Everyday People (15 page)

Any decent man wouldn't have her out working till eleven at night to pay the bills.

She didn't have to marry Harold, that was the terrible thing. There was Alvin Reese, who played the trombone in his own band and had a Nash Rambler. He'd asked her first, and the only reason she didn't say yes was because her mother didn't like his family. Too down-home, his father a farmhand. Now he was a car dealer in Bloomington and donated vans to the university. Then there was Gregory Mattison, whose father owned the butcher shop, but he wasn't after her to marry him. Her mother couldn't keep track of him either. There were more, though she couldn't name any particular ones right now. There could have been more, that was the point; she wasn't forced into marrying Harold. Then why had she? What had she seen in him? How had it led to this?

She didn't have to think long on it. He was nice, that was the thing about him. Polite. Her mother thought he was
responsible. Jackie had too. Luckily her mother died before he could prove them both wrong.

So what do you think of your favorite son-in-law now, she wanted to ask, as if it were her fault, her choice, and suddenly Jackie wondered if all those years ago she'd sensed something of Daddy in him, if that was why she'd picked him in the first place.

She could only blame herself for believing in him, for believing everything was all right all along. That part of it was her fault, she was willing to admit that. Maybe she was stupid for doing it, but she'd wanted to keep some kind of hope too. It was beyond that now.

As she crossed Spofford she dug in her bag for her keys, getting them ready before she opened the door to the vestibule, turning just that much to make sure no one followed her in. Inside, it was quiet, a burst of curry coming from the back of the first floor. On the stairs her heels sounded loud.

She would start by not doing the dishes. She knew they'd be waiting for her, piled up all greasy in the sink since supper, barely room enough to run a glass of water. Maybe she could excuse Chris, but there was no reason she should have to come home from work and do them when Harold had been there all night. What, she'd say, are your arms broken?

She wouldn't give him a kiss (not that he'd notice). She'd ignore the grease on the stovetop, the newspaper strewn about the living room, the boys' hampers overflowing. She'd run a hot bath and soak in it, put on a robe and go to bed, and if he wanted anything he could just get it himself.

But wasn't that what he wanted, for her to leave him alone?

This would be different. Everything she didn't do would find its way back to him. Question was, how long would she be able to stand it?

She could hear a TV going as she walked down the hall. Probably lying there on the couch in his funky undershirt watching some nonsense. Yes, it was coming from their apartment. She was quiet with the keys, careful slipping it into the lock, as if she'd bust in and surprise him.

The couch was empty, a single beer can on the magazines on the coffee table. The TV was coming from Chris's room, his little portable. She set her bag on the hall table and hung her coat in the closet—patiently, as if she wasn't interested whether he was home or not—and noticed his jacket was missing, one hanger bare.

You're so stupid, she thought, mad at herself for assuming he'd be there. She should have seen it. It was just like him.

And just like she'd thought, the sink was piled high with dishes, spaghetti and red sauce stuck between the layers. The tap dripped because he hadn't put it back straight. Well, she'd be damned before she touched one of them. She fixed the tap and headed for Chris's room.

He had the TV on the bed with him, something she'd warned him about. Since the accident, she had a hard time making her discipline stick. Each time she saw him after being away for more than an hour, the undeniable fact of his injuries returned, and she wanted to take him in her arms. She always worried that her boys would not have a fair
chance at life, had spent their school years alert to every potential slight, made sure they had a better opportunity than she did growing up: better clothes, better friends, a better home. A better father—she'd always prided herself on that.

Chris was stuck to the TV, his mouth hanging open. Stoned, she thought. Goddamn. She stood in the doorway, waiting for him to notice her.

He still didn't.

“Hi, Moms,” she said, mimicking him. “How was work?”

“Not bad,” she answered herself, and he turned and gave her a smirk.

“Hey,” he said.

“Where's your father?”

“Out walking.”

“How 'bout your brother?”

“Sleeping.”

“What are
you
doing?”

“Watching TV.”

“Not getting high, I trust.”

