Leaving Allison

by Sedgwick, Grady

  “Shiiit,” Patrick says, stretching the word as he cracks his knuckles.

  Connie slides open the glass door and straddles the doorway. She holds up a beer. “Want some?”

  I shake my head, no.

  “You’re no fun anymore,” she says.

  . . .

  It’s Saturday night. Dad is blasting his horn in front of Mom’s house. I head out to his car knowing that he’ll try to involve me in some current drama, like a poker debt that has to be collected or an angry husband threatening to shoot him. One time we broke into a woman’s apartment to see if she had stolen his gold belt buckle. She hadn’t, he found out later. “Hop in,” he says. “Your grandfather fell off the wagon.”

  “But you told me you wouldn’t help him anymore, that he was on his own. You specifically told me to stay away from Grandpa.”

  Dad leans over to open the passenger door and tells me, “He’s my father,” like that’s the only thing that matters.

  We drive down Broad Street scouting several bars looking for Grandpa’s white Chrysler while listening to a cassette tape that one of Dad’s girlfriends had made for him. “She must really have it bad for you.”

  Dad grins, “Hey, what can I say?”

  We find Grandpa’s Chrysler parked behind the Twilight Lounge and enter through the side door. Tom, the bartender, points to a woman with long gray hair and perfect posture, sitting on a barstool with her legs crossed. My grandfather is standing over her, his hand on her shoulder. She swipes his hand away.

  Tom has a ponytail and always wears loose fitting Hawaiian shirts. He fixes me a Coke and asks about school.

  “I’m not into it,” I tell him.

  At the end of the bar Dad says, “Come on, Dad. I’m taking you home.”

  “Tom, do me a favor. Don’t serve my father any alcohol tonight.” He wipes the bar with his rag and doesn’t say anything. “I’m serious, Tom. His doctor said this is it for him. He has to quit.”

  Grandpa pinches Dad’s shirt and pulls him in closer. “Son, don’t be rude. Say hello to this fine lady.” The gray haired woman recoils, picks up her purse and marches out the bar.

  “Two scotch & waters,” Grandpa calls out. “One for me, one for my son.”

  An hour later, after the bar closes, Tom pours a shot of vodka for himself and gives me a bottle of Budweiser. At the pool table, Dad teaches me how to shoot a trick shot called three-with-one. We’re having a good time playing pool, getting drunk. I tell him, “After tonight, I quit drinking.”

  . . .

  It’s a school night. Dad calls to tell me he’s in trouble. “Can you come over?” I jump on my bicycle, rush to his apartment, and for an hour and a half, try to reason with him. He’s despondent, not thinking straight. Eventually, after running out of things to say, I ride home worried about what he might do.

  “What happened?” Mom says, when I get home.

  I’m carrying my bike up the back porch steps. “Nothing happened,” I tell her and slam my bike into the water heater.

  She had waited up for me and is now filling a laundry basket with clothes from the dryer. She’s wearing her pink robe with puffy pockets. It’s what she always wears except at her job. “Are you okay, Mitch?” she asks.

  “Of course, I’m okay.”

  “You’re not responsible for him,” she says. “He’s a grown man, able to make his own decisions.”

  I go in the kitchen and pour a glass of milk. Mom dumps a basket of clothes onto the breakfast table. She folds my clean shirts into stacks and drapes my pants over the back of a chair. I can tell she’s thinking about something and getting upset. “You were drinking Saturday night.” I finish the milk, rinse the glass and walk away from her. Before closing my bedroom door I hear, “Mitch, promise me you won’t end up like him.”

  . . .

  The next morning, I wake up with a jolt wondering if Dad is okay. My chest is heaving in and out, while I rush into the kitchen to call him. He doesn’t answer, so instead of going to school, I ride over to his apartment, pedaling as fast as I can, remembering my eleventh birthday. Dad had given me a twenty gauge shotgun. “We’re going shooting,” he told Mom. At Kroger’s he bought the biggest pumpkin in the store and then drove out to the country, turned on a gravel road and parked next to a rice field. Dad carried the pumpkin to a barbwire fence and balanced it on top of a wooden post. Standing at his side, I watched him load my new gun. “Mitch, I’m doing this to teach you a valuable lesson about gun safety. Pay attention and never forget what a shotgun can do to a man.”

