Shout Down the Moon (15 page)

I didn’t know about Bess; I didn’t need to. It was all about Rick. The lines about love were directed to him, but so were the other lines. He was the man I wanted to protect me; he was also the man I wanted to be protected from. This is why I sang the song with so much passion. Now I know. I loved Rick, but I was also afraid of him, even then.

I’m up to the third verse when I realize I understand why Mr. Jubar and everyone else thought it wasn’t any good. It’s just like Jonathan said: it had no feeling. I know this because now that I can feel it, it’s killing me.

I force myself to finish even though the last verse is terrible. I don’t have enough air to sing; I have to keep swallowing to stop myself from crying. Jonathan is hunched over the piano, playing the end fiercely, his foot pounding against the leg of the bench. I don’t know if he’s trying to make up for my weakness or if he’s so involved in the piece he doesn’t hear me anymore. He’s still playing after I sing the last word, but then I don’t hear him. I’ve already moved to the door and out of the room. The music from the jam is loud; an alto sax is wailing, screaming a beautiful pain. I wonder if it’s Mr. Jubar.

My purse is where I left it in the front hall. A few people are standing there passing a joint back and forth, but I don’t know them; I don’t have to explain or say good-bye.

The farther away I get from the house, the more the music from the jam becomes nothing but bass and drums. It seems like it’s coming from the ground, like it’s pulsing from the dirt under my shoes. The beat of the earth’s heart.

I don’t collapse until I get to the field where all the cars are parked. It’s cloudy and dark and my eyes are swimming in tears; I can’t see the Ford. I thought I parked it over on the left, next to a large oak tree, but I can’t find the tree.

“Shit,” I say, as I slump down on the front bumper of someone’s car, drop my face in my hands. But then I suddenly feel a man’s hand on my shoulder and my heart stops. I think, he’s here because I let myself feel this. I conjured him from sadness, pulled him back into my life. I jump up to run, but he moves too and I stumble right into him. When he puts his arms around me, I’m gasping his name and the one word: no.

“It’s all right, Patty.” His voice is loud, but it sounds shaky. “It’s me. Jonathan.”

The relief is so strong it leaves me limp, and he holds me tighter to keep me from falling. My face is against his neck; I can feel him gulp before he says, “I’m sorry I scared you.”

He’s never touched me before. I’m surprised how comfortable it feels. He’s thin, but he has a keyboard player’s big hands, muscular forearms. He holds me easily but carefully, the way I used to hold Willie back when I thought he was so delicate he’d break into pieces if I ever let go.

A minute goes by. Then another. Our chests are touching; he’s breathing deeply and slowly; it makes me feel calmer. I’m not upset anymore. I know I should pull away, but I can’t bring myself to. It’s nice being in his arms; I didn’t expect that. It feels easy and comfortable. Safe.

His messy hair is blowing into my eyes; he moves it out of the way with one hand, but he keeps the other hand on my back. I don’t understand why he isn’t talking. I don’t understand why he hasn’t pulled away either.

He brings his face closer as though he’s going to say something, but still, he’s quiet. He’s so close now. Our lips are only a few inches apart. It occurs to me that he might kiss me. After a moment, I’m sure he’s going to. I lean forward, just a little, so he can see I’m okay with it. I lean forward, and then it happens: I find myself kissing him.

His lips are warm and firm; they seem to fit perfectly with mine. It has to be a mistake but it doesn’t feel like one. It feels like what I’ve wanted forever, since I first heard him play.

But his hands are on my shoulders. He’s pushing me back. And worst of all, he’s apologizing.

I stand up straight and roll my lips together so tightly they hurt. Thank God it’s dark. He can’t see that my face is burning.

“I can’t do this, Patty. It’s important that you understand. I don’t want—”

“You don’t have to explain,” I whisper, as I move back. He drops his arms, and I have to will myself not to run away from him. I already look ridiculous; I can’t make it any worse.

“Just listen,” he says, but then he stops. Someone is walking down the hill from the house, calling him. It’s Carl.

“Hey, man, I’ve been looking all over for you.”

I quickly step back behind a car. Carl can’t see me, but there’s a break in the clouds now; I can see him as he walks up to Jonathan. And there, on his left, I spot the tree I was looking for. I feel so stupid; the tree, and the Ford, are only about fifteen feet away.

“We’re up, dude. They’re ready for us.”

“Cool,” Jonathan says. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“What are you doing out here?” Carl laughs. “Turning into a werewolf?”

“Go on,” Jonathan says flatly. “I told you I’ll be up in a minute.”

“Okay,” Carl says. Before he turns back to the house, he yells, “Jubar said he’d sit in, man. This is gonna be cool.”

