by Deborah Emin
But when they come to my house and Odessa is not here, they bring Nellie, their maid, who always makes me big gingerbread men. But Nellie couldn’t come this time. Odessa is at home so we’ll all have to cook and if only Aunt Money was here, she would know what to make for dinner.
Boomer looks out my window at Pops mowing the lawn. Pops wears a pair of bermuda shorts and his golf shoes. It is hot and sticky. It is a fly buzzing in your nose over and over again kind of day and Pops’ face is all red. Mama is yelling at him to stop. Nothing stops Pops.
You know he could have waited to mow the lawn, Boomer says and looks angry. Oh Isaac, Goldie says, he’s only got two days off a week, leave him alone. Well, he didn’t have to fire the gardener, Boomer says. Goldie says, That’s his business not yours. I sit down on my bed and watch Goldie and Boomer stare out the window.
You know, Mimi, he’s seemed a little tired lately. A little over eager to make the sale but doesn’t have enough energy to close the deal. Well, he looks fine to me, I say and Goldie turns her head to me and says, Your Pops is tops, right? I giggle and Boomer says, Mimi why do you always stick up for that boy? Goldie gives Boomer a funny look like Pops is so wonderful that there is nothing to stick up for.
Scags, dear, Goldie says, let me tell you a secret. Boomer thinks so much of his son that he can’t let him go. Your Pops wanted to be a singer, did you know that? And he also wanted to be a dancer, Scags, can you believe that? Boomer says. Goldie says, Isaac, let me finish. When Boomer heard that, that your Pops wanted to go to New York and become a singer, he couldn’t let him go, he couldn’t say goodbye to him, so when Pops wanted some money to go to New York, Boomer said that he’d have to work for it. So your Pops first said, okay, for a year. But here it is fifteen years later and they are still together making a tidy income.
You mean Goldie that Pops could have been a famous singer and made lots of money—
Whoa, little one, Boomer says. If your Pops had moved to New York he never would have fallen in love with your Mama and there would have been no Scags. Was I terrible to keep him from failure and poverty?
All the times he could have told me this, I think, I think of the way he never said to me that I might not have been born. I miss my Pops. I want him to put away the mower and come inside and let me sit in his lap and smell his breath.
Well, I don’t know what’s happening about dinner, you two, Goldie says and pats me on the cheek, pulls her hand away and there is a nickel between two fingers. Can I have it? I ask, and she says, It’s yours. Goldie goes downstairs and Boomer stares out the window. I can tell that he wants Pops around as much as I do.
Boomer says, Don’t say anything to your Pops about what Goldie just told you. It’s our secret. Boomer looks at me, and he is smiling again, and says, Do you want to look at a piece of paper under the microscope? Do you want to see what that looks like? Then there is a quiet as the mowing stops, the banging of pots and pans starts up and a fly I could have caught to feed to Lizzie, if it were still alive, tickles my palm and I say to Boomer, Let’s look at a fly’s wing. I open my hand slowly and pull the fluttering wing off the fly, close my fist again and wait for him to die. How high fly? How sad fly. My pet fly as Pops says whenever he catches one. My pet fly has to die. Boomer looks at me and waits and I come over to the microscope, drop the dead fly next to it, put the wing on a slide and cover it with another slide and we look at it. What good is a fly with only one wing? Boomer asks and we both laugh.
22
Salt
I ’m lying in bed at the end of a hot day. I’m so sick with the salt, I mean, without the salt. I get so dizzy. A few times today I blacked out while chasing after Davy. Mama called the doctor and he said I needed to eat more salt. Yuck. Pops has been away on a business trip with Boomer and he just got home. I hear him on the stairs, one heavy foot after the other. He sees me lying in bed during the day. Even Mama is lying in bed from the heat.
Pops drops his suitcase. He says, What’s happened here? Mama’s room is dark and so is mine. Odessa comes upstairs and brings me a little blue plate topped with yellow eggs and toast. She says, I put salt on the eggs. I say, I don’t like salt. Odessa says to me, You don’t have a choice, it’s either that or in bed for the rest of the summer sick as you are or sicker. I take the plate and sit up as the room spins. It spins so fast I’m afraid we’ll all throw up.
