by Deborah Emin
Mr. Arthur puts his hand on my shoulder as I stick my white sneaker into the ashes. He has a water can in hand and he begins to pour it over the fire. Please don’t, I say, but the water douses what little spirit was left and now it’s a mixture of soot and unburned newspapers. It becomes a smoky mess that fills up my eyes with tears which I cannot stop.
After the fire is out I ask Mr. Arthur, Why did Pops do this? He puts the empty can down and spreads out the charred remains with the rake. He stands next to me, rubbing his chin with the rake’s handle. Why? Scags. Why? I don’t know but sometimes people get ideas in their heads that they just can’t keep in control. But now your father has gotten it out of his system and he’ll be fine. You’ll see.
But everyone is mad at him, I say. Mr. Arthur says, The important people aren’t angry at him, just the people who don’t understand. You understand, don’t you Scags? I nod my head yes, because I should be able to understand. He’ll be fine now, Mr. Arthur says again. Since he’ll be fine it doesn’t have to hurt as much that he has these ideas. Now he’s going to be fine, I say to myself as I jump over a crack in the sidewalk and save my mother’s back.
33
Dandelions
R icky Rappaport is going to let me wear his helmet when we play football tonight after dinner. He found a bunch of guys we could play with and Johnny and Davy and Tony and Sandy and Rebecca are all going to play too. I can’t play quarterback, Ricky said, my hands are too small to pass the football, and I can’t play center because I wouldn’t be able to defend him. But I can run, Ricky said, run fast, faster than anybody on the street. You’re right, I said to him, no one beats me in races and when we all run around the block I’m the first one back even though it makes me sick to run that fast and that far. I can catch, too, I said, run, catch and run. I may get tackled so Ricky thought it would be a good thing to wear his helmet.
Odessa is off tonight and Mama cooked what she knows how to cook—steak, corn on the cob, cucumbers and dill in sour cream. My glass of milk seems too tall and the steak is bleeding on the plate and the corn is too hot. If only I could eat fast and not get a stomach ache, but whenever I eat fast, I throw up so I take teeny weeny bites of steak, cutting it into the smallest pieces possible and then I stick the green holders into each end of the corn and butter it really well. I like the crunch of the cucumbers in the sour cream. The idea of playing football I like but I’ve never played before. I know I can’t tell Ricky that. I won’t even tell Davy who has shoulder pads and a helmet.
Pops is quiet and dreamy. He’s smiling at something funny and Mama tries to get him to share the joke but he pays no attention to her and picks up his ear of corn, quickly biting it like a squirrel. Mama says, Well if no one wants to talk I will and says, Mrs. Arthur and I found a superb little restaurant that sent us coupons in the mail. They had such wonderful crabmeat salads and mint iced tea and I think we should go there sometime for dinner.
Pops lowers his ear of corn and says, I don’t like to eat out. I like being home with all my things around me. I don’t like to wait for a waiter to take my order which he’ll never get right or for him to bring me the check. I like Odessa’s cooking fine since I have to pay someone to cook a decent meal.
Mama says, What’s wrong with this meal? I thought I cooked the steaks just as you like them and made a light summer fare for us.
Okay, Bev, Pops says, if that’s what you think you did, I won’t argue with you.
Pops, I say, didn’t you like the dinner? I loved it. Then I say, I’m going to play football now. I have cleaned my plate and now I’m going outside to play.
Pops looks at me and then turns to Mama and says, This is all your fault. You don’t know how to raise a girl.
The next thing I know, Pops jumps out of his chair and grabs my arm so hard it hurts and he says to me, You’re going to pick dandelions. I am so surprised. Pops never did this before. Pops drags me to the garage, but if he let go of my arm I would follow him even though I don’t want to. He pulls the weeder off his work bench and hands it to me. It looks like a little hand with the fingers making a V. He is still holding my arm and takes me to the back yard. He says, Pick all the dandelions and don’t chop their heads off, go down to the roots and kill them, I want this yard yellow-free tonight.
