Not My Ruckus

Not My Ruckus

Chad Musick

Copyright 2021 Chad Musick

Published by Cinnabar Moth Publishing LLC

Foreword

This book contains many scenes that may distress some readers. For content notes, please check the section labeled Content Notes.

CHAPTER ONE

Esther kissed me once for free, when we were both just girls. We were sitting watching the Rangers play baseball—not the Olympics, because it was the summer of 1980 and Carter was choosing to hide in a boycott rather than fight the communists who were running it—and Gunnar went to the fridge to get a fresh bottle of beer.

Daddy, Esther called, can we have some sandwiches?

He grunted back, and we heard his breathing punctuated by the clatter of the silverware drawer and the rattle of the jam jar.

Esther swayed back and forth, making fun of how Gunnar had staggered as he walked to the kitchen.

Usually I get his beers, or mom does, but you’re company. She winked at me.

I wasn’t allowed at Esther’s house often, even though we should have been best friends all along. We were both 14, we lived across the street from each other, and we would go to high school together the next year, just like we’d always gone to school together. But her family wasn’t our kind of people.

On the day Esther kissed me, though, momma’d had a vision of her and Esther’s mom going shopping together.

When momma had a vision, you didn’t stand in the way, and so she had dropped me off and taken Esther’s mom in the big car to go shopping.

Gunnar came back with a paper plate of peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches for us, and a pair of beers for himself. He eased back down into his lounger with the creak of springs and scritch of leather on denim, and opened a beer. He let it dangle from his fingers, and it wasn’t long before he was snoring.

Esther crept up on him and eased the bottle from him.

She held it out, for me to drink. This was one of the reasons they weren’t our kind of people, and I shook my head no at her.

I’ll scream, she whispered, and held it out again.

It’s gross. He’s already drank off it.

Esther pushed her finger into the neck of the bottle and wiped it, just a little pop of sound when her finger came out, then wiped the outside of the top. She made me take the bottle.

I drank some, of course I did. Not much, just a swallow, so she wouldn’t scream, and then I gave it back to her.

She finished the bottle, and then laid it down beneath Gunnar’s fingertips. There hadn’t been much left anyway, I told myself.

We sat on the floor in the Texas summer heat and leaned our backs against the new couch. The plastic on the seats got sticky and uncomfortable when the sun shone on it, but the unglazed terra cotta floor was cool, and her hand was warm when she put it in mine.

She was swaying again, and when she swayed my way, her head rested on my shoulder and stayed there.

Esther, I told her.

She looked up.

We’re best friends now.

She nodded.

Good. It was good to have a friend. Even if next year she didn’t join me in softball and running and volleyball and all the other sports I’d been denied in junior high because there were only intramurals, I’d still have a friend. Frank didn’t let me play with him anymore, because he was older and it wasn’t cool to have your little sister around, especially if she was better at baseball than you. He could get the bat on the ball sometimes, smash it high in the air with the powerful arms that he’d once used to hoist me on his wide shoulders, but he lacked control. Just about every hit was a foul or a pop fly. Even when he hit it well, he was never ready to run.

I’ve always been ready to run.

Esther didn’t care about baseball, even if she’d watch it on the tv with me. At school, I’d used to watch her when she double-dutched with the other girls, who called me boy like it was a curse word and stopped their ropes when I came around.

I have a secret, she said, without lifting her head. I want to tell it to you.

Tell me, I breathed. The beer in me was making my tongue fuzzy and my head slippery, like the devil had kissed my brain, just a little.

She took my hand, all sweaty from holding hers, and put it against her heart, then put her hand against my heart. Okay, but you have to close your eyes, so your heart can hear it too.

I closed them, and my hand pressed harder against her as she leaned forward, pressing me down almost to the floor, and I turned my head to hear her secret, but she moved her hand from my heart, turned my head back to her, and I felt her lips against mine.

Baby Jesus was crying, I knew, Baby Jesus was crying—I could feel him shaking Esther—and I wanted to push her away, but my hand on her heart said she was scared, and I didn’t want to lose my friend, so new and so only. I felt wet on my cheek, but her lips still unmoving on my lips. I opened my eyes, and hers were flooded, her tears running down her face and then my cheeks. Not her tongue at all.

I reached out and brushed her tears with the back of my hand, the way momma did when I cried, and told her it would be all right, the way I wished momma would when I cried. I stroked her long dark hair and wished it were mine.

That’s the secret. She was having trouble controlling her breathing, and soon she started hiccupping, great gallops of surprise. The secret is you have some beer and then you kiss. But you can’t ever tell anyone, or they’ll take me away.

