Her stare was level. The Valerie I knew was back. “It is so not like that between us, Jerry.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I mean, what the hell were brothers for, right?
The biggest change for the better, during the spring of 1987, was within Elijah. He became the little boy he was supposed to have been. Not the borderline neurotic Lenny had nearly pushed him into being. His play became less intense, involving less conflict. It seemed to be more about fun, than an expression of the wear and tear of his environment. He smiled more, talked all the time, asked questions incessantly as his big brain began to show its’ true potential.
We embraced it – all of us, even Myra – rather than endured it. Seeing Eli blossom was more important than anything we could imagine. So, we encouraged him, egged him on, and answered every question dutifully and to the best of our ability. There was no way we were going to blunt what Lenny had purposefully tried to retard over the years. No way.
I often saw him off in the distance, messing around with this, that and the other thing. I could see his lips moving. Sometimes it appeared as though he was talking to himself. At other times, it didn’t. It was like he was having a calm, but meaningful conversation with someone who wasn’t there. It was puzzling, but his demeanor was so relaxed it was like he was speaking to my mother or one of my many aunts, so it didn’t cause alarm other than a characteristic of marginal note I filed somewhere in the murky depths of my brain. He seemed fine to me.
When I asked Myra about it, she said it was normal for kids his age to have an imaginary friend. She’d been filing her immaculate fingernails, her legs crossed, thighs bared by a mini-skirt that was just a little too high.
But, hey, who was complaining? Me? Hell no!
“Did you have one?” I had asked, thinking she was blowing off the subject as unimportant.
She never skipped a beat. “Yeah, but I killed her…” She never even stopped the back and forth motion of her hand as she formed the nail of the other.
“Why?” I inquired through an outburst of laughter.
“She started hitting on my boyfriends.” There was a twinkle in her eye.
I took her in my arms and forgot what I’d been talking about.
My mother, like the rest of us, seemed to go from Cloud-9 to the Pearly Gates themselves. With Lenny gone, she began to have the house fixed-up with gusto. She completely threw herself into the renovations. By April, she was putting in as much work as some of the contractors, working forty to fifty hours a weeks, right alongside the very men she’d hired to do the work for her. But, that was her to a tee. She wanted to make sure everything was perfect and she wanted to be involved every step of the way. This was her house, this was her baby. She was going to rebuild Her (we’d been calling the house a “she” for some time now) exactly the way she wanted.
First to be upgraded was the kitchen. It got new appliances, new tile on the floor and all the cabinetry was refurbished. The paint on them was painstakingly peeled off and the wood beneath was brought to a full shine beneath layers of stain and shellac. It came out wonderful. The hard wood finished went perfect with the rest of the house.
Following the kitchen, she had the front porch and the street-facing foundation replaced, because it was literally falling apart underneath our feet.
Once that task was accomplished, she had the roof replaced – entirely, all the way down to the support beams.
Next, all the existing carpeting on the first floor was pulled up and the hard wood floors below redone like she’d had done in the kitchen. Then the downstairs bathroom was entirely upgraded – new fixturing and plumbing was installed, and a smaller version of the kitchen tile was set into the floor.
Simultaneously, she had the sunroom sectioned entirely off of the master suite by adding thick, opaque glass bricks atop the partition-wall that had separated the two areas. It had been waist-high, so one could see into from space from the other. She had effectively made one sectionalized chamber into two, which was nice. When the setting rays of the sun filtered through the glass bricks, the effect within the master bedroom was magnificent. It was like being in the crystal cave straight out of Arthurian Legend. The streams of light, the refracted photons, bounced and played across the surfaces with every step. From each vantage, the room was illuminated differently. My mother’s eye for detail was amazing.
She had the deck resurfaced, then immediately thereafter, had all the wood in the front room stripped and stained, restored to their original state.
The grounds of the property weren’t left undisturbed either. She had new carpeting and paint for the back house, reinforced the walls of the root cellar and had all of the structures painted and weather-coated.