Mama is standing at the back door watching us and I feel this hot liquid in my throat. Won’t she do anything? There are thousands of dandelions on the lawn and I bend over to pull one out and Pops says, get on your knees, you’ll do a better job. Tears stream out of my eyes and snot builds up in my nose. Pops says, We’ll have none of that now, work steadily and you’ll get it done. You know how it is with dandelions, you’ve got to get them when they’re young.
I can’t pick all of them tonight, I say, with my throat tightening up so that I can’t breathe. Pops stands over me.
Mama comes outside and stands next to Pops. She bends down to me and takes the weeder out of my hand and says, Go play Scags, stay outside until it gets dark. She takes the weeder out of my hands, I feel her cool hand over mine. I run out of our yard. I hear her say to me that Pops doesn’t feel well. But I keep running as fast as I can and as far as I can while Pops starts to yell, Scaags, Scaaaags, please.
I don’t play football but keep running all the way down the street until I’m at the foot of the hill leading to Witch’s Well.
In what light there is, I climb the hill and sit with my body all collapsed onto me, grabbing my ankles, tightening my knees and I know, yes, I know, he’s not fair anymore. But it’s not fair not fair to make me miss the game and leave me out here. It is getting dark. The frogs and crickets kick up a storm of noise, a veritable symphony, as Pops would say. Yes. I listen and wait for the spooks but it’s a long wait and nothing happens. I get up and brush the dirt off my butt and start the walk home. I see them standing at the picture window, looking for me. Pops with his arm around Mama and Mama resting her head on his shoulder. They’re waiting for me. I think for the very first time in my life I don’t want to go home.
34
Nightmare III
T he dandelions are so high as an elephant’s eye and I dig and dig. Little worms I chop in twos, threes, fours. I have a big rock in my throat that is so heavy I am afraid I will sink through the ground so fast that I will be in the center of the earth with no way back up. I try to stand up. I try to be stronger than the rock but as I push myself up, push, push, this weight this rock is so big and it is stuck in my throat. I can’t swallow it or cough it up. I get to my feet but I know I will never be without this rock and it is caught in my throat so deep that I cannot scream as the worms crawl up my legs. I try to crush them but there are more and more. I must scream. I must. But I can’t.
35
Scags with a Black Eye
I t doesn’t take much to get into a fight in my neighborhood. Davy is in them all the time because kids are always making fun of his mother. The gypsy, they call her and even worse. I just watch and when they’re on the ground I run home and tell Odessa so she can stop it. But she says, Oh never mind, they’ll be the best buddies tomorrow. So when Davy says to me that Ricky’s been saying things about my Pops, I march straight over to Ricky’s house with Davy close behind.
I knock on the door and when his little brother Bobby answers I say, Tell your brother to stop saying things about my Pops. Ricky hears me and comes to the door. You’re scared of me, I say. He says, Your old man is a crazy and everyone knows it. He says this all through the screen door like he doesn’t want to fight me and that makes him look like a skinny little nothing and I tell him to come outside and say that to me.
Davy says, Scags don’t start a fight. He pulls on my arm and says, Let’s go home, we can play in my mother’s bedroom. I yell at him, Go away, you little homo. For sure he gets angry at me and hauls his arm back and bops me right in the eye. I fall down more because he surprised me than because he hurt me. Ricky’s laugh
ing and Bobby is too. Davy takes off faster than I have ever seen him run. I hear Davy screaming, Your dad’s a loony and you are too. I sit on that front lawn so long that Ricky and Bobby go inside leaving me there with an already shut eye.
I go home. I take my time because my butt hurts and so does my face. I touch my eyelid and already it is hot and puffy. I wonder how I am going to hide this shiner from everyone. Davy shouldn’t have hit me when he knew I really wanted to fight Ricky. I don’t want them all to think that Pops is crazy.
I go into my back yard to my tree and sit down. My eye hurts so bad and I know, I know, no one is going to not notice my eye and what do I say to Pops when he sees right through me. He’ll know I’m more hurt than Davy’s punch. My eye is swollen shut and even lying down on the grass doesn’t make it better. I get up and walk to the back door. Odessa is at the sink, looks up at me, and her eyes become as big as stars and out of her mouth comes a trail of Oh my Gods, so that I think she is never going to be quiet.
