[14]
Adios, 1973
Joan Holt said, “We’re neighbors with the Mexicans, but that doesn’t mean our cultures are anything alike. Take, for instance, tacos. I don’t go in for the soft kind, and I’ve never seen a real Mexican taco that wasn’t soft. I like a crunchy shell, like the kind you get at Rio Grande downtown.”
Buckley was pretending to listen, scheming how to get two dollars so he could buy Flamehead a hot fudge sundae.
Joan Holt said his mother was “getting all dolled up for Paddy John again.”
Buckley said, “Paddy John’s all right,” adding, “Do you remember that girl Marty Bascott who was hanging out with us last week?”
“Flamehead? I’ve known her and her mama since Flamehead was a baby. What about her? Who the hell knows where she got that red hair?”
Buckley shrugged. “I was thinking …” he began, “that it would be nice if I could …”
“If you could what? Are you starting to stutter?”
“No,” Buckley said. Sometimes Joan Holt was difficult to deal with. “I was thinking that maybe I could earn some money somehow, like two dollars, so that I could buy Flamehead a hot fudge sundae at the Dairy Queen.”
“When you ask a favor, it’s best to spit it out. There’s no sense prolonging the discourse.”
Buckley would’ve asked his mother for the money. She was making great tips, but if he asked her, she’d say, If you can do me a favor and spend more time with Tide. That little boy needs a good influence like you. He admires you. In addition, you might be nicer to Paddy John. He’s never been anything but kind to you.
No, Buckley preferred asking Joan Holt—just so long as his mother didn’t find out about it.
Joan said, “Get my purse. It’s in the kitchen, and while you’re out eating ice cream, I’ll come up with a list of chores for you to do. I don’t think there’s any better way to learn the worth of a dollar than to work for it.”
Buckley set Joan’s purse on her lap.
“I’ll give you five dollars and you can clean both of the bathrooms later this evening. I hate cleaning the bathroom.”
Buckley brightened. “Are you serious?”
“That can be your weekly chore.”
“Are you serious?!” He could take Flamehead to the movies. He could buy her a necklace or a ring or lip gloss or some other junk girls like.
“I’m not the one stuttering around here.”
His mother had confided long ago, “Joan’s a screwball.” No, Buckley thought, she’s a dream.
Flamehead ate her hot fudge sundae, even the maraschino cherry and the wafer cookies. She ran her finger along the bowl’s interior for the last melted bit of ice cream. Buckley got a soft serve cone.
Setting down the glass dish, Flamehead said matter-of-factly, “My sister did it with her boyfriend.”
“It?”
“In my parents’ bed.”
“How do you know?”
“I watched from the window.”
“Not one bit.”
“What did you think?”
“I thought it was disgusting. Her boyfriend is so ugly, and he was all sweaty, and I could see his butt. It was enough to make me retch. Of course, I didn’t actually retch.”
“Of course.” It dawned on Buckley that his mother and Paddy John might be doing it. The thought made him want to retch. He dismissed it immediately. They were both far too old to be doing it. He wondered if Flamehead really did go to second base. What exactly is second base? Buckley said, “Are you going to wait until you get married before you do it?”
“Are you kidding? Of course not. I’m going to wait until I’m in love.”
“Me too.” He liked Flamehead.
Sitting outside, she leaned in without warning and stuck her tongue, cold and sweet, between his lips. Unsure what to do, Buckley opened his mouth. She tasted like ice cream. Her tongue sat in his mouth. Is this second base? She retreated. “You’re supposed to move your tongue around.”
“I know that,” he said.
She leaned in again. Buckley moved his tongue in rhythm with hers, following her cues. When she stopped, he stopped.
“You’re a pretty good kisser,” she said. “Do you have any gum?”
“Sure.” He pulled a pack from his back pocket, remembering the reverend and his disdain for gum chewing. Screw you, Reverend Whitehouse.
“I like your T-shirt,” Flamehead said.
“This thing?” Buckley looked down. It was a gift from Paddy John. By far the coolest shirt he owned: Jimmy Page playing guitar.
“Did you have a girlfriend in Arkansas?”
“Not really,” he said.
“Do you want one now?”
