The Pale-Faced Lie

by David Crow

  Two days later, I came home from school and found Mom packing for her trip. I wanted to warn her, but it wouldn’t have changed anything.

  “I’ll see you kids in a couple of weeks,” she told us on the way out the door. “I love you.”

  I ran to hug her. My brother and sisters had already disappeared, but she didn’t seem to notice. Dad picked up her bag and they got into the Rambler. How could she not know what he had planned for her?

  After they pulled out of the driveway, I sprinted through yards and side streets to the bus station, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mom before she was gone. I stopped a block away so she wouldn’t spot me. There she was, standing alone in front of the station buying a ticket in her thin cotton dress and flimsy sweater. When she turned in my direction, her face was contorted in a deep frown. She didn’t see me or appear to see anything.

  The bus pulled up to the curb, and she climbed the steps, disappearing from sight. If I knew she was going to a better place, I would have been okay. But I didn’t think Mom could be happy anywhere or with anyone.

  And no one wanted her.

  IT WAS ALMOST THANKSGIVING, and we hadn’t heard anything from Mom. Dad kept telling us we were going to move before she got back, but day after day, he would pace the kitchen floor and yell into the phone, “Goddamn it, can’t you find us a place to stay in Fort Defiance?” Slamming down the receiver, he’d say they were all a bunch of idiots.

  As it started getting dark on Thanksgiving Day, Mom called collect from a bus station in Flagstaff, Arizona, and told Dad she was on her way and would arrive in Gallup in about three hours. He stomped around the house and then ordered everyone into the living room for another talk.

  We never made it to the couch. “I don’t want your mother coming into this house,” he said, intercepting us in the kitchen. “When she gets here, all of you need to be in your rooms, except David”—he flashed his eyes at me—“and make sure all the lights are off. I’m leaving in the next few minutes, and after I’m gone, lock all the doors, including the garage. Remember the dead bolt on the front door so your mother can’t use her key.”

  He jabbed me in the chest. “I want you to sit by the front door and wait for her. Don’t turn on the porch light. Tell her she doesn’t live here anymore. If she asks where I am, say you don’t know. All you know is that this is no longer her home.”

  I pulled back. “Me? Why me? It isn’t fair not to let her in. It’s freezing outside, and she’ll want to come in and get warm. It will almost be time for bed. Where can she go?”

  “That’s not your problem. She’ll know this isn’t her home when you tell her to go away. It’s your job.”

  Lonnie, Sam, and Sally stood next to Dad, staring at me. At that moment, I hated them all.

  He drove off in the Rambler. Lonnie, Sam, and Sally went to their rooms, and I sat by the door in the dark. It seemed like forever before I heard her key jiggle in the lock. When that didn’t work, she knocked.

  “Open the door!” Mom called out. “I’m freezing. Your daddy didn’t pick me up. Where’s Lonnie? She knew to come help me carry my bag. I’m mad at her.”

  I jumped up and looked through the peephole. I could barely make her out in the streetlight. She dropped her suitcase with a thud and pounded on the door with both fists. “Where is everyone?” she shouted. “Somebody let me in!”

  “You don’t . . . you don’t live here anymore.” I choked on the words.

  “David? What are you talking about?”

  My eyes burned with tears, and I swallowed hard. “I can’t let you in.”

  “I’m your mother. I live here. Get me out of the cold.”

  The desperation in her voice nearly broke me. As Mom pounded, yelling at me to unlock the dead bolt, I fell to the floor shaking.

  Finally, she walked away as I sat crying, my head in my hands. A good son would never have done such a terrible thing to his mom.

  When I was certain she was gone, I hurried into the basement and sprinted out through the garage into the cold night in my T-shirt. I pumped as hard as I could down the side streets and onto Route 66 until my legs hurt and my lungs were about to burst. By the time I got back to our house, my body was soaked and my arms and hands were frozen.

  The streetlight shone on the chrome rear bumper of the Rambler in the garage. Dad was home. The porch light was on, but the rest of the house was still dark. I pulled the heavy wooden door closed in the garage and crept into my room. Not a sound came from Sam in the bottom bunk as I climbed up to my bed.

