Chapter 9: Holding On

     Once mom was home from the hospital, Earl came to visit. She didn’t want to see him. Mickey heard them arguing while he stayed in his room. He strained to overhear them. He pictured Mom in bed, Earl most likely sitting next to her. After a few minutes of arguing, Earl stormed out, slamming one door after another as he left the house.

     “I don’t need no fair-weather friend,” Mom said to Uncle Tony when they discussed what had happened over supper. “Can’t count on that Earl.” She shook her head. “I want people I can count on from now on.” She smiled at her brother and reached across the table to touch his hand.

     “Fair weather Earl,” Uncle Tony said. He and Mom laughed together. Soon, there was an open bottle of wine on the table and she was drinking and smoking and laughing, holding her side sometimes and warning her brother that if she laughed too hard she’d tear her stitches.

     After washing the dishes and straightening the kitchen, Mickey decided to go to the library to return two books he’d borrowed. Miss Gallio asked him about his mom and he made the mistake of saying she was home from the hospital. Later that night, while he sat alone in his bedroom reading a magazine story, Mom threw open the door and flicked on the overhead light.

     “I just got a call from that damn librarian you like so much,” Mom said. She lumbered towards Mickey. He scrambled out of his bed. She slapped him before he could get away. “How dare you?”

     Mickey tried to get to the door, but Mom tripped him and he sprawled across the floor. He heard a swishing sound and then felt the strap across his backside. Then across his back. His legs. He tried to get to his feet, but the force of her blows sent him sprawling again.

     “What did I do?” he screamed back at her.

     “You went through my things. You took my letters. Mine. My letters! How dare you show them to that woman?”

     “I didn’t know,” Mickey said, though he knew he was lying. “I wanted to find out what they said.”

     “You think you’re so smart? Now you know? Now you’re smart.”

The strap rained down on him. The leather end raised welts under his shirt. The buckle end snapped across his forehead and left a small gash that streaked blood.

     “I should’ve flushed you down the toilet like I did the other one. But no. I wanted you. Why the hell did I want you? Tell me. Tell me!”

     Mickey managed to get to his knees while his mom caught her breath. “I don’t know why. You tell me.” He rushed her. He grabbed the belt out of her hands. “You tell me.” He glared at her. She dropped to her knees, her mouth open, her cheeks wet and her eyes closed. She clutched her side. Mickey loomed over her, gripping the belt tightly.

     “My stitches,” she said, moaning the words.

     “Who was Vincenzo? Was he my father? Tell me the truth, Mom.”

     Blood soaked her housedress. She had blood on her hands and the sleeve of her dress and it dripped to the floor. “My stitches,” she muttered. “I broke my stitches.”

     Mickey dropped the belt. His mom moved to his bed and grabbed his pillow and pressed it against her side, under her dress. Mickey ran out of the room and vaulted down the stairs to the store and found his uncle sitting at his work table and listening to a baseball game on the radio.    

     The bleeding had nearly stopped when they got back upstairs. The pillow was ruined, but pressing it into her side had provided enough pressure to stem the flow of blood. Still, Uncle Tony wanted to take her to the emergency room.

     “Help me carry your mom to the car,” Uncle Tony said.

     “I don’t need his help,” Mom said. She limped towards the stairs. Gripping the banister, she worked her way slowly down the steps. Uncle Tony followed. Mickey didn’t watch. He didn’t care.

Later that night, Uncle Tony returned home without her. She had to stay at the hospital.

“What happened?” Uncle Tony asked.

“Didn’t she tell you?” Mickey said.

“Don’t be flip with me. What happened?”

“I found some old letters and took them over to someone who knows Italian. I wanted to know what they said.”

“Why didn’t you ask me?”

“They’re Mom’s letters.”

“Who’d you take them to?”

“The librarian. Miss Gallio.”

Uncle Tony nodded a few times. He stepped further into the kitchen, to where Mickey sat at the table, where he’d been sitting and thinking for the past three hours. Mickey wondered if his uncle was going to hit him. He braced himself. He was ready for the blow, but he wasn’t sure how he would react. He couldn’t fight back. Uncle Tony was taller and stronger.