Buckley leaned in, taking the initiative. He put his hand at the back of her neck, like he’d seen in the movies, and kissed her without even thinking about how he was doing.
As he released her head, she was breathless.
“Does that answer your question?”
Buckley R. Pitank was in heaven.
Buckley saw Paddy John at the laundromat.
Paddy John said, “It’s a small world.”
“I guess. Where’s Tide?”
“With Sissy. Where’s your mom?”
“You’d know better than me.”
Buckley put his T-shirt and three pairs of jeans in the washer. Paddy John folded his pillowcases and sheets. Buckley spotted one of his mother’s blouses among Paddy John’s bedding. He said, “She’ll never marry you.”
“You don’t think?”
“I’m just saying—if you were thinking of asking.”
“I was going to ask your permission first, seeing as you’re the man of the house.”
“She can’t marry you.”
“Why is that?”
“She just can’t.” Abigail was still married to John Whitehouse. It was strange to think that he and his mother were missing persons. They might have been on milk cartons somewhere, if anyone had bothered to take their pictures ever.
“How come? Explain it to me. I love your mother. You know that, don’t you?”
“I guess.”
Paddy John’s laundry was neatly sorted and folded. “You guess? Don’t guess, son. Jesus Christ! Gusto requires certainty, and life ain’t worth living without living it with gusto.”
“What ever you say.” Buckley stuffed an Oreo in his mouth, black crumbs tumbling down his chin. “Maybe you should write a book.”
“Maybe you need your mouth washed out with soap.”
He would’ve said Fuck you to Paddy John, but he knew that his mother would never forgive him. He never spoke disrespectfully to his elders, but he was changing. Simply put, he didn’t care what Paddy John thought of him. It was wonderful not to care. For the first time in his life, he felt free from dread. He had two best friends and a girlfriend. He had long hair, a cool hangout, and the ocean. He had a surrogate grandmother—who was paying him five dollars a week to scrub the toilet. He had the May 1973 centerfold of Barbi Benton in his bedside drawer.
In July, a month shy of her and Buckley’s one-year anniversary in Galveston, Abigail lit a candle in her bedroom on Sealy Street. She looked in the dresser mirror at herself and the flame. She wished for Buckley to grow up happy and good. She wished for Paddy John to always love her. She crossed her fingers and blew out the candle. Running a brush through her dark hair, she wondered if she could somehow send divorce papers to John Whitehouse without revealing her whereabouts. She didn’t know how legal matters worked, but she couldn’t face that man or her mother again. She liked to pretend that, except for Buckley, the past didn’t exist.
Meanwhile, Paddy John made plans for their anniversary. He bought a secondhand picnic basket and a new (new to him) shirt at Harborside Thrift. He bought an eight-dollar bottle of sparkling wine and a dozen fudge brownies from Betty’s Bakery on Nineteenth Street. He told his buddies Jake and Saul (and his feminist friend Sissy) that he loved Abigail more than anyone but his own son. “She’s a spitfire, that one. I can see spending the rest of my life getting to know her.” Maybe in another six months, he’d propose. She made him feel energized, which was good, because he was not an old man but he tended to act like one.
He and Abigail had been dating for eight months. This anniversary was important to Paddy John, who’d never before kept track of such things. Having a kid at home had changed him. He told Abigail, “Bring Buckley tonight. He’s your family so he’s my family.” Paddy never criticized Buckley in front of Abigail, but he worried that without a male influence or some level of discipline, Buckley would falter in this world. The boy seemed apart from the earth. Paddy John couldn’t put his finger on it, not knowing how many years Buckley had spent with his face pinned to the red clay of the earth, not knowing how Buckley reveled in being apart from the earth.
Finding Abigail at the vanity, brushing her hair, Buckley said, “I don’t want to go tonight. Paddy John is boring. You’ll just make vomit eyes at each other.”
“Vomit eyes?”
“All lovey-dovey.”
“That’s what you and Marty Bascott do.”
“She’s not a hundred years old.”
“Neither am I.”
Buckley sat on his mother’s bed. “You lit a candle?”
“I said my prayers.”
Buckley smiled. “Will Tide be there?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“He’s annoying.”
“He’s five years old.”
