doing that? I swear Rudy, I am so livid, I don‘t even know what to do with my thoughts. In fact, to be honest with you, I feel like I might have a nervous breakdown.”

  In the future when I would flash back to this moment, I would think, ‘why didn’t my mom, if she had been so worried that I might catch a sexually transmitted disease, take me to the hospital to have me checked out‘? They could have done a blood test. Why she chose not to do that I might never know.

  Perhaps it had simply come down to she had been far too upset, and not in her right mind, to take what many other parents might have likely considered the only logical course of action.

  “I understand,” Rudy tells her. “Any rational parent would feel the same way.”

  “I love my son. Billy is all I have.”

  “What about me?”

  “You know what I mean. Maybe it’ll work out between us, Rudy, and maybe it won’t. But Billy will always be a part of my life.” My mom gazed at the front yard. A few squirrels searched the grass for seeds or nuts. The leaves of the trees rustled lightly in the balmy morning breeze. Birds sung blissful songs. Up the sunny road, somewhere a motorcycle could be heard. The engine revved. Then the roar faded as the bike took off toward the main highway. “Sinners. They’re everywhere. You can’t raise a child in this world without exposing that kid to sinners. They’re in every neighborhood. On every street corner.”

  I was sick and tired of hearing my mother talk like that. If she wasn’t overusing the word ‘filthy’ she was overusing the word ‘sinner’ or ‘sinners‘, whatever. In fact, at that instant I suspected that it might have been the bad lady speaking. That’s right. I think the bad lady, at this particular moment, might have taken over my mom’s mind. Pushed her normal personality aside.

  “Hey, c’mon now, Bridgette,” Rudy says. “Where’s the woman I fell in love with?” He tried to kiss her on the mouth. My mother hastily turned her head, supplying me with further proof that it had to be the bad lady. The bad lady did not like to be kissed. “Babe, I wish I could comfort you more. I really do. It’s just that this situation is like snow in the summertime, it totally boggles the mind.”

  “Well, at least I appreciate you giving me a shoulder to cry on,” she said with her jaw now firmly clinched, just in case he tried to plant another sympathetic smooch on her lips.

  “Bridgette, are you gonna be okay today?”

  She nodded. “Yes. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I am worried about you.”

  “Don’t be. Just go to the garage and repair that engine, or whatever it is you said that you had to do.”

  Rudy stood up and stared at her long and hard. A smidgen of gray showed in the stubble on his face. “I could always call out sick?”

  “No. Go to work.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive. I‘ve decided that I need to be alone for a while. As you know, there‘s a lot of things I need to think about.”

  “Well, maybe after you call the child abuse hotline,” he suggested, “and drive down to the police station to press charges against Nancy Sutcliffe, you should go back to bed for a couple more hours.” Rudy also had coffee. He tossed down one last speedy mouthful and then set the mug down on the porch.

  “I might do that.”

  “You should Bridgette. You’re exhausted. I’ll get a hold of you on my lunch break, at about noon.” He hurried down the driveway to his truck.

  “Okay.”

  “I love you,” Rudy hollered devotedly from the window on the driver‘s side. “See ya, honey muffin.”

  Scowling, the bad lady said nothing in response to that. Why should she? She did not like to show love. And, if I had to speculate, she probably also despised being called ‘honey muffin’.

  CHAPTER 14

  I rushed back to the kitchen. I timed it so that when my mom entered the setting, it would seem as if I had walked in the kitchen at the same moment.

  “Good morning, Billy,” my mother says, heading over to the gas stove.

  “Good morning.” I rubbed my eyes. I wanted her to think that I had just climbed out of bed. I always rubbed my eyes when I first woke up. I suppose it was a kid thing.

  My mother put her and Rudy‘s empty coffee cups in the sink. “So,” she says, “what do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “The air conditioner.”

  “Oh.” I nodded my head and smiled. “I’m happy. Where’d you get that?”

  “Rudy brought it over. There’s an air conditioner in my room too.”

  “Is he the one who put that in my window?” I asked, as I sat down at the table. The legs of the chair screeched against the recently waxed tile floor. “Or did you do it?”

  “Rudy put it in. Last night. I’m surprised we didn’t wake you.”

>   “Me too. I didn’t hear a thing. I must have been pretty tired.” I was comforted to see that my mom had returned. Evidently, the bad lady had gone back into seclusion. Nevertheless, I still had to be on the look out; she could return at any given minute.

