Authors: Barry James Hickey
“I don’t think Pete or Alice is here right now,” Pete said to the man.
“When do you expect them back?” Mr. Battle asked.
“Who’s the subpoena for? Her or me?” Pete asked.
“Oh! You’re Pete?” Battle said.
“
Dammit
,” Pete thought. “
He tricked me
.” He nodded his head.
Battle watched Pete’s long wispy beard bobble up and down until the man’s head stopped moving. “Actually Pete, I’m John Battle. Matthew’s after school teacher.”
“How can you be an after school teacher, Brittles? Wouldn’t the word
after school
necessitate that school is over and therefore you cain’t still be teachin’?” Pete questioned.
“Theoretically, I suppose you’re correct Pete,” Battle chuckled. “But to tell you the truth, I’m not really a teacher. I’m only pretending to be a teacher and since Matt doesn’t attend regular school, there is no after school for him when he comes to see me. We on the same page so far?”
“I follow, Brittles,” Pete said as he led Battle towards the last booth on the right. “Say Alice, we got Matt’s teacher makin’ a social call. Name is Brittles. You still busy?”
He pulled back a privacy curtain. Tubby Alice was sitting in a barber’s chair. She was dipping her tools of the trade in antiseptic solution and wiping them off with cotton.
“Just sterilizing my clamps baby,” Alice said. “What can we do you for?” Alice smiled at Battle.
“I’m John Battle, Matt’s after school teacher. I need your permission to take your son to a dance.”
“To a dance?” Pete asked, scratching his head. “Why the hell would I want our boy going to a dance with a grown man?”
“It’s a high school dance,” Battle told the ignorant man. “For him and his fellow students.”
“Oh!” Pete said. “You shoulda said it to me straighter, Brittles. You knocked me back on my heels with that one.”
John wanted to laugh. If Pete had anything beyond a sixth grade education, his double speak would have made him the perfect lawyer. “I don’t know which school dance we’ll attend yet, but I need these permission slips signed so when I do have a school picked out, I’m not running around at the last minute.”
“Yer one of them guys that likes his cart in front of his horse, ain’t you?” Pete said.
“That’s me,” appeased Battle.
“My boy at a dance?” Alice asked, looking at Pete with hesitation. “I don’t know.”
“When is it?” Pete huffed.
“I don’t know yet,” Battle said. “Before Christmas, for sure.”
“There will be girls at the dance?” Pete scratched his chin.
“Yes. And I’ll chaperone.”
Pete rubbed his beard. “I’ll bet you will. What you know ‘bout chaperonin’?”
Alice smacked Pete in the leg with a wet clamp. “Shet the hell up and leave the man be before I take a belt to your sorry skinny hide!” She smiled at Battle. “Pete here’s real particular about our child care.”
“You seem to be a very good father,” Battle placated.
“I won’t ever treat the little bastard like my old man treated me!” Pete promised.
“If there is a financial reason you think he can’t attend, such as the cost of a baby-sitter or a tuxedo…”
Pete whistled loudly. “Tuxedoes? Is this thing some six star event?”
“I don’t know yet,” Battle said. “But if it is, I’ll gladly pay for it all.”
“You will?” Pete said. He was flabbergasted. “Now why the hell would you do a thing like that?”
“So your son can attend the dance.”
Alice started laughing like crazy. So crazy, her big arms started flapping off her sides and her second chin wobbled up and down like jelly in a jar. “You wanna put my son in a monkey suit? Mr. Battle, I like you! I like any man that can put my scrawny husband to the test and drive him crazy,” she spoke loudly. “Come here and let me give you a great big hug!”
Battle stepped up to her. She reached around his waist from her seat and squeezed him tight with her thick arms while Pete gave him a dirty look.
“That’s my wife you’re touching,” Pete said.
“Actually, Pete, she’s touching me.”
“That’s just a semantic,” Pete said.
Alice released the teacher. “Now where do I sign?”
Battle handed her the release form and a pen. Alice signed.
“If our boy needs a tux, we’ll get him a tux,” Alice said. “If he needs shoes, we’ll get him shoes.”
“Anything the little bastard wants, we’ll get him,” Pete promised. “Can I sign that paper, too?”
The teacher let Pete sign.
“It was very nice meeting you both,” Mr. Battle said.
“You too, Brittles,” Pete said.
Battle tucked the paper in his pocket and left the shop.
“Imagine that?” Alice exclaimed. “Our boy is going to a dance.”
“I went to three high school dances,” Pete bragged. “And I wasn’t even in school anymore.”
