Gypsy Davey (3 page)

Davey looked at her for only a second. He put the bottle down with a bump, picked up the tweezers, and starting playing Operation more maniacally than ever. His hand shook spastically, setting off the buzzer again and again until it became an almost unbroken line of buzz. But he continued on, as if he were doing it on purpose.

“I can't
stand
that sound anymore!” Joanne yelled. She yelled not at Davey, but at Lois. Joanne stared at Lois, who stood with a wounded, confused face looking down at Davey, who stared at Operation.

Finally Joanne stormed off to her room, nothing but the electronic game noise, the failure alarm, behind her. That sound hung in her head all night as she tried to sleep. It sounded, after a while, just like the cicada buzz chasing her in the summer heat.

In the morning, before anyone woke up, Joanne pried the back panel off the Operation game and snipped every wire she could find with her nail clippers. She carefully replaced the panel and went back to bed.

When she came home from school that afternoon, Joanna found the game had joined the rest of the discarded games on the floor in front of the TV, and Davey was glued to cartoons. She dropped her coat, went up to him from behind and sat. They sat together flat bottomed on the floor, Joanne's legs running out alongside his, her arms wrapped around him, hands clasped over his chest.

“Sorry, Dave,” she said. He nodded without turning, though he hadn't a clue. Joanne had started the whole Operation thing without asking him, and had ended it the same way. She
was
sorry. But as he leaned back and settled into her, she also felt a little rush of power, of control over the chaos that was this house. That she
wasn't
sorry for.

But I hardly ever see
him anyway my dad is the one who changes me more than anybody else can change me and I don't know why 'cause he really doesn't know me very well or at least I don't know him.

His name is Pete. Sneaky Pete is what my mother calls him and I guess that's true enough since he shows up without telling anybody and without permission even though he's supposed to have some kind of permission if he wants to come and see me and Jo. But he doesn't bother anybody and he's always gone by the time Ma comes home since he always knows when to come when she's not here. He never does anything bad to us kids or to Ma neither and in fact leaves us all presents including perfume for Ma so I think the thing is not so much that he's here that makes her so mean but that he isn't here.

Now you take good care of Ol' Lois for me, okay, son? he says every single time I see him. Life and me ain't been all too kind to your poor ma, but I still love her and wouldn't want nothin' to ever harm her. And she's very harmable, you know.

So is what I say because I can't think of any reason not to say it. Why don't you stay here and take care of her yourself and take care of everybody else while you're at it? And Sneaky Pete laughs and plays with his gray whiskers with his long long fingers that wear all the giant gold rings with horns and skulls and goats and the one pinky ring with the coin in the middle of it. He's real skinny and the rings slide up and down his fingers and he twirls them and turns them right all the time when he talks.

Because I can't is about all he can tell me. I can't take care of Lois and she can't take care of me, so all we can do is cross our fingers and hope that somebody we love is going to look after both of us. And the way I see it Davey, that somebody around here should be you. Look at you, you big strappin' sonofabitch. You must be a foot taller than your old man already.

Made me feel big every time he came around. Not so much the thing about the tallness since I'm a foot taller than pretty much
everybody
since last year but the whole man thing and he said the things he said in a soft voice like a flute
only deeper. Don't listen to him don't look in his eagle eyes for more than a second was what Ma always told me because that nasty old Sneaky Pete is a snake charmer who knows what each and every person needs to hear and he tells it to them like a song. But then she cries when I tell her that he was here when she wasn't.

He knew about
me
that much was for true. He gave me my bike which after everything changed me more than anything. It gave me the other kind of me the one I like better. There's the kind of me that stays home or sits in school and doesn't say much out loud but goes on and on in here in the head without even stopping for a single little mental breath. The kind of me that makes me nervous. The kind of me that makes me feel like a fish in the sky trying to fly or a bird in the water. Only the other kind of me the one that I think Dad knew about somehow I don't know how but after all he's Sneaky Pete who knows everything so that's how he knew but the kind of me that I can be on the bike. That talks a whole different way and doesn't have the heavy beating heart that anyone can see thumping in my bony chest if I ever take my shirt off in front of people which so I never do. But instead the me that works perfectly in rhythm with the oily
ch-ch-ch
of the eighteen-speed tiger-paw mountain bike that takes me as far as I want over all and every terrain snow rocks curb or mud with no problem in total control. It's a control machine.

