All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

  “I love you, sweetie. I love you. Pretty soon I’m going to go and be with your Grandpa Irv, but God willing, you’ll see me again, Wavonna. Not for a long time, but some day,” she said.

  For a while, Grandma slept, and Aunt Brenda went into the kitchen to make coffee, but she sat at the table and laid her head down on her arms to cry. When the big clock should have chimed three o’clock, it didn’t, because no one remembered to wind it. Aunt Brenda was asleep.

  “I wish I weren’t afraid. It seems so silly to be afraid, but it feels like driving to a new place and not knowing where I’m going,” Grandma said when she woke up. We were alone, so I held her hand.

  I thought about Mr. Arsenikos, our neighbor where we lived before Mama got arrested. When Mama and Uncle Sean used to fight, Mr. Arsenikos let me hide on his back porch. He called me his “stray cat,” and gave me bacon sandwiches. Sometimes they were just bacon grease spread on soft, white bread, but sometimes they had whole pieces of bacon on them. After I ate, he would sit out on the porch swing and tell me the names of stars. He used his cane to scratch them out in the dirt, so I could learn them. He was a sailor on a boat called USS San Diego, which is also a city in California. His boat sank in the Great War, and he knew which way to row the life raft toward land, because of the stars.

  On the chenille bedspread that was stretched over Grandma’s belly, I drew Ursa Minor, with his tail pointing down.

  “Ursa Minor is north tonight. Little Dipper,” I said, because Grandma called it that. I drew it in the palm of her hand, so she would remember. She nodded. By the time the sun came up, she was asleep again, and she didn’t wake up.

  Mr. Arsenikos said if you knew the constellations you would never get lost. You could always find your way home.

  * * *

  At Grandma’s funeral, the only real thing was Grandma in a fancy box. Everything else was pretend.

  Aunt Brenda pretended she wasn’t mad at Mama.

  “Oh, Val, I’m so glad to see you,” she said.

  Uncle Bill pretended, too. Before Mama came, he said, “Let’s get this over with and get her out of our lives,” but then he hugged her and said, “You look great, Val. You need to visit more often.”

  “I want us to get together for Christmas. We can’t just see each other for funerals,” Aunt Brenda said.

  “I know! We have to keep in touch. I can’t believe it’s been so long since we saw each other. I’ve missed you so much,” Mama said.

  Then she brought the new baby to me.

  “This is your little brother, Vonnie. This is Donal. Give him a kiss.”

  I didn’t know why Mama wanted me to kiss him, when she was the one who said the mouth was a dirty place. In case it was a trick, I only pretended to kiss him.

  After the funeral, Mama and Donal and I went to The Transitional Program.

  “Everything’s going to be different this time,” she said.

  The first two weeks at The Program, it was different. She was Good Mama and followed the rules. She washed our clothes and put them away in drawers in the new apartment. She cooked dinner. She didn’t hide in her bedroom and smoke her pipe like she did before she got arrested.

  Then one day she woke up Scary Mama instead of Good Mama, and I knew things weren’t going to be different. I never knew which Mama she would be when she woke up.

  I read the books she got from The Program. She was supposed to RECONNECT WITH YOUR FAMILY! That meant we were supposed to EAT DINNER AS A FAMILY, but every night, after Scary Mama fixed dinner, she sat on the back porch, smoking cigarettes and yelling through the screen door for me to eat. I wasn’t falling for that. I knew what could happen if she caught me eating.

  Even Good Mama could all of a sudden say, “Don’t eat that! That’s dirty!” and stick her fingers in my mouth to get the food out. Even Good Mama could pour burning Listerine on my tongue to get it clean. She always said, “Things can get into you that way.” Bad things could get in through your mouth and make you sick. Just like my germs could get on other things and make them dirty.

  When Megan the social worker came to check on us, Mama smiled so hard it made my stomach hurt. She wasn’t going to be Good Mama.

  “So, what are we cooking for dinner tonight?” Megan said.

  “Oh, we’re having spaghetti.” That’s what Mama always fixed. I had Grandma’s recipe book, but Mama wouldn’t let me cook. She didn’t want me to make a mess.

