Now Is the Hour (53 page)

No wonder there were storm clouds gathering.

Then something in a moment. Something you'd least expect.

I was sitting in the pickup smoking one of George's Camels, trying to figure out how I was going to finagle past my mother, get out the door and into the pickup, in a suit, when a song came on the radio. A new song. I turned the radio way up.

“Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix. As soon as I heard the first beats of that song, weird how you can know when something is totally new and differnt before anybody tells you. And right then, listening to “Purple Haze,” the sky above me was a kind of purple too.

“Purple Haze” didn't feel like a new song, or any song at all. “Purple Haze” felt like a new part of my soul.

No doubt about it. Something new was going on in the world. Something new, but I didn't know what yet.

All's I knew it had everything to do with putting on my suit, walking out of the house, getting in the pickup, and driving out of the yard.

'Scuse me while I kiss the sky
was on my lips when I opened the kitchen door.

Mom was in her denims and pink rummage-sale blouse, her back
to me, her hair hanging down in her face. Oatmeal cookies or peanut butter cookies or chocolate cookies or pound cake, eggs and flour and sugar, there she was bent over a bowl, beating things into shape.

I closed the kitchen door. Said: Hi, Mom. Then walked down the stairs to my room. The shiny brown suit Mom bought me for Sis's wedding would have to do. I took the suit off the hanger and laid the suit on the bed. There was a wrinkle in the pants where it had been hanging on the hanger, but otherwise it looked fine. I had a new, thin, shiny red tie I was going to wear and a white shirt with a tab under the collar. The shirt needed ironing. The shoes were black, worn every Sunday for a year. Nothing fancy.

I stepped into the shiny brown suit pants and buttoned the top button, zipped up. I guess I'd grown some since April. The waist was a little tight and the pant cuffs were just below my ankle. I figured if I wore dark socks, no one would know the differnce. Then the jacket. My wrists were definitely hanging out.

I spread the
Idaho Catholic Register
out on the floor — the page where it listed the condemned movies — I put my shoes on top of that page, then opened the can of Kiwi black. I opened the door a crack and watched Mom while I put black shoe wax onto my shoes. Somehow I had to get the steam iron and the ironing board out of the broom closet and get them downstairs without her seeing.

I was spitting onto the toe of my second shoe, I was reading about condemned movies,
Lolita, Loves of a Blonde,
when I looked up just as Mom put the cookie sheet into the oven. She closed the oven door, set the timer on the stove, then opened the kitchen door.

Through the kitchen door window, I watched as Mom put her gardening gloves on. She picked up the short-handled hoe and pushed out the screen door, and the screen door slammed.

Out of the broom closet, I got the ironing board and the iron and the pressing cloth. It felt weird to be in my underwear in the kitchen. It was an immediate hard-on. Shit.

That's when the phone rang.

It was Billie, and she sounded freaked out and she was whispering.

Rig, Billie whispered. Thank God I finally got you. Your mother kept answering, and I had to hang up. Look, don't pick me up at the house. Dad is being very weird. I'll meet you at the Snatch Out, seven-thirty.

Snatch Out, I whispered too. Seven-thirty.

Three giant steps across the blue and white kitchen tiles, I peeked around the kitchen door and looked through the window. No Mom. Three lunges down the stairs, I was back down in my room.

When you're raised with a sister, you learn how to do things like sew and iron and cook and wash dishes. I pressed the pants — just the wrinkle out of the middle of the legs — then started on the shirt.

I had to make another trip upstairs to get the spray starch under the sink. My cock was still hard, but I was ignoring it. In the kitchen, the smell of oatmeal cookies. The green bowl was half filled with cookie dough. With one hand, I grabbed a chunk of cookie dough, with the other, I reached under the sink.

Just then, the timer on the oven went off.

Then the screen door slammed.

I shoved the cookie dough into my mouth.

The chunk of cookie dough was so big I could barely get it in my mouth. Mom was taking off her gloves. I quick looked over to the green bowl. Shit. You could see just where the huge chunk was missing. Mom was going to have a fit. For a moment there, I thought I'd spit the cookie dough back out and try and smooth it back into the rest of the cookie dough. But there wasn't time. Plus there I was with my shorts sticking out in front. I ducked and ran down the stairs and closed my door. My door closed at the same time the kitchen door opened. Just in time.

