The Bad Lady (Novel) (6 page)

“The wallpaper is navy-blue with adorable sailboats on it. You’ll like it. It‘s perfect for a boy.”

In my small bedroom, on the dresser next to my Nerf football, the wallpaper lay rolled up like a scroll. My mom unraveled it, and then held the decorative blue paper up to the wall so that I could see what it would look like.

“So what do you think?” she asked, grinning.

“It’s cool,” I told her. And I meant it. At the time, anything would have looked better than the way the walls were, brown and depressing. “When are you going to put it up?”

“I was thinking I’ll put the wallpaper up sometime this week.”

“Do you want me to help?” I asked.

“Of course. You can do the scraping. It’ll be fun.”

Well, I did not know whether it would be fun or not, but I had been thinking that at least this would be a project that would give me and my mom some quality time together.

“I was also considering getting you new carpet,” she added. “Since what’s on your floor now, this worn out rug, has basically been here since the day you were born. If I get new carpet, Billy, do you want it to be blue to match the wallpaper?”

I nodded. “Yeah. That would be neat. Make the floor look like a river or something to go along with the sailboats.”

“Then blue it will be.”

“Thanks. I can‘t wait to see what the room will look like when it‘s all done.”

***

Born in Indiana in the early 1970’s, to parents who were farmers, my mom, during her preteen years, was said to have been a mischievous tomboy. No one had ever thought that she would one-day start wearing makeup, perfume, and growing her thick brown hair long, beyond her shoulders. But that’s what she did.

Soon, my mother had gone from milking the cows, feeding the chickens, and tending to her other responsibilities on the farm, to rebelling against her parents, desperately wanting to run away. After graduating high school, she and a few of her girlfriends, had, with their suitcases and youthful dreams, hopped in Katherine Sheldon’s Jeep, and off they went.

My mom and her friends traveled around the country, to New York, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and California, and had had a ton of fun. Had experienced some of the best times of their lives. They had even briefly stopped in Las Vegas, to gamble.

However, in the end, after being on the road for two and a half months, they had gotten bored and had somehow wound up here in the state of Ohio, in Cleveland to be exact.

My mother would stay in Ohio; get an apartment. (The house would come years later.) In contrast, her giggling girlfriends and Katherine Sheldon would eventually return to Indiana. Some kind of squabble, between my mom and her parents must have taken place; otherwise, she would have gone back to Indiana as well. Whatever the dispute had been about, it must have been serious, as my mother had stopped speaking to her folks. Yes, like my daddy, I never knew my grandparents either.

Now I don’t know the specific details regarding how my mom had met my biological father, since, as with her parents, she had never been willing to share much information. All I know was that she had met him sometime during this period.

During this time was also when my mother had begun to send her poetry out to literary magazines, and would ultimately find her niche in the greeting card writing business.

PART THREE

BETRAYEL

CHAPTER 7

Although I was supposed to keep what Nancy and I had done a secret, later on that night, I began to think that the naked touching might have been wrong.

I think I started to mull this over because, for whatever reason, I suddenly remembered watching, on the Oprah Winfrey Show roughly a month before, a dramatic episode about adults who had sexually abused children.

“Your ice cream friend lady did what?” my mother abruptly hollers, slamming a dish into the cluttered sink. “I’ll beat the shit out of that sicko!” With a claw like grip, she seized my feeble wrist and then forced me to sit down at the kitchen table. I could tell by the horror-struck expression in my mom’s eyes that she was utterly shocked by my allegation.

She made me tell her everything, including what Nancy had had me do to her, with my mouth. My mom became so enraged I thought she might hit me.

I started to cry, not just small tears either, big hysterical tears that made my cheeks soaked. I do not think I had ever cried that hard in my entire life.

“How could someone behave so repulsively?” my mother shouts, gazing up at the ceiling and shaking her fist. “What kind of God are you anyway? How could you let something like this happen? I go to church every Sunday and this is how you repay me, by having the Good Humor woman molest my only child?” Again, she waved an outraged fist at the ceiling.

