Polly stopped walking and turned and faced Roy. Her lips were purple and she brushed her hair out of her eyes.
“Two nights ago my mother got drunk on vodka and told me my father isn’t my real father, and that my real father was a boy named Bobby Boles and that he was killed in a bar fight in Houston, Texas. At least that’s what she heard because he abandoned her when she told him she was pregnant. She married my father when I was a year old. She told me she still loved Bobby Boles, even though he was dead, and that every time she looks at me she sees him in my face and it makes her want to cry.”
Roy stared at the jumpy yellow flames in Polly Crow’s eyes. They got bigger, then smaller, then big again.
“She never told you this before?”
Polly shook her head. The wind whipped her hair around.
“Why do you think she wanted you to know now?”
“She made me promise not to tell my father that she told me. She said Bobby Boles had been her sister’s boyfriend, my Aunt Earlene, who’s older and lives in Little Rock, Arkansas. I’ve never met her. My mother says when Earlene found out Bobby Boles fucked my mother she called her a whore and swore she’d never speak to her again, and she hasn’t.”
Roy had never heard a girl say fuck before. Polly started to walk, so he did, too. She didn’t say anything else and when they got to her house Polly went in without saying goodbye.
As far as Roy knew, Gina Crow’s husband never showed up, and a few months after Polly had told Roy about her real father she and her mother moved away without telling Roy or his mother and her husband or Martha Poole to where.
“Gina’s an odd woman,” Roy’s mother said one night at the dinner table. “Her daughter, too. She’ll be trouble when she grows up, if she’s not already. Where do you suppose they went?”
“The Colony of the Sun,” said Roy.
“There’s no such place,” said his mother’s husband.
Creeps
Roy noticed the creepy little guy following him right after he got off the bus. Roy was on his way to the Riviera theater to see a double feature of The Alligator People and First Man Into Space. His friends Buzzy Riordan and Jimmy Boyle were meeting him there. Buzzy had once been thrown out of the Riviera for shouting “Fire!” and ordered never to return, but that had been more than a year before so he figured the manager and the ushers wouldn’t recognize him, especially since he now had a crewcut and was taller. Buzzy told Roy he’d done it so that he could get a better seat; he’d gotten to the theater late and all the seats except for ones in the first row were taken and he hated sitting so close to the screen because he had to look up all the time and the actors’ heads were too small. Lots of kids ran out into the lobby and Buzzy moved back and sat down in the center seat of a middle row. When the kid who had been sitting there came back after learning it was a false alarm told Buzzy to move Buzzy told him to get lost. The kid called an usher and a girl who’d been sitting in the front row near Buzzy and was now walking back to her seat pointed at him and said, “That’s the creep who yelled fire!”
Buzzy and Jimmy Boyle were in the same fifth grade class at Delvis Erland grammar school, which most of the kids called Devil’s Island. The grades went from kindergarten through eighth so if a student spent the entire time there he or she could say that they’d done nine years of hard labor at Devil’s Island. The school had been built in 1902 and resembled an asylum or prison out of Victorian England. When Roy saw the movie of Jane Eyre on TV he thought the similarity between Lowood Institute and Devil’s Island was unmistakable.
The creep who was following Roy was very short, no more than five feet tall, with splotchy bleached blonde hair, a frog-faced kisser and a pudgy build. Roy guessed his age at about forty. The man trailed Roy from the bus stop toward the theater, keeping a few feet behind him. Roy hurried but did not run, hoping that Buzzy and Jimmy would be in front of the Riv waiting for him.
Roy had to wait across the street from the theater for the light to change. He saw his friends standing under the marquee sharing a smoke. Before Roy stepped off the curb the creep was standing next to him.
“Hello, sonny,” he said, “are you hungry? I’d like to buy you a hamburger.”
Just then the light changed to green and Roy ran over to Buzzy and Jimmy.
“Hey Roy,” said Buzzy, “we thought maybe you weren’t comin’. The Alligator People’s gonna start.”
“Yeah,” Jimmy said, “Buzzy was just sayin’ how if we couldn’t get good seats right away he’d have to yell ‘Fire!’ again.
“Uh uh, I was gonna shout ‘Rat!’”
When the blonde babe in The Alligator People who’s wandering lost in a spooky southern swamp sees that her husband has turned partly into a gator, she screams, reminding Roy of the creep with bleached hair who had followed him on the street. The skin on the creep’s face was scaly looking, like an alligator’s, and his hair was almost as long as the actress’s. Roy hoped the guy wouldn’t be waiting for him outside the theater when he got out. Buzzy and Jimmy would be with him, though, so he figured the creep wouldn’t try anything. The boys would stay for both movies unless Buzzy pulled some stunt that would get the three of them tossed before First Man Into Space was over. The show wouldn’t let out until dark. Roy was sure the creep would have found another boy to follow around by then.
