Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge

                                       

                             CROSSING THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         I had not had any contact with my father since I was 13 years old until he called to say that he had “a little spot of lung cancer”.  I had not expected to ever hear from him again.  I had assumed, or hoped, that he was already dead of cirrhosis.  He had come back to Arkansas to stay with a cousin while he recovered from surgery.  I would not have gone to see him, except that he offered me a box of keepsakes from my parents’ brief marriage.  He has always had a talent for picking out a sucker and, now, it was my turn.  He took my longing for my dead mother and turned it into a weapon against me. 

         I didn’t see him until the day before his surgery.  I met him at a motel right across from the medical center.  Our first meeting was awkward, but I did retrieve the box and put it in the trunk of my Saturn.  We went to an early dinner at an all-you-can-eat buffet;  I thought that would lessen the need for much conversation.  He had asked me to attend the surgery, giving me medical power-of-attorney in case of an emergency.  I thought this showed a trust that was entirely unwarranted. 

         We spoke only of casual and impersonal things.  I had recently taken a trip to New York City to attend a conference on pediatric emergency medicine; that is my subspecialty.  He seemed interested in the tourist attractions that I had seen during my free afternoons. 

         ”Imagine that…” he said.  “I always wanted to go there.”  He was watching, intently, a construction crane across the street where they were putting up another strip mall.  “It was on my list.  You know, . . . my To-Do List.”

         It had a very capitalized sound to it, but I had no idea what he meant and didn’t really care.  I tried to put on a politely inquiring look.  His glance, finally, flicked to my face and I could see that he was embarrassed.  My mother used to say that his tendency to blush was his downfall;  she could always tell when he was lying.  Since he was a compulsive liar, that was very unfortunate for him.
         
         He took his wallet from his back pocket.  It was cheap black vinyl and the fold was torn halfway down.  He removed a few dollars and peeled the lining from the inside of the back.  From this hidden section,  he extracted a dirty paper, folded and refolded.  He carefully wiped the table in front of him with napkins, then wiped again a second time with a new set of napkins.  He spread the sheet out, pressing out the folds.  It was so old and greasy that it was almost translucent.  It was covered on one side by his cramped, crooked writing.  I couldn’t read it upside down, but I could see that it was a numbered list, in three columns. 

         “See.’  He pointed.  “Number 37.  The Brooklyn bridge.  People were always talking about selling it to somebody.”
He looked at me, to be sure that I had heard that old joke. I nodded.  “I met this guy.  Mario.  Mario…something.  In ‘Nam.  He was from Brooklyn.  Really.  He said he crossed over that bridge every day to go to work.  I always wanted to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.  Just to say I did it.”

         I tried to slide the list out from under his finger, but he resisted the pull. He folded it back up, meticulous in his attention to the creases, and tucked it back behind the lining.

         “What else is on the To-Do List?”  Now, he had me capitalizing it.

         “All the things I wanted to do in my life, that I thought I would do.”  He turned back to supervising the construction across the street.  “Fool kid.” 

         He pronounced judgment on himself like that boy was a stranger to him or just the neighbor’s kid who had knocked down the mailbox with a baseball bat.  Like it had nothing to do with him.  It was two-thirds of his  lifetime ago and that boy had been half the age I was now.  To him, it must have seemed like a millennium ago.  Because it was before he came home, before he met my mother and she got pregnant, before they had to get married, before they had me. 









                             THE LAST TIME






         By the time Jay was 13, he had had about enough of his father jerking him around.  Sonny would call to say he was coming, but wouldn’t.  Or, he wouldn’t call at all for months and, then, would just show up and expect Jay to be happy about it.  Jay had his own life now and he didn’t want to spend half of it sitting in the car outside some bar while Sonny got loaded. 
Sometimes, Sonny would take him to the Little Red River to go fishing like it was some big treat, like they were going to have some fucking father-and-son bonding.  Jay sat on the bank holding a fishing pole and hoping like hell he wouldn’t catch a fish.  While Sonny sat in the shade with his best friend, the cooler, and sucked down a few cold ones. 

