Hurt People

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Hurt People Page 14

by Cote Smith


  “No. We’re not going to call your dad every time we have a problem. We can’t do that. That’s the old story.” She stepped away from the van and shook her head. She looked up at the sky again, checking the weather, maybe, or waiting for an answer.

  “What are we going to do?” my mother said. “What are we going to do?” She stared at the clouds some more, as the wild wind stirred them in the sky. She stared for so long that I began to feel scared. It was like she wasn’t there anymore, like it was just me with the van. No dad or brother to help.

  “Mom,” I said, but she didn’t move. I called to her several more times, my voice growing louder. I tapped her on the hip. “Mom.”

  She slowly turned her face to me, and it took a second for her eyes to follow. “Yes?” she said.

  I stared up at her until she snapped out of it.

  “Yes. Yes, OK.” She put her hand on my shoulder and looked around her, as though seeing it all for the first time. “OK, here’s the plan. What does that street sign say? Run over and see.”

  I did as she told, though I couldn’t see the sign until there was a flash of lightning.

  “It says Pennsylvania. The other one says Tenth.”

  “Good,” my mother said. “OK. Here’s what we’re going to do.” She looked around, as if still unsure. “We’re going to walk. That’s it. That’s just what we have to do.”

  “To our house?”

  “No,” she said. “That’s too far. We’ll have to get help from someone else. Are you ready? Here, take my hand. It’s a bit of a hike, but we’ll move fast. And we’ll stick together, OK? Got it?”

  Before I could reply she slung her purse over her shoulder and pulled me along. As we made our way down the road, I kept looking back. At where we were. Where we had been. Behind us, the van grew smaller the more we left it behind, and after walking a few blocks, it started to rain. A drizzle at first, one we told ourselves we could tolerate. But soon the clouds opened up, pouring all they had, not to be ignored. My mother put her purse over my head and told me not to worry, that it would be all right.

  “Is it a tornado?” I yelled. I could barely hear myself over the rain.

  “No,” my mother said. “I don’t know. But let’s hurry.” She squeezed my hand and began to run, dragging me as best she could, our soaked shoes slapping the sidewalk. But as we picked up our pace, so did the rain. The drops grew fatter, faster, and after another block the only thing I could see was my mother’s arm, tugging me forward, stretching farther and farther away as I tried to keep up. She shouted for me to come on, that we were almost there. I shut my eyes and pretended she was my brother. That we were back at the golf course, where it was dry and familiar, and we were ready to have an adventure.

  When we came to a corner, my mother’s hand slipped from mine. She had turned so quickly, and when I reached out for her again, she wasn’t there. Just darkness and rain. I listened for her footsteps. Heard nothing. I called her name but the only sound that came back was the rain lapping my ear. I looked down at my clothes, drenched, painted on my body, and thought of the lake. I rubbed the water out of my eyes, and when I opened them again, a pale hand appeared out of the darkness. One of the lake people, I thought, come to claim me as their own.

  “Hey,” my mother said. “There you are. Come on, I think I found it.”

  She put her arm around me and we turned again, this time onto a narrow, flooded sidewalk. We passed through a gate that opened and closed with the wind and came upon a house. I could only see its outline at first, but as we approached the porch step, a motion light shot on, spotlighting my mother and me, and the square old home in front of us.

  We got out of the rain and shivered under the porch, the wood of which was warped and pocked with holes. Under the front window were two lawn chairs, and under the chairs a few empty bottles of beer, a soggy pack of cigarettes. My mother rang the doorbell. From inside, a dog barked.

  The door opened and a big dog came wagging at me. Sandy yelled at it to get back in. Then she saw us. “Holy cow,” she said. “Aggie.”

  “I’m sorry,” my mother said. She pushed me in front of her and Sandy gasped again.

  “Mother Mary. Well, get on in here.”

  * * *

  Sandy had just made it home from work and was still in her cook clothes. Inside, the house was warm, but in our wet clothes it felt like we had just stepped out of the pool. Sandy showed us to the kitchen, disappeared to fetch some towels for me, a change of clothes for my mother. Her dog stayed behind, licking the rain off me, sniffing me with its cold nose. It was a long-haired mutt with a muddy snout, and it panted happily as I petted it.