The week the painters finished was the same week the last of the landscaping was completed as well. Julio and his colleagues had done a magnificent job. The front yard, though neat and orderly, didn’t look like it had been manicured beyond trimming here and there. It was part of the illusion my mother had been striving for all along. She wanted the yard to be terraced, have the ability to drain without the loss of much needed topsoil, and still be appealing. Most of the retaining walls blended into the curve of the hill itself, so their impact upon the eye was minimal. She and Julio, and the rest of the landscapers, had worked tirelessly to make it seem as though a given plant had sprouted in place, though its’ placement had nothing to do with the randomness of nature. It just appeared to look that way.
It was a masterful job.
I’d been sitting with Elijah, admiring her work, on the pair of steps leading up to the patio directly beneath the kitchen windows. He had come to sit with me after I’d said good-bye to Myra with a long, languorous kiss. It was the 7th of June. My girlfriend and I had just two weeks left of school and then we’d be thrown to the wolves of the world.
In reality, things weren’t as dramatic as that. We were both going to go to college in Arizona for the fall semester. It was to be the beginning of our “master plan” together, the one taking us from high school to college to career to marriage to family and beyond.
I recall I’d been mulling over my future, wearing no more than shorts, a tank and flip-flops – all royal blue. The day had been warm. I’d been wondering what things would be like being with Myra without the proximity of parents. We’d both be living on campus our freshman year, but we had plans to move in together and live off-campus for the remainder of our college years. I kept running the scenario through my head. What would be like to have her overnight, every night? What would it be like not to have a curfew? What would it be like to be on our own? Would it be fun the first time we bought groceries together, did our laundry in the Laundromat without the guidance of our mothers or had to clean our apartment? Sure, all of it wasn’t going to happen for some time, but still the idea of getting my life started was intriguing, and I found I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Little Elijah had come up and plopped himself next to me in his faded overalls, shirtless against the heat of the day and a pair of Velcro sneakers on his feet. He was bubbling with nervous energy.
I could tell he wanted to ask a question. “What’s up, little man?”
“Are you happy Dad’s going to be here in a week?”
Thoughts of the past intervened with my musings of the days–to-come. “At one time, Eli, him coming home was a happy time. For me, at least,” I remedied, reconciling the truth with what I recalled when I was his age. “Not sure about mom or Valerie. They’ve had it harder when it comes to him.”
He swallowed it like he would his cough medicine. He knew it was good for him. It was just a little hard to relax and let it slide down his throat. “Why is he so mean?” His voice was hoarse.
Inside, I wanted to curse and scream at the reality of what our father was truly. I wanted to explain to Elijah how sick and perverted he was, how abnormal was his frame of mind. I wanted to explain it to him more than anything else. Yet, as I sat there looking down at my little broth
er, my eyes darting over his broad, young face, none of it seemed all that important. The need to protect Eli outweighed anything Lenny had ever done to me a hundredfold. Just him being there, asking questions made our father irrelevant.
“Some people are made different than others, little man,” I started, squinting down at him through the near-summer heat of the day. “Len-, I mean, Dad, is one such person.”
He turned his head to the side, one eyes shutting as he contemplated what I’d said.
“He probably doesn’t think he’s being mean. He probably thinks he’s helping, though in reality he’s hurting everyone around him.” It felt like a lie passing over my tongue, but it was the simplest way I could describe it to Elijah. I wanted him to understand, with life, there are always two sides to every story. Though my mind was telling me my father’s “side” was too pathetic to mention, my heart was saying otherwise. How was Elijah going to grow up a healthy adult if I (we) didn’t raise him properly?
But, Jesus Christ, Lenny soooo did not deserve the benefit of the doubt!
“Really?” The concept was hard for him to digest.
“Yeah, really.”
“He’s that stupid?”
I had to laugh. Sometimes I felt my baby brother was smarter than the lot of us put together. His ability to cut through the bullshit was uncanny.
