THE BEGINNING
Chapter Nine
What's wrong? What's happened to her? I don't bother drying off and I'm still knotting the towel around my waist as I slide down the hall, desperate to get to the phone. I never should've sent her there. I should've known she'd be too small to stand up to them shocks. My stomach's reached my throat when I snap at the boys and tell them to hush up now, and I picture myself running through the doors of that asylum in nothing but this soggy towel and carrying her all the way back home where she belongs. My God what have I done to my Maggie?
"Yeah, it's Darrel Curtis," I answer, practically yelling into the receiver and hearing my rapid breathing pound back against my eardrums. And I don't say a word while Dr. James calmly explains the progress of his patient, and the world and time slow to a crawl. Nothing exists but the doctor's steady voice and my three boys in front of me, seeming to move in slow motion while I wait for the fallout. I stare at Darry and Soda wrestling, their bodies locked together on the couch, I watch Ponyboy beating on his brothers' backs with the needlepoint pillow my baby sister made before the TB took her, and the leftover water droplets zig zag their way down my body in a Chinese torture kind of way.
"…and should be ready to come home in a matter of days. Your wife is quite strong, Mr. Curtis."
I'm still in a trance when my heart unfolds from its clutch, and I lick at a stray drop of water that's found its way to my lip. But it tastes salty and it's not from the shower. I'm smiling and starting to realize what I've just heard, what I've been given, and the earth fires up again to normal speed, sound returns and colors are vibrant and my wild little boys are loud and fit and thunderous. My bicep flexes along her cursive name when I pump my fist, in silent celebration of the victory. Her victory.
You're damn right my little bayou girl is strong.
"Tomorrow mornin' Doc," is all I can stand to say cause I can't wait another day and won't, "I'm comin' to get her."
I don't even realize Dad's finished his phone call and gotten dressed until he claps his hands and demands our attention. I shake Pony off my back and let Soda escape out from under me and we three sit on the couch waiting for the lecture. But Dad, his hair uncombed and his t-shirt wrinkled, looks nowhere near angry, despite the fact we didn't clean the den like he'd asked. In fact, it's even messier than before, but he doesn't seem to notice. His eyes are shining and he's got his old smile back, revealing a solid row of strong teeth that Mom's always gushing about, proud they're all present and accounted for.
And I admire them too, not a single one loose or busted, managing to survive even his short-lived boxing career when he fought for those hardcore street leagues. He tells me it was merely a means for money when he was down and out, but if only I could've seen my father then, hammering all those blows with taped up fists, leaving his opponents out cold or seeing stars; at least that's how it goes in every single scene I've dreamed up. But he won't ever talk about any of his records or knockouts when I ask him. To me this part of his past is mystical legend, but for him, his underground nights in the corrupt and seedy backstreets of Louisiana badlands remain exactly that. Underground.
And Mom, who's threatened by any story that might lead one of her good little lambs astray, sternly tells me that there's no glory in making a living off of punching people in the face, and even as Dad nods his head beside her in agreement, his faraway eyes reflect a different story. The real one; his own.
"Alright Soldiers listen up, I've got some real good news," and I figure it's what the call was about and I flick Soda next to me when he burps in my ear and he pinches my leg hard in return. "I just got off the phone with Aunt…hey, you two need to separate.. right now." And I gladly walk away from Soda and fall into Dad's chair with a smirky grin, cause it's where I wanted to sit all along.
And even with a little squabble Dad's mood can't be stopped, "So, when all ya'll find your shoes, and Ponyboy, hon we need to track down the location of your pants, after that we're goin' out to have us some coke floats...cause fellas," and I watch my brothers' eyes widen, "your Momma's comin' home."
Their joyful shouts erupt as they shoot off the couch and Dad scoops them up and I'm in a panic of what to do, how to act, when I don't feel the same, don't feel their happiness, or any kind of relief. My mouth goes dry and I stand slowly, and Dad looks over, his arm outstretched to include me in their circle, but my feet are glued to the floor and I can only shake my head. His jaw sets tighter with every shake I give but I can't stop myself. In fact, I whip my head faster and faster, tossing this house back and forth until my mouth opens and I'm uttering, "No, no, she can't come home."
She can't be well. There's no way she's better, and I feel my life, the outside world slipping out of my grasp again, all of my games and my friends disappearing with it.
Pony looks at me in confusion and Soda stares with narrowed eyes in both judgment and concern, and I don't need Dad's shameful look to spark my own. I'm already ashamed. I was born ashamed. I know it's wrong and my words are destroying their joyful moment. What's worse they're hurting my father who I love. But I can't control my reaction, and I don't want my mother to crawl her way back in and ruin what we've got right now, the four of us.
Dad's trying to give me every opportunity to take it back. "Darry, babe, you're mixed up, now you don't mean that," he informs me but I happen to be thinking more clearly than I ever have, and even his size and tone can't scare me into saying what he wants to hear.
But I can be just as hard, and I feel my spine straighten when I won't back down. "I don't want Mom to ever come home," I yell it out so there's no mistaking where I stand in the matter, and I'm only now discovering how furious I really am. A crocodile rage swims inside my belly, and I dare anyone to get their hand too close.