“Nobody ever tells me anything,” Mickey said. ‘I just want to know who my father was. I don’t even have a picture of him.”

“I know,” Uncle Tony said. “Your mom burned all the pictures. She found out he hadn’t really been killed like they said. He just didn’t want her anymore. So she burned the pictures. I thought she’d burned all the letters, too.”

Mickey blinked. He felt the tears gathering in his eyes. He sniffed once to stop them from falling.

“Don’t tell your mom I told you any of this.”

“I won’t.” Mickey waited to hear more. His uncle got a bottle of beer from the refrigerator. He poured some into a tall glass. He sat at the table and drank and lit a cigarette. “Do I look like him?” Mickey asked.

“A little. Maybe the eyes. It’s hard to tell. Maybe you’ll look exactly like him when you grow up.”

“I must look like him. That’s why she hates me.”

Uncle Tony took a long drink from his glass of beer. “She doesn’t hate you,” he finally said. He finished the beer and went into the room he and Mickey shared. After a few minutes, Mickey turned off the kitchen light and also went to bed. Uncle Tony was already snoring.

The summer passed quickly. Mickey tried to ignore Miss Gallio when he saw her at the library. One afternoon, as he browsed the stacks in the adult section, she came up to him and said, “I had to call her. I hope you didn’t get into too much trouble.”

“It’s okay.”

“You hardly even smile at me when you come in. You don’t talk to me. I have a feeling it isn’t okay.”

Mickey shrugged. Mom had come home from the hospital with a stern warning from the doctor about drinking, smoking and, especially, exerting herself in any way. After two weeks of home rest, she returned to work. Uncle Tony drove her for the first couple of days. Then she resumed riding the bus. The building where she worked was moving, so she was soon taking the elevated train, with another bus ride at the end of the line, which more than doubled her commute time, she complained.

“It’s okay,” Mickey said to Miss Gallio. “Mom was mad, but everything’s back to normal.”

“It really isn’t proper to pry, you know.”

“Then don’t,” Mickey said, and walked away from her. He glanced back when he thought she was no longer looking at him, but saw that she was, that her thin hands were at her mouth and her eyes were wide and staring across the room at him. He walked back to her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Children aren’t allowed in the adult stacks. You better go back over there.” She pointed at the brightly decorated children’s section at the front of the library. “Or you’ll have to leave.”

Mickey left.

He returned to the library a few times, venturing inside when Miss Gallio wasn’t on duty, not going in when she was. If he had books to return, he put them in the drop-off box outside, which he knew was against the rules when the library was open.

When the new school year started, Mickey entered the seventh grade at Hatter Junior High, a school that was eight blocks from his house. It was a new experience, with different teachers for different classes as well as groups of kids he had never known before. Some groups were gangs, like John Perry’s. Others were cliques formed by kids who didn’t want to make new friends, just wanted to keep the old. Soon, Mickey found himself in the accelerated classes, and his friends were smart kids who didn’t know how to fight and cried when scolded by a teacher.

There was a lot of discussion at home about the additional cost of his going to school. To help out, Mickey walked the eight blocks instead of taking the Front Street bus. There was lunch to buy in the cafeteria, but he always brought a sandwich and a piece of fruit so he wouldn’t have to spend extra money. On the way home, he tried to go where people threw old trash so he could look for things Uncle Tony could sell in the store. He also tried to find an after-school job, but he wasn’t old enough. He had to be fourteen to work legally.

He continued to help his uncle, but he realized that that didn’t really bring in extra money. That was just a way for him to earn an allowance. To make some money, he scrounged for soda-pop bottles to return for the deposit. He also found that he could sometimes make money by helping old ladies with their groceries at the supermarket, although that ended when one of the gangs took over and stopped outsiders from participating.

When winter came, and along with it the snow and days off from school, Mickey went around the neighborhood with his uncle’s coal shovel and offered to shovel steps and walkways. Uncle Tony soon bought him a regular snow shovel to make the job easier. Mickey was sorry to see February bring on March and the promise of another spring.

But he was glad his first year of Junior High was coming to a close. He was looking forward to the summer. He had made friends with two boys who liked to go fishing. One of the boys’ father had a small boat that they could take out on Wissahickon Creek and he promised to invite Mickey along.

