Sunday Supper

Sunday supper was on the table when I got home – rare steak, mashed potatoes, peas - the only thing that ever varied was the vegetable, sometimes it was carrots or lima beans.  My mother sat in her usual place at one end, my daddy at the other.  I was on time but only by a whisker and I knew immediately that it was too deadly quiet.  My mother had clearly been crying and my daddy was wearing his stone face.  Each of my brothers was sitting still as a statue, eyes down, hands in their laps.  In the time it took me to shed my jacket and slip into my place, I mentally retraced my steps, trying anxiously to remember my day, worrying that I’d been caught at something I’d already forgotten doing.  Or that another surprise search of my room had turned up something that shouldn’t have been there. I couldn’t shake the premonition of a coming disaster and prayed desperately that whatever had happened had to do with my brothers and not me.  And that whatever was going to happen would be over quickly.  I got the first wish but not the second.

After clearing the table, I was sent to my room but both boys were ordered to keep their seats.  I breathed a sigh of relief and headed upstairs without protest or questions but even with my radio on and my door closed, the noise carried.  It seemed the school had called because both brothers had skipped the previous Friday and my parents had been at odds for three days trying to decide the best course of action. That I’d seen no signs of discord between them was a small miracle in and of itself, I thought, or possibly I’d become so accustomed to the tension that I didn’t notice anymore.  At any rate, the boys now confronted with their behavior, chose solidarity and lying.  They both insisted they’d been in school all day, categorically denying that they’d skipped and vehemently accusing the school of being out to get them.  As a defense, this turned out to be a poor choice, elevating the truancy by lying was in my opinion, just plain stupid, and it wasn’t long before the raised voices became a shouting match. 

Watch your mouth!  my mother screamed.

Go to hell!  My brother fired back.

There was a thud – a chair being overturned, I was fairly sure – and then the sound of hard plastic against glass – the Corelware was going to take a beating tonight, I thought to myself – and then the unmistakable and too easily recognized sound of a slap.

Go to your room!  I heard my daddy thunder and there was a pitiful wailing, another crash of furniture, then a scramble of footsteps and finally a door slamming so hard it shook the walls of my room.  Round One appeared to be a draw, I decided and just as a precaution, checked that I’d locked my door and then upped the volume of my radio.  It didn’t happen often but now and then these things would spill over and I didn’t want to be sucked in by either side.

Round Two took place in the living room – unfortunate, because I could hear every word through the heating vent – but it was strictly between my parents and it went on for hours.  She seemed to be alternately for beating them senseless or shipping them both off to a military school (I freely confess my heart beat a little faster at that suggestion) while my daddy mostly kept his calm and advocated for an extended grounding, suspension of their allowances and maybe a little counseling, (although for whom wasn’t exactly clear).   Predictably, they reached no solution or agreement except that for the foreseeable future, both boys would be driven to and from school and literally checked in by the transporting parent.  How precisely this would insure that they both stayed put for the entire school day was something of a mystery – my daddy dismissed her suggestion of ankle monitors as something she’d seen on her soap operas – and she caustically snapped that it worked for prisoners and other delinquents.  He actually laughed at this and she instantly broke into fresh caterwauling.  It didn’t take long after that for the focus of the argument to shift to familiar ground, the tired old You Don’t Love Me/You Think You’re Better Than I Am routines that I knew by heart.  The front door opened and roughly closed, the station wagon started with a roar and pulled out of the driveway in a cloud of exhaust and my mother dissolved in a fit of tears and frustration.  Round Two was over.  I wasn’t sure who to declare the winner but was grateful that there would be no Round Three this night.

With the house finally quiet, I said my nightly prayer – more a promise to myself, really, that if I were ever foolish enough to marry, Please Lord, don’t let me have children – and then read myself to sleep with my latest Black Stallion novel and Bobby Rydell singing in my ear.