When Des returns, she has two plates. She places one in front of me.
“Mushroom and pepperoni. Your favorite. Now eat.”
I stare at the greasy toppings, the molten cheese frayed at the edges. The smell is tempting, but Des got it wrong. This isn’t my favorite pizza. It’s Mom’s. And I still don’t think I can eat.
6 EileenThen
I was used to people looking at me and wanting something. My father demanded respect. Albert Crawford recognized my naivety. When Cliff, the scrawny line cook at Buster’s, looked at me, there wasn’t anything self-serving about his gaze.
It was the way he spoke to me, too. Inquisitive. Interested. He wanted to know more about me, and I felt I could tell him all the little thoughts in my mind. Even the dark ones. I could tell him without fear he would use the information against me, manipulate my trust to fulfill his own needs.
So, I’d tell him about the awful events I saw growing up. With only a little shame, I told him about my first relationship which ended after my arrest. I was overwhelmed by his acceptance, unafraid he might judge me. Cliff didn’t judge. He cared. He listened. He understood.
And he told me about himself, too. Our breaks at Buster’s were supposed to be ten minutes every three hours, but we had memorized the lunch schedule. We knew when it was safe to stretch ten minutes into twenty, and we’d fill the extra minutes with conversation. Like me, he came from a long line of screw-ups. Raised by parents who had no business parenting, in a neighborhood whose inhabitants did anything but act neighborly. He’d found his way out, as I had, but the consequences of those experiences followed him, like a mangy mutt tracking a scent.
There was a darkness inside him I liked because it reflected a part of myself. The screw-up. He’d tell me about his life, about the particular things he felt shaped him. Unfortunately, his schoolmates were as oppressive as his family members. Cliff and his younger brother had been selected to attend a nearby private school, a scholarship program reserved for the poorest of the poor. By his own admission, Cliff fit the bill. What was meant to introduce him to a better life only provided a glimpse into more cruelty. The students there were mean to him, never wasted an opportunity to remind him how low he was.
The khaki pant pricks. That’s what he called them. They weren’t just his tormentors at school, but afterwards, too. They’d follow him along his walk home, daring to enter the secluded alleyways from which their privilege protected them. Even though they were the same age as Cliff, in the same grade, wearing the same clothes, their worlds were entirely different.
“I used to hate them,” Cliff said, sitting on that dirty stoop behind Buster’s.
“What would they do when they’d follow you home?”
“Whistle and holler. Call me names. I’d ignore them half the time. Getting in a fight with one of them would have ended my free ride at Peppermill, even if they were the pricks who started it. Their parents’ generosity is what paved my way, you know.”
He shook his head, sliding the rolled cigarette from behind his ear. He didn’t light it right away. He twiddled it between his fingers. Cliff rarely smoked, really.
“So you just ignored them?”
“For the most part. Against my better judgment.” Cliff made this face. It was hard to tell whether he was proud of his tolerance, or ashamed of his inaction. “There was only one time I fought back.”
“Yeah?”
“They knew they weren’t getting to me, right? On one hand they liked it, I guess. They wouldn’t know how to handle themselves if I actually turned around and popped them a good one. They were just bored. They’d waste a good twenty minutes after school following me around, and they’d never get a rise out of me. One day, they were at it again. We made it three or four blocks away from school. I turn down the alley leading to my neighborhood, and they’re snickering and whispering the whole way. I keep walking, like I always did, like I wasn’t fazed by their little games.
“There was this bum crawled up asleep by the dumpster. They usually didn’t sleep that late in the day, but fall was creeping into winter, which meant the nights were becoming less and less tolerable. He probably curled up to take in the sunlight and fell asleep. Anyway, the khaki pant pricks are only a few steps behind me. They see this guy, sleeping on the pavement. They stop. I keep going, like I always do. But then, their laughing gets louder. I’d about forgotten about the bum next to the dumpster.”
“What happened?”
Cliff’s face was somber, his tone level. Like he was stuck in this moment, this memory from long ago. The intensity in his expression startled me.
“I had to backtrack a couple of steps to see. One of the guys, Ben I think was his name, pulled his pecker out and was pissing all over the guy.”
I raised a hand to my mouth. “He didn’t.”
“To this day, I can’t tell you what happened. It’s like I blacked out or something. Next thing I know, I’m standing over ’ole Ben. He’s got blood streaming out both his nostrils, and in my hand, I was holding some plank I’d picked up from a broken crate.” He stopped, looked up at me. I recognized his shame. It’s the same I felt every time I told the story of my arrest. He was afraid he’d lost me. Afraid my judgment had taken over. “Growing up where I did, fighting wasn’t anything new. I know it was wrong, though.”
“No. What you did was right. They were messing with that guy for no reason. You stood up for him.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did.”
“What about his friends? What did they do?”
“They stood there and watched the whole thing.
