I was twelve years old and we lived in a two bedroom welfare shack back of the Ark Street Piggly Wiggly in Midland, Arizona. It was hot enough that you couldn’t get three steps away from the counter with a fifty cent ice cream sandwich before it melted. Daddy was in Folsom for putting it to a rounder in San Antonio, and Bethel was two years on his own netting bass in Maine. Beau was asleep from the heat, and momma was fanning herself in the tub. Johnny Cash was on the radio
I had a cricket trapped in a mason jar with a hairy wood spider, letting them work things out scientific like. The spider stretched one fine tendril across the length of the cricket’s hindquarters, inched closer, crouched low in the jar. The cricket was so still I’d of thought him dead if he wasn’t standing upright. I had figured it’d be a quick thrust of those deadly mandibles, but it was more of a solemn courtship, the spider stroking the cricket, mounting him, sliding his velveteen fangs delicately toward the cricket’s static figure. About that time Beau woke up.
“Momma!”
Christ, that boy could whine! I dropped the mason jar against the edge of the coffee table and it shattered in all directions on the green shag carpet, leaving my creature studies unresolved. “She’s in the bath!” I tried to pull the smaller chunks from the sticky mass of thread, swearing at myself for not playing in the kitchen like I was supposed to.
“Momma!”
“Dammit, Beau, she’s in the bath!” The chug, chug, chug of the ceiling fan overhead suddenly whirred to a halt. I moaned and headed for the nearest chair from our mis matched dining set.
“Momma!”
I let go of fixing the ceiling fan for a bit and turned instead toward the bedroom that smelled of Beaumont’s late night bladder spasms. In my determination to find my brother and throttle him I forgot about the broken glass in the carpet and whittled a sizeable chunk out of my heel. The seep of blood only fueled my frustrations. I held the wounded foot up to his scrunchy, pink face. “Look what you made me do!”
“I want my momma.” Beaumont had our father’s looks in every unfortunate way. He looked like one of those Chinese dogs with pig noses, he was stocky and rude-bodied. Even at the tender age of six he had deep bags below his blue eyes. If it weren’t for the black locks hanging around his cheeks, you wouldn’t know my momma was in him at all.
“You can’t have her, she’s in the bath.” I grabbed an old t-shirt from the floor and wadded it around my heel.
“Tell her come here.”
“Why?”
“Momma!”
I cinched his jaw in my fingers, shaking the pudgy cheeks. “Look here, you half breed idiot, she’s in the bath and you ain’t getting her, so just stop screaming in my ear.” When I drew my hand away, the white shadows of my fingers were still laying against his dapply face. He took in a quick sniffle, those ugly blue orbs sinking into his obese head, and let out a wail to raise the dead.
“God, Beaumont, shut up!” I could hear momma rising in the tub. “I’m sorry, Beau, I didn’t mean it. Please stop crying. You wanna ice cream? I’ll walk you to the store. C’mon, git your shoes, we’ll go right now.”
“You hurt me, Ozzy, you hurt me on my face.” How pitiful ugly he was.
“I’m sorry. Let’s go, alright?”
He rolled down from the bottom bunk and strapped on a pair of ragged sneakers. We stepped out into a blister of sun, the rubber bottoms of our shoes sticking to the waxy blacktop, the space where Bethel should be walking beside me full of nothing but hot, still air.
My older brother was a capable fisherman. In the summers before he left us he would wake me before sunrise to drain the reservoir of catfish.
Pull the line slow, Ozzy, don’t tug, you’re scaring him.
I can’t hardly hold him as it is, how am I supposed to slow him up?
You’re fighting. Don’t fight, let him come to you on his own.
I can’t Bethel, I can’t, he’s too strong.
“Ozzy?”
“Huh?”
The lady behind the counter watched us with suspicious features. “Where’s your mom?” She repeated.
“Home.” I replied. I dropped a handful of nickels and dimes on the counter. She picked through them, her powdered lids flashing up at us and down at the change.
“Tell your mom she can’t come here no more. You boys neither.” She threw the change in her register and slammed it shut with a bony hip. “We ain’t takin’ no more rubber checks.”
