Going Down Swinging (10 page)

HOFFMAN, Anne
Eilleen

7.20.73 (L. Barrington) Paid visit to Mrs. Hoffman today. Thanks to a visit from a homemaker and Mrs. Hoffman’s own efforts, the home’s appearance is vastly improved. Mrs. Hoffman herself appears to be on the road to recovery, her attire and grooming much more tidy. She has been to two AA meetings and feels that she can do this without admitting herself into a treatment facility. Will continue to monitor.

7.22.73 (L. Barrington) Saw Mrs. Hoffman again. She continues to improve. There is a world of difference from the situation I walked into two weeks ago. We discussed Grace’s supervision and how things might change when Grace returned home. I recommended that on Grace’s return, some sort of routine be implemented in her life, possibly some sort of community centre with scheduled activities, a day care or a summer school.

7.25.73 (L. Barrington) Grace has returned home. The situation is immeasurably improved. I have found a day camp available through a local church where Grace can begin attendance immediately. We have agreed to allow a brief interim for mother and child to have time to themselves. Grace is scheduled to begin day camp 7.28.73.

Although this family seems to have found its bearings once again, I feel this home should be monitored on a regular basis. I will be going on leave beginning 8.8.73 returning 8.22.73.

8.3.73 (L. Barrington) Spoke with both Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman today. Home situation continues well, Grace attending Saint Paul’s Day Camp and enjoying herself, Mrs. Hoffman attending regular AA meetings. Mr. Hoffman sounds very pleased with the family’s progress.

I will go on leave 8.8.73. This family should continue to be monitored

Grace Three
JULY/AUGUST 1973

M
UM WAS ALL
perked up from getting well at the hospital and us being together again snapped her like sheets on a clothesline. The day she came and got me back from Gloria’s, we went to Chinatown and wandered through stores, sniffing the baskets and incense, then into Woolworth’s and picked around counters full of underwear and knick-knacks and plastic flowers and she bought me all the happies she could afford: a package of new plastic animals—Safari ones, pink nail polish, new jacks, Silly Putty. And she kept singing “I’m Back in Baby’s Arms” while we pretended we were stinking rich and filled practically a whole Woolworth’s basket.

We were both kind of goofy about being just-us again, but I couldn’t help watching her; something about her felt like a big nervous laugh. She finally told me on my fourth day home, like it was just
by the way
, that the Welfare was nosing around still, asking how I spent my summer. They told her I had too much unsupervised time on my hands. Stupid buggers, she said. My heart started to go. I didn’t want anything to spoil her mood, spoil the feeling that I was the only happy she needed—her forever shiny doodad.

We were riding the streetcar home from the Riverdale Zoo when she told me and, actually, I wasn’t paying that much attention at first cuz I was still nervous that maybe she knew my secret. All afternoon, I wouldn’t let her get near any of the popcorn and balloon sellers in case someone might recognize me and tell her about the stuff I used to buy there before I had to go stay at Gloria’s. I was starting to feel like maybe I should just tell.

Whenever there was nothing to do, I’d been taking the streetcar to the zoo. I liked how being by myself let me make up dreams about who I was and I’d sleepwalk all day long doing it. Sometimes I was escaping from kidnappers and had to lose myself in the crowd, or else I’d murdered the man who broke my heart and just needed time to get a plan together. But more and more, I was a rich kid with a mum or dad in one hand and a floaty high balloon-in-a-balloon in the other. I needed the balloon-in-a-balloon, though, for it to feel real, so I started taking change I found on Mum’s dresser, or the kitchen table. Sometimes her coat pockets.

But then, when all the lying-around-the-house change was gone, I went into her purse. The money lying around seemed not that big a deal, but the purse was way worse. And now, here we were, clanging home on the streetcar and Mum was explaining the day camp thing and I kept looking away so she couldn’t read my mind and hate me forever. Then she said, “I’m sorry, I know you hate this kind of stuff, being herded around by strangers—and I hate the thought of you being gone every day, but let’s just do this and get them off our backs, OK? And it might be really fun; you’ll probably have a grand old time with all those kids around. And you won’t have to be stuck home with nothing to do but look at your boring old mother.”

I skipped confessing, cuz this seemed worse all the sudden. “Did you tell them about Pearl?”