  What I had tried to explain to you before was, sometimes, (and yes, I am repeating myself so that you definitely comprehend the situation here) when my mom and the bad lady spoke, they would be two different people, whereas at other times, the bad lady would take over my mom’s personality completely. If that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry; just think how I felt. I’m no psychiatric consultant; therefore, I do not know how to portray the psychological condition in technical terms.

  “Are you hungry?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I’m starved.”

  “I made you an omelet.”

  “Wow! Neat. So I don‘t have to eat cereal?”

  “No. Not today. Aren‘t you lucky.” My mother made an effort to smile, yet failed miserably. She used the spatula to scrape the omelet out of the frying pan. I sat and watched. The omelet came out of the pan without breaking. My mom put my breakfast on a clean plate and, with the salt and peppershaker, carried the meal over to the table and set it down in front of me.

  “What kind of omelet is this?” I asked, picking up my fork. It smelled fantastic.

  “Bacon and cheese.”

  That was good. Unlike her and Rudy, I did not like vegetables. At least not in omelets.

  “Did you turn your air conditioner off?” she wanted to know, handing me a napkin.

  “No. I didn’t know how to turn it off.”

  She went into my room and returned a short moment later.

  “Well, it’s off now,” my mom uttered breezily. “I only want the air conditioner on when you’re in the room. We don’t need the electric bill to go through the roof . . . Do you want some toast?”

  “Okay.”

  “One piece or two?”

  “One.”

  About two weeks ago, Rudy had come over with a new toaster. We got a lot of use out of it. I admit, that was another positive thing about him, Rudy wasn‘t stingy whatsoever with his money, and being a basic auto mechanic, he didn‘t have much.

  The last person my mother had dated, someone named Eric Foster, had been the exact opposite. A penny-pinching white-collar corporate type (I think the huge company Eric worked for, which had buildings in Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York, among others, dealt with stocks or something); he always had a fat pocketful of cash. Yet Eric Foster hardly ever bought my mom or me anything. Only once did I see that cheapskate buy my mother flowers or chocolate, let alone a toaster or jewelry. I was glad Eric Foster did not try to become my new daddy. I couldn’t stand that guy.

  Anyway, as I continued to eat my bacon and cheese omelet, I observed my mom grab a loaf of Wonder bread from off of the counter. She undid the plastic bag and then dropped the slice I had requested into the toaster.

  I was praying that she wouldn’t bring up Nancy again. It seemed like she wanted to, but was trying hard not to. Whatever was going on with her, I could tell my mother had a lot on her mind; she seemed to be distracted. Lost in thought.

  “Mom, can I have some orange juice?”

  “It depends on how much we have left,” she replied, opening the fridge. “Tomorrow or the next day we have to go grocery shopping.” She removed the carton.

  “Is there any left?” I knew there was, having drank a mouthful of juice when I had first woke up.

  “Sure, you’re in luck. There’s plenty left.” She poured me a glass. “What do you want on your toast, butter or jelly?”

  “Jelly.”

  “Grape, strawberry?”

  “Grape.”

  She appeared to be somewhat displeased when I abandoned the main course and started to gobble down the toast.

  “What’s the matter?” my mother asked, putting the jar of Smuckers back inside the refrigerator. “Don’t you want the rest of your omelet?”

  “Yeah. I’m gonna eat it.” Why wouldn’t I? The omelet tasted great.

  “Billy, I specifically gave you the toast so that you could eat that after you’re done with your eggs.” Why would I have to wait until after I finished the omelet? Wasn’t the toast part of breakfast?

  “Give me that!” With a fast, impulsive hand, she snatched what was left of the jelly treat from my mouth, and put the half-chewed piece of toast on a separate dish. That made me uneasy. Her ripping the toast from my lips like that, created a tsunami of tension.

  Nevertheless, just then, the mood changed quickly, when the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  A few seconds elapsed off the clock. “Who is it?” I question.

  “I don’t know.” Frowning, my mother gazed skeptically at the receiver. “Hello.”

  “They’re not saying anything?”

  “No. All I hear is the sound of someone breathing . . . Is there anyone there?”

  More seconds ticked by.

  “They’re still not saying anything?”

  “Nope.” Confused and agitated, she hung up.