“Any reason why your Mr. Green called me?” Mom asked one evening when she came home from work. She had lost a lot of weight since her illness, so her old clothes were baggy on her. In the new pants and blouses that she had bought, she now displayed a svelt figure and Mickey guessed she was using it to her advantage. She had had several different boyfriends since ending her relationship with Earl. A few of the men had come by the house for Sunday dinner, to meet Uncle Tony and Mickey.

“Mr. Green?” Mickey echoed.

“Don’t act stupid! You in trouble at school?”

Uncle Tony sighed. “Jo! He gets all A’s. What kind of trouble could he be in?”

“I don’t know. Why’s the principal calling me? He called me at work.”

“What did he say?” Mickey asked, wondering if he’d done something wrong. He’d gotten a detention for using the down staircase to go up one flight, but that was the extent of his transgressions.

“He left a message,” Mom said. “I wasn’t at my desk when he called. One of the secretaries took a message. I have to call him back, but I wanted to talk to you about it first.”

“I haven’t done anything. Besides, Mr. Green is the vice-principal.”

“Whatever it is, I’ll find out. You better tell me the truth now.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Mickey insisted. “Why don’t you call him and find out what he wants before you start blaming me.”

“Watch that mouth of yours,” Mom snapped at him. “You ain’t too big that I can’t take a strap to you. Which I will. I don’t care if you are nearly 13. Don’t get too big for your britches or you ain’t gonna sit comfortable for a few days.” She laughed and looked at Uncle Tony, as though urging him to join her in laughing at Mickey.

The next evening, Mom reported the result of her conversation with Mr. Green. There was no problem at school, but he wanted to talk to her about Mickey’s academic standing.

“He wants us both to come by to talk. I gotta take an hour off of work to get there on time.”

“I’m sorry,” Mickey said.

“I told him that and know what he said?” Mom looked from Mickey to Uncle Tony. “Know what he said? He said it would be an hour well-spent. What the hell does he know about well-spent?”

“I have to go, too?”

“Meet me there. Four PM.”

Mickey nodded. He didn’t want to tell Mom that the vice-principal was a stickler about punctuality. She’d just get angry. She might not even show up if she thought someone was forcing her to do something.

Waiting outside the school, having spent the afternoon in the school library doing homework, Mickey watched the passing trolley cars. Finally, at a few minutes after four, Mom arrived. They went into the building together and to Mr. Green’s office in the administrative wing.

“I’m so happy you could take the time to meet,” Mr. Green said. He was short and thin, a bird-like man with curly hair. He had a large nose, eyes that were a bit too close together, and ears that jutted out from the sides of his head. He indicated two chairs placed in front of his desk, saying, “Sit, sit.”

Mom sat, her large pocketbook on her lap. Her coat was open. She declined to take it off when Mr. Green offered to hang it up for her. Mickey sat next to her, his jacket draped across his legs.

“Well,” Mr. Green said. “Mickey is certainly one smart boy. But I don’t have to tell you that, do I, Mrs. Arden?” Green smiled warmly. He smiled with his gray eyes and his white teeth. He smiled with his cheeks and the way he held his hands.

“It’s Miss,” Mom said. “Miss Arden.”

“My apologies, Miss Arden. Yes. Well. You see, we’ve been looking over Mickey’s record. He’s a bright boy. More so than some that come to Hatter.”

“What’s your point, Mr. Green?

“The point, Miss Arden, is that we want Mickey to skip ahead.”

Mom looked at Mickey. She folded her arms. “Why?”

Mr. Green smiled at Mom and said, “He’s not challenged, so there’s a danger he could become bored. He’s smart, Miss Arden. If we skip him ahead a grade, he’ll excel, I’m sure.”

“And be a little kid with a bunch of older ones? No, thank you. They’d be a bad influence. I want him in with  kids his own age.”

“I’d also suggest that we place him in Philadelphia Prep.”

“I can’t afford no prep school.”
     “It’s a public school, Miss Arden. For advance placement.”

“A smart kid’s high school?”

“Exactly.”

Mom snorted. “He doesn’t need to go there.”

