The Other Side(14)
The cab ride always ends with this distinct look from her—no matter the woman’s age, race, or facial features, the look is identical and unmistakable—it’s trust, before I pay the fare and lead her out.
That’s where story time ends. I’m an asshole and a gentleman, if you recall. What happens next is mine. Mine to hold onto and carry me into the only restful night’s sleep I’ll get all week.
Chapter Five
Present, March 1987
Toby
There’s a Canadian bacon Party Pizza in the oven and my eyes are glued to the cock clock over the stove impatiently waiting out the twelve-minute bake time. I consider pulling it out early, but I like a crispy, verging on charred, crust, so I wait.
When the time is right—or wrong, based on the crappy outcome—this happens:
I palm a ratty potholder, open the oven, and shove my greedy, hungry hand inside.
At the same time, the front door opens so forcefully that it crashes against the wall, only to rebound back in the glowering face of Cliff, whose meaty hands catch it and slam it back so he can stomp in.
My concentration and the potholder slip, my hand connects with the 450-degree oven rack when Johnny enters on Cliff’s heels. My, “Shit!” matches his, “Cliff!” in tone and annoyance. While I’m shaking my hand violently and shouting every curse word I know in my head, Johnny marches through the kitchen shouting every curse word he knows at Cliff, intermittently sprinkling in:
“What were you thinking?”
“You’re going to end up just like your father!”
“You can’t do this again or they’ll take you to juvie!”
“You’re almost fifteen years old, Cliff, it’s time to grow up!”
They’re in Cliff’s bedroom now. Neither is listening, both are yelling over the top of each other like it’s a competition to see who can fill the room with the most rage. From where I stand, they’re both winners because it’s boiling out and overflowing into the kitchen. A quick once-over of my hand and I see glistening, pillow-y blisters puffing up like the Pillsbury Doughboy along the inner creases of my fingers. Jerking the dish towel from the rod over the sink, I soak it in cold water and wrap it around my fingers. Dripping water all over the floor, I awkwardly fish my cheesy masterpiece out of the oven with the potholder and my left hand. Once on the waiting plate on the counter, I turn the oven off, close the door, and make my way out on the fire escape that functions more like a balcony with door access instead of just a window. It’s cold out here, but I can’t listen to them fight.
My mother was a yeller.
I’m not. Yelling twists my guts and fills my head with obnoxiously loud static. It makes me sweat.
And even though it’s freezing out here, I’m sweating. I’ve only heard Johnny yell one other time, it takes a lot to get him there; Cliff got caught shoplifting then too.
Forcing the crispy crust to fold in half, I pick it up with my uninjured hand and take a big bite. The cheese burns the roof of my mouth, but that’s child’s play compared to the pain blazing through the blisters on my hand. It’s dangling at my side, the towel and my nerve endings dripping.
“Hello? Is someone up there?” The voice is calm, at odds with everything going on, as if there’s a barrier of peace that exists between here and there.
Looking down through the metal grating, I realize my dish towel is raining down on Alice standing below, and I rest my hand over the railing to divert it.
“Hey, Alice.” I hate salutations because I’m a minimalist where words are concerned and most greetings are unnecessary when you’re face-to-face with someone. But everything is different with Alice.
“Toby?” she questions.
I leave my plate behind and start down the ladder stairs connecting our fire escape to hers. I stop three rungs from the bottom and sit down, cooling pizza in one hand, and burning flesh in the other.
Her voice is quieter, she knows I’m close. “It smells like pizza.”
“It is,” I say, chewing through another bite and then for some unknown reason, I add, “Do you want some?” It’s been years since I shared food with anyone.
She shakes her head. “No, thanks, I ate some spaghetti a little while ago.”
I want to ask her if she cooked the spaghetti. And if Taber’s home. Hell, I want to ask her lots of things, which is strange, but I settle on, “What are you doing outside? It’s freezing.”
She tips her head to the side slightly and then straightens it, like she’s really thinking about my question. “I like being outside, it feels like possibility. Especially at night, because in the dark we’re all the same…” she trails off, but she’s not feeling sorry for herself. She’s just talking. Sharing.
I’m not sure what to say. I don’t have shallow conversations with people, let alone deep ones. But I can’t leave her unfinished sentence dangling. “Have you always been blind?”
She shakes her head faintly and her long blonde waves rustle like fall leaves in the wind. “No, I started losing my sight two years ago. It’s progressive. In another year, it will be gone entirely.”
What strikes me the most about this information is the way it’s delivered: all facts, no sadness, and a little of the hope I’ve come to associate with her. How can you be hopeful when your world is going dark?