He listens until Carl is gone. Then he peers into the darkness, whispers, “Patty?”

“I’m over here.” I inhale. “But I need to get home.”

The sky has turned pitch-black again, but he’s coming nearer anyway, following my voice. I tell him to go back to the jam, I’m fine.

“Wait,” he says. “This is important.”

I’m almost to the Ford, but I stop. I’m terrified he’s going to say something about what just happened, but of course I’m madly hoping he’ll say something to make me feel less like a stupid little girl with a crush he doesn’t share. But no. He stays a good arm’s length away. I can make out his shape, but not the expression on his face. His voice grows cool, distant. It’s taking everything I have not to cry.

“Look, I’ve changed my mind. I will write songs for you.”

That’s it. He exhales and waits for me to respond.

“Great,” I manage.

“But you’ll have to work very hard. My music is sacred to me, I won’t let it be butchered.”

“I will work hard,” I tell him. And after a moment, when he doesn’t say anything else, I mumble good-bye and hop in the car.

I start the engine, and the radio comes on, blasting the jazz station. I was listening to it on the way here, trying to convince myself I could sing jazz, I could impress Jonathan.

Well, I impressed him, all right.

All the way home, I can’t imagine how I’ll ever be able to face him again. But later, sitting on my bed with the saggy mattress and ugly, brown corduroy spread, the same bed I’ve had since I was a kid, I finally realize this is good news, no matter what his motive is. Jonathan is a fabulous composer, and I’m going to be recording with him. Of course I feel like a complete fool now, but I’ll have to get over that. If he changed his mind because I freaked out and threw myself at him, fine. If he changed his mind because he feels sorry for me, also fine. I have Willie; I’ll do anything it takes to succeed. Do it, be it, live it, like Mr. Jubar said. That’s my new motto. I can eat this embarrassment, of course I can. I can handle this. I can handle anything.

W
hen I was pregnant, I was positive the baby was a girl. The intake clerk at the shelter told me, “You don’t have morning sickness all day long with girls.” Margaret, who ran the place, said, “You’re carrying too low for a girl.” I nodded, but when I was alone, I told Willa not to bother with their opinions.

Her name was Willa because Daddy’s name was William. She didn’t look like Rick or me; she had red hair and pale green eyes and skin so white it seemed unnatural. But the oddest part was, she always wore a hat. Sometimes it was a pink-and-white baby bonnet, other times, a floppy black beret, a shiny yellow rain hood, a boring baseball cap. Whenever I imagined her, even when I dreamed about her, the hat was there, as inevitable as her arms and legs.

I joked that maybe she was covering up a bald spot, but Margaret didn’t think it was funny. “It could be an omen,” she told me. “You better figure out what it means.”

Margaret believed in everything: omens, reincarnation, psychics, tarot card readers, astrology, and of course Catholicism. The shelter for pregnant teens was founded by the Catholic Church.

I wasn’t sure what I believed; still, what Margaret said made me nervous. And it got even worse when I was eight months pregnant and Margaret took me to Lou, a fortune-teller in a dingy basement downtown, who told us, “Hats are a sign of movement. Hats always mean someone is going away.”

Willa wasn’t even here, how could she go away? I was fighting back tears; I asked Lou if she meant Willa was going to be born sick, maybe even die. She said she wasn’t sure, could be yes, could be no. Then she asked about the baby’s kicks. Too few kicks are bad, but too many kicks could mean the baby was fighting the life I was offering it.

“We gotta run now,” Margaret suddenly announced. When we were back outside, blinking in the sun, she whispered, “I wouldn’t worry about it. Lou’s darned cards said Richard Nixon was innocent too.”

It wasn’t until after Willie was born that Margaret mentioned the omen again. He was 8 pounds 11 ounces, 22 inches, and healthy as could be, not even much jaundice. But Margaret concluded it had been true, after all. Willa went away, and Willie took her place.

I loved him more than I ever loved her. She was just a dream; he was tiny fists and milky breath and such earnest little struggles. I was amazed at how hard he tried. Just getting his thumb in his mouth completely wore him out.

I felt bad for calling him Willa in the womb. For the first few months of his life, I made a point of telling him how glad I was that he was a boy. I knew he couldn’t understand the words, but I thought of them as corrective, like braces or shoes.

He was eighteen months old when I finally realized why I’d been so sure he was a girl, and why that girl always wore a hat. It wasn’t supernatural, but Margaret was right, it did have a meaning. I was trying to solve one of my biggest worries. If the baby was a girl, and if she had all the hats she needed, it wouldn’t matter that she didn’t have a father.