He was grinning too, but he didn’t let it develop to the next step. “Sometimes, I wish he would stay away forever.”
His voice was shaky. The truth of what he felt deep in his heart was difficult to convey devoid of emotion. Elijah was a good kid. I could tell an admonition such as this was wearing on him. He said it almost as if he were confessing, as if it was something he had to get off his conscience.
“You’re not the only one.”
We stayed silent for a while, watching the thousands of shades of green, yellow and brown cavort in the light breeze.
Though I was counting the days to the beginning of my life, there was another side of me that was deathly scared. I tried not to think about it or the guilt I felt every time the notion took root. I wanted to be free of Lenny more than anything, and yet, if I left, who would protect Eli? Sure, my mother would do whatever it took to keep him safe, but if Lenny ever came after Elijah with the intent to hurt him bad, who could stop him? He’d already threatened to do just that those months before when I discovered he liked more than just women.
I could hear the words as clear as a bell.
“Remember, asshole, I don’t have to hurt you in order to hurt you.”
I knew what he was talking about. I know who he was threatening.
If he wanted to hurt us all, bad, simultaneously, all he had to do was get a hold of Elijah. I wanted so much to be excited over the coming months. I wanted to revel in my upcoming freedom. I wanted to lose myself with thoughts of Myra and me alone, night after night. But, the dread had other plans for me. Those joyous thoughts turned ambiguous. I couldn’t keep a grip on them. They scurried away like so many roaches. Only disquiet remained – heavy, burdensome foreboding that wouldn’t go away.
Yeah, the sonofabitch was that kind of coward.
~~~~~~~<<< ᴥ >>>~~~~~~~
Chapter Twelve: Graduation Present
On the evening of June 25th, 1987, nine days after his return from Canada, Lenny stood up in front of both sides of the family and all of our friends, and announced he had put the house on Lincoln Drive up for sale.
“…So, if any of you are interested, feel free to walk around, check out the place. Our architect has done a wonderful job of restoring the place. Lord knows, it sure cost enough!” He paused to laugh at what no one had interpreted as a joke. Maybe it was an accounting thing. He peered about, his eyes bleary. “Anyway! If any of you like what our hired help has accomplished here, please come over and get me. Maybe we can talk business.” He’d uttered these few semi-drunken sentences standing atop the built-in, wood-bench at the far end of the living room. His expensive loafers were digging into the soft cushions my mother had placed there for sitting.
I couldn’t help but frown at the thought he might be ruining them, feeling my ire rise at more than just his uncouth proclamation.
It was during the height of my graduation party, forty minutes or so after we’d all eaten. It was supposed to have been the time for speeches before Myra and I left for the all-night party our friends were throwing, but Lenny had turned it into something else. He had an uncanny ability to make those of sternest disposition feel uncomfortable.
There was an awkward silence at first. The end of this was punctuated by a muffled screech from Elijah. He quickly covered his mouth, tears streaming from his eyes and sprinted through the front door and onto the porch. It was obvious to me the thought of leaving our new home was mortifying to him. He’d grown to love the house as much as my mom. It was precious to him, a part of him like an arm or a leg. He could live without it. He’d be crippled for life.
My mother’s glare at Lenny was enough to tell me he hadn’t consulted with her regarding the sale of the house either. I watched her, and so did some of the members of our family. The unadulterated hatred in her gaze made a few of my aunts and cousins gasp for breath. She hadn’t been the sort of person to express such raw emotion in public. Her usual method was to clam-up, take what was being doled-out with a glassy smile that was as transparent as tissue paper. To see unbridled fury was on par with her stripping down and running around naked. It was unimaginable. Pillar was suddenly defiant, angry? Since when had she grown a backbone?
I felt a tab bit miffed at the shocked casts of their faces, though I know, on some level, they were justified. Lenny had bullied and brow-beat my mother for so many years, we were all used to seeing her act in a specific manner. Maybe we even expected it now. I knew this intrinsically. I did, and yet… to witness abject surprise at her furious reaction was aggravating.
