Ripped Up and Re-paved

by Richard T. Hellinga

“Can we go home, yet?” moans my son Teddy.

“What did I tell you? When I say it’s okay,” I say, watching the TV. It’s some of the usual jabbering about a gang-related shooting in the city which makes me glad we don’t live in the city with all the guns and niggers and all their violence. For every Michael Jordan and Walter Payton there’re thousands that are crazy. They’ve had since the sixties to get their act together and they’ve only gotten worse. You can see all the proof you need on the news every night. It’s why my parents moved us out here from Chicago.

“I’m tired.”

“I know. But we have to wait ‘til your daddy’s asleep.”

My teenage daughters Helen and Jenny are slumped on the couch next to Teddy. Their eyes are droopy, like Teddy’s are, but they look like they’re on the lookout for something to happen.

“It’s after ten. He’s usually asleep by now,” says Teddy.

From inside the bag set on my lap I grab a few potato chips and eat them. Then I move the bag to the end table with the green lamp on it. My nose itches. The left nostril. I wipe my greasy hands together to get off the salt. Then I rub my nose a bit with my knuckle. That feels a little better. “I’ll go check,” I say, and I heave myself up from the arm chair. If my husband’s asleep then everything’ll be okay and I’ll come back for the kids and put’em to bed. If not, then we might have to have it out again. I don’t want to have it out again. One fight is enough for the night. We can fix it in the morning, when no one’s tired or drunk or wound up.

Nancy is sitting on the floor with her back against the couch. She gives me a look like she’s afraid for me. She’s got my mother’s eyes and my mother’s way of worrying. At 24 she’s my oldest. “I told you,” she says, “You guys should stay here tonight.”

“No. It’s just as much our house as it is his,” I say.

“Mom, just sit back down. Stay here. Let him sleep it off.”

“No, no. That’s all right. I’ll handle it. He’ll be fine now.”

I’ve known the man for almost 30 years. I know how to handle him. When she married Tom a few years back I told her she should move where they thought they would be happy. They moved across the street because they got a deal on the Thompson’s old house after Shirley passed away, may she rest in peace.

I cross the living room and feel a bit of the breeze from the fan in the window. Nancy and Tom don’t have air conditioning. They say they don’t need it. But I always ask’em how they can sleep in the heat like this and they should just go to Kmart or Walmart or wherever and pick up a cheap air conditioner for their bedroom so they can at least sleep in comfort if they have to spend all day sweatin’. She says they’re saving their money. It’s their money; they can do what they want with it but I’ve been sweatin’ since the moment I crossed the street. I sat down and drank some ice cold pop and I’m still sweatin’. Nancy’s sweatin’. Teddy’s sweatin’. Jenny’s sweatin’. Helen’s sweatin’. It’s my least favorite part of the year: July. When you can’t even get a break from the heat at night. But the air from the fan is nice for the moment. My armpits are soaked. My whole body feels soaked.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I say.

I go out the front door. Down the steps I’m holding onto the metal railing. It’s painted brown like the trim on the house. I can’t take steps the way I used to, when I was younger and thinner. Ted used to be younger and thinner too. Doctor Granger told me I need to lose weight and that I need to exercise. I know he’s right. But it’s not that easy to find the time to exercise when I gotta work and take care of the house and kids. I can’t just take Wednesdays off like doctors can, or choose my hours like doctors can. Easy for them to say. I can’t choose when to drive those loudmouthed teenagers to school in the morning or home in the afternoon. The routes are fixed, along with the hours that go with’em. That’s what a job is.

The TV news fades as I get farther from the front door, walking on the path to the driveway. It’s dark except for the street lights and some porch lights. On the driveway I head towards the street. The blacktop is cracked and it’s got some odd lumps here and there. Nancy and Tom keep saying they’re gonna redo it soon like we redid ours a few years back, but they haven’t done it. Shirley kind of let things go after Harold died. So it didn’t get sealed right, to protect it like you gotta from the weather. Ted says the driveway probably wasn’t done right to begin with. Needs to be ripped up and re-paved completely. Only way to do it right. That’s what happens. Gotta decide when it can be fixed or has to be started from scratch again. But it’s their driveway. They can do what they want. I know it helps to have the money to do it right. We’d loan’em some money if we had some to loan. But that’s the thing about a house: if you don’t maintain it, it’ll fall apart. Our house. We’ve had the house for so long I remember when there were no curbs or proper sewers on this street, when it was just sloped from the middle with ditches and drain pipes on our easements. The curtains in the front room of our house are still open. I always shut them as soon as it gets dark. Don’t want people looking in at you while you’re sitting in your front room. He must be passed out on the couch. Out the front window it’s glowing in that blinky way the light from the TV does in the dark. There aren’t any other lights on except for the side porch light by the kitchen back near the garage.

Chasing us out of our own house. He’s got no right. He’s the father. He’s supposed to be there for us. It’s not like I don’t know how hard he works. Or how much he loves us. Or how hard he tries to do what’s best for us. I do. I really do. I’m lucky. I know it. I must be. I’m not on welfare like all those niggers. But I’m trying to do what’s best for us, too, and he needs to recognize that.

