by Deborah Emin
Who is it? I ask. It’s Mr. Silverstein, Davy says. I feel my breakfast in the back of my throat. Mr. Silverstein, I say. Oh shit fuck piss, Davy says real fast and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. We better get someone, he says, and then says, What if he’s still alive? Oh no, I say, he’s dead. How do you know? Davy asks and then I scream, Mama, Mama.
We run away screaming together. I don’t ride my bike but push it and run all the way back to my house not stopping screaming for one minute. Davy and I run up my front walk, into the house and I slam the door behind us. It feels cold in the house. I grab Davy’s hand and we both shiver. I call Mama, Mama, and she and Mrs. Arthur come out of the basement.
What is it? Mama asks and I run to her and throw my arms around her, but she unwraps me and says, What is it, what’s all the noise about, why are you two so pale? Davy says, We saw a man, a dead man, hanging from the tree in the Dietrichs’ back yard.
Mama looks funny now too. Odessa comes into the hallway and says, What is it? Who’s hanging from the tree? Mama says, I’ll call the police, give them the address and then we’ll go over there. Mama looks like she is going to be sick too. Who is it? Mama asks. I say, It was Mr. Silverstein. I saw his face. Mama says, I’ve got to go there you two. You stay here. Odessa’ll sit with you until I get back. Mama and Mrs. Arthur go in the kitchen and call the police and leave through the back door.
Davy and I sit in the living room for a short while and then the silence we keep is broken by sirens. They come so fast and so loud as if they could wake up Mr. Silverstein. The noise hurts my chest and they just keep coming and coming. I run to the window to see what they look like.
Odessa says, Scags come away from there and grab a shirt for Davy. He doesn’t have to sit here all messed up. I don’t want a girl’s shirt, Davy says. I can see he’s trying not to cry.
Through the living room window, we can see the police car, ambulance, and fire truck. Everybody’s mothers are standing in the Dietrichs’ driveway, just standing, not talking, but watching the police bring the body out. The mothers make room for it. I go upstairs and pick out one of my favorite shirts for Davy, it’s big on me and I wear it to the beach, so I come downstairs with it to give to Davy and he goes, Shit, it’s pink.
Odessa says to Davy, Watch your mouth. Take off that dirty shirt and put this on. You’ll go home soon and your mother can clean you up.
Davy says, That man is going to go through the fires of hell for what he did. What is that? I ask and Odessa says, Shush now, no need to rile the dead. But he will, Davy says and then we hear his mother.
Davy, Davy, she calls. She runs up the front walk, her gold earrings catching the sun and comes in the house without even knocking. Davy, Davy. She stands next to the door and he goes running toward her. Odessa walks up to her and hands her Davy’s dirty shirt.
What’s happening? she asks. Odessa says, A man hung himself. These two found him. Davy sticks his face into his mama’s chest and she runs her hands over his head and now he’s crying. His whole body shakes and I start to cry and Odessa comes to me and lets me put my face into her, deep into her, into a softness I can’t get enough of and I cry big gulps of air that feel like they have goldfish in them so that I start to choke.
Mama and Mrs. Arthur come in the house and look at Davy’s mother standing there and say hello to her. Mama is all pale now and her mouth is all puckered up. Davy and his mother look at all of us and Mama says, They saw him, they found him. It’s awful. Davy’s mother shakes her head, says, Yes, awful, and pulls Davy out of our house. I want Davy to stay. I want to go upstairs and color in the big coloring book Goldie gave me. Davy, I say, but Odessa holds me back and pushes me against her, and says, Let him go, he needs to be with his mother.
Mrs. Arthur says, I’d better go down to Viv’s and see if she needs my help with the kids. Mama says, I can’t believe it, that nice family, those little twins—I can’t stand it. What made him do it? We’ll never know, says Mrs. Arthur, and she leaves too.
Mama sits on the couch and Odessa says, Did you see him? Mama says, Yes. Then Odessa takes me over to Mama and tells her to hold onto me for a while and she’ll get Mama a glass of wine. Mama says, No thanks, Odessa. I need to call Nate. Take Scags up to her room and stay with her a while.
