Tom Piccirilli - The Last Kind Words

“He’s got me on medication and a whole health program. Valerian and kava. I drink chamomile tea and have a lot of herbal shit to take. Ginkgo biloba and fish oil. I’m supposed to eat a lot of green leafy vegetables. Me, your father, Grey. All of us. A fucking ton of salad. And your poor mother is always coming up with different healthy dressings for us. Cooking boiled cabbage. Stinks up the whole house. But we eat it. Watching Old Shep, it’s a constant reminder, Chut we eat what we might be like one day.”

He was telling the truth but not all of it. I could sense his desperation. It was way back there in the hard timbre of his voice and in the way he held his shoulders. The rain came down and we let it fall on us as we stood face-to-face. My white streak of hair hung in my eyes so that I didn’t have to show him my own dread. JFK picked up on my mood and whined. He started back up the trail and we followed along almost reluctantly.

Now I understood what was really pulling Mal apart. Not simply the fear of what might be happening to him, but the idea that it might soon be time to take measures into his own hands. That’s what he’d been groping for. He was struggling against the consuming terror that if he didn’t time it just right he might actually become too senile to remember to do the job when the time came. We’d never let ourselves turn into Gramp. We’d fight rats for poisoned bait before we let that happen. I knew I would.

JFK hung his head out the passenger window and barked into the rain as I drove over to the high school. Mal was right-it was time Dale and I had a real conversation.

There was much more security now than when I’d attended class here. They’d gated the area up and there was a little booth with a semaphore arm blocking the road. I had to give my name and show ID and tell my reason for being there. I said my sister was feeling ill and I was picking her up to take her to the doctor. The security guard didn’t give a shit so long as he got to mark it all down on his clipboard.

I drove through and parked outside the main set of doors. I didn’t think I’d see Butch’s Chevy around. I hadn’t expected to. He was twenty-one and wouldn’t want to get nabbed on school property with a fifteen-year-old. I was still surprised he’d been introduced to my parents. It seemed like the kind of relationship Dale would want to keep on the sly, but I suspected that Butch had pushed the matter, wanting to show off to my father, the infamous Pinsch Rand.

Within a few minutes the storm ended and the sun broke through again. A caravan of buses pulled up to the curb in front of the school. They blocked my line of sight. JFK was curled up and napping. I got out of the car, lit a cigarette, and took up position near the flagpole. Taped to it was a flyer stating that following the last period, open auditions were being held for A Streetcar Named Desire . It was a good guess that Dale would be there, so I steeled myself and decided to check out the auditorium.

The bell went off and the corridors crowded with students and teachers. A din of chatter, lockers banging shut, and running feet filled the place. I was heading upstream and kept getting pressed back by the current, but eventually I got to the auditorium.

There was a bigger turnout than I’d expected. A lot of jocks milled about in torn T-shirts, trying to ramp themselves up into Stanley-screaming-“Stella” mode. Several girls going out for the Blanche DuBois role had overdone their makeup and set their hair in wild curls. You couldn’t get away from the movie.

I saw Dale off stage right, practicing lines with some other girl. I couldn’t tell if she was doing Stella or Blanche. A flood of warm pride filled my chest. She looked lovely, assertive, and in command.

I went to take a seat and noticed someone in back waving at me. I squinted and saw it was mywasl out tk mother.

“Ma?”

“Terrier, come sit.”

“What are you doing here?”

“What do you think? I’m waiting to watch my baby perform onstage.”

I sat beside her. “It’s an audition.”

“That’s still a performance.”

“Does Dale know you’re here?”

“No, of course not, she’d throw a fit.”

My mother had come prepared. She had a little pillow for her back and a thermos of hot tea with her. She poured a cup and offered it to me. I shook my head.

“Prepare yourself,” she said. “It could be a while before she gets called on. It takes forever in the beginning, but then the group thins out pretty quickly after that. The real nervous nellies will turn green and bow out in the first ten minutes. Once they’re gone, the talented kids really let fly.”

“I can see you’ve attended these before.”

She beamed. My mother’s smile was infectious. I returned it. “Third one this year.”

“So how does she do?”

“She’s amazing. Really quite accomplished. I don’t know where she gets it from.”

“Grifting is just putting on a show,” I said.

“She doesn’t grift.”

“It’s in the blood.”

My mother made an exasperated noise. “Stop it, you. I just wish she wouldn’t always play the smaller secondary roles. I wish she’d go out for the bigger parts.”

It had been years since I’d read or watched Streetcar . “Are there any smaller women’s roles in this one?”

“No, which is why I’m so excited. I think she’s finally going for the lead.” She sipped and stared at me through wisps of steam rising from her tea. “So what brings you here?”

“I wanted to talk to her about Butch again.”

We watched the first Stanley take the stage. He muffed his first line and asked if he could start again.

“So is he real trouble?” my mother asked. “Butch?”

“Semi-real trouble. You were right.”

“So I should be worried.”

“You should relax. She’s smart. She’ll kick him loose soon enough.”

“And until then?”

“Until then I’ll make sure nothing happens.”

She had the presence of mind not to bother smiling. “You’re a good boy.”

“No, I’m not. That’s why you asked me to check up on him. But if I wasn’t here, the way I hadn’t been for all these years, what would you have done?”

“Your father would have paid him a visit,” my mother said. “If it was necessary.”

“Sometimes you scare me, Ma.”

We watched more kids foul their lines and nail thalieir lines. A couple of them had real potential. Most of them didn’t. A few of them knew it and were just there to have a little fun. The drama-coach-turned-director tried to move them along as quickly as possible. My mother had been right about that too. The group had thinned considerably already.

Finally it was Dale’s turn. Unlike others, who’d read from their script pages, she’d memorized her lines. She was going out for Blanche. She and one of the Stanleys were doing the impending rape scene. One part of me was glad she wasn’t doing the “I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers” bit, which several other girls had already covered. She also wasn’t playing Blanche with much of a southern accent. Another smart move, I thought.

My mother gripped my hand tightly, showing fierce pride. Instead of playing Blanche as a weak-willed naïve woman accidentally pushing the brutish Stanley over the edge, Dale characterized Blanche as a kind of seductress purposefully pushing the guy’s buttons. Even when she defended herself and struggled against him, it seemed only another level of foreplay. When Stanley shouted, “We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning!” and leaped at her, I almost shot to my feet.

“She’s so good,” Ma said.

“Yes.”