Dry Heat

Bootsy’s Stash

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by Paul Melchor

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                She stared at him with eyes as cold as the milk carton she had just taken from the refrigerator, but the words coming from her mouth were blazing hot.

                “You got more sense than to be beatin’ on my door and yellin’ at me after midnight! Who told you to stay out so late? Don’t you know to be home at a decent hour?”

                “But Mom, Mister Tarrant paid me some money to mop and clean up at the Elks Club after it closed last night. The door was locked. If you let me have my own key I coulda let myself in.”

                She put down the milk and quickly snatched up the ten dollar bill Bootsy had taken from his pocket and placed on the table next to his cereal bowl. “There’s no need for you to make a big scene and wake up all the neighbors. They’re gonna think I got no control over my own house. You need to get your butt home or I’m gonna keep lockin’ you out!”

                Bootsy took the milk and poured it into his bowl. He just wanted to end the argument. He knew he wasn’t going to get a key, so he hung his head and stared into his bowl of Cheerios. Lately, she was always yelling at him. He knew she had had some bad days and that her back hurt, but he had been trying his best to help around the house. He picked up after his brother and sister and always washed and put away the dishes after dinner. He would take the dry clothes down off the line when he got home from school so she did not have to keep stretching and then bending over.

                On Sunday, Mr. Tarrant would sell barbeque chicken and rib dinners from the Elks Club just around the corner from Bootsy’s home. Mr. Tarrant had paid him fifteen dollars to pick up and clean the tables and later to mop the floor of the Elks Club while him and some men drank beer and played bid whist back in the kitchen. He was going to add the other five dollars to his stash.

                Bootsy was doing odd jobs around the neighborhood for money and stashing a lot of it away in his secret hiding place. He always gave some of it to mom so she would continue to let him go off to do his little outside jobs. On Fridays, Mrs. Woodward would have a fish fry at the Elks club and she always paid Bootsy and her grandson Kevin five dollars each to help clean up. Maybe now he could get some regular cash from Mr. Tarrant, too.

                Bootsy had a plan. He was saving money to live on for when he would be old enough to leave. He was going to leave this town, his mom, his little half-brother and sister and all his troubles behind. But he was only twelve. He figured he would have to hang in there for at least two more years before he could run away and by then he would have lots of money.

                It wasn’t always bad like this. He was happy when he was living with Mama Billie. He moved in with her when his mom married Lenard. Lenard did not want him around, so the six year old Bootsy moved in with his grandmother, Mama Billie.

                Mama Billie had a real house, not an apartment, it was just a few blocks away and he still saw his mom, Sammy and Mary Jayne often. Her house had a big back yard with a garden and swing set. Mama Billie was a small woman and very active. She did not go to work every day but she helped Aunt Lettie and Uncle Jimmy at the Best Cleaners a couple of days, ironing clothes, and helping customers. She worked with the “sisters” at church, sewing quilts and packing up boxes of clothes and shoes to be sent ‘down South’ for the poor.

                Mama Billie loved baseball and taught Bootsy how to throw and catch a ball. Mama Billie could even run and catch the ball over her shoulder, just like Willie Mays, their favorite ball player. She let Bootsy help in the garden and started growing snap peas because those were Bootsy’s favorite. She encouraged him to be a good student. She always said “Get a good education. That’s something no one can ever take away from you.” So Bootsy worked hard at school. Now he was in the seventh grade and had only missed one day since kindergarten.

                He remembered that day. It was just the second day of school for Bootsy. That year school started on his birthday. He was still living with mom and she made a big deal of him being a big boy and that it was a special gift that he would be going off to school. He joined the parade of kids walking the two blocks to P.S. 11, Christopher Columbus elementary school. It was so close to home that he and his friends often played in the big, asphalt covered playground. But now he got to go inside. His teacher, Miss Francis, was nice enough but she had too many rules. There was a piano in the room and when Bootsy asked if they were going to learn to play it she replied No, she would play it and they would sing.

                “Well, I already know how to sing.” answered Bootsy.

                He had to sit where she wanted him to sit, not by the windows like he wanted. They had to wait until the bell rang before they could eat. She gave him crayons, scissors and colored paper but he couldn’t play with them until she said it was OK. Too many stupid rules, thought Bootsy.

                When he got home he told his mom “That’s the worst birthday present ever!”

                So the next day he marched off with all the other kids, but instead of turning left and going up the hill to school Bootsy turned right, crossed the street and went down to the river and hid in the old boathouse. From there, he could hear the kids playing in the school yard until the bell rang and then it got real quiet. After a short period of time, he realized he couldn’t go back home and all his friends were at school so he ran back up the hill to school and went into his classroom. Because he was so tardy, it counted as an absence. He never told his mom what he did and he never missed a day of school since then. It was not on purpose but it seemed that he only got sick on weekends and vacations. He did not want to stay home just because he was not feeling 100% because he knew Mama Billie had things that she planned to do.