Then, while unable to get grip on her emotions, my mom opened the drawer near the stove and removed the thick county phone book. After she had located Nancy’s number, she promptly dialed it. Right away, Nancy picked up. They talked for about ten minutes, doing a lot of passionate screaming. At one point, the shouting became so loud and intense; I had to put my hands over my ears to quell the madness.

“Are you for real? Why would my son make something like that up?” was the last thing my mother hollers, before violently slamming the phone down.

“What did she say?” I asked, still sitting at the table.

“That you’re a liar, Billy. Nancy Sutcliffe said you have quite an imagination.”

I could not believe Nancy would accuse me of lying. All at once, the fear and sadness I felt changed into a hostile feeling of bitter hurt.

My mother ordered me to go into the bathroom to brush my teeth. She was so mad she was practically hyperventilating.

“What are you doing?” she scoffed, ripping the toothbrush out of my hand. “That’s not nearly enough toothpaste. The only way you’re going to be able to wash those disgusting germs out of your mouth is to blob the toothpaste on the brush . . . Like this!” She snatched the tube of Colgate from my hand, and then, onto the bristles, squeezed so much paste, much of it dripped into the sink. “Now brush!”

Vigorously I commenced to swab my teeth.

“Harder,” my mother barked. “That’s it. And I don’t want you to rinse for five minutes.” She set her watch, and stood there counting the seconds tick by. She made me brush my tongue as well, and the roof of my mouth.

“Good,” she says, after I had finished. “Now rinse your mouth out with Scope.”

I did.

“Again.”

“Why?” I asked, bellyaching. “How much mouthwash do I have to use?”

“Until I say you’re done. Now take another swig and gargle.”

I picked up the big bottle of green Scope and drank more. I was highly bothered having to go to this extreme to allegedly rid my mouth of Nancy’s disgusting germs. Yet what choice did I have? My mom ran the household; her rules were law.

Finally when she became satisfied that the bacteria in my mouth had more or less been eliminated, she informed me that I had to take a bath. This troubled me too, as I hated taking baths.

She turned the faucet on, and from an ornate plastic bottle, poured peppermint-scented bubble bath into the tub. Immediately, the hot water, as it steadily rose, producing steam, became white and frothy.

Cringing, I removed my shirt and shorts.

“Here’s a clean washcloth,” my mother says, draping it over the running faucet. “Billy, make sure you wash yourself from head to toe. With a lot of soap. I mean a lot of soap. There’s a whole bar of Dove there. Lather that washcloth up good and thick. I’ll be back in a half hour. By then you should be squeaky clean.” With that said, she left the room and closed the door.

CHAPTER 8

It made me deeply miserable to see my mother so angry.

Sitting in the tub, I was terrified. She had said that she would leave me alone for a half an hour so that I could bathe. As it turned out that wasn’t the case.

I was probably only in the porcelain tub for a couple of minutes, when my mom drummed raucously on the door and yells, “Billy.”

“What?”

“Are you using the washcloth?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to use the scrub brush too.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so, that’s why.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“Don’t argue with me. Just obey the order. Use the washcloth first, then use the scrub brush. And make sure you scrub your head, behind your ears, and your face.”

I did not say anything. While frowning, I merely splashed more soapy water onto the cloth.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yeah.”

“When I come back in a little while, that entire bar of soap better be gone.”

That, to me, was too harsh a measure.

“Mom, there’s no way I can use up this whole bar of soap. That’ll take forever.” Between the two of us, a thing of soap usually lasted a week, on occasion longer than that.

She abruptly opened the door and poked her head in. “Billy, why do you have to question my authority? Just do what I said. Believe me, it’s not like I want to have to make you do this. I’m just making you do what needs to be done. We have to take all the necessary precautions here.”

“Whatever.” I put the dripping-wet cloth down, and then picked up the scrub brush. After applying a hefty amount of Dove to the stiff quills, I started to scrub my head, efficiently.