I took Beaumont by his sweaty arm and lead him out of the Piggly Wiggly with my gut swaying low. The mailbox had filled with pink slips and the rent man had been by twice, which meant we would be moving soon. It was beginning to look like I’d miss another year of school.
Beau had a faceful of moon pie and was chomping, open maw, his hands smeared with chocolate. He looked up at me and smiled with calico teeth. I patted his head, wondering what would become of him. He wasn’t by any means clever, he moved like a drugged bull, he smelled of spoiled cheese, there was just nothing laudable about him. To make things worse, he had an odd tendency to burst into tears for no clear reason.
“Where were you?” Momma was laying on the sofa in a thin yellow sundress, her long black hair combed at her side. She winked at me, spreading her thick lips. “Did you save some sweets for momma?”
Beau leapt into her lap and lay his sugar caked face against her breast. “Ozzy hurt my face, momma.”
I flinched. Momma’s belt was three seconds away, hanging from the bathroom door, patient and cruel. I took a long look at the shag, horrified to see that my mishap with the mason jar had been noticed and cleared.
“He did?” Momma’s inky black pupils twitched. “Did he hurt you bad, baby?”
“Uh-huh.” He sat there, fussing around in her lap, licking his fingers. I just couldn’t stand the sight of him. He knew exactly what he was doing, and the only one blind to it was my momma. He’d had his cake, and he was going to eat it too.
Momma didn’t bother putting the strap to me. She just reached across the table and slammed her palm against my ass. I could see Beau grinning, ear to ear, in his soft, human cradle. “You oughtta know better.” She said.
Bethel, how come daddy don’t fish?
I reckon he ain’t got the patience for it.
I’m pashun.
No, patient. With a t at the end.
Am I like daddy?
We had an early supper of blackened greens and half-alive pork chops. I didn’t ask momma where she got them, but I knew she couldn’t have paid for them. Even before I knew what was in her medicine, I knew she got it through some notorious and expensive means. It was the same every month; She got her check, bought us a trunkful from the grocer, then showed up with hard cash, her medicine and a few new toys. By the end of the month we were usually living off of leftover macaroni and wonder bread.
“What do y’all think of goin back to the res?” She asked, as I bulleted down a hunk of pork.
I shrugged. The sound of wailing children and shouting women tornadoed through my chest. “I guess so.”
Momma fiddled her fork between the massacre of green beans. Her mammoth eyes blinked and shivered. She stroked her hair and tapped at the back of her head. “I ran into an old friend yesterday while y’all were at the pool. His name’s Alan. He lives out on the reservation.”
I winced. The pork seemed to swim up at me from a quivering field of charred wilderness.
“He has dogs.” She sang. She squeezed her face into a round smile. “Doggies” She repeated, “And little black pups. Y’all wanna go see the pups?”
I twisted in my chair, suddenly all too aware that Beau had wandered from the table. “Beau, git up here and eat your supper.”
Momma put her hand over mine. Her slender fingers were like dead weights on my trembling palm. I couldn’t just come out and tell her no, no I wouldn’t go back to the res, no I wouldn’t go to that horrible school, no I wouldn’t get my nose bloodied by another scrawny res kid. “Puppies.” I said.
“I know you didn’t like it last time, baby, but just think,” She said, swallowing hard as a difficult grin pushed itself onto her face, “We’ll have a brand new start a things. Maybe I’ll git to feelin a little better. All this city air ain’t good on my health, anyways.” She pushed her plate aside and stretched her thin torso over the table, laying her chin on the bridge of our tangled fingers. “I need you to help me with this one, Ozzy, I ain’t got but you and Beau left.”
I nodded. “Beaumont!” I shouted. “Git in here and eat afore I throw yer supper out.” I could feel my mother waiting for me to say ‘I’d like that’, just like a cowboy in the movies, with a strong nod of the head and a smart grin. I’d rather have died and gone to Hell. “Momma, I thought you was gonna git a job at the Piggly.”
“They ain’t hirin, baby. We’d just be there for a little while, then Alan can git us a house in New Mexico.”
