Paul Scott

An Actual Mommy

        Daddy says that men pay more for it than women do, and that’s why

Andy won’t be with any women.  Besides, Daddy says, on men, everything

 is on the outside.  You don’t have

to go looking for stuff like you do with women.  Men don’t like looking for stuff,

Daddy says.

        He holds Andy by the shoulder as the orange and white plastic razor

slides down Andy’schin.  Andy chews a piece of cinnamon gum.  Andy stares at

the wall as if itwere  a  window.

         Men don’t like peach fuzz either, Daddy says.  They like their boys pretty.

         What about girls like me? I ask.

          They like their girls at home.

          I take out a black eyeliner pencil, the kind that women like Elaine,

women pretending to be Mommies, use to cover up their past.  The kind

that girls like me take from the purses of women pretending to be Mommies

whether we’re supposed to or not.  The kind that girls like me write on

closet walls with when we’re told to go to our room because Daddy and

Elaine are drinking, or Daddy and Elaine are in the middle of having

I-can-moan-louder-than-you sex, or Daddy and Elaine are screaming fuck

off and other things that we’re not supposed to say.  The kind that girls like

me write pretend and Mommies with when we’re left alone.

        Today, the black eyeliner pencil draws a shaky heart on my knee and

the  letters A and S inside it.  A for Andy.  S for Sarah.  My baby brother

and me.  Actually, he’s older than me, but only by a few minutes.  We’re

fraternal twins.  The kind that come from separate eggs.  Daddy says that

Stupid Andy was a rotten egg from the start.  Daddy says "stupid" and

"rotten" like they’re terms of affection.  Daddy says "stupid" and "rotten"

like their filled with love.  I say "Daddy" and "Mommy" the exact same way.

        Daddy says that Mommy didn’t want or need anybody.  Mommy only

wanted the Demerol and pain killers that came with me and Andy, and the

divorce papers that came with Daddy.  Mommy wanted her old body and

her old life back.  Back before Andy and I were born. Daddy says that

Mommy delivered us right out of her life.  That she only stuck around long

enough to stick us to him.  Stuck us on like postage stamps, fake eyelashes,

or gum.  Stuck us on like birthmarks.

        Elaine says that birthmarks mark the spot of where your Mommy first

touched you.  Elaine has a birthmark on her back.  Up real high.  Almost on

her neck.  She scratches it with uneven fingernails as she stares at herself in

the mirror.  Andy and I don’t have any birthmarks because Mommy never

touched us.

        Daddy says Mommy touched us on the way out the door, but I don’t

believe him.  Daddy likes the way his voice trails off at the end of sentences

full of bullshit.  Sentences like: Mommy touched you on her way out the

door, Sarah, or Andy doesn’t mind being touched, Sarah, or Andy won’t

amount to anything, Sarah, or Andy’s not like you and me.

    If you don’t stop chewing that stupid gum, Daddy tells Andy, I’m liable

to cut your throat.  I stare at the jawbreaker knot in daddy’s throat and

watch it rise and fall like an elevator.  Daddy’s sending Andy on a glass

elevator tomorrow night.  All the way to the top.  Tomorrow is a big night

for Andy.  Someone new.  If Andy is nice to the man, and the man is nice to

Andy, then we’ll be taking elevator rides for a long time. That’s what

Daddy says.

        He could be our bread and butter, Daddy says.  The man is very

important.

        What did the man sound like? I ask.

        He was quiet, Daddy says.  He only spoke in whispers.

        Like this? I whisper, but Daddy isn’t listening to me.  He’s listening to

the orange and white plastic razor shave stubble off Andy’s face and neck.

Fast, then slow.  Fast on Andy’s cheek, then slow, as it slides around the

gumball knot in Andy’s throat.  The razor makes a trail, like the kind I make

in mashed potatoes with my fork when Elaine heats up our TV dinners.  I

make fork trails leading away from TV dinners, Daddies, and women

pretending to be Mommies.  I make fork trails leading nowhere.

        In my bedroom closet, Andy holds the black eyeliner pencil as I hold a

yellow flashlight, the kind that girls like me are taught to use in

emergencies.   The kind that girls like me buy from TV with our Mommy’s

voice and our Daddy’s credit card, whether we’re supposed to or not.  The

kind that girls like me use to teach our baby brothers how to write when

Daddy and Elaine are hung over from drinking, or fighting, or

I-can-moan-louder-than-you sex. The kind that girls like me use when no

other lights are on.

        Off.  That’s what Daddy called Andy the time he caught me teaching

Andy how to write.  You’re wasting your time, Sarah.  Andy won’t ever

get a job where he needs to write.  Look at that sagging, bottom lip, Daddy

said.  People with normal brains don’t have lips like that.

What does having a normal brain have to do with bottom lips? I asked.

Andy got the rotten egg, Daddy said.  His voice trailed off.  It’s not his

fault.  It’s yours.  Daddy stared at me as he patted Andy on the head.

Just leave the light off, Daddy said.

        But Andy wants to learn.  Andy wants to get a job—

        Daddy’s hand was cold and hard against my face.

        What job?  Some minimum wage bullshit.  A job at some equal

opportunity grocery store that hires retarded kids?  Andy won’t work for

minimum wage, Sarah.  Not while he lives in this house.  Daddy’s voice

remained the same.  He stroked Andy’s hair, fast then slow, as if he was

petting a dog.  Just leave it off, he said.  And then he left.

        On, Andy said after a while.  Light stays on.  His bottom lip shook as

he talked.  I looked at Andy, and smiled.  Andy didn’t look at me.  Andy

just stared at the closet wall as if it were a window.

