Spare Change (6 page)

The first three nights she worked at the diner she did indeed come home
with a glint in her eye and ready for love-making; on the fourth, she claimed
he could just forget about such doings, seeing as how she’d been on her feet
eight hours and was dog-tired. “But you said…” Benjamin moaned. Susanna didn’t
bother to answer, just flopped her head down on the pillow.

All that summer, Ethan Allen sat across the kitchen table from his
father and ate warmed-up cans of spaghetti. Afterward, when his daddy settled
down to read the newspaper or watch television, the boy would bicycle five
miles into town and head for the diner. “Hi, Mama,” he’d say with a broad-faced
grin, then she’d sit him down with an oversized slice of peach pie or a bowl of
butterscotch pudding. 

“Sweetie, this here is Scooter Cobb,” Susanna said, cozily edging
herself alongside the pudgy-faced man who was round as a pregnant cow.  “He
owns the place. Ain’t he just the cutest thing you ever did see?”

“Pleased to meet you, Mister Scooter,” Ethan Allen replied, chomping
down on another bite of strawberry rhubarb pie. Although anyone watching would
have thought the boy was one-hundred-percent focused on scooping up that chunk
of rhubarb, the truth was he’d seen Scooter’s hand slide down Susanna’s back
and come to rest on the round of her butt. “Mama,” he asked days later, “…do
you like Mister Scooter more than Daddy?”

“Good Lord, Ethan,” she answered, “what’s got into you? If your daddy
got wind of you asking a thing like that, there’d sure enough be hell to pay!”

“I didn’t mean nothin’ by it; I swear.”

“I know you didn’t, baby.” Susanna playfully tousled Ethan Allen’s hair
and promised that if he’d keep such thoughts to himself, she’d make sure to
have enough spare change for the movies. 

“Candy too?” he asked.

She grinned, “Yeah, candy too.”  

After that, Ethan Allen had only to mention Scooter’s name and he’d
find himself jingling nickels and dimes in his pocket. He found he could go
into the diner any time, night or day, whether his mama was behind the counter
or not, and have all a boy wanted of pies and puddings. He’d order up a bowl of
tapioca or two balls of chocolate ice cream, then tell the person scooping it
up they ought to add some whipped cream and a cherry. “Ain’t he something,”
Susanna would grin, “chip off his mama’s block, that’s what this boy is!”    

When Susanna said something like that, Scooter would smack his hand up
against her behind and start chuckling. “He sure is,” he’d laugh, “he sure
is.” 

Even a blind man could see there was something going on between the two
of them. A blind man maybe, but not Benjamin, he was too busy counting up the
dimes and quarters Susanna was dropping into the cookie jar every day. Each
time that jar got heavy, he’d empty it out and cart the money off to the bank
in town where he’d opened up an account in his own name, claiming it would keep
the money safe from robbers.

“What robber is gonna come way out here?” Susanna said, but he of
course reminded her of all the things that had gone missing.

“What about the rug? What about the portable radio?”

It was true that any number of things had simply up and disappeared; so
even though she enjoyed counting up stack after stack of coins, she agreed the
money might actually be better off in the bank. “Just you keep track of what’s
mine
,”
she said, “because when I got enough, I’m taking you and Ethan Allen on a
vacation to New York City!”

 “You
still
harping on that?” Benjamin asked. “Shit, you passed
the age of being a Rockette, ten years ago.”

“Maybe so, but I still got a
real good singing voice.” If she wasn’t afraid he’d come after her with a
butcher knife, Susanna would have told him that men still whistled when she
walked by; that they’d sometimes follow her for blocks just to watch the swing
of her hips and the toss of her head. Benjamin might think she was no longer
capable of making men stop dead in their tracks, but she knew better. She knew
that a man such as Scooter Cobb would give most anything for her favors—why,
she already had a genuine gold necklace and a pearl ring hidden in the glove
compartment of her car.

I
n the fall of the year, when you
would expect a boy in the fifth grade to be slouched over the kitchen table
doing his homework instead of bicycling into town for a free piece of pie,
Ethan Allen showed up at the diner. “Where’s my mama?” he asked Bertha, the
waitress who’d been working nights for the past fifteen years. 