“No,” he said, and she could read it in his eyes, even through the Visine. Just like his father. She'd never met a man you couldn't help but tell was lying, yet it seemed it was all they did, every one of them. It was almost funny.

“It's past eleven,” she said. “I'm going to bed. I don't want you staying up too late.”

“'kay,” he said, and he was lost in the TV again.

She peeked in Eugene's room, the light slicing in around her to show him under the covers, his slacks folded
over the back of a chair, his shoes grouped at the foot of the bed, pointed toward the door. She resisted going in, turned away slowly, as if still thinking of it.

As she crossed the living room, she reached for the beer can. It was a reflex, and she had to consciously withdraw her hand and leave it there.

Out drinking, doing God knows what to who.

She cut out the light in the living room but left on the one in the kitchen. The rubber bands she added to the baggie in the junk drawer. Crumbs on the table, a smear of sauce. Stove spotty with grease, orange peel in the sink. She felt helpless before the mess, and turned from it, trying to put it out of her mind.

She took her clothes off in the dark and shoved them in the hamper, slipped her robe on, and brushed her teeth. The tub beckoned in the mirror, but she was too tired. She flossed and did her Listerine, spitting then carefully rinsing the blue drops off the sink.

In bed she checked the clock. It wasn't eleven-thirty yet. Her legs were jumpy, her insteps, but she couldn't sleep. She had choir practice tomorrow, that was some comfort. And where would he be then? She knew he waited for her to leave, stole every second for himself. She thought of him at the Liberty (he wasn't really there, she knew that, but she would not picture him with the woman, the way they laughed, the things they did at this time of night) and then of the wreck he'd made of the kitchen.

Like a pigsty, her mother would say. After her father left, she cleaned house to support them, something both Jackie and Daphne had been ashamed of, guarded from
their friends like a dirty secret. Her mother was shocked at how nasty white people were, especially in the kitchen. Their stoves were caked with filth, their counters breeding grounds, swabbed with mucked-up dishcloths. Over supper, she described the horrors of her work for the girls, drumming into them the importance of a clean house. How many times had she heard the old saw: We may be poor but at least we're clean. It was a badge of honor, the only one they could afford. How proudly she wore it! She remembered almost vomiting when her mother told her how white people kissed their dogs on the nose. “And it's not like they don't know where that nose has been,” her mother said. “There's one place a dog's nose loves to go, and that is
not
somewhere you want to be kissing.”

Wasn't it the same with Harold? She knew where he'd been sticking his nose. Now, defenseless, with nothing to distract her, she briefly envisioned it, the raw pornography of what he was doing with this other woman, pictured the two of them, or just Harold bent to her, and she thought she would be sick. He was bringing that home with him, rubbing her face in it, wiping it on these very sheets, infecting everything. She could feel the disease seeping into her skin.

She flung the covers aside and heaved up out of bed. For a moment she stood on the carpet, holding herself, then hurried down the hall to the kitchen.

She crossed the floor to the sink in her bare feet and slapped the tap on. She had to pour the cold water out of the top dishes and set them on the counter to make room to do the pots, the big serving bowl with the worms of spaghetti
stuck to the lip. The cuff of her gown got wet and she rolled it up. “You keep your dirt out of my house.” She did the bowls, the glasses, and finally the silverware piece by piece, clouds of steam rising around her, until the drainboard was full.

She wiped down the counters with a green pad and then a sponge. She did the table, saving the stove for last, lifting the burners, digging at faint, old stains with a Brillo pad. Always clean from the top down, her mother instructed, and now she looked at the floor, scuffed with a week's worth of dirt.

First she moved the chairs into the hallway, then she swept, discovering a few Cheerios. She squirted the cleaner in snaky waves, dunked the mop in the bucket.

It was almost one when she finished. She had the mad idea of cleaning the fridge, throwing out all the green cheese and watery sour cream, but the shine of the floor and the stove was enough to satisfy her. She stood with her arms folded, surveying her work with a violent pleasure. Her mother would be pleased, she thought. See, she wanted to say, I learned. I did listen.

