Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! (14 page)

“Is that it?”

“I don’t know,” Tucker said. “There are probably lots of things wrong with that argument, but it’s the best I can come up with, off the top of my head.”

All the while Tucker was setting the groceries out on the kitchen table, he was wondering why he didn’t feel the way he had felt a few nights ago. Before Natalia had arrived, he hadn’t been able to do his chemistry homework or answer P. John’s letter, or finish the J. D. Salinger short story he was reading, because he was too excited. But now that Natalia was there, he just felt like his old self, a little happier than usual.

“We’re having Spaghetti Carbonara,” Natalia said. “That’s spaghetti with bacon, butter, chives, and grated cheese mixed into it. It’s my father’s recipe, only he used to put a raw egg on top. Yiiik!” She made a face, and Tucker pretended he was going to heave, bending forward with his tongue out.

Nader jumped up on the table and sniffed the bacon.

“She’s still here!” Natalia said.

“My father’s allergy is gone,” Tucker said. “My mother said he wasn’t allergic to the cat, he was allergic to being out of work.”

“His symptoms were psychosomatic,” Natalia said. “We had a girl at Renaissance who used to get migraine headaches whenever her mother visited.”

“Migraines,” Tucker said. “Not migraine headaches. Migraine means headache.” He sounded the way his mother used to sound, but now his mother was into discussions of torts, liens, venue, statutes of limitation, and you-name-it.

“She used to get migraines,” Natalia said. “A lot of things are psychosomatic. After my father killed himself, I couldn’t talk for a long time. Then I could only talk if I rhymed.”

“I guess you’ve been through a lot,” Tucker said.

“He went through a lot, too,” Natalia said. “That’s the thing.”

“What’s the thing?”

“He was going through a lot and I didn’t even realize it. I was just all full of myself, embarrassed because my mother had a mental illness, and worried that the kids were talking about me at school.”

“They probably were,” Tucker said.

“Oh, they were. But I didn’t even realize what my father was going through. He really loved my mother and he couldn’t help her—and I couldn’t help him, because I was so conceited.”

“Conceited?” Tucker said.

“Conceit masquerading as an inferiority complex,” Natalia said. “If I’d really felt inferior, I wouldn’t have devoted all my time to worrying over what kind of impression I was making. You have to be awfully conceited to concentrate on yourself day and night.”

“I never thought of that,” Tucker said, “but it’s true. In my own case, I didn’t even have any idea my mother had any ambition to be anything but my mother. She took this temporary job when my father was fired and I thought she couldn’t wait to get back to just being my mother again. What she really couldn’t wait to do was
stop
being just a mother. She wants to be something more important.”

“I know,” Natalia said. “That’s neat.”

“It is neat,” Tucker said, “because she’s been stuck being just my mother for fifteen years. I suppose that was important when I was little, but what good would it do her in three more years when I go to college?”

“‘Dear Tucker,”’ Natalia said, “‘This is just your mother writing you again for the third time this week to ask how is my son.’”

“Exactly,” Tucker said. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”

“That’s why I never want to get married and have children until I’m very old,” Natalia said. “The minute you get married and become a parent, you’re nobody. You’re just somebody’s mother.”

“I may never get married,” Tucker said. “From what I’ve seen of myself, I don’t want children.”

“You’re not so bad.”

“How can you live with someone under the same roof for fifteen years,” Tucker said, “and never have a clue that she wants to be important?”

“My father blew his brains out,” Natalia said.

Tucker didn’t have any answer for that.

There was a long silence.

“I’ve never said that out loud,” Natalia said.

“I’m sorry,” Tucker managed.

“So am I,” Natalia said, “but I think I’ll be able to handle it.” She turned to Tucker and smiled slightly. “I am better than I think. A-one, a-two, a-three.’”

Tucker imitated Mrs. Hocker’s falsetto: “‘We shouldn’t be thinking how much better we are, Natalia, but how blessed we are.’”

Then while they were both laughing very hard, that same thing happened again, all done with eyes, and suddenly they had stopped laughing. You could hear the kitchen clock ticking. You could hear the furnace going in the basement. It was the longest moment and the shortest moment, and sometime during it, the outside buzzer rang.

And rang.