  “Sorry I don’t have any clothes your size,” Sandy said to me when she returned. My mother changed in the bathroom and came back looking funny in Sandy’s sweats, which only went down to my mother’s shins. The T-shirt she wore looked more like a cut-off tank top. “You either,” Sandy said.

  The two of them sat at down at the kitchen table, a long oval unlike our small square. I wrapped myself in the towels and stayed on the floor, next to the dog.

  “That’s Steamboat,” Sandy said. “He used to have a brother, Tugboat. Are you a dog person?” she asked me.

  “He is,” my mother said. “I’m allergic. So, if I start sneezing and crying…”

  I didn’t know that about my mother. I didn’t remember her sneezing around Baron, though I didn’t remember her petting him a lot either. Especially near the end.

  I scratched Steamboat between his ears and he liked it.

  “Look at that,” Sandy said. “You’ve got a new friend.” She got up from the table and took two glasses from the cupboard, set them in front of my mother. “You must be thirsty from your jog.”

  “A glass of water would be nice,” my mother said, itching her nose.

  “Yes, but would a glass of wine be even better?” Sandy opened the fridge and pulled out a box of wine left over from the party and poured two dark glasses. “There we go, something for our troubles.” She sat back down and she and my mother each took a sip. “And for my soaked sailor, there are sodas in the garage. Right through there. Fridge is by the door.”

  I looked at my mother. Go on, she said, and started talking to Sandy about the van, what all we’d been through.

  I had to go through the laundry room to get to the garage. A single bulb lit the entire room, which was packed with stacked boxes of junk. It looked like Sandy had just moved in, or she was getting ready to go somewhere. Except the boxes were worn, caving in on one another. I checked one with the hope of finding something rare, something I could borrow from Sandy if she wouldn’t mind, and use to win back my brother if the Stranger article didn’t do it. I found a photo of Sandy and a man who wasn’t Cornbread. This man was white and wore a large hat that shadowed his face. Sandy was not wearing a hat. Her face was clear, and she looked much younger in the picture than she did now. Her cheeks were smooth, her hair long and with no touches of gray.

  I put the picture back and rummaged some more. There were more pictures of the man, of Sandy. In one photo Sandy was at a Halloween party, dressed in all yellow with a large hat that matched. In Sandy’s arms was a crying baby dressed as a monkey, who seemed upset that someone had taken away its pacifier and given it a toy banana. Sandy’s lips were pouted like she wanted to kiss the baby, or maybe she was shooshing it to be quiet. At the bottom of the box there was nothing but empty picture frames, a dusty rattle.

  Steamboat met me at the door when I came back in. My mother’s wineglass was almost empty, and Sandy’s drink had gone from purple to clear.

  “I know he’s trying real hard,” my mother said.

  Sandy nodded. “And it doesn’t bother you? What they say in the papers?”

  My mother picked up her glass. “No, it doesn’t,” she said. “The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.”

  Another one of her sayings. She once told me the same thing when I complained about my brother’s name-calling.
There are always going to be mean people out there, people with bad hearts who mean you no good. I’m not saying your brother is one of them, but don’t let what they say bother you. The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.

  But whenever she said that to me, all I could think about was the dogs being left behind.

  “That’s good,” Sandy said. She poured my mother a refill from the box.

  “I mean, I know it’s the city’s reputation, blah blah blah. But when it comes to that stuff, he always seems to come through.” She stared into her glass of wine, as if it were a crystal ball and something would soon be revealed.

  My mother sniffled, wiped her eyes.

  “You know, it’s funny. When I first moved here, I read about how Kansas was the worst allergy state in the country, made people absolutely miserable. But I never had a problem, not until we got that dog.” Steamboat tilted his head, as if he knew my mother was talking about his kind.

