Trauma (7 page)

“Fried chicken okay?”

“With gravy?”

She thought about the bloodstain on the Goodmans' floor. “Yes, with gravy.”

She sieved flour onto a large white plate and seasoned it with salt and pepper and chili powder. “Has Ray been back yet?” she asked.

“Ray? Not yet.”

“Didn't he say he'd be late or nothing?”

“Didn't say nothing.”

“Ralph wants me to go to Pasadena tomorrow.”

“Pasadena? What the hell's in Pasadena?”

“Moist-Your-Eyes promotion.”

“I suppose
he's
going, too? Mr. Wonderful?”

“What is it with you and Ralph? Why do you always act so jealous whenever it's anything to do with Ralph?”

“It's the way the guy looks at you. Don't tell me you haven't noticed it. Like he's mentally taking off your clothes.”

Bonnie, with floury hands, went to the kitchen door. “Duke—once and for all—I am not interested in Ralph Kosherick. I have never been interested in Ralph Kosherick, and I never
will
be interested in Ralph Kosherick.”

“You mention the guy's name three times in one sentence and you're not interested in him?”

Bonnie looked at her watch, then up at the kitchen clock. “Ray's so late. I wish he'd call.”

“You can see it in his eyes. Unhooking your brassiere. Pulling down your panty hose with his teeth.”

“Shut up, Duke. I'm not in the mood.”

Ray didn't come home in time for supper, so they ate together in the living room and watched television, the way they used to when they first got married.

“It's good,” said Duke, his eyes still fixed on the screen and gravy glistening on his chin.

When they had finished, Bonnie carried the empty chicken plates back into the kitchen and took a
chocolate-fudge cake out of the fridge. She cut a large slice for Duke and another, slightly smaller slice for herself. She crammed almost all of the smaller slice into her mouth at once and ate it while she noisily scraped the chicken bones into the bin under the sink. By the time she returned to the living room she had finished it and wiped her mouth.

“You're not having none?” asked Duke.

“Are you kidding me? That's three hundred and thirty calories a
look
.”

Duke shrugged and took a generous bite. “See this guy?” he said, nodding toward the television. “He ate an entire Volkswagen.”

“What did he do that for?”

“How the hell should I know? Like, what do people eat chocolate cake for?”

Bonnie didn't answer, but she knew why
she
ate chocolate cake.

She was sleeping deeply when the door chimes rang. She sat up in bed, listening, not quite sure if she had been dreaming or not. But then they rang again. She nudged Duke with her elbow and hissed, “Duke! Duke, wake up! There's somebody at the door!”

Duke croaked like a frog and eventually propped himself up on one elbow. “What? What the hell time is it?”

“Three twenty-five.”

“The
hell
?”

Bonnie climbed out of bed, dragged her robe from the back of the door and went out into the corridor.
It was then that she saw the flashing red-and-blue lights outside the house and she knew that something was badly wrong. “
Duke
!” she called. “Duke, it's the police!” She hurried to the front door.

Two uniformed police officers were standing outside: one Hispanic with a little mustache, one black. “You Mrs. Winter?” asked the black officer, shining his flashlight in her face.

“What's happened? It's Ray, isn't it? Tell me what's happened!”

“It's okay, Mrs. Winter. Your son's been hurt, but he's going to be fine. He's over at the hospital right now, and if you want to see him, we can take you there.”

“Hurt? What do you mean, hurt?”

By now Duke had appeared from the bedroom wearing a short pink bathrobe and black knee-length socks. “What's going on here?” he wanted to know.

“Mr. Winter? Your son, Ray, has been hurt, sir. He's over at the hospital having treatment.”

“What was it? Auto accident? The kid doesn't even drive!”

“No, sir. It seems like there was some kind of ethnic confrontation.”

Duke pressed two fingers against his forehead as if he were having trouble working this out. “Ethnic confrontation? What's that in English? You're talking about a race riot here?”

“Not exactly a riot, Mr. Winter. But there was a racially motivated assault, yes.”