The winter after Daddy died, I was the only girl on the playground without a hat. Daddy had never bought me hats before, but I was in the second grade and I knew it was all connected. If only I had a father, I wouldn’t be standing here with my ears freezing off. If only I had a father, I’d be running around with a warm, toasty head, like everyone else.

I bought Willie hats and he pulled them off. I loved him as hard as I could, but at eighteen months old, he was already hungry for the affection of a man.

The first day he went with me to Fred’s office, he kept running over Fred’s ugly shoes with his Thomas the Tank Engine, hoping Fred would stop talking, notice him. And from the beginning, he wanted so much from the guys. We’d only been on the road a couple of weeks; we were in a band house in Fort Smith, Arkansas, when he threw a fit because he wanted one of them to take him in the backyard: not me, not Irene. Of course they didn’t pay any attention. It was early afternoon; they’d been up all night. When Willie’s crying got loud, Dennis put his hands over his ears and Carl turned up the CD.

They weren’t being cruel, they just didn’t see him. Irene says it’s true for most men: they don’t really notice kids until they have their own.

The first time Willie asked where his daddy was, I got him a book at a flea market called
All Kinds of Families
. I made a big deal about the page with a single mother. “That’s just like us,” I said. “A mama and a little boy.” It embarrassed me, but I threw in, “Look how happy they are.”

When he asked again, it was a few months later and the book wasn’t an option. I’d thrown it out after the spine came off when Willie tried to tear out a picture of an Amtrak on the grandfather page. He put the question more directly, too. He asked where his daddy lived. “A long way from here,” I said quickly. When he was still sitting there, waiting, I forced a smile. “I bet he would like to see you, buddy, if he could. I’m sure he’d be proud of what a big boy you are.”

That satisfied him, but I know that any day now, he’ll ask again. The older he gets, the more questions he’ll have. He’ll want to know where his daddy is and what his daddy is like. Most important, he’ll want to know why his daddy never comes around.

And how will I answer him? This is what I’m wondering as I listen to Mr. Gerald Boyd. Mr. Boyd is Rick’s parole officer. He is calling to tell me that Rick wants to see Willie. Actually, “wants” isn’t even the word. Rick is pleading with me to let him see Willie. And Rick has offered to do it any way I want—at the house, at a McDonald’s, wherever I feel most comfortable.

What I’m wondering is how I will tell Willie, when he’s older, that I said no.

Mr. Boyd has already explained that his job is to make sure Rick is successfully integrated into the community. And it’s a proven fact: men with families are much less likely to end up back in prison.

It’s a Saturday morning, a little after eight thirty, and I’m exhausted. Jonathan meant it when he said I’d have to work hard. For the last few weeks, since the jam at Lydia’s house, the two of us have been rehearsing every night after the gig at McGlinchey’s. Most times, we go until three or four in the morning, trying to get ready for the studio. Of course I still have to get up with Willie at seven thirty, eight if I’m lucky. I try to nap when he does, but it’s not enough. Yesterday, I put Willie’s Duplo car away in the microwave.

When I got up about fifteen minutes ago, Mama told me I had two phone calls: Fred and Gerald Boyd. I already knew what Fred wanted, and I decided to avoid him.

He did seem thrilled when I first told him Jonathan had agreed to write songs for me. He claimed that Mystery Train was only an idea but this was what he really wanted, that when he put this group together, he knew we had talent and “sexy energy.” But when he showed up at our rehearsal on Tuesday, he was obviously annoyed. He doesn’t see why we’re spending all our time practicing jazz standards. “The Patty Taylor Band isn’t a jazz group,” he reminded Jonathan. “You’re supposed to write for her, not turn her into a white Billie Holiday.”

Jonathan didn’t argue, but he also didn’t answer when Fred asked if he had any original songs ready. Since then, Fred’s called me every day, and every day I give him the same answer. Not yet but soon, I’m sure. And no, I’m not worried.

I assumed Gerald Boyd was a music store salesman trying to hawk a new Peavey PA, or maybe a club owner trying to go around Fred and get us in cheap. Whenever we’re in Kansas City I get calls like that, even though Fred’s secretary swears she doesn’t give out my phone number.

I figured Boyd would be an easy no thanks. How wrong I was.

He does seem like a nice guy. He tells me his background and it isn’t anything like I expected. He has a degree in social work. He used to work with teenage mothers; he says he knows how hard it can be to raise a child by yourself.

He coughs. “Are you receiving AFDC?”

“What?”

“Government assistance.”

“No, I’ve supported Willie since he was born.”

“That’s quite an accomplishment. But I’m sure you could use some financial help.”

“Maybe,” I mumble. Mama is plopped down at the kitchen table, staring at me and smoking. She’s already mouthed, “Who is it?” but I shook my head.

