How High the Moon (43 page)

“Yeah,” Joey said. “And did that big bastard hit the deck hard!”

All of them were yukking it up good by then. Acting the whole scene out like they were the Three Stooges.

“Walking Doll. Was she okay?” I asked as Jack rocked side-to-side on the grass, fake-groaning and holding his wee-er.

“Well,” Jack said as he was getting to his feet, “she couldn’t have
been hurt that bad, because she was screaming like a banshee. Cussing Miller out while he lay there groaning, saying that he might as well have killed her mother with his bare hands, because so much of her died the day him and his friends raped her that she was good as dead anyway.”

The Jackson boys must have figured out that I didn’t know what
rape
meant, because Jack told me that it’s when a guy
makes
a girl do the Juicy Jitterbug, even when she doesn’t want to. Which made my stomach feel like it had the flu.

“Miller was getting on his feet by then,” Jack said, laughing less now. “Staggering, though, because the wind was still knocked out of him. And he said to Teddy, ‘What you got to be so self-righteous about, you little prick? Who picked us up after the game… after that drunk son of a bitch drove us into the snowbank? Huh? Seems to me it was
you
, Big Guy, who took us the rest of the way to the cabin, even though you knew damn well what we were up to, because we asked you if you wanted in on the action.’”

“What did Teddy say to that?” I asked, hoping Jack would say that Teddy knee-socked Miller in his wee-er again for being a liar.

“He didn’t say nothing we could hear. It was over then. Miller gave the whore one last warning, then he got in his car and drove away. Then Teddy sat down on the curb with that bawling whore. He even put his arm around her.”

“Yeah,” James added, “probably because he wanted to Juicy Jitterbug with her. But Teddy must’ve not had any money on him, because he walked back home, that whore with him, and he went inside. She waited in your yard until Teddy came out with some money.”

I didn’t know what he’d be paying for in advance, so I asked. The boys yukked it up good then, calling me stupid because I didn’t know that guys paid the Taxi Stand Ladies to do the Juicy Jitterbug with them.

I didn’t wait around to hear anything else they had to say. I just headed home, leaving the Jackson boys laughing behind me.

I never said a word to Teddy about what the Jacksons told me. Probably for the same reasons I didn’t tell him when Jack told me that he was nothing but a shit shoveler back when he worked for the Soo Line.

And Teddy never said a word to me about where the heart-shaped locket—just like Walking Doll’s, only gold—came from when he handed it to me a couple of weeks after the gala, saying only that maybe I’d want to put Ma’s picture in it when I got one.

I wanted to ask Teddy, lots of times, if he knew where the Taxi Stand Ladies had gone, but I couldn’t let myself do it. So I asked Pop. And all he said was, “Probably to do business elsewhere.” Boy, did that make me happy, because I knew exactly what kind of business they went off to do. They went off to open a bakery! And every time I passed the mailbox after that, I thought of Walking Doll baking one loaf of memory after another, and The Kenosha Kid selling it behind the counter, making sure to give every customer that came through the door their proper change.

I missed the
Taxi Stand Ladies after they left. The same way I missed Brenda during the two months she was gone.

Brenda sent me a letter, though, clear from Europe, saying that her and her ma were on a little vacation. She told me she was sorry I had to see such a thing on the catwalk. And sorry that she caused me to miss our big Sunshine Sisters number. She explained that sometimes, when people find themselves in a
predicament
they don’t know how to get out of, they lose faith in themselves and they start thinking that the world would be better off without them. She talked about making mistakes, and how we all make them. How that doesn’t make us bad, but it sure can make us sorry. Then she said that she figured out that most of the ones we make are the result of not being honest with ourselves about who we are, how we feel, and what we want in the first place. Then she thanked me for teaching her about those things, and for teaching her about hope.