“How many of them were there?”

“I'm sorry?”

“You've just told me my son has been the victim of a racially motivated assault. I'm just asking you how many of them were there.”

“Around seventeen, all told. But your son wasn't—”

“Seventeen! There were seventeen blacks against just one white? Jesus Christ!”

“Mr. Winter, your son wasn't attacked by seventeen other people. Your son was involved in a fight in which at least seventeen people are known to have taken part. Eleven whites and six Hispanics. No African-Americans. All of them sustained injuries ranging from stab wounds to severe bruising. One of them may lose an eye. Three of them, including your son, are still in hospital.”

Bonnie said, “Ray was fighting
Hispanics
? Is that what you're trying to tell us?”

The black officer took out his notebook and flipped it open. “Eleven white youths went into the X-cat-ik Pool Bar downtown and a fight ensued. We recovered three knives, a machete and a baseball bat. Unfortunately, none of the customers in the bar was willing to admit that they saw anything, although there doesn't seem to be any question that this was a racially motivated attack.”

“No, there's some mistake here,” said Bonnie. “Ray wouldn't get involved in a thing like that.”

“I'm only telling you the facts, Mrs. Winter.”

Duke started to bluster again, but Bonnie laid a hand on his arm to quiet him. “Tell me where he is,” she said. “We'll make our own way there.”

They found Ray in a dull green room at the end of a long, echoing corridor. One of its fluorescent lights kept flickering and making a buzzing noise like a trapped blowfly.

Ray's head was wrapped in a white bandage that went right under his jaw. One of his arms was in plaster so that only the purple tips of his fingers were showing. Both of his eyes were swollen like plums, yellow and red, and his lips were huge, as if they were molded out of red rubber.

A Chinese intern with deeply nicotine-stained fingers was checking his blood pressure. “You're the parents?”

Bonnie nodded. She walked around Ray's bed and said, “Ray? What happened to you, baby?”

“A broken wrist, multiple contusions and abrasions,
three cracked ribs, a chipped ankle bone, two broken toes and a mild concussion,” said the intern, impassively. “It could have been worse.”

“It could have been
worse
?” asked Duke.

“Sure. He was kicked several times in the abdomen. Could have ruptured his spleen. Somebody kicked him in the head, too, just behind the right ear. He's going to have a pretty big egg there for a day or two.”

Bonnie sat down and took hold of Ray's hand. “Ray—what were you doing? You're not in a gang, are you? I was expecting you home for supper.”

Duke said nothing at all but stood with his arms tightly folded, pulling that chewing-the-cud face he always pulled when he couldn't trust himself to speak.

“I'm sorry, Mom,” Ray croaked. “We didn't think it was going to turn out this way.”

“But what were you thinking of, going down to that bar?”

“That's where all the Mexican kids hang out.”

“So? What did they ever do to you? For God's sake, Ray, the police said you had knives and baseball bats.”

“They were Mexicans, Mom.”

“So they were Mexicans. So what? I don't get it. Why did you have to beat up on them like that?”

“Because of what they did, Mom.”

“You'll have to excuse my stupidity. I still don't get it.”

“Because of what they did to Dad, Mom. Because they come here and take American jobs and put people out of work.”

“You went and beat up on some Mexicans you didn't even know because some Mexican took your father's job?”

“Yes,” said Ray, and coughed, and winced. “I mean, look what it's done to you, Mom, both of you. Dad's all eaten up inside, and you have to scrape up dead bodies for a living, and you two are always having arguments, and it's all because of some Mexican.”

Bonnie shook her head in disbelief. “What were you thinking? You could have killed somebody and spent the rest of your life in jail! Somebody might have killed
you
! Look at you! They almost succeeded!”

She stood up. She was quaking with rage. “You're my son, Ray. You're my only son. I brought you up to do the right thing. Your father lost his job, and that was unfair, and it was probably illegal, too. But for you to start beating up on Mexican people like some kind of Nazi—I won't have that. No son of mine is going to behave like that, I warn you.”