         If he could get away it, Jay would just pretend to bait his hook.  Getting a bite was disastrous.  Jay usually couldn’t tell that a fish was nibbling on his bait or he’d reel too fast and lose it or get the line caught up in the brush or some damn thing.  The only thing he got out of it was some snotty remark from Sonny.  It was even worse if he managed to catch a fish and land it.  Jay didn’t like touching the fish and he didn’t like watching it flop around and die. 
         "Well, girly, you finally caught one.  Can you get it off the hook by yourself, you little faggot."

         Jay tried to hold the fish down with his foot and use his hand to curl the hook back out.  This always made Sonny furious and he shoved Jay over hard.  He jerked the line away and wrapped his big hand around the fish’s gills and removed the hook.  He threw the fish and it glanced off of Jay’s head with a wet plop.

         “There, you little mama’s boy,” Sonny said.  “You can’t even fish.  Shit, I was fishing and hunting so we could eat by the time I was your age.  With Daddy  gone off to Michigan and having trouble finding work, he left me the man of the family with all them women.  And somebody had to feed them.  My daddy taught me how to take care of business and I did it. There weren’t nobody else to do it.”

         Jay wasn’t paying attention of any of that noise.  He was seeing little black spots floating in front of his eyes.  His ears felt hot.  All of a sudden, he picked up the fish, slicing one finger on the gills, and threw it at his father.  It landed just right  - right on Sonny’s face, full in the nose and mouth.

         For a moment, just a split second, they stared at one another.  It was hard to tell who was more shocked.  By the time Jay realized that he had made a tactical error and should have been running already, it was too late.  Sonny’s first blow hit Jay on the temple and knocked him to the side.  It was hard enough to bounce him off the ground.  The second hit caught him right in the nose and blood spurted.  Jay fell backwards, ass over tea kettle.  Blood in tiny drops sprayed over both their shirts and even Sonny’s face.  Sonny grabbed a handful of shirt and pulled him back up to meet the third blow. Jay managed to twist to one side and the fist landed more on his neck than his face.  He began to wonder if this was where he got what he deserved.

         Some self-preservation began to kick in, finally. Because if you couldn’t be beat any worse, then it made sense to try to save yourself.  Jay tried to kick with his legs but Sonny was above him and was just pummeling him in the chest and head.  Jay was getting his arms up, enough to partially block some of the hits.  Jay felt dizzy and his arms hurt so bad.  He pushed Sonny backward and almost made it to his feet.  He stumbled and realized that falling would be a very bad move. He managed to get one leg back and catch himself. Something flamed in his leg and he yelled out.  His hand grabbed the back of his right thigh and his butt hit the ground.  He tried to cover his head with his left arm .

         There was a shout from out on the water and Sonny straightened up.  Jay tried to scramble back without putting any weight on his right leg, like a crab walk.  A crab with one lame leg.  He risked a look over at  the river.  There was a boat with an older man and woman in it. The man was making shushing motions with his hands.  Sonny stood and shaded his eyes, smearing the blood on his forehead.  Jay gained his footing and started hobbling back toward the truck.  It was the only place for safety.  The woman was gesturing violently at the shore. 

         Sonny reared back and gave her the finger. “What’s your problem, you old bitch!”

         Jay tried to limp faster. He hopped a time or two, but it was no quicker and he almost fell.  The truck was halfway down the parking lot; as the day went on, they had moved down the bank for shade.  The woman in the boat gave a shriek that made his father laugh. Jay stopped looking back and concentrated on getting to the truck.  He opened the door and pulled himself in.  For a panicked moment, he couldn’t feel the keys in the ignition.  He risked a look back.  Sonny was staring at him like he couldn’t believe it.  He hollered at Jay; it was a bellow, like a bawling calf. 

         Jay found the keys on  the seat.  Sonny was hauling ass toward him now.  Locking both doors got first priority.  It took Jay twice to get the keys turned right way round in his hand.  Before Jay could get the keys in the ignition, Sonny was at the back of the truck.  He slammed his hand against the side. 

         “You little fucker, when I get you out of there, I’m gonna kill you.  Open this door!”

