Authors: Diane Munier
Darnay Road (28 page)
I
am looking at him and he smiles while he pets my happy little dog.
He’s
his own kind of altar with the truth trapped inside.
Darnay
Road 49
Easy
leaves to get Cap, and May and Granma fight it out then. “Don’t leave,” Granma
says to me because I am in a hurry to get upstairs and try to look presentable.
Do they know I had no inkling at all that Easy was coming and I’ve not been
able to so much as look in a mirror? I’d like to get out of my uniform at
least. I can’t imagine any man, even one wearing his own uniform, finding a
Catholic school uniform attractive or anywhere close to really cool on a dumb
high school girl.
“The
two of you ganged up on me,” Granma says.
I
can barely care to defend myself. My hair--braided or lose? Blue eyeshadow
maybe? Abigail wears some, not too dark. Or maybe brown. I’ve got it…I just
ain’t very good at using it.
“Are
you even listening to me?” Granma says.
“We
failed him the first time…,” May is saying.
“We?
So you’re taking in this fifteen-year-old hooligan we haven’t even met?” Granma
says, emphasis on ‘you’re.’
“I’ve
met him,” May says. “He came around for Ricky. Just another stray living most
of the time in Easy’s shadow. He’s quiet. Stick skinny. He’s trouble and you
already know it Vi. You think you have one more good deed in your bones before
you leave this earth?”
“How
about you, May? I’ve raised my family and I’m doing it again!” Granma calls
out.
Now
I am listening. “Granma,” I say.
“Pay
me no mind,” she practically yells at me. “But you’ve had a hand in this. What
would your dad say….”
She
flops her hands in her lap and leaves off on that one. We’ve already decided
Officer Stanley doesn’t care to have a say and even if he did I wouldn’t want
to hear it.
But
I am kind of stuck there on this day of firsts. I called it that, didn’t I?
This is the first time I get an idea that maybe it was really hard for Granma
to have raised Stanley then started over with me. Maybe she wanted to do
something else. Maybe…that’s why she’s always in her stories because she’s
just…babysitting and she’s about bored out of her mind!
“Granma,”
I say again. I barely have time to contemplate what should be a horrible
discovery. I barely have the time!
“Now
I didn’t mean it like you think,” she says in that voice she uses when she’s
lying as in LYING!
I
run upstairs to my room and they are calling after me.
I
go straight to my mirror and everything else falls away. And here’s why. Easy
is not the only one that can run through the maze that is my granma and Aunt
May and even myself without getting his, or in my case her, own way. My granma
will take on Cap now. She’ll be about dying with guilt over letting me know
what a burden I’ve been, and I am not happy about it, I’m downright sorry to
have been born, but not really, but if Easy taught me anything in this world
it’s to use it, all of it, to make something good happen at least.
So
that’s what I’m doing as I pick up the little case of eye shadows I’ve never
had the nerve to wear. I’m letting her and Aunt May fight it out while I try to
beautify cause either way—Cap is staying with us.
Aunt
May drives us to the game. I sit up front with her and Easy sits in back and
he’s no longer wearing his uniform but regular clothes, jeans and t-shirt and
jacket and they are not as raggedy as in days past, not at all.
We
are being so careful. And it’s all new, he’s new, and I feel shy sometimes and
I’m fighting with myself to just be normal but I imagine he’s looking at me and
my head might blossom into a cactus flower any minute. Or something.
So
all the way to the game Aunt May asks questions. I don’t have to make small
talk, or stupid talk in my case. Cap is meeting us at the game. I know he won’t
be with Disbro because Disbro goes to the games at public on Friday night and
they start later. I don’t know why Cap couldn’t have come early and ridden with
us to make a good impression on Aunt May but I get the feeling Cap doesn’t care
about good first impressions. But Easy might. And I do for sure. One thing I
know, Cap won’t be taking advantage of Aunt May’s kindness nor my granma’s. I
plan to keep that ‘hooligan,’ in line.
“If
Georgia will look at me,” Easy is saying.
I’m
Georgia so I turn around. Who is this handsome man in our backseat? It’s just
ridiculous.
“Miss
May asked if I’ve ever been to Sacred Heart before today and I said you gave me
a tour years ago,” he says with that old half-smile.
“Oh…yeah
I did,” I mumble, then I give him the other half of that smile and turn back
around and take a really deep breath which I let out quiet and slow and images of
that day flood me, one after another.
Darnay
Road 50
Once
we get to school, I dig out my student pass and my money for buying my ticket,
but Easy goes into the line ahead of us and tells me and Aunt May, “I got
this.”
