Lee Schlangen - Little brother_s big thing

"Living in the boarding house gave all of them more sex than they could handle. Still it was little brother's big thing that held most of her attention… so rigid and so near and so always ready for her hungry lips."

"Stupid sonofabitch! Where you get off bein' so cheeky!"

"Ain't cheek! I seen 'im!"

"Don't sass me! Goddamn ungrateful whelp! Yell at me I'll take your hide off!"

Friday night at Ma Conner's boardinghouse. Seven of us at the table and one skulking from chair to chair trying to get a handout without Ma seeing him. Eight, and only five were paying guests. Typical scene, too, and my food was churning already, like it always did by the time I could get away from that dining room.

As if it weren't bad enough to sit down to every meal with my pussy taut from wishing Eric would get under the table with me or something! But, no; that must not have been enough. Always there had to be the yelling and name-calling between Ma and her sister's boy, fifteen-year-old Will Dennis. She'd raised him from the age of nine, after his mother had abandoned him to go whoring in Chicago. Ma was right; he ought to show some respect after all she'd done for him. He didn't. He acted as if he hated her. He let his hair grow until it hung onto his shoulders and talked radical and probably even smoked pot! And he got mad every time she reminded him how much he owed her. So they fought at every meal, him defying her with his snapping, black eyes and crooked teeth and weasel nose and her pushing back the coarse hair that kept falling across her forehead and setting her jaw and shrieking.

It wasn't that I couldn't take it… or Mark, my fourteen-year-old brother, for that matter. It was just I was scared to death Eric would get a bellyful and tell Ma where to stick her Goddamn place.

As usual, though, it was suave, dark, snake-like Duane Fowler who got pissed off, while Eric patiently ignored the row and worked his way through his double portion of dessert.

"For Christ's sake! Sounds like an Irish fishing wharf!" Duane growled. "Belt the little snot and be done with it!"

Ma didn't take a lot of shit off her guests and I don't think she really cared right then if Duane did leave. She fixed him with a baleful glare and drew herself up, swelling as if she had an air pump hooked into her boobs. "Who the hell asked you, Duane Fowler? Just because those know-nothin' owners in Kansas City think you got the brains to run the Emporia Bowl doesn't mean you been out of diapers long enough to tell me how to raise a kid!"

Duane snorted. "Maybe being closer to the diapers makes it easier to remember what works."

Ma sniggered behind her hand. "You're even closer to your high school pettin' days. Hear that ain't gettin' you all you're lookin' for down at the alleys."

That hit a nerve. Duane shot a dark glance toward me and made a snarling noise in his throat. Before he could think of a retort Ma's daughter slipped a knife into the open wound. Nancy was a "super-sophisticated", prematurely mature kid, to judge by her opinion of herself, and she kept up on the gossip around Emporia.

"Even with breaks," she added. And then, as if on some totally unrelated subject and with a quick sideways glance at me, "In fact, they say there's some kind of excitement down along the river these days. A real pusher ought to get down there."

I choked and thought about climbing over the table at her. I'd had to fight Duane off ever since he'd come in as manager of the Emporia Bowl. And that, after I'd changed jobs to get out from under that filthy Mr. Goldstein's thumb at the Bijou Theater. For three and a half miserable years, when I was too young to get another job without Mr. Goldstein's recommendation, I'd submitted to all the degrading experiences he could devise. As cashier at the Bowl, I'd thought I had it made. And then Duane had arrived.

But I'd held him off. As stories began circulating from girls who had bought his line, I'd cringed and firmed up my determination to stay out of his clutches. Even when he kept me late with phony recounts at the register and nit-picking stuff about receipts, I'd held out. For the past three weeks he'd been harassing me that way, and I still hadn't let him make any headway.

Somebody had pulled the rug out from under me, though. Somebody had started a rumor I was slipping off to the river at quitting time and taking on whatever came along. Man or boy or boy-and-dog, the whispers went, Lee Schlangen's taking on all comers. Down on the river bank. Duane could have shot those rumors down with one sentence. He could have confirmed my claim he was keeping me at the register and on the books a couple of hours every night. But all the bastard did was smile knowingly and make a "tch-tch" noise and say he found it hard to believe Miss Schlangen would do all the terrible things they said. In the looks he gave me, it was plain he'd put a stop to that ugly talk once I came across for him.

But even under Nancy's dirty-minded, hurt-'em-whenever-you-get-a-chance attack, I couldn't look at the man without chills of fear chasing themselves up and down my back. I did see Mark sort of lurch in his chair as if he were about to bring something to Nancy's attention. So I kicked his shin good and hard and scowled at him. We couldn't afford to run from Ma the way Eric or Duane could. Not even if Mark had begun hearing the stories and was getting cut up by that little snot's innuendoes.

Eric looked up from his empty dessert plate with a bemused sort of expression as if he'd just gotten there. "Hmm… Nigg was telling me they're taking record loads of fish out of the river this month. You might want to take a crack at them, Fowler."

Goddamn him! He was such a gentleman! He could always come up with something to take off the pressure, and yet he wouldn't give me the time of day. Wasn't always like this! I thought. You had real hot nuts for me when you first moved in! Wasn't until you started listening to some of those big-mouth bastards you decided you were too good to get mixed up with a tramp like me! And most of the stories just as big lies as the one about the river. I could have cried. Pious shit! I fumed. What makes a Dock Superintendent on a truck freight dock so Goddamn pure!

I knew, though. It wasn't being the superintendent and in line for a real promotion into the Kansas City office. It was just what kind of man he was… tender and thoughtful and conservative… great, muscular, six-foot-two body for backing up his authority… words enough in his vocabulary so he didn't have to use the short, ugly ones unless he wanted to. With his crewcut light brown hair and unlined face and physique, I kept imagining he belonged in one of the pictures in that book about Greek Gods Mark was studying. And I loved him until sometimes I thought I'd die. Only he wasn't about to tangle with a reputation like mine.

Try supporting yourself and your kid brother like me! I thought. Start out when you're about eighteen – just barely – and he's twelve and only Ma's good word keeps them from sending each of you to some foster home. Just try working to make up the difference between a piddling insurance check and what it costs to live, even at Ma Conner's. Then see what kind of reputation you end up with!

I'd reached the bottom of the self-pity well. I couldn't stay in that damn dining room another minute! I sort of stumbled to my feet and muttered an excuse and got out of there. I guess Mark was just about as up-tight as I was, because he growled something and came after me. And of course, faithful old Gunner gave up his attempt to wheedle a mouthful and padded after Mark.

As I went through the archway toward the stairs I heard Ma sniff.

"Hmph! A body'd think we could have one civilized meal around here. I swear, young man, I don't know what's come over you! Mark my words, you'll get your come-uppance!"