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"The Summer Kitchen" Chapter 2
Chapter 2The next time those stupid gangbanger wannabes came and threw basketballs against our wall, I was gonna do more than just go out and holler at them. I was gonna flag down the police myself.
Cass
I really was. I didn’t care how much trouble it started.
A siren went off somewhere down the street, and then a car alarm in the other direction. The siren faded off, but the car alarm kept going and going. I went back inside, sat down on the sofa, closed my eyes, and tried not to hear it.
Some lady told me once that when you don’t like where you are, you could close your eyes and think of the place you’d rather be—even if you’ve never been there and just seen it in a movie or a magazine. If you believed it enough, she said, it’d be just like you were there. A mind trip, she called it. She was living in some two-trailer-park oilfield town in West Texas and working in a Waffle Shop that smelled like cow poop, so I figured she had to be on some kind of trip, just to get by.
She was nice enough, though. She showed me that if you sat behind the hotel next door, up top of the electric box, you could look over the fence and watch the drive-in movie for free. She said when she was my age, she used to do it. Most of the time, the wind was blowing enough you couldn’t hear it, but you got good at reading lips and making stuff up after a while. I could always make stuff up like nobody’s business, which is important when you’re like Rusty and me. When you show up at a place too many days in a row, people ask questions, and you’ve gotta have an idea what to tell them, so they don’t start thinking they oughta call somebody official.
I don’t know why people need to stick their noses in—like just because you’re young means you’re stupid and can’t take care of yourself. The lady in the Waffle Shop was OK, but after a while she got all motherly and started poking into our business, and I had to quit going there. But before that, she’d bought me lots of French toast, so that was cool. I liked the mind trip thing, too. I used it sometimes, when we landed in places that, basically, stunk. Some places stink like cow poop, and some places just stink. But the mind places are always good, because you have control over them, instead of them getting control over you.
In my mind place, there’s a field so long, you can’t see across it, and I’m on a white horse, just running and running, like that song, Wildfire. When we were in the truck and that song came on the CD, I’d turn it up loud and close my eyes, to see if I could find anything else to add to my mind place. I added the moon and the hoot owl, but I left out the early snow, because I don’t really like cold places. We stayed two whole months in Fargo when Rusty got work at a feedlot, and it stunk bigtime, because it snowed like crazy and the wind blew ninety miles an hour, like, all day long. Rusty was gone short-hauling cattle, and I was stuck in a dumpy apartment over some lady’s garage.
The lady was old and almost blind. If you weren’t standing right in front of her she could hardly see you. So the good thing was she really believed I was seventeen instead of twelve, and Rusty was twenty-two, and there wasn’t any problem with my brother and me being out on our own. Rusty told her some story about our parents dying in a plane crash, and she felt real sorry for us, after that. She wouldn’t even take the rent when Rusty finally got it together. She just pushed it back in his hand, and folded her fingers around his, and said, “You save that for a rainy day, young man.”
Too bad it turned rainy about two weeks later, when Mr. Henry down at the feedlot got a fax from his insurance company, telling him Rusty was seventeen. The ID Rusty’d used when he got the job was fake, but Rusty had figured, since it fooled Mr. Henry in the job interview, we were home free. He’d unpacked his stuff in the apartment, and everything. He liked Mr. Henry’s niece, who worked the desk at the feedlot. The funny thing was, since she was sixteen, Mr. Henry thought Rusty was too old for her, and then, when he wasn’t too old anymore, we had to grab our stuff and go. Mr. Henry’d had a long talk with Rusty in his office. He wanted to know what kind of trouble Rusty was in. I’m still not sure how much he’d got Rusty to admit, but the only reason he let Rusty out of the office was because Rusty’d promised to go pick me up, so we could all drive to the sheriff’s office together and get help.
Rusty and me were out of the blind lady’s apartment quicker than you can say grab-the-cookie-jar, and that was the end of the cold country. We headed for Texas, which was where we’d started out to go, anyway. The one person who could help us was there. Somewhere.
