The Violent Child

by Michael Sheridan

  “What’s all this?” Trudy said.

  “Chuck told Teddie I could put it on the cuff ‘til I get back on my feet. I ain’t paid in quite awhile. Makes me feel bad owing.”

  Trudy put her hands in her back pockets. “He getting funny?”

  “For Christ’s sake, Trudy. You think every man in the world wants to ‘get funny’ with me.”

  “Just the tall ones, the short ones, and the ones in between.”

  “He’s married, just wants to help us out. He’s good to Teddie.”

  Trudy snorted. “I’ll bet he is. If he’s such a prince, whyn’t you let him in?”

  Lorraine looked around the apartment. “I wanted to pick up first. Didn’t feel like talking to nobody. Didn’t feel like picking up.” She put her hand on Trudy’s arm. “You’re the only one I’d trust to see me like this. You and Teddie.”

  Trudy looked away.

  Lorraine put her arms around Trudy’s waist. “You never heard me lie. All the time you been knowing me, you ever heard me lie?”

  Lorraine squeezed hard, but Trudy looked at me and bit her lip.

  “What do you think, Teddie?” she said. “Your mom telling me true?”

  Trudy put her arms around Lorraine and kissed the top of her head. They stood for a moment, and Trudy rocked her back and forth, smoothing her hair.

  “Coffee!” I yelled, banging my heels against the drawers.

  Trudy sighed and unwound herself from Lorraine’s arms.

  Lorraine poured two cups to the top, and one halfway for me. “Reach me the milk,” she said to Trudy.

  Trudy put her hands on her knees and bent down to look in the icebox. “Ain’t none.” She made a face. “What in the name of the Lord smells so bad in here? What you two been eating?”

  “Probably tuna gone bad,” Lorraine answered.

  Trudy took a small can from the back of the icebox. She removed the waxed paper and rubber band from the top.

  “Lord!” She turned her face away. “I better dig a hole, bury it six feet under. It’d kill anything that ate it.”

  “Coffee!” I said.

  Lorraine took down a fresh can of condensed milk from the cabinet and began searching for the can opener.

  “What you looking for, Lorraine?”

  “Opener.”

  Trudy pulled out her pocket knife, flicked it open, and wiped it clean on her sleeve. “Gimme.”

  “Don’t cut yourself,” Lorraine said. “That’s all we need, you cut yourself.”

  Trudy grunted. “Just gimme.”

  She took the can from Lorraine and punched two holes in the top.

  “Got to have a breather hole, or it don’t pour.”

  “No shit Dick Tracy,” Lorraine said.

  “I know you know. I was just thinking out loud.”

  “That’s a switch.”

  “What?”

  “You thinking.”

  “Least it sounds like you’re getting your spunk back.”

  “I ain’t never been short on spunk.”

  “Not ‘til somebody got mooney-cowed in the head.”

  I beat my feet against the drawers. “Coffee, coffee, coffee!”

  Trudy poured milk into my cup, Lorraine stirred in the sugar. I sat on the kitchen counter, tapping my heels against the cabinet, listening as they spoke.

  There were raised voices and compelling arguments. Occasional outbursts from Lorraine. Slow, penetrating rebuttals from Trudy. Although the women pressed one another for a naked accounting of actions and intent, though they attacked each other’s points of view unmercifully, neither seemed mean or unloving. They said nothing I had not heard before. Complaints were registered, nothing resolved. And yet, in the end, for all the polemics, they appeared to draw closer. When their arguments flickered and expired, the women were calm. In some way satisfied.

  When we finished our coffee, Trudy left to retrieve Jeanette from the nuns. She returned a short time later with hot dogs, bread, Coke, and potato chips; Jeanette scuttled through the door in Trudy’s wake, hands dug deep into her mother’s back pockets, weaving and stumbling around her mother’s clomping boots. Jeanette would not look at me directly, and she was careful to keep Trudy between us at every turn.

  Lorraine boiled the hot dogs and spread a blanket on the kitchen floor.

  “Picnic for picnic food.”

  She put the pot of hot dogs at the edge of the blanket, the condiments and the rest of the food in the center. She took a dish towel and folded it into thirds.

  “All I got for napkins. Won’t kill us to share.”

  “I ain’t if Jeanette puts her mouth on it,” I said.