I can't hardly say three straight words out loud because of the so many millions I got flying around inside playing like a racquetball game in my skull so loud and so fast and so every which direction at once that I can't even try to talk over it. Like no one word or thought is more or less important than the others so there ain't no order and they all just climb over each other to get out all at the same time. And the more all happens to me inside the less I can say it out. The bike though the bike makes it all work like shifting gears and pushing the pedals left right left right and before you know it I'm where I want to be doing what I want to do and it makes a lot more sense and is a lot quieter.

Nothing like exercise for the head, boy, Sneaky Pete said like he knew all about my head when he wheeled the bike into my bedroom last time. Middle of the night like spook Santa Claus he came in and left it right there against the footboard kissed me on the ear and was gone again before I was even through twisting the sleeps out of my eyes. And Gary says hi, he said as he slipped away. Gary's my brother who ran away to live with Dad and then hit some old woman in the head because she had something he wanted and who now lives in jail and who we never hear from which is okay with me.

He's a great guy my dad. He lives in Florida.

There were just those days
. Those days when she quit and ran and didn't care much what it looked like to the neighbors or to Joanne or to any damn body else who wanted to look at what Lois was doing with herself and her responsibilities. Flight. Was all.

And usually Davey was no trouble, no trouble to nobody. That was Davey. “Okay Davey” Joanne would call him, practically spitting it in his face when she saw him sitting for it, just taking and taking and taking whatever crap it was that Lois dished up on him. Lois was peeling out again, leaving Davey, all five years of him, in a cloud of her dust. “I'm going out now, Davey,” Lois said. “Okay,” Davey said. “Make yourself a sandwich for supper,” Lois said. “Okay,” Davey said.

Joanne opened up Davey's supper sandwich, which sat
on the table long after their mother had returned. She'd told him to make the sandwich, but eating it was his own option. Lois remained barricaded in her room, talking on the phone, alternately giggling like a schoolgirl and crying like a Siamese cat, after a long afternoon out
there
. The sandwich Davey made for himself had one slice of bologna in it, dry. “Okay Davey, Okay Davey,” Joanne snapped at him as she flung the sandwich in the bucket. “You don't have to just sit there and
take
everything, y'know, Davey. If you want a decent supper, then you can say something else besides ‘okay.' ”

“What should I say, Jo?”

Joanne walked up and pinched Davey's lean upper arm, twisting as much flesh as she could grip between her thumb and fingernails. “Wake up,” she yelled. “Snap out of it, will you? Wake up.”

He didn't acknowledge any pain. “Is that what I should say?” he asked placidly.

Lois came out of her room and walked toward the kitchen. All conversation stopped as Joanne walked first to the refrigerator, then to the stove, and started scrambling an egg for Davey.

The next day, as Lois was leaving, Joanne's words still hung in Davey's head. “Where are you goin'?” Davey shocked his mother, as if his were a strange voice coming out of the walls rather than out of the little boy who sat cross-legged
on the living-room rug. She dropped her pocketbook on the bare floor by the front door, sending keys, makeup, change, Doublemint gum, and Salem cigarettes scattering across the hardwood. She crouched down to collect it in her waist-length rabbit coat, and Davey scurried over to help her.

He asked her again, as they stooped nose to nose, “Where are you goin'?”

It was another one of those days. “I'm goin' where the action is,” she said.

“Will you take me with you?” he said.

Again Lois was stunned, but this time not scared. Her stomach was fluttery with confusion, with a gentle spark of weird warm excitement, as she looked into the bottomlessness of Davey's pale green eyes. Like a girl, like she'd been waiting so long, and she'd finally been asked to get up and dance.