Achilles and the Beautiful Land
Roy enjoyed listening to the old guy who fixed zippers tell stories. The man would come through the back door into the kitchen of Roy’s house and sit down on the rickety little wooden chair with the left rear leg that was a quarter of an inch shorter than its other three. Roy’s mother kept the crooked chair because it had belonged to her grandmother and when his mother was a little girl she would sit on it. A daffodil had been painted in yellow on the inside back of the chair but it had faded badly over the years and Roy knew the vague shape was once a daffodil only because his mother told him so. Roy asked her why one leg was shorter than the others and she said she didn’t really know but that her grandmother had owned a brown and white mutt named Blackie who liked to chew on the chair’s legs; teeth marks, presumably Blackie’s, decorated all four of them.
The man who fixed zippers called himself Achilles. He was eighty-eight years old, he said, when he first appeared at the back door and asked Roy’s mother if she had any zippers that needed repairing. He spoke English but with a strange accent punctuated by a cloudy cough that sometimes made it difficult for Roy to understand him. Roy was five when he met Achilles, who remained a regular visitor for more than a year. Even when there were no zippers on Roy’s mother’s dresses or jackets to fix Achilles would come in and sit on the crooked chair by the door and talk to her and Roy, often telling stories about his childhood in a place he called the beautiful land. The beautiful land, said Achilles, was in another country, much smaller than America, a half-step from the Orient, where he had been born. Roy asked him what the name of the country was but Achilles said he didn’t know any more; the country had been invaded by soldiers from many other countries over the years and each time the name had been changed. The old man preferred to recall it only as the beautiful land, describing the forests and rivers and hills and villages where a boy such as he had been was welcomed into any hut or house to eat or sleep.
“Why did you leave there?” Roy asked him.
“When an army wearing helmets sporting blue feathers arrived from the East everyone in every village was forced to abandon their homes and belongings and march together for many days and nights to a train station. I was thirteen years old then and I had never seen a train, so I was curious, and even though I did not want to leave the beautiful land, I did not really mind going. I had heard people describe trains and when I finally saw one I was thrilled that I was going to ride on it. The train was puffing white smoke and hissing like a big long dragon.”
“Where did it take you?”
“Far away from the beautiful land to a place I have forgotten.”
“Did your parents bring you to Chicago?”
“My parents were made to travel on a different train. One day I did not see them and ever since there has been another day.”
“What kinds of animals were there in the beautiful land?”
“Deer, tigers and birds, and fish, of course, in the rivers and lakes.”
“Didn’t the tigers eat the deer?”
“Yes, Roy, and hunters killed and ate both of them, as well as the fish.”
“Did the tigers ever eat the people who lived in the villages?”
“A tiger once spoke to me. I was walking in the woods, looking for mushrooms, when a magnificent orange and black and white beast appeared in my path.”
“How old were you?”
“No more than ten. I was a small boy, only a bit bigger than you are now.”
“You’re still small, Achilles. For a grown man, I mean.”
“Being small has its advantages. I assumed the tiger was going to eat me but he just stared with his yellow eyes and said, ‘Come back when you are larger and will make a better meal.’ Then he disappeared into the trees.”
Roy told his mother that a tiger had spoken to Achilles and she said, “That was in a time when people and animals were still polite to one another.”
“Achilles said the tiger wouldn’t eat him because he was too small.”
“That’s what I mean,” she said.
Roy did not see Achilles for a while so he asked his mother if she had.
“No, Achilles has gone back to the beautiful land. He told me to tell you that he looks forward to seeing you there in about a hundred years.”
“Can you show me on a map where the beautiful land is?”
“Achilles said, ‘Tell Roy that when the time comes he’ll know how to get there. I’ll be waiting for him.’”
“A hundred years is a long time to wait,” said Roy.
“Maybe not,” said his mother, “not if you’re in the beautiful land. Achilles won’t ever leave there again.”
Men in the Kitchen
“So you were already in the basement when this man attacked you.”
“Yes, I was doing the laundry.”
“You didn’t hear him approaching?”
“No, the washing machine was filling with water. I’d just put in a second load, and I was putting the wet things from the first load into the dryer, so I couldn’t hear over the noise.”
“Do you always leave the basement door open when you’re doing laundry?”
“Yes, to have some fresh air, unless it’s cold and raining or snowing. The ventilation down there isn’t very good, and it was a warm, sunny day.”
“You were loading up the dryer. Then what happened?”
“A hand came over my mouth and he wrapped his other arm around my chest. The knife was in his left hand.”
“Left-handed. Go on.”
“The man said, ‘Don’t try to scream or I’ll cut your throat.’ Then he dragged me away from the washing machine and dryer into the passageway by the storage area. He forced me to the ground and took his hands away. That’s when he saw that I’m pregnant and cursed.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“God damn it. He said it three or four times. I kept saying, ‘Don’t hurt my baby, don’t hurt my baby.’ He took out a piece of rope and cut it with his knife, then turned me onto my left side, facing away from him, and tied my hands behind my back. He told me to shut up and I heard him making sounds.”
“What kinds of sounds?”
“I think he was masturbating.”
“How long did this go on?”
“You mean his masturbating?”
“Yes.”
“It couldn’t have been for very long, maybe a minute or two.”
