Scags at 7

by Deborah Emin

  He pulls the gun out of his holster and shoots three shots in the air. I feel silly pulling my gun out, but I do and aim the shots at him. Bam, bam, bam. You’re dead, I say. He grabs his shirt and makes a face and falls to the ground. He doesn’t mind dying I see, but I do. I hate it when someone says to me, bang you’re dead. I like to run and fight. I like being on my own horse racing around, ride up to a fort and kill all the Indians in there and run away screaming and yelling that I’ve won.

  Davy stands up. He says, Want me to take those baby wheels off? I see no reason not to. He leads me to the garage where a big red Cadillac sits and he pulls out a big green and rusty tool box. He opens it and says, This was my dad’s. He was an auto mechanic. What happened to him? I ask. Davy says, He died in a car crash. He left us lots of money. Wow, I say, so you just live with your mother in this big house? Just the two of you? He nods his head yes while he pulls out a wrench and then loosens the nuts on the training wheels and off they come one, two, three. I’ve been holding the bike while Davy works. I put the kickstand down and look at my bike with its dull blue color and big tires and white seat. Davy puts the tool box away, takes the training wheels and hands them to me. Then he gets on the bike and rides off. Hey, I say, drop the training wheels and go after him. He isn’t riding fast so when I catch up with him, I yank his shirt and pull him over.

  He says, What you doing, I’m just showing you how to ride. I say, I know how to ride, now get off. He gets off saying he could have gone faster if it had been a boy’s bike. I get on the bike and start riding, and ride and ride, it is so simple. My face feels like it’s being scrubbed and scraped by the wind. My knuckles hurt from how hard I am grabbing the handlebars. I wonder if I’ll be able to turn the corner, so I slow down a bit, the bike wiggles. I turn and go down to the bottom of the hill and put my brakes on and get off the seat to turn the corner. Back on the bike, I fly down the rest of the block, past the Mills sisters’ house and the empty lot and the Cooks’. I’m riding so fast that tears fly from my eyes and my legs get tired.

  Won’t Julia be surprised when she comes home and I’m riding my bike without training wheels? I stop in front of my house and lie down on the front stoop, my bike at my side, my gun in its holster and this new kid coming around the corner looking for me.

  11

  Morning Talk

  P ops is in bed today. Mama tells Odessa to be quiet when she cleans upstairs. She takes her hot coffee and her lawn chair and goes to the front stoop to have her usual morning talk with Mrs. Arthur. I come too and put my arms around Mama’s shoulders and whisper in her ear, What’s wrong with Pops? She sips her coffee. It is hot and so black that I see steam rising around her eyes. Mama is dressed for the day. Mama wants to talk to Mrs. Arthur, who appears from her house and sets a chair down and the two of them raise their coffee cups and say good morning. I try and get onto Mama’s lap but she pushes me away. Can’t you see I’m dressed up? Mama asks. Yes, Mama is dressed for the day in a sleeveless white blouse and a navy pleated skirt, her white sandals show off her red toe nails.

  Mrs. Arthur asks, How’s Nate? Now I say out loud, What’s wrong with Pops that he’s staying in bed today? Mama yanks on my hair and I know I have said something I’m not supposed to say. Mama yanks my head back. I see blue sky and smell her perfume. Mama says very quietly, Scags if you insist on being here you have to be quiet. Nothing’s wrong with Pops, he’s a little under the weather. I look again at the blue sky and wonder what weather he is under but I know I can’t ask Mama now.

  Mama says, How are you feeling Ginger? You’re not showing much yet. Showing what? I ask. Mama gives me one of her don’t-push-me looks and I let go of her and sit on the stoop, my back to her and listen. I like to listen. I like the sounds of Mrs. Arthur’s and Mama’s voices going back and forth like a nice game of badmitton.

  The stoop is hard and hot already. Mama is sitting in the sun, but Mrs. Arthur is in the shade. Mrs. Arthur says, You know Beverly there is something to this pregnancy that is very gratifying. Maybe because Mort waited so long to have a family that he is more attentive and concerned than Julia’s father was.

  What does attentive mean? Who was Julia’s father? Julia never talks about him. Julia’s at camp. She’s probably on a horse right now, going for a long ride on top of a big brown, no black, horse. She probably thought up a name to call him that no one knows except her and the horse. I wish she would write to me or come home already.

