The School on Heart's Content Road (14 page)

Donnie swallows some egg. He is always, under any circumstances, a solemn and gentlemanly eater. He says to Mickey in a matter-of-fact way, “ 'Twas hell at the Chain today.” This means chain store, not chain gang, but once in a while Britta has heard him singing the
ooh! ah!
s of the fifties and sixties working-on-the-chain-gang song before he leaves for work, when he's knotting his tie, shaving his chin, or inspecting his shiny shoes.

Now he tells Mickey a few details, pressures from his five bosses. That's five bosses and one employee in that department. Employee works, bosses look in the mirror at themselves. But no chitchat. Talking
together
is policy-discouraged.

Travis is in the high chair, he the child of a neighbor who also works at the Chain, and there's no one else to look after him. He spends more and more time here in a kind of sad suspension; he can never be center stage because, unlike Jesse, he's not dying.

There's an explosion in the TV world: sirens.

Britta finishes her eggs and lifts Jesse from Erika's arms, and now Erika stands at the door, looking out at the scheming girl gang by the empty chicken house.

Seems the neighbor's baby, Travis, might be doing something in his diaper. He is jamming eggs with both hands through the nozzle of his covered training cup. He has a huge face, like a woodchuck. Donnie stares dreamily at the eggs in Travis's chubby hands; then he looks at the ceiling, eyes very wide, very blue—all Britta's children have that bright light gaze—and now he says, evenly and deeply, “I mean . . . i'twas
really
hell today at the Chain, Mr. Mickey G.,” and he looks at Mickey, and Mickey looks sad and sympathetic, and Donnie leans toward him and touches the rim of Mickey's plate, an urgent gesture, and says, “Like—” But the dying child begins vomiting in Britta's arms,
vomiting the few mouthfuls he managed to swallow in the last few hours, and probably Donnie never goes back to his thought.

The next evening, when Mickey comes home.

He senses right away the bad feel of the house, the hard edges of hurt. The first thing he sees is Donnie at the table with a new face. Walrus mustache gone. Face too pink. Face too bare.

The house makes the usual sounds. The TV, first and foremost. The two women talking in the back bedroom (it was a dining room years ago and has a curtain now across the archway), the girl gang shuffling around upstairs, the dog scratching upstairs, the neighbor's child, Travis, in his high chair again, plastic toys on the floor, nothing in his tray but a green and orange ooze. Matches what's on his face. And a cricket somewhere under the sink cabinet.
Creak! Creak! Creak!

Mickey just stands there.

Donnie says, “Hey, Mr. Prince, what's up?”

Mickey lowers the bag of cukes to the clean counter and pushes it way back.

Donnie's eyes fix hard on the bag.

Mickey feels like Donnie is circling him, his back up, hair raised, circling, circling, sizing him up, sniffing his identity. Or is it Mickey who circles Donnie, circling, sniffing, challenging
him:
Mickey, who has always been so poor in school, whose grades and attitude don't please anyone. It was Donnie who was all
A
s and
B
s, who made their mother proud.
My boy is smart, the older one, Donald
. Seems those schooldays were the peak of Donnie's life, the sharp, clear, thin, beautiful peak. Who has his back up now? Maybe it is really Mickey who has started this.

Donnie speaks in a more friendly way, confiding. “They spoke to me at work. The regional management has a new policy: no facial hair. Clean shave is more
appropriate
. Wisdom from the Chain.”

Mickey makes a face. “Buncha shitheads.”

“Next comes teeth straightening and plastic surgery. Everyone gets the same face.” This is supposed to be a joke.

But Mickey just squints.

Donnie swallows the sheer pain of this. “You know what it's
really
about. It's nothing to do with the customer, who could give a shit about my face.”

Mickey nods.

Donnie swallows again. More pain to be put out of sight. Now with a bit of a squeak, he speaks. “It's about breaking us. It's like getting in our pants and squeezing, showing who's boss.”

Britta steps from the curtained bedroom, digs in a drawer for a washrag. Runs it under the faucet.

Donnie pushes his empty dish away, reaches down for a plastic dinosaur, sets it on Travis's tray. Travis spanks the dinosaur with both hands, and off goes the dinosaur to the floor again.

Donnie says, “So, Mum, could you toss me coupl'a those cookies from the jar while you're over there?”

Britta ignores this. There are no cookies in the jar. This is just Donnie being sarcastic about the usual food shortage. She steps over to the high chair and slathers the washrag around Travis's chubby cheeks while he is leaning way forward, face down, to the right of his chair, pointing to the dinosaur.

Mickey especially avoids looking at Donnie's naked face. It's as if Donnie has his pants off. Or is caught in a lie.

Donnie asks, “What do you guys do over at those militia meetings anyway?”

Mickey is surprised, not by the fact that Donnie has found out but by the offhand way he's brought it up.

“Mostly just talk.”