Odessa’s eyebrows pucker together and when we go upstairs she asks, What did you see? I hold tight to her arm. Odessa, I say, was he dead? Yes, she says, he was dead. I saw him in the air with nothing holding him up. He looked scared. Why did he do that? Who knows, Odessa says, who knows what makes people act the way they do. Let’s take a nap and try and forget this business, Odessa says as she lies down on my bed and I fall onto her as if she were a cloud that could keep me soft and safe. I say, You know Odessa, sometimes you’re my Mama too.
18
Nightmare I
A s Pops leaves in the morning to go to work, I look at his shoes. They are black, shiny, and new-looking with a spark at the pointed toe as if he could light a fire under his feet. I ask him if these are new shoes, if they hurt his feet. He takes my hands and dances with me and says, Bully my dear, for new shoes they are fascinatingly comfortable and I’ll wear them as long as I live. Okay, I say, you can go now. He kisses me on the cheek and I put my arms around his neck. He says, No no no don’t do that and I say, Why not? He pulls his white collar away and I see a big red mark. I say, No Pops. He turns into a skeleton laughing and laughing as if being dead were the funniest thing and I hold my breath and close my eyes. The picture goes away and Pops drinks his coffee black, which he never does, and goes out the door, his feet setting fire to the floor under him.
Mama sits in the living room in Pops’ chair and sings Some Enchanted Evening. I go outside but it is raining so I go back inside and there is a man I don’t know sitting with Mama, holding her hands. Mama says, Scags be nice now, now you have a new Pops. Odessa is sitting on the couch looking like she just broke the best china Mama has.
19
Bugs
C hildren live only so long as children, they shouldn’t rush things, Odessa says as I scoop one spoonful of Rice Krispies after another into my mouth. The kitchen is full of light. The table sparkles. I pile my spoon high with the crunchy bits of cereal, the milk drips and the only sound beside me munching is Odessa humming God Bless the Child. Where is Pops? Where is Mama? Aren’t they ever coming down? I ask Odessa who spent the night with me when we listened to Ella Fitzgerald sing Summertime.
Come on Scags, she says and washes the sink again and prepares to clean the stove. She lowers her voice and says, They were out late last night, having a wonderful time with their friends. Now they have to catch up with them Zs. I want my Pops, I say real low because when Odessa is working she doesn’t hear much of anything. I slow down, I stop eating fast, but still I don’t hear them so I clear my empty bowl and juice glass from the table. Odessa thanks me and I go outside to the patio.
Davy and I have a collection of bugs. We’ve caught them and then killed them using carbon tetrachloride. All our bugs sit petrified in one last position as if at any moment they could move but won’t. They sit in little jars on the patio. We also have pulled many cocoons off trees and bushes and put them in shoe boxes with twigs and leaves. Davy told me yesterday that he doesn’t want to walk through the fields looking closely at the leaves of weeds and grasses for the centipedes, grasshoppers, lady bugs, beetles, praying mantises, and all the other kinds of bugs we catch because he hates to see them die. I love to watch them fighting and trying to get away one second and the next they’re frozen in one position never to move again. They will always be dead.
Odessa comes to the doorway, watches me tap each bottle she has saved for us while I count them, count up all the dead bugs and there are 23 jars of dead bugs. Where is everyone?
It’s Saturday. Pops has to get up. He has to take me for a ride so we can look at all the cars and so he can give me a nickel
for every car I know the name of. He has to let me drive. Mama and Pops have to come downstairs right this minute, by the time I count to ten, by the time I tie my shoes, by the time I spell my whole name backwards. If Julia were home we could go for long bike rides, play the tickling game, run through the sprinklers and sunbathe.
I go further into the back yard where I see Davy’s window. The shade is closed. Doesn’t he see that the sun is shining, the sky is bright blue and that the grass is so green it looks like one of my crayolas? I lie down in the grass and put my face into it. It smells green and a bug goes up my nose. When I sneeze it comes flying out. Now my nose is all tingly and I think, ugh a bug went up my nose. I won’t tell Davy. I just want him to come over so we can take some jars and cotton, cleaning fluid and aluminum foil, which I hand out in little pieces because I don’t want to use it all up, and go to the fields behind the Mills sisters’ house and catch us some bugs.