“That’s it,” my mom says, watching me closely. “Lather that soap up really thick. Now do behind your ears . . . Perfect. Now get the back of your neck. Your face and your chin.”

This was too drastic. How long did she expect me to scrub, until my skin bled?

“I don’t like this scrub brush,” I complain. “It hurts.”

“It’s supposed to hurt. Those bristles need to dig deep down into your pores. That’s the only way you’re going to get that women’s filth off of your body.”

I was tired of hearing her say that word ’filth’. It seemed to be my mother’s favorite new word.

“Do you see dirt in the water?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“Dirt. Is the water in the tub turning black?”

I looked down. “No. Not really.”

“Then you must not be scrubbing hard enough.”

Again, what was wrong with her? I was scrubbing as hard as I possibly could. This was even worse than when she had made me brush my teeth.

“Mom, could you please just go away?” With her standing there watching me, it made me terribly nervous.

Rather than leave, and give me the privacy I felt that I rightfully deserved, she stepped all the way into the bathroom.

“Billy, don’t be difficult.”

“I’m not being difficult.”

“Yes you are.”

“No I’m not,” I protested. I tried to climb out. She stopped me, pushed me back into the tub.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asks. “You still have at least another ten minutes to sit in there and soak.”

“My skin is starting to itch,” I told her. I was making that up. I just wanted to get out of the stupid water, dry off, and then go into my room and lay down. I needed to get away from all this.

“If your skin itches,” my mom declares. “That means the soap is doing its job. Now you need to scrub the most important part of your body.” She dumped more bubble bath into the water, turned the faucet back on. More steam sailed up into the air.

“What?” I asked.

“You need to scrub your privates.”

I gazed at her skeptically. “My what?”

“You know, your do-hickey. You need to sanitize that.”

“My penis?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“And your hiney.”

***

When I was done, she instructed me to put on my pajamas and to meet her in the living room.

“All right,” my mom utters respectfully. “Come here.” She sat on the large couch, with the light on the table on.

“Now what do you want?”

“I want you to come here for a minute.”

“Why?”

“This is not up for debate, Billy, just get over here.”

With a bit of hesitation, I lowered my head and then approached where she waited. The solid oak Grandfather clock, in the corner of the room tick-tocked. Other than that faint sound, the room was filled with a heavy, almost oppressive silence.

In terms of décor, our cottage was both contemporary and a little old-fashioned. What my mom considered, elegant. A blend of different traditions. We had a bearskin rug (grizzly) on the living room floor, yet, hanging on the white walls, were impressive colorful paintings that looked as if they had come from a modern art gallery. The paintings were very pleasing to the eye.

On the tables and suspended in front of some of the windows, were a variety of foliage, flowering, and climbing houseplants. There in the living room, an enormous brown bookcase, teeming with hundreds of paperback novels, and an equal amount of hardcover books, seemed to draw most of the attention. I mean, if you came over to our house, the bookcase would probably be the first thing to lure your attention.

When I stopped in front of the sofa, my mother lifted up the shirt of my pajamas and then smelled my stomach and chest. Then she took a deep whiff of my neck.

“Excellent,” she says, while nodding approvingly. “All I smell is Dove soap.”

Baffled, I asked, “What else would I smell like? I‘ve been in the bathtub for so long my fingertips look like wrinkled prunes.”

“Are you being a wise guy?”

“No.”

“Because Billy, I really need you to cooperate with me. Okay? Right now, I‘m being consumed by a swarm of emotions. From anger to fear. To guilt. To confusion, and other painful thoughts. This, what happened to you today in the back of that ice cream truck is a very traumatic event, and as much as I‘m trying to remain calm, it isn’t easy. It isn’t easy at all. What we‘re dealing with here is a serious crisis.” She had considered going to the police and pressing charges against Nancy. Then, due to a lack of evidence, had decided against it. At this time, my mother did not know what she wanted to do. She had revealed that she needed time to think, to weigh all her options.