Pops comes into my room and sits on my bed. He says, Let’s call the doctor. I say, Mama called the doctor. What did he say? Pops asks. He said I need more salt in my food. Pops puts his head in his hands and whispers, It’s all my fault, Scags, it’s all my fault? Why? I ask, why is it your fault? It’s all from sweating so much and not having enough salt in me. She gets dehydrated, Mr. Morgenstern, Odessa says, as she takes the empty plate from me and leaves the room.
I tell Pops, Odessa must know, her daughter is a nurse. Odessa and her husband put their daughter through nursing school and now she works in a hospital. I’ve heard Odessa tell Mama that she is dating one of the doctors, but Mama tells Pops there wouldn’t be any colored doctors in the hospital. I want to tell Odessa that Aunt Money is dating a colored man. Wouldn’t it be wonderful If Aunt Money’s boyfriend met Odessa’s daughter and they fell in love and what if Aunt Money dated the doctor? This sure seems like such a good idea that I tell it to Pops and he pulls his hands away from his head and places both of them on my face. What a stinking little genius you are Scags. But Pops, there’s more to say so take your hands away. He lets go of my face and I feel the cool air wipe my cheeks. You see Pops, I say, if you get sick now like Mama and me and get it over with, then there won’t be anymore sickness for a long time. We will have used up our sick genies and can now have only healthy genies. They will laugh with us because we are so healthy. Don’t you want to get sick? Don’t you want to let Mama and me take care of you?
Is it so much fun being sick? Pops asks me. He pushes my hair off my forehead. I see him staring at his hand when he takes it away. I’m really not so sick now, I say, I’m going to get better right away.
He looks closely at his hand and turns it up and down. I grab it saying, What is it Pops? He turns his face away as if he was crying. I don’t hear any sobs but he is definitely crying and I don’t know what to do.
Odessa comes back into my room carrying a bowl of popcorn she made for me. She says, It’s got plenty of salt and butter on it, just the way you like it. I think, being sick can be fun. Why doesn’t Pops want to get sick like Mama and me? He pulls his handkerchief out of his back pocket and blows his nose. Odessa takes a look at him and leaves the room. Pops turns back to me and sticks his hand, his big hand, into the bowl and grabs a fistful of popcorn, opens his mouth wide and tries to put his whole fist in at once.
I start to laugh at him, I laugh and laugh until his mouth is full. He looks funny. His cheeks are like a chipmunk’s and his mouth is like a fish and his eyes, his eyes must hurt him he is staring so hard at me. But he shakes his head, stands up and is gone, chomping away on the popcorn. Waving his hand at me from behind his back like it is a tail. He goes to Mama and closes their door.
23
New Car
I hear loud honking like three notes saying here I am, playing over and over. Mama is in the kitchen talking on the phone to Aunt Money. I run from Mama’s side to the living room window to see what’s making that noise. Oh. It’s Pops. He’s sitting in a little red car. It doesn’t have a top and Pops sits behind the wheel real low, wearing a white sporty hat.
I yell to Mama, Come see what Pops bought. What? she asks, and I say, A sports car. He what? Mama says, and then tells Aunt Money she’ll call her later, and goes out the garage door with me right behind her.
Mama runs straight through the garage towards the car as if she were going to throw herself over it and give it a big hug. Nate? What have you done? she asks and turns to look in the garage. Her car is missing. Where’s my car? she a
sks and Pops just sits behind the wheel, looking up at her, looking up and smiling. I go to the side and watch Mama and Pops.
This is your car, Bev, Pops says, get in and you too Scags, we’ll take a spin. Oh, Pops, I say, running my hand down the red fender that is so shiny that the sun is orange in it. I say, Oh Pops, can I have a car like this when I get big? No one is going to have this car, Mama says, and to Pops she says, Take it back. I want my old car. But I thought, Pops begins to say, when Mama says, You thought wrong. I like my car. But this is your new car, Pops smiles when he says that. Mama says, Think for a moment before you do things Nate. Think, can’t you?