It is so quiet outside, you’d think everyone has died or moved away. Maybe some kind of gas leaked out of the ground and only Odessa and me escaped it. Maybe this is a dream and I’ll wake up petrified in a jar trying to scream.
I feel the tears bubble up in my eyes and my throat gets tight. I don’t want to cry but where is everyone, don’t they know I’m waiting for them?
I don’t know why but I go to the white shoebox where we put our first cocoon and I think while I’m waiting on everyone, as everyone sleeps and ignores me, Davy too, I’ll open the box. I feel something hit the side of the box, I open it, and out flies a monarch butterfly. Bright orange and dark black. It hovers over me, over my head, and I let out a whoop, and the butterfly takes a look around its new life. It flies off to Mama’s garden where it sits in the bright sunlight opening and closing its wings, drying them off. It flutters around the tomato plants and hops from one stake to the next. There are no other butterflies flying around and there is no one who saw this but me. The butterfly opens its wings and then flies towards the Cooks’ next door, up on their roof. Now I can never capture it again. It disappears and I wonder will I ever be able to describe this to Pops and where is he anyway?
20
The Chameleon
P ops comes in the kitchen door, home from work, a big smile on his face. I run to him, to have him pick me up, let my feet touch the ceiling and to smell him. Yes. Smell his mouth that has said all those words. I run to Pops but he sticks out his hand to stop me, and says, Guess what’s in my pocket? Pops, Pops, Pops, you got something for me. I guess—a bag of candy? A yo-yo? A pack of baseball cards? He shakes his head no and then looks at his jacket pocket where something’s crawling and glides slowly up the front of him. It is turning colors, from brown to green against Pops’ blue suit as I watch it climb to Pops’ shoulder. It has a little blue string tied around its neck. What is it? I ask. Pops says, It’s a chameleon. What’s that? I ask and jump up and down because I want to know why a lizard is crawling up his jacket and why Pops is giving this to me. It walks all over him with its tongue, its long thin tongue flicking in and out, and its eyes practically hidden by little hoods. I ask, What do I do with it?
It’s a pet, Pops says. A pet, I say. Dogs are pets and that’s what I want, a little puppy I could put in my pocket and that would stick its little head out and cry. This is ugly. You think it’s ugly? Pops asks, and then he says, You should have seen all the kids at the State Fair wearing them on their shoulders. Look at his feet and his long tail and the hooded eyes. It can’t make any noise and only wants simple things. It can change its colors to blend in with the landscape whatever it may be so that he is not eaten by anything bigger and faster. Isn’t it fascinating? Pops asks. Who knows, maybe if you take care of this we can think about getting a puppy, he says. Don’t you think it’s cute? No, I say again, he’s ugly. Well, he’s yours, Pops says, it eats flies so you’ll have to catch a few every day and give it some water.
Pops, Pops, I say fast, because he is taking the lizard off his shoulder and putting it on mine, What makes you think that something that changes color would make a good pet? Why can’t I have a little puppy instead? Take care of this little guy first, he says, what are you going to name it? I don’t know, I say, as he sits lightly on me. What does he do beside change colors? I ask. Pops says he doesn’t do anything. He just needs his simple self to be taken care of. You’ll see, you’ll grow to like him and when you play with him—Play with him I say, can he sit up, can he roll over, can he play hide and seek, can he go for walks with me? Pops says, It’s yours, make it a home, you hear, you’ll see, something that can change colors can be fascinating.
Pops laughs then. What is he laughing at? Why does he smell like he does, as if he had been to the dairy farm like we did last year on our field trip? The sound of his laughter is different from before, it sounds as if he was a long ways away and going through a tunnel fast to get to the other side where I’m waiting for him, me and Lizzie, that’s what I’ll call it, and Pops laughs all the way up the stairs to his room where Mama is lying down.
Odessa hands me a shoe box she took off the patio. I tell her, My cocoons were in there. She says, They’re dead by now. Punch some holes in the top of the box and get some grass and leaves and twigs to make a home. Leave it in the basement where it’s cool. Give it some water. Pops says from the top of the stairs, Look for a fly, feed him a couple of flies. He goes back to Mama.