It sure was a shocker, learning that Mrs. Bloom was poor as me and Teddy before she met the late Mr. Bloom. She never fibbed to him about where she came from, but maybe she should have, because he never let her forget it. Brenda said that’s why her ma worked so hard to get respected. So that when Brenda got married, her husband could never throw it in her face that she came to him with nothing, and that she was nothing without him.

But Brenda wasn’t thinking about getting married anymore. Instead, she was thinking about how she wanted to be a teacher. Not teaching kids how to be respectable, but teaching them reading and math, and things like that. She said Mrs. Bloom was going to hire managers for both of the theaters, and watch the baby while it was little, so Brenda could drive every day to Milwaukee to go to school.

When the Blooms got back to Mill Town, they didn’t go anyplace for a while. Brenda said that was because it was hard to show your face when you knew people were gossiping about you. So I told them both what Teddy did back when he was nothing but a shit shoveler for the Soo Line, after Ma left and our neighbors were talking about him. How Teddy would pull his shoulders back, lift his chin up, and out the door he’d go, keeping them perked and not letting them drop until he closed the door behind him at night and then, on the side, I showed Brenda what
I
used to do to them behind my back, just so she’d have a couple of options.

Whether it was because of the smarts I passed along to them from me and Teddy or not, the Blooms started going places again. And yep, people stared at them. And yep, people said Miller-mean things about them behind their backs—especially the Gaylors—but they went out anyway. And they kept going out until the gossip wound down like a clock somebody forgot to wind.

When Brenda’s baby came, she named him Daniel, which she told me meant “God is my judge.” I told her that was a real nice name, but that maybe she should have looked for a name that meant “Jesus is my judge.” You know, just in case the little guy ended up having a few afflictions, as I knew he would the second Brenda lowered him into my propped-with-a-pillow arms and I saw his little lightbulb-shaped noggin.

I had to give Jolene Jackson my plastic purse in trade for an address where I could reach Johnny. In my letter, I told him that I thought he should know that Brenda had a baby with a lightbulb-shaped
head, because I knew that he’d never want a kid of his to wonder what he did that was so bad that his dad didn’t want to stick around.

Two weeks later, while I was walking water out to Poochie, Dumbo Doug’s car pulled up in front of the Jacksons, and Johnny got out. I dropped the pitcher and darted across the street. “Johnny!” I yelled.

He picked me up and gave me a potato-sack shake. He still looked like James Dean—which made me feel both happy and sad. Happy because Johnny was still the same. But sad, too, because James Dean was dead, and I was reminded of how I cried for two days when I heard.

“I knew you’d come back, Johnny,” I said.

Johnny asked how I was, and he asked about Brenda and Daniel. Then he asked me where my little friend was.

“You mean Charlie?” I asked, and Johnny nodded.

“Oh, Charlie’s not my friend,” I told him. “He’s my brother.”

And I wasn’t even telling a fib. Because as it turned out, the day that Teddy and Miss Tuckle and Mrs. Fry went off together and Teddy came back with our pre-gala celebration gifts, they’d gone to see the good judge Miss Tuckle knew at the courthouse. And Mrs. Fry, she took papers she got from her daughter stamped legal, giving Mrs. Fry
custody
of Charlie, just as Charlie’s dad had given it to her before he went to the clink. That same day, Mrs. Fry had a will drawn up, saying that after she was called Home, Teddy would have
custody
of Charlie.

Mrs. Fry, she died in her sleep two days before Christmas. Teddy’s the one who found her, after Charlie showed up at our place hungry because it was after ten o’clock and she still hadn’t gotten up to make breakfast.

Teddy and Miss Tuckle and Charlie cried at her funeral. But I waited to cry later, because I was singing a funeral song for her.
“Amazing Grace.” A cappella. And I wanted to sing it good, because it was Mrs. Fry’s parting gift.

After the funeral, Teddy brought me and Charlie home and sat us down in the Starlight seats, and he got out Charlie’s papers. The same ones he had for me. He handed them to Charlie, and I told him not to bother, because if I couldn’t read them, then for sure Charlie wasn’t going to be able to. So while Teddy was thinking up how to explain them, I just jumped in and told Charlie that from now on, he was going to have two dads, just like Jesus. His clink-dad, who he’d see when he got to be a man, and Teddy, the dad he’d see every day.