She did so love Davey, as much as she could.

“It's really nice there, Davey. It really is a nice place, so many nice people, and fun.”

“I wanna buy
my man here a ginger ale, Victor,” Lois said as she first gave Davey a boost onto the corner bar stool, then took the one next to him. Davey shied from the big neon Löwenbräu sign that blinked off and on beside him face.

“You got it, babe,” Victor said as he pulled out the black
mini garden hose and squirted a glass full. Then he yanked the cap off a long-neck Budweiser and slid it to Lois without her asking. “Oh,” she said, sounding as if she were surprised by the thought of paying. She started pawing clumsily around her purse.

“Don't worry about it, sweetheart,” Victor said, reaching over the bar and patting her hand. “It's all right.”

“You see, I told you, Davey. There are just the nicest people here,” Lois said. “Victor here is the best of the lot, of course, but there are some pretty powerful figures like to hang out here as well. This is the kind of place, Davey, where a person could meet big lawyers, who come in from the courthouse right down the block, or city officials, they like to come here too, or doctors, Davey, a lot of doctors like to come in here from the city hospital because it's right next door practically. Exciting, don'tcha think?” Lois leaned sideways to hug Davey close for a second, and Davey nearly slipped off the stool leaning into her.

“Yo, Lo, how 'bout a go?” asked a tall skinny man with a black ski hat resting way up on the crown of his head. He had a stubble and a salt-and-pepper mustache that grew down over his lip like a walrus's. As he spoke he dangled two wiggling fingers, like tiny legs dancing.

“Oh, I don't know, Jerome. I'm gonna have to ask my escort here if it's all right.”

“Oh, whoo whoo,” Jerome laughed. “I didn't even see the little feller.”

“Davey, can I? Do you mind?” Lois said. She thought all this was cute, as she held his hand between her two, pleading. But her mind was already on the dance floor, where Willie Nelson's voice was filling the place with “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.” “Oh, thank you, sweetie,” she said as she kissed his cheek, even though his only response had been to make his eyes even bigger and wider than usual.

As Lois led the way out to the dance floor, Jerome leaned into Davey, getting right up close to his face with a red-eyed grin. “We just might have to take this outside, pardner,” Jerome said, making two bony fists and shaking them theatrically beside his cheeks. Lois had turned to watch, and was laughing, thinking it was great fun all around, not noticing how Davey was pulling farther and farther back from Jerome, into the Löwenbräu sign, turning rigid with fear. She just never saw it. She'd lost the thread again.

Victor leaned out over the bar,
way
over this time. He reached out and with his great big hand grabbed Jerome's entire face. He squeezed that face like he was palming a softball as he talked.

“It's not funny,” Victor growled before he pushed Jerome's head straight back, sending him stumbling toward the dance floor. Lois took Jerome's hand as he started pulling her along.
Now she looked a bit concerned. “I'll be right back, Davey,” she called. “Now, Vic, you take care of my boy while I'm gone. Anything he wants, understand. He's the king.” And she was gone, bobbing in the small sea of gently rotating bodies.

Victor put his hands flat on the bar and looked at Davey, sizing him up. Davey stared likewise back.

“I like your mother, kid. She's a good egg. Everybody likes her. But y'know, what's not to like, right? She don't make no trouble, she don't drink too much, she's sweet as pie to everybody else. She, y'know, she brightens up the place.”

Davey didn't say anything, didn't nod, didn't grunt. Just did the round-eye, exaggerated in the flashing and unflashing neon.

“But I don't know really about who she's gonna meet in here, y'know the politicians and doctors and all that. I mean, we got 'em, a course, but they ain't what you'd call the grade-A kind if you know what I mean. Hacks, Flacks, and Quacks, is what I like to call 'em. Y'know, mostly just a batch of bulbous broke-downs that have been at what they been at for way on too long.” He paused for some kind of reaction from Davey that simply wasn't forthcoming. “But good people. A course. All good people.”