  “Where’s the mustard?” Trudy asked.

  “Ain’t none,” Lorraine said.

  “Can’t have dogs without mustard.”

  “There’s catchup right in front of your face.”

  “Catchup for burgers, mustard for dogs.”

  “Well, there ain’t none, so catchup or do without. Maybe you got money for extras, me and Teddie’s counting our pennies. With catchup you got san’wiches, dogs, beans, burgers, casserole, fish sticks, and taters.”

  “Butter on sandwiches,” Trudy growled.

  “Miracle Whip on sandwiches,” Lorraine answered. “Butter’s for hillbillies that don’t know no better.”

  Jeanette sat on Trudy’s lap, swigging Coke, belching after each drink, watching me from the corner of her eye.

  She was heavy and clinging, and Trudy attempted to sit Jeanette beside her so that she could have a free hand for her own food. But each time Trudy put her down, Jeanette would cry out and throw her arm around her mother’s neck.

  “Boy bites!” she would say. “Boy bites!”

  When we finished eating, Trudy took a Clark Bar from her overalls, broke it in two, and gave Jeanette and me half. Jeanette ran to the corner with hers, climbed on top of the overflowing trash can and ate her candy, grunting, talking to herself, sucking and licking at the chocolate until the bar was bare, her face and hands brown and sticky.

  “Mine for Jeanette,” she said.

  She drew her legs all the way to her chest and crushed the remains of the bar between her palms. Holding the pieces in one hand, she crammed them into her mouth. In the time that this had occurred, I had taken only a few nibbling bites.

  “Gone, Mommy!” Jeanette wailed. “Gone, gone, gone!” She ran to Trudy with her hands outstretched. Trudy poured a little Coke onto the end of the dish towel and cleaned Jeanette’s face and hands.

  “Mine for me!” I said. I held my candy high over my head for Jeanette to see. Taking a bite, I crunched it between my teeth, making wet noises, baring my lips over my teeth.

  “You stop it!” Lorraine said. “That’s mean. I swear to God, Teddie, you can be mean as a snake when you want to.”

  Trudy wiped Jeanette’s face. “It’s okay, Lorraine.” Jeanette was stamping her feet, twisting and pulling away, sputtering. “Got a Snicker in my lunch box, but maybe we ought to get a little work out of these two before we let ‘em have the rest.”

  “There ain’t no excuse for meanness. Teddie knows better’n that.”

  “Kids are kids. He don’t mean nothing by it. Anyways, Jeanette makes most of her own misery.”

  Jeanette threw her arms around her mother’s neck, moaning as if her heart was about to break. “Gone,” she wept.

  “We got more afterwhile. Let’s help Lorraine and Teddie straighten up. Then we’ll have another one.”

  Jeanette hugged her mother and cast a baleful glare in my direction. “Bites,” she said.

  I smiled and broke off another piece of candy, tipping back my head and dropping it into my mouth, crunching as loud as I could.

  Jeanette cried out, and I smiled and took another bite.

  Lorraine made me finish the candy bar in the living room, then sent me to the bathroom to scrub the tub and sink. The two women and Jeanette worked in the kitchen and living room, while I peeked in at intervals to make
sure Jeanette had not been given more candy.

  I worked barefooted, in my underwear, scrubbing small sections of the tub, splashing fountains of water over the rim by scooting up and down along the bottom. By the time the women had finished the kitchen and the living room, I had soaked the bathroom floor and finished less than half the scrubbing. When Lorraine looked in on me, I was sitting with my head under the running faucet, examining the wrinkled skin of my toes and feet. She stood at the doorway and cleared her throat.

  I looked up and shook my head like a dog.

  “Done,” I said.

  Lorraine did her best not to smile. She brought her hand to her mouth and looked away. I thought she was about to launch into a tirade, but instead, she waved for Trudy to come into the bathroom. Trudy stuck her head around the corner and surveyed the damage; I stood at the edge of the tub and looked at the women. Jeanette pushed her head between their hips.

  I held out my shriveled fingers for inspection.

  “Done.” I smiled my best smile.

  Lorraine kept her mouth covered with her hand, but her eyes were bright and dancing.

  “You think you got troubles, Trudy? Ain’t you glad you don’t got boys?”

  “Makes a mess,” Jeanette said.