Charlie didn’t say anything after I told him. But he didn’t have to. I could tell from his face that he felt just like I did when Johnny brought me the seats from the Starlight Theater. Like he’d just been given something magical.

Teddy and me
are walking toward home, the neighborhood so quiet that I can hear the clicks from my shoes as we glide out from under one streetlight beam into another.

I’m the one who bugged Teddy to go for the walk, even though we have Ma’s Hudson to ride in if we need to go somewhere in particular. Teddy asked Charlie if he wanted to come along, too, but Charlie said he wanted to stay home and play piano instead. Just like we’d rehearsed.

Me and Charlie and Miss Tuckle choreographed the whole thing. I’m keeping Teddy gone for one hour so that Miss Tuckle can reheat the dinner she brought over, and Charlie can hang the decorations we made. All because we’re going to have a celebration. From now on, Teddy’s not going to be shoveling anything anymore. He’s going to be a foreman at The Hanging Hoof. The boss man of the guys in his department. He’s going to make more money, too, which is a good thing, because man can that Charlie eat!

“You’ve been awfully quiet tonight,” Teddy says when we’re still a few blocks from home.

“I was just thinking about everything that happened over the last few months,” I said.

Teddy nods. “A lot has changed, hasn’t it?”

“Sure has, Teddy.”

I see a rock on the sidewalk, sitting in its own shadow, and I give it a little kick. I think about how hungry I am. Then I think about how I hope Miss Tuckle has the food done when we get back. And the next thing you know, I’m thinking about the sharp bump I felt on my gums this morning. So I stop. “I’m getting a new tooth, Teddy. See?” I turn toward the light and pull my top lip up. I use my tongue to point it out for him.

“Oh yeah,” Teddy says. “That’s a canine tooth.”

I know what canines are, so I say to Teddy, “To bite Poochie with?” Teddy laughs, so I add, “I’m only kidding, Teddy. Poochie’s not being so afflictedly mean anymore. Just like me. He even let me give him a pat on the head yesterday, even though he ducked the first couple times I tried.”

We take a few more steps, then I say, “Hey, Teddy. Remember when you yanked my first tooth?”

Teddy smiles. “You carried it in your cheek for three days. I felt so bad.”

“I know,” I say. “You said that you should have known better. That there’s some things in life that just hurt too much when you’re forced to let go of them before you’re ready. So I asked you what things, because I was scared you were going to try yanking something else out of my head.”

Teddy laughs softly.

I give the rock another little kick. “I remember what your answer was, too,” I said. “You said, ‘Things like hope… love… childhood.’ Remember that?”

“Yes,” Teddy says.

“When do you think I’m going to lose those things, Teddy?”

“Probably never, Teaspoon. Probably never.”

I start humming as I kick the rock a little father. I don’t realize that I’ve gotten so far ahead of Teddy until I look back. I step under a streetlight beam and pretend it’s my stage light, singing a bit of “How High the Moon” while I wait for Teddy to catch up.

Teddy smiles wider and brings up the gala. He tells me all over again how he never had a prouder moment in his life than he had that night. And that everybody, Miss Simon and Mrs. Carlton, Mr. Morgan—everybody—felt the same. He says, “You’d just learned that your ma had left, not even saying good-bye or asking if you were going with her… you’d missed your Sunshine Sisters performance… and you’d just witnessed such an awful scene on the catwalk. Yet…”

And then I’m remembering it, too—just like I have, probably one time for every star in the Starlight Theater—as I kick the rock again and run ahead after it.

After the Sunshine Sisters
left the stage, I uncurled my hands, which were stiff like frozen, and put them on the sill. I looked at the empty stage, the little star on my bracelet falling limp against my arm.