Hale Maree

HALE MAREE

MISTY PROVENCHER

Smashwords
Edition

Copyright 2012, Misty
Provencher

DEDICATION

This one is for Michelle Leighton.

Thank you for all your help and friendship,
Michelle.

Our discussion inspired my Hale Maree.

Hope you enjoy mine as much as I enjoyed
yours

CHAPTER
ONE

“
WE GOT ENOUGH FOR TWO,
don’t we?”

This is how my father comes in the door that
night, yelling and drunk, but laughing. I don’t mind him so much
when he’s like this. I call it beer-drunk. Beer-drunk is when he
drops the dishes, but doesn’t mind that they’re broken, spills
things, and grins like his face is made of modeling clay. If I have
to pick, I’ll take this version over the whiskey-drunk one, when he
can get angry at the color of the carpet.

“
Yeah, Dad,” I call back
from the kitchen, “there’s enough for me and you.”

Then I hear the second set of footsteps
following my father into the kitchen, and realize what he meant. He
meant company. A man, who would probably be considered handsome,
when his eyes weren’t so blood shot, comes in behind my father. I
never know who my dad might bring home, but it’s easier when it’s
women. None of the men he’s brought home have ever succeeded in
laying a hand on me, but lots of them have tried, and I’ve learned
to spend the night in my room with a chair wedged up under my door
knob. At least, when I get a good look at this guy, he doesn’t look
like he’d be a creeper. It’s not like I ever know for sure, but
this guy’s smile is friendly, as my dad horseshoes him around the
neck with a crooked arm.

“
Hale,” my dad says, nearly
poking out his friend’s eye with the indicating jab of his finger,
“this here’s Otto. From the old neighborhood! We
were...”

“
At the bar. We were just at
the bar.” Otto dips his chin like he’s correcting a toddler,
instead of my full-grown, totally blasted father.

“
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.
The bar on Fifth, not Main.”

I take a good look at my dad as he staggers
toward me. He’s got a dark spot around his eye that doesn’t
disappear when he moves out of the shadows.

“
Did you get into a
fight?”

Otto shushes my father under his breath. My
dad swishes away the admonishment with a flutter of his
fingers.

“
We got enough, right?” my
father asks again, instead of answering my question.

“
Yeah, sure,” I say, the
smile fading. Otto waves his nose over the small saucepan of chunky
beef stew that I’ve got bubbling on the stove.

“
Smells absolutely
delicious,” he says to me. His way of talking sounds kind of fancy,
even though he’s plastered. Then, to my father, “Your daughter’s an
incredible cook.”

“
It’s from a can,” I
say.

“
She just turned eighteen.
She knows her way around a kitchen,” my dad says, and then he
breaks into a guffaw, like he’s the funniest thing in the world.
Otto thinks so too, and the two of them collapse against the
fridge, rattling the cookie jar on top. They both look up like it
will drop on their heads and start laughing even harder. I scoop
the stew into two plastic bowls.

“
Watch out,” I say, trying
to maneuver around them. They manage not to barrel into me, but
they’re doubled over on each other, still laughing. I dump the
bowls on the table and grab a bag of chips off the counter. At
least I’ll have something to eat when I barricade myself in my room
for the night. But, as I walk down the hall, away from the kitchen,
Otto says something to my father that turns my face red and freezes
me in my tracks.

“
So, let’s get this
settled,” Otto says. “She’s a good girl, isn’t she? You know what I
mean.”

“
Of course she is! What the
fuck do you think?” My dad laughs his reply, but there is still
enough growl in it that I think I know what kind of ‘goodness’
they’re referring to. What the hell? But then my dad says, “What
about Oscar? Good kid? Clean?”

“
Hell yes,” Otto says. I
scoot into the shadows around the corner, as the two men stumble to
the dining room table. “He’s a man! The girls adore him. He knows
what he’s doing. That’s why I want him to settle down. It’s time he
starts a family and takes over the business. Especially
now.”

“
Well, if we do this,” my
father slurps his soup. “Damn it! This shit is hot! Watch
it!”

Otto’s voice streams from the kitchen,
deadly sober all of a sudden. “Jerry, this isn’t an ‘if’ anymore.
We left ‘if’ at the bar a few hours ago.”

“
I know, I know.” My
father’s hushed voice almost makes it sound as if he’s whining.
“Loyalty. I got it.”

“
With our children together,
it’s like we both have insurance—that you trust me,” Otto’s voice
drops, “and that I can trust you.”

The sinister tint in his tone almost erases
the words. Their children together? Why are they talking like
mobsters? My dad’s only got me, so Otto’s got to be talking about
his own kids, but none of this makes any sense.

“
We grew up together, for
Christ’s sake,” my father says. “You know you can trust me, Otto.
After everything that happened tonight, you gotta know by now,
right? Right?”

There is no answer. I hold my breath in the
shadows until my father resumes, feeling only a little better that
his voice raises this time, as if he’s sliding a bargaining chip
across the dining room table.

“
But if we do this, Otto,
your boy—I don’t care what he does with other women, but he better
never hit my girl. You hear me, Otto? She comes back to me with
scratches even, and I’ll cut his balls off!”

“
His balls?” Otto laughs.
“You’re a tough bastard, you know that, Jerry? You don’t have to
worry. Oscar’s not a maniac. He’s a soft touch with the
girls.”

“
Not too much of a
castlenova,” my father laughs, chokes. “I want grandkids, you
know!”

“
Castlenova?” Otto
sputters.

“
Yeah, you know! A ladies
man, dumbass!”