The bad thing is that Texas is a big state, and it’s not so easy finding one single person, especially when you’re not sure about the name, or where to look, and you’ve got to make a living along the way. Rusty decided we shouldn’t stay in another small town. In a small town, everybody’s in your business. You can’t just move in and find a job and get a place to live, without everybody noticing. In a big city like Dallas, Rusty said, nobody’d know us from Adam.
He was pretty much right, but at least in Fargo we didn’t have gang banger wannabes throwing basketballs against our wall, and three little brats next door, whose mom locked them out on the steps whenever she got tired of looking at them, or when she wanted to have a man over, which was a lot. It didn’t matter how much those kids whined out there, or banged on the door, or whatever. If she was busy inside, she was busy. She turned up her stupid rap music to where it’d block out the noise. Too bad that didn’t stop everyone else from hearing it.
Dallas was too loud all the time. I couldn’t get to a mind place, even when I tried really hard. After two weeks in the apartment, I was ready to call Child Protective Services, myself. They could pick up those kids next door, and the wannabe gangbangers who stole the spare tire out of the back of Rusty’s truck and then spray-painted stuff all over the tailgate. Rusty had to spend thirty bucks--which we needed for groceries--on spray paint and a used spare, so he could get to work down at the construction site a few miles away. After that, he started leaving the truck parked down at Wal-Mart, where there was security. I talked him out of killing the stupid gangbangers, and they got away with it, since we couldn’t call the police on them. I thought about calling CPS, since the wannabes weren’t much older than me, but I figured they might tip off CPS that the disabled mom who supposedly lived with us in our apartment didn’t really exist. She was just an ID number that the guy who ran the place used so he could rent to Rusty and me, and still get his kick-back from welfare.
I gave up trying to get to a mind place and went to the kitchen. The noisy clock on the wall said it’d be a little while yet, until Rusty came home. Good thing today was pay day, because there was nothing left in the kitchen but some soda crackers, a tub of butter, some ketchup, mustard, a couple tortillas Rusty got leftover from someone’s lunch at work, and a half-bottle of flat Sprite. I ate one of the tortillas and left one, in case Rusty wanted it later, but he’d probably stop off for happy hour with the guys from the construction site. He usually did on Friday. He said it kept him in good with the rest of the bunch, which mattered, since we didn’t want anybody asking questions.
I sat down with my book and figured that if my brother didn’t make it home pretty soon, I’d eat the other tortilla with some butter and sugar on it. He wouldn’t want it by then, and we’d probably go to Wal-Mart tonight, anyway. While we were out, maybe I could trade in my book and get another one at the Book Basket, if the store was open late tonight.
In Fargo, the blind lady’s apartment had a TV in it, but in Dallas TVs cost extra—a lot. Reading’s not bad, though. You could take a book anyplace you ended up. A TV doesn’t fit in your suitcase so good.
The woman next door was hollering at some guy and banging on the wall. It sounded like they were playing racquetball in there, but that probably wasn’t what was going on. Gross. Rusty said that woman was so big, she came out the door in two different time zones, and he was pretty much right.
I took my book to my bedroom, laid down, and pushed the pillow up around my ears, then opened the pages and worked on taking a mind trip. I was reading an old story about Seabiscuit, the racehorse. I always liked old books the best—like Nancy Drew, and Sam Savitt’s horse stories, Walter Farley, and Marguerite Henry’s Misty of Chincoteague. My mama and I used to read those books together, back when I was little and really believed that someone was gonna tie up a pony out in front of our house, with a big old bow on it, while I was gone to school. Every day, when the bus started around the last corner, I’d close my eyes and hope so hard it hurt, then open up and look. Every time, I was bummed when there was nothing but Rusty’s stupid dog chained up in the yard.