  As I lay there, I kept hearing Mom pounding on the door and the helplessness and despair in her voice. Where was she? Would she freeze to death?

  I picked up a Hardy Boys mystery, turned on my flashlight, and tried to escape into their lives until sleep took over. The Hardy Boys always solved their mystery and defeated the villains and then returned to a home where they were loved. That could never happen to me.

  In the middle of the night, I woke up to sliding and swooshing sounds. I crawled up the basement stairs to see Mom’s silhouette entering through the living room window. How did she do that? The window was at waist level from the front steps, so it wasn’t hard to reach, but she had to pull herself through without falling backward. How did she even open the latch? It wasn’t easy to turn. She had always seemed so helpless.

  Her tiny birdlike steps trotted to the bedroom. When I heard my parents’ door close, knowing Dad was inside, I couldn’t help but sneak down the hall to listen. My heart thumped hard and fast.

  Mom’s voice was muffled, too soft to make out the words. Dad rumbled an unintelligible response. Worried he would kill her, I strained to hear more, but soon they were both quiet.

  IT WAS LIGHT WHEN I WOKE UP. As I climbed the stairs, I heard Mom talking with my brother and sisters. Everyone was sitting at the table. Dad was there too, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.

  “Why didn’t you let me in last night, David?” she asked, as if I’d made a minor mistake, like forgetting to pick up my socks.

  “It wasn’t my fault, Mom. I just couldn’t.”

  “Why not?” She scowled at me. “You knew it was cold out there, and I needed help with my suitcase.”

  She looked down at her plate and moved the eggs around without eating them.

  I glanced over at my sisters and brother. Lonnie and Sally left the table and disappeared into their room. Sam took his bowl to the living room and sat in front of the TV, spilling his cereal and milk on the carpet.

  Dad folded up the paper and took off, as though nothing had happened. Maybe I’d gone crazy too and dreamed the whole thing.

  Throughout the day, I kept telling myself that everything was back to normal. Mom had come home from visiting her mother. Her hemorrhoids were better. We would all continue just as before.

  ON SUNDAY MORNING, DAD TOLD all four of us to get into the car, and we went for a ride into the desert. Outside of town, he pulled over. “We’re going to make your mother’s life a living hell,” he said, “so she’ll want to leave.”

  I knew only a couple of kids whose parents had gotten a divorce. The moms kept the house and the kids, and the dads gave them money and visited. Our dad would never agree to any of that. He wouldn’t give Mom anything—ever. He wasn’t going to let any judge make him fork over good money or give Mom a house or let us see her. He wanted her to simply disappear.

  What could we possibly do to make Mom’s life worse? It was already a living hell. She would never leave. In fact, Dad’s plan might actually backfire—Mom might feel more important since she would be the center of attention all the time.

  Dad turned to Lonnie sitting next to him. “I want you to ignore your mother. Don’t help or encourage her in any way. Ninety percent of the work that happens in the house comes from you. She will completely fall apart without your help.”

  Then Dad looked over his shoulder at Sam and me in the back seat. “I want you two to be purposely destructive,” he said. “That s
houldn’t be hard for you little bastards.”

  FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS, the instant Dad left for work, our house turned into a scene from Lord of the Flies. Sam and I used our glasses and bowls as weapons, hurling them at each other. Milk, juice, and cereal flew everywhere. Sam stood on a chair and flung the blender on the floor, smashing it to pieces. Even five-year-old Sally threw her silverware.

  Mom ran in circles, wailing, as she did in every crisis. She banged on Lonnie’s door. “Come out here and help me. I can’t take care of the kids and house without you. Why are you doing this to me?”

  Lonnie stayed in her room, which was the worst blow of all.

  Each day I wondered if it was possible to be any crueler. When Dad returned from work, he’d berate Mom for “losing control of the children.” I hated what we were doing, but I feared Dad’s wrath more than I wanted to save Mom.

  Our destruction knew no bounds. Sam and I ramped up our pranks all over Gallup. Somehow, hurting other people made me hurt less.