  Mama says, Nate and I weren’t married very long when I got pregnant with Scags. Mrs. Arthur says, And you weren’t with anyone— Oh no, Mama says very fast and the two of them giggle like Julia and me do when the tickling game starts. So what do they mean and what are they talking about? I stamp on some ants circling around my shoes and get up and do a little soft shoe, as Pops calls it, and squinch the ants, make them disappear.

  Mrs. Arthur says, I am still sick at night, I go to Julia’s room to toss and turn and not disturb Mort. He needs eight hours when he has to work.

  Mr. Arthur owns a button factory. He took Julia and me there once and it wasn’t very big or interesting except for how he held each of us by the hand and introduced us to everyone as his newest girlfriends. He gave me a bag of buttons, all kinds of buttons and when I came home, Aunt Money was there and showed me how to sew them onto a piece of cloth. It was wintertime and we made a snowman filled with button eyes, nose, mouth and then put a row of buttons down his chest as if he wore a coat. Julia threw her buttons away.

  Mama says, When I told Nate I was pregnant, he couldn’t keep his hands off me. But when I got big, and boy did I get big, I started to waddle and that drove him nuts. One minute he was yelling at me, the next minute, as I sat there crying, he apologized. I wondered who was having the baby.

  I say softly, Pops and Mama were having me together.

  Mrs. Arthur asks, Are you going to have another child?

  I can hear in Mama’s voice a far away sound as if Mrs. Arthur and I weren’t here. As if she was talking in my dream. Mama says, We talk about it, we talk, and talk, but I don’t know. The energy it takes to chase after, changing diapers, feeding, sleeping…

  She says these words so that I see pictures in my head. I see a little baby in a crib. It is dark out. There is a thunderstorm. The room gets white lighted and Mama is holding my hand. I start to cry and Mama goes, shush, shush.

  Mama says, Nate became ultrasensitive to noise what with all the noises Scags made. I guess we’ll just be three. That’s enough for me.

  For me too, I guess.

  I ask Mama, Was I a noisy baby?

  Mama laughs and comes back to us. Yes, she says, you were always making some sound or another. But normal sounds, and it wasn’t so bad. Pops is just a little tempermental.

  Oh, I say, and stand up and put my arm around Mama’s shoulder and she raises her hand and touches my cheek. Mama says, Don’t you think you’ve got a pretty good deal here? She laughs out loud. She raises her cup to her lips but it is empty.

  Mrs. Arthur says, I like the age these fine girls are at.

  Mama asks, How’s Julia at camp? Yeah, I say, she hasn’t written to me yet. Mrs. Arthur says, Don’t hold your breath for a letter from that child. We have to call her to hear anything. Julia is having fun horseback riding and swimming but she hates the food.

  We should send her some of Odessa’s cookies, I say to Mama.

  She’d like that, Mrs. Arthur says, but you know she’ll be back here lickety-split. Do you miss her Scags?

  I say, Yes, I do, Julia’s my best friend.

  Mama stands up, picks up her chair and says to Mrs. Arthur, Nice chatting with you Ginger. Why don’t we go to that new restaurant on Green Bay Road today or tomorrow, that is if you’re up to it.

  Mrs. Arthur doesn’t stand up. She stays in her spot on the stoop of her back door. Beverly, she says, you are a woman after my own heart. But what about Nate?
Can you leave him?

  Mama says, He’ll be fine, just needs to sleep. Right Scags?

  I say, Yes, he’s just tired. Just tired.

  They agree to meet at 1:00 and they are best friends like Julia and me and I jump off the stoop, land plop on my feet and run to the garage and get my bike and go looking for Davy. Everything is keen-o today.

  12

  Davy’s Mother

  I get on my bike and ride around the corner to see if Davy is home. He’s not in his yard, so I put my bike down and go up the big front stairs and ring the doorbell which sounds like a big gong gone off. I am afraid of how loud it is. I hear someone walking in the house with heavy footsteps. The door opens a crack and there’s Davy, barefoot, no shirt on, just a pair of pants. He looks at me standing in the bright sunshine. He says, Scags? I say, Yeah, don’t you remember me? He sniffles back the snot in his nose and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. He finally smiles and says, Come in, no one’s here but me.