I don’t know what makes somebody keep dreaming for something over and over when it ends up hurting in the end. Mama used to say you can’t stop dreaming, just because you’re afraid the dream won’t come true. She said a dream’s biggest enemy is being afraid. If the mountain’s big, you gotta dream bigger, Cass Sally Blue, she told me. Nothing’s impossible if you’ve got enough faith. You remember that. She might of got that from the Bible, but after a while, I figured out that some kids are gonna get ponies, and some kids aren’t, and whether or not you get one doesn’t have anything to do with how much you wish for it. You’re either born into the pony-getting crowd, or you’re not.
Mama probably liked the old-style books because they made it seem like life was a little more rosy than that. Those stories from way back even had the bad stuff cleaned up to where it didn’t seem so real, and besides, I’d read those books with Mama, so when I laid down with them, it seemed like she was right there on the bed next to me. I could still hear her voice saying the lines, her chest moving up and down under my ear, breath going in and out. She wheezed, kind of. Every once in a while, her body would go stiff for a second, and she’d catch a real quick gulp of air, and I’d know she had a pain. She never said much about it, though. She’d just go on reading after it passed.
About the time I started hearing Mama’s voice in my book and feeling her beside me, the baby next door got to crying. No one did anything about it. If my mama had been there, she’d of gone over there and knocked that lady into next Tuesday. Mama was pretty quiet, and mostly she minded her own business, but she could get riled sometimes. The kids hollering on the steps and the baby crying while its mom carried on with a man would have riled her. I sure wished Mama could have been there to give that lady what for. It stinks that some kids get crappy moms who live forever, and some kids get moms who get sick and die, while they’re trying to do the best they can.
I’d of gone over there to give that lady what-for myself, but Rusty would of killed me. He had a heck of a time finding a place we could afford in Dallas. We didn’t need any trouble here.
I wished Rusty would come on home. I hated it when he stayed out after work. As soon as the lights were on inside the apartment, it seemed dark and weird outside, like someone might be peeking around the edges where the mini blinds were too small. I didn’t like being by myself. Back in Fargo, I would of turned on the TV, and besides, I knew the blind lady was right there in the house. Here, I didn’t know who was around.
When Rusty was gone late, I always started to think, what if he didn’t come back? What if he got mugged, or had a car wreck, or just decided he was sick of all this mess, and left? What would I do then? How long would I sit here and wait? Where would I go, whenever I finally decided to leave?
I hated it when those questions took over my mind, so I read Seabiscuit, instead. I liked the story. When Seabiscuit was a colt, he was skinny and knobby-legged. He was plain looking--ugly, really, and he didn’t run worth a flip, even though he was what the horse racers call a blueblood. Nobody looked at him and figured he’d amount to anything.
I could totally relate to Seabiscuit, even though my daddy ended up in prison, so that probably didn’t rank me as a blueblood, we had the rest in common. I don’t think anybody ever looked at me and was too impressed, either. People always liked my hair, because it was blond and thick, and every once in a while, someone said I had pretty blue eyes, but it was kind of like they just picked out one thing to be nice, because altogether, the package wasn’t so hot.
Every once in a while, Rusty felt sorry for me and told me when he was a kid, he didn’t look like much, either. The problem was that Rusty still wasn’t much to look at, if you asked me. He looked like a man-sized body with a little kid’s head on top, but maybe that was because I always knew him since he was a kid. Mama said Rusty looked just like his daddy, Ray John, and Ray John was sure enough handsome.
At least my daddy didn’t have red hair and freckles. Things could of been worse…
I was falling asleep on the lumpy sofa by the time Rusty knocked on the door. The lady’d let her kids in and got them quiet finally, and the Mexican dudes were drinking beer and playing mariachi music down in the corner of the driveway. I don’t think they really meant to bother anybody. They were just loud. Most of the time, they had their wives and about a million kids running around down there while they partied. As far as I could tell, there were about eighty-seven of them living in two apartments. Whatever they cooked always smelled really good, though.
