A Hole in the Universe (41 page)

Her mother clung to the side of the bed, eyes widening as she swayed back and forth. “Too far down, ’s too deep.” Her voice slurred with fearful wonder before she sagged back against the wall.

Jada slipped the statues into her pocket. She’d sell one to Bruce over on Alston Street, then go buy groceries. He usually took whatever her mother brought in. He wasn’t fussy because he didn’t pay much. Jada had already decided to keep the statue of the girl and the dog. Leonardo used to look up at her like that. Yesterday she’d gone by a yard where a black puppy was tied to the clothesline. He squirmed and squealed trying to get to her until a young guy came out of the house and took him inside.

Out on the street, Inez’s sons were filling their pickup trucks with the last of her furniture. When they went back upstairs, Jada ran outside. Her eyes locked on the square brown house across the street. Her mother had been on the old lady the minute she came through the door, so maybe she didn’t know it was them. Maybe she’d only gotten a few bruises and now she was all right. Probably just too sore to come outside. She could still hear the
thud thud thud
of the old lady’s head hitting the steps. Maybe she’d just passed out for a while. Or maybe she was dead.

“Jada! Hey, Jada!” Thurman called from behind.

“Asshole,” she muttered, and walked faster. She was sick of him and everyone else in her shitty life. Last night she had called Uncle Bob to tell him about the baby and see if maybe he could talk his sister into rehab. Aunt Sue answered and said he wasn’t there. It felt like there was a wall around her, holding her in, stopping her no matter where she went or what she tried to do. She used to be able to take it. Getting in people’s faces used to be a rush, but not anymore. Everything sucked. The world felt heavy and slow, like a bad dream she couldn’t wake up from.

She’d forgotten what a freak Bruce was. She waited while he finished his call. She stood a head taller than Bruce, whose shiny white skin was like the wet underbelly of a fish. His bright-blue Hawaiian shirt was so much longer than his bicycle shorts that for a moment she’d thought the shirt was all he had on. He paced around the apartment, shouting into his cell phone to someone who had borrowed his car three weeks ago and still hadn’t returned it. She realized he was talking to an answering machine when he said, “Fuck!” every time the tape ended and he had to hit redial. If it wasn’t back by the end of the day, he was going to call the cops. “You got five hours, that’s all. Five fucking hours!” he screamed.

“It’s so beautiful here,” she said when he finally hung up. Everything was purple—curtains, furniture, the carpet. Even the walls. The television set was as big as a movie screen. When she’d come before, her mother had made her stay in the hallway. So far she had counted six long-haired white cats. Another had just crawled out from under the ruffled sofa skirt to slither its purring body between her legs. She picked up a purple glass clown from one of the tables. “Are these real diamonds?” she asked of the glittering eyes and buttons.

“Put it down! Put it down! Put it down!” Bruce cried, wide-eyed and pointing until she did. “You got something?” He held out his hand. She gave him the statue, and he peered at the base. “Hummel. Five bucks.”

“Five bucks! The last guy said . . . twenty-five.” Damn, for hesitating. Now the creep was laughing.

“You better go back fast before he changes his mind,” he said, handing it back.

“It’s too far. My ride, she’s gone now. C’mon, twenty.” She held it out, but he shook his head. “It’s a nice statue, it’s worth it.”

“Not to me it ain’t.”

“What, then?”

“Like I said, five.”

Her hand closed over the bulge in her pocket. Maybe for two he’d give her fifteen. “All right, fifteen,” she pressed, wanting to keep the one she liked.

“No. Get outta here.” He waved her off with both hands. “I don’t like doing business with kids, especially freaked-out crackheads.”

“I’m not a crackhead!”

“Yeah, right. I seen you here before with your friend there, that what’s-her-name Marbella rag.” He opened the door.

“Marvella. Yeah, well, she’s my mother.”

“Same difference.” He shoved her into the hall and slammed the door.

“Fuck you, you fucking fag!”

Jada sat at the last empty table. She told the Cambodian guy behind the counter that she’d order as soon as her friend came. She kept looking out at the street for that figment of her hunger. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was going to do, but if she didn’t eat something soon, she was going to be sick. Dizzied by the smell and sight of so much food—pizzas, subs, spaghetti and meatballs—she held on to the table to keep from toppling off the chair. Two men came in. She swallowed hard against her churning stomach. The older one had a limp. The younger man’s belly squashed over the counter as he placed his order.