It’s cooled off a bit but still a little sticky. I feel an itch inside my nose again and so I can’t do anything else but put my thumb in there and dig what’s in there out and flick it onto the street. Feels better now.

No one’s on the porch of the Gillen’s like there was when we ran across the street. It was their oldest Brian and his friends hanging out there like always. They saw. I know they did. I noticed them as I was shooing Helen and Teddy and Jenny along the driveway. They were watching us. I’m sure Brian said something to Tammy and Frank. Which means Tammy is gonna be askin’ again and I’m gonna have to explain again. That it’s no big deal. Every husband and wife fights. There’re ups and downs in every marriage. And ours is no different. By the time the four of us play pinochle next month it’ll all be forgotten. That’s how it works. Something blows it all up and then it’s all forgotten. Gone.

Meanwhile, I’m a wife and a mother and I’ve got a job to do: make sure that man is tired out finally after that damn shouting match when he called us all lazy parasites. I told’im you can’t call us stuff like that and he told us if we didn’t like it we should get the hell out. And when he’s drunk like that there’s no reasoning with him.

I go through the back, up the short steps, again holding onto the railing. Maybe I do need to make time for exercise. Where the time will come from I don’t know. I pull the storm door and look through the window of the inside door. Though it’s dark in there I can see all the way through both the utility room and the kitchen and into the dining room and the glow from the TV that’s lighting up some of the dining room all blinky. I turn the door knob and it’s unlocked so I open the door slowly and take a soft step inside. The air conditioning is still on and I feel that cool dry air in front of me with the heat and the humidity behind me. I step all the way in and with my other hand I ease the storm door from shooshing real loud and smacking shut. If he’s asleep I don’t want to disturb him. I leave the inside door cracked open, because if he’s still awake and angry then I want to be able to get out quickly again. I don’t want to make him mad. I try and try. He’s drunk and something sets him off. When he’s not drinking he’s not like that.

The air conditioning feels wonderful. I raise up my arms. Ah that feels good. I’m not sweatin’ so much anymore. Thank God we’ve got air conditioning in our house. I put my arms down and walk through the dark.

I knew we were gonna have it out when he walked in the back door. I swear his footsteps sound different when he’s drunk and angry like that. So when I heard those slow stomping steps through the utility room and the kitchen I knew. From the couch I saw him. He had that pouty tired look.

When are we eating? he asked.

We already ate. I’ll heat you up a plate, I said.

Howcome we’re not all gonna eat together? I work all week for my family and I wanna sit down and eat with my family! he said.

I’m sorry. But you didn’t come home at the usual time. And we ate at the usual time. But I saved you a huge plateful. Huge. I’ll heat it up, I said.

Don’t any of you like me? he asked.

Just calm down, I said, I’ll sit with you while you eat.

If it wasn’t for me you’d all be starvin’, you lazy parasites! he said.

And then it got louder and then we had to run. When you’re son offers himself up to protect his mother...As if we’re not grateful for how hard he works. It’s no good sayin’ things like that. He works so hard drivin’ that delivery truck. But ever since Harvester closed up...It’s done. We can’t think how easier things were. Have to take care of now. What we have now. Along with our hopes for the kids. I hope one of’em makes it to college. Don’t know if we’ll be able to afford to send’em. But jobs ain’t easy to come by anymore. Now those chinks and japs got our jobs, building our cars, our trucks, our TVs, our VCRs, our toys, our steel. You name it. It used to be made by us. The U.S. Now it’s made somewhere else. Not in America. Not anymore. And no one seems to care. Just people like us. Tammy’s husband lucked out. Everyone needs those vending machines. They’re everywhere. So to fill’em and maintain’em is a good job to have.

Through the kitchen I can hear what sounds like ESPN on the TV. He must’ve watched a baseball game or something. I peak my head into the dining room to look into the front room. The murky colors from the TV beat the photos on the wall. The six of us. Nancy’s high school graduation. School pictures of Helen, Jenny, and Teddy. Mother and Father. Ted’s parents. It’s Sports Center. The highlights of some game. The light from the TV is blinking all over him as he lies slumped on the couch. His eyes are closed. His right hand is clutched around a crushed empty can of Old Style set on his thigh. When he’s lying there like this he looks so peaceful. Not restless. He’s not fighting anything. Tender. Like those moments after sex. He used to pick me up at my house and Mother used to look at me like she was afraid for me. He loves me, I told her. She never came out and said it. That wasn’t her way but she had that worrying look. And Father told me Ted was the kind of guy that’d be a good provider. And Ted and I would go to a movie and have sex in the car, that old black Plymouth, to the music on the radio; “He’s So Fine” “Twistin’ The Night Away” “Can’t Help Falling In Love”...Then we got married and had sex in our own bed. Then we had Nancy. Then only when she was asleep. And we held off on more kids until we had a little money and we got the house. Just the three of us. Then three more, Jenny, Helen, and Teddy, a boy, so we stopped. And now he’s passed out on the couch.