“
Casanova? Is that what you
mean?”

The two of them break into peals of
laughter, while I stay pressed to the wall, sweating. I have no
idea why they’re having this conversation, but it totally concerns
me, and it sounds like they’re planning things they have no right
to plan. I just don’t get how it fits together, and why they’re
talking about my goodness, and Oscar’s fists, and his
Casanova-ness. My father must be even more drunk than he seems.
Grandkids! I don’t like them talking like any of this is going to
happen, and I especially don’t like them talking about my
baby-making features. It freaks me out in about ten different
directions.

“
What are you going to do if
she doesn’t care for him?” Otto says.

“
She’ll care. I know my
kid.” My dad’s laugh starts to sound like a braying donkey. I’m
sick from my stomach up to my jaw, and he keeps hee-hawing. “So,
we’re business partners now, right?”

“
Right,” Otto says. They
clunk something. I think it’s their soup bowls. They’ve got to be
off-the-scales-drunk if either of them thinks that my dad has a
business, or is in business, or can run a business. He’s been laid
off, and collecting state aid, for the last three years.

“
We buy the tractor
tomorrow,” my father says.

“
With my money,” Otto adds
with a slurp.

“
And I cut the lawns, with
my back.”

“
Until you build up the
business,” Otto says. “Then you retire.”

“
Can’t thank you enough,” my
father slurs.

“
We’re family, Jerry. Loyal
and trusting family, correct?”

“
Of course,
correct!”

There’s a pause, and then, a wet clap of
their hands, in what I assume is a handshake on the deal.

“
Ok, so let’s drink on it,”
Otto mumbles. “We need to make a toast!”

“
There’s no toast here,” my
father says. “There’s nothing here but my daughter.”

I suck in a breath at the implication, but
the two just laugh together.

“
You have a beautiful
daughter, Jerry!” Otto says. “My son will be very happy to have her
as his wife!”

“
Of course he will!” my
father shouts and laughs as I escape down the hall in absolute
panic.

#

Sher picks up my call on the first ring.

“
Hey,” she says. “What up,
my sista?”

“
My dad’s drunk,” I begin,
and she yawns.

“
So, what’s new?” she says.
“He didn’t bring home another weirdo, did he? You want to come
over? I can come get you.”

Sher would, too. She wouldn’t come over and
knock on the door though. Sher and I devised an emergency plan
years ago. She comes over, stands under my bedroom window, catches
my gym bag, and holds the end of the knotted sheet ladder that I
use to escape. We finally figured out, the second time we did it,
that we had to weight the end of the sheet with rocks and toss it
back through my window, so Mrs. Coley, from downstairs, didn’t call
the cops about it. One time she did, the cops got my dad for drunk
and disorderly, because, when the cops showed up, my dad got even
more disorderly about Mrs. Coley calling the cops on him.

“
No, listen!” I hiss into
the phone. Instead of being mad or hanging up, Sher goes quiet on
her end. No one in the whole world knows me like Sher does, and she
knows that this is serious if I’m hissing. “He brought home some
guy named Otto and, dude...they started talking about my
virginity.
I’m totally
skeeved out.”

“
Holy crap,” Sher says. “Ok,
I’m coming to get you. You got the chair under your door knob
already, right?”

“
Yeah, but wait. It’s not
like
that
. My dad
and this guy were talking about going into business together, I
think they’re...I don’t know for sure, but it sounded like they’re
going to be cutting lawns. They’re buying a tractor tomorrow. And
then they started talking about me marrying somebody named
Oscar.
I guess
it’s
the guy’s son.”

“
What the fuck?” Sher says.
“An arranged marriage? What are they, from the old country now?”
She puts on a foreign accent and continues, “I swap you two turkey
for my daughter’s pussy. Yeah? Yeah? You like? You
want?”

I’d answer her, but I was finally getting
brain-whomped by what had just happened. Sher keeps going in my
absence.

“
And what kind of name is
Oscar anyway?” she squawks. “That’s the ugliest name I’ve ever
heard. Oscar the Grouch, Oscar from the Old Couple...”

“
Odd Couple,” I correct her
distractedly.

“
Oscar Meyer Weiner!” I hear
Sher slap her own head on the other end of the phone line. “You’re
not marrying any old Weiner your dad drags home, Hale. I won’t let
you. You know this kid’s got to be a hot mess with a name
like...”

“
My dad can’t do this, can
he?” I ask.

“
No! Hell no! You’re
eighteen!” Sher says, but then there’s a long pause. “It’s gotta be
against the constitution or something.”

“
Even if he’s my dad and I’m
living in his house?”

“
It’d be like sex
slavery.”

“
I don’t think it’s sex
slavery if I’m married.” My hands are shaking. I rub my damp palms
against my knees. “I don’t have to agree to getting married
though.”

“
You don’t have to do
anything you don’t want to,” Sher says, but her voice is so tiny
and scared that a new coat of sweat breaks out on my palms. “You
wanna run away and live at my house? I’ll come hold the sheet for
you.”

“
Nah,” I try to laugh. I
can’t go live at Sher’s. Her family is even more broke than we are.
Her mom’s trying to raise five kids on her own. When I go there to
spend the night, we have to squeeze into bed with Sher’s younger
sister, who wets the bed when she sleeps too deeply. Sher’s mom is
nice, but always worn out from work, and too exhausted to sit there
and listen to problems that belong to other kids, let alone her
own. Even when my dad was thrown in the slammer for his last
disorderly, she listened warily for a minute, and then patted my
knee mid-sentence and told me I could stay, but, I’d eventually
have to bring my own food.