Эд Горман - Moonchasers and Other Stories

Aimee grabbed the closest one by the ear, giving it enough of a twist to inflict some real pain.

“That’s one fine lady aboard that bus there, you hear me? And you treat her like a fine lady, too, or you’re going to get your butts spanked! Do you understand me?” Aimee said.

Then she let go of the boy’s ear.

“You understand me?” she repeated.

The boys looked at each other and then back to Aimee. They seemed scared of her, which was what she wanted them to be.

“Yes, ma’am,” both boys said in unison. “We understand.”

“Good. Now you get up there on that bus and behave yourselves.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the boys said again, and climbed aboard the bus, not looking back at her even once.

Aimee waited till the Greyhound pulled out with a roar of engine and a poof of sooty smoke.

She waved at Linnette and Linnette waved back. “Good-bye,” Aimee said, and was afraid she was going to start crying.

When the bus was gone, Aimee walked over to the taxi stand. A young man who looked like a child was driving.

Aimee told him to take her to the carnival and then she settled back in the seat and looked out the window.

After a time, it began to rain, a hot summer rain, and the rest of the day and all the next long night, Aimee tried to keep herself from thinking about certain things. She tried so very hard.

I am in my sister’s small room with its posters of Madonna and Tiffany. Sis is fourteen. Already tall, already pretty. Dressed in jeans and a blue T-shirt. Boys call and come over constantly. She wants nothing to do with boys.

Her back is to me. She will not turn around. I sit on the edge of her bed, touching my hand to her shoulder. She smells warm, of sleep. I say, “Sis listen to me.”

She says nothing. She almost always says nothing.

“He wants to see you Sis.”

Nothing.

“When he called last weekend — you were all he talked about. He even started crying when you wouldn’t come to the phone Sis. He really did.”

Nothing.

“Please, Sis. Please put on some good clothes and get ready ’cause we’ve got to leave in ten minutes. We’ve got to get there on time and you know it.” I lean over so I can see her face.

She tucks her face into her pillow.

She doesn’t want me to see that she is crying.

“Now you go and get ready Sis. You go and get ready, all right?”

“I don’t know who she thinks she is,” Ma says when I go downstairs. “Too good to go and see her own father.”

As she talks Ma is packing a big brown grocery sack. Into it go a cornucopia of goodies — three cartons of Lucky Strike filters, three packages of Hershey bars, two bottles of Ban roll-on deodorant, three Louis L’Amour paperbacks as well as all the stuff that’s there already.

Ma looks up at me. I’ve seen pictures of her when she was a young woman. She was a beauty. But that was before she started putting on weight and her hair started thinning and she stopped caring about how she dressed and all. “She going to go with us?”

“She says not.”

“Just who does she think she is?”

“Calm down Ma. If she doesn’t want to go, we’ll just go ahead without her.”

“What do we tell your dad?”

“Tell him she’s got the flu?”

“The way she had the flu the last six times?”

“She’s gone a few times.”

“Yeah twice out of the whole year he’s been there.”

“Well.”

“How do you think he feels? He gets all excited thinking he’s going to see her and then she doesn’t show up. How do you think he feels? She’s his own flesh and blood.”

I sigh. Ma’s none too healthy and getting worked up this way doesn’t do her any good. “I better go and call Riley.”

“That’s it. Go call Riley. Leave me here alone to worry about what we’re going to tell your dad.”

“You know how Riley is. He appreciates a call.”

“You don’t care about me no more than your selfish sister does.”

I go out to the living room where the phone sits on the end table I picked up at Goodwill last Christmastime. A lot of people don’t like to shop at Goodwill, embarrassed about going in there and all. The only thing I don’t like is the smell. All those old clothes hanging. Sometimes I wonder if you opened up a grave if it wouldn’t smell like Goodwill.

I call Kmart, which is where I work as a manager trainee while I’m finishing off my retail degree at the junior college. My girlfriend Karen works at Kmart too. “Riley?”

“Hey, Tom.”

“How’re things going in my department?” A couple months ago Riley, who is the assistant manager over the whole store, put me in charge of the automotive department.

“Good great.”

“Good. I was worried.” Karen always says she’s proud ’cause I worry so much about my job. Karen says it proves I’m responsible. Karen says one of the reasons she loves me so much is ’cause I’m responsible. I guess I’d rather have her love me for my blue eyes or something but of course I don’t say anything because Karen can get crabby about strange things sometimes.

“You go and see your old man today, huh?” Riley says.

“Yeah.”

“Hell of a way to spend your day off.”

“It’s not so bad. You get used to it.”

“Any word on when he gets out?”

“Be a year or so yet. Being his second time in and all.”

“You’re a hell of a kid Tom, I ever tell you that before?”

“Yeah you did Riley and I appreciate it.” Riley is a year older than me but sometimes he likes to pretend he’s my uncle or something. But he means well and, like I told him, I appreciate it. Like when Dad’s name was in the paper for the burglary and everything. The people at Kmart all saw it and started treating me funny. But not Riley. He’d walk up and down the aisles with me and even put his arm on my shoulder like we were the best buddies in the whole world or something. In the coffee room this fat woman made a crack about it and Riley got mad and said, “Why don’t you shut your fucking mouth, Shirley?” Nobody said anything more about my dad after that. Of course poor Sis had it a lot worse than me at Catholic school. She had it real bad. Some of those kids really got vicious. A lot of nights I’d lay awake thinking of all the things I wanted to do to those kids. I’d do it with my hands, too, wouldn’t even use weapons.

“Well say hi to your mom.”

“Thanks Riley. I’ll be sure to.”

“She’s a hell of a nice lady.” Riley and his girl came over one night when Ma’d had about three beers and was in a really good mood. They got along really well. He had her laughing at his jokes all night. Riley knows a lot of jokes. A lot of them.

“I sure hope we make our goal today.”

“You just relax Tom and forget about the store. OK?”

“I’ll try.”

“Don’t try Tom. Do it.” He laughs, being my uncle again. “That’s an order.”

In the kitchen, done with packing her paper bag, Ma says, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Said what?” I say.

“About you being like your sister.”

“Aw Ma. I didn’t take that seriously.”

“We couldn’t have afforded to stay in this house if you hadn’t been promoted to assistant manager. Not many boys would turn over their whole paychecks to their mas.” She doesn’t mention her sister who is married to a banker who is what bankers aren’t supposed to be, generous. I help but he helps a lot.

She starts crying.

I take her to me, hold her. Ma needs to cry a lot. Like she fills up with tears and will drown if she can’t get rid of them. When I hold her I always think of the pictures of her as a young woman, of all the terrible things that have cost her her beauty.