                Bootsy was happy living with Mama Billie. She seemed to enjoy his company too. After Mary Jayne was born, Lenard moved out from mom’s apartment. He gave mom money and he came by now and then and would take Sammy and Mary Jayne out for the day on Saturdays or Sundays. Sometimes mom and he would go out and Sammy and Mary Jayne would stay over at Mama Billie’s. Bootsy’s mom would also earn some extra money by doing laundry for some of the neighbors.

                But everything changed after the accident.

                It was a Saturday afternoon. Mama Billie had taken Bootsy, mom, his little brother Sammy and sister Mary Jayne to the Ross Park zoo. They had a picnic and rode the merry-go-round and little train. They saw the animals in cages; lions, bears and monkeys. They chased chickens and got to pet baby goats and lambs. Bootsy’s favorite was the buffalo. There 3 of them; a papa, mama and baby. They were so big. They had thick, shaggy coats, pointed horns and little beady eyes. And when they snorted it blew up little clouds of dust. But the best part was when they all started running from the other side of their pen, which was a field about half the size of a football field. Bootsy could feel the ground shake as they got closer. The pen was enclosed by rails the size of telephone poles but Sammy got scared and started crying and tried to run away. Mama Billie bought them cotton candy and helium balloons.

                It was a short, ten minute drive from the zoo to his mom’s apartment. Mom was sitting in the front and Mama Billie was driving. The kids were in the back seat. Sammy and little Mary Jayne were already napping. Bootsy was sitting behind Mama Billie, listening to the ball game on the radio while the women talked.

                Suddenly the car was being flipped onto its side and there was a loud crashing noise. Bootsy was tossed on top of the kids and Mary Jayne started to scream.  He was thrown into the back of mom’s seat and he saw blood spurting from her head. She was crying and cursing at the same time, yelling louder than he had ever heard her yell before. The radio was still on and someone had just gotten a hit as the ballpark crowd clapped and cheered. He could see Mama Billie pressed up against the steering wheel and he could see a huge tire and greasy axle as Sammy’s yellow balloon floated out the broken window.

                People were surrounding the car and trying to break though the rear window. The car was on its side and the doors were all blocked. A stocky policeman was breaking through the rear window with his night stick and shouted “Is anybody hurt?”

                Bootsy was too stunned to answer but he helped lift Mary Jayne towards the cop’s outstretched arms. Sammy wasn’t moving but he did not appear to be bleeding. Bootsy could hear the wail of a siren getting louder and louder. Bootsy shouted to the cop “Sammy is not moving and my mom is bleeding real bad!” The cop reached in and pulled Bootsy out of the rear window. That was when he realized that his leg was hurting. Big time. Right before he passed out he cried, “You gotta help Mama Bille!”

                Bootsy was having a hard time waking up. He felt like he had been in a deep, deep sleep. He did not recognize his surroundings. He was in a room with two other beds, each with another boy in it. He had a tube connected to his right arm and his right leg was in a cast from his toes almost to his hip. He had never been in the hospital before. He started coming back to his senses and yelled “Where am I? I want to see Mama Billie!”

                One of the boys said he could use the buzzer attached to the bed to call for a nurse but yelling seemed to work just as well because two nurses in white uniforms soon appeared at his side. They told him he was going to be all right and that someone from his family would be coming soon. They checked his temperature and one of them injected something into his tube and they left.

                He was fighting to stay awake when Mama Billie came into the room and sat down on his bed. She looked very calm and her presence made him feel calmer too. She took his hand and patted it and said to him, “Bootsy, I am going away and you are going to have to be a big helper to your mom. She is going to need you to help her around the house and to be a good big brother to Sammy and Mary Jayne. Stay out of trouble. Always treat others, even strangers, the way that you would want them to treat you. Be a helper, not a hurter. Speak up for doing the right thing even if no one else does, don’t just follow the crowd. I know you can do this and when you do you will be making me very proud of you. I will see you again in heaven.”

                Mama Billie was gone before he could speak. A nurse was back with Reverend Cave from the A.M.E. church. Bootsy liked Reverend Cave. He would sometimes play basketball and kickball with the kids at the school playground. His daughter, Bonita, was in Bootsy’s class and he thought she was very pretty. Rev. Cave told him that his mom had been hurt and would be in the hospital for another week, Sammy and Mary Jayne were OK. They were all going to live with Aunt Lettie and Uncle Jimmy until his mom was feeling better. He said that Mama Billie had died and gone to heaven.

                Bootsy did not cry when he heard this. He took a deep breath and became determined to get healed and grow stronger to be a big helper like he had promised Mama Billie.

                The accident was almost two years ago. The doctors said mom had damaged some disks in her lower back. Sometimes she would be in a lot of pain and after she took her medicine she could only sit in the old wooden upright chair that they had taken from Mama Billie’s house. From there, mom would give instructions to Bootsy and Sammy, telling them what had to be done. Bootsy tried hard to help around the house and to be like Mama Billie had asked him. But as much as he tried, he was very unhappy and started looking for a way to get out of there.