Ralph

I peeked in their room.

Dad went to work, I could tell because his greens were gone. That’s what he calls his janitor pants and shirt, his greens. He always lays them over the back of the chair in there and they were gone.

So that was good.

He doesn’t always go.

Sometimes he feels too sick from the night before, from drinking I mean. Then Mom has to call and make up some excuse. He got fired last year from the canning factory for not going. “Canned from the cannery,” he said, trying to make a joke, but Mom wasn’t laughing, me neither. He was a machinist there, making good money. Now he’s a janitor, minimum wage, a dollar-fifteen an hour, in a building with a bunch of offices, everyone wearing a tie except for him, in his greens. His name is Gino so they probably call him Gino the Janitor.

Mom was still asleep. I could see the top of her hair sticking out.

I went out in the kitchen.

He went out in the kitchen.

Sometimes I do that in my head, I tell what I’m doing, like in a story.

He found the bread. Only two pieces left. He put them both in the toaster.

But when they popped up I only ate one, the end piece, but with so much extra jelly I had to stand over the sink with it. Looking out at the backyard I could see our wagon, me and Lou’s, her doll buggy full of dead leaves, my bike on its side, with a flat front tire. The sky was all blue, what I could see of it.

I started thinking, if they dropped the bomb right now I probably wouldn’t even know it. I’d be standing here eating my toast, thinking about going down to the park, then just like that I’d be up in Heaven laughing and singing, or down in Hell screaming away. Or else in Purgatory, which is the same as Hell, same fire, only not forever. I’ve always wondered though, do they let you know you’re only in Purgatory?

I said a sincere Act of Contrition in bed last night but I should probably go to confession today. They’ve been having them all week, practically around the clock. I should get Dad to go, too. Drinking’s a sin if you get drunk and he gets drunk.

He never gets mean or anything, he just plays Johnny Cash on the record player really loud or starts yelling how everything is fake, not just wrestling. Last night he was saying how this whole Russian-missile thing is a big hoax. They’re just trying to scare everyone so they can control us better. Even the Pope is in on it, he said. I didn’t hear Mom except telling him to keep his voice down. She was probably sitting there smoking, making sure he didn’t use the car.

I rinsed off my fingers and went back in our room to get dressed. Lou popped up and said, “We gonna go for bottles?”

I promised her the other day we’d go look for empties on Saturday and today was Saturday and she didn’t forget. She never does.

“After I get back,” I told her. “I’m gonna go to the park for a while—don’t start whining—just for a while. Then I’ll come back and we’ll go.”

“When?”

“Soon as I get back.”

“But when, Ralph?”

“Quit whining.”

“Just tell me.”

“After Garfield Goose. By the end of it.”

“Promise?”

I promised. Then I told her about that last piece of bread I left in the toaster. I told her she’d better go eat it before I did.

She got up and went.

He finished getting dressed.