“He had a birthday. He’s six. But, it doesn’t matter how old he is. I don’t want to go.” Buckley flung himself, arms overhead, back onto Abigail’s comforter.
“Do this for me.”
He got up. “Fine.”
“And be nice to Tide.”
“I’ll be nice to Tide. I’m always nice to Tide. Poor Tide. He’s had such a bad time.”
Abigail whipped around. “Don’t be a smart aleck.”
Buckley said, “I’m sorry, Mom.”
“I’m sorry.” He left, closing the door behind him. He never wanted to upset or disappoint her. He was being a jerk, and he felt guilty.
For the past eight months, when Buckley wasn’t with Charlie, Eddie, or Flamehead, he was keeping an eye on and entertaining Tide McGowan. At the drive-in, his mother said, “Take Tide to the swing set.”
“I’ll miss the ending.”
At Brown’s Lake, his mother said, “Take Tide to the concession.”
“I’m playing with my friends.”
“Let Tide play.”
“Tide’s too little.”
“You were little once too.” She whispered, “His mom didn’t take good care of him.”
Tide was not Buckley’s responsibility, but he recognized that as he and his mom had run away, so had Tide’s mother. It made him wonder if Paddy John was anywhere near as bad as the reverend, and they just hadn’t seen that side to him yet. People, Buckley knew, have dark sides.
Paddy John opened Abigail’s door. “I got some wine. I got some snacks for the boys. I got the radio and the cake, and check me out: I got all dressed up.”
Abigail grinned. She wore a sleeveless bluebird-print dress. Her skin was tauter, her face youthful. “You look handsome,” she said. “So what’s the surprise?”
“Well, as you know, back in my wilder days, I was a sailor. I have connections.” He beamed. “You, my sweet Abby, are having dinner on a thirty-six-foot fiberglass boat, top of the line, with yours truly at the wheel. There might even be champagne on board.”
She grinned. “Seriously?” She’d seen the ocean. She’d walked through the waves as far out as her waist, but she’d never been on the ocean in water so deep she couldn’t plant her feet on the sand.
Buckley, Tide, and Abigail followed Paddy John down the dock. Buckley, as instructed, carried the picnic basket, and Tide dragged the cooler. The sky was white: not gray, not blue. There were no thunderheads, no visible clouds, but at twelve seconds past 4:45, forty-eight seconds before 4:46, lightning struck Abigail Pitank. She had one leather sandal on the starboard side of the boat and one on the dock when she was hit directly, the lightning entering through her skull. She toppled and splashed into the water. Her one-hundred-thirty-pound body was pinned between the piling and the boat. Silver minnows, startled by the lightning and the dead weight, darted. Paddy John, blind from the lightning’s strike, dropped into the water after Abigail. Rain fell: a drip, a drop, a downpour with gusts exceeding twenty miles an hour. Paddy John was wet and numb, oblivious to the rain and wind. Buckley was frozen, watching, knowing that Paddy John would save his mother.
Paddy John grabbed Abigail’s arms and waist from the murky bottom, dislodged her chest from between the piling and fiberglass. He had trouble holding his breath, but he pulled until he had all of Abigail floating with him toward the surface. Lifting her head out of the water, needing a miracle, he saw her skull split open, charred black in spots. He held her body against his body. He was strong. He was muscular. He was a seaman, and he couldn’t save the woman he loved. He kissed her parted lips, still warm but muddied. “I fucking love you.” He punched the planks. She was gone. His raven-haired beauty had departed this world as quickly, shockingly, and mysteriously as she’d entered his life. He cried, but just a little. The time was not now. He said, “Buckley, I need help.”
From the dock, down on his stomach, Buckley reached for his mother’s arms. He was certain she’d be all right. He saw Tide standing there on the dock, the boy’s bare knobby legs smudged with some kind of dirt, the boy’s hands in fists. The boy doing nothing to help. Paddy John’s working hands lifted Abigail at the hips, but her waist bent and her head and chest flopped forward. Buckley stopped her from landing face-first onto the dock.
Buckley pulled and Paddy pushed until she was out of the water.
Tide began to cry.