“You didn’t scream or call for help?”
“He would have stabbed me or cut my throat if I had, I’m sure of it. When he was finished he walked out of the basement, out the back door. He didn’t run. I didn’t try to look at him, I didn’t want to see his face. I stayed on the ground for several minutes before I got to my feet. It was difficult because my balance isn’t good. I’m in my eighth month.”
“It sounds like the same guy who attacked the other women. None of them were pregnant.”
“Did he rape them?”
“Yes, ma’am. He cut one.”
“Did she die?”
“No, she’s recovering.”
“Nobody could recover from that.”
Roy’s mother and two men were seated at the kitchen table when he came home from school. Roy stood and looked at the men, both of whom were wearing coats and ties and hats and were clean shaven. One of them wore glasses and the other had a bluish scar on the right side of his chin.
“Hi, Mom,” he said, “are these guys friends of Dad’s?”
She hugged him and said to the men, “This is my son, Roy. He’s seven.”
“Hello, son,” said the man wearing glasses.
“No, Roy,” said his mother, “they’re detectives. They’re investigating a case, something that happened nearby. They’re asking me if I know anything about it.”
“Do you?” Roy asked.
“The boy wasn’t home when it happened?” said the man with the scar.
“No, he was at school.”
The detectives stood up.
“We’ll get back to you about this. Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?”
“No, I’m all right. I’ll call my doctor myself.”
“Thank you for your cooperation, ma’am,” said the man wearing glasses.
“We’ll find our way out,” said the other detective.
The men left and Roy sat down in the chair in which the man with the blue scar had been sitting.
“Mom, are you okay? Why did they ask if you wanted to go to the hospital?”
“They were being kind because I’m pregnant.”
“Can I help you with anything?”
“Not now, sweetheart. I’m going to take a sponge bath and then I’ve got to finish the laundry. You can help me carry the baskets upstairs when it’s dry.”
“What kind of case are they investigating?”
Roy’s mother placed her hands flat on the table and pushed herself up.
“I’ll tell you later,” she said, “How was school today?”
Anna Louise
Roy’s cousin Skip’s mother, Anna Louise, was an alcoholic. The first thing she did every morning after she got out of bed was go into the kitchen and put a teaspoon of sugar into a chimney size glass, fill it with gin, stir it up and drink half of it. Then she lit a gold-papered, unfiltered cigarette and took a long drag before finishing off her glass of gin. She was a natural platinum blonde with unblemished ghost-white skin. Anna Louise was Roy’s Uncle Buck’s first wife; after him, she married Karl von Sydow, a Swedish construction magnate. Von Sydow died of a heart attack six years after marrying Anna Louise and left his fortune to her. She and Skip, who was fifteen when von Sydow died, lived north of Chicago on an estate fronted by a high brick wall. A stream ran through thick woods that bordered the other three sides of the property. Anna Louise owned the land the woods and stream were on. She was forty-two and still beautiful when her second husband died. After she’d drunk the glassful of gin, she puffed on her cigarette for a minute or two before returning to the bathroom that adjoined the master bedroom and began running water into the sunken tub. She remained entirely nude during this routine no matter who else was in the house. Roy was thirteen when he first witnessed his aunt’s diurnal performance. Anna Louise had perfect posture, having as a girl and young woman been a dancer and an actress before working briefly as a teacher of calculus and poetry
at a private girls’ school. She was twenty-two when she married Roy’s uncle, who, Anna Louise unembarrassedly informed Roy, had not been her first lover, though she had let him believe so.
“Your uncle was good to me and an ardent paramour,” she said, “until he impregnated me. After that, I seldom saw him. It wasn’t much of a marriage. Von Sydow was consistently hands on, shall I say. I don’t know which was worse. I should have married a Jew.”
Roy’s aunt delivered this information to him while he and his cousin Skip were seated at the breakfast table eating cereal, the only food Anna Louise kept in the house. She had yet to run her bath.
Roy saw her infrequently during his teenage years, the last time being when he was seventeen and she was living in a motel in an unfashionable suburb of the city. This was after she had unintentionally set fire to her house, which burned to the ground. Anna Louise had passed out drunk in her bedroom, where firemen found her collapsed on the floor and carried her out just before the roof caved in.
According to Skip, most of his mother’s money was gone, swindled by von Sydow’s attorney whom she had trusted to manage her financial affairs, and she spent the majority of her waking hours drinking gin out of the bottle from a case on the floor next to her bed positioned so that to extract a new bottle all she had to do was reach down and lift it up to her lips.
The last Roy heard of Anna Louise was that she had been admitted to an assisted living facility in Indiana, where she had relatives. By that time, however, her mind was gone, as well as what little money she had left, and she died sober and fully dressed sitting in a wheelchair. Skip was overseas in the army at the time and did not come back for the funeral, which was paid for by his father.
Roy always remembered Anna Louise naked in the morning in her big house standing in the kitchen holding her tall glass of sugared gin and a golden cigarette; but he never understood what she meant when she said she should have married a Jew.
Mules in the Wilderness
Roy's World Page 39