“Rick is aware that he should be paying child support,” Boyd is saying. “He’s been putting aside money from every paycheck for the last month.”

“Paycheck?” I whisper. “Isn’t he in jail?”

Mr. Boyd gives me a long explanation of why they decided not to revoke parole even though they found a gun in Rick’s truck. Basically, it came down to Rick’s statement, which convinced them that he’s changed; he’s sincere about wanting to straighten up.

Boyd believes Rick’s accident really affected him. He tells me that Rick’s had a job since July—it was a condition of parole— but Rick was rarely there. Since the middle of August, though, he’s shown up every day, and his supervisor is impressed with what a hard worker he is. And just last week, Rick moved into a new place outside of Lewisville. He told Boyd he wants a fresh start away from the people he used to associate with.

I haven’t been awake long enough to process all this. Mama just scribbled, “What’s going on?” on the front of an envelope, but I turn away, stand up, and pull the phone to the refrigerator. I need some juice or soda, something. My mouth is so dry it feels sunburned.

All we have are boxes of Willie’s apple juice, but I get one out, drink it while Mr. Boyd reiterates that Rick does not want to cause me any trouble. He’ll see Willie whenever it’s convenient. He’ll let me supervise the visits; he’ll comply with any and all conditions, as long as he gets to see his son.

“I have to go now,” I finally say. I’m still in my sleep shorts and ratty T-shirt. I want to take a shower, get dressed. I want to get away from Mama’s stares.

“Rick has some problems,” Mr. Boyd says slowly. “I don’t want you to think I’m not aware of the things he’s done. But the issue is what’s best for your child, now and in the future.”

“Yes, but—”

“My sense is that Rick really cares about little William. I wouldn’t suggest visitation if I thought he was capable of harming him.”

He pauses as if he’s waiting to hear what I think. I’m not thinking though; I’m remembering that day in Omaha, when Rick took Willie out to the truck. Willie was so excited he took off running down the driveway. Long before he got to the street, Rick caught up with him, grabbed his hand. As he lifted Willie into the truck, he kissed him in the middle of the back, but quickly, as if he didn’t want anyone to notice or object.

Mama is chain-smoking and the tops of her house shoes are shaking; she’s wiggling her toes like she always does when she’s nervous. I tell Boyd I really have to hang up. He thanks me for talking to him; then he lowers his voice, says there’s one more thing I should know.

“Rick’s counselor and I believe the car accident was a suicide attempt.” Boyd coughs. “The transition from prison has not been easy for him. I hope you’ll consider giving him a chance.”

“Shit,” I whisper, as I put the receiver back. Mama wants to know what happened, but I shake my head. Willie is in the kitchen now too.

He’s wearing the goofiest outfit. The pants are blue-and-white striped with little ducks on the pockets. I got them last spring; they’re almost too small. The shirt Irene bought at a garage sale in the middle of Oklahoma. It’s tie-dyed, mostly orange, and it says Gimme Shelter.

I smile. “I guess you dressed yourself, huh?”

“Yep,” he says. I lean down to give him a hug, but he squirms, says he’s got to go.

“Where?”

“I a fireman.” A few seconds later, he comes back in. “Call me if you got a fire. I put it out for you, Mama.”

I smile, tell him I’ll be in the shower. “But I promise I’ll yell if a fire starts in the tub.”

“You’re not going to tell me what’s going on?” Mama is standing too, blocking the doorway.

“Just let me get dressed first.”

“Okay,” she says, exhaling loudly, giving me a look like I just spilled milk all over the floor.

Even if it irritates her, I have to have a minute before I can discuss this. I know I’ll have to reassure her but I have no idea how.

When I pull into the parking lot of the Evans strip mall, the car in front of me has a bumper sticker that reads: live in the moment. Thanks for the advice, I think, and scowl at the back of the driver’s head. I’ve had all the moments I can stand today and it’s only three o’clock.

I figured Mama would be upset, but I didn’t expect her to lose it. On the one hand, she’s in awe of law enforcement people and thinks if a parole officer feels Rick should visit, I may not have a choice. On the other, she believes we have to do whatever it takes, including taking Willie out of state, even out of the country, to keep Rick from coming near him.

She still has no idea that Rick has already been near him. She thinks the parole officer was playing detective, tracking down me and Willie as part of his job.

We spent Willie’s nap discussing it, getting nowhere. The fact that Rick is his father means absolutely nothing to her. I’m not surprised; I know she never understood what Daddy meant to me. He was her husband, first, last, and everything in-between. Being my father was just another aspect of their marriage, a part of his relationship to her.