I put my finger to my lips. It doesn’t work. Mama has heard her and comes running. She takes one look at me and bursts out saying, How did this happen? Who hit you? I start crying. I can’t help it. Mama says, Shush, shush now.
Odessa says, Those children got nothing better to do but beat up little girls? Mama bends down to take a look, a close look at my eye. Odessa takes a cold rag and sets it on my face. What happened to you? Odessa asks, who hit you? I can’t stop crying. The cold aches my head. My butt hurts. As I cry some more, Mama holds me, and I say to myself for as long as Mama holds me, I’ll cry. Mama runs her hand through my hair and I cry even harder for my long lost hair, and for the way everyone says Pops, my Pops, is crazy and I want to know what is happening to him.
Mama picks me up and carries me through the kitchen, up the stairs to my room. She says, You’re getting to be a big girl. I rest my head on her shoulder and wish we could walk like this forever.
When we get to my room she lowers me to the bed and I wrap my arms around her neck and don’t let go. What is it Scags? Mama asks in my ear. What happened? I whisper in her ear, Everyone says bad things about Pops. Everyone says he’s crazy. My tears wet Mama’s face, I think, until I hear her crying too. She pushes me to the side of the bed and lies down next to me, her face in my neck and her arm thrown across my stomach.
Mama says, We’re still his favorite girls, you know, and he’s trying the best he can and he is still your Pops. I say, But all these things he does, like setting fires you know and the dandelions—Shush, shush now, Mama says and puts her finger over my lips. It smells like perfume, her perfume, the one she wears every day and that settles on all of us. I kiss her finger and she taps my lips a couple of times.
Mama says, Don’t get in anymore fights. They don’t understand how it is with Pops. Okay? You promise? she asks and tickles my stomach. When I laugh and wrinkle up my nose it hurts. My whole head hurts and I yell stop. Mama stops.
I’m sorry, she says, that your friends don’t understand, but you do, don’t you, your Pops is going through a bad time. A very bad time and we need to be strong and love him and believe that he’ll get better soon.
Do you love me, Mama? I ask. What a silly question to ask, Mama says, and then she sits up next to me, puts the cold towel over both my eyes and says in a very soft voice, as if she were telling a secret, Of course I do. She gets up and leaves my room. I hear her close the door and walk downstairs.
36
Dancing
D id you ever see your parents dance, did you? I ask Odessa in the morning. She says, My parents danced all the time when they weren’t hoeing, chopping, plowing, picking, making money anyway they knew how. Dancing, we had plenty of dancing with ten kids to raise and feed and clothe. Dancing? Let me tell you about dancing.
Odessa tells me a story about how she and her husband met at a dance club on the South Side. Odessa wore yellow heels and a grape purple dress and a yellow turban. She looked so beautiful. She met a man who loved to dance with her to show up all the other couples there. They danced all night and did that every Saturday night for three months before he asked her out on a real date. He was a fine dancer, she says, a handsome man next to a woman. Hah! Odessa says, You saw your parents dancing? When? she asks. I say, Last night. Ah, Odessa says, That living room smelled like perfume and champagne. They cleaned up everything. What do you know about that?
They danced in the living room to records. They thought I was sleeping but I heard them in my sleep, they woke me up and I could smell them and when I peeked at them I saw they were all dressed up but only went to the living room.
Mama wore this beautiful dress that danced as good as her and Pops wore a black suit with a white shirt and a red bow tie. There were candles everywhere and they had a bottle of champagne and some food out and they were like a bride and groom.
When Pops took Mama in his arms she smiled at him so nice, so pretty, with her white teeth and dimples and the funny way she lifts her head to the side when something nice happens. I watched for only a little while. Actually, a long time because they were so graceful and they danced so perfectly around the room, never bumping into anything or stepping on each other’s toes. Mama wore such high high heels that she was almost as tall as Pops. They got romantic with each other, mushy. I liked the music. Mama’s dress shimmered in the candlelight and Pops’ black hair looked lighter. They didn’t look like parents. I went back to bed.