  One afternoon, as we walked along a busy street, Sam threw a brick at the windshield of a parked car, putting a large crack in it. No one came after us. Another day, we tossed a cherry bomb through the half-open window of a pickup. The two drunk Navajos in the cab jumped out and threatened to drag us to the police department.

  We both shrugged. “Go ahead if you want,” I said.

  Going to jail would have been better than going home.

  When we got tired of damaging vehicles, we went inside the El Morro Theatre to watch The Magnificent Seven again. This time, we were armed with a few hard snowballs hidden in our coat pockets. Soon after the movie started, we both launched shots from the balcony, ripping a hole in the screen.

  The room lit up as Sam and I ran down the stairwell to escape. We were about to blast through the emergency exit when a vise grip closed on my wrist, practically pulling me off my feet. “I caught you, you little vandals. You two aren’t going anywhere.” The manager was built like a tree stump, with massive arms that stretched his shirt.

  I promised him that Dad would pay for the damage if he called our house. He pulled a pen and piece of paper out of his pocket, and when he loosened his hold to write down the fake phone number, I yanked my arm away, and we bolted out the door.

  Later that afternoon, at the local bowling alley, Sam heaved several balls one right after another down a single lane, breaking the pin-clearing device. We easily outraced the fat manager through a side entrance as the emergency buzzer sounded. On the way home, Sam threw a rock at a neon sign in front of a trading post, shattering it. The shop owner came out screaming and chased us down the street. We laughed and dashed through the alleys to our house. Half of Gallup was after us.

  We were doing more than breaking Mom. We were destroying any sense of civility and decency the four of us still had.

  We were no longer brothers and sisters but members of a gang.

  CHAPTER 17

  DAD’S HEAVY FOOTSTEPS AND SHOUTS jolted me awake. Lonnie was crying. I jumped to the floor and ran upstairs. The bright light of the bathroom spilled out into the hallway. Lonnie’s feet dangled in the air as Dad bear-hugged her around the stomach and leaned her over the sink.

  “Throw up as hard as you can!” he yelled. “How many did you swallow?”

  “All of them,” she said, vomiting into the sink.

  “Jesus!”

  An empty bottle of Bayer aspirin lay on the floor by the toilet.

  “It’s a damn good thing I heard you,” Dad said. “Keep throwing up. Get it all out!”

  Lonnie made several gagging noises, and a flood gushed out into the sink and onto the floor. Dad filled a large glass with water and forced her to drink all of it, and she threw up again.

  Sally and Sam came up behind me, both of them staring, wide-eyed. Mom’s bedroom door remained closed. She took something to help her sleep, but the racket in the bathroom was loud enough to wake the neighbors. Even so, she never appeared.

  Dad saw us and waved us away. Sam went back to the basement, and Sally ran into the bedroom she shared with Lonnie and closed the door. I started down the stairs but stopped, turned off the light, and leaned against the wall to listen.

  In between sobs and gulps, Lonnie said, “I don’t help Mom anymore . . . She begs me, but I walk away . . . I tell her we want her to leave.” She blew her nose. “And . . . and . . . when you come into my room and talk to me the way you do . . . it’s like you want me to be a grown-up. I can’t. Don’t make me.”

  My mind flashed to all the times I saw Dad whispering in Lonnie’s ear and leaning over her on her bed, close to her face, holding her hand. She would shake her head hard and say no.

  But what did he want from her? I didn’t understand, but I knew Dad was pushing her to do things no kid should ever have to do.

  Lonnie spurted out, “You tell me I’m a better mother than she is . . . I’m only fourteen. Mom is always screaming at me and saying she hates me.”

  “Don’t worry,” Dad said softly. “This is all her fault. She’ll be gone soon, I promise. But no more swallowing bottles of aspirin, do you hear me? You could have died. C’mon, let’s walk around the block and get you some air.”

  Dad helped Lonnie put on her coat and they went out the front door. Crouching by the living room window, I watched them walk up the street and then followed them out into the cold drizzle. Lonnie was still having a hard time catching her breath.

  Afraid Dad would see me, I hurried home and climbed under the covers to wait for them. When the front door opened, I sneaked up the stairs and stayed hidden at the top.