I leaned against my bedroom door, gulping down oatmeal cookie dough as fast as I could. Upstairs, I could hear Mom take the cookie sheet out of the oven and set the cookie sheet on the stove.

I waited with bated breath.

Only the sound of the steam bubbling in the iron.

After a couple minutes, I decided the coast was clear. Somehow Mom hadn't noticed the cookie dough. Three quiet giant steps across the room, I walked behind the ironing board and stood. I put my hand around the iron's handle, picked up the hot steam iron.

I'd just put the iron down onto the collar point when there was a big crash in the kitchen. Then it was Mom's footsteps coming down the stairs.

There was no lock on my door, and she never knocked. Mom just walked up to my door, opened the door. There she stood, Mom Klusener, my mother, her hair not yet done up for Dad, her face not
on, just stubs of eyebrows above the inside corner of her eyes. Her big gray plastic glasses. Her pink rummage-sale blouse, her denims, her white Keds. Her hands were on her hips. Not a good sign.

What the hell is the big idea! Mom said. How many times have I told you not to eat the cookie dough! I work hard to have something nice to eat around the house and what do you do but go and shove it all in your mouth. All I do is work around here, and for what?

Me me me, Mom said. That's all you think about is me me me.

I lifted the iron, pointed the flat of the iron at my mother.

The steam in the iron bubbled. Puffs of steam blew out.

Mom looked over on my bed. There was my brown shiny suit laid out. There was my red tie. My black belt. There were my polished black shoes on top of the
Idaho Catholic Register.
There I was in my underwear ironing my white shirt.

What are you doing? Mom said. Where are you going in a suit?

Mom started walking toward me and the ironing board, but halfway she stopped.

Put your damn clothes on, Mom said.

Then she pointed at my shirt and flipped her fingers.

You're not doing that right, Mom said. Let me iron that for you.

If Mom got a hold of the iron, the battle would be lost. I put the iron down on the collar, pressed.

No, it's OK, I said. You're making cookies, I said. I can do this.

What's left
of the cookies is in the oven, Mom said. All five of them, Mom said.

Good Lord, Mom said. Why not eat the whole bowl?

It's a sin to steal, Mom said. The eighth commandment, Mom said. Thou shalt not steal. It's a mortal sin to steal.

The wrinkle in Mom's forehead went all the way from her hairline to the top of her nose. Mom took a deep breath, and as she huffed out the breath, she looked at the iron and the ironing board as if it were the first time.

Just where do you think you are going, young man? she said.

Young man. Not good.

I wasn't looking at her, only looking up now and then. I made myself engrossed in ironing my white shirt. The seam on the shoulder, the top button, the second button. Mom took a couple more steps. My naked chest was burning up. When she got to the ironing board, she
touched the ironing board. The ironing board was her place, not my place.

Mom's almond-shaped hazel eyes. That close they weren't green or gold. They were gray.

I
said,
Mom said, where are you going in a suit?

Mom's big plastic glasses had slipped down her nose. On each side of her nose was an oval red sore from the nose pads of her glasses. Without taking her eyes off my eyes, with her index finger, Mom reached up, pushed her glasses back up her nose.

My eyes were starting to burn, but I was not going to blink first.

I'm going to a party, I said.

In a suit? Mom said. What party?

Just a party, I said.

While Mom's eyes and my eyes were in the stare-down, the whole time Mom's hands were down below us somewhere trying to get the iron. I kept moving the iron back and forth so she couldn't grab it.

In a suit? Mom said. In the middle of summer?

I looked down. The iron was on top of the second and third buttons.

Then: You're not going with that Billie Cody, are you?

I let go of the iron, stood up tall, then leaned my fists down onto the ironing board. Mom was like that too with her fists. Me on one side, Mom on the other. The steam iron steaming up in between.

Head to head, eye to eye, with Mom like that, it was a standoff. The spotlight behind Mom's eyes had me, the deer in her headlights.

For a moment there, everything stopped.