‘No he can’t,’ I thought, cutting the words out of my mind before they had a chance to surface. “Why can’t we just stay where we are?” Pink slips in the mailbox. Rent man at the door. Pork chops on the table. “Why can’t we move in with gramma?”
“Uncle Ted and his kids are livin with gramma. She ain’t got no room for us.”
‘She hates you, and she hates us.’ I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where all these thoughts were coming from. I reckon I’d always felt them, but they’d never come by me in such clear words. “Can’t we just move somewhere else?”
“Not this time, baby.”
The ceiling fan whirred to a stop. Beaumont dragged a chair into the living room and stood it on the coffee table. He climbed up and gave the blade a shove. The choppy sound of moving air returned to our little house.
“Beau!” I yelled, “Git in here now.”
He tottered down, leaving the chair atop the coffee table and ambled over, poking his chop with an oily finger. “Can we go to the Krystal Burger?” He asked.
Someday I’ll have my own son, Ozzy, and I’ll take him fishing here.
A family like momma and daddy and us?
No, my family will be together.
Beaumont dragged his ugly old stuffed rabbit out of the bedroom and plopped it on top of my Tyco front-loading tractor. “Take that thing offa there.”
Momma was in the bathroom taking her shot. The living room floor was littered with my most magnificent collection of matchbox cars, Tonka trucks and army men. Beaumont sat on his haunches and watched me play. His eyes shot toward the bathroom door as he caught the sound of momma sicking up. “How come momma’s sick?” He asked. The way he held his head when he said it, all cold faced and hard towards the floor, made me pitiful nervous for him.
“She just is. How come you’re stupid?” I replied, knocking the bunny asunder and replacing it with a one armed GI Joe.
“I ain’t stupid.” He picked up his raggedy bunny and pushed it through the shag, now and again hopping it over a Pontiac Grand AM or a mutilated plastic soldier. Dusk was beginning to make the air breathable again, but he seemed to trickle an incessant stream of sweat. “I know what’s wrong with her.”
“I’m sure you do.” I lurched the tractor forward until the front hoe was loaded with marbles. GI Joe got out and began piling in the wayward glassies. Bunny crept up behind him and kissed Joe’s missing arm.
“All better.” Beau said.
“Not likely.” I replied. Once the marbles were loaded, the tractor made it’s way back to the drop site, a valley in the shag where construction of a monster truck rally auditorium was in process. Joe got out and flagged the truck backwards with his good arm. Bunny nibbled at the marbles. “Knock it off.” I said. “Go play with your own toys.”
“It’s because she misses daddy and Bethel. When they come home she’ll be happy again.” Bunny tumbled into Joe and kicked a mess of marbles everywhere.
“They ain’t comin back. Daddy’s in prison and Bethel don’t love us no more.” I shouldn’t have said it. Of all the things I remember about that day, this is the one that most haunts my nightmares, this one critical and foolish error in judgment, this one most brutal mistake.
Beau watched me with an open mouth and bobbing head. He dropped Mr. Bunny Foo Foo. “Daddy went to prison…” The bunny bounced once and landed, face down, in the carpet, white cotton tail dusty and still. Beau’s little mouth almost let out a giggle before it was swept away in tears. “Momma!”
“I meant he’s at work in Alaska.” I rambled in stumbling rote. “Just like afore when he was gone for so long. Stop cryin, Beau, he’s just in Alaska.”
I caught him! I caught me a fish!
Well, you sure did.
I love you, Bethel, you’re the best brother in the whole, wide, world.
You ain’t so bad yourself, Ozzy.
“Why did you tell him!” Momma’s belt was still wrapped around her arm. “What the fuck where you thinking! What is wrong with you!” She stroked Beau’s head as it heaved into her chest. “He’s just a baby!”
“I’m sorry, momma, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean nothing by it.” I could feel my pulse from head to toe, I dropped to my knees and hugged myself, supper rising in my throat. “I swear I didn’t mean it.”
