Keepers (7 page)

“You’ll see.”

Mom called the morning of my release and said it was fine if I wanted to go over to Beth’s for dinner; Dad wasn’t feeling well (which meant he was either drunk or hung-over) and it might be best if I didn’t come home right away. Too much activity might upset him, and we couldn’t have that. It made me glad she wasn’t picking me up; all she’d do was complain about Dad, then tell me not to say anything.

A little before ten a doctor I hadn’t seen before came in and gave me the once-over, told me that I’d need to exercise my shoulder, and gave me a pamphlet explaining how to do it. Half an hour later a nurse I’d never seen before came in with a wheelchair, handed me some slips of paper, and told me that my ride was here. Beth came in right behind her, all DayGlo smiles and fluorescent sunshine.

“Ready to hit the road, little brother?” She winked at me but the nurse didn’t see it. “Got all your stuff? Okay, good—what about his prescriptions?”

“He’s got them,” replied the nurse.

“Cool. Mom gave me money to get them filled on the way home.” She was play-acting, just like her mother on the London Stage. It was kind of fun to watch.

I was rolled downstairs and into Beth’s car—a monstrous green U-Boat of a station wagon with wood paneling on the doors. Inside it smelled of cigarettes, sweat, and something pungent that made my nose itch.

Once on our way, Beth reached over and squeezed my hand. “How you feeling, hon? Any pain?”

“Yeah, a little. My shoulder and stuff.”

“Let’s stop and get your medicine. My treat.”

“But Mom said my medicine was going to be expensive.”

“Codeine, some stuff for swelling and stiffness, and antibiotics. Twenty-two dollars—I already checked.”

I know it’s hard to remember, but in 1970 twenty-two dollars was a lot of money, even if you weren’t a kid.

“That’s an awful lot,” I said.

“Hey, nothing’s too good for my guy. Besides, I’ve been saving my allowance for years.
And
I worked waiting tables part-time during the summer. It won’t leave me broke.”

She was my friend, she’d visited me, she was giving me a ride for ice cream, and now she was going to spend
twenty-two
dollars of her own money on medicine for me? What had I done to deserve this? People never did anything for me without wanting something back, and for a moment I thought maybe Beth was going to say, “Hey, since I did this for you, would you do a favor for me?” But she never did, not once in all the years I knew her.

Prescriptions in hand, we drove to the Tasty Freeze on West Church Street and pigged out on the Holy Grail of large cones: the two-scoop double-dipped chocolate with sprinkles. Impossible not to eat and wear at the same time. About midway through it, my shoulder and arm began to hurt terribly, so Beth bought a small Coke and gave me a pain pill. By the time I finished the cone, I was feeling full and shiny. For all I knew my shoulder and arm were still in agony but, thanks to the pill, I didn’t care anymore.

“Oh, great,” said Beth, lifting my head by the chin and looking in my eyes. “The first time I’m in charge of someone younger than me and I get him stoned. Let’s get out of her before someone calls the fuzz on us.”

Back in the car, I noticed how the shine from the sun in her rearview mirror painted a glowing slash across her face. It looked as if she was wearing a golden mask. Whenever she turned to speak to me, the mask would slip around her face and over her ears, turning her hair the color of dreams. “Still with me?”

“Uh-huh,” I said, though I felt sleepy.

“Hey, wake up, Boy Wonder, c’mon.” She sounded genuinely concerned. “C’mon, okay? Stay awake. I checked the instructions and it turns out I’m a spaz, I was only supposed to give you
half
a pill, not a whole one. Don’t make me have to take you back to the hospital to get your stomach pumped or something, okay?”

“’Kay.”

“Promise?”

I shook myself awake. Everything was still shiny, but I was more alert now. “Can we get another pop?”

“Ah, caffeine, yes. Smart idea.”

We pulled into a gas station, where Beth ran into some boy she knew. He came up behind her while she was pulling the bottles out of the freezer-like cooler and put his hand on her back. She whirled around like she might slap whoever it was, but then she recognized him and smiled, pushed her hair back behind her ears, glanced quickly in the direction of the car, and leaned in to kiss him. Even from thirty feet away, I could see their tongues going into each other’s mouths. The boy slid his hand down and grabbed her hip, then her ass. She broke the kiss and saw me staring at them, yanked his hand away, and whispered something. They looked at me, and the boy laughed. For a moment it looked like Beth might laugh, too. I didn’t know who this boy was, but I hated him.

