When the Saints (4 page)

M
Y SISTER
P
OPPY WAS THE BABY OF THE FAMILY, BORN
two years after Ma thought Jackie wrecked her womb for good. I can still see the big brown ponytail bobbing on top of her head. We never spent much time together, partly because she was so much younger than me, and partly because she was a crazy little bitch. I remember one afternoon before she was old enough to go to school, she met me coming up the driveway and asked if I’d trade the rocks in her hand for my school bag. I said no, so she whipped the rocks at my face and grabbed it from me. That was Poppy.

She had this squeaky voice and she hated taking baths more than anything. She was always covered in burdocks from running through bushes chasing boys and biting their chins. She
had a vast collection of dead things: squirrels, raccoons, beetles. There was always a bird drying out on a windowsill or a caterpillar in the freezer.

Once, when she was about four, she slammed her fist on the dinner table and told Daddy to shut his dirty trap. He looked at her as if he might smash her through the wall, but then he reached across the table, hoisted her out of her seat and planted a big raspberry on her belly. When he plunked her back down, she crossed her arms and said, “And I mean it, Buck.”

Another thing she loved, I mean besides dead things and biting people on the face, was marshmallows. Daddy came home once with a stale bag and Poppy inhaled them like they were crack cocaine. Marchellos, she called them. She only had them that one time, but for two years she brought up marchellos to anyone who came to the house, asking if they knew how she might get her hands on some.

I’m trying to remember more stuff about her when West rolls over, sits up and rubs his head. He’s done the same thing in the same order every morning since I got here: rolls over, sits up, rubs his head.

“Time is it?” he grunts, guiding my hand to his erection.

“Around nine. Hey, did you know my sister, Poppy?”

“Seen her a few times, but no.”

“She pretty?”

“Yeah.” He lies back down. “Nice long legs.”

“Good for her. I guess Kool-Aid and Cheezies don’t stunt your growth after all. Was she still living at home with Ma and Daddy when the shit hit the fan?”

“How come you don’t know any of this? You never even phoned them?”

“They never owned a phone.”

“So you just left to go live with some other family and that was it?”

My eyes travel to the ceiling. “I’d been arrested a few times. Not for anything serious, just for stupid stuff like stealing underarm deodorant and busting windows. The cops threatened Ma, said she had to pay a fine for something I did, which was bullshit because I had the right to work it off in community service. But she was a jumble of nerves about it. And she was convinced I’d have a better life if I got far from here. She got this infection in her ears, and while she was in the hospital she met some woman who was bringing her elderly parents back home to live with her in New Brunswick. She confessed to Ma that she didn’t know how she was going to get by without some help, so Ma talked me up as some Mother Teresa bed-sitter. Next thing I know, I’m in the back seat of a car headed who knows where.”

“What was the woman like?”

“She was adorable. She matched her dress to her earrings, God love her, but I wasn’t Mother Teresa. She took one look at me and knew she couldn’t leave me alone with her goldfish let alone her parents, so I ended up just being bored and in the way. I stole from her, lied to her, lied about lying. I gave a hand job to her plumber for a ride into the city, came back about a week later high as a shelf, tried to sell her parents some pills. I scared the shit out of all her neighbours. I don’t know why she didn’t kick me out sooner. I think she felt sorry for my mother. She took me
on like some kind of pet project, even tricked me into her church one Sunday.”

West fights a smile. “What did she tell you was in there?”

“Her name was Barbara Best. She used to correct the way I talked. If I said I seen her mailman coming, she’d say, You
saw
him. I’d say, What difference does it matter? And she’d say, You mean,
what is
the difference, and
why does
it matter?”

“Worked, though,” West says. “You got good grammar.”

“One time, we were in town buying milk and she caught me checking out a guitar in a store window. She asked me if I was interested in learning how to play. I told her what my mother always said, that Saints aren’t musical people, but Barbara Best said that isn’t true, that all people are born musical from the moment they break out of the womb and open up their lungs. She told me, ‘Music is everywhere, Tabatha.’” I pause, remembering her face. “I still say that in my head sometimes: Music is everywhere.”

“Music is everywhere,” West murmurs.