         Jay turned the key and the engine gave its usual grind before it started up.  Sonny was swinging a rock at the passenger window.  Put it in D and give it gas, Jay told himself.  The truck began to move.  Sonny was hanging on to the door handle and beating at the glass with a rock not much bigger than his fist.  It looked like he was hitting his hand every time.  He just kept on cussing steady. 

         Jay steered in a big sweeping curve through the gravel and toward the asphalt.  Then, it looked like the truck was going to hit the guard rail so he jerked the wheel harder and sped up.  Sonny lost his grip on the door; his head disappeared below the window.  The truck gathered speed going up the access road.  Jay looked over at the boat.  He’d thought the woman might be cheering him, but they were both just staring.  In the rear view mirror, Jay saw Sonny get up and start running.  He heard the roar of the boat motor as the man tried to get headed back upstream.  Maybe he was afraid Sonny would jump in the river and come after them.  Jay didn’t blame him.  He wanted to get as far away from Sonny as he could, too.  Safer. 

         He was getting scared now about the driving.  He had driven Uncle Ernest’s truck before.  But that was mostly in the field and some on the straight gravel road down to the dump.  That wasn’t like getting over Crystal Hill Road, though.  One thing, Jay knew he wasn’t going to be holding up at any stop signs.  He didn’t know how long Sonny could run, but he didn’t want to find out.  He was sure it would be better to die in the truck than let Sonny catch him.













                             AT THE HIGHWAY MOTEL






A          fter the divorce, I sometimes stayed with my father,  Sonny, if he had a place for us to go.  He lived with my aunt Winnie for a while.  Then, he lived with my “aunt” for a while - who was his girlfriend.  I would call her a live-in girlfriend, except he was the one living-in.  Because he usually had just enough for his necessities: liquor and cigarettes and pot and, maybe, something to eat if there was any money left.  Certainly,  he never had enough for a deposit on an apartment.  A few times, he scraped up enough to rent a room in a bad motel.  These were the places that rented by the week or by the month to guys just like him.  Guys in construction or truck drivers or those really down on their luck.  His favorite was called the Highway Motel.  It was built during the second World War close to the army depot.  It had been through multiple owners since and none of them, apparently, had done any upkeep on the place.

         I would sleep on a pallet on the floor in rooms that were so nasty that the cockroaches would come into bed with me.  I don’t want to think about how much bodily fluids there might have been on the sheets.  They rented some of those rooms by the hour. 

           He would get extra blankets from the clerk to make my bed.  She was the girlfriend of the owner.  She must have worked 24 hours a day because she was always behind the counter.  She had a  little girl who stayed with her ex-husband (“for right now”) and, so, she had a soft spot for me.  I must have been pretty pathetic because every woman who knew either one of my parents felt sorry as shit for me.  Not that I didn’t make sure they knew just how wretched I was.  I played it for all I could get.  But, it’s amazing how many people will be nice to a kid, if it’s not their own kid.  And I’m sure that everybody who knew Sonny was thinking I already had all the problems I needed.

         After Sonny was snoring, I would take my little  pallet into the bathroom.  I couldn’t sleep without the light on – still can’t.  Sonny wouldn’t leave the lamp on or even the bathroom light with the door cracked.  He didn’t like any light while he was sleeping.  So, we were at an impasse.  I was old enough by then to know that crying to Sonny wasn’t going to get me anything good.  Just because I was there did not mean that Sonny didn’t have his nightly six-pack.  And he could be a mean drunk.

         One time, we were sitting outside, in front of his room.  The motel was a single level and shaped like a squared off  U, so there was a center area which, in some nicer place, could have called a center courtyard.  There, it looked more like a junkyard.  There were some rusting metal chairs and a picnic table.  A porch swing hung from metal triangular posts that looked like they originally came from a schoolyard.  There wasn’t any grass, anymore.  The ground had been worn bare to the dull red clay, which became a mud hole, if it rained hard.  Tony, who lived in #6 and was a cousin of the owner, kept both of his junked-out cars in front of his door.