Donnie snorts happily, leans back in his seat, arms up over his head, thumbs coming together, and he kind of stretches as he looks around and sees how both his mother's face and Travis's face are aimed at the smiling faces on the TV—an ad for insurance—smiling faces, sugary music, and the word
protection
used five times. Donnie says, “Shit. I was hopin' you guys were getting ready to blow the fuckers away.”

Mickey Gammon speaks.

It's almost eleven o'clock but she's still up, rocking him. Looks like she's holdin' a new baby, 'cept for his big feet sticking out . . . big skinny feet. She says, “Hey, little brother.” And I give her the money and she takes the money and she looks me up and down, my face, my neck, my crotch. Then she looks away. And it's all over. The moment.
The thing she was thinking. Maybe it was the thing I think she was thinking, but just
thinking,
not doing, 'cause she ain't the affair type. Maybe it was just some weird flash, like all women get. Hot flashes.

She says, in a real cute way, “
Sure
you're not dealin' drugs?”

I just make a little spit sound. Like
yeah, right
. Like I would do such a thing. Which I haven't. 'Cause I ain't much of a salesman. You gotta be able to
talk
to deal. At least you got to say, “This stuff's a little seedy and has a lotta lumber, but it's all that's coming in now.” Or “You again? I can't front you any more till you've paid up.”

She's looking down at Jesse's foot with no expression now. I turn and head up the stairs to bed. I would never touch her. But I can go all night and a week thinking of her hands on me, how it would be. Shit. That's all, just imaginary fucking. Just like dealing reefer or dealing used cars, whatever. With gettin' a woman, you gotta be able to talk to get very far.

Erika at her clothesline.

Her older sister, Patti, and two strange women pull up in a small, newish, copper-color car. Patti's words come out carved and cool, words that can draw you in, gladly, for sales is what she's all about. She resembles Erika across the eyes, but she is neither pudgy nor wifely.

Patti makes the introductions. “This is Nan Bradley and Sass Hilare from church. This is my sister, Erika . . . Erika, we thought we'd stop by and see you . . . and the baby.”

The churchwomen say they are very sorry to hear about the baby. Their church is not a fundamentalist damnation kind of church, nor a he-ain't-heavy-he's-my-brother kind of church. But a career-minded, positive-thinking church. Perfect for Patti. But these two women seem different from Patti.

Erika tells each one
hi
. Like her face and shoulders, Erika's voice is soft.

Nan and Sass and Patti are all holding gifts, a covered casserole or dessert and some packages wrapped in lavender tissue with elaborate polka-dot and silver-stripe bows.

The yard is too bright. Just one old oak tree, tall and lacking lower limbs, looking more like an elm. There's a path cut into the tall grass of
the field by the barn, and also leading to the clothesline and its mowed rectangle. The clipped grass is stiff and prickly to Erika's bare feet. The lines droop with laundry, including sheets that have cartoon prints. Erika wears shorts. Legs pudgy, shaved, but not tanned. V-neck T-shirt, dark blue. Kids' bikes in the tall grass. A wheelbarrow full of water. Wildflowers. Bees. Erika squints. The visitors squint. Only Patti wears sunglasses, eyes wide and roving.

“How's the baby doing?” she asks cautiously. Patti always asks a lot of questions, which she appears to have no intention of hearing the answers to, but will look around at furnishings and floors as if guessing their value. She has always done this. Long before she was in home and commercial real estate. And there's her nonaccent accent, cultivated since high school. A few years ago, that generic accent made Patti seem peculiar. Now, today, she's among millions.

“Not very well,” Erika tells her.

From the open windows there come rustlings and rumblings, a slam, the sound of ice in a glass,
pop pop pop pop pop
. . . a giggle . . . a
whooooosh
and, of course, the multiple TVs' tinny tweedles and little roars. The restless house breathes.

Erika picks a wet sock from the basket, pins it to the line, reaches for another.

The gifts wrapped in such summery paper and the casserole remain unoffered in the visitors' hands, spelling out that these are offerings for passage
into the house
.

Erika glances again at the two strangers, then goes for another sock. All three visitors are dressed like their gifts, pastel and summery. Nan is white-haired, fiftyish. Sass is young.

Patti asks, “Can we see him when you're done with your wash, Erika?”

“Well . . . yes . . . but he won't be friendly. He's not even eating.”

Patti glances at the faces of her friends; behind her sunglasses, her eyes are just two meaningful gleams.

“So very sad,” says white-haired Nan. “I'm truly sorry.”

Erika turns and looks at her, a blinking single nod.

Patti tells on her sister. “They've decided to refuse treatment.”

“Yes,” says the white-haired woman, which means this has already been discussed prior to their arrival.

Patti says, “They just decided to hope for the best.”

Erika feels for a twisted pink pajama top.

Patti says, “They are not Christian Scientists. That's not it. They are just—” She cuts herself off, meaningfully. Her eyes are on her sister's back, the oversized navy T-shirt, pudgy shoulders, the bra line cutting into the extra pudginess of her back. “They have just decided to let him go.”