Beau’s face was hideous with pain. His jaw hung loose, puddles of thick drool congealed on his chin. His eyes were so raw that the blue was almost purple. Momma was still hollering but I couldn’t hear her for Beau’s horrible, stuttering wails. “Da-ad-dy uh-uh-huh-” Gasp, “Daaa-ddy-y…”
I had not one word to say for myself. It was all I could do to hang my head and try not to cry. I knew a whipping was coming, but the fear of it was nothing compared to the abject humiliation of sitting there, afraid to make a move, listening to momma comfort Beau. I couldn’t help her any more than I could hold back a Mac truck with my pinky finger. I might as well have incarcerated our father myself. Between the slow, birdlike sobs of momma and Beau’s screeching moans, I could hear the ceiling fan turning quick circles overhead. The sound will be with me always.
Beau stopped crying. His eyes flitted over random objects throughout the room. Something in him spun violently around. It was a flicker that passed through his eyes and darted into his ribs, kindling a blaze of realization. “Y-ou lied to- meeee!”
Momma buried him in her arms. “I didn’t want to hurt you, baby.”
“You said tha- you said he was in-” Beau made a face like warped play dough. “Alaska!” What came out of him was not sorrow, but a scream as hoarse and shrill as a chainsaw.
Momma jerked upright, covering her ears. She stared at Beau, feeble with shock. “Calm down, baby.”
“You said!” He roared, pushing her away, “You said he was in Alaska!”
“He was in Alaska,” I jumped in, watching the essence drain from momma’s face. “But then he went to Prison. We just didn’t wanna to tell you cause-“
“He weren’t in Alaska!”
‘Oh God,’ I thought, ‘Please don’t let him catch on. Not now. Please, God, don’t let him catch on. I won’t never tell him nothing in my whole life again.’ I swallowed every shift of his face, as if I could catch the lies seeping from him. His gaze narrowed, his breath resounded, his jaw hung like a puppet’s. “Beau.” I whispered. His eyes darted toward me and drifted silently back to the floor. “It’s alright, he won’t be gone much longer.” Three years more he would be gone.
“Why is my daddy in prison?”
‘Because he’s an ignorant bastard. He ain’t got no respect for hisself or anyone else.’ I looked to momma. She had lit a cigarette and was tipping it fretfully between brief drags.
She said, “He had a little accident, that’s all. He was foolin around and hurt someone.”
‘Killed someone, momma, he was drunk and killed someone.’ The hem of her skirt beamed at me. My toes curled.
“How come if it was a accident they made him go to jail?”
‘Save us, momma.’
“Because they didn’t think it were.” She said. It was brilliantly believable. Of course that’s how it happened, they had thrown him away without so much as a moment’s consideration. Beau would understand, he would see how life can be unfair.
Beau nodded. He sucked his teeth. He raised his chin in the air and put his arms across his chest. “I don’t believe you.” He said. “You’re a liar. Daddy ain’t in prison, you just run him off like you did Bethel. You’re a liar and I hate you.”
There are brief moments in time that can define an eternity; Moments that a person don’t have the chance to put any forethought into, moments when a weak mind can be divorced from a powerful flesh. I don’t suppose momma really made the decision right then to take that swipe at Beau, she just let loose on some primal instinct in a last, desperate moment of utter panic and lay him out where he stood. It was too late to change things by the time his head made that sound on the corner of the coffee table, that awful sound like an eggshell cracking on the rim of a bowl. Before he could hit the ground she had an arm beneath his body, but it was just too late. “Beaumont!”
The fish is still alive, Bethel, look at it. It’s still tryin a swim.
They ain’t dead just cause you catch ‘em, Ozzy.
Shouldn’t we oughtta put it back in the water? It ain’t dead yet.
It’ll be dead soon enough.
The lady at the hospital said Beau had a soft brain pan. She said some kids just don’t grow enough skull to protect their heads right off. She said it could of happened to anyone, he could of fallen down one day and the same thing would of happened. She said my momma oughtn’t feel so bad, she couldn’t of known. She cried when the police came and took my momma away. The last thing I saw of my momma was a red faced monster screaming at me as they dragged her out the door, her arms stretched toward me, her voice calling my name.
Fin
more coffee