“Mom?” Buckley said. “Mom? It’s me. I’m here.” She wasn’t allowed to leave him. She’d promised she’d never leave him. She’d said never. She’d promised! Padraig John, aware of the futile gesture, gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Buckley said, “She’s going to be okay. Tell me she’s going to be okay.” Paddy John said nothing. Buckley took her cold hand; the rain pelting his neck and arms. Paddy John wrapped her head with a towel—like a turban—to cover the blood. Buckley seethed when Paddy John stopped mouth-to-mouth. “You’re a piece of shit!” Buckley screamed. “I hate you.” He started to run away, but a crowd had gathered. Paramedics pushed through. “She’s my mom,” Buckley said, standing helplessly on the wood planks. The crowd whispered. Some strangers cried. Some people said they’d seen the lightning hit. Buckley didn’t remember much. He rode with his dead mother in the ambulance. At the small hospital, they called her DOA, dead on arrival. Buckley sat in a waiting room, waiting for nothing. She was dead. He covered his mouth, clasping his thumbs, his two hands like wings, fluttering. He sat for a long time, refusing to speak to anyone, until Joan Holt and Sissy came for him. Sissy was petite, but she picked him up, hoisting his thick legs around her waist. “It’s all right,” she said, knowing nothing was all right, but there are things a body needs to hear. “We love you,” she added. “We love your mama.”
Joan Holt said, “I am sadder today than when my Walrus died. He was old, and we had no children to miss.” She coughed. “This is wrong. It’s all wrong.”
It is, isn’t it? Buckley thought. When he woke up tomorrow, it might be different. If something is so wrong, can it be righted?
In the days that followed, Buckley was emotionally mute. He could not explain to Padraig John, Joan Holt, Sissy, or Jeanette that he didn’t want to leave Galveston, that he didn’t want to leave Charlie and Eddie and Flamehead or the ocean that his mother loved. He could not speak up. After the funeral service at Whitaker Memorial, he sat in Joan Holt’s living room, his two hands in her hands, their four hands in her lap, his head at the bend in her waist, while his mother’s friends whispered and ate food and tiptoed down the hall. Joan Holt said, “You can stay here, Buckley. With me. You’re my grandson.” He heard Padraig John in the kitchen. “Goddamn it.” He heard Padraig John crying. He heard Sissy say, “Life isn’t fair.” He heard Tide laughing somewhere in the house. He wondered about Charlie and Eddie and why he hadn’t heard from them. Did they know about his mom? They must know. It was in the newspaper. He heard Padraig John say, “I loved her.”
Joan Holt stayed at Buckley’s side, cradling his head. There were no words for mending.
Why hadn’t Buckley’s friends called? Why was his mother dead? For the last two nights, he’d hid beneath the covers, expecting that when the sun rose she would be standing over him. Hoping it was all a bad dream, but it wasn’t. There was a funeral. There were carnations and angel food cake.
The night of her funeral, Buckley went to bed knowing she wouldn’t be there ever again. She was dead. He got down on his knees, closed his eyes, clasped his hands, and prayed, “Dear God, you are Job’s god and the reverend’s god, and you did this to me. I guess it was wrong of me to try and be happy. I guess it was wrong of me to enjoy myself. I give up.”
Three weeks later, he rode in the passenger’s seat of the reverend’s station wagon back to Mont Blanc, Arkansas. He thought about the last things he’d said to his mother. “I don’t want to go.” He hadn’t. He’d been rude. She hadn’t deserved it. He’d wanted to see Flamehead. He still hadn’t gotten to second base (now that he knew what that was). He couldn’t help but wonder: If I hadn’t complained so much, if I hadn’t made her late to the dock, would she still be alive?
It was Buckley’s decision to confess to Joan Holt and Padraig John about his mother’s husband, John Whitehouse. As much as he loved Galveston, he’d never be happy again, and he didn’t deserve happiness. He deserved to suffer and pay for his sins. It was time to go home.
On the drive back to Mont Blanc, Buckley felt the breast pocket of his shirt. The folded Barbi Benton pinup was there. He reached into his duffel. The last candle his mother lit was there. That was all he needed.
The reverend said, “No good comes to those who run from the Lord.”
“Sure,” Buckley said. “That sounds about right.”