“They’re in here, too,” he said about the hoodlums, waving his finger around at the house. “Must be getting in through the basement. Walk around like they own the place. I’ve heard them. Maybe they’re living in the walls, like rats,” he said. “They sound just like rats, in fact. Black ghosts.” He was tortured by them day and night, so his only recourse was to drink, naturally. He sat down at the kitchen table. “It’s the mob who’s sent them,” of course. “Why do you think the cops are always here? They’re here to protect me. After everything I’ve done for this town?”
“You’re drunk,” I said flatly.
“I haven’t been drunk in years, Eileen. This,” he held up his can of beer, “is to calm my nerves.”
I opened a beer for myself, ate a few more peanuts. When I looked up I asked, “What’s so funny?” because he was laughing. He could do that — turn on a dime from terrorized to cruelly hysterical.
“Your face,” he replied. “You have nothing to worry about, Eileen. Nobody’s going to bother you with a face like that one.”
That’s it. To hell with him. I recall catching my reflection in the dark glass windows of the living room later that evening. I looked like a grown-up. My father had no right to bully me. Joanie stopped by that night wearing a white faux-fur jacket and a miniskirt and snow boots, her hair coiffed and bouncy, eyes lined in thick black liner. She was a blonde, pouty and lighthearted, back then at least. My guess is she went on to be soured — that pout was on its way somewhere, after all — but I hope she’s healthy and happy and with someone who loves her. Here’s to hoping. She was a special kind of girl. When she moved, she seemed to throw her flesh around as though it were a fur coat, so relaxed and comfortable, I couldn’t understand her. She was charming, I suppose, but so critical, always with this naive way of asking me things like, “You don’t feel funny wearing your dead mother’s sweater?” And sometimes it was more sisterly, such as “Why is your face like that? What’s your problem now?”
That night I just shook my head, made a ham sandwich. Bread, butter, ham. Joanie clapped her compact shut and came up from behind to poke me in the ribs. “Sack of bones,” she said, grabbing my sandwich off the plate. “I’ll see you,” she said, kissing Dad in his chair. I never saw her again.
I went up to the attic to lie on my cot with my magazine. Would I miss my sister if she died? I wondered. We’d grown up side by side, but I barely knew her. And she certainly didn’t know me. I pulled chocolates from a tin and chewed and spat them out one by one into the crinkly brown paper they came in. I turned another page.
SATURDAY
By noon on Saturday a good six inches of fresh snow had fallen on top of the knee-high blanket already standing. Such mornings were quiet, all sound dampened by the new snow. Even the cold seemed to back off, everything insulated and hushed. Before the furnaces began to roil, logs in fireplaces smoked and burned, and the houses of X-ville all covered in snow and ice started to melt and drip like wax candles, it was peaceful. Cold as it was in my room in the attic, I felt there was nothing to be gained by getting out of bed. Enough of the world could be explored by simply sticking my arm out from under the covers. I lay on my cot, dreaming and thinking for hours. I had a large mason jar for such circumstances and for when my father’s moods forced me to hole up in the attic. It made me feel I was camping, living close to nature and far away from home when I squatted over that jar in my mother’s pilly nightgown and an old Irish wool sweater, breath dribbling out my nose like white smoke from a witch’s boiling cauldron. My pee steamed and stank, a honey-colored poison I poured out the attic window and into the snow-filled gutter.
The movements of my bowels were a whole other story. They occurred irregularly — maybe once or twice a week, at most — and rarely without assistance. I’d gotten into the gross habit of gulping down a dozen or more laxative pills whenever I felt big and bloated, which was frequently. The closest bathroom was one floor down and I shared it with my father. Moving my bowels there never felt quite right. I worried that the smell would carry downstairs to the kitchen, or that my father would come knocking while I sat there on the toilet. Furthermore, I’d become dependent on those laxatives. Without them my movements were always pained and hard and took a good hour of clamping down and kneading my belly and pushing and praying. I often bled from the effort, digging my nails into my thighs, punching my stomach in frustration. With the laxatives, my movements were torrential, oceanic, as though all of my insides had melted and were now gushing out, a sludge that stank distinctly of chemicals and which, when it was all out, I half expected to breach the rim of the toilet bowl. In those cases I stood up to flush, dizzy and sweaty and cold, then lay down while the world seemed to revolve around me. Those were good times. Empty and spent and light as air, I lay at rest, silent, flying in circles, my heart dancing, my mind blank. In order to enjoy those moments I had to have complete privacy. So I used the toilet in the basement. My father must have assumed I was just doing the laundry down there. The basement was safe and private territory in my post-toilet reverie.
Other times, though, the basement bore the grim tinge of memories of my mother and how much time she spent down there — doing what for so long? I still don’t know. Coming up with a basket of clean clothes or linens on her hip, sniffling, grunting, she would tell me to get going, clean my room, brush my hair, read a book, leave her alone. The basement still held whatever secrets I guess she had stewing down there. If my father’s dark ghosts and hoodlums sprang from anywhere, it was from there. But somehow when I went down to use the toilet, I felt fine. Memories, ghosts, dread can be like that, in my experience — they can come and go at their own convenience.
That Saturday I stayed in bed as long as I could until my thirst and hunger forced me into a robe and slippers and I shuffled downstairs. My father was curled up in his chair in front of the open oven. He seemed to be sleeping so I shut the oven door, drank some water out of the tap, filled my robe pockets with peanuts and put some water to boil. Outside it was bright, blinding, and the light filled the kitchen like a flood lamp on a crime scene. The place was filthy. Later, in certain particularly unkempt subway stations or public restrooms, I’d be reminded of that old kitchen and gag. It was no wonder I barely ever had an appetite. Grime and grease and dust coated every surface. The linoleum floor was freckled all over with drips and spills and dirt. But what use was there in cleaning? Neither my father nor I cooked or cared much for food. From time to time I’d rinse out a sink full of cups and glasses. Generally I ate bread, drank milk straight from the carton, only occasionally cranked open a can of green beans or tuna or fried a slab of bacon. That day I ate the peanuts standing out on the front porch.
Neighbors were digging out their cars — something I hated doing myself. I preferred to wait for one of the boys on the block to come around and do it for a quarter. I was always glad to pay. I threw the peanut shells into the snow-filled bushes, as close as I would get that year to decorating my own Christmas tree.