Hello Loved Ones (8 page)

“Oh right. I forgot. It’s time for your medication. Poor Cash. You’ll probably faint dead away if you don’t get your teaspoon of cherry flavored cough syrup and chewable baby aspirins.”

Cash puffed his chest out and took a step toward Lenny. “Back off!” he said.

Lenny shoved him. “
You
back off.”

Cash shoved Lenny back, harder. “I’m warning you, Lenny.”

“What a joke!” And with that, Lenny dropped his bat, swung his fist, and hit Cash in the nose. Cash fell backward and landed on his rear end. He looked up at Lenny as blood trickled into his mouth.

“What’d you do that for?” he asked, breathing hard.

Martin sputtered, “Jeez Lenny, you didn’t have to do
that
.”

Lenny took a few steps back, startled by the blood. “That’ll teach you to bother me.”

“I’m calling the cops,” Cash said thickly. “You’ll go to jail for this.”

“Yeah right,” Lenny said, but he was scared. Cash’s nose was split down the middle.

“Go call my dad,” Cash told Martin. “Tell him to get the cops.”

“Go call my daddy,” Lenny mimicked. “Please daddy, come save me. You’re lucky I didn’t use my bat.”

“Come on Cash. I’ll help you,” Martin helped Cash up and the two of them started to run, looking back over their shoulders at Lenny like he was a madman. For a moment Lenny almost laughed. It was so easy to scare people. No one had a sense of humor anymore. Then he thought of the police and the urge to laugh left him. He jumped up, throwing his body against a pile of tires. Next he moved to a stack of cars and started to climb on it. Grunting, he pulled at a fender, an axle, a side mirror. He tried to pull the whole thing down. He’d like to topple the whole world, like to see it all come crashing down. See who’d notice then.

Pink angel food cake. His favorite. It sat on the kitchen table on a glass pedestal. But who could enjoy it under circumstances such as these? It seemed like a person might just start to relax and pow! along came the same old shit to ruin your day. God, he hated his birthday! He might have finally had a reason to celebrate, turning 18 and all. Except now he was on probation, about to be imprisoned in the church basement. And here was Pastor Voss coming to cart him off, like he was incapable of walking the six blocks back to church on his own. It was embarrassing, and the last thing he wanted was a big birthday dinner so everyone could sit there looking at him. Poor Lenny. Can’t control himself. If they only knew how much he
did
control himself. He was here, wasn’t he? Trapped with a bunch of do-gooders who thought they could save him from himself.

He shouldn’t have hit Cash. He was sorry as soon as it happened, but sorry wasn’t worth a handful of spit. Anyway, no one was sorry for him. You can bet his old man wasn’t sorry for roughing up his mom, or for leaving that day and never coming back. He wasn’t sorry about what he’d made Lenny do. His dad put him in a terrible position, but was he sorry? Fuck no. The bastard was screwing around across town, too busy to give him a second thought. How hard would it be to stop by and say hello?

Not that Lenny wanted him to. Really, he didn’t. There was just something about his birthday that got him all confused. After all these years, he still expected to see his dad come driving up. Hello, loved ones! Only they weren’t his loved ones anymore. Lenny knew that. So what was his dad doing back in town? Maybe waiting for this day. It would be just like him to stay away for too long, just for the chance to make a grand entrance.

The way Lenny had it figured, he might as well wait it out to see what happened. Sure, he’d been all set to go find him. He wasn’t afraid! But why should he waste his time if his dad was going to come to him? Let him do the sniveling.

Even if Lenny wanted to go to the Torchlight, it was too late now. He was on probation. Think how embarrassing it would be if his dad knew he was living at the church. If he came driving up to the house right now he’d see Pastor Voss here and somebody would probably feel the need to blab. He could just hear Nell.
Hey Dad! Haven’t seen you in ten years but guess what? Lenny’s been arrested and I bet you’re not the least bit surprised, are you?

He should have gone looking for his dad the minute Rhoda told him the news. When she asked if he wanted to walk home with her he should have said
hell yes! Show me the bastard!
Should have gotten it over with. Instead he’d let it fester all summer long and now here he was again, waiting, watching the clock, the door, the street. What a way to celebrate.

Better get packed. He went and stood in his empty room, giving it a final once-over. He took his bandana off, gave his head a good scratch, and carefully re-tied it, pulling it lower over his eyes. Next he pulled on a grungy tie-dyed T-shirt he found at the beach and reached for his bat. Then stopped. It was probably time to quit lugging it around everywhere. Now that he was done playing ball, there was no reason to have it. But since the incident with Cash, he liked the way people eyed it nervously. Even though he never swung it at Cash, people were leery. He squinted at himself in the mirror and laughed.

Tough guy.
He liked that. He was especially pleased to notice a big purple bruise staining his shinbone. No one would guess it was from banging into the coffee table in the middle of the night. Nell had an annoying habit of rearranging the furniture every other day, and even though he cursed her out when it happened, the bruise was beautiful now. It looked like someone had kicked him hard.

“You’re not wearing that to supper, are you?”

Sally stood in the doorway watching him. Perfect. That was just the reaction he wanted. “Stylish, ain’t it?”

“You look like a bum.”

“After today you won’t have to look at me so much.”

“Don’t think that thought hasn’t crossed my mind.” She studied him. “Hippies are non-violent, you know. That disqualifies you.”

“Not all hippies are,” he said. He’d seen the Democratic National Convention on TV. He’d seen plenty of long-hairs, and plenty of violence. “Some of them are mean suckers. Besides, I can be peaceful if I want to. I just don’t want to.”

“So you’re not a hippy,” she said.

“Am too.”

“Are not.”

“Am too.”