        Andy sleeps in a lot of beds with stuffed pillows.  Andy take baths in

marble tubs, and dries himself with stuffed towels.  Andy does grown-up

things with grown-up people.  That’s what my twin brother does with the

men that pay more for it than women. That’s what I think, but I don’t

know.  Andy doesn’t say much.  He just chews on sticks of cinnamon gum.

Sometimes he leaves them in his mouth for hours, even after the stain on his

tongue is gone.  He prefers the taste of cinnamon to other tastes.  That, I

do know.

        Elaine never shows me what she knows.  Daddy shows Andy, but

Elaine, Elaine just stares at herself in the mirror.  She likes to smoke thin

white cigarettes, the kind that women pretending to be Mommies like to

smoke.  She stares at herself in the mirror while she smokes.  I stare at the

fading polish on her uneven fingernails.  She tells me that smoking cigarettes

is sexy.  That men think girls who smoke cigarettes are sexy.  That men like

their girls to smoke.

        I tell her that Daddy says men like their girls at home.

        Elaine just blows sexy smoke into the mirror and laughs.

        I take out a pair of fake eyelashes from the medicine cabinet.  The kind

that girls like me take from grocery stores, whether we’re supposed to or

not.  The kind that girls like me stick on our faces when we pretend to be

grown-ups, or Mommies, or whores.

        They’re all the same, Daddy says, but I don’t pay much attention.

Daddy says more then he should, especially when he’s holding up his wallet

looking for money, or credit cards, or directions to Andy’s big nights.

Andy is all that Daddy’s got.  Me, I could do fine on my own.  I’m old

enough to get a job.  Something minimum wage.  Something in a shopping

mall.  Something away from Daddy and TV dinners and home.  I could get

a  minimum wage job at some pet store inside some shopping mall.  I’m real

good with pets.  Having a twin brother like Andy, a brother who doesn’t

use his brain to keep his bottom lip up, is kind of like having a pet.  It’s the

same thing.

        I’d get a job at a pet store and never be heard from again.  But then

I’d look at my knee, if I was wearing shorts or a mini-skirt or something,

and I’d see that faded black heart, and the A and the S, and I’d know that

I’d let my twin brother down.  But then I’d have something in common with

Mommy, and I don’t want that.  All Mommy and I have in common is

parts.

        Sometimes, I write letters to Mommy.  I stick stamps on the envelopes

and everything.  I don’t send them, though.  Mommy doesn’t want pictures

or letters or stamps.  Mommy wants to be left alone.  In my letters, the

letters I never send, I tell Mommy about Andy and me.  About rotten eggs

and sexy smoke and parts.  I write them when Daddy and Andy are gone,

and I’m left alone.  I take out a green crayon, the kind they give to kids at

restaurants to keep them quiet.  The kind that girls like me take from the

restaurants, whether we’re supposed to or not.  The kind that girls like me

write on closet walls with when we’re told to stay in our room because

Daddy and Andy are out making money, or Elaine is blowing sexy smoke at

herself in the mirror, or I’m tired of making fork trails in my TV dinners.

The kind that girls like me write birthmark and stuck with when we’re left

alone.

        I figure that sooner or later, if Mommy isn’t really a women pretending

to be a Mommy, but an actual Mommy, then she will come back.  When she

goes in my closet and reads the words birthmark and stuck, she’ll know

what girls like me think when we’re left alone.

        Together, Daddy and I wait in the hotel restaurant for Andy.  Daddy

orders a drink, his third, and I order some mashed potatoes.  It’s the first

time that I ask to come along, so Daddy says yes.

        It will be early, Daddy says.  The man told me that he likes to go to

bed early.

        It’s late.  Three hours late.  Daddy looks around the restaurant for me,

but I am gone.  Daddy pays the check and leaves the restaurant.  Daddy

doesn’t care about food, or me, or that he is leaving alone.  Daddy doesn’t

care about mashed potatoes or fork trails leading somewhere.  Daddy only

cares about bread and butter.

The glass elevator rises as the city unfolds like sheets on a hotel bed

beneath Daddy.  The elevator door opens up on the twenty-seventh

floor, the important man’s floor, and Daddy says twenty-seven eleven over

and over as he walks down the hallway. When he gets to the door, the

important man’s door, Daddy listens first, and knocks second.

          Andy? he says into the keyhole, but no one answers.

          Daddy knocks harder on the door.  He steps back into the hall, and

runs towards it.  The door moves against his body, but doesn’t open.

Daddy stands back and runs into the door again, and this time, it opens.

Daddy runs into the empty room, and looks around.  He runs into the

bathroom and looks at the marble tub and the big stuffed towels.  He runs

onto the balcony, and back again.  The bed is made.  The room looks as if it

has never been touched.  The room looks as if it has never been anything,

but alone.

       Daddy goes into the closet, and sees a cinnamon gum wrapper.  On the

wall,  he sees Andy’s handwriting for the first time.  Andy and Sarah is

written in blue crayon.  The kind they give you in hotel restaurants if you

ask them nicely.

        I can’t see Daddy’s face from where I stand in the hallway, but I tell

myself that he is smiling.  Smiling like he does when he finishes drinking, or

having I-can-moan-louder-than-you sex, or watching Elaine stare at herself

in the mirror.

        Andy stares at the glass elevator as if it were a wall.  I scratch his head

and whisper, light stays on.  As I remove my hand, I notice it.  It is tucked

like sheets behind his ear.  A birthmark, the size of a gumball.  Andy’s not

like me.  Andy’s not like kids like me.  Kids who have never been touched.

Kids like me get minimum wage jobs at pet stores.  Kids like me take good

care of pets, whether we’re supposed to or not.  Kids like me pay more for

it than men do, and that’s why Andy won’t be with any more men.