         There wasn’t much to do in that hotel room except watch television.  At seven, it was hard to sit still and not talk for a whole weekend.  So, we sat outside and I played with my matchbox cars.  Sometimes, Sonny would leave me there and go back in to sleep it off.  If he was tired of me, he would lock the door and not answer it. I would have no choice but to stay out there.  That wasn’t so bad, unless I got thirsty.  I was scared of the dark, though, so I would beat on the door and cry.  He would finally let me in, making fun of me for being a scaredy cat.  Half the time, he gave me a spanking.  I just considered it part of the admission price. 

         A lot of the men sat out there.  They were probably just trying to be pleasant, but they frightened me.  If they talked to me, I would answer in a whisper or not at all.  If they were half-drunk or past drunk, they’d might get pissed off.  It was just a scary place for me.  This one day, Sonny was sitting with me and talking to his friend, who worked construction with him.  This guy was named Bartle;  I’ll never forget that.

         “Your boy wouldn’t even answer me last night,” he told my father.  “I asked him how big his pecker was and he wouldn’t even say nothing.”

         Sonny gave me the evil eye.

         “I don’t think he even knows what a pecker is.”  Bartle was laughing at me and poking his finger in my stomach.

         I knew what a pecker was and I had no intention of talking about mine.  I turned away but Sonny caught me by the neck.  He had his hand curved around the back of my neck, thumb on one side and fingers curling around the other.  He did it casually; it might have looked like a fond gesture to anybody watching.  Then he picked me up, his fingers tightening just under my jaw line.  My feet came off the ground.  I just dangled there while he talked to Bartle about what a little pecker I had.  I kicked my legs a little and his hand squeezed harder.  I felt like I couldn’t swallow good.  I began making noises like when you’re pretending to be a fish.  I was imagining my neck stretching out, like in the cartoons.  He lowered me back down.  My tiptoes just touched and I was very glad of it.  I got a full breath then. 

         He shoved me back toward the room.  I stumbled but caught myself and didn’t fall.  I was afraid to run because he didn’t take kindly to people who ran from him.  Trying to get away from what they had coming, he would say.  I didn’t look back but I could hear his steps following.  He had those big boots with steel toes that all the construction guys wore.  I could hear his heavy footfall behind me, crunching in the gravel. 

         I did start to run a little then.  I was afraid he would catch me outside where everyone could see and I was afraid he would catch me inside where nobody could see.  I thought it might be better to be in the room and sitting down by the time he got there.

         “Don’t you run from me, boy.”

         I  slowed until he was just behind me.  He shoved me through the door into the room.  I stood by the little round table where we ate pop tarts for breakfast.  My neck started to hurt.  It felt all stretched out.  When I turned my head, it was like a knife was sticking in me.  I was starting to blubber a little bit although I knew that was a bad idea.

         “You are a little sissy girl, I swear to god.”

         He jerked my arm and I sat, not looking at him.  At times like this, it was hard to know which way to go.  Sometimes, he was mad if I looked at him

         “You look at me when I’m talking to you,” he said.

         I’d guessed wrong.  It seemed like I always guessed wrong.  When I look back, I know why that is.  I always guessed wrong because it didn’t matter what I did or which one I chose; he was going to be mad.  Being mad was the point for him.  He certainly didn’t seem to like me much.  I looked up at him.  That made my neck hurt worse and that make me cry in earnest.

         “How come you gotta embarrass me like that with my friends?  He’s trying to be nice to you and you won’t even say boo.  You listening to me?”

         “Yes, sir,” I said.  Throwing in a “sir” was a good move usually.  It seemed to work some here,

         “When grown-ups ask you questions, you need to be polite and answer and say yes sir and no ma’am.  What kinda manners is your mama teaching you.?”

         There was no good answer for that. 

         “What you bawling for now, you little crybaby?”

         “My neck hurts.”  I sniveled a little more.

         “Oh, for christ’s sakes,” he said. 