  “Well, don’t worry, he’ll catch him,” Sandy said. “Sometimes it takes a day, sometimes longer, but they always catch them.” My mother nodded. There were a few seconds of silence as Sandy held her glass in the air, suspended in thought. Finally she said, “I mean, where is there to go, really? Where can anyone go?”

  My mother took a long gulp. “Nowhere comes to mind.”

  Sandy shifted in her seat and she put her hand over my mother’s. “What I mean, sweetie, is there’s no sense worrying about things you can’t do a thing about.”

  “Yes,” my mother said. “I know what you mean. You tell yourself not to worry, about money, prisoners, but it’s always there. Hanging in the back of your mind when you lock the doors at night. It has a way of finding you.”

  “Like tornado season,” Sandy said. “Like a tornado watch.”

  “Exactly,” my mother said, taking another drink. “Except with kids, the watch is endless.”

  “Yes,” Sandy said, “well.”

  She looked at her refrigerator. There were a lot of magnets, but no pictures or notes. Her eyes fell and she twirled the stem of her wineglass between her thumb and pointer finger.

  “Remember when you guys first came to town,” Sandy said, “and there was that newspaper article. About that baby. They had your picture and everything.” She paused, her gaze drifting upward, as if what she was picturing were written on the ceiling. “You sure looked beautiful. I remember that’s all people talked about. How you were the most beautiful woman this city’s seen.”

  “Right,” my mother laughed.

  “And that summer dress. Whatever happened to that dress?”

  “Sold it,” my mother said. “Last month when bills were due.”

  “Oh,” Sandy said. “Sorry.” She pinched the corner of the plastic tablecloth and made some joke about the golf course’s wages. “What was it the baby was choking on?”

  “A rubber nipple. It chewed the tip off and got it lodged in its throat.”

  “That’s right. CPR on a baby.” Sandy shook her head. “Your husband, the hero.”

  “Sandy,” my mother said. “We don’t have to talk about that.”

  Sandy poured another refill. This time she left the box on the table. “Well, sometimes I think it’s best to discuss the worst.” She swirled her wine around, making a tiny tornado. “At least, when you’re among friends.”

  “Sure,” my mother said, but under the table, where Sandy couldn’t see, her feet were fidgeting. She drank more wine.

  “But,” Sandy said, “it doesn’t have to be all gloom and doom. Let’s talk about your new beau. Tell me what’s it like, because I’ve got to tell you, I never would have figured you two.”

  Steamboat stretched out on the floor and groaned.

  “Oh, I don’t want to talk about that,” my mother said.

  “Well, he seems to be making you happy,” Sandy said. “Isn’t he? Are you happy?” I felt my mother look at me, so I acted like I wasn’t listening. I lay down parallel to Steamboat and pretended we were having a conversation. I asked him if he’d ever seen a tornado, and could he believe this weather.

  “I don’t know,” my mother whispered. “He’s been such a help. The rides to work. Watching the kids at the course. And he really is a gentleman when he wants to be.” Sandy didn’t say anything. “Look, I know it could go either way. But if I’m wrong, I’m wrong. The way I see it, I deserve to be wrong. Everyone else gets to be wrong, why not me?”

  “I don’t know, honey,” Sandy said. “But I can tell you from experience, being wrong is overrated.”

  The room went quiet, and I felt for sure I had missed an important gesture or look, up above.

  “Yes, well, it’s my decision to make, isn’t it,” my mother said. “No one else’s.”

  “No, I guess not,” Sandy said. “More wine?”

  They drank a little more, and Sandy changed the subject back to my dad. Where did he fit in the picture? she wanted to know. What was his outlook like? My mother sighed, put her hand to her head, massaging her temple. She didn’t know, she said, and looked at me again. This time I asked Steamboat what his plans were for tomorrow. If the weather was right, how did he feel about a walk? Steamboat’s ear perked up, and my mother resumed her talk.