“So we struck a deal that I could have that big red guitar for my birthday if I’d behave until then. My birthday’s in June and that was January. I lasted two months until I stole this stupid paperweight shaped like the Eiffel Tower off a teacher’s desk and sold it to a student in another class. I didn’t think that would count, but it did.” I reach my foot up to push back the curtains and sunlight spills into the room. We lie there squinting. “I wish I’d held out. Nobody’s ever given me a birthday present my whole life.”

“Really? Not even your own mother?”

“She’d bake a cake.”

“That’s not the same as a big shiny box with your name on it. What about Christmas?”

“Sometimes we had Christmas, if Daddy was around. But our presents weren’t wrapped and they didn’t come from any store.”

“Where’d they come from, then?”

“Other people’s houses.” I bring my foot back beneath the covers. “Why are you asking me all this?” I ask, and at the same moment he says, “You really gave a hand job to a grown man when you were only fourteen?”

We look at each other.

“Never mind,” West sighs. “Don’t answer that.”

W
EST DRIVES AN ORANGE PICKUP TRUCK WITH BLUE
doors that probably came off another truck. When we get out and shut the doors, something metal falls off somewhere. Some men would stand around until nightfall searching for the thing, slamming stuff and getting you to “look here” and “hold that” until you have grease all over you, your picnic’s ruined and he finally says to just goddamn forget it. But West just circles the truck a few times, pokes his head underneath and shrugs it off.

He follows me through the trees to a wide band of sand where the sun is actually shining for once and, as soon as he glimpses water, strips down and starts running. I sit on a rock and watch his bare ass vanish into the lake. He surfaces with a
howl, flicks his hair back and comes shivering back out with one hand over his crotch, shaking icy water on me as he plunks down on the sand.

“Cold enough to freeze the balls off a pool table, but beats swimming in the river with the townies,” he says. “How come you know this spot and I don’t?”

“Ma and Daddy used to take us here in summertime. They’d get frisky right in front of us. We’d cook beer-can chicken over a bonfire and Daddy would throw us in the lake over our heads and make us swim back to shore. One time, my little brother Jackie had a leech stuck to him and wouldn’t let anyone pull it off. We chased him up and down the sand until Daddy yelled, ‘Look at the fucking mermaid!,’ ripped the leech off Jackie’s leg and took it over to the fire on a stick. We all cheered while it fried.”

“Sounds like good family fun.”

“Everyone was less of an asshole here. Even Daddy. At home, his moods could change on a dime. If he came through the door, one of us would put this plastic shark toy on top of the mailbox so the rest of us would know to stay gone. He used to sit us down and make us tell him all the bad things we did while he was away. If we said we hadn’t done anything, he hit twice as hard. One time, we saw a cop car coming and ran up to the house, but instead of warning Daddy, we told him Poppy fell down the cellar so he’d go check it out and have no escape when the cops busted in. Things were always better when he was gone. But we paid for that stunt when he got out. He whipped Poppy and me with her skipping rope, tied Bird and Jackie up in a blanket and dropped them out the second-floor window.”

West takes my hand in his and squeezes it. I sit there with my hand trapped under his until I can’t take it anymore. I slide it out and pretend to slap a mosquito on my neck.

“Come on.” I jump to my feet.

We splash around knee-deep until the sun starts to sink and paint the lake in all my favourite colours. Our eyes follow all the gold threads sewing up the clouds and it’s only when West says, “I think I’ll drive home like this,” that I remember he’s still buck-naked.

He takes the long way back, past hidden driveways and an abandoned church with a tree growing out of its roof. A hitchhiker appears out of nowhere and West slows to pull over.

“You’re not wearing any clothes,” I remind him.

“Shit!” He accelerates, sticks his head out the window and hollers, “Sorry, buddy!”

B
ACK IN THE FIRST GRADE, WE PLAYED A GAME CALLED
musical chairs. It was stressful as hell. I was convinced if I was the one left without a seat at the end of the song, it’d mark me an outsider for life. My heart would pound out of my chest, and when the music stopped I’d lunge for those orange plastic seats like a mountain lion on bennies. There wasn’t even a prize except to sit there looking smug, but I’ve got to hand it to those teachers: it was good practice for getting your hands on what’s up for grabs.

