June 2009 – Of Warmth, Of Dragons

“I ain’t taking no fool test, you hear me, Mary?” I done already renewed my license — it was in Ruthanne’s jewelry box right on top the dresser — but Mary didn’t need to know every damn thing. “I thank you for taking me today, daughter, ’cause pretty soon you’ll be too important to carry your old Daddy up to God’s house, even once in a great while.”

On the way to church Mary told me that the Almighty Bank was sending her to a training school in Dallas, where she could learn a lot more useless shit about stealing other people’s money, as if she didn’t already know how to do that. She said if she did well, they’d move her up to Chicago.

I said, “You done already been to school, and Chicago’s colder than a witch’s tit,” but as usual she weren’t listening.

~*~

Last time she came up here, Mary was driving a red Jeep. Leased, she said, like that made it less of a show-off thing to have. That damn vehicle was no relation to the Jeeps we had in the service. It had air-conditioning. Air conditioning. After that I knew it was just a matter of time, and sure enough, she called me this Monday last to say she been transferred. She’s on her way up north, with the Bank Almighty paying fancy movers to come in a big truck and pack up all her things.

Her mother must just about be rolling in her grave by now, with them strangers fixing to put their hands on her figurines, her needlework, everything she scrimped and saved for. After Ruthanne passed, Mary done changed her mind about her mama’s things. She came into this house and took what she wanted, and I didn’t say nothing. And now, now all of it’s going up north to the dark and the wind and snow, along with my daughter’s own flesh. I won’t be able to close my eyes, push my thumb across the inside of her wrist, like I like to do. My daughter is hard, but in that one little place she is soft.

“Stop it, Daddy,” is all she ever says. No more.

~*~

One more visit home, tomorrow, before she goes for good. She says Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter but that’s horseshit — she’ll meet people up there, people better than me, and I won’t see her again. Her mama wouldn’t want that. In the hospital, with her breath so weak that it took her more than a minute to get the words out, she made Mary promise it: Take care of your daddy.

If I didn’t hear Ruthanne say it, never mind. I was in the cafeteria most of the time. This girl may look like her mama but she’s mine all through. That’s how I know what to do.

Tomorrow, right around sundown. I won’t shave in the morning, and I’ll make sure she knows how my bones ache, which ain’t even a lie. Then, there’ll be something I need out of the shed — a stool, or a pair of pliers. I’ll ask her will she fetch it, and because she’s feeling guilty and I look so old and sick, she will. And I’ll make sure that overhead bulb still ain’t working. It’ll all go better if Mary can’t see too good.

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