“That’s probably my father,” Tucker said finally, with effort. “He always forgets his key.”

“You’d better answer it,” Natalia said, as though they had a choice.

“I wouldn’t believe it was the same animal,” Mrs. Hocker said after dinner, while they were all sitting around in the living room watching Nader sleep on the radiator cover. “She’s as docile as the day she arrived at our place. Of course she’s still overweight.”

“It’s too bad Dinky couldn’t come tonight,” Tucker’s mother said. “Don’t you think she’s been punished enough, Helen? Shouldn’t Tucker telephone her and invite her over?”

Mr. Hocker said, “I think so, Helen, don’t you?”

“In a way, it’s my own fault,” Mrs. Hocker said. “I allowed our family physician to prescribe diet pills for Dinky. Very mild ones. In my opinion, Dinky’s just in a typical, adolescent plump stage, but she became self-conscious about it after meeting that Knight boy.”

“Eric Establishment,” Tucker’s father said.

“Yes.” Mrs. Hocker chuckled, “Eric Establishment. His father is actually a
very
liberal,
decent
man. At any rate, the pills had a bad effect on Dinky. She became extremely high-strung and irritable, rebellious, crass, not at all our daughter.”

“We’ve forbidden her to take any more,” Mr. Hocker said. “She’ll just have to count calories or push herself away from the table—that’s the best exercise, they say.” He chortled and glanced across at his wife. “Shall we let her come, Helen?”

“All right,” Mrs. Hocker said. “You may call her, Tucker.”

“Tucker,” Mr. Hocker said as he got up from his chair, “before you do, I want to make a public statement.”

“What’s that?” Tucker asked.

“I just want to say simply how pleased I am that you and Natalia and Dinky are all friends.”

“I’m glad Natalia and Susan are my friends, too,” said Tucker.

“You can come over,” Tucker told Dinky when she answered the phone. “Your mother’s given you her permission.”

“I heard something really weird,” Dinky said. “Marcus called up and told me something fantastic about this ex-intern who joined DRI this week. He’s hooked on morphine.”

“That’s not so weird,” Tucker said. “A lot of doctors get hooked on morphine.”

“That’s not the weird part,” Dinky said. “The weird part is this nurse at his hospital. She was a real uptight bitch. She was a snob. She’d tell on everybody and make trouble, and they all decided to get even with her.”

“Come on over and tell us,” Tucker said.

“Don’t interrupt my story. These interns decided to freak her out. They were dissecting this corpse in their lab at the time. They took a hand off this corpse and sneaked inside this nurse’s house with it. They attached the hand to a light switch. When she went home alone that night and reached out to turn on the lights—
zap!
The next morning they found her dead of a heart attack on the floor.”

“Are you coming over or aren’t you?” Tucker said.

“I can’t,” she said. “I just ordered a large Sicilian pizza with anchovies and cheese from Fascati.”

“Come over after you eat it,” Tucker said.

“Did you ever eat a large Sicilian pizza with anchovies and cheese and try to move after?”

“I heard from P. John,” Tucker said. “He’s losing weight.”

“Don’t try to humiliate me,” Dinky said. “It won’t work.”

“He asked about you.”

“Tell him if he wants to know my medical history, he can write our family doctor.”

“You’re in a bad mood,” Tucker said.

“I’m hungry.”

“Then you won’t come by?”

“All the derricks are in use tonight. I have no transportation.”

“I hope you change your mind,” Tucker said. “We miss you.”

“You don’t miss me, so don’t lie,” Dinky said. “Tell my mother Marcus has been trying to get in touch with her all night. Tell her to call him at DRI. She’ll be more interested in that than in my presence there, anyway.”

There was a click and a dial tone.

Tucker gave Mrs. Hocker Dinky’s message. Then he played a John Prine album for Natalia, while his father and mother and Mr. Hocker sat over in a far corner of the living room discussing Brooklyn Law School.

Tucker and Natalia listened to Prine sing his song, “Spanish Pipedream.” It was all about blowing up your television set, throwing away your newspaper, and moving to the country to build a little home.

Mrs. Hocker came running into the room after she’d made her telephone call, and said, “Horace, there’s an emergency, I’m afraid.”

“What happened, dear?”

“It’s Marcus,” Mrs. Hocker said. “He’s high.”