I wake up after West’s gone to work and it takes me a while to realize the thumping noise I’m hearing is the wind beating
itself against the back wall. Through the window, I spy a huge pair of panties float past and get twisted up in a hedge. I sit up for a better look and see all kinds of clothes drifting into West’s yard. There are blouses and skirts in near flight like flat, deranged birds.

I run out in just an old T-shirt of West’s to chase after them, and when my arms are nearly full, I run back inside and drop my little pile on the floor. I try on a few things, but nothing fits right, so I find some rusty kitchen scissors and a sewing kit in a drawer and spend hours cutting and ironing and sewing. By the time West comes home, we’ve got a new set of yellow curtains and an apron.

“What’s this?” he asks.

I put the apron on to show it off.

“Where’d you get all the fabric?”

“It blew into the yard. The wind must have stripped somebody’s clothesline.”

“Tabby!” He glances down at the leftover sleeves and zippers on the table and bites his thumb. “You can’t go around swiping things from the neighbours. What do you suppose some woman’s going to think when she walks by and sees her favourite dress hanging in my window?”

“Don’t the curtains look nice?”

“Yes, they’re real nice,” he says, softening. “That ain’t the point.” He throws his coat over the chair. “Sit down. I got something to tell you.” He plunks himself across from me then leaps back up and starts unloading beers into the fridge.

“You’re making me nervous,” I say.

“I got a lead on your sister. She’s turning tricks in Jubilant. It might not be true, but that’s what people are saying.”

I went to Jubilant once. My mother had a friend named Bev who got married and moved there with her husband, and we drove four hours to go visit her. She had one of those macramé owls hanging on the wall and used a scallop shell as an ashtray for her roaches. The way she pronounced her husband Daryl’s name drove me nuts. “No, honey, that’s Deerull’s chair.” Nobody was allowed to sit in Deerull’s velour chair, even though he was out in the middle of the Bay of Fundy on a lobster boat. She even vacuumed where I sat and made sure all the grooves went in the same direction. Her little house was right on the shore where it smelled like sulphur. We spent the night and I kept sneaking out of my sleeping bag to look out the window. I saw mermaids in the shadows pulling themselves up the sand by their forearms and woke Ma to tell her. She told me I was dreaming, but I was certain that in the morning we’d see their silvery paths and find them all lying bloated and sick on the concrete basement floor.

I imagine Poppy lying under some fat, hairy trucker as I watch West admire the new curtains out of the corner of his eye.

“West, you’re a good person.”

“Why can’t I get a roast, then?”

“I needed an apron first. You can’t cook a roast without an apron.”

“You’re running out of excuses.”

“You’ll get your roast.”

O
N SUNDAY,
I
GET UP BEFORE DAWN AND PACK US A
lunch of bologna sandwiches and apples then climb back into bed. West had a bad night at the tavern. A couple of guys got into a fight over a woman and he had to break it up. He came home late in a rotten mood all covered in blood.

“It’s this town,” I say. “I’ve been wanting to stab someone since I got off the bus.” I roll over. “So, was she gorgeous?”

“Oh, Christ. She had an ass down to her ankles and a big old camel toe in front.”

“Sounds like you had a good look.”

“You can see her in all her glory with your own eyes if you ever come down to visit.”

“Yeah, right. And have to listen to what everybody has to say?” I lift his hand to inspect the bandages. “You want to help me find my sister or what?”

“Not really.”

“How about I go on my own?”

“In my truck?”

“What—you scared I’ll take off with it?”

“Something like that.”

“You think I want your piece-of-shit Frankentruck? I used to drive a
Mustang,
asshole.” I find my panties in the sheets, shove them into my purse and pull on my jeans, yanking the fly up so it makes a good loud
ziiiiip.
West walks out of the room and I figure that’s it, but then he comes back in and tosses the keys on the nightstand.

“Fine.”

“Forget it. I don’t want it.”

“Take the damn truck before I change my mind.” I move to grab the keys and he adds, “Just leave something behind so I know you’re coming back.”

I dump out my purse on the bed and rummage through the pile. I find the little red plastic envelope and gingerly remove my autographed Randy “Macho Man” Savage card.