         He went into the bathroom and brought out an aspirin.  I had never swallowed pills before and usually took liquid Tylenol at home. It didn’t seem like a good time to be asking for special favors. I put the pill in my mouth and chewed.  It was bitter and I thought I would cough.  It felt like it got stuck at the back of my throat.  I put my hand over my mouth, afraid that I would throw up.  He brought me back some water in a empty beer bottle; it tasted like stale, warm spit.  I washed that aspirin down like a good little boy should.

         After that, I was fine with sitting quietly inside.  This wasn’t a motel that had ever heard tell of cable, so there wasn’t much choice of television shows.  I didn’t understand the movie; it was just a bunch of old people talking.  Every time that I moved my head, a piercing spasm of hot pain ran down the side of my neck.  All that day, I would go into the bathroom and take an aspirin.  It took me a while, the first time, to figure out how to get the top off so I left the bottle open.  I cupped water from the sink in my hand.  It’s a wonder that I didn’t overdose.

         Sonny dropped me off in front of the house about noon the next day.  It was before the time that he had to have me back, but we were both tired of each other by then.  His tires spun out as he pulled away.  I started crying a little before I even got to the front porch.  My mother opened the door.  I could tell by the look on her face that I wasn’t going to be getting any sympathy from her anytime soon. 

         “Did that sonofabitch give you any money for me?”

         I shook my head.

         “Shithead,” she said.  That was her favorite nickname for both of us, but I was pretty sure that she was talking about Sonny that time.

         She had cooled off by supper.  We had bacon, macaroni and tomato, a concoction that I loved.  We didn’t have it often because of all the bacon that it used, so it was a treat.  When I asked for an aspirin, she shook her head.

         “You ain’t never had an aspirin in your life,” she said, frowning at me.
 
         I said that my neck hurt.  I hollered when she took my chin in her hand and turned my face away from her.  In the dim light in the kitchen, she squinted her eyes as she brought her head down to my level.  She took me in the bathroom and pushed the curtain aside.  The last of the summer sun, brightly golden, came in through the window.  In the mirror, I could see that there was a blotch of purple skin on one side of my neck.  Along the other side, there were four long bruises, the last one lighter, lined up along the length of my neck

         “I thought you just had a dirty neck,” my mother said.  She had a hard, angry look on her face.  It was an expression like I had never seen before.  Like flames had frozen, but the fire was still burning inside.  She didn’t ask me how I got them.

         She fixed me a tub of hot water, almost too hot.  She showed me how to  lay back til my face was just above the water.  She gave me some wonderful-tasting Tylenol.  Then, she curled up with me on the bed.  She started to knead  my neck with her thumb but that  hurt too bad.  I didn’t know what she meant by massage, but I didn’t like it, whatever it was.  She fixed my pillow just right under my head so that my neck didn’t get twisted.  I went to sleep with her still rubbing my back in little circles. 

         I remember her saying, “You just wait.  We’re gonna make him pay for that.”

         The next day,  my neck felt even worse.  My mother went next door and got a pill Miss Mable had left over from a toothache.  She crushed it up and put it in the Tylenol, but it was so bitter that even the syrupy Tylenol couldn’t hide the taste.
“You take it now,” she scolded me.  “It’s gonna make your neck feel better. And we’re going to see your daddy today.”

         I threw a fit because I would miss school.  That wasn’t a treat for me. I loved school. It was the best part of my life.  My teachers liked me and thought I was smart.  I almost always got a little red star on my work.  They had a million books and nobody made fun of me for reading them.  I didn’t have to go outside because I was under anyone’s feet.  It was quiet there most of the time and I liked that, too.

         We went in the car to where Sonny worked.  She found the foreman and made him get Sonny.  I sat in car and watched them from there.  There were some words flying back and forth.  Sonny looked over at me and, then, back at her.  My mother gestured to me to come over there.  I shook my head;  I didn’t want anything to do with this.  Even across the parking lot, I could see her glare;  she took a step toward me. 

         “Do you want me to take him to the doctor with this? Or, maybe a lawyer?” she said, as I came up to them.  I had no idea what she was talking about.

         “You mess around, girl and they’re likely to take him away from you, living with your lesbo friend.”

         “If anybody should know I’m not a lesbian, it should be you.” She was starting to get loud.