  Propping my bicycle against the carport, I bang my fist on Dad’s front door. He lives in a rundown apartment complex and, if he answers, I swear to God I’m going to tell him that he has to stop drinking or that’s it. I’m through with him.

  His neighbor, a woman dressed in blue warm-ups, comes outside for her newspaper. I pound on his door again and wait. When he doesn’t answer, I go behind the apartments and follow the pathway between two buildings. A/C compressors are blowing warm stale air between the brick walls. The ground’s wet with rotting leaves and the trashcans are spilling over. All the doors look the same except for one that has “fuck off” written on it. That’s the one I knock on.

  “Son-of-a-bitch it’s early,” Dad says as he opens the back door. “Tastes like somebody shit in my mouth.”

  I push past him, relieved that he’s okay. “It wasn’t me.”

  “What wasn’t you?” he asks.

  “It wasn’t me that shit in your mouth.”

  He’s amused by my comment, stumbling around the kitchen, his beer gut hanging over his paisley boxer shorts. He opens the refrigerator and gulps orange juice from the carton, while I sit on the couch flipping through a family photo album.

  “Why do you have this out?”

  “What out?” I hear him ask from the kitchen.

  There’s a picture of Dad and me in the den of our new house, the one the bank took from him. Each of us are supporting a broken arm. He broke his in a bar arm-wrestling. I broke mine water skiing, attempting to spray two girls sunbathing on the end of the country club pier. There’s also a picture of us standing beside a ten foot tiger shark he caught in a fishing tournament. Mom had cut the shark picture from the newspaper two years before she bailed on him.

  “Somebody wrote fuck off on your back door,” I call out.

  “Who did that?”

  “How should I know? It looks like your handwriting.”

  . . .

  At school, Sister Maria is erasing Bible quotes off the chalkboard. No one in the class has noticed me yet, and the back of Trapper’s ear presents the perfect target for a serious thumping. Last week Trapper snuck up behind me at my locker and nearly lifted me off the ground with his most successful ear-thump ever, so now it’s my turn. I approach with stealth, focusing on his mound of bushy brown hair and the little white ear lobe dangling below, but the lobe isn’t my target, it’s the cartilage, the actual structure of the ear that I want to explode.

  Advancing with my finger cocked, I nail him with a swinging arm motion that doubles the impact. His head jerks forward. His upper body vibrates like he’s just been electrocuted. I almost lose it, covering my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Never had I thumped anyone so perfectly with such stealth and surprise; plus it’s during class, no way he can retaliate. Trapper grudgingly takes it like a man, silently grimacing, feeling for his ear to make sure it’s still attached.

  “Glad you decided to join us, Mr. McAllister.”

  I quickly find an empty desk and realize I forgot my Bible. Sister Maria still has her back to the class erasing the chalk board. “Excuse me for intruding into your privacy,” she says and turns around. “Were you able to complete the weekend homework assignment?”

  “Last night,” I tell her, “when I was deeply concerned about completing the assignment, my father called and started talking about wanting to cancel. So, rather than listing five ways God has touched my life, I rode my
bike over to his apartment to talk him out of it.”

  “Cancel what, Mr. McAllister?”

  “Everything.”

  “Everything? . . . If it isn’t too much of a strain, could you share with the class a specific example? We are all very interested, I’m sure.”

  Trapper mumbles, “Oh yes, very interested.”

  “Yes, ma’am, here’s an example. There’s a Hank Williams Jr. concert in Houston. Dad told me we were going, and then last night, he threated to back out.”

  “Cancel a concert. How terribly tragic. After processing this devastating news, were you then able to concentrate on the assignment?”

  “It was practically all I could think about, but there’s so many ways God has touched my life, I couldn’t decide on only five. Would it be okay if I list six?”

  Grady Myers holds back a laugh. Trapper lets loose, out of control laughing.