“Ain’t you supposed to be home doing your schoolwork?” she said, her
mouth twisted off to one side. “Your mama told me you had arithmetic enough to
keep you busy for a week or more.”

“I finished,” Ethan Allen said, even though he hadn’t cracked open the
book.  

“You did no such thing,” Bertha sneered. “With five kids of my own, I
can tell right off when a boy’s lying!”

“Well, it might be I’ve got a bit more to do, but I figured a piece of
pumpkin pie would get my mind working.”

“After you get a slice of pie, you’ll get on home and take care of that
arithmetic?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ethan said with a smile, “I’d get to it faster even, if
that pie had a fair bit of whipped cream atop it.”

Bertha raised an eyebrow like she thought she was being had, but she
handed over the pumpkin pie mounded with whipped cream. He started in on it;
then asked again, “Where’d you say Mama went to?”

“I didn’t say.”

“Daddy told me she was working tonight.”

“She is.” Bertha stood there, her arms folded across her chest, and
watched him eat the pie. As he swallowed the last bite, she scooped the plate
off the counter. “You’re finished up,” she said, “now, get on home.”

Ethan
Allen went whistling out the door, but instead of heading straight home, he
circled around to the back of the diner figuring to scout up a few soda bottles
and turn them in for the deposit. He’d expected to find some Pepsi bottles,
maybe even a beer bottle or two, but he never expected to come across his
mama’s butt—buck naked and bouncing around like a ping pong ball in the back
seat of Scooter Cobb’s big white Cadillac. “Well, shit my drawers!” he
exclaimed.

“Holy shit!” Scooter hollered when he
heard the sound of the boy’s voice. 

Susanna
bounced herself over and started tugging down the skirt of her pink uniform.
“What in God’s Name are you doing here?” she shouted.  “You’re supposed to be
home with your daddy. I know you got homework to do!”

“I was hungry; I needed to get a slice
of pie.”

“I’ll pie your ass! You get on home, tomorrow morning we’re gonna have
us a nice long talk about this!”

“What? I didn’t do nothing.”

“Get
home, I said!”

“Okay. Okay.” He climbed onto his
bicycle and rode off, figuring there would no doubt be hell to pay. His mama
would claim he’d been sneaking around, spying on her. She’d likely threaten if
he didn’t mend his ways, he’d be shipped off to reform school; but once the
fussing was over and done, knowledge such as this would be good for at least a
dollar.  When he got home, Benjamin, who had now taken to drinking beer after
beer as he stared glassy-eyed at the television, called out, “That you, boy?”

“Yeah, Pa,”

“Didn’t your mama say you had homework to do?”

“It’s finished,” Ethan Allen answered. He grabbed a bag of pretzels,
slipped out the back door and headed for the fort. He and Dog settled in for
the night, something they’d done any number of times before—sleeping in the
fort was a far better alternative when his mama was on the warpath.  He
switched on the radio and listened as Hoot Evers came to bat; it was the bottom
of the eighth and the Orioles were down by three runs. “Looks like the birds
are in trouble,” Chuck Thompson, the voice of the Orioles said.
 

“In trouble?” Ethan Allen answered back, “They plain out stink!” It was
a discouraging thing to root for a team that always lost. He’d already decided,
if his mama ever did haul ass for New York City, he’d start rooting for the
Yankees. He rolled over on his side and curled up with Dog—they were both fast
asleep when Brooks Robinson hit a bases loaded homer in the ninth inning and
won the game.   

It was close to dawn when Susanna came home and she was rip-roaring
mad. “I’m gonna kill that kid,” she mumbled, as she crept through the house,
calling his name in a whispered voice. “Ethan Allen, you’d better come out from
wherever you’re hiding, right now!” she threatened, “or else, when I get hold
of you…”

“Susanna, that you?” Benjamin hollered out from the bedroom.

“Yeah, it’s me,” she answered.

“Who you talking to?”

“I’m not talking to nobody!”

“Well then, quit making such a racket, you’ll wake the boy.”

