Men Like That Will Break Your Heart
by Margaret YangFriday's special is fried fish, Thursday is meatloaf, Wednesday is beef stew, and Tuesday chicken with dumplings. Monday doesn't have a regular special. On Monday, Nico tries to dump his weekend leftovers. The special costs $3.25, $3.44 with tax. If a customer pays with a five dollar bill, I bring back the change with the dollar on top, hiding the coins. No sense reminding the customer that fifty-six cents is an option for the tip. This is the height of my education as a waitress. I learned how to deliver change the second day on the job. Eighteen years later, I know it still.
I think about how to make change instead of thinking about my aching feet. Instead of thinking that my college education is wasted in Nico's diner. Instead of thinking about Jessie, wondering what I'm going to do. Doctors have been examining him his whole life, and all they can tell us is that he's autistic. I've been to the library in Broken Arrow. I've done my homework. I know what autism is. Autism is what they tell you when they don't know what is wrong with your child.
Two customers want extra tartar sauce for their fish. When I return to the kitchen, the busboy and the dishwasher are talking about last night's episode of St. Elsewhere. Television is a regular topic of discussion here. Nobody reads. Since we sent those UFO photos to the papers, maybe that's a good thing.
I drop off tartar sauce and refill decaf, sneaking a look out the front window. I'm expecting Jessie any minute, but when I glance out to the sidewalk, I almost drop the coffee pot. As I stare out the window, only experience saves me from overflowing the cup, because my arm stops automatically when the cup is full. I set the hot pot on an empty table and hurry toward the door.
Jessie staggers in, a wad of bloody tissues pressed to his nose. Debbie is holding one arm, making soothing noises. "It's okay, Aunt Bev," Debbie says when she sees me. "It's not as bad as it looks." She leads Jessie to the back booth and exchanges the tissues at his nose for a wad of napkins from the metal dispenser on the table.
I rescue the decaf pot a split second before it scorches the Formica and rush over to the back booth. I sit across from Jessie, shielding him from the curious stares of other patrons. Debbie is next to him, still clucking and cooing. She sets his scrapbook on the seat. Jessie silently hugs it with his left arm, drawing strength from it.
"What happened?" I ask.
"The bus," Debbie says.
"I thought the other kids left him alone!"
"It's a new kid. He doesn't know it's no fun to tease Jessie. He got a real rise out of Buddy McDougal, thought he could get the same out of Jessie, you know? But Jessie just ignored him."
"If Jessie ignored him, then what happened?"
Debbie sighs an experienced, teenage sigh. "He got into Jessie's face. Jessie elbowed him out of the way."
"The kid hit him?" I grip the half-empty coffee pot by its orange handle.
"No, it was mostly shoving, until the bus driver hit the brakes, and Jessie slammed into the back of the seat in front of him."
I shake my head. That's Jessie. Not enough sense to put his arms up to break his own fall.
Linda silently drops off a small bag of ice on her way to cash out my customers. Some of my tips will undoubtedly find their way into her pocket, but at this point, I don't care.
"Switch places with me," I tell Debbie. We maneuver around the booth, and I convince Jessie to let me put some ice on his nose. It looks slightly bruised, but not broken.
"I think you're going to be all right, baby," I tell him. At seventeen, he's more man than baby, but he answers to it.
"Hurts, Mama."
"Where does it hurt?" I ask, and am grateful when he points to his nose. He has problems with body-awareness, and can't always tell me. He'll scrape his shin and point to his elbow.
Debbie and I fuss over Jessie for a few more minutes until he bats us away. Hands work better than words. We get the hint and move off.
Debbie perches on a stool at the counter. Her calves, wrapped in striped leg-warmers, swing back and forth. I stand nearby, temporarily bereft of customers. Pretty soon, Nico will be hollering at me to fill catsup bottles and sugar shakers, but I figure I have about five minutes. "You want a Coke or something?" I ask Debbie.
Debbie wrinkles her nose. "Ugh. I hate that New Coke." She leans over to me, and whispers, "On the bus? Today? I know why Dennis Short was picking on Jessie."
I look at Jessie and then back to her. "Why?"
Debbie pulls a folded piece of paper out of her purse and opens it. It looks like homework. "He was doing my math."
"Again?"
"I'm sorry. I know you don't . . . Anyway, Dennis is a Senior. He wanted Jessie to do his homework for him."