After a few minutes, she went to the silverware drawer and then turned off the light and lay down on the couch, sweating, her heart thumping from the exertion, a clean boning knife in one hand, waiting for her husband to come home.

THE CAPRICE WAS
where he'd left it last night, on Wayland, three streets over, behind Sacred Heart, the driver's-side door lock popped. He almost didn't expect it to be there, waiting for him in the rain. He was ready to pass by the empty section of curb, nonchalant, or even a police tow truck lifting the front end, the stubby screwdriver hidden like a knife in his pocket, the see-through plastic grip sweaty in his palm. But here it was, leaves plastered to the hood, the windshield beaded, the radio still in place.

LJ looked back toward the corner, checking the wet, redbrick street and the heavy trees, the porches of the crowded row houses—their barred picture windows all watching him—then cut between the parked cars. Another look the other way and he grabbed the handle and swung himself in, knees bumping the wheel, locking the door behind him, sealing in the quiet. He ducked down, lying half across the new-smelling seat to see what he was doing with the steering column. Rain ticked against the roof. The plastic
shell was cracked and jagged, the sky-blue white where it had snapped off. He fit the blade of the screwdriver in the ignition and twisted. It started on the first try.

He'd found the car three days ago over in Homewood, after a party, him and Cardell and some baby Treys they were breaking in. It was just a way home, a way of keeping the night alive until something else came up. He didn't mean to keep it so long. It was stupid, he didn't need it for anything, he wasn't going to sell it, it was just something he'd started doing, driving around the city. It got him away from the neighborhood, away from B-Mo, who he knew was looking for him. It got him away from Nene's things and from his Granmoms and from U, coming over the house at night and talking all kind of God nonsense, like he was trying to save him. Out of respect LJ listened, but he didn't hear him. There was too much going on, too much noise from everyone after what happened, including himself. He'd gotten used to riding around with the radio off, letting the rhythm of traffic sift his thoughts. He knew it couldn't go on forever, that it was dangerous, but every morning he came back to the Caprice, and there it was.

Today he decided to take a different route, across the river and then toward downtown, maybe drive around the North Side a while. It was neutral ground as long as he stayed down by the water. Go too far up into the hilly streets and he'd be in Riverview Crip territory, all projects. Nothing but dead ends and fences, concrete stairs leading nowhere. Didn't want to be caught slipping, not by them.

He wasn't strapping. He wasn't going anywhere he'd need it, and if the cops popped him, it meant time. Without
it, the most he'd get was sent to Schuman again. He still had another year as a juvenile.

There was a railyard near the prison. Maybe he'd sit there and watch the trains headed off for Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, cities he'd dreamed of without ever seeing. No, you couldn't stay in one place that long, people'd get suspicious. It was the one rule of boosting cars: You were only safe as long as you were moving.

He liked it better when it rained. He drove slow, leaving his seatbelt off in case he needed to ditch. The big Caprice rolled through the turns, cruised high and quiet along the tight side streets, eating up the bumps. Blocks of low, brown-brick row houses, telephone wires dipping in threes. The porches with their steel railings slid by like endless boxcars. It was cool for September, the rain steady, and he set the heater to the far side of the red stripe, the fan to the first dot. The radio was basic, no CD or cassette player, and he left it alone. The wipers swept the water off the glass, paused to let more collect, then squeegeed it clean.

For the first few blocks he thought nothing, concentrated on signaling for his turns, an eye out for Five-O. The sidewalks were empty, and he liked that—no one trying to make his face. Once he swung it around Penn Circle and past Sears and down Negley Run, he'd be onto the long stretch of Washington Boulevard beside the old driver's-test place, and free of the neighborhood. He could be from Blawnox or Penn Hills for all people knew. He could be going home to a big house in Shaler where his mother would be vacuuming the living room, his father at work downtown in the PPG Tower, his office with a view of Station Square
where the fake riverboats docked. Nene would be at Penn State—or no, working downtown in another building, maybe Gateway Center.