I
would like to put my hand on the back of his neck. I’d like to know how warm it
is. It’s embarrassing to think all of this. It’s taking my mind and my words
and tying them up. But he is a head taller than me, and his shoulders are wide.
He
gets the tickets and motions for me and Aunt May to go ahead and we go into the
gym and get in the herd making their ways to the seats. Catholics do love their
basketball. I look at Easy over my shoulder just to make sure he hasn’t
evaporated or something, and I smile. He has the best face. It is always
interesting. I could just look at him, but if I do too long I get shy. I end up
walking into Aunt May and mumble ‘sorry,’ and I don’t plan to turn around
again. Aunt May is wearing slacks and her winter coat and her hair is poofed up
with a ponytail in the back. Granma says May should get a new style because
Granma has and she says it is no longer the fifties and someone should tell May
and that’s funny cause May is the one that talked Granma into cutting her hair
then May balked on getting hers cut.
So
I am following along and Easy is behind me and I feel him poke my back and I
turn around and he says, “What?” and we laugh a little, he does. I probably
turn red, and with my blue eye shadow and pale face I probably look like the
American flag or something.
So
we get to the bleachers and have to climb about midway up and we file along the
bench and then we can sit. It’s pretty squeezy and Easy and me are so close our
arms are touching, most embarrassing our legs also. Maybe I can’t breathe so
well now. When he talks to me he’s right there. “Hello,” he says.
“Hi,”
I say.
“What’s
that?” Aunt May says leaning forward.
“Nothing,”
I say.
She
barely pays attention she is looking all over. The band is playing tonight, and
it’s loud and bright.
“Take
your coat off?” Easy says and I feel his fingers move my hair a little like
he’s going to help me take my jacket off. I know it gets hot in here but I’m
not ready to take my jacket off just yet. It’s just too much. I don’t know what
I’m talking about but I do know some of the girls have noticed Easy there
beside me and they are looking at me like they want my autograph.
“No,”
I say. And I smile at him again. I don’t know why we’re doing all this smiling.
So
the cheerleaders come out, and there she is, Abigail May. I never get used to
this either. She’s jumping up and waving her poms. She sees me and Easy and
probably Aunt May and she waves and I about love her but I don’t always
understand her, but if anyone in this gym could understand what I might be
feeling about now, it is Abigail.
“She’s
a card,” I say. But I don’t know if I should say that cause it’s something
Granma always says and who wants to sound just like their granma?
He
nudges me with his shoulder. “Sorry about that deal with the cop.”
“It’s
okay.”
“I
thought I was going to have to use my combat training.”
I
don’t exactly know what that is, but I kind of do. “That cop was an idiot,” I
say, like I know all about it.
Easy
said earlier I was still pretty. I don’t have flash, not like Abigail and those
others. I’m just a dull lump of girl, but I’ve got something, I mean you have
to give it…me time is all. I mean I have a good mind and I’m a good person. I’m
probably annoying sometimes, but I can tuck it in if I catch myself. He asked
if I missed him. He said he wanted to spend time with me. Did I have a
boyfriend? It’s all pretty great and embarrassing too because I could barely
say anything interesting. Like now.
“But
you were making him mad,” he says like I’m the cutest thing, making that cop
mad. I didn’t have a plan in case he thinks I did.
“He
reminded me of Stanley. My dad.”
The
players come running out then and the crowd stands and shouts and applauds each
one. Ricky gets a big roar and I see him scan the audience and May is waving
and calling to him and he looks at us quickly, then again in the seconds his
team mates run out he’s looking our way with that scowl of his.
Dennis
is on the team and he also gets a good roar from the home crowd. Everyone likes
him. I say to Easy, “He’s my friend,” meaning Dennis. “He doesn’t think he is
very good but he is.”
“What
about Ricky?” he says.
“He’s
the big cheese,” I say and we laugh a little.
But
we are standing and we sing the song that I love about the country that I love
beside the boy that I love. Yes I love him. That hasn’t changed. We clap after
the song and there are a couple of boos shouted out, and “Stop the war,” is
shouted, “Stop Nixon’s war. They are killing children. They are killing your
children.” Then that is booed and there’s a scuffle across the way and the
long-haired speech-maker is dragged out by two rent-a-cops.
When
we sit we are still smashed against each other. I smile weakly at Easy. I can
see the war stuff upsets him. But he throws it off quick and gives me the same
weak smile. “It’s…everywhere,” he says.
“Did
anyone…?”
“Yeah.
Every time we leave the base. It gets old,” he says.
Aunt
May stands clapping and shouting because Ricky won the coin toss, “Yes Ricky.”
My granma wouldn’t believe how May carries on at the games.
Then
Ricky has made a basket in the first few seconds of play and the protestor and
maybe the war are quickly forgotten.