He gave her a shove and closed the bedroom door in her face. She had a point. He might not be able to pull off the hippy thing. For one thing, they seemed so happy all the time. It must be the drugs. He wouldn’t know, since he hadn’t been able to get his hands on any so far. If he was ever going to be a hippie he needed to get busy in that department, but boy, would his mom take that hard. Maybe he ought to consider becoming a Jesus Freak first. Just as a transitional role. His family could be comforted by the fact that he was high on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Then on to full-fledged hippie. Tune in, turn on, drop out. He liked that too. But he’d do it without becoming some pansy-ass, gentle spirit. Guys like him didn’t have that luxury. He had a police record now.

He heard his grandma yell to him from outside. “Get out here, birthday boy, and let us have a look at you!”

Then Nell from the kitchen. “Lenny, come say hello to Pastor Voss. Oh, and Lenny, could you bring out that chair from your room?”

He sighed and sulked out. “Why do you have to say my name so much?” he hissed at Nell. “I know you’re talking to me.” She started every stupid sentence that way. Lenny this. Lenny that. It made him jump, like he’d been caught doing something. He pushed open the screen door and faced his grandma.

“So! You’re 18 today,” his grandma said, and before the door had even shut behind him he was pulled into her bosom. She squeezed and his mouth twisted, half-open and contorted, against her shoulder. He didn’t like to be touched.

“Isn’t that something,” she said, releasing him.

“It’s not like he’s accomplished anything,” said Sally.

“Lenny! The chair!”

He ignored all of them and headed over to the shade tree where his grandpa was sitting. Sometimes a man needed the company of another man. Not that his grandpa ever said much. But that was the point. It was what Lenny called good sense. He leaned against the tree trunk and started swinging his bat against one of the roots.

Oh. His bat. It was pure habit that made him pick it up. He couldn’t deny the comfort it gave him, and comfort was a thing in awful short supply these days. He wished he could ask his grandpa,
did you ever
… but he couldn’t complete the sentence. Ever feel like you’re headed for a dead end? Ever wonder why everyone is so damned thrilled to be done with high school, when all you feel is scared? Or the worst, when people tell you you’re officially a man, what exactly does that mean?

This should be the beginning of things for him. Out of high school, ready for life. Except he had no idea what to do. Go to Nam and get killed? His deaf ear saved him from that. Get some piss ant job and work 60 hours a week? For what? Or go to school and learn how to do something worthwhile? No money, no scholarship. No way.

Look on the bright side. He’d have plenty of time to think up something while he was holed up in the church basement.

“Today’s the big day,” Sally said, startling him.

“Why do you keep following me?”

She inched closer to Grandpa and said, a little louder this time, “Yep. It’s moving day at last.”

The old man stared fixedly at the rose bush.

“Opa,” Sally said, tapping the edge of his chair. “Lenny’s moving out today.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Grandpa said indifferently.

Lenny smiled. His sentiment exactly. He looked at Sally and she smiled back. She wasn’t so bad, really. Lenny would even miss her. She seemed to look up to him, no matter how much he screwed up. She was all right, Sally was.

“I guess I’ll go move into my new room,” she said.

Scratch that. He wasn’t even out the door and the world was being rearranged as if he’d never existed.

“What’s your hurry?” he asked.

“It’s my room now. What do you care?”

“I just might be back, you know. This job isn’t permanent.”

Grandpa jerked his head up. “You’ll be back.”

Lenny scowled. “Then again, I might never come back.”

“That’s right. You’re 18 now,” Sally said. “If the job doesn’t work you can go live somewhere else.”

“His place is here, with his family,” Grandpa said. “When he has a family of his own he can leave home. Until then he oughta stay put.”

Lenny knew Grandpa meant he could move out when he was ready to get married. But the way he said it sounded like once he
had
a family, he could leave them. Just like his dad.

He couldn’t imagine having a family of his own. He’d had a few girlfriends, though he never cared much about any of them. There was a mousy girl named Beattie he used to walk home from school who wore braces and covered her mouth with her hand whenever she smiled. She moved to Texas last year. Then there was a group of girls in Lenny’s class who liked to play spin-the-bottle out at the beach, and he’d gotten pulled into the game a few times. He remembered how he’d bragged about it to the guys on the team and, in the same breath, called the girls names like
fat cow
or
sewer mouth
.

Sure, he’d like to be married someday, in the same way you’d like to go see Montana, or swim in an ocean. It was something other people did. He’d probably screw it up.

“I’m not the marrying type,” he said flatly.

“That’s right,” Sally nodded. “Too violent.”

“Lenny’s just kicking up some dust,” Grandpa said. “Perfectly natural for a boy his age.”

“Grandpa, he
broke
someone’s
nose
.”

Grandpa chuckled. “Yessiree bob.” He got serious. “You shouldn’t have done
that
, Lenny.”

Lenny sighed again. Didn’t he know it? It was getting harder and harder to remember the satisfaction of that moment when his fist landed on Cash’s nose, especially with the pastor hovering over there at the side of the house like a big black vulture, and his last moments of freedom ticking away.

“You ever think about Dad?” Sally said, and
bammo!
there was that feeling again like he had a target on his forehead and everyone was taking aim.

“Why the hell would you ask something like that?” he snapped. She was sharp all right. Like she was reading his mind.

“I don’t know. Your birthday and all.”

He didn’t answer right away, too angry that she would bring it up like this. He thought they had an unspoken rule to leave the topic alone.

“What about it?” he said finally.

“You ever think about him coming back?”

Grandpa piped in. “Your mother drove him off. She figured with the church’s help she could raise you kids alone.”

“Is that the way it happened, huh?” Lenny said. No one wanted to acknowledge that an eight-year-old boy could drive his dad away, but Lenny knew the truth.