and grandmothers, too. Mom had told us we had fifteen first cousins down there, that thirteen of them were our ages, Pop’s sisters’ kids, and they lived one block away from each other in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I knew only a few of their names. Standing there with that check, there was the feeling that our family of six had been marooned up here, that our young mother and father had somehow taken a wrong turn.
JEB AND I fought a lot. He was younger by a year but taller and stronger and he almost always won. One afternoon in the house on Lime Street he had me pinned to the floor of the upstairs hall, his foot on my neck while he kicked me in the ribs. Suzanne broke it up, yelling at us, swearing, her black eyeliner looking so dark against her pale skin. She made Jeb go downstairs, then she went back into her bedroom, and I pulled from behind my door the metal stilt leaning against the wall. I don’t remember where we got it or where the other one was, but it was an adjustable stilt like circus performers use and it was heavy and over four feet long.
The only bathroom in the house was at the bottom of the back stairs, and we had to walk through the kitchen and the rear landing to get to it. I knew Jeb would have to go sometime, and I stood there at the top of the stairs, the stilt resting over my shoulder like a spear, and I waited.
Thirty minutes or an hour went by. Suzanne kept playing her favorite 45 at the time, “D.O.A.” by Bloodrock, the sirens wailing over and over again as the lead singer’s character dies in the ambulance of an overdose. I could hear the TV voices too, then there were footsteps over the kitchen floor and I raised the stilt and pulled my arm back and there was my seven-year-old sister Nicole’s red hair, and I let out a breath and lowered the stilt.
Twenty minutes later, Jeb came. Over Suzanne’s record player I could hear his heavier footsteps down in the kitchen. I held my breath and when I saw his frizzy hair I hurled the stilt down the stairwell. There was the dull clank of metal on bone, his head jerking sideways as he and the stilt fell to the floor.
I thought he was dead. But he began to cry and raised both hands to his temple. Then he saw me at the top of the stairs and he dropped his hands and sprinted up the steps and he punched and kicked me and called me mother fucker.
ONE AFTERNOON I chased him with a butcher knife. He made it to the bathroom and slammed the door, one with slats, and I kept jabbing the blade through the cracks, trying to stab him in his wrists and hands.
IN MOVIES now, whenever a bad man would die a bloody and well-deserved death, I would feel so much pleasure I would nearly laugh. One was Walking Tall, the true story of Buford Pusser who single-handedly cleans up the evil that has overtaken his small town, swinging a homemade bat into the bones and skulls of criminals. Buford Pusser is who I wanted to be. Billy Jack, too. And later, Charles Bronson in the Death Wish movies, Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry. When I thought of the word man, I could only think of those who could defend themselves and those they loved.
WE MOVED again, this time to Haverhill, and when the doctor evicted my mother and us four kids from his old office near the hospital, we moved to the west side of town and lived first on Marshland Ave, then, a year later, on Columbia Park. These were streets of well-maintained two-and three-story houses with hedges and real lawns fathers mowed on weekends. There were late-model cars in the driveways, and Columbia Park was really a boulevard with a long grassy center shaded by oak and elm and maple trees. Our new rented house was a Victorian with a rounded turret and a front and back porch. The yard was small, but it had grass, and in the rear corner was a tall beech tree that rose as high as the house.
Mom was working in Boston now, forcing slumlords to remove lead paint from their buildings. I knew she made $133 a week doing
JEB AND I fought a lot. He was younger by a year but taller and stronger and he almost always won. One afternoon in the house on Lime Street he had me pinned to the floor of the upstairs hall, his foot on my neck while he kicked me in the ribs. Suzanne broke it up, yelling at us, swearing, her black eyeliner looking so dark against her pale skin. She made Jeb go downstairs, then she went back into her bedroom, and I pulled from behind my door the metal stilt leaning against the wall. I don’t remember where we got it or where the other one was, but it was an adjustable stilt like circus performers use and it was heavy and over four feet long.
The only bathroom in the house was at the bottom of the back stairs, and we had to walk through the kitchen and the rear landing to get to it. I knew Jeb would have to go sometime, and I stood there at the top of the stairs, the stilt resting over my shoulder like a spear, and I waited.
Thirty minutes or an hour went by. Suzanne kept playing her favorite 45 at the time, “D.O.A.” by Bloodrock, the sirens wailing over and over again as the lead singer’s character dies in the ambulance of an overdose. I could hear the TV voices too, then there were footsteps over the kitchen floor and I raised the stilt and pulled my arm back and there was my seven-year-old sister Nicole’s red hair, and I let out a breath and lowered the stilt.
Twenty minutes later, Jeb came. Over Suzanne’s record player I could hear his heavier footsteps down in the kitchen. I held my breath and when I saw his frizzy hair I hurled the stilt down the stairwell. There was the dull clank of metal on bone, his head jerking sideways as he and the stilt fell to the floor.
I thought he was dead. But he began to cry and raised both hands to his temple. Then he saw me at the top of the stairs and he dropped his hands and sprinted up the steps and he punched and kicked me and called me mother fucker.
ONE AFTERNOON I chased him with a butcher knife. He made it to the bathroom and slammed the door, one with slats, and I kept jabbing the blade through the cracks, trying to stab him in his wrists and hands.
IN MOVIES now, whenever a bad man would die a bloody and well-deserved death, I would feel so much pleasure I would nearly laugh. One was Walking Tall, the true story of Buford Pusser who single-handedly cleans up the evil that has overtaken his small town, swinging a homemade bat into the bones and skulls of criminals. Buford Pusser is who I wanted to be. Billy Jack, too. And later, Charles Bronson in the Death Wish movies, Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry. When I thought of the word man, I could only think of those who could defend themselves and those they loved.
WE MOVED again, this time to Haverhill, and when the doctor evicted my mother and us four kids from his old office near the hospital, we moved to the west side of town and lived first on Marshland Ave, then, a year later, on Columbia Park. These were streets of well-maintained two-and three-story houses with hedges and real lawns fathers mowed on weekends. There were late-model cars in the driveways, and Columbia Park was really a boulevard with a long grassy center shaded by oak and elm and maple trees. Our new rented house was a Victorian with a rounded turret and a front and back porch. The yard was small, but it had grass, and in the rear corner was a tall beech tree that rose as high as the house.
Mom was working in Boston now, forcing slumlords to remove lead paint from their buildings. I knew she made $133 a week doing
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