They talked for a few more moments, and then Beth gave him a quick kiss and came back to the car. She smiled at me when she climbed in but didn’t look in my eyes like she usually did. She seemed embarrassed—or maybe annoyed that I’d been watching. I took the bottle of pop and swallowed two big gulps. It made my chest and stomach feel all frosty as it went down, and then an ice-bird spread its wings through my center and I wasn’t as hot, thirsty, or tired anymore.

We were almost to Beth’s house when she said, “I go out with him sometimes, that guy back at the gas station.”

“Is that why we stopped there? So you could see him?”

She blushed. “Yeah. My aunt doesn’t like him. She doesn’t much like any of my friends.” She finally looked at me. “You’re the first friend I’ve had over in a long time.”

“I won’t say anything to your aunt about him, I promise.”

Squeezing my hand as she pulled into the driveway, Beth cleared her throat and whispered, “I’ll never ask you to lie for me, I promise.”

Words with which to name private losses and shames.

Beth’s Aunt Mabel was the most unhappy-looking person I’d ever seen; even though she smiled an awful lot and spoke in a bright, happy voice, the tightness of her features, the worry etched into her skin, and the way she sat as if expecting the other bomb to go off at any moment betrayed her true feelings. This was a sad woman, a cheerless woman, stoop-shouldered and shop-worn and heartbroken and chain-smoking. Looking at her made me want to cry; she reminded me of Mom.

“How’s the lasagna?” she asked early into dinner.

“It’s real good, thank you. A lot better than the hospital.”

Mabel laughed a thick, chortling laugh composed equal parts of phlegm and sandpaper. “I should certainly
hope
so. Lord! If I can’t beat hospital food, I might as well hang up my apron!”

I giggled and took another bite of the lasagna; it
was
quite good, but its rich flavor and aroma were overpowered by the smell of the house, which made me feel sick.

Beth and her aunt lived in a one-floor house only slightly bigger than a double-wide trailer: two small bedrooms, an even smaller bathroom, a big living room, and a kitchen that took up a full one-third of their living space. Deep shag carpeting the color of old rust covered every inch of floor—at least I think it was the color of old rust; it could’ve been light blue for as much as I could tell by looking at it, which I tried not to do because it only made me feel sicker.

A fly buzzed around the lasagna pan, and Mabel swatted it away. “Damn things,” she mumbled. “I got to replace those screens on the doors.”

I was surprised that only one fly had found the nerve to come over, there were so many of them.

Something brushed by my leg and I looked down to meet yet another of the Its—one of the seven dogs that Beth and Mabel shared their home with. That’s right,
seven
dogs of various shapes and sizes—from a Chihuahua to a mid-sized sheep dog and everything in between—none of whom seemed to housebroken, if the pee stains and scattered piles of dried and not-so dried poop were any indications. Imagine what the inside of kennel left unattended over a sweltering three-day weekend would smell like, add an underlying scent of sour milk and rotten eggs, then spray an entire aerosol can of rose-scented air freshener, and you might have some idea how this place smelled. I didn’t have to ask Beth why it had been so long since she’d had any friends over; one hour in this house and already I wanted to shower until my skin came off. It wasn’t only the smell, it was the
feel
of the place; it felt ruined, the air thick with humidity and animal fur. By the time dinner was finished, all three of us were wheezing to one degree or another. Mabel’s constant smoking didn’t help matters, but I never said anything; since I never said anything to Mom or Dad when their smoking bothered me, it seemed rude to complain to this bright-eyed sad woman who was so happy I liked her cooking.

I helped Beth clear away the dishes and wipe down the table. Mabel disappeared into her bedroom with two of the dogs and emerged twenty minutes later in a light blue outfit, smelling of deodorant and Avon perfume.

“Okay, kids, I gotta head to work.”

Beth’s face immediately registered alarm. “But, I need the car to take—”

“I know,” Mabel replied. “Suzy’s giving me a ride both ways tonight, so the car’s all yours. But you be careful. Get him home and then come right back.”

“Of course.”

