Steve Tem - Ugly Behavior

She didn’t expect anything from him, or at least that’s what she said. He got a small social security check every month which he just signed over to her, leaving it under the peanut butter jar in the pantry. They never talked about it, but those checks got cashed.

He had no use for spending money. He used to drink. About fifteen years ago he stopped, and he couldn’t have told you why. One day he just woke up and decided he didn’t care to anymore. It might not be permanent—he reserved the right to start up again at any time. Maybe if this living with family thing didn’t work out. And he’d been a smoker until recently, quitting cold turkey when he moved in with her. He actually liked the discomfort the craving for it gave him. It kept him focused.

For entertainment he read old paperbacks people threw away; he didn’t care which ones. He never turned on the TV. Almost everything on it seemed stupid to him, including the news. When the boy turned on the cartoons and Monte was in the living room, he either left the room or made himself fall asleep. Falling asleep was easy—it was the waking up that was hard.

His daughter had had a lot of boyfriends. He made himself not think about that too much. He was no one to judge, but she had a history of making bad choices. Maybe she learned that from him. It made life pretty hard sometimes. And possibly dangerous. None of his business, but she had a kid to think of.

Pete, the current boyfriend, wasn’t there much, either working late, or out hitting the bars, doing the kind of things guys of that age and type usually do. Guys like Pete didn’t have much going for them. Monte had been a guy like Pete, pretty much. Monte guessed if he were healthier, he’d still be a guy like Pete. Monte guessed it was a good thing Pete was gone so much. He also guessed Pete was cheating on her. Something about the way Pete was when he came in late, the way he kissed her. And the way Pete talked about how much he’d had to do that day—just a little too eager. Monte recognized that particular performance. Shit, he practically invented it. Most men were terrible liars, transparent as hell. The only way a woman could buy such crap was because she wanted to. He figured his daughter was just desperate for the company. If she truly believed Pete’s garbage, well then, she was worse off than Monte thought.

Monte could also see that Pete had a dangerous side. He just didn’t know how dangerous. He watched the two of them together, even when they probably thought he was sleeping. They had arguments, some of them bad. Hearing his daughter cursing and shouting at her man made Monte angry, but he wasn’t sure why. It was none of his business. And Pete sure deserved it. But she was aggravating Pete. Things were okay for now—there was a balance going on, but that could end any time. Monte had seen some bad things. But maybe this would be okay.

If they got too loud, Monte would just turn up his radio. Everybody had a messy life. She didn’t need Monte to defend her—she knew what she was getting into. He’d never met her boy’s father, but he didn’t need to. Monte reckoned he was the same kind of guy as Pete. One thing Monte knew about women—they stuck with what they knew.

The boy, his grandson, was a quiet boy, and a good boy. Seven years old. A great age, from the little Monte could remember. Monte had had a dog when he was about that age. Monte tried not to say too much to the boy because he was afraid he’d fuck him up. He didn’t want to tell the boy it was all downhill from here—maybe it would turn out different for him. Monte didn’t believe it would, but sometimes things surprised him.

“Take off those jeans and let me mend them,” she said to the boy and the boy did as she asked without saying a word. The three of them were in the living room, Monte pretending to read the paper but he was actually more interested in his daughter’s and the boy’s conversation. The truth was there was never much interesting in the paper, just people behaving badly and he knew all he wanted to know about that.

The boy wore white Pooh underpants with red trim. His T-shirt had a picture of a honey pot on it. It looked kind of sissy but Monte didn’t say anything.

His daughter sewed the tear in the left knee slowly and carefully using small stitches. Monte wondered if she’d learned that from her mother. “It’s important that no matter how poor you are you don’t go running around wearing torn clothes,” his daughter told the boy. “Your grandpa taught me that. He wouldn’t let his kids run around in torn clothes, no sir.” She glanced at Monte then and he nodded at her. She’d made the whole thing up. Monte considered whether she could have learned that from her mother as well.

He thought about the boy—“his grandson” was the way somebody might say it. Somebody might ask him, “Is that your grandson?” and he’d have to say, “Yes.” He couldn’t say why exactly, but that was a pretty big deal. It surprised him that he could feel that way. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the boy. He wondered if that meant he loved the boy. He didn’t like thinking about that, it embarrassed him to think about that, but he couldn’t help himself. It made him feel weak, but he’d been feeling weak for a very long time now, so maybe it didn’t make any difference that he was weak. Weak was still better than dead, most of the time.

“Dad, why don’t you tell Brian a goodnight story?”

“A goodnight story?”

“Brian, your grandpa is a great storyteller. When we were little he told us stories every night to help us go to sleep.”

Why are you lying like this you stupid bitch? But Monte didn’t say anything out loud. Brian walked slowly over to Monte’s chair and sat down on the dark blue rug in front of him. The boy gazed up at him, waiting. Monte figured the boy must have heard lots of goodnight stories before and this was the way he’d been taught to listen to them.

Monte said to his daughter, “I don’t know any stories.”

“Sure you do, Dad. Everybody knows some stories.”

The boy, his grandson, was still waiting. Monte frowned down at the boy, not knowing what to do. Monte started clearing his throat because something was there, something was in there bothering him.

Then he just began talking. “A long time back, when I was just a young man.” He stopped and spoke to the boy. “I’m not going to say ‘Once upon a time.’ Is that okay by you?”

The boy said nothing and Monte took that for a yes. “I was older than you, Brian. But I didn’t have a wife yet, or kids. I was a teenager, I guess.” He glanced over at his daughter, who was watching him so seriously he felt embarrassed and angry, so he looked away. “I never thought I’d have kids. I never thought much of anything, past the particular day. I was never a planner.” He stopped.

The boy appeared to be listening intently, but Monte knew he’d already screwed up. This was no way to tell a kid’s story.

“But I had a serious problem. I guess you could say I had a giant problem.” Monte felt himself dripping with sweat. But the kid seemed more interested. “There was a giant in my life, tall as a house, wide as a four lane highway. And that giant, he was always getting in my way, hassling me. He never had a good word to say about me, or anybody else. And if you objected to anything he said, you’d get the back of his hand, broad as an elephant’s backside, right in your face. Some times he’d hit you so hard you’d be flying right into—”

He paused, glanced at his daughter, who was staring at him. He couldn’t tell if she approved or disapproved of his story—most likely she didn’t much care for it. But she’d asked for it, hadn’t she?

“You’d be flying right into Never-Never land. Leastways, I think that’s what they called it. Anyway, this went on for some years. Some days the giant would be nice as pie. Apple Pie, I reckon, since that was always my favorite. But most days he was just this big monster of a thing you’d best stay away from. And on the worst days he would chase me around the house and when I got mad about that he’d say I was really in for it. He’d say he had special plans for me that I wasn’t going to like at all. Well, I had seen some examples of his special plans, and no sir, they weren’t nice things for anybody to have to go through.”