We lay on the floor, watching the ceiling fan make its lazy and inadequate rotations. Her hiccups got louder, and I started pretending to hiccup, just to make her laugh.

The phone rang, and we looked to see whether Gunnar was going to wake up.

I’m not allowed to answer the phone, Esther told me.

We listened to it ring, and when it had rung ten times, we decided we better wake Gunnar.

Esther got up and shook her dad. Daddy, phone!

Gunnar snorted himself awake and trundled to the phone.

Hello? Who’s this? His voice was surly, suspicious. He paused to listen to the caller. Of course she’s still here.

But, he said, and slumped to the floor, rolling down the wall like perfect-cooked spaghetti, still holding the receiver. You must be wrong.

We’ll be there. He fumbled with the black Bakelite receiver, not looking at the cradle, and finally slammed it down hard enough to make its bell ring again, ran his fingers through his thinning hair, wiped the sweat on his grubby shirt, and got his keys from the counter.

Get in the car, girls, he told us, we’ve got to go now.

I didn’t want to go, didn’t want to ride with him—not even when he said my mom had been in an accident. Papa had warned me the bad ones would say this, and then snatch you up and torture and kill you—but this was Esther, and I knew her, so I got in the car, and we went to the hospital.

Because momma had been in an accident, which meant Esther’s mom had, too.

On the way to the hospital, Gunnar drove at exactly the speed limit, even before he saw me checking. I sat in the backseat with Esther and traced the pattern of cracks in the vinyl. The feel of the foam padding was bad against my fingertips, but even so I counted the cracks, cataloged their lengths by how many times they turned.

Esther was looking miserable, like she might be car sick, and she lay down on the seat and took one of my hands. I could see Gunnar watching us in the rear-view mirror, his piggy little eyes glaring at me. Or maybe squinting against the harsh sunlight, which was coming straight through the windshield as the sun set.

Esther scooted up and put her head on my lap, and I was stroking her beautiful hair when Gunnar slammed on the brakes and the car lurched to a stop on the side of the road, the engine shuddering in protest. Esther tumbled into the space between the front and back seats.

He got out of the car, whipped his door shut with one hand and yanked the back door open. Esther screamed when he grabbed her by the foot, pulled her hard enough that her sandal came off and she was dragged across the carpet on the floor and then thump thump out the door.

He slammed the door, and I saw his hand draw back, the way momma’s did when the devil took me, and he gave her Jesus’ love right in the face, right there in the street. Esther stood back up and got into the passenger side of the front. Momma would say it must have hurt Gunnar something fierce, because I could see the hand print on Esther’s face, the rug burns on her legs when she put her feet up on the dash, and it always hurts the parent worse.

Gunnar got in the driver’s seat and shut the door. He looked at me in the rear-view mirror, waited until he knew I was looking.

I’m sorry darlin’, truly. He didn’t look sorry much. It’s not your fault she thinks she’s a dyke, but you’re just confusing her.

He started the car again, and pulled back into traffic like nothing had happened, even though his breathing didn’t calm down for a couple of blocks.

Esther didn’t say anything the rest of the way, and nobody else did either. When we got to the hospital, we all got out of the car. Before she shut her door, Esther leaned in and carefully vomited in the foot well.

We went through the main doors, and Esther went to the bathroom to wash her mouth. I sat down to wait, and Gunnar went to talk to the nurses. Sometimes I came with momma to minister to the old ladies before they died, so I knew that the best seats were the ones far from the tv. There wasn’t really any seat that was comfortable for watching it, and the sound was always off, so you might as well find a place in the corner, where the walls came together and the crickets didn’t venture so far in.

Out the windows, I could see that the sun was finally down. Frank should be home, if he wasn’t late again. It wasn’t safe for girls to be out on their own in town, but Frank was old enough and boy enough that he could stay out until dark. What would he have for dinner? Usually, momma would cook us whatever was on the calendar for the day, and we’d eat when papa got home from work. Had they interrupted papa at work to tell him to come to the hospital?

Esther hadn’t come back yet, and Gunnar had gone through the heavy door into the back. Gunnar was the sound of a throat clearing and spit hitting the ground. He worked at the auto shop down the street from us, and I’d met him there before I knew he was my neighbor. Frank and I had to pass his shop to get to the public pool the short way, and there was hardly nobody there at the shop, so we jumped on the hose to make the bell ring.

Gunnar crawled out of the mechanic’s pit. When he saw it was just kids, he bellowed and ran at us. Frank has always been a coward, so he ran. I could have run, but I’m not yellow and besides, I knew momma wouldn’t permit any harm to come to us. When he’d got close, winding up like he was going to kick me, I’d apologized like a good girl. Sorry, sir, we didn’t mean any harm. I just like hearing the bell.