  “Mitch, I see your fellow students appreciate this humor, but these unfortunate habits of yours will need to be resolved or you will fail.” She sends me to the vice principal, Mr. Dobbs, also known as the Gorilla. The Gorilla is an oversized man with hairs exploding from his body. I enter his office and plop down in a chair across from him.

  “What is it this time, Mr. McAllister?”

  “Didn’t do my theology homework.”

  “Once?”

  “No sir. I never do it.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because it means nothing.”

  Mr. Dobbs reclines in his high backed, swivel chair, expands his chest and says, “I can solve this problem, young man.” He gives me a week of after school detention, but when the last bell rings, instead of going to detention, I go over to Dad’s apartment to tell him he has to stop drinking.

  First we talk about basketball, which seems to brighten his mood. I tell him about a left-handed hook shot I’ve been practicing, and that we should have a pretty good team next year, might even make it to the state playoffs. He stirs a rum & Coke with his finger and tells me how important going to state is. “College recruiters will be there. You’ll probably have to play a couple years of college ball before turning pro.” We listen to Waylon Jennings’ new album and sail a Heineken beer coaster back and forth across the room, attempting to beat our record of thirty-one catches in a row.

  “Fourteen,” I say, spinning the coaster back to him, wondering how in the hell to do this.

  “Fifteen,” he says, catching it before it hits the lamp.

  “Sixteen,” I say. “Do you think it might be time to dry out again?”

  . . .

  In homeroom, Grady Myers bet Patrick two dollars that he couldn’t eat an entire fried chicken wing, bones and all. So now Grady, Trapper and I are waiting at a table in the cafeteria for Bertrand to meet the challenge.

  “Did y’all see that old geezer taking our yearbook picture?” Grady asks.

  “Yeah,” Trapper says. “When he posed Cindy Abshire, he kept adjusting her knees to sneak a peek at her snatch.”

  “I didn’t go,” I tell them.

  Trapper stands up, glancing around the cafeteria for Patrick. “Where is that ass-wipe?”

  Grady says, “McAllister, what do you mean you didn’t go? You have to go or your picture won’t be in the yearbook.”

  Trapper pushes Grady’s chair to the side. “Here’s Bertrand. You guys scoot over, make some room.”

  Patrick places the fried chicken wing on a napkin, as we crowd around him like an audience at a freak show. First he sticks his fingers in his mouth to remove the rubber bands from his braces. Then he takes a bite off the big end, crunching through bone, chewing on cartilage.

  “Fuckin’ A!” Trapper says.

  Grady Myers shakes his head. “Frickin’ carnivore.”

  From the intercom speakers in the cafeteria, the school secretary broadcasts, “Mitch McAllister, please report to the vice principal’s office.”

  “What happened?” Grady asks.

  “Skipped detention yesterday.”

  On my way out of the cafeteria, Grady is shaking his head giving me a disapproving look like I’ll never learn.

  Sitting across from the Gorilla, I watch him climb to his feet and pitch forward flattening his large hairy paws on the desk. “When I give someone detention, I expect them to serve their time.” He ends up doubling my week of detention to two weeks then tells me to go see Coach Doucet.

  Coach’s office is small and crowded with damaged football helmets, Sports Illustrated magazines, and a box of Adidas t-shirts. He digs through the box of shirts for a medium and lobs one into my chest. “Just got in a case of freebees,” he says. Then his face becomes stern and he sits on the corner of his desk. Pointing at a chair, he tells me to have a seat.

  “Mr. Dobbs called to discuss your situation. He said you skipped detention yesterday, that you are failing two classes, and you’re not doing your theology homework.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So what’s this all about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Talk to me, Mitch. It must be about something.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Coach shakes his head. His mouth tightens. “Listen,” he says, “I went through a rebellious period when I was your age, too, but this is different. We don’t lay down.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He looks directly at me. “Mr. Dobbs thinks you should be kicked off the basketball team, not only as punishment, but to offer more time for school work.”

  “The season’s over, though.”

  “I’m talking about next season, your senior year.” Coach picks up his clipboard and runs his finger down the page. “What about this as a compromise: if you’ll promise to change your attitude, do a one-eighty, we may be able to talk him into giving you a second chance?”

