Little Chicago (11 page)

Ma usually takes Cheedle to the Joliet Children's School for the Gifted before I wake up. I don't know how she has the energy. I think she wants Cheedle to become a doctor or a famous scientist.

Once she said that Cheedle would start a legacy.

He's going to start a legacy, she told all of us at dinner one night. A legacy of Browns.

She's been taking him to school extra early lately. I think it's cause she doesn't want to run into me, for some reason.

She used to leave notes on the kitchen table for me. Notes that said:

Hey, Blacky.

Have a good day at school. See you later.

Love, Ma

Or:

Blacky,

Don't forget to take your vitamins. Good luck on your Math Skills quiz.

Love, Ma

I put on my J.C. Penney's jean jacket with twice the stitching and walk into the kitchen for a Pop-Tart. I don't toast them anymore cause I have this problem where I always accidentally burn the corners.

Ma used to make us take two B-complex vitamins every morning. Her dead sister Aunt Diana gave us this huge bottle of them before she died. Last month Ma bought this other kind. It's called Geritol and it's for iron-poor blood. I think they're supposed to be for women only but Ma says it's okay for me to take them too. They're orange and shaped like UFOs. I worry that they'll make me grow breasts and a vagina.

But I have this secret:

I haven't been taking mine for roughly three weeks. Ever since I choked on a sour apple jawbreaker I have a hard time swallowing.

I was at the Jewel with Ma when I started choking. I wandered like I was an astronaut in space for a minute. When I saw her in the laundry soap aisle I moved toward her.

The weird thing is that it was like time stopped. All I could focus on were the lights above the detergent aisle. There were thousands of bugs trapped in them. You could almost hear them screaming to get out.

The other weird thing is that even though I was choking I could whisper.

Ma seemed so far away it was like a movie.

Ma, I whispered, Ma!

She saw my face and dropped some Tide.

A second later the jawbreaker shot out of my mouth and bounced past her down the aisle and rolled into the meat section.

Ma said my face was blue.

Your face was so blue, Ma said. It was bluer than when you were born.

I couldn't talk right for the rest of the day.

Since then I've mastered the Heimlich maneuver. In addition to that poster in the Health Office we were handed pamphlets during CPR training. It's easy if you follow the illustrations.

I practice the Heimlich maneuver nearly every time I go to the bathroom. It works best if you use an object with a point or a snout. Lately I've been using Ma's Head & Shoulders dandruff shampoo. You have to stick it in your abdomen and thrust upwards. Sometimes this action makes me fart but it works pretty good.

I'll concern myself with vitamins and minerals when I grow out of the choking phase.

In the kitchen the window is covered with frost.

It looks like crystal spiderwebs. The field behind the house is frosted, too, and then the woods come out of the field all sudden and black.

The abandoned Ford Taurus looks like it's thinking. The
FUCK
is still there and now someone has added
YOU
right next to it. I'm pretty sure Shay was hiding drugs in it for a while.

There was this time I saw her and Flahive crawl out of the back seat and walk back to the house. You could tell there was something fishy going on by their faces. They both looked scared and excited at the same time.

Once I told Shay that I was going to call the police if she didn't stop doing drugs.

I'll call the cops, I said.

Be my guest, she said. They don't got nothin on me.

Then I said, I hope you get AIDS! and she slapped me so hard I turned a circle. One of her nails scratched a line in my face and it bled.

I hope your foot falls off! I screamed.

Then I ran down the street and hid at the bus stop.

There aren't many hiding places at the bus stop but Shay never came out to find me, so I guess it worked.

I open the kitchen window and look out at the field. A deer is standing next to the car now. It's staring at me like it wants to say something.

Run! I say to it for some reason. Run!

I'm afraid that whoever wrote
FUCK
and
YOU
is lurking around somewhere and they might hurt the deer.

Run! I say again.

But it just stands there.

I watch the deer for another minute and close the window.

I try and wash a glass but the sponge is frozen so I just eat my Pop-Tart and hold my mouth under the tap to drink.