“I guess love of
country is different things,” I say, and I’m speaking more loudly for a moment.
“No
it isn’t,” he says back also more loudly to be heard. “You wear a uniform you
feel hate for this country.”
“It’s
because people care.”
“No
it isn’t, Georgia. Do you really think that?” he says like I’m naive.
“I
said it,” I say, and everyone stands around us again, cheering and yelling, but
Easy and I sit in this pocket, this hole in the crowd.
“You
don’t know,” he says shaking his head. “If you’re in…it’s guys you know. Tell
your aunt I’m going outside for a smoke,” he says. He stands then and pushes
his way out, and he hasn’t asked me to go along, but I stand too.
Aunt
May yells, “Where are you going?”
I
say, “Be right back.”
She
has Ricky the magnificent to distract her and Abigail bouncing all over the
place. I get out and I see Easy on the side of the court and headed for the
doors.
I
catch up to him in the lobby. There are groups here and there, but he crosses
that quick and I don’t call out I just keep going to get to him. He gets
outside and he walks forward toward the end of the cement walkway and further
out on the lawn of Bloody Heart, near the statue of Mary, the big one with the
two spotlights on it, the rent-a-cops have the guy that caused all the trouble
before the game and a cop car is pulling up in the parking lot off to the left
and he’s getting out.
I
get beside Easy. He’s just lighting his smoke and he takes a drag and uses it
to point toward the guy who shouted about the war in the game. “Looks like
Abbie Hoffman is getting his ass kicked.”
He
has one hand in his pocket and he’s nursing that smoke a little more. Some kids
have come out of the gym and they are hooting at the cop. It’s not the same one
that pulled us over earlier, but he’s probably on his way.
The
cops have that guy down and one of them has a knee in his back.
“I
embarrass you coming here?” he says and that is maybe the very last thing I’m
expecting. That and Jesus’ trumpet call.
“Of
course not,” I say.
“I
mean…it’s like that,” he gestures with the hand holding the smoke toward the
protestor, “around here at your school? I show up wearing my greens.”
He’s
not looking at me.
“I
was proud,” I say.
He
looks at me, feeds that smoke back between his lips. We’re staring. I was proud
and I’m holding to it. He’s right. It’s people. I’m proud.
The
cop has reached the statue and they jerk the citizen to his feet and somehow he
gets away and comes running toward Easy and me and the kids are hooting, “Run,
run.”
Easy
drops his smoke and steps into the guy’s path and grabs him in a bear hug and
slams him to the ground and the guy is just as big as Easy. The rent-a-cops get
there first, then the officer. They get busy cuffing the guy and getting him
back on his feet.
Easy
stands there, hands in his pocket and the guys all thank him, even the cop.
“You
with Georgia Green?” one of the boys says. They’ve got questions, and that
tackle Easy did has the spotlight on him more than the arrest of some long-hair
using the game for his anti-war protest.
Someone
remembered Easy and Cap. Someone else asked if he went in. Did he have a low
number? They wanted to talk about what they saw. It was the real thing. But the
biggest question, you going to Vietnam? You going?
The
cops are on their way back to break up the crowd. Easy gets away from them and
comes to me. “I can’t go back in there,” he says. “You go on in with Aunt May
and I’ll see you later.” He seems troubled.
“I…I’ll
stay with you.”
“I’m
gonna walk.”
“I
can walk,” I say. Then we’re looking at each other.
“She’s
not going to go for it,” he says meaning Aunt May.
“That’s
okay,” I say, knowing she’ll give me hell. But not if I send Abigail to tell
her.
“I
get them mad right off they won’t let Cap stay,” he says.
It
is that. Maybe it is only that and I’m just a buzzing fly he’d like to shoo
off. Maybe what he said on my porch was just to warm me up for working on
Granma for his idea with Cap.
I’m
just a kid, a dumb one. He’s probably had girls. Lots of them. Those two girls
just now—he could have them I think. “I guess you want to go off,” I say.
He
laughs a little. An older boy stops to ask him to a party. “Bring her,” he says
grinning at me. My hands are fisting in my jacket’s pockets.
“Thanks
man, no,” Easy says and they shake.
“Don’t
let me stop you,” I say. Of course he isn’t walking. He wants to have a good
time. Did I really think sitting at some dumb game with me and riding with Aunt
May was fine and dandy for someone like him—a soldier? I am so stupid.
I
turn toward the gym. I can’t face Aunt May or the stupid game but there’s a
bathroom stall with my name on it.
He
grabs my arm. “Georgia wait.”
I
pull away and he grabs me again.
“Georgia
don’t.”
We’re
looking at each other.
“It’s
just close in there,” he says.