Billie Mosiman - Wireman

He would not think about it. He would not dredge up the old, rotten, sick memories. He would not allow himself to remember that evening Mary Ringer… that evening she… And he was only five, how could she have despised him even then, how could she…?

Five years old. Daley was barely three and Daley lived in shadow. He hovered in corners and hid beneath tables, sucking his thumb, dragging behind him a worn baby blanket covered with faded orange giraffes and yellow ducks. If Daley heard his mother and her various boyfriends fighting and yelling, he disappeared into the shadows to suck his thumb. He rarely laughed and he never smiled. He demanded little care or attention. Daley was too young to demand anything from life.

Nick, however, was coming of age, and much too soon. He noticed everything, even things he could not understand. Things like his mother being nice to strange men who came to stay the night and who were gone before morning. Things like bloody sanitary napkins left open and drying on the floor in the bathroom until, with other litter, they were swept into a pile and finally discarded. Things like loneliness and hunger, for a touch, a hug, a genuine smile turned his way.

It was not a happy time for either child, but for Nick it was worse because he knew things were not as they should be. Somewhere in the back of his young mind were the images he saw on TV, images that were different from his home and family. On TV he saw clean, neat homes where the mom and dad spoke in low, soothing voices to their children. No one screamed or broke dishes or slapped in fury. Some images flickering on the screen were violent, but they were the violence of the streets, where gangs fought, policemen shot criminals, and sheriffs in white hats got outlaws. The violence was far away from the pretty houses. He came to realize, instinctively, that his own world with its dirt and clutter and utter chaos was all wrong. It was a place where grown-ups drank beer and cursed, a place where strangers followed his mother to the bedroom.

Nick did not like seeing these things. He began to pout and sulk more often. He cried when he was not being punished, and his melancholy deepened.

Mrs. Ringer’s constant criticism sank into him like insidious poison that shriveled whatever was good and golden about him. He believed every word his mother said. If he was called a cry baby, well then that was what he was. If he was shouted at and pushed aside, then he must be in the way. If he was called ugly, then surely his own mother should know what she was talking about because, after all, she knew him well.

When Nick was five years old, something happened that convinced him he was totally unloved and unwanted. This feeling stayed with him forever.

It was a Friday and his mother had just taken a perfumed bath and was dressing in her bedroom. Nick wandered to the doorway and tried to make himself unobtrusive while he watched her. Suddenly spying him, his mother began to talk.

“I’ve got one hot date tonight, sonny boy,” she said, smiling as she drew on new, silky stockings. “Met him at the checkout counter today at work.” Nick came into the room, but still kept a respectable distance away.

“I’ll show these Bloomington women,” his mother continued, hooking the top of her stockings to her garter belt. “They won’t let their men be seen with me, oh no, they’d lock ‘em out cold if they caught ‘em running around with Mary Ringer. All those good husbands and fathers won’t even take me out for a hamburger, they’re so afraid of being seen. The bastards,” she added, slipping her arms through the straps of a faded pink lace bra. “But tonight—tonight, I got a stranger in town taking me out. Gonna buy me dinner, treat me right, you wait and see.”

Nick barely paid attention to what his mother was saying. All he knew was she intended to go out and leave him and Daley alone again, and he felt terrible all over. His head ached and he had the sniffles. He often caught cold and ran fevers for days. His mother called him sickly and, when she thought of it, gave him doses of the dreadful-tasting Black Draught to wash his system out.

“Those spineless slobs,” Mary Ringer continued, getting into a half-slip. “But I’ll show ‘em tonight. You just wait and see what I show ‘em.”

Nick rubbed his burning eyes and felt his chest tighten until it felt like a pack of cards with a thick rubber band around them. He was hot, even the bottom of his feet were hot. “Mama? Mama, I’m sick.” He stared at her hard while she donned a party dress. “I’m hot, Mama, and I hurt.”

“Stop your whining and come zip up my dress.” She stooped to the floor, her back to Nick. Impatient with his clumsy, five-year-old attempts, she cursed and reached over her shoulder, grunting as she zipped the dress up.

“Look how pretty your mama is,” she said, standing up and preening for him. She had one hand on her hip and she parted her slick, red lips to show the tip of her tongue. Suddenly her expression changed as she looked down at him. She motioned him forward. “What’s that all over your face, Nick?” Cautiously he sidled closer to her, his gaze lowered.

“Don’t you know when to blow your nose? Don’t you know when to wipe your face, for crissakes? Jesus, you’re disgusting. Here, wipe yourself.” She handed him a square of torn sheet she used for polishing her one pair of high heels.

Nick wiped and stood looking at a mess on the cloth. There were streaks of dust and bits of dried mud from her shoes and he wondered how that could have come from two little holes in his nose. She was right. He was dis… dis… whatever she said, that’s what he was.

“I don’t feel good,” he said, seeing she had forgotten him. She stood before the old waterfall veneer dresser brushing her hair. “I don’t feeelll good,” he said louder, coming up behind her so that his reflection was beside hers in the mirror. “I can’t breathe good,” he said with a bit of a lisp so that it sounded like “bweathe.”

Mary Ringer was not listening to her son. Her mind was thirty-five miles away at the Longhorn Steak House and Bar where her date promised to take her for a meal. Although Nick’s pleas fell on deaf ears, his presence did not escape his mother’s attention completely. Her preoccupied gaze lowered in the glass and she almost smiled at the little towheaded boy she saw reflected there. Impulsively she reached for him, drew him to the bench, and made him sit. Looking in the mirror again, she said, “I wish you’d’ve been a girl. Now wouldn’t that’ve been nice? See your hair?” She lifted his straight, too long hair and let it fall against his neck.

Nick sniffled. He squinted at his reflection in concentration. Yes, he could see it. A girl. A girl with long blond hair, his mother’s polished nails on her shoulders, his mother’s lips smiling at her, approving of her.

“Your hair’s perfect for a girl. It would need curling, of course, and a… a…” She eagerly looked over the stacked and scrambled cosmetics on the dresser. “…a ribbon! That’s what we need. If I had a little girl, I could put a ribbon just like this one in her hair.” She lifted the front of Nick’s hair and made a bunching motion while she wrapped the length of red ribbon around and around. Deftly she tied a tow and looked in the mirror for the effect.

It was grotesque. Nick hated it. His mother hated it, he saw it in her eyes. With his hair pulled back from his naked forehead he looked puny and feverish. His pale blue eyes were too wide and staring. The red bow stood up from his rounded head, and the bunched hair was an uneven mass that sprayed out like a handful of tattered feathers.

Nick reached up and pulled at the ribbon. One of his eyes was tearing and his chest hurt. He was going to cry and he did not want to.