The day was starting to wear him out, but Mr. Battle still had two more stops to make. The home of Toby Chambers was next. There was a sign on the street cautioning drivers that deaf children were playing on the block. When he went to ring the bell at the Chambers house, Battle couldn’t find one. He had to knock instead.
Toby answered. He was very surprised to see Mr. Battle. “Hey, Toby. Are your parents in?”
“My parents? What did I do, Mr. B?”
“Nothing, Toby. I need this permission slip signed. You
know, for that dance.”
“Gee,” Toby said. He glanced over his shoulder towards the
kitchen. “Nobody’s home right now. Can I get them to sign it
and bring it to school next time?”
“That will be fine, Toby.”
Mr. Battle gave him a form and left the porch for his car.
He didn’t know why the kid didn’t want him to meet his
parents. He had seen them sitting at the kitchen table in the
background.
As he drove on to his last stop, he felt a sudden, severe
headache boiling at the back of the head. He pulled over to
the side of the road and swallowed some pain pills.
The group home where Amber Beulah lived was in turmoil when Mr. Battle arrived. Miss Feely, the house supervisor, had just had a knockdown, drag-out, fistfight with one of the girls. The police were called (courtesy of the next door neighbor) and now all the girls were being interviewed so the agitated policemen could get to the bottom of the story. “What’s your version?” Battle asked Amber after the thirtyminute episode finally ended and the perturbed police had left with the girl that initiated the trouble.
Battle and Amber sat with Miss Feely at the kitchen table and drank tea.
“Miss Feely was just doing her job,” Amber said. “Miranda, she sneaked out last night and missed breakfast. When she came in this morning, she was high. So Miss Feely has to turn her back in to juvie for blowing her parole. Now Miranda’s gotta get locked up again.”
“And she blamed Miss Feely?”
“Sure. Miss Feely could have let her slide, but Miranda is a screw-up. Better now than later.”
“Teenagers,” Feely smirked. “So much fun to be around on a daily basis.”
One by one, bitter girls drifted through the room, tossing their keeper an angry, hateful look.
“See how they love me?” the woman said after number five. “You just wait, Amber! In ten years, you’ll remember me as a positive influence from your youth. Maybe I’ll be your favorite!”
“After Mr. B,” Amber counter-offered.
Miss Feely raised her eyebrows and looked at Battle. “You got this kid on some miracle drug I don’t know about? Because this isn’t the Amber Beulah I knew a couple of months ago. She doesn’t drink or smoke anymore. She follows house rules. Amber even cleans her room without my asking.”
“I’m doing it for the baby,” Amber confessed. “I figure whoever adopts it deserves a healthy one.”
Mr. Battle stirred his tea and rested the spoon on the saucer. “Amber, are you sure you want to give up your kid?”
“If I kept the baby, I’d have to be with it for at least a year before I could find a job. After that, who would hire me, Mr. B? Some fast food place maybe, at a minimum wage. Just enough to pay for day care, probably. I’m already two years behind in school. Keeping a kid means I never graduate. Which means I never go to college. Which means I never get a decent job ever. Which means I live in a group home until I’m fifty or me and my baby live on Welfare the rest of our lives. Right, Miss Feely?”
“Her options
are
limited,” Miss Feely told Battle.
“What if you were rich?” he asked.
“Oh... You mean like what if I win the lottery someday? That’ll never happen, Mr. B. I’m cursed. Go ahead, Miss Feely. Tell him.”
“Amber is cursed.” Miss Feely rolled her eyes.
“And nobody loves me,” Amber said. “Tell him, Miss Feely.”
Miss Feely rolled her eyes again. “Nobody loves her…”
“I love you, Amber,” Mr. Battle said. “And I’ll bet Miss Feely does too.”
Miss Feely engulfed Amber in a big bear hug and shook her. “I love you! I love you! I love you!”
“Dike,” Amber nearly giggled.
“Little bitch.” Miss Feely laughed, releasing her grip.
“Miss Feely? With your permission?” Battle asked. “Mind if I see her room?”
“It’s just a room,” Amber said.
“Go ahead,” said the counselor. “Watch out for spiders.”
Mr. Battle left the kitchen table and followed Amber back to her room.
“This is freaking me out!” Amber laughed in the hallway. “Nobody has ever wanted to see my room before!”
She led him into her room and offered him a seat in the small rocking chair while she sat at the edge of her bed. “I do all my reading in the rocker.” Amber smiled.