  “How is everything else?” Megan said. “You missed one of the group sessions this week.”

  “Oh, everything’s super. I just had a little headache, that’s all. Thanks for checking on us.” Mama smiled and smiled, but as soon as Megan left, she said, “Fucking busybody! It’s like a sitcom with a nosy neighbor always dropping in. Except you’d kill your neighbor if she dropped by the way they do on TV. Kill her! God, I don’t want to be on this stupid TV show anymore!”

  While Mama was yelling, Donal took her hairbrush out of her purse and put it in his mouth. Before I could take it away from him, Mama saw.

  Once when I was little, I put her pipe in my mouth, just to see what it was like, since she liked it so much. Boiling and bleach could get most things clean, but not the pipe. It was so dirty after I put it in my mouth that it had to be thrown away.

  Mama grabbed the hairbrush out of my hand and carried it into the kitchen. I knew she was coming back with Listerine or bleach, so I picked up Donal and carried him into the bedroom. Scary Mama dragged me out of the closet and spanked me until the brush left bloody spots on my legs, but I stopped her from putting Listerine in Donal’s mouth.

  After that, I took care of Donal. I fed him and bathed him, because Scary Mama, she would give baths so hot it made your skin bubble.

  The Program’s book also said, BE COMPLIANT ON YOUR MEDS, but Mama wasn’t.

  “How am I supposed to keep all these fucking pills straight?” she said, but when I tried to read the bottles, she smacked me. When she stopped taking her pills and started bringing home bottles of whiskey, she was Scary Mama all the time. One night, after the whiskey was finished, when Donal and I were supposed to be asleep, I heard Mama’s keys jingle. The apartment door opened and closed.

  I wasn’t afraid to be alone, but Donal was too small to take care of himself. He was standing in his crib, whimpering. We were both hungry, because Mama had thrown dinner in the trash can. She said the spaghetti was dirty and the milk was sour. Even Good Mama would throw dinner away, but sometimes Scary Mama did it to be mean.

  The spaghetti was sticky and still warm in the middle, and it was safer to eat it from the trash than have Mama see me eat it. After I ate, I took the jug of milk out of the trash and filled a baby bottle. Donal drank it all, and after the bottle was empty, I cleaned it and put it away, so Mama wouldn’t know.

  I never knew which was dirtier, my mouth or what I put in my mouth.

  Liam was like that, too. He was a bad thing that could get into you. He wasn’t supposed to touch me. He would get me dirty. When Mama was mad at him, she told me, “Don’t you call him daddy. He’s not your daddy. He’s not to be trusted.” She would make me say it: “Liam not to be trusted.”

  When she was mad at me, she said, “Don’t you touch him. Don’t even look at him.”

  I was dirtier than Liam, because I wasn’t supposed to touch anyone except Mama and Donal, and sometimes not even them. I broke the rule when I touched Grandma and Amy.

  The day after she left me alone with Donal, Mama called Dee and asked her to come visit. Sometimes Mama said Dee was her best friend. Sometimes she called her a dirty whore. They must have been friends that night, because Dee came and brought Mama a new pipe. They smoked and drank all night, and talked about Liam.

  “He gets inside me. Like an infection. All he has to do is look at me with those eyes. I could just drown in them.” The way Mama said it, I knew she wanted him to get inside her. She wanted him to infect her.

  “He has beautiful eyes. Frank Sinatra eyes. A
re you really going to leave him?” Dee said.

  “I don’t know. What should I do?” Mama was so drunk and high, she didn’t even care that she drank out of the whisky bottle after Dee.

  “He wants to see you. You owe him that much.”

  The next night, after I was in bed, Liam came. It was easy for me to listen to them talk, because my bed was against the other side of the wall.

  “I can’t be with you,” Mama said to him. “They won’t let me finish the program if I’m with you.”

  “The program? The fucking program? What are they going to do for you?”

  “I’m getting my secretarial certificate.”

  “Are you kidding me? Baby, I’m here to take care of you. When we got married, I said I’d take care of you. Pack up your shit and let’s go.”

  When Mama came into Donal’s and my room, she was laughing.