And through all my fog filled daydreams, in a patch of streetlight somewhere beneath the rusted iron bridges near the riverboat docks, dead center of the circling crowds of gamblers, he stands ready. The Boxer looks an awful lot like me.
It don't take a Dr. James to know what's going on here. I know why Darry's acting out, after all he's been through. I feel for him, but even while I understand, I've got a line he's about to cross and when he does I ain't gonna keep my cool. I feel my blood pressure spike when he won't take his words back, and I refuse to let him disrespect his mother who's fought a thousand battles and won, only to have her first born run off his mouth about her.
"Darrel Shaynne Curtis," I say in a voice packed with gunpowder, "you keep gettin' mouthy with me and you'll find yourself in a world of hurt." But I can tell Darry's too far gone to listen, and in this room, I only seem to be intimidating poor Pony who tucks himself against his middle brother and sucks his thumb, rubbing Soda's soft t-shirt sleeve between his fingers. Without notice or thought, Soda bends his arm out a little, allowing him easier access.
I immediately soften my voice. "Soda, why don't you take Pony back to his room and help him find his clothes."
"Okay," Soda says, giving me his trademark side-eye while his finger points up at me and wiggles all around, "but we're still goin' out for them coke floats, right?" I work at straightening my face when I nod and match him eye for eye.
"Yeah, we're gonna get them floats. I'll come getcha when it's time to go. Ya'll run along now. Get."
And I watch Soda guiding Pony to his room, and once they stumble behind his door, I slowly turn my head to face my oldest, my best pal, the one who's never wanted to displease me. But tonight, here he is taking me on, and he's about to learn a lesson. Or hell maybe I am. "You, sit down," I bark and at least he follows that command.
I pull the piano bench out and drag it over, clear my throat and sit right in front of him, and his eyes are as scared as they are stormy. I decide to start over and try this again, because I so desperately want him to take this third chance I'm giving him. I lean forward, hoping to make myself clear. "Darry, I seen what you've been through, but I expect you to welcome your Momma home. You can't talk that way about her and I won't let you. Not to me and certainly not in front of your brothers."
He's not looking me in the eyes and he won't give a "yessir" and I'm silently begging him to shape up. I only want to be celebrating this good news right now, not giving lectures and threats. Do these boys think I enjoy this? "C'mon Darry. It ain't fair to put the blame on your Ma. You know how sick she's been." I wince even as I say it. Of course he knows how sick she's been. "She wasn't herself this summer."
I'm relieved to finally get a response out of him, even if it comes with an eye roll, and I would've punished him already for his misbehaving had this been about anything else. His voice sounds choked and I can't tell if he's on the verge of shouting or crying. Either way he's gonna explode. "She hasn't been herself a lot longer than that. Or maybe this is who she really is. How'm I s'posed to know?" His eyes slice through me.
Who does this boy think he is questioning me? In my head I count to five before I speak. "There ain't nobody I know better than Mom, and believe me, she was mighty sick." I can't tell what it means that his eyes are closed. "And I'm sorry she hurt you that day. She's even more sorry she hurt you that day. But she got better when she went away and now she's comin' back. And you will show her your love and respect Darry."
I sit up straight when he jumps out of the chair and I let him have his outburst, but it's hard not to nip this in the bud with a good heavy handed swat. Anything to try and jar him out of this fit he's throwing. "It ain't just about that day Dad. It's about all those days when you weren't here," and I don't like the way his voice keeps raising. "You got to leave. We never did. I had to stay here with her all day, every day and just take it. And you let it happen." I stand up when he starts pointing, but the tears in his eyes stop me from dragging him over my lap.
I walk towards him, reach out to touch his arm, just to calm him down, but he steps backwards away from me and screams, "No," and it's so unlike Darry I'm frozen in my tracks and there's nothing to do but watch my son come undone.
"I don't care if you're mad at me, I don't care if I'm in trouble and you ground me," he's yelling out of his mind and backed himself up against the wall, and I can sense the audience of two behind me that's peeking in on this show, "and I don't care if you scream at me or send me to my room. I don't even care if you give me a spankin' or you shove a bar of soap in my mouth. I don't care as long as it's you, and not her."
And this child is in shock, and maybe so am I when I watch him grab Maggie's porcelain figurine of Mother Mary and hurl it against our front door, and that boy's got a helluva arm.
Mary spirals through the air, her hands folded in peaceful prayer throughout her entire flight, and it's when she nails the front door that I realize what just happened. She lands in two pieces on the floor, her robed body separate and apart from her delicate head.
I stare at the jagged broken edges and wonder what I've done, what's possessed me, and I look to my father, who looks as appalled as I am. I wonder why my hands are both up in the air, my last shot at innocence, as if my hands and I had nothing to do with the crime when there were three witnesses to watch the entire gruesome scene.
I hear myself stuttering, pleading for mercy, "I-I-I-didn't mean it. Dad, I'm sorry," and there's nothing for me here but regret and punishment, so I turn on my heels and bolt out of the house, jumping off the porch and through the gate, left swinging noisy in my wake.
