Jeffery Allen - Holding Pattern - Stories

Spoiled milk and dead fish both stink.

That’s true.

Good night, Joy. Daughter.

Good night, Blunt. Mother.

The next morning Hatch rose early and watched Mamma wake from the gray paralysis of sleep. She struggled out of bed, her hands positioned at her chest like a gloved surgeon’s, careful not to touch anything or let anything touch her. More than once he had watched her sore hands soak for hours in a deep tub of warm water and Epsom salt.

Mamma?

What?

Is Blunt sad?

What makes you think that?

Is she sad because the preacher died?

I don’t know.

Is that why she can sing and stroke and make—

Don’t talk that way.

I’m being frank.

You aren’t being frank. Don’t talk like that.

How come she likes to—

That’s enough. Get ready for school.

They bathed and clothed themselves, then entered the kitchen, the table set and breakfast prepared. Blunt followed her sweet heavy perfume into the room, tight leather jumpsuit and tall leather boots slowing and constricting her movement, and her makeup so thick, she struggled to keep her chin up.

Good morning, Blunt.

Good morning, Joy.

Good morning, Hatch.

Good morning, Blunt. Blunt bent down — her eyes gray — and kissed him, then drew herself straight. In that space of time he glimpsed something in her face.

They all sat down at the round wood table.

Why are you dressed so early? Mamma asked.

I’m going out to buy some new guitar strings.

Mamma didn’t say anything.

Maybe I’ll even buy a new guitar.

Can you find your way around?

Sure. I’ll take a cab.

Mamma, let Blunt take me to school today.

Remember your place.

No, Joy. It’s okay.

No, it’s not okay. He’s too smart for his own good.

That is so. How bout I take him to school today — if it’s okay with you.

Mamma hesitated. Looked at Blunt. Looked at Hatch. Looked at Blunt again. Perhaps that would be good.

Blunt smiled.

I’ll write down the address. Just show it to the driver.

Of course.

Blunt sat next to him, like a big block of ice in her white fur coat. The weather had not changed. For the first time, he was glad to be inside the padded snowsuit. Kind. The two of them all plump, like fresh pastries on display. But he found it hard to keep still in his seat, victim to the stab of wondering. Should he confront her about what he thought he’d glimpsed in her eyes? Confront her about what he’d overheard last night? Something about dead fish, spoiled milk, and funky smells. Maybe she is a phony. Maybe she jus playin and singin to make me like her. His curiosity caused him to sight down the guitar’s polished neck, fret by fret — railroad ties — to the ragged paper edge of a brown grocery bag; and to continue down the bag’s side, to a bottom corner and Blunt’s black boot wedging it in place. Why had she not brought the case along? Surely Mamma had noticed. Should he—

How do you like school?

Just fine.

Of course you like it. You’re a smart boy, and you’re doing so well. I’m proud of you.

Thank you.

I was real proud when you graduated from kindergarten.

Hatch said nothing.

That beautiful picture Joy sent me.

Yes.

And now we’re all together.

Yes.

I’ll buy that new guitar and play something nice for you this evening.

Fine. Will you play—

Maybe. Let’s wait and see what your mother wants to hear.

Why did you put yo guitar in that bag?

Blunt didn’t say anything for a moment. Why, didn’t I jus tell you? I plan to sell it.

Why you leave yo case at home?

I don’t need it.

Why you ain’t jus throw yo guitar away?

Some people are needy.

You want to help the needy people?

Yes.

So you want needy people to have yo guitar?

Yes.

Why?

Because—

Let me have it.

Oh. You don’t want this old thing.

Why not?

It barely plays.

I thought you said you gon teach me how to play.

Yes.

Then I can use that old thing.

I’ll buy you a nice new one.

Fine.

But—

Fine.

Wouldn’t you like a new guitar?

Sure, he said. But you ain’t gon buy it , he thought.

Enjoy school, Blunt said. She kissed him on the cheek.

I will, he said. Her pug nose looked like a big beetle stuck on to her face.

Good-bye, Hatch.

Good-bye, Blunt.

Where’s Blunt?

Plumed exhaust rose from the idling cab.

She hasn’t returned. Mamma spoke from the dark cavelike inside.

She was sposed to pick me up.

Mamma blinked nervously. Did she say that?

No.

Well.

I thought she was gon pick me up.

Watch your mouth. Those kids at this school are a bad influence.

She was sposed to pick me up.

Get in this cab.

He got inside the cab. The driver pulled off.

How come we can’t take the train? He spoke to the moving window, the moving world.

We have no reason to take the train.

I’m being frank.

Please be quiet.

He obliged. Quiet and caught, the living moment before him and behind. He tried to imagine Blunt’s face and received the taste of steel on his tongue. He let his violence fly free like the soaring El cars above, a flock of steel birds rising out of a dark tunnel, into bright air, the city shrinking below.

The cab slowed and felled his desires. Slim currents of traffic congealed into a thick pool up ahead. The taxi advanced an inch or two every few minutes. The El’s skeletal structure rose several stories above them. An occasional train rumbled by and shook the cab and mocked his frail yearning. He looked out the window to vent his anger. A good ways off he could discern a woman standing in a building doorway, a guitar strapped to her body and a coffee can at her gym-shoed feet. Coatless, in a checkered cotton dress, her bare muscular legs as firm as the El’s pylons in the bitter cold. She kept rhythm with one foot, while some lensed smiling face rose or fell with each stroke of the guitar.

He shouldered the cab door open and started through the street, his boots breaking through snow at each step, and traffic so thick he had to squeeze between the cars. Wind tried to push him back, and the fat snowsuit wedged between two parked cars. But he freed himself from the moment and thought of his mother and thought of his father and thought of the preacher and thought of Blunt and fancy clothes and contact lenses and lahzonyah and smiles and promises.

Hatch! Mamma shouted after him, her voice distant, weak, deformed, small, dwarfish, alien. Intent on his target, he moved like a tank in his armored snowsuit, smooth heavy unstoppable anger. Close now. Blunt framed in the doorway, his face trained on her guitar. Her hair was not long and flowing and silver but knotted in a colorless bun. Her eyes were not green or blue or brown or gray but a dull black. She shut them. Aimed her pug nose, arrowlike, at the El platform. Snapped open her mouth.

Baby, baby, take off this heavy load

Oh, baby, baby, lift up my heavy load

Got this beast of burden

And he got to go.

Quick legs, he stepped up onto the curb and almost tilted over in the heavy snowsuit. He kicked the coffee can like a football, coins rising and falling like metal snow, then crouched low and charged like a bull. He felt wood give under his head and loose splinters claw his face. He fought to keep his balance, loose coins under his feet, and in the same instant found himself flailing his hands and arms against Blunt’s rubber-hard hips and legs. Gravity wrestled him down. Dazed, he shook his head clear, gathered himself in a scattering moment, and looked up at Blunt. Her lined face. Her pug nose. Her stork mouth. And the strapped guitar that hung from her body — broken wood, twisted wire, useless metal — like some ship that had crashed into a lurking giant.