Pearl lived next door and we did stuff together. And her mum supervised us lots of times. Whenever I wasn’t at the zoo we did stuff together. Some nights we sat on the front porch and watched the streetcars go by, counted red cars and hoped for lightning storms close enough to shake our chests. We wished on thunder the same way we did on railroad tracks when we drove over: crossing fingers, lifting feet, holding breath and closing eyes. On rainy days we organized my green plastic farm fences on Pearl’s dining-room floor, and arranged the animals by how big they were. Or their teeth were. We added the safari animals when I got back home, and after that, when we set up the day’s farm, we worked hard to keep tigers and stuff separate from the farm animals. Except for once there was a fence break that made a pig and some piglets get murdered and covered in ketchup.

When it was sunny we climbed the tree in my yard or went to Pearl’s and made up plays about
The Brady Bunch
or else
The Rifleman
cuz it was Pearl’s favourite. Or else sometimes we made up this show about two sisters called Julie and Donna. Pearl hardly ever said my name—the whole point was for her to go, “Julie!” and then I could turn and fling imaginary long hair out of my face like Julie in
The Mod Squad
. But she kept calling me “Sis.” I guess cuz she didn’t have a real one.

And now Mum was telling how the next day I had to start being at a day camp for my whole rest of the summer. Every single day, except Saturday and Sunday, I was going to have to take the streetcar to a church with a bunch of other kids whose mums were probably getting threatened by Welfare.

We were separated into six groups; we got group names and group stuff to do. My group was the second youngest (seven- and eight-year-olds), the Schroeder Shrimps. The younger group was the Sweet Peas, the older one was the Yellow Tigers. I would’ve gave all my cows to be a Pea or a Tiger.

We had activities every day and it always started out in the basement of the church, then sometimes we took a school bus to some place cheap or free. The Schroeder Shrimps had a kid that was called “troubled.” James. He hated the counsellors’ guts and waited until we got away from the church to get revenge. Our second swim day got cancelled right in the middle of getting-off-the-bus instructions because James pushed his back against the kid beside him and kicked with all his might into my favourite counsellor. The kid that was beside him got squashed and James kept kicking Wendy’s chest and stomach as hard as he could. Wendy tried to be calm and grab hold of his ankle. Then Gavin, the guy-counsellor, grabbed on James’s other ankle and got a kick in the mouth. They couldn’t stop him, and Wendy and Gavin turned to the rest of us and got us all saying, “Stop it James—Stop it James —Stop it James” all together like the prayer at school. I mouthed the words but no sound would come out. I wished I could rip his legs out for what he was doing to Wendy, but James was red in the face and wasn’t listening to anything. It went on until they got him pinned and asked the driver to turn us around. The bus was quiet. The Shrimp beside me started to cry. There was still twenty days left till school started.

When we got back to the church, Wendy and the kids went off the bus and Gavin hung back with James. I lallygagged as long as I could so I could hear what was going to happen. But I only got Gavin’s low talking-sense voice and James saying, “Shut up—you’re not my dad,” before Wendy yelled to me to get a wiggle on.

Down in the church basement, Wendy went over and huddled with the Sweet Peas’ counsellors a few minutes before announcing a softball game: Schroeder Shrimps and Sweet Peas all mixed in to make two teams.

Our group, Group Two, was first up. I was supposed to be second at bat; the first kid was Kenny, one of the Peas, and he stood beside the crossed sticks we laid down for home plate and bounced at his knees, his head kept bobbing on his scrawny neck, looking around and up and down, swinging the bat and losing his balance. Gavin brought James back and put him on the other team with Group One. Which I was glad about. Especially seeing him warm up in the puny front-lawn outfield. I watched him throw the ball to first base, where one of the Peas caught it, dropped it and tried to huck it back, but it dropped a couple feet in front of her. James said, “Hey Pisspot, try throwing it here.” Wendy clapped her hands. “OK, buddy-boy, enough of that or you’ll be so far in the outfield there’ll be no more field.” Just to know James wouldn’t be in line behind me made my chest looser. Instead he stepped up between the two rocks we were using for the pitching mound and winged his arm around, hung his tongue down his chin and yelled “Sucker” at home plate.