Hush little one, Odessa says, and down the stairs come Mama and Pops. They look dreamy and happy and Odessa and I watch them.
I stare at Pops first. He is trying not to giggle, to laugh out loud at how happy he is. I can see in his eyes, well, I guess I shouldn’t look him in the eyes because they are a little scary. I look at his mouth where I see his berry-red lips. I look at his hands. Are they shaking? No. He isn’t dancing but he did dance all last night. And Mama? She looks sleepy. Her hair is going in so many directions that she could scare an octopus.
Pops says, Scags we’re going to have to get a steak for that eye. A raw slab of a side of cow and cover up that shiner that isn’t even worth crying about. I stare at my hands. I walk over to Odessa standing by the counter, putting cereal in a bowl for Pops. I wrap my arms around her, and she whispers, It’s okay. Once he eats, he’ll be fine.
Why are we all standing around as if someone died, Pops asks. He pulls a cigarette from behind his ear, lights it and walks to his spot. Odessa, Odessa, he says, I need…I need…She says, A bowl of cereal? She unwraps me and walks to the table with his cereal and a cup of coffee oh so white. She sets them down in front of him and Pops says, No, not that. Then he says no more but stares at his cigarette. The ash gets longer and longer. I know I should get him an ashtray. I know I should move toward him and catch that ash, but it’s too late and it falls onto the blue linen placemat. Mama goes toward Pops and sits down in my place, and drinks my milk.
Nate, Mama says, looking at him. I look too. He seems frozen in place. Mama reaches for his left hand, the hand holding the cigarette. It is still burning and could burn his fingers because he’s not paying any attention to it. Mama pries Pops’ fingers open and takes the cigarette from him. Odessa brings an ashtray that is wet and Mama drops the butt into it where the flame makes a hissing sound like kisses as it goes out.
Pops jumps up from his chair so suddenly that it falls backwards behind him. He takes a step and stops. He takes another step and stops. The three of us watch him. I don’t know what to do so I run out of the kitchen, up the stairs to my bedroom and slam the door behind me.
What is happening to my Pops? Why doesn’t someone do something, I say. Do something to make him stop being so scary and put him back the way he was when he would come home from work and pick me up and let me walk in the air and twirl me around saying my name over and over, Scags, Scaaags, my Scags, and I would say, Yes, you are my Pops.
37
The Fight
I t’s early in the morning. I hear loud voices. I hear Mama and Pops yelling. I open my eyes and around the shade I see some light but not much. Pops must have had another one of his nights. I try to hear what Mama is saying to Pops. Pops yells something back at her. Boom boom. Mama comes up the stairs and goes to their bedroom and slams the door. Pops follows close behind her saying, So you think you can do better, you think there are other guys out there as good as me, you think you can just leave us and not pay for it? She screams back, Go to hell. I hear her crying.
She runs out of the room and down the stairs. The garage door opens. She starts her car and pulls out of the driveway. Then I hear nothing. Pops doesn’t do anything. I have to get out of bed.
Pops stands in the hallway, his hands covering his face. He didn’t do anything to keep Mama at home. I grab him by the belt and say, What’s wrong Pops, why are you crying, where did Mama go?
He puts his arms down and rests one hand on my shoulder. He stops crying immediately. Pops says, Well I guess it’s just the two of us, kiddo. When is Mama coming back, I ask Pops, where did she go? Why did she leave? Pops asks, Do you know how to make coffee?
I say, No. I look at him. He needs to shave and put cold water on his eyes. He needs me, I think suddenly, I think maybe I can fix him. Or maybe this is a dream and I’ll wake up soon. I say, You know Pops we could have some coffee together and then we could play with my microscope. He says, Yes, that is true.
Scags, Scags, Scags, he says my name over and over as if he didn’t know I was standing right next to him. We go down to the kitchen in the dark. He seems calm now as if he doesn’t remember all the screaming. Yes, Pops is going to be okay now.