                   He pointed a finger in the air, like she should wait a minute.  He went behind the pile of lumber and insulation.  When he came back, he handed her a folded wad of money.  Sonny’s boss was starting to look over at us.
“Yeah, you just go ahead and take him to the doctor, if he needs to go,” Sonny said in a loud voice.

         Back in the car, I began to cry.  “I don’t wanna go to that doctor.”  A needle had  been involved the last trip there.

         “You ain’t going to no doctor. You neck feels better after that medicine, doesn’t it?”

         It did feel better, in fact.  I felt pretty good, if a little dizzy.

         “We’re gonna go by the grocery store and, maybe, put a little back for the electricity,” she said, in a satisfied tone.  “You want a candy bar?”

         Yes, I did.










                             FLOATING IN SOFT SILENCE



         



         
         Jay liked going to school.  It wasn’t real school but they did the ABC’s.  Jay knew his letters and he could read the paper a little bit, if it didn’t have any big words.  It was mostly who got sick and who visited and who bought goats.  Jay like that part.

         One bad time, there was a big fight at home.  Jay was sitting on the floor, playing with the dump trucks.  He was putting tiny baby dolls in the back, like the Mexicans who were going to pick strawberries or apples.  When Mama bought the dolls, there were one hundred of them; Jay counted.  They were as big as the very end of his finger.  Some of them were sitting down and some of them were standing, except it was really hard to stand them up.  They were kind of orange and didn’t have no clothes.  Jay didn’t have them all any more because he had flushed two of them down the toilet.  But, nothing happened.

         Jay was making truck noises.  Daddy yelled.  He was sitting by the television  in the blue chair.  Some men had brought it in a big truck.  It leaned back if you pulled a stick on the side and it smelled good.  Daddy liked to watch the newsman.

         “Get out from in front of the tv,” he hollered at Jay and jumped up high.  Hairy hands grabbed Jay’s arms, squeezing his bones.  Daddy flew him around in a circle.  It was so fast that Jay was afraid he might throw up on the rug again.  Daddy sat him down very, very hard.  Jay felt it bump right through his bottom.  He hunched down and made his eyes look at the floor.

         Daddy’s breathing was loud, but he sat back down.  Jay knew better than to make a run to Mama.  He swallowed that pukey stuff right back down in his stomach.  He looked fast over there.  Daddy’s eyes were scrunchy and looking at him.

         “You sit there and don’t you move a muscle.”  Daddy wasn’t yelling, but he had the mad voice.

         Jay thought that was silly.  Daddy could make him sit down.  He could make him shut up.  But, he couldn’t make him not move his muscles.  He tried not to smile and made one big circle with his foot – just his foot, one foot.  When he looked toward the chair, Daddy was staring right back into his eyes.  Jay knew that Daddy could hear the words in his head, even though Jay hadn’t said them out loud.  Daddy zoomed into a volcano, like on tv.  It was a long, red monster that swooshed up in the sky and made hot things come down just like raindrops.

         Then, it was all quiet.  Jay was outside the window.  He was floating in the air.  It felt like he was sitting and his hands were holding onto the arms of the chair.  His feet were hanging over the grass.  He was looking through the glass, which was funny because this window was way high up.  He could see the people in the house, right past the back of the tv.  So, Jay knew he was floating like a spaceman.

         Jay could see the man hitting.  The belt was a long snake, flying in the air.  That boy jumped up and down on his tiptoes.  His mouth was opening and opening and closing and opening bigger.  His eyes were little, like he didn’t want to see no more.

         So, the floating Jay watched for him.  He stared at them, so he could see it all.  But, he wasn’t worried about those things going on.  Jay was floating in the air with cotton wrapped all around him.  It was soft and it made everything quiet.  It was a hush like he had never heard before – like sound had never been born.  Even the buzzing in his ears - that was always there - was gone.  Jay’s head felt very big and empty.

         Jay looked but could not hear.  The boy in the striped shirt jumped and danced, with his eyes closed.  He could not see but Jay knew that his ears were full of noise.

         Jay watched, floating in soft silence.