Ham On Rye

12

One night my father took me on his milk route. There were no longer any horsedrawn wagons. The milk trucks now had engines. After loading up at the milk company we drove off on his route. I liked being out in the very early morning. The moon was up and I could see the stars. It was cold but it was exciting. I wondered why my father had asked me to come along since he had taken to beating me with the razor strop once or twice a week and we weren't getting along.

At each stop he would jump out and deliver a bottle or two of milk. Sometimes it was cottage cheese or buttermilk or butter and now and then a bottle of orange juice. Most of the people left notes in the empty bottles explaining what they wanted.

My father drove along, stopping and starting, making deliveries.

"O.K., kid, which direction are we driving in now?"

"North."

"You're right. We're going north."

We went up and down streets, stopping and starting.

"O.K., which way are we going now?"

"West."

"No, we're going south."

We drove along in silence some more.

"Suppose I pushed you out of the truck now and left you on the sidewalk, what would you do?"

"I don't know."

"I mean, how would you live?"

"Well, I guess I'd go back and drink the milk and orange juice you just left on the porch steps."

"Then what would you do?"

"I'd find a policeman and tell him what you did."

"You would, hub? And what would you tell him?"

"I'd tell him that you told me that 'west' was 'south' because you wanted me to get lost."

It began to get light. Soon all the deliveries were made and we stopped at a cafe to have breakfast. The waitress walked over.

"Hello, Henry," she said to my father. "Hello, Betty." "Who's the kid?" asked Betty. "That's little Henry." "He looks just like you."

"He doesn't have my brains, though." "I hope not."

We ordered. We had bacon and eggs. As we ate my father said,

"Now comes the hard part."

"What is that?"

"I have to collect the money people owe me. Some of them don't want to pay."

"They ought to pay."

"That's what I tell them."

We finished eating and started driving again. My father got out and knocked on doors. I could hear him complaining loudly,

"HOW THE HELL DO YOU THINK I'M GOING TO EAT? YOU'VE SUCKED UP

THE MILK, NOW IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO SHIT OUT THE MONEY!"

He used a different line each time. Sometimes he came back with the money, sometimes he didn't.

Then I saw him enter a court of bungalows. A door opened and a woman stood there dressed in a loose silken kimono. She was smoking a cigarette. "Listen, baby, I've got to have the money. You're into me deeper than anybody!"

She laughed at him.

"Look, baby, just give me half, give me a payment, something to show."

She blew a smoke ring, reached out and broke it with her finger.

"Listen, you've got to pay me," my father said. "This is a desperate situation."

"Come on in. We'll talk about it," said the woman. My father went in and the door closed. He was in there for a long time. The sun was really up. When my father came out his hair was hanging down around his face and he was pushing his shirt tail into his pants. He climbed into the truck.

"Did that woman give you the money?" I asked.

"That was the last stop," said my father. "I can't take it any more. We'll return the truck and go home…"

I was to see that woman again. One day I came home after school and she was sitting on a chair in the front room of our house. My mother and father were sitting there too and my mother was crying. When my mother saw me she stood up and ran toward me, grabbed me. She took me into the bedroom and sat me on the bed. "Henry, do you love your mother?" I really didn't but she looked so sad that I said, "Yes." She took me back into the other room.

"Your father says he loves this woman," she said to me.

"I love both of you! Now get that kid out of here!"

I felt that my father was making my mother very unhappy.

"I'll kill you," I told my father.

"Get that kid out of here!"

"How can you love that woman?" I asked my father. "Look at her nose. She has a nose like an elephant!"

"Christ!" said the woman, "I don't have to take this!" She looked at my father: "Choose, Henry! One or the other! Now!"

"But I can't! I love you both!"

"I'll kill you!" I told my father.

He walked over and slapped me on the ear, knocking me to the floor. The woman got up and ran out of the house and my father went after her. The woman leaped into my father's car, started it and drove off down the street. It happened very quickly. My father ran down the street after her and the car. "EDNA! EDNA, COME BACK!" My father actually caught up with the car, reached into the front seat and grabbed Edna's purse. Then the car speeded up and my father was left with the purse.

"I knew something was going on," my mother told me. "So I hid in the car trunk and I caught them together. Your father drove me back here with that horrible woman. Now she's got his car."

My father walked back with Edna's purse. "Everybody into the house!" We went inside and my father locked me in the bedroom and my mother and father began arguing. It was loud and very ugly. Then my father began beating my mother. She screamed and he kept beating her. I climbed out a window and tried to get in the front door. It was locked. I tried the rear door, the windows. Everything was locked. I stood in the backyard and listened to the screaming and the beating.

Then the beating and the screaming stopped and all I could hear was my mother sobbing. She sobbed a long time. It gradually grew less and less and then she stopped.