Of course, none of them had been privy to her dramatic changes over the past year. Not a single one of them had watched as she flowered anew, got realigned with the person she’d been before she’d met Lenny. They hadn’t seen her personality burst forth, her enthusiasm for life return or her determination take seed and flourish.
I had seen it. Valerie had seen it, and so had Eli.
I know, as I gaze back and try to make heads or tails of the new and improved nature of my mother, they would never understand – not truly. You had to be a Favor to appreciate the enormity of the metamorphosis of my beloved mother. To any outsider, it would seem unnatural, against the laws of physics, something quantum, pushing the very edge of human understanding.
I understood. I got it. It still didn’t stop the fact I felt more than a little defensive of her on the night I graduated.
To add insult to injury, Roxanna was standing next to him, though she hadn’t stepped up onto the wood-bench as he had. Rather, she was beaming, glancing about, muttering over the beauty of the house. “It’s a great investment,” she kept saying over and over.
I wanted to walk up to her and pop her right in her surgically augmented nose. I wanted to flatten the goddamned thing against her cheek. I didn’t care if she was Lenny’s Administrative Assistant or not. To me, she was his master and he was her slave. It was the only way I could see them. She in a G-string, tits hanging out and him bent over ready to… Oh! How I wished those images would leave me be!
Instead, my other grandmother, a strong woman with a no-nonsense attitude and sensible shoes, who was Lenny’s step-mother to be exact, strode to stand before him. She began to talk of how proud she was to have a grandson who’d earned his high school diploma.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t had other grandchildren who’d accomplished the same thing. It was merely her way of telling Lenny to get off the bench and shut the hell up. This was a graduation party, not an Open House.
It worked.
A tart look from the corner of her eye and a wave of dismissal, and he stepped down from the wood bench, holding out his hand so Rox
anna could steady him as he did so. He looked like some debutante coming down off-stage. His movements were too graceful, not very manly at all.
I remember cringing at the sight of them. They were gross to watch, playing at professional colleagues, while alone they did such kinky shit. What made it worse was their roles were reversed. He was the woman and she was the man. Back then, I wasn’t comfortable with witnessing the varying sorts of relationships that might’ve existed in the world beyond my own personal experience. It was as unsettling as it was confusing for me, not to mention nauseating every time my perverse mind rehashed his near corn-holing upon my mother’s bed.
I looked away and instead focused on my grandmother. She was something I could count on. She was like my mother in that department, as solid as a rock. Her hard, worn face had smoothed and warmed as she recanted her joy at having yet another graduate in the fold of the family.
The tension broke and the party resumed as it should’ve, though I did see a knot of auntie’s form around my mom almost immediately. My mother’s open displeasure at her husband’s announcement had emboldened them it appeared. I could tell from their jerking gestures and resigned shakes of their heads, they hadn’t agreed with selling the property any more than my mother did.
I was annoyed as well, and it wasn’t just because the idiot had marred what should’ve been a celebration and not some ploy to hurt my mother. Because, when you added things up, that’s what it was. That’s why Lenny had invited Roxanna. That’s why he’d paraded her around in front of me friends, my cousins, my uncles and aunts, and my grandparents. It was his misguided way of proving how inconsequential she was, of how little she mattered to him. Maybe he sensed some of the change in her as well. It could’ve been he saw himself losing that tiny portion of absolute control over her and felt it was time to show her, her proper place.
I wouldn’t have put it passed him. He could be so childishly vindictive when he wanted to be. He could’ve constructed the entire scenario just to send her a message. Hey, Pillar, don’t get a big head. I’m watching you and I’m still in charge. Don’t you see? I can bring my slut-hoe wherever I want. I can show her off to your family. Hell, I can even sell this fucking house from right under you, and there’s not a god damned thing you can do about it, you stupid bitch!
The Birth of Bane Page 13