teetering on the threshold of black depression.
It was during Mother's first bout of lung fever in Albany that I learned her trick of using rage as a weapon. While she lay limp and helpless in bed after a night of fever and coughing, I went across to the cornerstore to buy food for breakfast. I offered to pay out of the ten dollars the ward heeler had given us, but Mr Kane said I'd better keep that for medications we might need from the drugstore. When I asked how he knew that my mother was ill, he drew his shoulders up to his neck in a thoroughly Levantine shrug.
“Logic. Observation. Deft reasoning. And a dash of raw guesswork. A woman comes home in the rain without a coat. The next morning, a boy comes in to buy groceries when he should be starting in school. Deduction? There is sickness in the house. Alternative deduction? Or maybe not.”
In fact, we had run out of Balm Bengué and were low on aspirin, so after breakfast I told Anne-Marie to look after our fitfully dozing mother while I ran down to the drugstore on Clinton Avenue. “But I don't know what to do!” Anne-Marie said. “Just sit here and hold her hand,” I told her. “But what if she coughs and can't breathe?” “That won't happen.” “But if it does?” “Sh-h-h, you'll wake her up. Just do what I say!” “You're not boss of me!” “I'll give you a slap!” “I'll tell Mamma!” “Oh for Christ's sake!” “And I'll tell Mamma you swore!” “Look, I've got to go. I'll be right back!” “No, don't leave me alone.” I left.
The woman behind the drugstore counter took my money and gave me the Bengué and my change. When I reminded her that I also needed aspirin, she asked how old I was. I told her, and she said she wasn't allowed to sell aspirin to a six-year-old. I started to explain that my mother was ill and—but the woman just pursed her lips and said that rules were made to be obeyed, then she flashed a smile at the next customer and ignored me. I left and stood on the street corner looking up and down for another drugstore, but there wasn't one in sight. Suddenly I panicked. What was I going to do? Mother needed aspirin to keep the fever down. I couldn't leave Anne-Marie alone with her for long. What could I do? Then I got mad. My French-'n'-Indian temper flashed. I returned to the drugstore and told the woman I wanted the aspirin right now! She repeated that she was not allowed to sell—
At the top of my voice I screamed that my mother was dying! Customers gasped and gaped. A prissy man in a white jacket came around the end of the counter. “Now, little boy—” But I continued to scream that my mother was dying and she needed aspirin and she was dying and she needed aspirin and she was dying! People out on the street stopped and stared through the shop window. The man in the white jacket whispered harshly to the woman, who slipped me a bottle of aspirin and told me to get out. And stay out! She didn't even ask me to pay. I ran home with the aspirin and the Bengué. I had learned a lesson that would serve me well for several years. The use of only partially controlled rage would save me from being bullied when I enrolled in P.S. 5, just down the street from 238.
It was mid-April by the time Mother was well enough to sit up in bed and play honeymoon pinochle with me, her grip so weak that sometimes the cards would slip from her fingers and she'd laugh feebly at her feebleness, and I knew she was going to get well. Anne-Marie's paper-doll games no longer had to do with doctor and nurse, and she slept through the night without waking up in gasping panic. She stopped sucking her fingers. The most salient sign that Mother was herself again was a late-night gab session after pinochle in which she sketched out our future once 'her ship came in'. I would become a rich and famous doctor or lawyer, or a business tycoon making money hand over glove, and we'd all live in a grand house on a hill somewhere. Her eyes came alive as she
It was during Mother's first bout of lung fever in Albany that I learned her trick of using rage as a weapon. While she lay limp and helpless in bed after a night of fever and coughing, I went across to the cornerstore to buy food for breakfast. I offered to pay out of the ten dollars the ward heeler had given us, but Mr Kane said I'd better keep that for medications we might need from the drugstore. When I asked how he knew that my mother was ill, he drew his shoulders up to his neck in a thoroughly Levantine shrug.
“Logic. Observation. Deft reasoning. And a dash of raw guesswork. A woman comes home in the rain without a coat. The next morning, a boy comes in to buy groceries when he should be starting in school. Deduction? There is sickness in the house. Alternative deduction? Or maybe not.”
In fact, we had run out of Balm Bengué and were low on aspirin, so after breakfast I told Anne-Marie to look after our fitfully dozing mother while I ran down to the drugstore on Clinton Avenue. “But I don't know what to do!” Anne-Marie said. “Just sit here and hold her hand,” I told her. “But what if she coughs and can't breathe?” “That won't happen.” “But if it does?” “Sh-h-h, you'll wake her up. Just do what I say!” “You're not boss of me!” “I'll give you a slap!” “I'll tell Mamma!” “Oh for Christ's sake!” “And I'll tell Mamma you swore!” “Look, I've got to go. I'll be right back!” “No, don't leave me alone.” I left.
The woman behind the drugstore counter took my money and gave me the Bengué and my change. When I reminded her that I also needed aspirin, she asked how old I was. I told her, and she said she wasn't allowed to sell aspirin to a six-year-old. I started to explain that my mother was ill and—but the woman just pursed her lips and said that rules were made to be obeyed, then she flashed a smile at the next customer and ignored me. I left and stood on the street corner looking up and down for another drugstore, but there wasn't one in sight. Suddenly I panicked. What was I going to do? Mother needed aspirin to keep the fever down. I couldn't leave Anne-Marie alone with her for long. What could I do? Then I got mad. My French-'n'-Indian temper flashed. I returned to the drugstore and told the woman I wanted the aspirin right now! She repeated that she was not allowed to sell—
At the top of my voice I screamed that my mother was dying! Customers gasped and gaped. A prissy man in a white jacket came around the end of the counter. “Now, little boy—” But I continued to scream that my mother was dying and she needed aspirin and she was dying and she needed aspirin and she was dying! People out on the street stopped and stared through the shop window. The man in the white jacket whispered harshly to the woman, who slipped me a bottle of aspirin and told me to get out. And stay out! She didn't even ask me to pay. I ran home with the aspirin and the Bengué. I had learned a lesson that would serve me well for several years. The use of only partially controlled rage would save me from being bullied when I enrolled in P.S. 5, just down the street from 238.
It was mid-April by the time Mother was well enough to sit up in bed and play honeymoon pinochle with me, her grip so weak that sometimes the cards would slip from her fingers and she'd laugh feebly at her feebleness, and I knew she was going to get well. Anne-Marie's paper-doll games no longer had to do with doctor and nurse, and she slept through the night without waking up in gasping panic. She stopped sucking her fingers. The most salient sign that Mother was herself again was a late-night gab session after pinochle in which she sketched out our future once 'her ship came in'. I would become a rich and famous doctor or lawyer, or a business tycoon making money hand over glove, and we'd all live in a grand house on a hill somewhere. Her eyes came alive as she
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