  She didn’t know about my dad, my mother said. She wished she did. She took another sip. She said the worst was—it was this moment. There was a time, right after we learned I was, you know. Again. We were both lying in bed, watching some bad movie he rented, and I said, I don’t know why, that maybe I shouldn’t … see it through. It was something I’d been sort of thinking about for a while. I mean, we were living in a nice-enough house, but we had no money. So I started to think, about where we were headed, what our future looked like, and what I saw was us barely getting by for the rest of our lives. I saw myself never going back to school, staying in this city, in that house forever. As soon as I said it, though, I knew I could never go through with it. The words, they left this terrible taste. Still, they were already out there, waiting for a response. He paused the movie, sat up, and looked at me. He put his hand on my stomach and told me absolutely not, that I’d regret it for the rest of my life. And those were the right words, and he said them the right way, but something was wrong. I could tell he’d thought about it before. I could tell he was imagining it now. A life without … restrictions. In his mind he’d written an entirely different story for himself, one in which he could be anything, go anywhere, where the decisions he made didn’t follow him around every day, nipping at his heels. I knew then he was ready to escape.

  The room went silent. Under the table every leg was still. Steamboat got up, licked his chops. He stretched his back legs and went over to his empty dog bowl. He whined.

  “Oh, hush,” Sandy said. “You’ve already eaten.”

  “I’ve thought the same thing, to be honest,” my mother said. “I mean, we were so young … but I never acted on it. That’s the difference.”

  Steamboat walked over to Sandy and whined. “What? I don’t know what you want,” Sandy said. “You’ve had your fill. Go on.”

  “But now I think … I mean, I just don’t know how long we can live like this. What if something goes wrong? What if the van has quit for good or something happens and we need to go to the doctor?” Sandy took my mother’s hand. “We just, we need help,” my mother said. “That’s all.”

  “I know you do,” Sandy said.

  Above them the ceiling fan whirred. Steamboat put his head in Sandy’s lap and whined, until she scratched his head and said OK. It’s going to be OK.

  * * *

  When the wine box was empty, my mother said we should get going. She had an angry son at home.

  “Do you want to call a cab?” Sandy said. “You don’t want me driving.”

  My mother said no, she didn’t have the money for that. But it was fine, she knew whom she could call. He should be off by now. Sandy showed her the phone in the living room, returned to the kitchen, where I was petting Steamboat. She asked me
if we ever had a dog, and I said yes, but not anymore.

  “He was a German shepherd,” I said. “His name was Baron.”

  “How nice,” Sandy said. “Was he a retired police dog?”

  “I don’t know. He was old.”

  “Well, I’m sure you were very kind to him. I bet you treated him like a brother, didn’t you?”

  My mother returned.

  “He’s on his way,” she said. She gave Sandy a big hug, told her she could never thank her enough. Sandy said to hang in there and walked us to the door. She petted the side of my head like I petted Steamboat.

  “I know it might not seem like you have much,” she said, “at times. But you have this beautiful boy. And a bigger one just as good.” She flipped on the porch light, so it wasn’t so dark out there. “Let’s let that count for something.”

  * * *

  Outside, the rain had stopped. The sky had cleared in parts, forming small pools of stars, and a bright white moon lit the path ahead.

  The van was where we left it, the way we left it, broken and alone. I rubbed its side mirror and said I was sorry for leaving it behind. I promised it wouldn’t happen again.

  Rick showed a few minutes later, windows rolled down, bad music blasting.

  “Look who comes crawling back,” he said. He grabbed a flashlight and some tools out of his trunk. “You two stay on the curb. Let Rick the fix-it take a look.” But Rick didn’t have any better luck than my mother, though he did know a good mechanic, someone who owed him a favor and would tow our piece of junk for free. He put his tools away and opened the door for my mother and me.

  The back of the car was a disaster, full of greasy clothes, golf cart parts, used or stolen pro shop supplies. An air freshener in the shape of a racecar hung from the windshield, but did little to mask the strong smell of gasoline. At the golf course, I once saw Rick show up early for his shift to fill gas cans he must’ve brought from home—pumping from the same white tank used for the golf carts—and sneak them off to his car when no one was looking. I never told my mother this or discussed it with my brother, imagining that if I ever got in trouble with Rick down the road, this information would be valuable. That I could somehow use it against him.

 

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