It was in that moment, some part of me took a look around my room. The olive green walls, the paneling, the olive green matching bedspread, the lamp. I couldn't believe it. I might as well have been standing in a room in the Holiday Inn. There was nothing in my room that was truly mine.

A big deep breath.

Mom, I said, I
am too
going with Billie Cody, I said. To the Senior Summer All Night Party.

The look on my mother's face. I don't think I'd ever seen that look up so close. The hundreds of tiny wrinkles around her mouth were thousands. The way she set her jaw. The ripples along her jaw, the grinding of her teeth.

When she spoke, deep and gravelly, Mom's voice sounded like it came from hell.

For God's sake, Rigby John, Mom said. The girl is pregnant.

Pregnant
like
shit
or
fart
or
fuck
or
cunt
or
faggot.

Who told you that? I said.

That girl, Mom said, is a common slut. She has an illegitimate child in her womb and a mortal sin on her soul. And now the bitch is parading around at all-night parties.

Mom's chest filled up. She lifted her mighty chin.

Well, Mom said, not with my son she ain't.

The breath. Jeez, the breath. Where was it?

I'm not the father, I said.

My voice was high.

You sure as hell ain't, Mom said.

The breath, the breath, the breath.

But Billie needs a friend, I said.

Friend! Mom said. What kind of damn fool are you? That girl is a little whore.

Something was burning. I looked down. The iron was burning a dark brown iron point onto the shirt collar.

Now look what you've done! Mom said. Your new Sunday shirt!

What happened next, I didn't see coming.

Mom's open hand slapped me hard across the face.

You spineless ass, Mom said. You're not going nowhere.

Mom could pack a wallop. I stepped back a couple steps, saw stars. I must confess, though, it felt good to get hit like that. After a hard slap in the face, I woke up. Something else kicked in, and it was a whole new ball game.

Mom shoved the ironing board, knocked it clean over. I quick grabbed the iron. Then Mom dragged the board to the doorway, then this truly amazing thing — Mom picked up the ironing board like it was a spear or a javelin and with a grunt from deep inside her
threw
the ironing board into the air and out the door. The ironing board bumped up the stairs and crashed loud down onto the kitchen floor.

Mom's hair was flying, and her glasses were crooked, and she was screaming. Not any words or anything you could make sense of, just weird sounds like a dog or a cat that had got run over by a truck.

I remember saying to myself: This woman is a crazy maniac.

When Mom stopped, she was standing in the doorway, her hands, her feet, pressing into the doorjamb on each side.

And me. I was standing alone in my bedroom in my shorts with a hot iron in my hand. My white shirt, its burnt collar, lying on my feet.

Just like that, Mom walked over, ripped the cord of the iron out of the socket.

Unplugged.

You're not leaving this house tonight, Mom said.

With that, Mom grabbed the iron. The iron was hot as hell, but still she grabbed the iron, from the bottom, and ripped the iron away from me.

Mom's almond-shaped hazel eyes had gone completely stone gray. Not a trace of green or gold. Her hair was gray too. Mom's hair wasn't brown, it was gray.

Upstairs, the timer on the oven started to ding.

I'll be back with the rosary, Mom said. You and I are going to kneel down
right here
and pray the rosary. If not for your soul, for your family's good name.

Ding ding ding upstairs.

Mom took a couple of steps toward the door. Then stopped and turned.

Get your damn pants on, Mom said. And kneel down and examine your conscience. We've got a rosary to pray.

Mom walked out the door. Ding ding ding ding was all I could hear. Plus my ears were ringing. I didn't have time to stop and think, or even breathe. In no time at all, she'd be back with her rosary.

Praying the rosary was out of the fucking question.

In no time at all, I had my white shirt on, had it buttoned up. I slipped on my dark socks, one foot and then the other. Stepped into my shiny brown suit pants, stuck my shirttails in. Buttoned. Zipped. The oven timer stopped dinging by the time I had my suit jacket on. The oven door closed when my hands looped my belt. I looped the red tie around my neck. The cookie sheet was on top of the stove when I put my wallet in my pocket. I stepped into my shoes, bent down, tied one and then the other.