I'm with Stupid (20 page)

My mother walks in. Her long black coat is open, revealing a preppy light blue sweater with pearl buttons. She is followed by my brother, whose baseball cap with the frayed bill is pulled low over his eyes, and my father, on crutches. He peers at me from behind his reading glasses. “Who was that that let us in?” my mother asks and immediately wrinkles up her nose. “It smells like a cigarette in here. Were you smoking cigarettes?” I remind her that I don’t smoke. I ramble that I had a party last night (lie). Some girl lit a cigarette before I could stop her (lie again). I ask what they are doing here. My mother answers for the group: “You knew we were coming today.” No I did not. “No I didn’t,” I respond as if it mattered at this point. “You did,” she confirms. “Your dad, who should be resting”—she gives him a look—“wanted to see the new apartment. You’ve been here a month now.” My mother reminds me that we spoke on the phone about this. She hands me a heavy plastic bag. Don’t I remember talking about the cans of soup? As soon as she says soup I recall the day of the conversation. We were talking while I was getting the bad news about William’s arrival. We made plans without my realizing it. I put away the bag and tell her that it must have slipped my mind. “So how is it living all alone?” she inquires and takes off her coat.

The bathroom door opens and William comes out wearing the yellow tracksuit. He’s a banana. Everyone turns. He hands me my cigarette pack. “You left your cigarettes in the bathroom,” he says. “Here you go.” I gingerly hold the box between two fingers and glance at my mother. I quickly explain that the cigarettes are not mine. “Are you sure?” William asks. “They look like the ones you were smoking last night.”

I shake my head wildly: “You got me mixed up with someone else, friend. I don’t smoke. Everyone knows that.” I shrug in my mother’s direction. This is such a big misunderstanding! William is mystified. He’s a mystified rotten banana. “They do?” he asks. I face my mother and start rambling out of nervousness. “It was a dark night,” I offer. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He had too much punch.”

“What kind of a party did you host?” my mother asks. “You turned off all the lights?” She looks at William: “And who are you?”

William offers his hand. “I’m Willy Johnson, your daughter’s boyfriend.”

My mother’s eyes widen. “Boyfriend?” she repeats and glances at me. “I had no idea.”

I shake my head no. No, I don’t have a boyfriend, not on your life.

My father looks to my brother. “Willy Johnson?” I hear him repeat. William approaches my father, offers his hand, and explains that all his friends call him Willy. My amused father accepts the challenge. “What do your enemies call you?” he asks.

William looks confused. He’s about to say something else but my mother won’t let him. She has her own agenda. “Did you sleep here last night?” she asks him after looking around the room. I try to get in there before it’s too late. “I live here,” William clarifies. Shit. It’s too late. My mother looks appalled. I am a virgin after all. Besides, as mentioned, people in my family get married. They don’t live together in sin. She takes me in with eyes so cold I begin to wonder if there are icicles on the tip of my nose. In fact, I’m almost positive I have freezer burn and need to be thrown out with the rotten banana to my right.

My brother chuckles under the hat: “I knew you smoked,” he quietly says.

My mother moves into the living room. She confronts the unmade bed as if it were the defendant in a murder case. “He lives here?” she repeats. I need to step in—I’m the lead witness . . . a very chilly lead witness.

“No he doesn’t live here,” I start. “Not here. He lives, but not here. Why would he live here when he lives so far away? This is my friend from South Africa. When he said boyfriend he meant friend. Those words are synonymous in his home country. He came to visit for just a few days. He’s on a whirlwind tour sponsored in part by a local college. It’s a cultural exchange program. He’s leaving on Saturday . . .” My father reminds me that today is Saturday. I nod, I can’t stop myself. When I’m nervous (read: trying to avoid getting busted for something) I have a tendency to ramble. The words pour out like vomit as I free-associate like some bad beat poet. “He’s leaving Sunday morning, bright and early,” I explain, mostly for my mother’s benefit. “He’s off to stay with another platonic acquaintance to study his domestic habits.” I look over at William, widen my eyes, then rapidly blink several times. I’m hoping he’ll hop the hell aboard and work with me here. William looks at my mother and smiles. All is not lost. William’s smile is irresistible.

“Where’s he been sleeping then,” my mother suspiciously challenges.

I point to the couch. Right there. Where else? “In the bathroom!” William announces at the top of his lungs.