  Lorraine stroked Jeanette’s hair. “He is a mess, honey. Boys are one, big, walking mess.”

  After Jeanette and I had our baths, after Lorraine and Trudy had cleaned the bathroom and piled the dirty laundry at the foot of the bed, we sat at the kitchen table while the two women talked. I sat on Lorraine’s lap, Jeanette on Trudy’s. Lorraine had coffee and cigarettes. Trudy had a chew. Lorraine brought an empty Maxwell House can and put it on the floor next to Trudy’s chair; every few minutes, Trudy picked it up and spat. Jeanette and I drank Coke from coffee cups.

  Jeanette was tired and leaned against Trudy’s chest. She sucked her thumb while Trudy tickled her cheek. The bulb over the table had burned out, and the only light in the apartment came from the bathroom—a harsh, yellow rectangle that slanted over the couch and fell across the living room floor.

  The four of us sat together for a long while, radio turned low, conversation slowing until there was nothing but the sounds of Lorraine and her cigarette, and Trudy’s tobacco juice hitting the bottom of the can.

  Finally, Trudy stirred.

  “Teddie. Get my lunch box off the coffee table. I brung you two something.”

  I slid from Lorraine’s lap and brought the bucket to the table, placing it in front of Trudy. Jeanette whimpered when I came close, but she did not turn away.

  “Open it,” Trudy said.

  I snapped open the fasteners, and Trudy took a Snicker’s from inside.

  “Give it to your mom,” Trudy said.

  I took the bar to Lorraine, and Jeanette sat up, holding out her hand, coughing with her mouth open wide, watching my every step.

  Lorraine removed the wrapper from the bar and pulled it into two pieces. She handed them to me and pointed to Jeanette.

  I walked over to her slowly, carefully measuring the halves, and handed her what I thought was the smaller piece. She squealed and snatched it from my hand.

  Trudy reached into the lunch box again and put two comic books on the table.

  “One for Jeanette and one for Teddie. Which one you want, baby girl?”

  Without looking at the comics, Jeanette closed her eyes and lay back against her mother. She put her thumb in her mouth and began sucking hard.

  “Narla, narla,” she said. “Narla, narla.”

  Trudy picked up a comic and placed it on Jeanette’s lap. She pushed the other across the table. I picked it up.

  “What do you say?” Lorraine said.

  “Thank you, Aunt Trudy.”

  I pulled the comic in front of me and ran my fingertips over the picture of the bird on the front. The cover was cool and smooth and glistening.

  “Woody.” I whispered. “Woody Woodpecker.”

  Lorraine said. “It’s his favorite.”

  “I know,” Trudy answered. “Jeanette loves Archie.”

  Jeanette turned in her mother’s arms and sighed, “We’re married.”

  “Swear to God. The kid’s married everything in pants.”

  I slid from Lorraine’s lap and took the comic book to the living room. The light from the bathroom fell over the arm rest of the couch, and I jumped up on the cushions. I sat cross-legged, my face close to the cover, chin in my hands, savoring the faint, sweet smell of paper and ink. The woodpecker’s head and arms were hanging out of a large hole he had bored through the trunk of a tree. An angry policeman stood directly below, looking left and right, waving his nightstick in the air. Woody was holding an anvil above the head of the policeman, and he was laughing, eyes wide with excitement, as if he were about to do something clever with the anvil.

  I turned the cover and began to read by placing my finger under each word, saying it aloud. I read through to the end, plunging into the pictures and bringing them to life, passing over the words I did not know. When I finished, I turned the comic over and began again. Jeanette had fallen asleep, and the women had turned off the radio.

  “Lorraine? That kid’s reading, or I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

  “He learns ‘em by heart.”

  “He can’t of that one. It’s brand new this month.”

  “Damn Marge’s got a whole box over at her place. She sits with the kid for hours going over and over ‘em. He gets me, too, when we’re over there. Over and over. He’ll wear you down to a frazzle you let him. Pretty soon he knows ‘em by heart. I seen him a hundred times.”

  “He couldn’t of, Lorraine. It just come out. That kid is reading.”

  “Not likely, dear heart.”