  I jump up the stoop into his house and he slams the door behind me. It’s unfinished inside his house. The floors are bare, there are boxes everywhere with piles of scrunched up newspapers around them. The boxes look like a maze.

  Want to play? I say to Davy. Can you come outside? He shakes his head no, takes my hand and walks with me into the living room which has no drapes, no furniture, just boxes. He pulls me to the far wall. Leaning against that spot is a huge picture of a woman, a dark woman, standing up straight and tall, with a white dress on, red high heels, scarves around her neck, big hoop earrings catching the light. Davy and I stand side by side looking at the picture. Now I see that Davy was crying. His eyes are teary. Who is that? I ask him. That’s my mother, Davy says. She sure is pretty. I like her dark eyes. She looks like a gypsy. Davy says, Don’t ever tell her that. I ask, Why not? Davy says, She’s one of a kind, she doesn’t belong to any group, at least that’s what she tells me. Do you want to see her room? I figure if he wants to show me the room there must be something really good in it. We climb the stairs that creak when we walk on them. Upstairs our footsteps echo into all the empty rooms. His mother’s room is all the way down the hall. It is a shrine to beauty, Davy says.

  I feel goofy going into this stranger’s bedroom. It is big and white with heavy green drapes over the windows and a long dressing table with a long gold-rimmed mirror. The bed isn’t made. Clothes are thrown on a big black chair—a man’s pants wrinkled with one leg inside out and a woman’s robe, with a big rope belt. The room smells of the peonies in a vase on the nightstand next to the bed. I look around and can’t understand why Davy has brought me up here. Some shrine, it looks like a rat’s nest as Odessa would say, what with everything everywhere.

  Davy goes to the closet and opens the door. I look inside. It is a deep room with clothes, so many clothes all hung up. It smells of leather, all the shoes piled in a hodge-podge as if her feet were too fast to take the time to line up pairs. Davy goes in and walks all the way to the back and comes out holding a black lace bra. Davy holds it over his bare chest and then says, Put it on. I look at the lace, I look at the bigness of it. Davy pushes it against my chest but I start to giggle and say, What do you mean? It’s so big. Davy starts to giggle too and holds it up for me to see.

  He throws the bra on the unmade bed and grabs my hand. We run down the hall to the creaking stairs, our footsteps sounding like a cavalry charge. We run to the back of the house, to the kitchen still giggling. Davy and I slide down to the floor. He opens a cupboard. Out comes a big bag of Jay’s potato chips. He digs deep inside. I hear the crackling, pop, zip of reaching in, coming out with a handful of chips. We eat the whole bag, every last chip and then lick the salt and grease off our fingertips. Davy tries to blow up the empty bag. His chest rises and falls so much he gets out of breath and punches the bag against his chest and says, Here, try it on. I get the giggles and we laugh as loud as we want in the empty house.

  13

  The Expressway

  I t is very early in the morning and I am doing a bad thing. I am eating my breakfast before getting dressed. Odessa isn’t saying anything but her eyebrows did shoot up when I came into the kitchen. I finish and go back upstairs and dress on this cool Saturday morning. One, two, three, it is not so hard to get dressed. Pops comes into my room with his finger at his lips. Shush, he means and then dangles his car keys, pulls a baby blue pair of sunglasses out of his shirt pocket and hands them to me. I put them on and ask Pops, How do I look? He smiles and says, Come with me. We go through the kitchen where Odessa is on her knees cleaning the oven and go out into the garage. Pops hits the garage door button. The door rises.

  Get into my car, Pops says. I jump in and climb over the seat into the back, where children are supposed to sit and wait for him to get in. He slides into the car and tells me to sit in the front seat with him, that we’re going on an adventure. I climb back and seat myself next to him.

  We pull away from our house which looks so sleepy now because the drapes are pulled in the living room and dining room. Mama doesn’t want the sun coming in and fading the carpet. No other cars are on the street and I ask Pops where we’re going. You’ll see, he says to me. I love being in the car with Pops until he pushes the button on the radio and I just as quickly shut it off. I don’t like to listen to the radio with Pops. He gets all excited and either sings loud with his face shoved out the window or argues with the weatherman.

