“Like you are to me?”
“That’s right, honey,” Branwyn said. “And now you have to be nice to him and let him be mad. Don’t worry, I won’t let him hurt you.”
1 2 2
F o r t u n a t e S o n
“Do you mind it that I don’t go to school, Mama?”
“You know I want you to be in school and to get smart like your brother and Dr. Nolan.”
“But I hate it, an’ it hurts my eyes.”
“Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like, Tommy.”
“I know. But I go to Bruno’s house after school sometimes and on Saturdays, and we do his homework together a little bit.”
“Well, okay,” Branwyn replied after a meditative silence.
“For now. But later on you have to go back to school.”
“I promise.”
Th omas wor ke d hard to clean up his alley paradise.
Along the edges of the fence, he’d come upon small patches of wild strawberry plants. He loved eating them with the peanut butter sandwiches he’d make when he’d sneak into his father’s house in the middle of the day for lunch and other supplies.
When he wasn’t talking to his mother, he’d go to the oak tree and call to No Man. He’d put bread crumbs on the ground at his feet, and after some days the parrot would fly up and eat, croaking “no man” now and again. After a while the parrot would follow Thomas around looking for food and maybe, Thomas thought, a little company.
One late morning when going up to the house, Thomas found May sitting on the porch with her head on her knees, crying.
“Hi, May,” Thomas said.
When she looked up Thomas could see the ruined makeup running down her dark face.
“Hi, baby. What you doin’ here? Ain’t you supposed to be in school?”
1 2 3
Wa l t e r M o s l e y
“They let me come home for lunch,” he lied. “Why you cryin’?”
“Because I’m so stupid,” she said, sobbing. “Because I had to go play around and get your father mad at me. Now I’m miserable, and he changed the locks and his phone numbah.
An’ I need to tell him that I’m sorry.”
The tears flowed down, and Thomas felt her pain. He reached out to touch her wet face.
“I could let you in,” Thomas offered. “But . . .”
“But what?”
“You can’t tell Daddy that I come home sometimes. He don’t know I do that, an’ he’d get mad.”
May wiped her eyes and she was beautiful again. Her smile warmed little Thomas, who had been chilled from picking up dirty, wet tin cans all morning.
“How long you gonna be here?” May asked.
“About a hour, I guess.”
“I’ma run to the store an’ get food to make for dinner.”
She ran down the porch stairs, and Thomas went up into the house. Since May had been gone neither Elton nor Thomas had even picked a pair of socks up off the floor.
There were beer cans and dirty dishes scattered everywhere, with roaches sifting in and out of the debris. There were unopened letters and bills strewn across the coffee table, and the kitchen was a total mess. The sink was piled with dishes soaking in cold, gray water. There were clothes all down the hallway, and even May’s sewing room was turned upside down from Elton going in there now and then to look for a pair of scissors or some papers he needed.
The only room that hadn’t suffered was Thomas’s back porch. Elton had offered Thomas May’s room, but the boy demurred. He said he liked his room.
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F o r t u n a t e S o n
Sour Elton said, “Suit yourself, fool.”
May came back with three bags of groceries, and Thomas let her in.
“What is that smell?” she asked as soon as she walked in the door.
Thomas hadn’t noticed it.
“You just go on to school,” she said. “And when you get home I will have a good meal for you.”
Th omas we nt up to the roof of his abandoned clubhouse because it was a cloudy day and he wanted to hear the school bell so that he could get home and into his room before Elton returned.
He unlatched the roof door and pushed it open. He’d been up there a few times to look out over the neighborhood, but he usually stayed inside where he could be sure that nobody would see him.
