Poor Jenny, Bright As A Penny

Chapter 15

Late that night Lud called. There had been a wreck. Mama was in the hospital.

Georgie drove Jenny and Bingo to county hospital where they were made to wait in a cold sitting room until they could talk to the doctor.

Mama had a broken hip and three broken ribs. The break in the hip was a straight fracture that had not separated. The doctor was concerned about keeping Mama still. She had been put in traction. She would be in the hospital three weeks. They were allowed to tiptoe into the ward where she was sleeping, and stare silently at her.

The ward was a long dim room with beds lined up close together, each lumped with the body of a sleeping woman, or a woman silently watching as they passed. Mama’s leg was wrapped in a white canvas-like material below the knee. This was attached to a board across the sole of her foot. A cord ran from it through a pulley on the footboard of the bed and dropped to end in weights. Mama looked uncomfortable. Next to her a woman moaned and tossed.

When they visited Mama the next day she was short-tempered with them. Jenny fished a cigarette from Mama’s crumpled pack and lit it for her. “Georgie sent you some.” She put four packs into the drawer of Mama’s night stand. “How did it happen, Mama?”

“That stupid Lud went to sleep at the wheel, plowed into something alongside the road, and skidded into the ditch. Threw me right out of the car against a goddamn culvert.”

“Oh, Mama.”

“I dunno who called the cops, but the first thing that snotty- nosed bluesuit asked me was, did I have hospital insurance.”

Jenny just stared at her.

“How did you know what happened?” Mama asked crossly.

“Lud called. He wasn’t hurt.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Maybe getting the car fixed.”

“He won’t hang around,” Mama said bitterly. “I’m no good to him this way.”

Mama chain-smoked three cigarettes and had little more to say to them. Jenny tried to plump her pillow, but it only made her angry.

“Don’t they give you anything for the pain?”

“It don’t hurt now. I just don’t like being trussed up. I don’t like hospitals, I don’t like hospital food, and I can’t stand lying in the goddamn bed for two months.”

“You can come home in three weeks,” Jenny said. “We’ll have an apartment ready, with a hospital bed.”

Mama glared and said nothing.

“And we’re going to see Mr. Knutson and get you back on welfare.”

“He won’t do anything, no point in wasting your breath.” She took a long drag, stubbed out her cigarette, and lit another. “I can get along fine without your help, miss.”

“Come on, Mama.”

“You think you’ve got your way and I’m stuck in this city.”

When they were outside Jenny said ruefully, “She’ll be glad enough to have a place to go to when she gets out of there. Do you think we can get Mr. Knutson to listen to us? Do you think we can find an apartment? We don’t have anything, all our towels and kitchen things—except that trunk of blankets. Will someone rent two kids an apartment?”

“They will if you tell them about Mama and how she’s in the hospital. Make them want to help us. Make yourself look older. Pin your hair up and wear that plaid dress.”

At the welfare office Jenny told Mr. Knutson all about Lud from the beginning, and that Lud was gone now. “For the first time, Mr. Knutson, Mama needs some help.”

“And what about your sister?”

“The police are still looking for her.”

“I’m sorry, Jenny. Now you’re not to worry, I’ll have a check in the mail as soon as I can.”

“Will I be allowed to work?”

“As long as you’re a minor you can make as much money as you like without affecting the welfare check.”

*

Armed with the want ads and a map, Jenny and Bingo began by searching the neighborhood they knew, near the Dermodys and their schools.

But the apartments were the dirty, threadbare holes they had known for half their lives. “Why can’t a landlady keep something nice, it can’t cost all that much to clean and paint once in a while,” Jenny fumed.

“They don’t care.”

“Why don’t people care?” She didn’t expect an answer. The fusty apartments seemed so much worse now, after living in a house that was loved.

When they did find what they wanted it was not an apartment at all, but a house. It seemed to Jenny it had been waiting for them, almost as if she had conjured it up herself. It was a small cottage that might once have been white. It stood just a block from their old apartment. It was forlorn and shabby, almost lost in the center of the overgrown yard.

Jenny wanted to take it at once, but she didn’t want it dirty. She kept silent while the landlord waited for her decision.

“The rooms need painting,” she said finally.

“For that kind of rent, miss, I’m not handing you a palace.”

“But it does need painting, and the furniture is saggy, and the refrigerator is too small. I guess we could put up with that, though, if you painted it.”

“I can’t paint it for a couple of kids,” Mr. Decker said. He was a small dark man with white streaks in his hair, and a limp. “How do I know your mother’s really in the hospital? How do I know you’re not just runaways?”