Kenny’s face drooped a little, but his body never stopped bobbing. Someone called Batter-up and Kenny jiggled up to the crossed sticks, elbows wiggling under the bat.

James barked, “Ready, Pisshead? haa-a, sucker,” and hucked the ball at him. Kenny ducked and swung at the same time, and his legs jumped right out from under him. He landed in a pile and the whole yard killed themselves laughing. James laughed so hard he couldn’t think of anything to say.

Kenny jumped up off the grass, still holding his bat, stepped up and started his jiggling again like nothing happened. I imagined Pearl at home sitting in the first big V of my cherry tree, singing “Country Roads,” and watched Kenny squeeze the bat. I didn’t want to be up there next. I knew I wouldn’t be able to take practice swings in front of James like Kenny did, I’d feel too dumb. James pitched the ball. Kenny swung again and just tipped the ball before he started running off to first base. I squinted up in the sun until something smashed my mouth. The ball hit the grass again and I heard “foul.” The bottom half of my face burned. I touched my fingertips inside my lip and looked at the watery blood. James smiled as he wound up his next pitch.

I backed off, glancing around the yard, but all their eyes were on Kenny. I looked for Wendy, but she was laughing and clapping in time to
Ken-ny, Ken-ny
. I felt my lip to see if it was hard or puffy. It wasn’t. Kind of raw inside, but there wasn’t even that much blood. Kenny whacked the ball this time and sent it rolling out onto the road. Every Shrimp and Pea but me went crazy, screaming and clapping cuz Wendy’d said that any ball on the street would be an automatic home run and she’d go get it herself. I kept touching my lips, licking my teeth to see if they were chipped, hoping someone would notice. But they were all too busy cheering Kenny’s home run.

I was almost to the sidewalk when Wendy called, “Next batter,” and some other kid went up. I was supposed to be second. I licked at my lip again and started up the sidewalk. They were going to yell at me to come back; I could feel it on my back. Wendy called, “Strike,” and I looked back. Nobody was even paying attention, just looking at the Shrimp swinging over home plate. I stormed up the sidewalk toward Gerrard Street and caught a streetcar home.

When I got home, the front door was open so the breeze would come through our screen door. Mum had a thing for breezes. Before I opened the screen, I could hear her talking, saying something about a hard decision. I ducked beside the door because I thought maybe she was on the phone with the day camp people and I wanted to hear if they got hell or if it was me who was going to get it for taking off and making her worry. It was quiet a second. Then I heard a man-voice, not my dad’s though, more crunchy and with an Englishy kind of accent, say “Poor Gentle Eilleen,” almost in a mushy way. I crouched down and put my ear against the screen door so I could hear better. Mum said, “Well, I s’pose her father’s here … but he’s a good-for-nothing.”

A good-for-nothing?
I didn’t know who she was talking to like that, because usually she never talked about my dad without swearing. She was talking all nicey. Then she said, “I’ve been in touch with Social Assistance there so we’d be looked after—I can’t help thinking it would be a brand new start.” My heart started going cuz it sounded like she was telling secrets that she never even told me yet, and then the man-voice said, “You know I hate to lose you, but you don’t deserve this sort of squalor …” He hated to lose her? My neck went hot—she must’ve had this guy over lots for him to think he could just hang around acting like she was his girlfriend or something and say she had squalor. And all while I was busy getting hit in the face with baseballs so the Welfare wouldn’t have a hairy about me getting supervised any more. And then he mumbled some other probably mushy thing and Mum went, “Clyde, you’re such a dear,” all goopy, the way she did to me if I did something nice for her, like buy her an ornament with my ’lowance.

I stood up and stomped my feet as if I was just getting there now, and opened the screen door. Mum called, “There she is,” from the kitchen, in the voice she used to call me angel. Not worried or mad or anything; this wasn’t that voice. This was her voice that sounded like butterflies. I came in the kitchen and found her drinking tea at the table with an old man.

“Sweety, this is Clive, Clive this is my baby, this is Grace.” I couldn’t hear right what his dumb old name was, so I said, “Clyde?” and he said no, that was his brother’s name, and Mum laughed like he was hilarious or something. “Clivuhh, Clive,” she told me, and he smiled and said how lovely it was to make my acquaintance. I wanted to show her my lip but I didn’t want him around.