I hate it when they argue. Why is Mama so angry? Come on Bev, admit it, you like this car, Pops says smiling all the time, touching his cap, squinting in the sun. How could she not like it, look at it, it’s got white seats, a wooden steering wheel, no top and so shiny. How could Mama not like this car?
But Mama turns around and walks back inside the house, fast, holding her hand to her mouth. She walks through the garage and slams the door.
Pops, I say, why is Mama so angry at you? Pops says, She’s not angry. Mama really doesn’t like surprises. It was a big surprise, wasn’t it, he says. She’ll be fine. He takes my hand and says, Hop in, we’ll take a drive and—And what? I ask. He looks at me as if he had no idea what he was going to say. He stares at me now, as if I knew what he was thinking. He stares and stares and when I say, Pops, Pops, let’s go and I slide into the seat that feels molded to fit me, he claps his hands and then pinches my cheek and revs the engine as we pull out of the driveway.
The motor makes a big noise like it could go fast. I ask Pops if I can drive and Pops pats the steering wheel and says, Not this time old sport. But when I get bigger and learn to drive, can I have a car like this? Pops takes the white cap off his head and puts it on mine. I feel like a race car driver. We have no top. We have no windows. Just the windshield between us and the road. I want to go fast, really fast and see what it feels like, so I say, Hey Pops, give it the gas.
Anything to please a lady, Pops says, and off we go down the street, a sharp right then a squealing left and maybe we’re on our way to the expressway. We drive in traffic and it feels like we’re floating in air. Everyone must be jealous of us and think we are the luckiest people to have a red sports car with white seats and a wooden steering wheel.
Pops is still smiling but not humming and he pulls the white cap over my eyes. I pull the cap up and look at where we’re heading, into a car lot where there is a parking space that looks so tiny only my Pops could fit in there. Pops pulls the car in and shuts off the engine. He tells me to get out. My legs are stuck to the seat and sound like pants ripping as I pull myself up. I get out of the car and follow Pops around a building where sitting all alone is Mama’s car. We get in and drive home.
24
Bowling I
P ops is home early on this hot night. Pops likes to drink beer when it’s hot. Mama says to him, Whoa, where’s the fire? Because Pops has drunk 4 beers. Pops laughs and says to Mama, You just don’t understand and I don’t have the time to explain to you that it’s hot and the heat does strange things to a man. The beer is sooo cold and when you’re ready to join me, I’ll gladly share this beer with you.
He lines the empty bottles up under his chair in the living room. He has moved all the furniture to one side so he can have a clear shot at the fireplace with the bottles which he bowls into it, the swept-out, brick-lined hole in the wall where every winter Pops builds fires, big fires and we sit close together as if we needed to keep each other warm.
Mama says, You shouldn’t drink so fast, slow down, come eat dinner. Pops laughs again and waves his arms in the air like a broken helicopter and says, You eat, I’m not hungry.
He stands up and takes one of the empty bottles from under his chair, holds it on its side, takes two long steps and bowls it into the fireplace where the glass explodes and is so loud that I have to put my hands up to my ears. I run to Pops and grab his arm but when I look at his face, he looks right at me and says, I like this crash, bang, crack of broken glass. I don’t say, Well I don’t as he puts the cold one to his lips and I watch the lump in his throat rise and fall as he swallows it all down.
He pushes me away from him and turns to Mama and says, Your turn. What does anyone want to do that for? Odessa asks and picks up the empty bottles and starts to walk away with them when Pops yells, Those are my bottles. I never heard this voice before. How can he talk like this, to be so mean and loud? How can he be mean to Odessa?
Odessa turns to him and says, Mr. Morgenstern are you yelling at me? Pops’ face has a look on it like you better believe it. His eyes are so dark, how have they come together and he’s thinned his lips so that there is a big splash of black and a little splash of red on his face and he’s holding the empty bottle in his hand by the neck and Mama holds herself together by wrapping her arms around herself. I say, Pops why are you like this? I thought you were having fun.
