C Hribal - The Company Car

“Are you sure Mom and Dad can’t hear us?” asks Meg.

“Our father,” says Robert Aaron, “is piloting a La-Z-Boy into oblivion, and Mom is in her room with all the windows closed. What’s to hear? Besides, we’re just doing the Five P’s now.”

“The Five P’s?” Except for Brian, Meg’s beau, a quiet guy who suffers our loudness well, Dorie’s the only nonsibling up here. Our conversation was interrupted when Robert Aaron asked us to join him on the roof. Dorie’s stretched out at the base of the chimney, eyes closed, hands folded over her belly. She’s only vaguely interested in this. Her thoughts are on the hills of Pennsylvania, the sandy roads around Lake Michigan.

“Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.”

“You get that from Dad or Dale Carnegie?”

“From me,” says Ernie. “And I got it from Tony Robbins. Or Pete Lowe, one of those motivational guys. My whole office had to go to one of those seminars. You know, where they have you hugging total strangers and shouting ‘I can do it! I can be happy! Today I can be better than yesterday and tomorrow I can be my best!’ ” Ernie does exaggerated cheerleading moves, his hands shaking imaginary pom-poms as he skitters across the roof.

“Careful,” says Robert Aaron. “I don’t want you throwing yourself off the roof.”

“Will you relax? It’s a party, goddamn it, a party!” Ernie drains his beer, slings the bottle into the alfalfa field.

“Hey, pisshead!” says Wally Jr., never exactly Ernie’s buddy. “Stop being an idiot.”

“Too late,” says Ernie. “I’m hap-hap-happy! Act happy, feel happy, be happy! Let me hear you say Amen! I said, Let me hear you say Amen!” He’s dancing, eyes closed, spinning first on one foot, then on two. The spirit’s within him. He spins again and dances right off the roof.

“Amen,” says Wally Jr.

In what was to be our last autumn in Elmhurst, our mother decided to throw a costume party for Halloween. Of course, we didn’t know it was to be our last autumn in Elmhurst. We—we kids, that is—still thought we were entrenched there. Cinderella was in eighth grade, already dreaming about life in high school. Robert Aaron was trying out for seventh-grade football. Horrible things were happening in the world, but our parents, at least in front of us, were pretending that everything was okay. “The static quo,” Nomi called it. “You can do worse in life than maintain the static quo.” A veteran of several bankruptcies and the Great Depression (“She doesn’t look sad anymore,” said Ike), she was allowed to pontificate in our household, even to our father, to whom her remark was directed.

Of course the static quo was not okay with our father. After months of silence on the subject and no visits to Uncle Louie, our mother took a different tack. Uncle Louie was to visit us. Our mother maintained the party was to cheer up Uncle Louie, but we guessed that it wasn’t only for him. Our mother was hoping that a real celebration, a party on a day usually reserved for the kiddies, and at our home, would make our father feel better, would make him forget about the sawn-in-half boat that was sitting now in our backyard. It also would bring Uncle Louie back into the fold, and reestablish our mother as hostess and peacemaker, not the distraught harridan who was forcing our father into his nightly pilgrimage to the Office. Our mother was no doubt aware that these were ambitions no party should bear, but she was also grimly determined that it be all these things. In the weeks before the party, our mother wore on her face an expression of aggressive niceness, as though her fierce good cheer would be contagious. Were it not for the fact that it was Halloween and we had our own desires, we’d have been creeped out by the alien, its smile fixed firmly in place, that had taken over our mother’s body.

The year of our parents’ costume party it was a warm Halloween. We were ecstatic. No winter coats covering up our costumes, and our hands wouldn’t freeze. Not quite ten, I was the Indian brave I had always thought I was. Down the outside seams of my jeans our mother had sewn strips of diamond-patterned cloth and had made a breechclout, vest, and headband out of the same material. Two pheasant tail feathers completed the headdress. My war paint was streaks of lipstick in three colors, and I was probably the only Indian brave east—or west—of the Mississippi who sported a blond crew cut.

I was looking forward to being out all evening. Out in the gloaming, as Artu would say. “The homer in the gloamer,” said our father, recalling a day when the Cubs still won pennants.

Oh, to be a ten-year-old at dusk in America!

Our mother had other plans. “Short night,” she said. “Patty Duckwa is going to babysit you.” Patty Duckwa? My heart did its lurchings. My brain twittered with an image of the bas relief Venus de Milo in Grandpa Cza-Cza’s basement, only she had Patty Duckwa’s arms and Patty Duckwa’s breasts. Flutterings in my stomach now, twitchings and tinglings in my groin. I barely heard our mother explaining that Cinderella, our usual babysitter, would need help later, and Nomi and Artu, who didn’t want to be in the house as the party got going, were going out for dinner and a movie. And our mother, who had a party to prepare for, wasn’t going to walk with the little ones. We had to. Patty would be over later. More tinglings.

We went outside. “Criminy,” said Robert Aaron. He had friends waiting for him. He and Cinderella and I were each assigned a sibling. Cinderella, a witch, had Peg Leg Meg, dressed as a princess. Robert Aaron, a pirate, had Ernie, a pumpkin. Ike and I (Ike was a sheikh, my costume from last year) had Wally Jr., whom Mom had dressed as an Indian brave, too. Great, I thought, just what I needed: a towheaded Indian in tow. How was I to maintain my ferocity and seriousness if a rotund, jolly, dimple-cheeked Indian was holding my hand? I could already hear the jokes: “Oh, are you blood brothers?” “Abner, come take a look at this—one little, two little Indian boys.” And then they’d start singing that song.

Wally Jr., Ernie, and Peg Leg Meg had plastic buckets with jack-o’-lantern faces. Our plan was to get those buckets filled as quickly as possible, then get these kids the hell home. Once we got out of earshot of our mother, the soft night air would belong to us.

It didn’t play out that way. We walked our charges around our block once, and around the block behind us, but when we got back our mother wasn’t ready yet, Patty Duckwa hadn’t come over yet, our father wasn’t home yet, and we had to take them on another round of the neighborhood. They were tired. They were whiny. Their hands were hot. We circled another block and brought them home. “Oh, good, you’re here,” said our mother. “Dinner’s ready, then it’s off to bed with you.” To bed? This early? On Halloween night? But we were just getting started. “I can’t help it,” said our mother. “The party’s going to start soon, your father isn’t here, and I can’t have you wandering around the neighborhood. Of course I don’t mean to bed to bed. I mean you have to be in your rooms, where Sarah and Patty can keep an eye on you.”

We begged, we pleaded—Just one more block, Mommy, pleeeeeeeease! just one more block? She relented. She was wiping her hands on a dish towel—her most characteristic gesture. “You’ll be the death of me,” she said, but she had given us her blessing. We took off like a shot.

It was already dark. We had no intention of going only a single block. We’d already visited every house in a three-block radius. Robert Aaron suggested we split up. “We’ll cover more ground that way. It’s getting late.”

“It’s already late,” countered Cinderella. “You’re just hoping to run into your friends.”