“Where did he get it?” Mr. Hocker said.

“Does it matter?” Mrs. Hocker said. “The point is, he’s at DRI, and he’s upsetting everyone.”

“They know how to handle him there,” Mr. Hocker said.

“Horace,” Mrs. Hocker said, “he needs
me
.”

“Here we go again,” Mr. Hocker sighed, but he got up, and he went to the hall for their coats.

That night when Tucker walked Natalia home, he kissed her.

It wasn’t much of a kiss. It was a kiss on the mouth, lasting just long enough for Tucker to think the words,
I really feel something for you, Natalia
, which he had planned to say after the kiss.

But he didn’t say anything, and he didn’t really have a chance to feel anything, because while he was kissing her, he opened his eyes. Over Natalia’s shoulder, he saw Dinky peering through the venetian-blind slats in the Hockers’ living room.

“St. Marie’s is having a Valentine dance in ten days,” Natalia said after the kiss. “Would you be my date, Tucker?”

“Yes,” Tucker said, which was more or less the beginning of their relationship.

April
14TH

D
EAR TUCKER,

Thanks for seeing that Mr. Baird mailed me my poem and story. They finally arrived! Not that I needed them for anything because I’ve been busy these past months organizing strikes. I am now a permanent member of the labor team. Normally, at Leeds, you are supposed to switch back and forth from labor to management, but I petitioned for an exception and won.

The thing is labor can’t be effective as long as management sits around on its fat behind enjoying privileges half of them didn’t even work to earn! I discovered that when it was management’s turn to do hard labor, they goofed off and left the chores for the next rotation. No one really wanted to be on the labor team … and no wonder! It’s hard work, long hours, no real compensation.

I volunteered to lead labor permanently (or did I say that already?), until the inequities are balanced out.

Right now we’re striking again, which gives me time to write—when I’m not on duty in the picket line.

We’re winning, because the school can’t really function without us on the job.

It’s hard to explain, but I’m beginning to form a new outlook. I’ve organized a strong union, with workmen’s compensation and even welfare benefits for hardship cases.

I’m doing a term paper on Dewey’s case. My father has sent me lots of material.

How’s everything? Is Susan still around?

All the best,

P. John Knight

T
HAT SPRING, SOMETIMES TUCKER’S
mother would study until three or four in the morning, and then report to
Stirring Romances
by nine thirty.

Once Tucker found her hunched over some work, crying, at the kitchen table just as dawn was breaking. He had awakened to go to the bathroom, and at first he thought she was asleep sitting up. Then he saw her shoulders shaking. He went up behind her and looked down at the papers spread out in front of her. On one side were the page proofs of a manuscript called “I Married the Devil: He Wanted Me to Sleep in a Coffin.” On the other side were long yellow sheets marked with headings like “Ancillary jurisdiction of federal courts and the basis thereof,” and “Implied judicial power.”

“Mom?” he said, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“It’s hard, honey. It’s so hard,” she answered. Then she bawled in great wails, hanging on to him for a long time.

But there were days when he had never seen her so happy, and his father had this strange new way with her, almost as though he were courting her all over again. He would bring her flowers and breakfast in bed on Sunday mornings; Saturdays he and Tucker would clean the house from top to bottom, and the few times they had company, his father would turn into this bore, bragging about her to the guests, and asking her to explain legal points she had already explained to him when they were alone.

“She’s really smart, though,” Tucker did his own share of bragging about her to Natalia. “She’s really going to make it.”

“Aunt Helen says she’s a credit to the community,” Natalia answered.

“Who cares about the community?” Tucker said. “She’s not doing it for the community. She’s doing it for herself.”

“Aunt Helen cares about the community, to answer your question,” Natalia said. “She says everything we do reflects on the community.”

It was an afternoon in late April. They were at DRI headquarters, where Tucker was helping to set up a library. Natalia was organizing the poetry section for it.

Tucker was working there after school, two afternoons a week. Then he would go home and prepare dinner. Since February he had learned to make beef stew, baked beans, goulash, Spanish rice, and corned beef and cabbage. His father was the gourmet cook in the family now. When Tucker wasn’t cooking, Cal Woolf made things like Sweetbreads Albert and Swiss enchiladas.