The dishes stink like fish and sourness and I know washing them will be left up to Cheedle. He usually does them when he gets home from school.

Cheedle scores huge amounts of points with Ma for this kind of enthusiasm for household chores.

On the kitchen table there is no note from Ma but there is a letter with my name on it. It's in a small white envelope with no return address. I think it might be money from my Uncle Jack.

My birthday's on November seventeenth and my Uncle Jack usually sends ten dollars to be put toward clothes or school items such as books or Mead spiral notebooks.

I think about this for a moment and I realize that I will be twelve.

This is a dozen years.

I'll be like eggs and donuts.

The birthday money is perfect timing, considering that Eric Duggan is no longer paying for my hot lunch.

I put the letter in my pocket and continue getting ready for school.

I open Shay's door and I'm surprised to find that she's in her room for once. When she sleeps she makes a face like her head hurts.

Her room is colder than mine and I find it superhuman that she didn't burrow under her covers in the middle of the night.

I touch her head several times.

Shay brushes my hand away and wakes.

Hey, I say.

She says, Hey.

She pulls her covers over herself and groans.

She says, Why is it so fucking cold in here?

I don't know, I say. The whole house is freezing.

Why are you waking me up, Blacky?

Cause I don't have any clean clothes.

Well, wear dirty ones, she says.

Okay.

Wear your Planet of the Apes shirt.

I wore it yesterday, I say.

What about a sweater?

I don't know where Ma keeps em.

Hang on, she says, and gets out of bed with her sheets wrapped around her.

She digs in her bottom drawer and hands me a black sweatshirt that says
BIG DICKS FOR LITTLE CHICKS.

Here, she says. It's the only clean thing I got.

Thanks, I say.

Just wear it inside out. You can tear off the tag if you want.

Okay.

And don't forget to brush your teeth. And scrape your tongue, you have dickbreath again.

Then Shay lights a cigarette and smokes.

Sometimes Shay will brush her teeth with Cheedle's toothbrush. I have caught her doing this several times. Once I saw her using his toothbrush while chewing grape Bubble Yum. I tried to do this too, but it didn't work. All the gum got stuck in the bristles. These are the kinds of things Shay does better than anyone.

I just stand there for a minute.

What? she says.

Do you have my pants? I say.

They're still at Betty's. I'll get em tonight. Just wear your Sunday slacks.

Okay.

Then Shay blows the smoke into one of the Airwick air fresheners and sits on the floor.

In the bathroom I brush my teeth and scrape my tongue.

The water is so cold I can't even wash my hands all the way and they wind up slick and mossy.

I have this one cowlick that I have to wet to make stay down but I decide against it for fear of pneumonia and other cold-weather diseases.

After the bathroom I go into my room and make layers. I use Shay's sweatshirt and my J.C. Penney's jean jacket with twice the stitching.

I wish I had a hat.

It might definitely help matters.

I think about wearing a plastic bag on my head but this would be idiotic and noisy.

But I worry about frostbite.

Once Eric Duggan told me that if you get frostbite various body parts turn black and start falling off. He said he saw it on the Science Network.

I imagine my ears rolling around on the floor.

It is so cold out it doesn't even make any sense.

At the bus stop two kids are wearing snow parkas.

Three kids walk up to the other two. These three are also wearing snow parkas.

Everyone looks like astronauts.

Mary Jane Paddington comes around the corner. She walks like she has extra time for stuff. I admire this and it makes me think of how I always feel slow and speedy at the same time.

I have never seen Mary Jane Paddington on the bus. She is wearing many layers of sweatshirts and sweaters and a windbreaker that says
KOREN MOTORS
on the back. She is also wearing a blue knit hat that makes her head look huge. Her hair sneaks out at the ears.

Hey, I say.

Hey, she says, and nudges my shoulder.

I try and nudge her back but I miss.

She says, Pretty cold, huh?

Her breath smells like toothpaste and cereal.