  What are you doing, Scags? Pops asks. I like this music. In my best Mama voice I say, Music is fine but it’s not everything. Pops pats my head and says, You win.

  Where are we going? I ask as he drives fast out of our neighborhood. He says to me, Would you like to sit on my lap Scags while I drive? I say, Of course I would. Who wouldn’t want to sit on his lap and drive down the street with one arm out the window and one hand on the steering wheel? He sits up straight and I crawl in under the steering wheel and now I can see the street and feel the hum of the engine.

  Take the wheel, he says to me and with both hands I grab on and steer the car. Pops says, Do you see that Buick with its fish eyes? Think they’re driving a shark? A shark? I ask, Yes, I see it. And that blue Chevy pickup, Pops says, Steer clear of him. They could mess up our paint job. We’re driving a Chevy too. Pops calls it the peoples’ car, indestructible and trustworthy.

  Pops slows down the car a bit and then we stop at a light. He looks over my shoulder at the dash. I look too. There’s hardly any gas in the tank, I say. He says, Don’t be a worrier, there’s nothing to worry about. Sometimes Pops drives with no gas for a long time.

  The light changes to green and we drive on. Pops lowers my hands on the steering wheel and we turn onto a ramp that goes in a circle. We slide to the right, he slows down a bit more and then we get to the end of the ramp and he says, Drive straight. He takes his hands off the wheel and we are zooming down this straight road I have never seen before. He pushes down on the gas pedal and we are flying along with no other cars anywhere. The wind is blowing my hair in my face and the speed of the car is so fast that I look at the speedometer and we’re going 100 miles per hour. I start to laugh. Pops is singing in my ear When the Saints Go Marching In. I keep us on the road. Soon there is a sign I can’t read we’re going so fast.

  Pops takes his foot off the gas and puts his hands on the wheel again. We coast to the right where there is another one of those circles. He says, Get off me now, your butt is too bony. We drive back home, him whistling his song and me thinking what it feels like to drive 100 miles per hour on an empty gas tank with Pops holding onto me laughing and the air, the trees, the bare ground all whizzing by as if we were almost standing still and they were moving.

  My heart is beating fast and Pops has that look on his face like he just lit up one of his Cuban cigars and the tip is glowing red and he’s had a good day. He says, Don’t tell Mama what we’ve done Scags, you got it?

  14

  Davy Says<
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  D avy and I are playing King of the Hill on a pile of dirt in an excavation when he says, I know you don’t have a thing. A thing? I say. Yeah that thing between my legs, you don’t have one. You’re a girl. Of course I’m a girl, I say, what did you think I was? Would you like to see a thing? he asks and I ask, Why do you want to show it to me? A thing? I ask, why do you call it a thing? Because I’m being nice to you, he says. Girls get all stupid about things. They giggle and stick out their fingers to touch it. Really, I say, did you show your thing to other girls? Oh lots, he says, where we lived before there were lots of girls who wanted to see it. I say to him, I know a girl doesn’t have a thing and doesn’t need one but maybe it would be fun to have a thing and show it off to the girls.

  Did you ever see your father’s thing? Davy asks. I wonder. Did I? I don’t know, I say after a long time kicking at the dirt, watching the rocks roll down the side of the hill, trying to remember. Huh, Davy says, you’re 7 years old and you’ve never seen a thing. Have you ever seen a girl undressed, I ask him. Did you ever see your mother undressed? Davy comes up to me and plants a wet kiss on my lips. Even though he’s 9 years old that doesn’t mean he has to be like this. Hey, I say, wiping his spit from my lips. Hey, I say, what are you doing? He says, Want to be my girlfriend? Why, I ask him, what would be different? Davy says, Then I could show you my thing. He laughs and laughs like Woody Woodpecker.

  We’re standing so close to each other that I smell his breath like clover and can see the black dots in his brown eyes. He’s smiling at me. Davy puts his hands on my shoulders and presses me down, down. We fall to the ground. You’ll see, Davy says. All I can think about is how Pops never showed me his thing and what Odessa said about it, how a boy pees and makes babies with it and naturally I would like to see something like that. Like it is a science experiment. It’s going to be very educational.º