Trash_ Stories - Dorothy Allison [96]
Every time Jack came to the hospital, he brought food, greasy bags of hamburgers and fries from the Checker Inn, melted milk shakes from the diner on the highway, and half-eaten boxes of chocolate. Mama ate nothing, just watched him. The bones of her face stood out like the girders of a bridge.
Jo and I went down to the coffee shop. Arlene, who had come in with Jack, stayed up with them. “He wants her to get up and come home,” she reported to us when she came down an hour later.
Jo laughed and blew smoke over Arlene’s head in a long thin stream. “Right,” she barked, and offered Arlene one of her Marlboros.
“I can’t smoke that shit,” Arlene said. She pulled out her alligator case and lit a Salem with a little silver lighter. When Jo said nothing, Arlene relaxed a little and opened the bag of potato chips we had saved for her. “He’s lost the checkbook again,” she said in my direction. “Says he wants to know where we put her box of Barr Dollars so he can buy gas for the Buick.”
“He’s gonna lose everything as soon as she’s gone.” Jo pushed her short boots off with her toes and put her feet up on another seat. “He’s sending the bills back marked ‘deceased.’ The mortgage payment, for God’s sake.” She shook her head and took a potato chip from Arlene’s bag.
“He’ll be living on the street in no time.” Her voice was awful with anticipation.
Arlene turned to me. “Where are the Barr Dollars?”
I shook my head. Last I knew, Mama had stashed in her wallet exactly five one-dollar bills signed by Joseph W. Barr—crisp dollar bills she was sure would be worth money someday, though I had no idea why she thought so.
“Girls.”
Jack stood in the doorway. He looked uncomfortable with the three of us sitting together. “She’s looking better,” he said diffidently.
Arlene nodded. Jo let blue smoke trail slowly out of her nose. I said nothing. I could feel my cheeks go stiff. I looked at the way Jack’s hairline was receding, the gray bush of his military haircut thinning out and slowly exposing the bony structure of his head.
“Well.” Jack’s left hand gripped the doorframe. He let go and flexed his fingers in the air. When the hand came down again, it gripped so hard the fingertips went white. My eyes were drawn there, unable to look away from the knuckles standing out knobby and hard. Beside me Jo tore her empty potato chip bag in half, spilling crumbs on the linoleum tabletop. Arlene shifted in her chair. I heard the elevator gears grind out in the hall.
“I was gonna go home,” Jack said. He let go of the doorjamb.
“Good night, Daddy,” Arlene called after him. He waved a hand and walked away.
Jo twisted around in her chair. “You are such a suck-ass,” she said.
Arlene’s cheeks flushed. “You don’t have to be mean.”
“I can’t even say his name. You call him Daddy.” Jo shook her head. “Daddy.”
“He’s the only father I’ve ever known.” Arlene’s face was becoming a brighter and brighter pink. She fumbled with her cigarette case, then shoved it into her bag. “And I don’t see any reason to make this thing any worse.”
“Worse?” Jo twisted further in her chair. She leaned over and put her hand on Arlene’s forearm. “Tell me the truth,” she said. “Didn’t you ever just want to kill the son of a bitch?”
Arlene jerked her arm free, but Jo caught the belt of her dress. “He an’t got shit. He an’t gonna give you no money, and he can’t hurt you no more. You don’t have to suck up to him. You could tell him to go to hell.”
Arlene slapped Jo’s hand away and grabbed her bag. “Don’t you tell me what to do.” She looked over at me as if daring me to say something. “Don’t you tell me nothing.”
Jo dropped back in her seat and lifted her hands in mock surrender. “Me, you can say no to. Him, you run after like some little brokenhearted puppy.”
“Don’t, don’t . . .” For a moment it was as if Arlene were going to say something. The look on her face reminded me of the night she had screamed and kicked. Do it, I wanted to say. Do it. But whatever Arlene wanted to say, she swallowed.