“Hey!” the Cambodian called as Jada stared at the stained paper menu. “Hey, you! Girl! They need the table.”

“Okay. I’ll wait over here, then.” She stood by the counter, leaning against the wall to steady her wobbly legs.

“Steak and cheese,” the older man said.

“Make that two,” his companion said, then they sat at the table.

A few minutes later their subs appeared in the pickup window behind the counter. Jada couldn’t take her eyes off them. The Cambodian was writing down a phone order. The two men were talking. She edged closer along the counter. “You sick of waiting for your friend?” the Cambodian asked as he hung up the phone. She nodded.

“So, you gonna order?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know.” She peered up at the wall menu. “I’m still not sure. But the subs, they’re ready.” She pointed behind him, and he turned.

“Seventeen,” he called, placing them on the counter.

One in each fiercely tight hand, Jada was halfway out the door, running, before he managed to shout, Stop! Stop, as if she would, or could, as if anything mattered beyond the promise of this warm cheesy grease between her fingers.

Thurman was on her front step when she came down the street eating the second sub. Dyed orange hair stuck up from his head like waxed carrot tips. She wolfed down the rest before he could ask for some. She sat beside him and felt sick to her stomach, but not weak the way she had before. He said Polie was looking for her. He needed them to do a drop in Dearborn, a really big one. Polie and Feaster wouldn’t look right, but Thurman and Jada would look just like any other kids hanging in the park.

“Yeah, right.” The last thing on earth she looked like was some rich Muffy from Dearborn.

He slung his arm over her shoulder. “We’ll act like we’re on a date or something.”

“No fucking way.” She pushed him off.

“You have to. Your mother already said.”

“Let
her
go, then. Want one?” She gave him one of her mother’s cigarettes. Instead of eating, she’d been smoking like a fiend these last few days. She took a long drag, then tossed the burning match onto the dry grass. She watched the circle it burned. JumJum used to do that, even in the house. Her job used to be stamping out his matches. She’d get a buck for every one.

“Twenty each, that’s what Polie said.”

 

 

Two days had passed without a word from Mrs. Jukas. If they had kept her in the hospital, wouldn’t she have had someone call him by now? Maybe she was too sick to care about groceries on her porch. He couldn’t remember which doctor she was going to see or if she’d even told him. Dennis had her niece’s number in Michigan, but he wasn’t ready to talk to Dennis yet. At least not until he actually started working next Monday. Again last night the house had been dark, even during all the commotion. Earlier in the evening he had seen Jada and Thurman drive off in Feaster’s Navigator. When they returned, it was late. Marvella Fossum ran out and kept trying to climb inside with Polie and Feaster, making so much noise that the police came. One of them was the Jamaican cop Gordon had met his first week home. With the lights spinning on the curtains, he tried to talk himself into going out and telling them he was worried about Mrs. Jukas. But just as suddenly as it had started, Jada led her mother back inside and the police were leaving.

Twenty-five years ago, the biggest ruckus on Clover Street used to be Mr. Shire’s weekend binges. When he was especially bad, Mrs. Shire would lock all the doors, triggering Mr. Shire’s barrage of rocks banging off the dented aluminum siding until the police would finally come and talk Mrs. Shire into letting him in. Gordon folded the paper towel into a smaller and smaller square. No, the biggest commotion on Clover Street had been the morning the cruisers came for him.

He dialed Dennis’s number. No one would be home now. He’d leave a message about Mrs. Jukas. That way Dennis could handle it himself. Lisa answered and he stammered a moment, saying he was surprised, he thought she was at the lake. She had been, but Dennis had asked her to come home, had begged her. Their first appointment with the marriage counselor was tomorrow. Gordon squirmed, almost in real pain. He didn’t want to hear or be part of any of this, but Lisa continued. She’d already had one session herself but had been so insulted when the counselor called her an enabler that she almost got up and left. But it was true. She’d ignored the signs and looked the other way for years not because she loved Dennis so much that she was afraid of losing him, but because she didn’t love herself enough to do something about it.