Battle folded his hands in his lap and started rocking. “I’ll bet you’ve taken a few naps here, too.”
“Yeah, a few. Want to see my picture album?”
“Sure.”
Amber dragged a thin album out from under the bed. She knelt at the side of the rocker and put the album in Battle’s lap. She opened the first page.
“My life,” Amber said. “Or what I know of my life. This is a picture of me as a baby, I think. At least that’s what I’m told. One of my foster mothers said it was me, but I don’t think so. Do you think the baby looks like me?”
Battle looked at the picture. It wasn’t a picture of Amber. “I see a resemblance,” he lied.
“Good.” She smiled. “Then I’ll keep it. Now this next picture… This is me and Moe. Moe’s a Cocker Spaniel. I loved him so much! But then my foster parents decided to separate and out I went to a new home.”
“Who kept Moe?”
“I don’t know. He was real smart. I hope he ran away to dog heaven.”
One picture at a time, Amber slowly flipped through the book that depicted her short life. They were inane pictures, mostly of kids with names she had forgotten and dogs and cats that were long gone. In the back, she thumbed through a thin stack of pizza receipts and bowling and miniature golf scorecards. Finally she unfolded an old worn out piece of paper.
“If I ever want to find my parents. Only
if,
mind you… then maybe this will lead me there.” She handed him the paper.
Mr. Battle looked at it. It was a birth certificate with the name of Amber Beulah born to proud parents John and Katherine Beulah.
“I’ll bet it’s fake,” she said. “Just like everything else in my life.”
“I don’t think so,” John said. “I think this is the real deal.”
“You’re just saying that, Mr. B.”
“No I’m not, Amber. Look through it when I hold it up to the light. See the watermark?”
“I see a very light image.”
“Want to know a little secret?”
“Sure.”
“I used to be a lawyer. And you know what that means?”
‘What?”
“I cannot tell a lie.”
She pulled her book and birth certificate away from him and shoved them back under her bed. “Lawyers are notorious for lying!” She laughed.
“Not this former lawyer.”
She plopped down on the bed across from him. “Okay, Mr. B. Tell me everything about you.”
He was going to. He really was. But Miss Feely came by and reported, “Time for dinner. Amber’s on potato peel duty.”
Mr. Battle regretfully left the house. His confession to his daughter would have to wait until another time.
Driving home, Battle was excitable and anxious. He was so close to telling his little girl that she had a father, that she came from somewhere, that she was validated. He had been warned by Mrs. Powell to control his emotional state, to avoid stress as the days went on, but these were feelings and thoughts Battle couldn’t control.
After he pulled the Toyota into the Loomis House garage, he reached to turn the ignition off. The old headache was still there and without any warning he vomited on himself.
“How did you get me in the house?” He asked Mrs. Powell from his bed.
“I called the guy who cuts my lawn and shovels my snow,” she said.
“What happened this time?”
“My guess is a small hemorrhage. You’re lucky you didn’t have an aneurysm.”
‘Is that how it ends for me?”
“Most likely. It will be a happened but more intense. You might possibility slip into a coma you can’t come back from.” It was time for more bad news. “John, you must avoid physical efforts of any kind right now! Your condition has worsened rapidly. Just the simple act of coughing or going to the toilet is life threatening.”
“That bad?’
“That serious.” She picked up the SUV keys from his dresser. “And as of today your driving privileges have been suspended.”
similar feeling to what just
It took a dozen calls from Mrs. Powell and a half dozen visits to local schools before Mr. Battle was able to get his one and only approval to bring his students to a dance. The high schools that turned him down all had the same rote answers for not allowing his kids to attend.
“Troublemakers.”
“Bad seeds.”
“Too much work.”
“They don’t understand our student culture.”
“We don’t do charity work for other schools.”
“If Garfield High wants their students to attend a dance,
In the end, the one school that did accept his students seemed to be the perfect choice, Battle hoped. “This dance should be a real test of character for my kids,” he told Mrs. Powell.
“
My kids
?” Nothing escaped Mrs. Powell’s ears.
“Our kids,” he smiled.
“I haven’t even met them,” she reminded him.
“You will in time.”
On the day of the big dance, Mr. Battle let Mrs. Powell drive him around town. He did some Christmas shopping, had a haircut and picked up his blue suit at the dry cleaners. A snow flurry with high winds started right before dark. Not enough to stick to the ground, but enough to hint at a white Christmas. Mrs. Powell and John sat in the sunroom, enjoying the death dance of the heavy white flakes, smashing into the warm glass of the windows before melting.