  “Wake up, babies. We’re going with Daddy.” Her hand was soft and floating when she laid it on my head. She didn’t even notice that I was dressed under the covers, ready to sneak out. Donal and I lay in the backseat while Liam drove us away. I watched the stars go by out the back window.

  First, we went to a motel, and Mama took the pills Liam gave her. For a few days, she was Happy Mama and said nice things.

  Then Liam took us to the farmhouse that looked down on the meadow.

  “Me and Butch got business to take care of,” he said.

  “Riding your bike and screwing around on me? That kind of business? I hate you. And I hate this fucking dump,” Mama said. She hated the warped floors, the rust stains in the bathtub, and the way the windows rattled when the wind blew.

  “Baby, don’t be that way.” Liam’s quiet voice meant something bad could happen.

  “You think you can just leave me here to wait for you? You can think again because I—”

  Mama looked surprised when Liam smacked her mouth, but that always happened. While she was crying, he crept down on her, with his hand on the back of her neck, and said soft things.

  Then he left, and Mama took off her pretty dress and lay in bed all day. Sad Mama didn’t care when Donal cried, and he cried a lot.

  “I’m so alone,” she said.

  Donal and I didn’t count.

  4

  WAVY

  July 1977

  The first day at the farmhouse, while Liam and Mama screamed at each other, Donal and I hid in the attic. The second day, when Butch came to bring Mama pills, Donal and I hid in the cellar. The third day, I walked across the meadow to see the windmill. I thought that day was my birthday, but I didn’t know, because the calendar at the farmhouse was from 1964.

  Nobody looked for me in the meadow. Not Donal, who wasn’t old enough to walk. Not Mama, who was sleeping while Donal cried. Not Liam, who had business to take care of.

  Nobody looked for me until the Giant came at sunset.

  I was walking back to the farmhouse to feed Donal, when a headlight bobbed up the road. I ran to where the meadow touched the road and stepped out to watch the motorcycle roar past. The Giant turned his head to look at me and his hair fluttered like starling wings. Gravel spit out of the wheels and then the motorcycle skidded and fell. The Giant tumbled off and the bike slid into the meadow, still rumbling, its tires spinning.

  When I got to him, the Giant was lying in the road with his arms and legs spread out. I don’t know why I wasn’t afraid. Maybe because he was so big. Bigger than everyone who made me feel small. Maybe because the sky was purple-blue-red-orange and the moon was a tiny sliver of fingernail. I squatted beside him and touched his shoulder, where his black T-shirt was dusty. Three long scratches ran down his left arm and dripped blood on the road.

  He opened his eyes and whispered, “Sweet Jesus. Are you real?”

  I nodded. It was safer than talking. Words were complicated and you had to open your mouth. Things could get in you that way, too.

  The Giant sat up. He cupped a hand under his elbow and winced.

  “Where did you come from?” he said.

  I pointed toward the farmhouse.

  “You’re not an angel?”

  I shook my head.

  He had to let go of his elbow to get up on his knees. Air hissed out between his teeth and his arm hung down limp. The Giant needed me, the way Donal did. That made me brave enough not to run away when he laid his hand on my head.

  “You got leaves in your hair,” he said.

  He picked them out with his big, shaky hand. When he looked at me, I looked back. His eyes were so soft, I was sure he wouldn’t get inside me like an infection. Not like Liam and his hard blue eyes.

  Silly to think I could help a giant, but I put my arm around him, and he leaned on me. Quick, so he wouldn’t catch me, I breathed him in. His oily hair smelled of mint and dirt and blood. Then he got on his feet, and I put my face close to his T-shirt to fill my nose with the rest of him. Sweat and gasoline and something delicious: bacon. Together, we shuffled toward the bike, because his ankle was hurt, too.

  “Can you turn it off, get the key out?” the Giant said.

  On the end of the key chain swung a little silver skull. He didn’t have a hand to take it, so I tucked it into his jeans pocket. His belt buckle was big and silver with three cloudy-red stones. Like Orion’s belt.

  With his hand on my shoulder, we walked up the road to the house. He talked the whole way. Grandma talked too much, afraid of quiet, but he wasn’t. The talking was for me, to make me feel safe.

