The Other Side(11)
“Okay, thanks,” Alice replies.
I know I was the one looking for her, but I only make it ten minutes before I start to feel claustrophobic. Like Alice’s presence has shrunken the space and sucked out half of the oxygen supply. Guilt pokes the steely point of a sharp blade to my brain.
I need to leave…her…me…this, whatever it is…needs to go away.
I prefer walking around with a familiar grip on the shield of hopelessness and my depression in control, to taking in the world around me with bland interest only when survival deems it necessary.
Alice making me uncomfortable is unnecessary.
Except the few bars I stole of the song she was listening to, that was necessary.
Chapter Four
Present, February 1987
Toby
It’s Friday. I’m audibly sighing. Can you hear it?
Cliff’s bedroom door is open when I arrive home from school, and he’s sitting on his bed, right in the middle. His legs are crossed and his back is rigid. Cliff’s posture is always ramrod straight; it makes him look nervous and guilty, like he’s bracing to get busted for something. It doesn’t pair well with his I-don’t-give-a-shit, punk rock attitude. He’s a fraud. The sheets are in disarray and he’s only wearing a pair of sweatpants. I wonder if he went to school today or if he ditched again. He’s staring at me, or rather through me, the blank look in his beady little eyes tells me he’s not taking me in.
I have a decision to make, address the zombie-like stare or ignore it.
Easy choice—I ignore it and set my backpack down on the linoleum floor next to the answering machine chair and press the button that will relay Friday’s tales of woe. One crisis at a time.
“Toby, Johnny here, chain for 2A’s toilet is on the counter. Fix it before you do anything else.” The familiar slur is absent, but he’s grouchier than normal. I didn’t think that was possible. “Stopwatch is running—” He hesitates and then adds after a huff, “Just get it done,” and hangs up abruptly.
Second message: “Toby, this is Chantal.” For a moment my stomach drops because Chantal never calls, her grandma calls. If she needs to talk to me, she always comes to 3A to talk to me in person. Which means something is really wrong. “I have a huge favor to ask. I’m sorry, but can you please stop by when you get home from school?” Well, that wasn’t exactly comforting.
When the distress light on the answering machine dies out after her words, I don’t waste any time in beating my feet down the stairs to Chantal. The broken toilet will have to wait.
I knock and then grasp my hands behind my back to still the nerves vibrating in them. My pits are growing damp beneath my jacket too. Great.
The baby’s cries grow impossibly loud as I picture Chantal moving toward the door holding him. When she opens the door, the shrieks are pained. I know nothing about babies, but he rarely cries, and it’s never like this, not even close. And Chantal? I’ve seen prizefighters on the losing end of twelve rounds look better. She obviously hasn’t slept. Her hair is a mess, and her shirt is covered in spit-up. Exhaustion, fear, and sadness are whittling away at her. She gently strokes the head of the listless, angry boy with splotchy, tear-soaked cheeks in her arms with a patience that doesn’t seem possible given the situation. She tries to smile at me, but her tired mouth can’t be bothered to lift.
“Toby, thank God. Joey’s running a fever, he has been for two days now, and I’m out of formula for tonight. Grandma’s not having a good day and I can’t leave him with her to run to the store to get some.” Her chin is quivering in unison with her voice. The request comes out accompanied by stress-induced tears. “If I give you some money, can you run down to the QuikMart and get some?”
I nod once and I can’t take my eyes off the five-month-old in her arms. I’m wondering if he’s so pissed off because he’s hungry or so pissed off because he’s sick. It hurts to think of either option. He isn’t wearing anything except a kitchen towel pinned in place instead of a diaper. Which means she ran out again.
She walks to her purse on the coffee table, pulls out her coin purse, and proceeds to empty its contents into my open palm. A few neatly folded dollar bills and three pennies drop out. Her lips pinch together tightly and the chin quivering starts up again when she looks at what I’m sure is everything she has to her name lying in my hand. “It should be enough for the small container.”
I drop my chin so my eyes slip away from the sad scene to the floor, and nod once, before turning and walking out the door and down the stairs. I run all the way to Dan’s Tavern and slow only when I enter its smoky interior. Johnny is perched on his stool in the corner backed up to the wall, a half-empty glass of beer in his hands, and a striking scowl on his face.
Usually I wait for him to talk first, but today I don’t.
“My money,” I demand.
He glances at the clock on the wall behind the bar and back at me suspiciously. “It’s only four twenty, you fix that toilet?”
I lie, “Yes.”
“Bullshit.” He always knows when I’m not being honest. And it’s really inconvenient right now.
“My money,” I try again.
He shakes his head, sets the beer on the bar top and reaches for his pack of cigarettes and his Zippo. “Not until that toilet is fixed.” Lighting his cigarette, he hands the lighter over to me when I slip one from the pack.