I could hear it from the front steps.
Answer me! my mother was screaming, a raw and frantic sound followed by the unmistakable sound of a slap. I found my key and the door swung open - the first thing I saw was my youngest brother - cornered, crying, and shielding his face. There was blood streaked down his arms and shards of glass in his hair. My mother, standing over him with a broken whiskey bottle in one hand, was almost unrecognizable with rage. Answer me! she screeched and gave him a fierce, open handed slap with her free hand. He crumpled, pawing at the wall and covering his head with his hands. I had no weapons except my school books but my Business Math was thick and solid and I threw it without thinking. It struck her shoulder with a nasty but satisfying thud and got her attention. She turned and took a few staggering steps toward me but tripped on the edge of the carpet and went down in a heap.
Run! I yelled wildly at my little brother, Run!
And he did, leaping over her like a you would a mud puddle and not looking back. The screen door protested with an ear splitting slam as it hit the side iron railing and another as it slammed shut. She was still pulling herself up off the floor, breathing like a dragon and reaching for whatever was at hand - it turned out to be the old black rotary telephone, always a reliable stand by - and I dropped the rest of my books and fled.
What the hell did you do? I demanded as we ran across the yard and headed blindly up the sidewalk.
Nothing! he panted back, his face was white and there was a bloody bruise on his cheek. Then, the truth gasped out in time to his pounding foot steps. EXCEPT. I. ATE. THE. LAST. BROWNIE.
I began to laugh, despite the fact that we were running for our lives, despite the angry stitch in my side.
We veered to the left onto the dirt road and skidded to a stop.
Moron! I yelled at him but I was still laughing, Look what you've gotten us into!
Retard! he threw back but aimiably enough, You threw the damn book!
The dirt road - really just a narrow, unmaintained dirt lane, barely wide enough to accommodate a single vehicle and then only if you were prepared to sacrifice your shocks and struts - would one day be a back route to a new and shiny, cookie cutter sub division. Now however, it was just a mostly forgotten, no-name dirt road that dead ended several hundred feet from Spy Pond. The pot holes were several inches deep and several feet across - all things considered I thought it was doubtful that we'd be followed but who knew what a drunken, madwoman was likely to do - so we took a few minutes to catch our breaths and then began a slow shuffle down the dusty lane, listening for the old convertible engine and cautiously looking backwards every few yards.
So, my little brother said presently, What are we 'sposed to do now?
It was a good question, I thought, a valid and relevant question, a timeless and unanswerable question.
Well, we could always call Dad, I said tentatively.
My little brother gave me a dark look. Oh, right, he said with a bitter-edged laugh, Like that'll do any good.
What about Nana? I asked.
Aw, go play in traffic, he muttered and kicked a good sized rock clear into the ditch.
Fine, dipstick, then you come up with something, I said and flipped him the bird, but we have to go home sometime.
He scowled at me, took aim at another even bigger chunk of rock and gave it a fierce kick. It sailed over the ditch in a gritty cloud of dust and crashed into the gate of someone's back picket fence. Discretion being the better part of valor, we ran.
We ended up at the drugstore, drinking vanilla cokes at the scarred up old counter, arguing about what to do next and watching the ancient wall clock. Six o'clock came and with it, the old Mercury station wagon pulled up to the curb. My daddy emerged, still in his good blue suit and looking not only considerably older than he had just that morning, but sadly weary. He saw us through the plate glass windows that bordered Massachusetts Avenue and motioned us out. We went. Not willingly, but we went.
We're gonna get it, my little brother muttered to me as the drugstore door closed behind us.
Not if we tell the truth, I said stubbornly even though a big part of me thought he was right. I had more experience but he was the one with the bruise and I still thought that might count for something.
We'll talk about this later, my daddy said tiredly, Right now supper's getting cold.