Fun, Pops says, who says anything is fun anymore? Huh? Huh? He walks toward me holding the bottle in one hand and with the other he grabs for me like he was blind. I run, I run out of the room and sit on the stairs. Pops says, This is my house, you’ll let me do what I want.
Put those bottles down, Odessa, Pops says. I hear the clink of glass, and Pops smashes another, then another, then another into the fireplace. I feel like those bottles are crashing in my head. Who is Pops tonight?
Scaaags, he yells and I put my hands over my ears and run up the stairs, close my bedroom door, and lie on my bed with peppery tears rolling out of my eyes. This is worse I think than when he punished me for coming home late from Davy’s. Then he sent me to my room and then went out and bought me a deck of cards with trains on them. I go to my desk and look for them, but I can’t find them, I can’t find them. This is worse and if he comes up here looking for me, I have no where to hide. I get up and listen at the door. No sounds. I open the door slowly, it’s dark in the hall but there he is standing so quietly. I hear Mama and Odessa behind him on the stairs.
What do you want to scare Scags for? Odessa asks. He grabs for me and holds me to himself. He is crying and I can feel his body shivering. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Scags, Pops says. Mama says, You’re drunk, Nate, leave Scags alone and let’s eat.
I’m shivering too. Pops’ eyes are all bloodshot and I want to think how he is better now. He can only be mean once and then he will be nice, very nice.
25
Crab Apples
I tell Davy that Julia is really my best friend and I keep wondering when oh when is she going to come home? What do you want to have her for? Davy asks, when you’ve got me? I am perfectly aware of you, I say to Davy in my best Mama voice, but a girlfriend is different from a boyfriend.
I’m not your boyfriend, Davy says, and sits down on our front stoop next to me. He has a little knife that Jack, his mother’s boyfriend, gave him, he is whittling down a thick twig to a sharp point so he can make an arrow out of it. Your Mama has a boyfriend, right? I ask and Davy nods his head yes. Then why can’t you be my boyfriend? I ask. Because I don’t want to get all mushy with you, you’re just a kid. Oh, I say, and wish Davy would go away and play with some other kid. I feel tired and want to take a nap on the grass under my tree.
Davy says, I know where we can go and get some good crab apples. I say, So do I smartie. He says, Don’t be so piss-filled with yourself. Davy still thinks swearing is keen-o. Whenever I tell Odessa what Davy says to me she says his mother ought to wash his mouth out with soap and that if he had a proper home he wouldn’t be like that.
Crab apples, Davy whispers into my ear, I’ll race you, he says. I jump up and run as hard as I can down the block towards the Mills sisters’ house. They have lived there forever in their yellow brick house and rarely come outside. I love crab apples and so does Julia. I almost beat Davy to the crab apple tre
e, but I slip on the grass at the corner of their yard and start to scream when Davy puts his hand over my mouth. Yes, I remember, I must be very quiet or else we’ll be caught. They don’t like us kids coming into their yard at all. Davy picks from the branches, I pick up hands full off the ground, off the grass, and stuff them in my pockets after making sure they have no worms in them.
When my pockets are full, I whisper to Davy, Let’s go. He has been eating as many as I have picked up and he still wants to fill his pockets. I pull a green and red one from the branch above my head. I bite into it and it makes my cheeks suck in and my tongue tickle. We hear the Mills’ black scottie barking and we run away because we’re afraid they’ll yell at us. I hear the sucked in breath of a door opening and a racket of birds fly away. Davy and I run, run, run. I hold my pockets and let my legs push me further and further away from the crab apple ladies.
We return to my front stoop all out of breath and smiling at how we tricked the old ladies and got what we wanted and didn’t get yelled at.
Do crab apples taste that good? I ask Davy. I put one in my mouth and another one, each in a pocket of my mouth and then spit them out. I put them on my chest under my shirt.
I twist my body back and forth at Davy but he doesn’t seem to notice that now I have breasts. But then he says, Hey, where’d you get those knockers? Can I touch them, he asks and I say, Sure but just with one finger. He raises his hand in the air and then points his pointer at my chest and before he can touch them they fall down. Davy holds his finger in front of my shirt as if he can’t believe what happened and then says, Well that might have been good for a laugh.