Late the next day I was in my newly cleaned kitchen, ready to cook.
Twenty-four dollars can buy a lot of canned spinach and baked beans. I also got rice and polenta and a big bag of potatoes. One whole chicken with celery and carrots could make a soup to last me a week if I stretched it.
I’m not a good cook, but I can make simple dishes. That’s because I used to love spending time with my mother in the kitchen. She never made me work. All I had to do was sit around and make her laugh. That was until eighth grade. Then, when she got sick, I helped out a lot. Brent said that my mother had to work through it, that being sick was all in her head. He was healthier than she was and still expected to get waited on.
My chicken was boiling and I was cutting celery into slantwise strips and suddenly it came to me. I dug Anniston Bennet’s card out of my pocket and dialed his Manhattan number. It wasn’t until the fourth ring that I remembered it was Saturday. I thought that at least I could leave a message. He didn’t give me a home phone anyway. His name, in lowercase blue letters, was centered on the white card, and the phone number was in the lower right-hand corner in red.
“Hello,” a woman’s voice said. I almost answered but the surprisingly natural-sounding recording continued, “You have reached the Tanenbaum and Ross Investment Strategies Group.” Then there was a click and the same woman, in a different mood, said, “Mr. Bennet,” then another click and she was back on track saying, “is not in at the moment but will return your message at the earliest possible time. Please leave your name and number after the signal.” Then there came a complex set of tones that sounded something like a police siren in a foreign film.
“Mr. Bennet? This is Charles Blakey from out in the Harbor. I guess I’d like to talk to you about what it is you want exactly. I mean, maybe uh, maybe we can come to some kind of arrangement. I don’t know. My number is . . .” Leaving information on an answering machine always seems useless to me. Most of the messages I’ve left have gone unanswered. I didn’t have much hope that anything would work out. Anyway it was early May and all I had was a pocketful of change. A summer rental wasn’t going to do much for me right then.
So I called my aunt Peaches. That was her real name. Her mother was Clementine and her father was actually named Apollodorus. My father used to say, when we were going to Clemmie’s for Thanksgiving dinner, “Well let’s go over and visit the mouthful.”
“Hi, Aunt Peaches. It’s me—Charles.”
“Yes, Charles?” She wasn’t sounding generous.
“How’s your family?”
“Everybody’s fine.”
“That’s good,” I said and then waited for her to ask after my health.
She did not.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, Peaches.”
“Has it?”
She knew full well that it had been more than three years since I had been by, and I was only allowed in then because her husband was at work. We didn’t live more than two miles apart, but the only time I ever saw her was if we happened to bump into each other in town. That was because of her husband, Floyd. Floyd Richardson was a lawyer who practiced in Long Island City. When I dropped out of college, he hired me—to make something out of me, he said.
Well, I was only twenty-one and not really ready to work that hard. I didn’t like the law or research. I wanted to be a sailor. Floyd and I had a rough time of it. When he finally fired me, he told me that I was a shame to my race. That reminded me of Uncle Brent, who always added, “The human race.”
After that I wasn’t a welcomed guest in their home. Floyd rarely gave me a nod if we passed in the street. I didn’t mind much. Floyd wanted to act like he was my father, like it was him who did for me. Aunt Peaches was nice, but she was so formal that talking to her was like being read to from a book of etiquette.
“I needed to ask you something,” I said, having given up any hope that we could be friendly.
“I really don’t have much time, Charles. Floyd’s coming home soon and I have to get his dinner.”
“Well, you know I lost my job,” I started.
“Oh?”
“I had some money left over from that T-bill Mom left for me when I turned thirty, but that’s all gone.” I paused but Peaches had no consolations to give. “And, well, I kind of borrowed some money on the house. I’m looking for work, but I still have to come up with the payment. It’s already two weeks overdue.”
Peaches didn’t say a word, but the quality of her silence had changed. I could almost feel her growing anxiety.
“Peaches?”
“Why do you want to do this to me, Charles?”
“What am I doing to you?”
“You’re thirty-nine years old —”
“Thirty-three,” I corrected.
“— thirty-three years old and you don’t even have two nickels to rub together. What would your mother say?”
“My mother is dead. Maybe you could leave her alone.”
“Rude.” She said the word like it was a club to blud-geon me with. “Rude. And then you want me to write the check. I’m sorry, Charles, but I have to agree with Floyd about you. There’s no helping someone who can’t help himself. I just hope you don’t lose our family home with your foolishness. But maybe it would be better in someone else’s hands anyway. I can see you don’t have a gardener anymore and from what I hear it’s a pigsty on the inside.”
I hung up. It was the only way I could get her to feel the pain that she was inflicting on me. I knew she was right. I knew that my life was messed up. But what could I do about it when I couldn’t get a job or pay my bills?
I spent the entire night cleaning. I collected eight big plastic bags of trash. I swept and dusted and mopped and straightened. When I’d get tired I’d stop for a little chicken soup and black tea. Then I was off again, up and down through the three floors. At 4:00 in the morning I dragged the bags out of the house and into the street. I wasn’t going to let Peaches and Floyd defeat me. I’d put the house in perfect shape. I had plans to wax the floors and mow the lawn. I’d trim the hedge too. After that I’d paint the house. This last thought almost defeated me. How could I paint with no money? I couldn’t even buy a roller or brush, much less all the gallons of paint that I’d need.
Outside I noticed a spark. At first I thought it was a firefly, and I stopped to catch a glimpse of it again. Fireflies were a miracle to me. The fact of their light seemed somehow to prove that there was a God.
After a moment the light appeared again. But it wasn’t a firefly at all. It was Miss Littleneck smoking a cigarette in the dark. At first I was mad, thinking that she was spying on me. But then I thought that if she was really spying, she wouldn’t be advertising with an ember. It was almost as amazing as a firefly—that old woman sitting out on her porch all night long, smoking one cigarette after another, waiting for either a miracle or a heart attack.
The next day was Sunday. I’d fallen asleep on the sofa in my father’s library. After three hours’ sleep I was out in the front yard with a scythe.
That was a gas.
Christ’s Hope Church was just three blocks up from my house and many a churchgoer had to drive past my place. Almost everyone slowed to see me stripped to the waist, cutting down the dead weeds and grasses that had grown wild for years.
Peaches and Floyd drove by. They came to a virtual stop in order to gawk. I smiled at them and waved. Peaches said something to her husband and they sped off to God.