“In the bathroom?” my dismayed mother repeats. I lean up against the kitchen table. I look at my father on crutches and blurt that William has a bad leg. He has more room to stretch out in the tub. William looks from my mother to me and back again. My mother just stares ahead. I start counting the veins in her neck. One, two, three, four . . . there sure are a lot of them. William notices her expression and begins to nod, like he finally understands. “I’m leaving tomorrow and I sleep in the bathroom,” he awkwardly says. “And I have a bad leg.” He walks over to me, faking a limp, and takes the pack of cigarettes out of my hand.

My father studies William. “Is he mocking me?” he asks Henryk.

“This is my pack”—William waves the box—“I just remembered all about that.”

“You forgot you smoked?” my father challenges. I can tell he believes none of the crap we are shoveling. William makes a display of opening the pack and putting a cigarette between his lips. “Care for one?” he asks my father, holding it out tentatively. “They’re delicious. I’m addicted to the richness.”

“Maybe later,” my father answers.

Henryk steps forward. He’ll take one. My mother turns around, slaps him on the head, and tells him his days are numbered. He straightens his hat and tells her he was just kidding. I take the opportunity to warn William not to light the cigarette, knowing he would choke if he did. William is grateful. He takes it out of his mouth. I wish he’d take his tongue out.

“Good idea,” William mumbles.

My father slowly makes his way to the cabinets over the sink and opens one. Thank God I didn’t hide William in there. “So this is the apartment,” he says, beginning the inspection. One of my
DON’T CALL RICHARD
warnings falls out. I race over and pick it up off the floor. “How much did you say you’re paying for this place?” he asks as I return the sign to the shelf piled with dishes. I know my father knows how much I’m paying and I remind him of this. He just wants the opportunity to tell me it costs too much. According to him, everything in America costs too much. He responds that I should have haggled over the price.
“Nie umiesz handlowac´?”
he asks in Polish. I tell him the price was fixed. He offers that I should know better and turns on the faucet full blast. Thank God I didn’t stuff William in there. He proceeds to explain that he gets discounts all the time. Yeah, discounts of the five-finger variety.

My hot-blooded mother gestures in Henryk’s direction: “Don’t listen,” she orders. She puts her hand to her cheek: “You should be ashamed of yourself, Bronek,” she scolds. “I don’t care what you do anymore,” she dismissively concludes. “Do what you want. And have a seat instead of walking around.”

My father continues doing what he wants, which in this case means peeking into corners and testing hinges. He looks down at the hardwood floor, points to a spot, and tells Henryk to jump up and down on it. He wants to see something about those floorboards. Henryk walks over and jumps. Thank God I didn’t bury William under the floorboards. I still can, though. After they leave. The beating of his heart won’t bother me a bit. I’ll dance the rumba to it. As Henryk jumps my father concentrates on the sound. “They should fix that for you,” he says once Henryk stops jumping. “It squeaks.” I tell him it doesn’t bother me. I don’t spend evenings jumping up and down on the floorboards. “You should have them spend the money to fix it,” he persists. I tell him I’ll call to get it fixed even though I’ll never do any such thing; he is momentarily appeased.

He next notices William’s heap of New York City souvenirs, some of which, including the shot glasses and a beer mug with a red apple on it, have been displayed on the kitchen counter. He moves one of the glasses across the counter and asks why I have all these knickknacks. My mother glances over. “Oh, that’s from the party,” she confidently answers. I nod. Very good. William clarifies: Those are his keepsakes; he loves New York. My father picks up the beer mug and turns it over, probably looking for a price tag, as my mother dismissively tells William to buy himself one of those
I LOVE NEW YORK
T-shirts because they’re trendy, everyone’s got them. William looks at me; I shake my head no.

I proceed to apologize to my parents for the state of my apartment. I don’t have any food, much less kitchen chairs (I have only one of those). It’s just not a good time to be playing hostess.

An overeager William offers to get provisions. My mother refuses, saying they already ate. He hasn’t won her over. Henryk takes a seat on the floor and reminds her that he hasn’t eaten. My mother reminds him that he should have eaten when he was given food; instead he’s always going off to McDonald’s filling his body with junk. I catch William’s eye. I ask if he’ll run down to that store on the corner of the block and get a coffee cake or chips or something—anything.

“Of course,” he says. “Pleasure.”