  The Giant told me about the bike. A Panhead. Seventy-four cubic inches. Custom paint job. Probably fucked all to shit. He said I surprised him, standing in the meadow with my hair blowing. Like a fairy, he said.

  When I touched the big tattoo on his arm, he told me about it. Horseshoe, lucky clover.

  “I tell you, I’m not feeling like a lucky motherfucker today,” he said.

  He asked me if I’d seen foxes in the meadow, but asking was only to leave a quiet space for me to say something if I wanted. At the stone steps that went up from the road to the house, he sat down, holding his arm tight and breathing hard.

  “Can you go call somebody for me?” he said.

  The phone was on the kitchen wall. I knew how it worked, but I never used it. You can’t smell people on the other end of phones. And ears are openings for things to get in you.

  Blood ran out of the Giant’s head and his T-shirt drank it up. Something white that I thought was a bone poked out of his arm. I nodded. He told me the numbers. Then he wrote them out with his finger on my arm in streaks of blood.

  “Do you know your numbers?” He thought I couldn’t read, because I was small.

  To show him I understood, I put my hand up to my ear to make a pretend phone. Then I thought of a problem.

  “You?” I said.

  “I’m Kellen. Jesse Joe Kellen.”

  I started to go, but he said, “Wait. What’s your name?”

  I’d never said it before. I tried it once without sound to see how it felt in my mouth. Then with breath: “Wavonna.”

  “You go call for me, Way-vonna. Tell ’em what happened.”

  I ran up to the house and dialed with a shaky finger, turning the little circle and waiting for it to chatter back around after each number. Ring, ring, then click and someone breathing.

  “Who is this?” Liam said. A cold shiver went all over me. Liam not to be trusted. “Who the fuck is this?”

  My throat felt so tight, I didn’t know how the words would get out. I swallowed them down, over and over, until they finally came out.

  “His bike wrecked. Kellen.” Saying his name, I knew the Giant was worth the danger of Liam talking in my ear.

  “Vonnie? Is that you? Where the fuck is Val?”

  “Sleeping. Kellen wrecked. On his bike.” The words hurt my throat, like a cracker going down the wrong way.

  “Goddamn, I’m coming. I’ll send someone.”

  “Fast. He’s bleeding.”

  I hung up, grabbed t
he dish towel, and ran back to the Giant. Kellen. The sun had gone down while I was inside, so he was a shadow and my dress flashed white in the moonlight.

  “You called?” he said.

  I nodded. As gentle as I could be, I wrapped the towel around his arm. Blood soaked through the towel and dribbled into my hand. I crouched in front of him, watching his eyes go far away. He was getting lost.

  “Kellen.” I put my hand on his cheek and brought him back to me. When I pointed up to the North, he turned his head to look. “Cassiopeia. Andromeda. Perseus. Cepheus. Cygnus. Ursa Minor.”

  With the sun gone, we could see all the stars, and the planets, too. Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, Mars, like stairs from the moon down to the meadow. I kept naming them until I heard a car coming up the road.

  After Liam and Butch took Kellen away, I thought about how he left spaces for me when he talked. If I saw him again, I decided I might put words in those spaces.

  5

  KELLEN

  August–October 1977

  I woulda gone the next day to see the girl in the meadow, but the bike wreck about turned me into hamburger. I ended up with a concussion, a dislocated shoulder, three busted ribs, a twisted ankle, and my arm broken in two places with the bone poking out. After I spent a week in the hospital, it was another two months before I could do any work for Liam. Two months cooling my heels at Cutcheon’s Small Engine. The old man was decent to me and I liked the work. You spend the day putting engines together, you go home feeling like you done something worthwhile.

  Once I was healed up enough to be any use in a fight, I did a few runs for Liam. Me and Butch took this slicked up Monte Carlo to Des Moines, trunk full of meth. Good money.

  The summer was near gone before I made it back up to the farmhouse. Nobody answered when I knocked, but the door was unlocked. Soon as I walked in, the stink of dirty dishes hit me. The kitchen sink was full of them, with flies buzzing on rotten food. All these bowls and glasses with mold growing in the bottoms.