“Do you know the school? Have you heard of its program?” Mr. Green asked.

“I don’t know anything about it. I don’t care to know, either.”

“It’s a public high school. It’s free. It’s for boys like Mickey. Smart kids, if you will.”

“I don’t like the idea. No. I’m sorry, Mr. Green. That ain’t for my Mickey.” She glanced at Mickey. “You put Mr. Green up to this? This your idea? Get me here? Trap me? Get me to agree?”

“No, Mom. Honest.”

“Miss Arden. Please. The boy didn’t –“

“He’s a sneaky one.”

Go on, Mickey thought. Say it. He could see the word forming on her lips, the way she pressed them together to form the “B” sound. Say it, Mickey thought.

“Just sneaky,” Mom said in a quiet voice.

“This was our idea, mine and Mickey’s advisor’s. He can skip the eighth grade and start next September at Philly Prep.”

“He needs to learn a trade. They don’t teach boys a trade at those schools.”

“No, they don’t. They prepare boys for college.”

“College?” Mom scoffed. “I want Mickey to learn how to take care of himself. He needs to learn a trade.” She glared at him. “What do you think you’ll do, take over that damn junk store someday? That all the ambition you got?”

“Don’t you want him to go to college?”

“We’re poor people, Mr. Green. You got a lot of poor kids here, just like Mickey. You want them to go to college, too?”

“The smart ones. Yes. We do steer them to the academics.”

“And how the hell do you expect me to pay for it?”

“There’re scholarships. There are loans. There are ways.”
     “Mickey needs to learn a useful trade. After that, with something to fall back on, he can think about college or some such nonsense.”

“I don’t believe this, Miss Aden. Why do you want to hold him back?”

“Why do you want to get his hopes up?” she countered. When Mr. Green didn’t reply, she said, “Are we done here?”

Mr. Green nodded. “Think about it. Talk it over at home.”

Mom stood and walked out of the office. Mickey followed, leaving Mr. Green sitting behind his desk and staring after them. Outside the school they took a trolley to Kensington Avenue and then the Number Three Bus to get close to home. They didn’t talk about Mr. Green or school or anything the entire time. Mickey knew Mom was angry. He expected her to scream at him once they got home. He was surprised when she didn’t, when she went into her room. He was surprised to hear her crying on the other side of her closed door.

“Mom?” he asked, gently rapping on the door.

“Get out of here,” she called. “Make yourself something to eat. Make something for your uncle. Just leave me alone.”

Mickey looked through the cans in the cupboard above the sink. Soon, Uncle Tony came upstairs from the store. He took down a can of hash. Mickey got four eggs from the refrigerator. Together, he and his uncle made supper for themselves.

“What happened at school?” Uncle Tony asked.

“I don’t know.” Mickey sighed.

“A couple more weeks and school’s over. Lookin’ forward to it, ain’t ya?”

Mickey nodded. “Mr. Green, the vice principal, thinks I should skip ahead a grade, go into ninth next year. He told mom I should go to Philadelphia Prep High.”

“That around here?”

Mickey shook his head. He wasn’t sure where it was.

“You oughta go to Mastbaum, where you can learn a trade. Electrical work. You’d like that, being an electrician. Always jobs for electricians. They’re always puttin’ up new buildings, building new houses. You get in with that union and you’re set for life. Don’t get any wild ideas about having a store like me. Believe me, if I had a trade, I wouldn’t be running no junk store.”

“What did you learn in school?”

Uncle Tony laughed. “How to quit. I left when I was sixteen. Tenth grade and I was out of there. Your mom was the only one of us five kids who finished high school. Yeah. Actually got a diploma.”

There was a noise coming from Mom’s room. Mickey looked across the table at the door. It opened. Mom stood there.

“You make me somethin’ to eat, or am I left out again?” she said as she stepped into the kitchen. “What is that?” She pointed. Uncle Tony told her and she wrinkled her nose and shook her head and got a TV dinner from the freezer.

Mickey took a deep breath. “We should talk about what Mr. Green said.”

Mom’s shoulders shook. She put the frozen dinner in the over. She set the temperature. “There’s nothing to discuss, Mickey. You need to learn a trade and that’s final.”