  I read until I fell asleep with my face in the comic. I had been sleeping with my mouth open, and the pages were wet with drool. I felt Lorraine’s hands under my arms as she lifted me to her, heard her laugh as the comic stuck to my face and fluttered to the floor. She bedded me on the couch with Jeanette, our heads at opposite ends, our feet nearly touching. I slept heavily for some time, then wakened in the dark to the sound of women’s voices. The bathroom light had been left on, but the door had been shut to a crack and everything was deeply shadowed. The voices stopped for a moment when Jeanette groaned. I could feel the women listening. They spoke more softly when they began again.

  “She flips and flops when she ain’t home.”

  “Teddie’s a flip-flopper, too, ‘specially if he’s been over at Marge and Leo’s for awhile. Takes him a while to settle in.”

  “Least she don’t walk in her sleep no more. Not so much, anyway. She was little, she’d walk all over hell and gone. Middle of the night. I’d be dead as a dog from work. Wouldn’t hear her ‘til she broke something, raised some kind of racket. I’d get up, and she’d have God knows what-all pulled out of the cupboards.”

  “She ever get outside?”

  “Never did, though she scared me half to death of it. She’d have every pot and pan in the house pulled out of the cupboards. Icebox wide open and the stove burners going fifty miles an hour. I was scared to death she’d burn us to the ground. But she never put anything on the stove. Just food all over the floor and the burners going to town.”

  “She ever talk?”

  “Only if I asked her something and then not always.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “I ask her a couple of times what she was doing. ‘Fixing dinner,’ she says. ‘Fixing dinner?’ I says. ‘For the Daddy’, she says. ‘The Daddy’s hungry.’

  “Ain’t that a kick in the butt? Gets me up in the middle of the night fixing dinner for a man she ain’t never laid eyes on. Lorraine, I swear to my Lord Jesus Christ, it wouldn’t make me a minute’s nevermind if she was cooking me or you up something. The mess, the burners, the whole nine yards. But there she is cooking up for her ‘Daddy’. Sometimes that kid … I could pull my hair out by the roots.”

  There was a long sil
ence, then the rustling of covers being drawn back. A quiet creaking and a groan of springs.

  “She don’t understand,” Lorraine said. “Half the time, she don’t even know what she’s sayin’. Poor little thing.”

  “She understands more’n you think. The simple stuff, she don’t have a clue. Then, the deep inside stuff … out of nowhere … she’ll stop you dead in your tracks. Enough to drive a person up the wall.”

  “You done good with her, Trudy. Ain’t all love and kisses you got a little one like Jeanette. You done real good with her and more power to you. Her soul’s pure as a lily-white angel. Ain’t a mean bone in her body. When she does bad, it’s on account of … on account of it ain’t her fault. Ain’t nobody can fault little Jeanette. Or you, neither.”

  “Oh, she ain’t no lily-white angel. She’s got her mean streak, and, sometimes, she knows exactly what she’s doing. Don’t let her fool you. She’s more like Ivory Soap: ‘Ninety-nine and forty hundredth’s pure’. That other little bit can be ornery as sin.”

  “Well, it ain’t like Teddie. Teddie’s got a mean streak a mile wide. Just like his dad. Sometimes I could shake that kid ‘til he squeaks.”

  “You’re awful hard on him, Lorraine. Teddie’s a good boy. Got a wild boy-streak, is all. He ain’t mean. Not on purpose. Now, his daddy, there’s a horse of a different color. Or snake is more like it. Same as pretty near every man walks the face of the earth. ‘Cepting maybe Leo. Ted’d soon as walk all over you as look at you. Go out of his way to. But not your Teddie. Teddie ain’t like that.”

  “You and Marge. Always taking up for him. Teddie’s got his dad wrote all over him.”

  “He will if you keep sitting on him so hard.”

  “I seen the way Marge did with Ted. Still lets him get by with murder. Now you see what Marge’s got. I ain’t winding up …”

  “‘… with another Ted Durbin on my hands’. You’re beatin’ a dead horse, Lorraine.”

  “My horse to beat. Nobody else’s.”

  There was another rustling of covers, the sound of bed springs, another long silence.

  Trudy cleared her throat. “I know you don’t like nobody sticking their nose in on Teddie. Am I still invited?”

  “Don’t, then.”

  “I don’t mean nothing by it. I love Teddie, too. I told you everything about … me and Jeanette … my uncle Ray and … all that stuff. Just like you tell me all your stuff. When people’s close as me and you, sometimes it gives you the right to say even if it hurts some.”