“It wouldn’t make any difference where Mama is. I’m of age,” Jenny said coolly. “But,” she said in a softer tone, “if you really do want to find out, you can call county hospital. Now are you going to paint for us?”

Mr. Decker refused to paint—which Jenny had felt sure he would—but he agreed to buy enough white paint to do the inside if they would make a neat job of putting it on. They went away elated, a receipt for a month’s rent clutched in Jenny’s hand.

*

We have painted our own house. At least we have painted two rooms with only the kitchen left to do. Jack loaned us ladders and drop cloths, and showed us how to keep our brushes from dripping. I guess we need more practice though, because we ended up splattered like two leopards—it’s hard to paint ceilings without dripping it in your hair. We scrubbed ourselves before coming home, and cleaned up the floors and windows, then when we got home I soaked in a lovely hot tub. I can hardly wait to be finished and start making it pretty. Georgie has a trunk in the basement she said I could borrow from, and then I’m going to the Goodwill and see what I can find. I want it to be bright and happy, it will be our first house—except for when we were little.

We are in Ben’s area. He promised he’d keep an eye on us. It’s got a big lonely yard and the row of trees behind is tall and black at night.

Could I ask him to stop for his dinner sometime? I’d feel funny asking, though. And what would Mama do? Act snotty, I suppose. Still, it would he nice to make dinner for Ben. I’ve never had a place where I could have a date come to see me. Only it wouldn’t be like a date.

I wish it would be, though.

*

From Georgie’s basement came India-print spreads in beautiful colors, enough to cover the sagging beds, the day bed, and the moth-eaten upholstered chair, a little wooden chair painted red, a turquoise lamp, and a big straw rug that would cover the worn carpet.

Then in the Goodwill Jenny bought a desk, a small chest, and a coffee table, all to be sanded and painted. She found five books that she wanted for a quarter each, some bookends, a blue pot for flowers, and a china elephant glazed blue and red and gold. It was to bring them luck.

By the end of two weeks the furniture was painted and Jenny had made the house beautiful, the colors glowed and the sun seemed to come in even brighter.

An ambulance brought Mama home. Jenny had put the rented hospital bed close to the sunniest bedroom window; it had a trapeze-like affair over the top to help Mama move, and there was an eating tray on legs that would slide over the bed, a dishpan for sponge baths, and a bedpan. The doctor came along soon after Mama arrived, to see that the traction weights were correctly attached, and to give Jenny instructions. Perhaps too he came to inspect the arrangements, but if he did he must have been satisfied.

From her bed Mama could see through the bedroom door to the living room. She looked around it when she was brought in, and she looked out at it again when she was settled.

The day bed where Bingo would sleep and the upholstered chair were covered with India prints in turquoise, red, and blue. The bright red desk stood against the window; it had a blue blotter and held the turquoise lamp, a row of books, and the painted elephant. The straw rug caught the sun. A patch of sun slanted across the day bed and the red coffee table that held a bowl of green leaves. The room sang with color. Jenny loved that room. “Do you like it, Mama?”

“Looks like a hippie pad with all them Persian throws. Where’d you get all them?”

“I borrowed them,” Jenny said tiredly. And she thought, I didn’t expect you to like it. I didn’t do it for you.

“We painted the whole house ourselves,” Bingo said solemnly.

“Painted a rented house yourselves?”

That was the way Mama settled in. She was as comfortable as she could be, and Jenny and Bingo took good care of her, but she was cross and nothing seemed to please her. She complained that they didn’t have a television, and when Mr. Decker loaned them one, she complained about the picture. She grew bored easily, demanded movie magazines, then would throw them aside and sigh deeply. Her appetite was not good, no matter what Jenny fixed for her, and she was short and sarcastic with Jenny. When Jenny made a casserole from one of Georgie’s recipes, Mama said, “What’s this stuff?” Or she said, “Them fancy salads don’t fill a person up.” But when Jenny splurged and bought steak, Mama accused her of extravagance.

When Mr. Knutson came, Mama almost snarled at him. He was polite, he admired the cottage and what Jenny had done to it; he even praised her coffee. And he asked about Crystal, which made Mama more surly still and caused her to say afterward, “What business is it of his?”

That night Jenny cried silently into her pillow. But when she was done crying, she thought contritely, I shouldn’t complain about Mama. Her ribs hurt, she can’t move, she itches under the wrapping where it’s impossible to scratch, and Lud hasn’t even come to ask about her. She’s just so miserable that all her bad habits are worse than ever. And she wants her beer.

But Mama drunk would be more than I could handle. Five more weeks before Mama is out of that bed.