Why couldn’t he bring me a puppy? I say to Lizzie as I settle it down for the night. I go catch a fly, bring it to it. I’m a good fly catcher and I like the way they flutter their wings in my closed hand. It tickles. I put the fly in front of Lizzie’s mouth and its tongue whips out, catches it and snaps back into his mouth. Odessa brings the top of a mayonnaise jar downstairs filled with water. Lizzie is settled for the night.
At dinner Pops says, Tell Mama about the chameleon. He is so excited and says to Mama, I got Scags a pet today at the fair. Pops laughs and says, I really thought she’d like it. Well, it’s the thought that counts, Mama says, but doesn’t look at Pops or me. I really thought she’d like it, Pops says again. So I try to like it.
In the morning I take Lizzie out of its box and take it outside on the lawn, hold onto its little leash and watch it turn from brown to green. Davy calls me from his back yard and I tell him to come over. When he sees Lizzie, he says, I’m going to ask my Mom to get me one. I think maybe I should give him mine because Lizzie gives me the creeps. Its skin is dry and it eats a lot of flies.
The next morning I forget to give Lizzie breakfast or even say hello. Odessa says, Don’t forget about your chameleon. I say, I won’t, I just need to do something. What might that something be that you would leave that little lizard hungry and thirsty? I don’t know what I need to do. I go downstairs and talk to Lizzie, I knock the box around a little and then go upstairs.
The next morning I think Lizzie can wait one more day for its fly and water until one morning when I finally think, why, I’ll catch a fly and I trap one between my fingers, I put the buzzing fly in my fist and go open the box to hand Lizzie the fly but its eyes don’t open nor its mouth. It doesn’t move. I let the fly go knowing Odessa will swat it to death and I pick up Lizzie by the tail. Lizzie is like a piece of brown petrified wood.
I put his stiff body in my pants pocket and go out the basement door which I’m not supposed to do because it has a special lock on it. It rained last night. The grass is slick like a slip-n-slide because the gardener hasn’t been around to cut the grass. I walk to the cottonwood tree. I dig a hole for Lizzie under my rock collection. I have rocks with fool’s gold as well as mica and quartz buried back here. Now I put them on top of Lizzie. I scrape the dirt over it and put my rocks on top of the little mound.
Wait until Pops finds out Lizzie is dead. Gosh, I say quietly, Lizzie is under all these rocks and I can’t let Pops know I killed it. What’ll I say? Should I say how sorry I am? I’m getting all muddy and wet sitting here. I just want to say, if Pops ha
d gotten me a puppy instead of this stupid dead lizard, I wouldn’t kill the puppy and maybe I did kill Lizzie but it was a dumb pet. So I say, God, I’m sorry I killed Lizzie, I guess. But Pops should have known better what to bring me. He liked Lizzie more than I did and now Lizzie’s gone. I’m sorry. Please have him bring me a puppy next time. Thank you.
21
Boomer and Goldie
B oomer gives me a microscope which is little and black and sits on my desk like a pudgy king while I look at my hair and then a drop of water under it, and I can barely believe what I see. Boomer sits with me and he is smiling, because he sees I like the gift, and that I am going to be a scientist just like he wanted to be but gave up and became a salesman instead. He sucks on his unlit pipe and makes little gruff noises in his throat, like he was the wolf hiding out at grandma’s. I tell him to look, to please look at all the barbs on my hair and to look at all the bugs in the water. He says, You like it, you really like the microscope? I say, Yes, as I close one eye and take a long look at the water. That’s great, he says. Then I remember to say thank you.
Boomer and Goldie are here at my house, where they rarely come. Boomer drove them here in his big black Cadillac with the white seats. We usually visit them at their house in Chicago on Pine Grove. I like sitting in their sunroom with Goldie while she sips her tea and reads the paper. I love everything about their apartment, the sunlight in the morning and the long hallway where Boomer and I play catch before Goldie tells us to play outside.
When Goldie lets me stay over we go to Woolworth’s and I get a big coloring book, new crayons, a box of colored pencils, and a pad of paper to draw on. I have to bring my own books because Goldie doesn’t own any children’s books.