Poor Jenny, Bright As A Penny

Chapter 18

It is two days since Crystal’s funeral. Mama is still drunk. At first I hid her bottle, but she begged so pitifully that I handed it over. I don’t care any more. Let her drown herself.

Sometimes she’s sick and I have to clean up the mess, then Bingo and I sit on the porch until the smell in the house goes away. Last night the stars were out and we sat wrapped in blankets at midnight. There was a little breeze and somewhere over the city a lonely night bird was crying. I felt so sad. And I guess I was feeling sorry for myself. I was tired of taking care of Mama. I wanted someone to take care of me.

Then Bingo put his arm around me and I remembered that we needed each other, that he takes care of me sometimes.

I made sandwiches from the chicken Georgie brought, and hot, sweet tea, and we ate on the porch in the dark night. It was comforting and it made us feel stronger.

Now it’s morning and the rain clouds are washing across the sky. I need to set down clearly what the days have been.

She wanted the details now, the small realities, to steady herself. She could not cry for Crystal; the lump inside her hurt so, but she could not cry.

Mama got up once and tried to dress. She was struggling pitifully and so weak she couldn’t manage. She wanted to go buy a bottle. I wouldn’t help her dress, I only watched her. She couldn’t get her skirt on. She might have gone without it, but then she was sick again. And then she started to yell and cry and she was like that the rest of the night. I slept finally and when I woke in the morning she had found my hidden purse and taken all the money. She had another bottle. She wouldn’t tell us where she hid the rest of the money. We looked in her purse, her bed, all her personal things, every stitch of her clothes, then searched the cupboards and closets and drawers, under the rugs, under the chest and the trunk, and beneath the chair cushions and mattresses. We looked in the springs of the chair and then, although we knew Mama could never climb so high, we unscrewed the light fixtures and looked into them.

That night Mama yelled terrible things and we could not make her quiet. Bingo began to search again. He went into the bathroom, felt under the lip of the basin, then got a screwdriver and removed the chrome fixtures that hold the soap and the toilet paper and looked in the holes that had been cut in the walls for them. Nothing. He examined the medicine cabinet. Nothing. Then he removed the lid of the water closet behind the toilet.

There it was, a mayonnaise jar full of money.

He carried it dripping into the living room and handed it to me. We grinned at each other. Now, there would be no more whiskey.

But after all that, Mama decided on her own to sober up. This morning when I woke she was in the kitchen drinking black coffee. She was wearing that pink robe Lud gave her, it was wrapped all crooked and there was a stain down the front. Her hair needs bleaching again, it makes a black crown on top of her head. She had the coffeepot on the table and was drinking the coffee practically boiling. She said, “Things will be better now, Jenny.” That was Mama’s way of saying she was sorry. It was lovely to hear her say that. Then she said flatly, “I guess I hid the money.’”

“I know, Mama. We found it.”

She looked surprised and a little annoyed that we had figured out where it was. Then finally, “I guess I really hung it on, didn’t I? Well, there are times for all of us.” She pondered this as if it were very profound. Then she said sadly, “Maybe the only rest we get in this world is when we’re finally dead.”

I was shocked at that, and it made me incredibly sad. I put my arm around Mama. The sun moved to touch the glass in the back door and send a slash of yellow onto the linoleum. I said, “You’ll be all right now, Mama.”

“I’m the way I am,” Mama said. “There’s nothing I can do about that.”

And the closeness I felt for Mama vanished. I wanted to shout, “There is always something you can do about yourself! You just don’t want to, Mama!”

But it wouldn’t have done any good.

*

Jenny put her notebook down, picked Bingo’s blankets off the floor and covered him again, then went to make the beds. She found Mama sitting on her rumpled bed with Crystal’s open suitcase before her. She was trying to sort Crystal’s belongings into two piles, one to give away and one to keep. She would put something into one pile then remove it and put it in the other.

She looked at Jenny imploringly. Jenny sighed. “Why don’t you put it away, Mama? Can’t we do it some other time?” She took her notebook onto the porch and sat in the sun alone.

Poor Mama, it’s going to be pretty hard for her to get used to Crystal’s death, I think. I wonder if she will stop drinking? I wonder if she can. Then Jenny crossed that out angrily and wrote, I wonder if she cares enough to stop.

What was it like for Crystal, living that kind of life? I try to imagine, but I can’t. Except, I think I can imagine about the drugs. I know I can feel the terrible lost panic she must have felt wanting something, wanting a pill to take her away again. Take her away from—from what, exactly?

It must have been a time without any pattern. Without even the security of knowing this is where I will sleep tonight when the darkness comes. No place to go that was her own. And no reason for anything

The knot in Jenny’s stomach was like stones twisting, all of her middle was twisted and sick, but still she could not cry. She could not cry for Crystal.

Jack has brought us a crumpled piece of paper. I remember taking it out of Crystal’s pocket when I was looking for dimes. She had it all that time since Bingo found her, it was his drawing of the stone dragons. She said to Bingo that day, “It’s you and Jenny, always you and Jenny.”

*

She sat for a long time silently. Then her pen bit at the paper. It won’t ever happen to us. Not ever! It won’t happen to Bingo and me, and it won’t happen to my children. And Jenny thought of Mama, lying drunk, sprawled on the edge of the same abyss that had claimed Crystal.

