Lesley Kagen - Good Graces

“With flyin’, Sally,” Wendy says, pumping harder.

“Yup… yup, that’s really good witch flying, but you…” I’m trying to get ahold of the swing chain and drag her to a stop, but she’s really high and weighs a lot more than I do, and that’s not even counting how strong she is. The last time I tried to do this over at the playground, she spun around to get away from me and when she twisted back she knocked me down.

“Be with, Thally,” she yells. “With… with… with.”

“Wendy… no… please, please… shush … shush … shhh .” She’s asking me to do my impression of the Wicked Witch of the West that makes her laugh so hard, but once I start, she’ll want more… more… more! I don’t have time for that. I have to get back to where I’m supposed to be over in the nook of the school. Troo is going to come charging out that rectory door any minute and if I’m not there to do my part, to be the decoy, Father is going to catch her. “All right. Okay,” I tell Wendy. “You stay and swing and… ah… if you’re real quiet, I’ll come right back in a little while and be the witch, okay?”

When I take off, Wendy doesn’t do exactly what I asked her to. She yells again, “Thally! Thally!” but I can’t help that. I can’t stop.

I hurry to listen in the window again. I can hear much better now. Things are really heating up inside the rectory. Troo is yelling and Father Mickey is, too, then my sister shouts even louder and something breaks and then everything goes quiet. There’s a flash, which must be Mary Lane’s Brownie bulb, and then Troo comes dashing out the rectory door much faster than when we practiced. She didn’t give me the chance to get back to my hiding spot.

My sister whizzes past me, yelling, “Run, Sal, run!”

From inside the house, Father Mickey roars, “Fuckin’ kids!” and just like Troo thought he would, he comes charging out the door, which is supposed to be my cue to run across the playground and lose him in the neighborhood, but I barely get five feet when he grabs me from behind, spins me around by my braid and slaps me across the face so hard that I feel my front tooth break on his ring. He is cursing and trying to pull me back up off the ground by my right arm. In the light of the rectory hall that’s spilling out behind him, Father Mickey looks rabid. His hair is standing on end and his black Irish eyes look frantic above his mouth that’s pulled back into a snarl.

“Help! Help!” I yell, hoping that Troo or Mary Lane or Artie will hear me and come back to rescue me, but they’re already too far away.

But there’s somebody else who isn’t.

His back is to her, so Father can’t see Wendy running her crazy windmill way toward us the way I can. Even the lightning that flashes right over our heads doesn’t slow her down. She understands that Father Mickey is hurting me, twisting my arm so hard that I think it’s going to break. She’s coming fast like she did over at the Vliet Street playground the time Buddy Deitrich was bullying me.

Father Mickey barks at me, “I’m going to teach you and your snotty sister a lesson about minding your own business. Where’d she go? And the other kid… the kid with the camera. Get up, get up!” He yanks me again, and Wendy, she’s almost right on top of us.

I try to shout, “No!” but she bowls into Father Mickey from behind like she’s a ball and he’s a pin up at Jerbak’s. I try to reach out to break his fall, but I’m not fast enough and he goes down hard. His head bounces off the side of one of the poles that are set around the DANGER hole where the foundation is getting poured tomorrow for our new school wing.

I don’t know what to do. This is nothing like Troo’s plan. Father Mickey is sprawled out next to me. Out for the count.

It takes me a minute or so to get my wits about me, but when I finally get up on my knees and say, “Hello?” my tongue brushes against my front tooth that feels jaggedy and tastes like an iron railing because of the blood. “Father Mickey, ah… you… you okay?” He’s lying tummy down, blending into the blacktop, but his white face is cocked my way. I’m not sure if I should be trying to wake him up. I’m scared about what he’s going to do to us when he comes to. Maybe Wendy and me should just run off and leave him. When he wakes up he might have amnesia and forget all about what happened. You can get that if you hit your head as hard as he did. That’s the best we can hope for. I try again. “Father?” He doesn’t groan. He doesn’t thrash around or move at all and once I lean down closer to him, I think that he’s not ever going to again. Wendy didn’t knock him out cold just for a little while. I’m pretty sure Wendy mighta knocked him out cold forever .

I’ve seen plenty of dead people. Daddy. Granny O’Malley. I saw Bobby after he fell into Sampson’s pit over at the zoo. And the longer I stare at Father, the surer I’m getting that it’s too late to run inside the rectory, find the telephone and call the operator so she can send one skinny and one fat ambulance man to come put Father Mickey on their stretcher and take him up to St. Joe’s with the siren blaring. But I gotta be positive. It takes me three tries to put my two fingers on his neck the same way I’ve seen Ethel do so many times to Mrs. Galecki when she has one of her spells. His skin is warm and soft under his stubbly beard, but nothing is pounding beneath my fingertips. I think I must be doing it wrong and move down to his wrist. Not a beat. I don’t see any other marks on him. He’s only bleeding a little from where his head hit the concrete post. I’m not sure why he’s dead. It could have something to do with his neck. It doesn’t look right.

From behind me, Wendy says, “Thwing now, Thally?”

She doesn’t know what she’s done. She doesn’t understand death. She swats skeeters and waits for them to fly off again. That’s when it really hits me that Wendy Latour has accidentally killed Father Mickey because she was protecting me and the tears come gushing. My whole body is shaking and my mind, it feels like it’s spinning away from me and I can’t catch up to it. I don’t know if I’m grateful or scared or relieved, maybe all of them. So many feelings are whirling around inside of me and I can’t tell one from the other. I don’t think there’s any sadness, though. Not for Father anyway. A good Catholic should be feeling sorrowful about his death, but I’m not. I’m not rejoicing, but I’m not broken up either. I feel something every time I look at him, I just don’t know what the word for it is.

“Thally?” Wendy comes up behind me and cups her hands under my arms and lifts me up to my feet. She lays her head on my shoulder and gives me a gentle honey bear hug. I can smell fish sticks and fruit on her T-shirt when she gives me a couple of hard pats on the back. “Don’ cry. Don’ cry, Thally O’Malley,” she says, licking the tears off my cheek. “All better now.”

We stay there together, rocking back and forth like we are slow dancing under the darkening sky. The wind pushes a piece of trash across the playground and the swings are twisting and the flagpole is making a clink … clink… sound. It seems like we are in each other’s arms forever until I realize I gotta do something and even longer before I figure out what.

“Wendy?” I whisper.

“Yeth?”

“I wanna play a game, do you?”

“Yeth, Thally,” she says, unlocking her arms.

I pick up the rhinestone tiara that got knocked off when she tackled Father Mickey and set it back where it belongs on her shiny black hair. “We’re gonna play hide-and-seek. You remember that one?”

She nods really fast, but she doesn’t. Every single time we play a game I have to go over the rules with her.