Gypsy Davey (14 page)

The thing about that is I get things lots of things when Sneaky Pete isn't there and I don't get a whole lot of anything when he is there.

I know that when it rains out I have to bring something into the bedroom coffee and English muffin into the bedroom
and juice and turn on the music or Ma will not get out of the bed for the cryin' and that once I do that I have to ride direct over Jo's house and do a kind of the same thing only it's bring her a coffee and six different donuts from Dunkies that she eats all by herself and a Bavarian crème for the baby Dennis which when you see him eat it at least when I do is maybe probably the cutest thing you ever saw with the yellow inside and the chocolate outside smeared all over his mouth his eyes his forehead his hair and I almost cry at it which is about the stupidest thing ever because good things don't make you cry so instead I laugh because that's a better thing. I wash his face with a dishcloth that I wet at the sink with warm not hot or cold water and I take my good long time doing the washing because he turns his little face up and closes his eyes tight and he lets me.

I know that I don't tell Jo or Ma that the rain makes Jo look a lot like Ma and Ma look a lot like Jo I don't say it because I don't like screams I don't like slaps and most of all I don't like spitting.

I know that it doesn't matter to anyone even a little bit that I'm the biggest one around here now.

I know that every time I see the baby Dennis I think more and more. I think things people would probably think I shouldn't be thinking but I think I don't care. I think I'm his best friend and we are supposed to be together. I think that
the pile of mail that stacks up on the floor by Jo's front door without her opening it that I look at that says Department of Social Services and Urgent and Please Respond Immediately that Jo snatches from me and says cut the shit Davey I know that stuff means something and the something doesn't feel good. I know Jo doesn't answer her phone anymore and that it rings all the time when I'm there and who could it be after all when she was always saying call me call me because nobody was ever calling her. I know that if I come by two days in a row Dennis is wearing the same stuff and smelling the same as he did the day before and that Jo used to let me do all the stuff but now she tells me it's
my
kid you know Davey who the hell do you think you are Davey you think a puny fucking donut every few days makes you the kid's fucking father Davey and if I say there's no shit in his diaper there's no shit in his diaper so get on your silly little bike which by the way looks really stupid now that you're nine feet tall and too big for it just hop on it and pedal to hell trying to tell me I'm not a good fuckin' mother is what she says.

But I know things. I know there's shit in my baby Dennis's diaper I know I'm not going to let it stay there and hurt him I know I can't just keep away and let something bad happen to him I know he needs I know I'm the one.

Davey was just wheeling around
the corner when he saw the big man loading the suitcase into the trunk of his dark-blue retired police car LTD. The car was parked in front of Jo's house, sandwiched tight between two other cars, beside the hydrant. When he recognized the head in the passenger seat of the car as his sister's, he sped up.

The rain was just starting, but it was heavy the way it is early on a summer morning when the sun's trying to heat it up. Davey jumped off the bike while it was still rolling, letting it crash on into the next car without him.

“Who's that?” Davey said evenly, talking to Joanne though the glass, pointing at the man now starting up the LTD. Joanne didn't answer, didn't roll down the window,
didn't turn to look at Davey. She held the baby Dennis tight to her and sat stone-faced while he slept in her arms.

“Jo?” Davey said. He held up the bag of donuts. The LTD's muscly engine raced. “Jo?” Davey stood his ground as the car moved slightly up, then back, then up again to try and maneuver out of the space. Davey looked down at the top of the baby's head. “Jo? Jo, you want to leave the baby Dennis here with me while you go out? Open the door. I'll watch the baby.”

The car was out of the space and pulling slowly away when Joanne half turned her eyes on Davey.

“Jo? Open the window, huh? Let the baby Dennis just have his Bavarian crème donut. Can he? He likes a Bavarian crème, you know that.” Davey trotted alongside the car as it picked up speed, his palm flat on the glass as close to the baby's head as he could get it. “Dennis? Dennis?”

Davey ran his gangly run after the car until he couldn't see it anymore, and for ten minutes after.

When I went back and
got my bike there were two good things two lucky things which was how I knew everything was going to be okay. The first lucky thing was that after all that time my bike was still there lying in the street the second lucky thing was that there was a rainbow which is supposed to mean that lucky stuff is gonna go your way isn't that what that means? Even if the rainbow was one of them city street rainbows made by the rain falling on the dirty motor oil stain a couple feet from the curb it still was pretty a beautiful rainbow so there's no reason the luck thing shouldn't still be there for me right?

I'll be all right I'll be okay because what it is is I must have been wrong about Jo. Jo must really love the baby Dennis like I thought she didn't because why would she steal him away like that if she didn't. That's love. So they'll be all right he'll
be all right and if it hurts me a little bit sometimes and maybe it hurts me a lot other times well that's all right too because now I know that Jo loves the baby Dennis and she's gonna take care of him from now on her and that guy whoever he is.

It only hurts for now anyway then I'll be over it because it's gonna be my own time soon and the baby Dennis he was never really my own baby anyway no matter what craziness I felt about him and that's all past. I can't hardly even remember it in fact is what I'm saying to myself right now.

He had on his hat the yellow round one with the big stitching in it that made his little baby head look like a softball when he wore it. Just like a softball only it was softer even than a softball because his skin and his fuzzy baby hair that still wasn't growing too fast made the baby Dennis's real head feel like flannel when you put your nose or your cheek or your big forehead against it. But with the hat on the yellow hat with the big stitches he did still look like a softball a warm soft softball and even if Joanne didn't have it tied in front like I would have he was still probably okay because it was warm outside that day when he had the hat on and Jo didn't let me say good-bye.

Anyway soon sooner than you think probably because I'm almost a man already I'm gonna have my own find somebody who's gonna love me and we're gonna have some babies and I'm gonna love 'em like hell to pieces like nobody ever loved babies before.

ALSO BY CHRIS LYNCH

Inexcusable

Angry Young Man

Kill Switch

Iceman

Pieces

Shadow Boxer

Freewill

Little Blue Lies

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 1994 by Chris Lynch

Previously published in 1994 by HarperCollins

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The text for this book is set in Berling.

First
hardcover edition March 2014