fresh pain shot through him.
“Mama, it hurts!”
“OK, baby. Just try to press the ice against it as best you can.” As an afterthought, she added, “And try not to bleed on anything.”
She supported him as they walked down the stairs into the living room, making sure the sheet was always between her and her son. He took small comfort in the familiar surroundings: the Persian carpet, the hat rack and umbrella stand, and the oval stained glass of the front door. He carefully avoided his father’s picture on the mantel.
His mother opened the door and sunlight poured in on them. The Boston summer was hot and sticky, but the fresh air cleared Billy’s head a little. His father’s Continental was parked in the driveway, his mother’s Thunderbird by it.
“Let’s take your father’s car. You can bleed all over his seats.” She unlocked the car and got in the driver’s seat. Leaning over, she unlocked Billy’s door. Billy shifted the ice to his left hand and opened the door. As he bent forward to get in the car, a fresh wave of pain flooded his head. He was no stranger to pain; things like this had happened before. He got in the car, leaned his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. She started the car and backed it out of the driveway. As she drove to the hospital, she turned to Billy.
“Billy, sweetheart, what are you going to tell the doctor when he asks you what happened?”
Bill sighed and thought, here it comes.
“Baby, just tell him you fell down the stairs. People don’t need to know what really happened. OK, sweetheart?”
Billy turned to his mother and asked the question he had wondered about for years: “Why don’t we just leave, Mama? Why don’t we go far away where he can’t hurt us anymore? I hate him, Mama, I hate his rotten, stinking guts.”
His mother, alternating her eyes between him and the road, put her hand out and touched a blood-free spot on his arm.
“I know, baby. But, if we leave, who will support us? Your father makes a lot of money. How can we just walk away from that?”
“We could both work, Mama. I could get a paper route and you could be a secretary or something. Let’s just go, Mama.”
His mother’s voice raised a notch and her look became dark. “Billy, you’d make just about nothing from a paper route and I can’t type worth beans. I’d end up hooking.”
“What’s hooking, Mama?”
She was going to say “It’s what stupid fools who leave their meal tickets end up doing,” but she thought better of it and said, “Nothing, baby. It doesn’t mean a thing.”
Billy knew better but was in too much pain to worry about it. His mother, however, was going to ensure Billy did no real damage when talking to the doctor.
“So, Billy, what are you going to say?”
“I’m going to say my big idiot father tried to shove a book up my nose.”
“Billy?” she said softly.
He sighed, “OK. I fell down the stairs.”
His mother smiled. She still had a beautiful smile.
“That’s my boy, sweetheart,” and Billy thought, It’s too bad people can’t see the tooth he knocked out. He again closed his eyes and tried to find some special place he had read about like Arizona or Virginia City, Nevada, where big good-hearted Indians would take him into their teepees and teach him all the great stuff they knew how to do - stuff like tracking bears and pumas and making fire with two sticks; stuff like knowing what animals think, but maybe only full-blooded Indians can do that. He could be their little white friend and they would give him a pinto pony that would run faster than any big idiot white man father with a big idiot Bible who would hit you so hard that part of the word ‘holy’ showed on your cheek for fifteen minutes. And as his big idiot white man father was chasing him and getting farther behind because his pinto pony could run so fast, the big good-hearted Indians would call all the rattlesnakes together in one spot so his big idiot father would run right into them. And they would bite his father until he looked like a big porcupine fuzz ball with rattlesnakes all over him. His father would scream and twirl and pull at them but they wouldn’t let go because the Indians told them not to. They would tell the rattlesnakes that he was a big idiot white man father from back East where the cities are full of big idiot white man fathers who beat their wives and children and then act like big holy joe guys that never do anything wrong. And then his big idiot father would die with fang holes all over his white shirt and black trousers and all over his face and in his eyes and tongue and everywhere. And then the ants and coyotes and all the other cool animals could come and eat him until only his Bible was left and then his Indian friends could cause a big sand-storm to cover the Bible so no big idiot white man father could use it to beat any more kids.
Billy decided he liked that story and would write it down and put it with his other stories. Writing stories about great ways for his father to die was one of his favorite pastimes.
He opened his eyes and saw that they were in front of the hospital. His mother parked the car and, like she did every time she parked, took out her compact and checked her lipstick and hair. Then she turned to Billy. “Remember, baby, you fell down the stairs. OK?”
“Yeah, I fell down the stairs and hit myself in the exact same spot on every step.”
“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be,” she said sternly. “Besides, you were the one reading that book. You had to know what would happen if he found out. This is your fault, too.”
Billy supposed it was his fault and the beating was just the way big idiot fathers acted. He knew boys who said their fathers never hit them, only made them go to their rooms or took something away. He thought they were lying. And now his nose felt like toasted cat guts. And there was this stupid fly that kept buzzing around his face and he wanted that dead, too.
With great effort, Billy opened the door and got out of the car. He was hoping his mother would help him but she had already stepped up on the sidewalk and was pulling on her gloves. She put out one gloved hand and impatiently motioned for him to hurry. Billy went to her, melting ice and blood dripping down the white sheet. A man coming out of the hospital held the door for them. He emitted a standard-high-to-low whistle and said, “I’ll bet that hurts.” His eyes moved to Billy’s mother. “Anything I can do to help, little lady?” He knew his mother couldn’t help it. She was the kind of woman who dripped sex.
His mother’s eyes stayed straight ahead. “No, thanks.”
He tipped his straw fedora, eyes following her as she walked past and said, “Just thought I’d ask.”
Billy and his mother walked down the hospital corridor toward the front desk. He could hear the busy sounds of a big city hospital and the click-click of his mother’s high heels echoing like a harbinger. He was hurrying to keep up with her, his pain excruciating with each step. They reached the front counter and a heavyset lady in a white uniform looked at Billy and said, “Oh, dear. What happened?”
His mother was quick to respond. “He fell down the stairs. I think his nose is broken.”
The heavy-set lady pushed a clipboard and pen at her.
“Fill out this form and I’ll call for an