Whatever, he’d grunted. Didn’t know it was you. Get out of here. He’d hocked up a loogie and spat it at my feet, and I’d known what his sound was ever since.

It wouldn’t be fair to say Gunnar liked me much, but he had tolerated me such as I got invited to Esther’s birthday parties and she got invited to mine, but neither of us went. It figured, though, that he’d just leave me sitting in the lobby while he went back.

I waited until Esther came out of the bathroom, and we went to talk to the nurse together. Esther held my hand, even though Gunnar wasn’t there to see it.

Her father was just speaking with you, I told the nurse, gesturing to Esther. Our mothers were in a car accident. Could we see them?

She made a call on her phone, and then told us we couldn’t, but they’d called papa at work, and so he was at the hospital, too. He was who had called Gunnar, before he left work. We should just go sit down and wait.

Esther tried to teach me a clapping game, but I kept missing the rhythm, distracted by the glares of the people around us enough that I couldn’t learn the words and the hands. We were too exposed here to be playing like this, and Esther insisted on sitting on a different bench than me to face me directly, even though it left her back to anyone just walking in. She wouldn’t see attackers coming, but she didn’t seem to care, even when I told her so.

When we got bored of the game, we practiced lolling our heads, seeing who could make the worst face, look the most like Gunnar did when he was asleep in the afternoon. It was funny at first, but then it made me feel upset, and I begged Esther to stop, and she did.

Finally, after what must have been hours—long enough that I was feeling hungry—papa came through the door the nurse was guarding. He talked to her for a minute, and she pointed over at us, as if he couldn’t have seen us just by looking.

Ladies, he said, and tipped his imaginary hat to the women sitting near us, who had only arrived an hour before, thank you for watching these girls. We’re sorry to have inconvenienced you.

I wasn’t sorry, but you didn’t argue with papa when he was being polite, nor when he was in public. He was still wearing his work clothes. For Gunnar, work clothes meant coveralls to keep the grease contained and stop him needing to do laundry all the time, with his name stitched on a patch. For papa, work clothes was cowboy boots and jeans, a snap-down shirt with piped pockets, and a bolo tie. He complained at home about how stupid it looked, what a bunch of hicks the local yokels were for being fooled by it, when it didn’t really affect how he did accounting a bit.

But he still wore it, because momma told him she was a local yokel, or didn’t he remember? And she thought it made him look handsome and trustworthy, made it clear he wasn’t one of those bankers, even if he was from New York and did work at a bank.

Poppy, he said to Esther, your mother is in a delicate state, and your father has accompanied her to the ICU. That’s intensive care unit, where the most seriously ill or injured patients are cared for. My wife, in contrast, is doing much better. You cannot go see your mother, as they don’t admit children. Would you like to come with us instead?

Don’t call me that! It’s not my name! She’d started yelling it while he was still talking, but it’s hard to explain it that way. Esther’s yelling was loud enough that it gave me a bad start, and now we really had inconvenienced the ladies near us. And shucks you very much, I know what the ICU is, Esther told him in a calmer voice.

I couldn’t stop myself from laughing when she said the last bit. Frank had told me what shucks you really meant, words I’d never dare say aloud, and certainly not to any adult, but Esther didn’t care. She was careless or brave. Maybe there’s not much difference.

Papa gave me a look that said we’d talk about my behavior later, and persisted. We’re going to visit my wife now. You’re welcome to join, but if you don’t come now, we’ll just leave you here, alone. His tone was hot spite, how he got at times. Safer than when he was cold.

Esther agreed to come, and we followed papa through the heavy doors and into the hospital wards, where momma would be staying overnight for observation.

Momma was touching up her hair when we got there, checking it in her hand mirror, and her lips were freshly done. She was positively beaming when she saw us.

Come give your momma a kiss, she told me. It was so awful, did they tell you?

Are you hurt, momma?

I couldn’t see any bandages or anything, but her legs were covered by the blanket.

That’s not important, baby. Come sit on up here.

She patted the bed next to her, but there wasn’t much room. It’d been wrong to say momma was fat—I knew it was me that had given her the troubles with her weight—but she was ample. I leaned awkwardly against her bed and grabbed Esther’s hand. Gunnar might call names, but momma knew a girl needs friends, and she wouldn’t mind.

Momma brightened up when she saw me and Esther holding hands. Oh, you’re so right! Papa, be a dear and come join us in prayer. He was sitting in the room’s only chair, looking out the window and smiling in his way, even though it was dark out and he couldn’t have been able to see much.

