The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady - Elizabeth Stuckey-French [58]
She told him about how Helen used to love playgrounds and that there was one near their house in Overton Park with an old shell of a fire truck in it that Helen loved beyond reason when she was four, loved sitting in it and turning the wheel and making the siren noise, and she’d really wanted to be a fireman, and Teddy bought her a fire hat and toy fire trucks and books about fire trucks even though Marylou didn’t approve of encouraging something that a girl could never do, and had actually told Helen one night at dinner that girls could never be firemen, and Helen had physically attacked her mother, calling her a liar. The next day Helen threw away all her fire-related items, and now Marylou regretted saying such a thing to Helen, for all kinds of reasons, because of course today she could’ve been a firefighter if she’d wanted to be, but beyond that, why had she felt compelled to throw water on Helen’s dream? This wasn’t the kind of memory Marylou wanted to relive about Helen, and had never told anyone about this before, and in fact she never spoke about Helen anymore to anybody.
She realized she was trembling and then realized, that, sweet Jesus, Adolf was actually holding her hand, and she was letting him. She screeched and flung his hand aside.
Kids stopped their play and turned toward Marylou and Wilson.
“Are you all right?” said the nearest mother, wearing the playground mother’s uniform of baggy shorts and baggy T-shirt. Cedar chips hung from the front of her shirt.
“Ants,” Marylou said, brushing off her hand. “I got rid of them.”
After the playground got busy again, Wilson spoke up. “I remember that fire engine,” he said. “I used to take Caroline to Overton Park every Saturday, when she was in elementary school. She howled when she had to get off the swings. Remember that big monkey they had there in the late sixties, in the zoo, the one that used to get mouthfuls of water and spit on people? After he started doing that he disappeared. Wonder what they did with him. Poor bastard.”
Marylou did remember that monkey. He was as big as she was. “He probably got used in a radiation experiment,” she said. She grabbed Wilson’s upper arm and squeezed it hard. “No, wait. You only used humans for those.”
“The zoo was never the same after he left,” was all Wilson said.
“I could spit on you, if it would make you feel better.”
“No thanks. Don’t think it would.”
* * *
One Sunday she took Wilson to Genesis Church along with Suzi, hoping he’d feel the need to repent, but afterward he claimed that the sound system had screwed up his hearing aid and he couldn’t make heads or tails of what they were singing and saying. “All sounded like caterwauling to me,” he said.
Another time, in the evening, she took him for a walk around the neighborhood and as they were plodding down Nun’s Drive, him walking twice as slow as she was, she got an idea and stopped. “Just wait here,” she told him.
“What? Why?” It was nearly dark, and the crickets were striking up their chorus.
She pointed at a nearby house, no lights on, no cars in the drive. “Got to run ask my friend something. Be right back.”
She marched up the driveway as quickly as she could with her stiff ankle and gimpy hip. Fortunately her “friend” didn’t seem to have a dog. The back of the house was dark, too. How could she possibly explain herself if someone caught her? She was sneaking around just like the person who climbed up on her roof at night. She would hide back here until Wilson wandered away.
Suddenly, motion lights came on over the patio like a play was about to start, and she ducked into the shadows. That metal patio furniture. Bright colored chairs with backs like oyster shells. And a brick fireplace with a spit. She hadn’t seen chairs like that, or a fireplace like that, in years. Not since the fifties, not since that horrible patio party at Teddy’s boss’s house.
She hadn’t wanted to go to the damn party in the first place, mostly