Uncle Tony looked from his sister to Mickey and back at her. She took one of his homemade cigarettes and lit it. “You don’t want him to skip ahead?” Uncle Tony asked.

“She doesn’t want me to go to college.”

“I want you to learn something useful, damn it.” She slapped the table with the flat of her hand. The dishes clattered. “You’re too stupid to understand.”

“Mr. Green said I’m really smart.”

Mom laughed. She snorted and the smoke went up her nose and she laughed again. “Book smart, maybe. Ya ain’t smart no other way. You’re too stupid to know what’s good for you.”

“I-I think Mr. Green’s got some good advice,” Mickey said in a labored tone-of-voice.

Mom narrowed her eyes. Her high forehead was furrowed now and her cheeks flushed. “He ain’t the one who has to pay for all that good advice. Don’t disappoint yourself, Mickey. Ain’t nobody gonna give you no scholarship or a loan or a hand up or anything. It’s all a bunch of crap, whatever they promise you. I could’ve gone to college. I spent two years with the WACs. I could’ve used my GI benefits. Did anyone help me? Did anyone want to take care of you so I could better myself? No. I had you and your uncle to worry about. I had responsibilities.”

Uncle Tony got up and walked away from the table. Mickey shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Mom stubbed out her cigarette.

“You could have done something if you’d wanted to, Jo. You know that. I didn’t stop you.”

“You stopped me when I—“ Mom was suddenly quiet. She looked at Mickey and she took a deep draught of air, which she expelled. She looked at her cigarette. She stubbed it out before it burned her fingers. “You finished eatin’?” she asked.

Mickey nodded.

“Then go to your room. I don’t want to see you the rest of the night.”

“Don’t take it out on him, Jo. You’re always blamin’ him. He ain’t the reason they sent you home.”

“Isn’t he?”

“I mean…” Uncle Tony stepped close to the table. “Why don’t you smarten up a bit, Joanne? Stop blamin’ everybody else for your problems.”

Mom’s lips trembled. Mickey stood and scooted from the table. Standing beside it, he stared at his mom. She looked small. She looked frightened and he imagined her as a young woman thirteen years ago, 23 years old and sent home from Italy, discharged from the Woman’s Army Corp, pregnant, confronting an angry father and a bewildered mother. He imagined her holding her newborn, alone at her friend’s house. He imagined her being taken into her brother’s arms and held as though he was a lover, but really the only person in her life who offered her solace and protection. He imagined her struggling, and always losing the struggle to scramble forward a little, trying to leave misery and shame behind but then stumbling, like a runner not quite clearing the hurdle.

“Stop blaming the boy,” Uncle Tony said.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Mickey said. “I understand.” He stepped closer to her. Did she want him in her arms? Should he take her in his own? She looked at him, her dark eyes moist, promising to spill tears.

“Maybe you could go to that school,” she said softly, and their eyes locked. “I don’t know. Maybe you should.”

“We’ll see,” Mickey said. “I don’t need to skip a grade to go to that school. I’ve got a lot of friends where I am.” He grinned at her. “I’m in the smart kids class.”

Mickey turned away and went into the room he shared with his uncle. He sat on his narrow bed, turned on the lamp clamped to the bedpost, took out one of his magazines and started to read. His door was partially open and he saw his uncle and his mom standing together. He held her tightly and stroked her back.

Mickey put down his magazine. He stepped lightly to the doorway and stood watching them, waiting for one or the other to notice him. Mom finally did. She parted from her brother and wiped the tears from her eyes and Mickey thought he saw her gesture.

He walked towards her, hoping she’d hold him close and hug him, even if only for a moment. When she did, he sucked back his tears and he and his uncle and his mom, their arms intertwined, held each other and rocked slightly, side to side. Mickey’s back tingled. Chills ran up and down his arms. He swallowed his small cries and breathed deeply, taking in the scent of his mom and his uncle, feeling their warmth, realizing that it was always hard to understand what anyone wanted from anyone else.

 For an instant, he wanted to speak, but he didn’t know what to say, so he let the moment linger, this moment of holding on, Mom holding him and he holding her and his uncle holding them both, holding on, all together.

THE END