  True to form, I couldn’t help but speculate whether or not that might have been Nancy. I was thinking that maybe she might have wanted to set things right. That perhaps, last night, like my mom, she had done a lot of thinking. Who knows, maybe Nancy had gotten drunk as well. If she did, it wouldn’t surprise me. In many movies, it often seemed to me that adults with serious problems to contend with liked to hit the bottle and chain-smoke cigarettes.

  “Whoever it was,” my mother explained, “they blocked there number. Nothing came up on caller I.D.”

  “Maybe it was Rudy.”

  “No. Rudy wouldn’t block his number. It was a crank call.”

  “Oh.” I could tell that she too suspected that it might have been Nancy. The distrustful glare in her eyes made that apparent.

  On the counter, beside the toaster that Rudy had bought us, there was a Sony boom box. My mom clicked it on. Right away, we heard the local weatherman say that it would be another hot day in Ohio, sunny, that sweaty heat again. On days like this, I wished we had a swimming pool. I was thankful that we now had the air conditioners, yet a dunk in a pool would have been heaven.

  “No way, it’s gonna be ninety degrees this afternoon again,” my mom grumbles, using a placemat to fan herself. “When on earth is it going to rain to get rid of some of this oppressive humidity?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, sipping my orange juice.

  She began to polish the counter with a wet sponge. “It hasn’t rained in almost two damn weeks. You see the grass out front. It’s turning brown.” That was definitely true. The lawn, due to the dry, desert-like weather of late, had in certain sections, become as bronzed as hay.

  “Do you want me to turn the sprinkler on?”

  “No. We’re not allowed to use the water today. Town restriction.”

  “Oh.”

  All of a sudden, from outside, I heard a piercing meow. I knew what it was. A bunch of stray cats often wandered up and down the street, sneaking through people‘s smelly garbage cans. A few of the cats were kittens. Earlier in the week, I had asked my mother if I could please take one in; give the kitten a home. As of yet, she had not given me a definitive ’yes or no’ answer. She had informed me that she would have to think about it.

  To try to get her mind off Nancy; I figured I would bring this up now.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked, putting an abrupt note of happiness in my voice.

  “Hear what?” She turned the radio down. The weather report had given way to Fleetwood Mac‘s classic hit song, Dreams.

  “It’s those kittens,” I said, “that keep coming up to the porch, looking for food.” For days, I had been feeding the kittens Bumble Bee tuna and tiny scraps of ham and salami, meant for sandwiches.

  “What about them?” my mom asked. “The kitt
ens are outside now?”

  “I’m pretty sure they are.” I got up and peeked out the screen door. “Yup. There’s two of them out there. Can I give them some milk?”

  “Okay.” She opened the cabinet and found a bowl. “But first, Billy, finish your breakfast. And I don’t want you near the street. You hear me?” Of course, she feared that the Good Humor truck might drive past. “You stay in the yard.”

  “I will.” When I was through with my omelet, toast, and juice, I took the bowl of milk out to the porch. The two kittens, one was black and the other was ginger with stripes like a tiger, purred cutely and then chafed lovingly against my ankles.

  “Billy, I’m not kidding around,” my mother warned again, now staring at me as I put the dish down on the cement. “I don’t even want to see you near the end of the driveway. In fact, I don’t even want you to leave the porch.”

  I shook my head and frowned; as I watched, the kittens dip their miniature heads into the basin, and bravely begin to lap up the cold nourishment. I emphasize bravely because I think the cats sensed my mother’s agitation. “Mom, Nancy Sutcliffe doesn’t even work today,” I made known, wishing she would stop being so strict.

  “She doesn’t?” My mom came outside, put her hands on her hips. “How do you know that?”

  “Cause she told me.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said that she won’t be back to driving the ice cream truck until tomorrow. Nancy was gonna pick me up.” Suddenly it dawned on me that that was an utterly stupid thing to say. At that moment, if my foot could fit in my mouth I would have shoved it in.

  Right away, my mom’s relatively calm disposition went into a turbulent tailspin. “She really said that, huh, that she would pick you up?”

  I hesitated.

  “I’m talking to you, Billy; I asked if that was what she really said, that she would pick you up today?”

  “Yes,” I responded fearfully.

  “Nancy Sutcliffe specifically said that she was going to pick you up here tomorrow, at the house?”