I heard them hollering at Rusty, “Hey, you wan-ee beer, amigo?”
Rusty didn’t answer. He just knocked on the door again, and said, “Open up, Cass.” There was only one key to the apartment, and Charlie, the stinky guy who lived in the manager’s office across the parking lot, wouldn’t give us another one. I always kept the key during the day, and that way I could lock up if I went places.
I looked at the squeaky clock while I walked to the door. After midnight. Geez. Rusty was gonna be tired getting up for work tomorrow. Dope.
When I opened up, someone was with Rusty on the steps. Whoever it was tripped on the way in and just about knocked me over with something she was carrying. She stopped a few steps past me, then turned partway and looked for Rusty out the corner of her eye. She was pretty—tall and curvy, with jeans that fit good. Her skin was a soft caramel color. Her hair hung in a million long spirals down her back. It was blond, but no girl with that color skin has blond hair naturally.
There were little wrinkles around the corner of her eye, crow’s feet my mama called them, and a tiny line that circled the side of her mouth. She wasn’t as young as her body made her seem. She had on lots of makeup, thick eyeliner drawn out to the side in a greenish color that matched her eyes, like one of those belly dancers in the old Ten Commandments movie that’s on TV at Easter.
She turned a little more, her look scampering around the room like a rabbit hunting a place to hide. She had a big, fat black eye and a cut on the side of her nose that was swelled up.
The waffle lady in the oil patch town looked like that once. When I asked her what happened, she said she slipped in the bathtub and hit the faucet.
Yeah, right.
Rusty leaned out the door and checked the parking lot like he was watching out for someone, then he came in, did the lock, and walked right past me, like I wasn’t there. He stopped beside the girl and pointed across to my bedroom. “Just put him back there in Cass’s room. That door, on the left,” he said. She hesitated, shifted something under a jacket in her arms, and Rusty put his hand on her back and sort of pushed her along until she got to the opening.
She went in my room and shut the door, like she owned the place.
“What the… heck?” I said, and Rusty turned around. “Who’s she?”
He shrugged, watched the door a minute, then tossed his tool belt on the table in the kitchen. After the first one got stolen and he had to pay for it, he never left his work stuff in the truck anymore.
“She’s gonna stay here,” he said, like that counted for an explanation. “They can sleep in your room.”
“They, who?” Rusty was such a butthead, sometimes. Leave it to him to give my room away to some girl he picked up at the bar.
“She’s got a little kid.” He moved to the sink and poured himself a glass of water. He swayed a little on his feet when he tipped his head back to drink it. “I can’t remember what she said its name is.”
I stood looking at Rusty with my mouth open. “She just put her kid in my room? Where the heck am I supposed to sleep?”
“You can sleep in with me.”
“I’m not sleepin’ in with you. Yuck.” Actually, I figured Rusty would want to leave that spot open for the girl. “I’m not a little kid anymore, stupid.”
Rusty let his head fall forward and rubbed his eyes. “Sleep on the couch, then, Cass,” he said, like he didn’t care if I hung from the light fixture, so long as I wasn’t in his way.
I got a sick feeling in my stomach, and it seemed like I was shrinking. What if Rusty got himself a little family all of a sudden, and decided I could go jump in a lake? Crossing my arms over my middle, I squeezed hard to make the hurt go away. I felt empty down deep, but not in a way that had anything to do with the tortillas and crackers wearing off. “She’s way too old for you, you know. What’s she, like, thirty or something?”
Rusty set the glass down hard, so that it smacked the counter. “Knock it off, Cass,” he said, and started for the bathroom. “Tomorrow, we’ll get one of those blow-up mats, maybe.”
Tomorrow? I thought. She’s gonna to be here tomorrow?
But there wasn’t any point saying it. Rusty was already in the bathroom, shutting the door and turning on the water.
I went to the kitchen, and washed the glass, and put it away where it belonged.