I run away from all of it, including Dad's shouts off the porch that travel faster into the dusk than I can, "Darry come back here." I don't know where I'm going but to nowhere quick, and I finally outrun his voice that's shrinking smaller and smaller as I leave it all behind.
When I've cleared some distance I dial it back to a walk, my lungs still working overtime, and the sun's taking its leave from a late August sky. Soon I'll have very little light left, and I find myself sitting on top of one of the park's weathered picnic tables, rest my chin on my knees pulled up, and sink with the sun.
Maybe I'm as crazy as my mother.
It's especially dark in my little corner by the tree line, and everything around me seems to dissolve on the tongue of twilight. I've gotta go back at some point. I don't have shoes on and I can't survive alone in Crutchfield. Mom's already warned us about the hobos who steal little kids around here, and now I keep looking behind my shoulder. I feel sick in the pit of my stomach when I imagine being taken, forced to live among the drifters and vagabonds, hopping railcars and sleeping in shantytowns.
I said I didn't care if Dad gave me a licking, and now maybe I do, but I guess there's nothing for me but to surrender, because the air's a little colder now and the macaroni supper I whipped up seems like a long time ago. Yet every time I get the nerve to return with my tail between my legs, I'm stopped by the bitter thought of having to deal with a mother whose mind was lost and littered somewhere along the train tracks, and Dad will never ever ever know just how bad it really got.
But I think about my brothers and what would happen to them if I left. So I stretch my legs out straight and hop down to start making my way to the road, feeling the steel cuffs close around my pocketed wrists.
I'm blinded by the headlights of a truck that parks in the empty lot, gravel crunching under tires, and I squint to see Dad climbing out. I take a deep breath. The wrath has arrived and I watch him start jogging towards me. "Darry," he calls out in a voice I don't recognize, then he slows his pace and finally stops altogether, looking at me, giving plenty of room between us, like I'm an animal he doesn't want to spook.
I drag my feet in his direction, and know a little bit now of how it might've felt to face him in the ring. An intimidating silhouette, he stands in the patch of a streetlight, just like in my dreams. How could I ever think of taking him on? The man who could throw a one punch knockout, the man who once lived by the whipping rhythm of both the blues and brutal fists.
I swallow hard, putting one foot before the other in soft grass, and begin the death march of turning myself in, my shoulders slumped and head bent in submission. But the closer I get, the more I can make out his face, his eyes, my own. My legs are starting to pick up speed now, faster and faster toward the man who stands in the pool of electric white, and suddenly I'm breaking into a full run, kicking up the dust trail of a million boyhood sorrows behind me. Gasping and swallowing air, I fly with dirty feet across the asphalt, until I'm jumping up into the powerful arms he's opened for me, and he holds me tight and lets me bawl into his neck and chest. Like I haven't since I was a baby. He doesn't even think of spanking me, he's shushing me instead and rubbing my hair and telling me gently it's all gonna be okay. And I don't even need to explain myself because he already knows.
"I'm sorry Darry. I ain't never gonna let things get as bad as they did. You don't have to go through that. Ever again. Honey I promise."
And over his shoulder through stinging eyes, I can see my little brothers in the truck. From the worn bench seat they watch my father and me, prizefighters intertwined, and wait to bring us home.
A round of solitaire lines the foot of my bed and the nighttime orderly's already made her last appearance to check on me. This wing is usually peaceful once the busy evening staff goes home, and I'm on a losing streak, so I pick up my cards, shuffle once for good measure and turn off my headboard light.
The night noises in the hospital hall have become familiar, almost comforting; the creaking wheels of the mop bucket, the faraway casual conversation of the graveyard shift, the sporadic chime of the elevator. I'm drifting off when I hear footsteps, heavy but quick, growing louder and closer until they're just outside my room. A little knock and the door's already open. I gave up my pride and privacy once I was checked into this place. But like anything, you get used to it.
"Mrs. Curtis?" he whispers, because I share this room with two other sleeping ladies.
I sit up and welcome Dr. James in, and the good doctor sits in the bedside chair. I wonder if he ever goes home. But I guess for him, his life work's his passion and I'm the lucky one for that.
"I spoke with your husband earlier," he tells me and my concern peaks. "I told him you'd be ready to go home soon, after we have a few sessions to help prepare you for your return to everyday life, and of course monitor the lithium a few more days." I nod. I already knew all of this.
I wonder why a short chuckle escapes when he leans over and pats my arm. "But that's not gonna happen now Miss Maggie. You better get your bags packed first thing in the morning. Mr. Curtis has refused to let me keep you, not even a single day longer. And he's not one to argue with now is he?"
A warmth spreads over me, because it sounds exactly like my Darrel, and Dr. James rises and gives a wistful smile. "To be missed like that is a beautiful thing," he says and bids me goodnight. My last night.
There's no way I'll sleep now that I'm so close to having my babies back. And my blood swirls electric along my veins when I think of Darrel busting through these doors, grabbing my bags, his strong arms grabbing me to steal away.
And once again, he comes to save me. My husband always takes what's his.
A/N: Outsiders by SE Hinton
Some of you know this is my favorite story to work on. For those of you who are actually invested in it, my heart belongs to you. Seriously.