All the kids in parkas are watching us like we're on display in a glass case.

You warm enough? she asks.

Sort of, I say, but I know she can see me shivering.

Here, she says, and unsnaps her windbreaker and hands it to me. It's red and says
BILL
on the front.

Who's Bill? I ask.

My dad, she says. He sells cars at Koren Motors.

Thanks, I say.

We stand there and make silver smoke. The windbreaker helps a little but I can't stop shivering.

This girl with a blue ski vest turns and stares at us for a minute. Her face is pretty and clean.

Mary Jane Paddington says, What are you lookin at, bitch? and then the girl turns away.

When the bus finally comes we get on first and go all the way to the back.

They don't let boys and girls sit together, so Mary Jane Paddington and I sit across the aisle.

Her jacket is warmer on the bus and I am surprised to find that it doesn't smell.

In Math Skills Mr. Stone is walking up and down the rows like a bad-ass. Sometimes I think he wants to headbutt me cause he gets this look in his eye.

Besides being the sixth-grade Math Skills teacher Mr. Stone is also the wrestling coach and he never lets you forget this fact. He's always trying to bring wrestling themes into the classroom.

He'll say, If Ray Larkin, my guy at a hundred and thirty-five pounds, needs to lose eight pounds to make weight but it's Districts and the officials are granting a two-pound leeway, what's the absolute heaviest Ray Larkin can weigh in order to be allowed to wrestle the match?

Or:

If Tom Piano has been my heavyweight and he wants to wrestle for me at one sixty-five and he's been up all night wrapped in plastics trying to sweat off the six pounds he was over at weigh-ins, what's his actual weight before he puts the plastics on, considering it's not Districts and there's only a one-pound leeway?

It can go on this way for weeks.

Once when I was leaving class he said, You could be wrestling peewee for us this year, Brown.

I just stood there like wood.

He added, There's nobody light enough to wrestle that weight. You're a skinny little runt but I'll bet you're wiry.

I thought about wires and imagined breaking a phone and yanking all the guts out.

Mr. Stone said, It's a good way to get the girls after you.

I said, No, thanks.

Then he added, We'll make a man of you yet, Brown.

Today we're simplifying fractions. Eight tenths down to four fifths. Nine twenty-sevenths to one third. Numerators and denominators.

I think this would be a good name for a rock band: the Numerators and Denominators.

While Mr. Stone is at the board simplifying forty-two one-hundred-and-twenty-eighths I take the letter from the kitchen table out of my back pocket and slide it into my Math Skills spiral notebook.

I use the tip of my pencil to make a slit in the envelope.

I am careful to use very tiny movements.

While at the chalkboard Mr. Stone can get very casual. But if he suspects something going on behind him he'll turn into a secret agent ready to pounce.

All those wrestler types are good when their backs are turned, I'm convinced of this.

After I make the slit I slide my thumb into the hole and carefully open the top of the envelope. Inside there is a short letter printed on a scrap of notebook paper.

Dear Girl,

It's hard being apart. Will you come visit me?

Endlessly, Boy

PS. Don't tell your mother I wrote this.

I wonder if Al Johnson could read my letter from the windshield of that bulldozer.

I wonder if it's possible for people to know your thoughts before you think them.

My face gets so hot it almost stings.

Suddenly the letter is snatched off my desk.

I whirl.

Mr. Stone is holding it over his head.

What have we here? he says. Are you writing notes during class, Mr. Brown?

No, I say.

He says, Perhaps I should share it.

Don't, I say.

Don't? he says, smiling.

His teeth are crooked and loose-looking. One of them is long and sharp and this sometimes makes him resemble a wolf with human skin.

Read it, Chad Orlin says behind me.

Mr. Stone says, I should, shouldn't I, Chad.

Read it, Ellen Hedd says, and laughs.

Please don't, I say.

Through the window you can see the rain freezing.

I believe in lessons, Mr. Stone says to the class. A lesson taught is a lesson learned.