“Now that I look back I can see what I was doing, but when you’re in the middle of it, it all seems . . . normal. Or at least I convinced myself it was. Every time I think of it, I’m just so disgusted with myself. Everyone must have known.” She gave a bitter little snort. “I mean, if you did, so did a lot of other people. But you were the only one who would tell me. The only one with enough courage.”

“No, that wasn’t it. I was mad.”

“Well, thank you, then. I’m glad you were.”

“I mean I was mad at Dennis, that’s why I told you.”

“Having it come from his big brother was a shock, a real wake-up call. He’s the one who’s always had to put your life back together, and here you are telling him he’s doing something wrong.”

He knew what she was trying to say, but he couldn’t help bristling. “I don’t know if you’ve heard yet or not,” he said with bruised dignity, “but I’ve got a new job, thanks to your father. I start Monday at the brewery. I’ll be working full-time.”

“Oh, Gordon!” Her voice broke. “I’m so happy for you. For all of us.”

As soon as he hung up, he realized he hadn’t said anything about Mrs. Jukas. Instead of calling back, he decided to go next door and look around more carefully. He had just gotten outside when his phone began to ring.

“Gordon?”

“Dennis!” He smiled, relieved to hear his brother’s voice. “Talk about mental tel—”

“What the fuck are you thinking, going to my father-in-law without asking me? Without even a phone call! What’s wrong with you? Don’t you get it? Don’t you know how things work?”

“I’m sorry. There was an ad. So I went, that’s all. Well, first I called.”

“You couldn’t call me? How ’bout a heads up? How ’bout some goddamn simple consideration for my situation here?”

“That’s why I couldn’t call you. I didn’t want to put you in a tight spot. I figured I’d just call and ask—”

“Yeah, and go right over my head, right? Like Dennis is on everyone’s shit list, so forget about him. Don’t even consider how he’ll feel.”

“No! No, Dennis, I swear. It wasn’t like that at all. In fact, I didn’t even think I’d get a job, much less get put through to Mr. Harrington.”

“You know, my whole life I’ve been living in your shadow. Always embarrassed, always afraid no matter what I said or did, the only thing people’d be thinking was, I wonder if he’s like his brother.”

“I’m sorry. You don’t know how sorry I am.”

“No, you’re not sorry. You’re a fuck-up, a serial fuck-up, and you don’t even know it.”

Dennis’s tirade continued unchallenged. A tide of seething anger rose in Gordon’s chest, then ebbed: how naive to think he could work at the brewery. Sooner or later he would offend or frighten someone, and the fallout would be so much worse than if he worked for a stranger. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to take it,” he managed to interrupt. “I’ll call Mr. Harrington—or you can if you want,” he added quickly. “You can tell him I don’t think I should because of the family connection.”

“I can’t do that! See? See the corner you’ve painted me into?” Dennis groaned.

 

 

No, he didn’t see, he thought, crossing the lawn. His brother was being obstinate. Whatever move Gordon made was bound to be the wrong one. Now more than ever he wished he could talk to Delores. She always understood the complexities of family life, which right now seemed far more trouble than they were worth. For the briefest of moments he regretted the things he’d said to her, then as quickly reminded himself of her terrible duplicity. He wished he were far away from here right now, with no one to think of but himself.

There were two more newspapers on Mrs. Jukas’s porch. Her mailbox lid stuck up over the catalogs jammed into it. He rang the bell, knocked on the door, then went around to the back of the house. On the top step the old metal milk crate still held the same three cans that it had for days. The wooden door rattled with his knock, and dust puffed out of the sagging screen. He leaned over the loose railing and looked in the window. Nervous as he was, he strained closer. If she walked into her kitchen right now and saw him, she’d have him arrested; no explanation would suffice. The cupboard doors above the stove were open. Cookies spilled onto the counter from a torn bag. There was a bottle of ginger ale on the table. This was nothing like the destruction in his own kitchen, but it didn’t look right, not at all the way the old woman would leave things. As he came down the steps, a glint in the dewy grass caught his eye. A key. He picked it up, then went back up to try it in the lock when he realized how stupid that was.