But we never did. We rode home in a dull silence, picked at cold pork chops and glazed carrots, passed on dessert. Except for the fresh whiskey stain on the carpet - and the missing black rotary telephone (it had finally succumbed to a fatal crack in the receiver and was casually replaced a few days later with a fancy pink princess model, lighted dial and all), there was no trace of the afternoon's disturbance. There was also no trace of my mother who had retreated to her darkened bedroom to lay on her single bed with cold compresses on her eyes - another "headache", my daddy said, falling back on an old and familiar lie - come morning, she would be pale and shaky and her eyes would have that haunted, hungover look. By the time we left for school, she'd be guzzling aspirin and drinking cooking sherry from a faded Corelware coffee cup as if nothing had happened, as if we weren't even there. And except for the evidence on my little brother's face - swollen cheek and blackened eye, an unwanted but respected badge of honor - we pretty much weren't.
I began to laugh, despite the fact that we were running for our lives, despite the angry stitch in my side.
We veered to the left onto the dirt road and skidded to a stop.
Moron! I yelled at him but I was still laughing, Look what you've gotten us into!
Retard! he threw back but aimiably enough, You threw the damn book!
The dirt road - really just a narrow, unmaintained dirt lane, barely wide enough to accommodate a single vehicle and then only if you were prepared to sacrifice your shocks and struts - would one day be a back route to a new and shiny, cookie cutter sub division. Now however, it was just a mostly forgotten, no-name dirt road that dead ended several hundred feet from Spy Pond. The pot holes were several inches deep and several feet across - all things considered I thought it was doubtful that we'd be followed but who knew what a drunken, madwoman was likely to do - so we took a few minutes to catch our breaths and then began a slow shuffle down the dusty lane, listening for the old convertible engine and cautiously looking backwards every few yards.
So, my little brother said presently, What are we 'sposed to do now?
It was a good question, I thought, a valid and relevant question, a timeless and unanswerable question.
Well, we could always call Dad, I said tentatively.
My little brother gave me a dark look. Oh, right, he said with a bitter-edged laugh, Like that'll do any good.
What about Nana? I asked.
Aw, go play in traffic, he muttered and kicked a good sized rock clear into the ditch.
Fine, dipstick, then you come up with something, I said and flipped him the bird, but we have to go home sometime.
He scowled at me, took aim at another even bigger chunk of rock and gave it a fierce kick. It sailed over the ditch in a gritty cloud of dust and crashed into the gate of someone's back picket fence. Discretion being the better part of valor, we ran.
We ended up at the drugstore, drinking vanilla cokes at the scarred up old counter, arguing about what to do next and watching the ancient wall clock. Six o'clock came and with it, the old Mercury station wagon pulled up to the curb. My daddy emerged, still in his good blue suit and looking not only considerably older than he had just that morning, but sadly weary. He saw us through the plate glass windows that bordered Massachusetts Avenue and motioned us out. We went. Not willingly, but we went.
We're gonna get it, my little brother muttered to me as the drugstore door closed behind us.
Not if we tell the truth, I said stubbornly even though a big part of me thought he was right. I had more experience but he was the one with the bruise and I still thought that might count for something.
We'll talk about this later, my daddy said tiredly, Right now supper's getting cold.
But we never did. We rode home in a dull silence, picked at cold pork chops and glazed carrots, passed on dessert. Except for the fresh whiskey stain on the carpet - and the missing black rotary telephone (it had finally succumbed to a fatal crack in the receiver and was casually replaced a few days later with a fancy pink princess model, lighted dial and all), there was no trace of the afternoon's disturbance. There was also no trace of my mother who had retreated to her darkened bedroom to lay on her single bed with cold compresses on her eyes - another "headache", my daddy said, falling back on an old and familiar lie - come morning, she would be pale and shaky and her eyes would have that haunted, hungover look. By the time we left for school, she'd be guzzling aspirin and drinking cooking sherry from a faded Corelware coffee cup as if nothing had happened, as if we weren't even there. And except for the evidence on my little brother's face - swollen cheek and blackened eye, an unwanted but respected badge of honor - we pretty much weren't.
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