  “Go to sleep, Lonnie,” Dad said. “We’ll be rid of the crazy bitch soon, and we can have our own lives.”

  “What life!” Lonnie screamed, slamming her door.

  I returned to the basement and crawled up into bed. Dad had saved Lonnie, but he was the one who had driven her to swallow the bottle of aspirin. It was all his fault. And what if there was still a lot of aspirin left in her body? She could die. When I slept, I had visions of her sinking under water and never coming up.

  BY THE TIME I WOKE up the next morning, Sam was already upstairs eating his cornflakes. Mom’s bedroom door was closed, and the Rambler was gone. Lonnie and Sally were gone too.

  Sam and I went to see Mr. Pino and greet the Saturday visitors crossing Route 66. But nothing seemed funny, not even the drunks stumbling down the street. Most of our cherry bombs stayed in the paper bag, along with our firecrackers. Sam helped me deliver my afternoon papers, and we stayed out until after dark, throwing rocks on the outskirts of town until we couldn’t see them land. We were freezing and hungry, but neither one of us wanted to go home.

  We slipped inside the house and found sliced roast beef in the refrigerator. We ate it like wolves and then grabbed a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter. It was long after dinnertime, but no one noticed.

  ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, DAD PULLED me aside twice. “Why haven’t you gotten your mother to leave yet? You sure as hell know what to do. Wreck everything in the goddamn house for all I care, but get after it. Don’t worry about Sam and Sally—they’ll follow your lead. Lonnie is doing her part. Your mother can’t function without her help. The rest is up to you. I better see some results tomorrow.”

  I was jittery the next day, thinking about what I had to do. When I got home after school and paper deliveries, Lonnie was in her room, and Sam and Sally were watching TV. I had about an hour before Dad would walk through the door.

  Mom was in the kitchen fixing dinner. I stood behind her, watching her slice roast beef. The okra was sizzling in the frying pan, and a pitcher of iced tea sat on the counter, ready to be poured into glasses.

  The house was nice and calm, but I couldn’t let it stay that way. Dad would be furious and beat me. I had to do something right now.

  I went into the living room to gather my nerve and motioned Sam and Sally to come toward me. As we whispered back and forth about what I wanted them to do, Mom
heard us talking and called out, “How was school today, kids?”

  “None of your business!” Sam yelled. Sally laughed.

  Sam and I picked up two of the Melmac plates off the dining room table and threw them against the living room wall like they were Frisbees, smashing both of them. I picked up a chair and threw it into the couch. It hit Sam on the way, so he grabbed another chair and threw it at me.

  Mom hurried into the living room, the knife in her hand. “I want you to stop this—NOW!” she yelled.

  “You’re not in charge of us anymore!” I yelled back at her.

  The knife sat loosely in her palm, but then she tightened her grip until her knuckles turned white. “David, I count on you to be my big helper,” she said, sobbing. “My oldest boy. Look at what you’ve done. How could you do this to me? Sam and Sally are acting like animals. And Lonnie won’t help with anything.”

  “I’m not your helper anymore either,” I said. “Dad said you’re not going to be our mom much longer.”

  She didn’t move. Her eyes turned glassy as she stared straight ahead at the living room window.

  Sam picked up a spoon and threw it at Sally. Sally raked her arm across the table, and the remaining plates, silverware, and glasses crashed to the floor. I flew on top of Sam and wrestled him to the ground, knocking over the coffee table.

  Mom screamed.

  I jumped up in front of her, startled. The knife sailed past my face, striking the living room wall just below the picture window. A chunk of plaster fell to the carpet, leaving a white gouge in the beige wall.

  Her hands flew to her mouth, muffling a loud gasp, her eyes wide with horror. “I didn’t mean to do that. It . . . just slipped out of my hand.”

  We were still standing frozen when Dad walked into the living room and saw the mess.

  “Mom threw a knife at David’s head!” Sally yelled. “She just missed him.”

  “Goddamn it, Thelma Lou,” Dad said. “What the hell did you do that for? You really are crazy.”