Duke took hold of her arm and tried to restrain her. “Come on, Bonnie. Look at him. Don't you think he's been punished enough?”

“Are you serious? Your son went out armed with knives and baseball bats and deliberately attacked innocent people!”

“Hey, hey, let's hold up a minute, shall we? You say innocent. But how the hell do you know they're innocent? These Mexicans, they take work without permits, they don't pay taxes, they deal in drugs, they smuggle stuff. They'd sell their own sisters, most of them. How can you say innocent? And in
any case, tell me, how do we know for sure who attacked who?”

Bonnie turned around and stared at him. “I can't believe I'm hearing this.”

“You have to be fair, sweetheart. You can't shout at the kid without knowing all the details.”

“
Fair
? I know what this is all about. You're proud of him, aren't you? You're actually proud of him. You think he's some kind of hero. You didn't ever think that he'd take your side, did you? But now he has, and you're so goddamned
proud
!”

“Hey, come on, Bonnie—”

“Forget it, Duke. I'm going home. I'm not staying here to listen to this bigoted crap. Ray—did the cops talk to you yet?”

Ray dumbly shook his head.

“Well, don't say a word to nobody. Not to the cops, not to the doctors, not to nobody. Wait till I can talk to some friends of mine downtown. I'm supposed to go to Pasadena in the morning, but I'll cancel. Don't say a single word—you understand me? And don't forget to tell the nurses that you're allergic to broccoli.”

Ray turned his face away. Bonnie could see that he wasn't ready to say that he was sorry, not yet. His father gave him a grunt and a pat on the shoulder and then followed Bonnie out of the room and along the echoing corridor.

In the elevator, Duke said, “Jesus, Bonnie. That's what America was built on: people fighting for what they believed in. People don't do that anymore. All these goddamned ethnic minorities. Dave Guthrie just lost his job at the bakery to some greaser. Why
don't the Mexicans just come around to our houses and take our furniture?”

“All right, Davy Crockett,” said Bonnie. “I've had enough for one night.”

“If you don't make this trip to Pasadena, Bonnie, then I'm real sorry, but I'm going to have to find somebody more reliable. You hear what I'm saying?”

“You mean you'll fire me?”

“I need somebody I can count on, Bonnie, one-hundred percent.”

“Ralph, will you have a heart? Ray's all beaten up and the police could be charging him with assault with a deadly weapon.”

“I understand, Bonnie. I truly understand. But this trip could make the difference between profit and loss.”

“I can't do it, Ralph. If you feel you have to fire me, then fire me. My family comes first.”

Ralph was silent for a while. Then he said, “I'm very disappointed, Bonnie. You don't even know how much.”

She stopped at the ministore before she went to see Ray in the hospital and bought him:

Three peaches

One giant-size bottle of Dr Pepper

Rainbow Chips Deluxe

One Colgate toothbrush with flexible head

One tube Arm & Hammer toothpaste

One box menthol Kleenex

One copy
Soap Opera Digest

Bonnie spent nearly an hour at Ray's bedside that morning. His face was still swollen and his bruises had turned purple, but he had recovered from his concussion and he was much more lively.

He watched television, snorting at
Rugrats
while Bonnie made calls to the police department, trying to find out which officers had attended the fracas at the X-cat-ik Pool Bar and how likely they were to press charges.

“Do you mind turning that down?” she asked Ray, with one finger pressed in her ear.

“What?” he said.

“Down. The volume. I'm trying to get you out of trouble here.”

In the end, with her mobile phone beeping
recharge
at her, she managed to talk to Captain O'Hagan.

Captain O'Hagan said nothing much except “mmhhmmh”
and “right” and “right,” but in the end he said, “I can't make you any promises, Bonnie. But I'll take a look at the charge sheet and see if I can do a little origami with it.”

“I owe you one, Dermot.”

“Not yet you don't. But if you do, you can bet your sweet buns that I'll collect on it.”

She snapped the phone cover shut and said, “That's it, Ray. You're in with a chance, anyhow.”