Dear Lord, we love you Lord, we love you so much. Thank you for sparing my life today, Lord, so I can carry on your good works. Bless our sister in Christ. We know you might still gather her to your bosom, that you’re talkin’ to her now to see where she might do the most good, and we respect your will in all things. We know she’s hurtin’, though, and so we pray you grant her mercy and take her with you. We pray for her young daughter, who is here with us. We’re all sinners, Lord, all unworthy to grovel at your feet, and she knows she’s more unworthy than most...

Esther had let go of my hand, and there was some kind of commotion going on, momma was praying louder and louder to be heard over Esther demanding that papa let go, and I risked a peek to see.

Papa was gripping Esther’s hand so hard it was changing colors, and she was kicking at his shins, trying to pull away. Finally, he let her go and she tumbled back to the floor. He opened his eyes and hissed something at her, too low for me to hear, then snatched my hand and closed his eyes again.

...and bless the police officers, dear Lord, with strength and wisdom. They have a hard job in this sinful world, bless them that they can find the man that did this and bring him to justice so that God-fearing Christian women don’t have to worry any more. Bless us all in these end times, if it’s your will. If it’s your will that we suffer, we accept that humbly, Lord. All of us accept that. Praise Jesus, Amen.

Esther had absconded herself during the prayer, and I turned to run and go find her, only to be pulled up short because papa wouldn’t let go of my hand.

Sit down, young lady, he said.

I sat in the chair, even though it was ugly and dirty, and he motioned to the door.

Please come in, gentlemen. We appreciate your forbearance during our family prayer.

Two police came in. The young one was making moony faces at me like I was a baby, trying to make me like him. He was towheaded and sunburnt and peeling, and I knew he was the kind momma would call a right dumbass, if he wasn’t police and she was in a swearing mood.

The old one introduced himself and asked momma to say what had happened.

"We were out doing some shopping. We both have young girls, you know, and we were going to surprise them with some new dresses. Well, we’d just finished getting our hair done, and I was driving down the avenue. We stopped at the light, and a man with a gun jumped in the back seat.

I was so scared and surprised, I goosed the gas pedal, and we went straight through the light, and tapped that poor old oak. I think the bumper is probably dented, even."

I knew which oak she meant, and I hoped she hadn’t hurt it. That tree was one of the best in town for climbing.

And then the man shot my friend and ran away.

The older police was taking notes. Can you tell me anything more about him? What did he look like, how tall was he?

He was Mexican-looking, momma said. That was just stupid, and she should know it. The Mexican kids at my school all looked different, and papa said some of them were even rich.

Mexican-looking? The older one kept his voice steady, but his mustache twitched. He was the color of spilled coffee.

Momma must have seen him. She put on her meek voice. It’s the way he was dressed, sir. He was wearing a big yellow sombrero.

Curious George or Speedy Gonzales? I could tell momma was lying. She’d been lying already talking about buying me a dress, but I couldn’t figure out why. Worse, I couldn’t figure out why the old one nodded to the young one when she said about the sombrero, like they’d just confirmed part of the story.

Plus, she continued, he had a thin little mustache. And a kerchief.

Speedy Gonzales, then. Surely they would know she was lying. It was like she wanted to be caught in untruth.

Ma’am, have you ever seen this man before? Do you have any reason to think this might have been personal?

Momma put on her thoughtful face and made them wait about a minute.

No sir, I’ve never seen him before. What, do you think it was my husband? It all happened so fast that maybe I’ve got some details wrong. I know he was dressed like those ones the Hanigan boys had trouble with in Arizona a few years back. I saw those troublemakers in the paper. Maybe he just saw a nice car and was mad about our success. Lord knows we work hard for every penny. I just want you to figure out who did this.

A fat tear rolled down her face, and it was joined by several more soon after, then she went into a full-blown sobbing fit, the kind that would ruin her makeup.

Papa intervened. You can see this is all too much for her. Could we call on you tomorrow at your station? We want to help you catch this criminal, of course, but she needs her rest now.

The police left, and we said our goodbyes to momma. When I asked about Esther, papa growled at me that she’d ride with her own father. We rode home in silence with the top up. I’d asked him if we could put it down, before we’d pulled out of the lot, but he’d snapped a no at me. When we got home, Frank was sitting on the doorstep. Papa let us both in and sent us to bed without anything to eat, and I tossed and turned all night, the way it always was without.

In the morning, papa left to go pick up momma from the hospital. They’d be going to the police station after, and Frank had a baseball game, so like papa had said, I’d need to stay home and just wait. Cartoons were all right, but I was to turn off the tv after that and do my laundry and the dishes.

I was never in the house all alone, momma was always there when I was there, but after the cartoons I did my chores and still nobody was home. When we bought the house—this is the story momma told about it, anyway, as I hadn’t been born—the ceilings were the regular low ceilings that everyone else had. The