I take out my wallet and hand him a ten-dollar bill and my keys. I tell him to just stroll down to the corner store, pick out something, and please, please take his time. “I’ll hurry back,” he says and leaves. Yes, hurry back. You read my mind, mind reader.

“This is quite a shock,” my mother says as soon as he’s gone. “This is the last thing I expected when I showed up here.” She snatches the pack of cigarettes William left on the table and puts them in her purse. Damn! Cigarettes are expensive. I assure her it isn’t what it looks like. (It’s worse, for a slew of reasons. And here I am, a grown woman treated like a child by her mother, having to lie about all of them.) I promise her that I am not sleeping with William and that he certainly is not living at my place. My father lifts the cover off the stove. He’s making sure the pilot light is on. He asks if I met William on the trip. I tell him that, yes, William and I met on the trip. I really hope he doesn’t ask about the cultural exchange program. I’m out of strength.

“So he’s South African?” my mother asks.

“He is,” I nod nervously. “Hence the accent.” My father replaces the stove cover, confident that I’m not dying of gas poisoning. “I’m surprised he’s not black,” she responds. I point out that there are both white and black people in South Africa. She folds her arms and observes that William is very tall. When she asks if everyone in South Africa is as tall I shake my head no. I don’t think so. “Sure is a looker,” she adds. He is that.

My father walks into the bathroom and begins banging on a pipe with one of his crutches. My mother takes the opportunity to ask what William’s parents do for a living. I tell her I have no clue because I don’t. I conveniently leave out the part about how, immediately after the first time we had sex, I forgot his first name for a good ten seconds. She offers some advice: “Put garbage bags down at the bottom of that tub as a precaution. Never know what kind of diseases people are carrying. He may have something, being from a foreign country.” I roll my eyes. My father comes out of the bathroom. He’s from a foreign country. I ask my father if he has any diseases. “Xenophobia,” he jokes. “I contracted it from my wife.”

My mother isn’t in the mood for jokes. She reminds him that he once knew a guy who came back from some tropical destination with a disease. He nods—“It was sun poisoning,” he tells me—then asks why my friend was wearing that bright yellow outfit. My mother answers for me: “That’s how they all dress these days. It’s the fashion. It’s trendy.” Yes, it’s so trendy. I love New York. When Henryk volunteers that not everyone dresses like William, and that, in fact, he never has, my mother reminds him that he’s unique. He protests: “No I’m not. I don’t own any outfits that are as unique as what he had on.”

She looks at him with annoyance: “Take that hat off your head now. You’re in the house.”

He makes no effort to do so.

I hear keys jingling and turn toward the door. William enters empty-handed, his beet-red face glistening with perspiration. Where’s the coffee cake? Maybe he couldn’t find the store. “I was mugged,” he announces in horror. “The ten dollars is gone.” He begins to pant, like he’s hyperventilating.

My mother gets to her feet: “Mugged! Are you okay?” she screams, her eyes darting from side to side as if muggers are taking over the apartment. I reclaim my keys and ask what happened. William explains: “I bought the coffee cake and was walking back to the apartment when a man came up, took it out of my hand, and walked away. I tried to convince him to give it back but he wouldn’t. I followed him to the liquor store and that’s when he took the change. He bought beer with it, I guess to wash down the coffee cake. I came home. Sorry.”

My mother opens her arms and William bends at the knees to claim his hug. He’s the tallest baby in the world. She assures him that everything is going to be okay and that he should have a seat with her on the sofa. He had a very traumatic experience. I throw my keys on the table. This is the worst thing that could have happened. Now my mother feels vindicated: Crime is rampant! I’m not safe. She’ll be talking about this for years. Thanks, William. Pleasure.

My brother opens his mouth as William follows her to the couch. “What happened to your limp?” he asks him. I bite my tongue. Shut up, mute boy. This is no time to discover your vocal cords. William looks down at his own legs. “I forgot,” he mumbles. My father clears his throat. “I’ve noticed that you’re very forgetful, William,” he observes. After a moment’s hesitation, during which time my mother offers that he must be in shock, William continues toward the couch, limping like a bastard. He cozies up next to her as she comforts him. If only I had a fireplace in which they could roast chestnuts. When he begins to nostalgically discuss his peaceful life as a humble park ranger she gives me a disapproving look and says that I live in a terrible neighborhood. A person can’t leave the house without getting mugged twice in broad daylight. I have to move back to Brooklyn. This is an unsafe area . . . especially for an unwed girl.