  “No, sir. I don’t deserve it.”

  “Of course you do, we all do.”

  “I may not change.”

  Coach taps his clipboard against the side of the desk. “So this is it then? You’re quitting?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your father and I have been friends for a long time. This is going to be a hell of a blow.” Coach shakes his head. “He expected more from you.”

  “And I expected more from him.”

  He points to the door. I stand up to leave and he tells me, “Son, you’re headed for a spectacular crash.”

  I cut through the gravel parking lot and fling my Adidas t-shirt into the bed of Grady’s truck. On the soccer field, Connie dashes outside her goalie box and kicks the ball to midfield. I stand on top of a yellow fender post, get my balance, cup my hands around my mouth and shout, “Connie!”

  When she sees me, I’m an actor in a Hollywood movie, screaming her name, blowing her a kiss goodbye before my final, tragic ending.

  Even though she recently broke up with me, she plays along, catching my kiss, holding it to her heart in bitter sadness. And now, my last kiss having reached its target, I’m ready to follow through with destiny. Balancing on the fender post above a forsaken world, I shake an angry fist at God and plunge to my death, rolling in the grass for added effect. She claps for me.

  Instead of going to class I walk along the bushes and enter the gym. The basketball court is empty, the lights off, the sun streaking through a row of windows above the scoreboard.

  I bounce a basketball between my legs and imagine the bleachers filled with spectators. There’s ten seconds left on the clock, our team down by one. Coach Doucet looks up at the time clock and tells me to shoot the ball. The seniors are grouped together at the top of the bleachers stomping their feet. My father is here, too. He’s on the side court following me, drunk, shouting advice, embarrassing me in front of the school. “Shoot the damn ball,” he screams. “Shoot, before it’s all over.” He seems far away and no longer matters to me. The cheerleader’s yell, “We’ve got spirit, yes we do! We’ve got spirit ho
w ‘bout you?”

  . . .

  School just let out. Grady Myers and I are sitting on the tailgate of his truck waiting for Trapper to finish his workout. The truck doors are open blasting Devo from Jensen speakers. Grady strums an air guitar to ‘Whip It’—“It’s not too late to whip it, whip it good.” I whip him with my new Adidas t-shirt.

  “Hey, where’d the shirt come from?”

  “Your truck.”

  “Cool. It’s mine now.”

  Mr. Dobbs’ Oldsmobile is parked in the teachers’ lot. Having skipped detention again, I expect him to lope outside any minute and beat his chest when he sees me. Watching the door, waiting patiently for my moment of doom, Grady peppers me with questions about Connie.

  “Come on, man, I won’t bug you anymore. Just tell me if you got in her pants?”

  Grady doesn’t do so well with the ladies, yet his main topic of conversation is girls, asking questions like, “What about Cindy Abshire? You think Coach Doucet ever laid her?” Or during Mass he’ll whisper questions like, “Renée Reynolds? Pointed nipples or silver dollars?” And especially Connie Sinclair. He has a crush on her.

  “In eighth grade I tried to feel her off and she racked my balls.”

  “So, that was eighth grade,” he says. “What about now?”

  “All right, here’s something, but keep it between us. Her parents were out and we were shooting pool at her house. I took her into the bathroom and pulled down her gym shorts. She stood with her legs spread open, completely naked.”

  “Do you swear this is true?” he asks.

  “Just listen,” I tell him and glance around for the Gorilla. “Myers, I couldn’t believe it. I was on my knees licking her virgin twat. She loved it. She arched her back and started calling out your name. ‘Fuck me, Grady Myers! Fuck me!’”

  “What a dipshit. You won’t even tell your friends the truth.”

  “Okay, here’s something true. Now, as of today, I’m officially off the basketball team.”

  “Fuckin’ A,” Trapper yells, jogging from locker room swinging his gym bag. The three of us hop into Grady’s truck and head to Ms. Emily’s Formal Wear to rent a tuxedo for Trapper. He wants a black tux to wear with his white Reeboks. “Hey, what if Ms. Emily gives me a boner when she’s measuring my crotch?”