“I mean it, Elizabeth. I’m going to call you when I get my break and you’d better be here to answer.”

Beth shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I
will
be! Jeez.”

“Don’t ‘jeez’ me, young lady. I’m only looking out for your well-being. God knows my sister couldn’t be bothered to.”

“Please don’t say things like that about Mom.” Now it was Beth who was stoop-shouldered and shop-worn. This hurt, and I wondered if her aunt knew it would hurt and that’s why she said it.

Mabel came over, put a hand on Beth’s shoulder, and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I didn’t mean anything by it, okay? I’m just a little tired, that’s all.”

A shrug: “Okay.”

“Okay, then.” Mabel turned toward me and held out a hand. “It was real pleasure having you over for dinner, young man. I hope you’ll visit us again. Often as you’d like.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said, shaking her hand—the first time I’d ever done so with an adult. “You’re a real good cook.”

“Aren’t you sweet.” She bent down and kissed the top of my head. A car horn sounded out front, and Mabel waved to us on her way out the door.

“God!” said Beth with a sudden rush of air. “I swear she must think I’m retarded or something, the way she treats me.”

“Where does she work?”

“Huh? Oh—at the nursing home. She’s one of the night nurses. She also cooks breakfast sometimes.”

I remembered the home from visiting my grandfather there when I was seven, how lonely, exhausted, and used-up everyone seemed to be. No wonder Mabel was sad.

I wasn’t sure how to ask this next question, so I just let fly: “Where’s your uncle?”

“I’ve got a couple of them, why?”

“I mean...your aunt’s husband?”

A quick shake of her head. “Mabel isn’t married, she never was. I don’t think men interest her much.”

“Whatta you mean?”

She mussed my hair. “It’s a little hard to explain, schweetie-pie. She has friends who stay over sometimes. I don’t think she gets lonely. She’s got me to talk to and all the Its for company. Speaking of the Its, want to help me clean up a little? I do this every night after she leaves for work.”

“Is it safe? Mabel seemed awful worried about—”

“Mabel worries about everything. We’ve had some trouble in this neighborhood—some break-ins, a couple of shootings a few blocks over, you know—so she thinks every time she leaves me alone monsters are going to knock down the door and attack me. She even has a gun in one of her dresser drawers—like she’s Dirty Harriet or something. There’s not going to be any trouble. C’mon, give me a hand.”

We spent the next hour picking up—and scraping out—the poop from the carpeting, then Beth let the dogs out in the back yard by twos and threes so they could relieve themselves as nature intended. (During all the years I knew Beth and spent time over there, that house was always filled with dogs; if one died or got sick and had to be put to sleep, it was replaced by another. Beth and I eventually began to refer to her house as “Doggyship Down.”)

I sprayed the pee stains with this foamy stuff Beth took out of the bathroom; she told me to let it set until it dried, then we sprinkled baking soda all around and Beth ran the vacuum cleaner.

Once we were finished, the carpeting looked a little better and the stench wasn’t as strong as it had been.

“That’s only because you’re getting used to the smell,” Beth said. “Live with it long enough, and it doesn’t seem that bad.”

I wondered how she managed to keep the smell off her clothes; not once during her visits to me had I ever smelled the dogs on her, so I asked her how she managed that.

“Every week I take five outfits from my closet, wash them at the coin laundry or have them dry-cleaned, then hang ‘em up in my locker at school. I get there about a half-hour before school starts and change in the girls’ restroom. In the mornings, after my shower, I can usually get out of here before the smell sinks into me.” Another shrug. “No biggie, really. I like to look and smell clean when I’m at school or going to the movies or something. If I go out, I do it after school on Friday so I don’t have to come back here first. Don’t worry yourself, the system’s worked fine for a while now.”

I nodded as if I were mature enough to understand. She was a wonderful Mystery to me.

“Why do you got so many dogs, anyway?”

“Because nobody else wants them. A couple we adopted from the Humane Society, but most of them are strays Mabel or me has found. Just can’t turn away an animal in need, I guess. It doesn’t seem right that nobody wants to keep them, care for them, have ‘em there in the middle of the night to snuggle with when you wake up and feel lonely....”

I thought she was going to say something else but she didn’t. We had a couple of brownies, talked a little more about nothing terribly important, and then it was time for me to go.