“That sorry little shit will
wish
I’d woken him when I finally
get hold of his ass!” Susanna mumbled as she trudged off to the bedroom.

In the morning, Ethan Allen ate a handful of pretzels for breakfast
then bicycled off to school wearing the same shirt and pants as the day before.
After school, he went back to the fort and waited until he saw Susanna’s car
leaving, then he returned to the house. He followed the same routine for two
days, before she finally caught up to him.

“No you don’t,” she said, grabbing at the back of his shirt as he tried
to make off with a package of honey buns. “We’ve got some talking to do!”

“Why? I didn’t do nothing!”

“You’re supposed to be home on a school night. You’re supposed to be
studying, not jackassing yourself into town for free pie!”

“I was hungry.”

“I don’t give a crap if your stomach was turned inside out, you got no
business—”

“You’re just yelling at me cause I seen you waving your naked butt
around!”

“Don’t give me none of your sass!”

“I ain’t to blame. You was the one.”

“Ethan Allen! I’m warning you!”

“If Daddy was to know you showed your bare butt to Mister Scooter…”

“Shut up!” Susanna raised her hand and whacked it across the boy’s
face. “You don’t never talk about such a thing!”

“I ain’t afraid of you!”

“You might not be afraid of me, but you’d better be afraid of Scooter
Cobb; his son’s a policeman who’ll toss your skinny little ass in jail.”

“For what?”

“For telling lies on people, that’s what!”

“It ain’t no lie. I did see—”

“You’re a kid, nobody’s gonna believe you! If that policeman says
you’re telling lies on his daddy, then everybody’s gonna believe you’re telling
lies!”

“They don’t lock people up for telling lies.”

“Oh no?” Susanna said looking square into the boy’s face. “Shows what
you know. They might not put boys your age in jail; but they put them in
reform
school
and keep them locked up until they’ve grown a long white beard.”

“But, I didn’t do nothing!”

“I know that and you know that, but everybody else is gonna think
different,” Susanna let the corners of her mouth curl slightly. “That’s why,”
she said, “it’s important for you not to say anything about this.”

“I won’t, Mama, I swear I won’t,” he crisscrossed his heart, “hope to
die.”

“Okay, then. This’ll be our secret,” she said with a smile. “Now get
your butt over here and give your mama a big hug.”

That afternoon Susanna fixed macaroni with cheese for Ethan Allen’s
lunch and gave him two dollars to buy the new basket he’d been needing for his
bicycle. And, for weeks afterward, it seemed she always had enough spare change
for him to go to the movies or buy some trinket that had caught hold of his
eye. Their relationship suddenly turned noticeably better. First she came home
with a new collar for Dog, then it was three brand new Superman comic books,
after that it was a bicycle horn, something Ethan had been wanting for the
longest time. you’re spoiling him,” Benjamin grumbled, “He skips doing homework
and you reward him with presents—what kind of way is that to raise a kid?”

“He’s
just
a boy,” Susanna answered; then she gave Ethan Allen a
sly wink. Although she had put her foot down about him showing up at the diner
all hours of the night; up until nine o’clock he was still allowed to come for
free pies and cakes. “Not one minute later!” she’d said with a no-nonsense tone
to her voice. 

Ethan Allen started coming in right after school, ordering hamburgers,
barbecue sandwiches with extra sauce, grilled cheese platters, milk shakes and
on two different occasions, banana splits. He’d pass by the house and stay just
long enough to lift Dog into the new basket hooked onto the handlebar of his
bicycle, then off he’d pedal, thinking of what new thing he was gonna order up
that day. He’d climb onto a stool at the end of the counter and tell Scooter he
had a hankering for some God-awful thing such as chocolate cream pie with a
double scoop of ice cream on the side—minutes later it would be sitting in
front of him. When he’d eaten as much as he could hold, he’d want meat scraps
for Dog. Although Scooter Cobb gave the boy everything he asked for and more,
Ethan Allen had a genuine disliking for the man. He hated the look of Scooter’s
fat fingers, hated the laugh that rippled first one fold of chin and then the
other, but most of all, he hated the thought of his mama stretching her arms
around that great paunch of stomach.