I walk towards him. I finger one of the cushions at the other end of the couch. It’s big and soft. A comfy couch. We bought it just before Teddy was born and haven’t gotten any new furniture since, though we always talk about it because something else always comes up that’s more important like seal for the driveway or a new lawnmower or another coat of paint on the house. Not to mention Sacred Heart tuition. It only goes up like property taxes. The cushion. He’s still asleep. Not thinking about anything...But why the hell should he be so peaceful when the rest of us had to run across the street, like scared animals? Why? Why is it always about him? And how hard he works? And how tired he gets? And how grateful we need to be for him? For what he blows at the bar in one night I could buy Teddy a couple new pairs of jeans and he wouldn’t have to be wearing the same worn out ones that don’t even come near his ankles anymore. He’s growing. 12-year-olds grow. Our kids to think about. And me. Does he think I like listening to crazy, foul-mouthed teenagers while I drive’em back and forth to school? They act like animals. Not a damn one of’em knows how to behave. But none of’em has ever raised a fist to me. Not a one. And I’ve never raised a closed fist to our kids. Or slapped him. He was sorry for slapping me so hard that night when he came home late from the bar and I needed him to fix the downstairs toilet, before Jenny's birthday party that Saturday and we argued and I remember the force and the sting on my left cheek. He said so. I know he was. And here I am tiptoeing in my own house, so that I don’t disturb him. This is wrong. I shouldn’t have to live this way.

I pick up the cushion and hold it in both hands. The cushion is soft, real soft. It feels good. He snores. He’s loud. Always loud after a night of drinking. I always have to sleep on the couch just so I can actually get some sleep. Can’t sleep next to him when he’s snoring like that. I could leave him here. Or I could put this cushion over his face and hold it for awhile and then he would stop. I could lean with every single one of my 213 pounds and it would all stop. No more drinking. No more shouting. No more insults. No more running. He would be at peace and I would be at peace and our children would be at peace. Yes, peace. An easy peaceful feeling all over me and this house and the kids. No more being watched by Tammy’s son. No more explaining to Tammy. No more pretending at Pinochle. His face frozen in peace just like it is now for all time. He snores like cranking a lawnmower. Peace. Like after sex. Peace. In death. Peace. Like the soft couch cushion I’m holding in my hands. Never to hear those stomping steps again. Peace. Peace. Peace. Please...Forgive me father for I am about to sin it’s been years since my last confession though I go to mass every Sunday at Sacred Heart where we had our kids baptized, take communion, and make their confirmation, where Ted and I got married on that Saturday afternoon May 19th 1965 and swore in sickness and health until death do us part, right here now in my hands, the hands that steer the bus, cook the food, wash the dishes, dust the house, fold the laundry, vacuum the carpet, write the checks and always put something into the collection basket of Sacred Heart even when we really didn’t have a dime to spare because we know that unemployed or not we gotta give ‘til it hurts when it comes to what You need Lord. Something other than this. He always says he loves me. And after he screws up he always says he’s sorry. He’ll say it tomorrow. I know he will. That’s love, isn’t it? Has to be. What else could it be? If that’s what it is then why am I thinking about, why does it feel so right?

He coughs hard. His eyes open. His face gets that pouty look again just like Teddy’s used to when he was little. “I’m home?” he says like he’s confused.

“Yes. You’re home,” I say. My finger tips and knuckles are sore. I’ve been squeezing the cushion. I relax my fingers. I’m breathing real hard, trying to catch my breath. Trying harder than when I first got to Nancy’s. I feel like I’ve just run the length of the block. I don’t even remember the last time I ran, for any reason. Probably not since high school, gym class.

“How’d I get here?” He looks at his can-holding hand.

I put the cushion back on the couch. “You drove yourself home, like you always do.” My fingers feel like they’re going to cramp up. I open and close my hands a few times.

“Where’re the kids at?” He’s still slurring a little. Must still be drunk.

“At Nancy’s.”

“Howcome?”

My arms and hands shake. The muscles are twitchy. I clasp my hands together so he doesn’t notice. Because you just about threatened our lives, missed your son when he ducked and you fell, and we all ran...And now I’m a terrible terrible woman who needs a better husband. My kids need a better father. “There was a fight,” I say, taking a step towards him.

“I don’ remember,” he says.

“What do you remember?”

He puts the empty can on the end table and then turns back to me and scoots over a bit and lunges at me, putting his arms around my thighs and burying his head in my belly. “I don’t deserve you,” he says, sobbing. “I love you and the kids so much, Cathy. I’m sorry...I don’t know why I do these things...And I don’t remember.”

I almost fall back. His arms hold me snug. Through my shirt I feel his warm head against my belly. I feel almost caught up on my breath. I drape my left arm down across his back, my sore left hand below his shoulder blades, still twitchy. He’s warm. He smells of sweat and beer. I put my sore right hand on top of his head, my fingers woven into his black and gray hair. “I’m sorry, too,” I say.

© 2003 Richard T. Hellinga. All Rights Reserved.