“But what do I want for Bingo and me?” she wondered. And she thought of freedom. Freedom to become what she knew she must become, freedom for Bingo to do what he must do. Freedom to delve into something deep and long and not to be torn away from it. She wanted a time of reasoned order in which to build her life. Like the afternoons spent alone in the wild, bright park. Not nattered at, not torn awry by Mama’s emotional chaos, and Mama’s terrible flinging run from the world.

Jenny wanted the world around her churning and tumbling with life; but she wanted a quiet small vortex in the center where she could work unfettered, where her spirit could look at what she found and hold it like a jewel, and fly with it.

She did not say all this to herself, she only felt it. The porch was in shade and she looked up to find herself a sunny spot—and saw the black Ford parked at the curb and Lud staring silently at her.

Lud got out and came up the walk. Jenny watched him warily. She would not have Lud cluttering up their lives again.

But when she was facing him, suddenly, crazily, she was glad to see Lud.

He was wearing stained khakis and had two-days’ growth of beard. His hair was greasy and hanging over his forehead, and his natural leer was almost comical. But Lud’s coarse face was exactly what Mama needed.

When they went in, Bingo woke, stared at Lud, fumbled for his glasses, and scowled. Lud headed for the bedroom, and Bingo grumbled, “What did you let him in for?”

“Mama needs him,” she said shortly, wondering at herself.

“Like a hole in the head, she does.”

“Get up and get dressed, let’s get out of here for a while.”

He looked at her as if she had lost her mind, then went to wash himself. He kept his clothes in the hall closet, and he stood there dressing behind the closet door; then he ate some cereal, and they left. “Why the big hurry?”

“Just to leave them alone.”

“You’ll have him moving in with us.”

Jenny had already faced this. “If he does, it will be on our terms.”

Bingo stared at her.

“Mama needs someone, Bingo, she needs to have Lud back. She’s no good by herself. But I won’t lie to Mr. Knutson; if Lud moves in, Mr. Knutson is going to know. They can work it out from there.”

“You have it all planned, don’t you? You’re going to fix it so we go back to the Dermodys,” he said, grinning.

“What do you think I am.” She turned on him angrily.

“Well, I just thought—”

“Mama needs us, Bingo. She needs us until her hip is healed, even if Lud does move in. Can’t you see that she needs something to snap her out of this? What else is there but Lud. Mama’s no good on her own.”

“O.K. I’m sorry.”

“Well, I’m sorry too.” She put her arm around him. “But don’t you know how Mama is? She doesn’t like being alone. Would you rather have Lud or a stranger?”

“Lud, I guess.”

“Besides, I couldn’t have stopped him from seeing her.” Then she grew silent. “I wonder if you’re right, though. I wonder if knowing we can go to Georgie made me act differently. I wonder if otherwise I would have fought tooth and nail to keep Lud away.”

*

When Jenny got home from work she found Mama and Lud sitting decorously on the day bed drinking beer out of glasses. Mama was scrubbed and neat and her face was made up. Lud had shaved. In the kitchen were cartons of chow mein, fried rice, shrimp, sweet-and-sour ribs, and egg roll. Bingo was setting the table. Jenny put the cartons in the oven and made a pot of tea. It was like a party.

That night Jenny put Bingo’s mattress on the floor and made up the springs for herself, and the next day Mr. Decker gave them another day bed and raised the rent ten dollars. And Jenny went to see Mr. Knutson. “Mama’s boyfriend is back,” she said simply. “I told them I wouldn’t keep it from you. He moved in last night. I guess this means the welfare will stop. He has a job, though, as a mechanic’s helper. They were pretty mad when I told them I was coming to see you.”

“Is your mother still on crutches?”

“One crutch now. It should be another two weeks.”

“How many bedrooms do you have?”

“One. I’ve moved into the living room with Bingo.”

“I’m afraid the welfare will stop.”

“I told him if he wanted to live with Mama he’d have to support her, but I don’t know how long that will last.”

“They might surprise you. Is it unpleasant having him there?”

“Mama needs him,” Jenny said simply. “No, we’re used to Lud. He won’t corrupt us.”

He grinned. “You and Bingo are still dependent children, Jenny, and your mother is unable to work until her hip is healed. As for Mr. Merton, as long as he is working and not living off welfare money, I’ll see what I can do. I think we might swing keeping the whole check for a few more weeks.”

Jenny studied him. “You are more than fair, after what Mama has done. I promise I’ll let you know if Lud quits working.”

She left his office and walked up toward school, though it would not have taken much to keep her out the rest of the day.

The air was cold and the sky that purple blue that comes before snow, with clouds racing across it. She walked in shadow one minute and brightness the next. She would be glad when she was through with school, so glad. Well, Christmas vacation was almost here. She hoisted her books and walked up through the city in long easy strides.

And that was the day Tom Riley asked her for a date. Right after Civics. He asked her to a school football game, and she dreamed happily through the rest of her classes. My first date. What will I wear? Red, I’m always happy in red. And when I wear red, Ben looks at me with—well, with more interest. How can I be pleased about a date with Tom Riley when I still get goose-pimply over Ben? She grinned at herself. Well why not? I wonder how Mama will act when Tom picks me up. I hope she isn’t nasty.

Saturday night: It was lovely, it isn’t so hard to know how to act on a date, you only act like yourself and have fun. I’m hoarse from shouting. Our team won 28 to 14. It was my first football game.