Debbie hands me the paper. Graphs and numbers. I know just enough math to know that they are probably all perfectly done.
Debbie slides off her stool. "I got to go. Mom says no movies until I finish my English project."
"What are you seeing?"
"Rocky Horror."
"I can't believe you're going all the way to Broken Arrow to see a movie you've seen twenty times already."
"Twenty-seven." Debbie smiles. "What can I say, Aunt Bev? When you gotta do the time warp, you gotta do the time warp." She grabs her books and walks to the rear booth, where she puts one arm around Jessie and gives a little squeeze. He lets her. "Have a good weekend, okay? I'll see you on Monday." She waves to me and is gone.
I watch out the window as Debbie walks down the sidewalk like she owns the town. Unlike her friends, she's adopted neither valley girl idiocy nor punk cynicism. She's a sensible girl, bound for college next year on a partial scholarship. She makes it look so easy.
Most girls like that wouldn't be caught dead with their handicapped cousin. Normal kids don't mix with the slow kids – it's just not done. But Debbie treats Jessie like one of her friends. She sits with him on the bus, making sure he gets to his classroom all right. At three o'clock, she puts him on the bus again and brings him to the diner. I worry a lot less about school, knowing that Debbie is there. Not that Jessie is learning much, but the classes aren't doing him any harm, and the special ed teacher is a nice guy.
Waiting for the bus in the morning means I miss half of the breakfast shift, but I stay for half the dinner shift so it all works out. Nico doesn't like it much, but that's Nico's problem. I have problems of my own.
Like the latest thing from Dr. Springer. He wants Jessie in intensive behavioral therapy this summer. As if we have money for that. Nico pays health insurance for me, but not for my family. He can't, or he'd go broke. In the meantime, it's his employees who go broke. It's the same for Mitch. He just got the job at K-mart six months ago – no benefits yet.
Jessie can't work. Who would hire him? Nico gave him a job once, bussing tables. It lasted three days. Jessie could clear tables okay, but he wouldn't go near the kitchen. Too much noise, too much heat, too much motion. He left the tubs of plates and mugs outside the kitchen door, where everyone had to step over them. When Linda tripped and sprained her wrist, that was the end of Jessie's job. I'm just grateful that Nico didn't fire me, too. After all, who else is going to hire the local crazy lady? And Nico still lets Jessie sit in the back booth until my shift is done. Jessie doesn't bother anyone there. He sits and works on his scrapbook, doesn't make a peep.
With a tired sigh, I pull a tray from behind the counter and start gathering sugar shakers from the tables. I have all the tops off, just reaching for the funnel, when Mitch walks in the door.
"Bev! Bev! We did it!" He jumps up on a barstool and kisses me over the counter.
"What?" Mitch is supposed to be at work, and the K-mart is out by the highway, at least fifteen minutes from downtown. He looks happy, though, so at least it's not an emergency. His oxford has sweat lines under the arms, as if he ran all the way here.
"Weekly World News called me at work," Mitch blurts out, practically bouncing on the stool. "They want my photos and my story. I've got to call them back."
"How much? Did they say how much?"
"No, I have to call the Enquirer first."
"You sent the photos to both? Are you crazy? What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking like a businessman. I'm going to play them one off the other, see which one will pay more."
I put my elbows on the counter and grab my forehead with my hands. "You're going to blow the whole thing."
"I'm not going to blow it." He rubs the dark, stubbly growth on his chin, halfway between forgot-to-shave and an actual beard. "They'll love this story," Mitch says. "A second close encounter in the same family – how often does that happen?"
"I didn't have a close encounter."
"Okay, a sighting of an alien spaceship. Good thing you were smart enough to publicize it the first time."
"Yeah," I say weakly. I'm a genius.
"Hi, Dad," Jessie says from the back booth. He hasn't looked up from his scrapbook since Mitch came in. The words are addressed to the table. "Hi, Dad," he says again.
"Hi, Jessie." Mitch turns back to me. "Weekly World News is offering two hundred fifty dollars, but I bet I can bump it up to three if the Enquirer is interested."
Two hundred fifty dollars. He's already spent half that much on darkroom equipment. Was this whole thing a ploy so he could buy more toys? I purse my lips and shake my head. Wouldn't that be just like Mitch?
Eighteen years ago, when I thought I really saw a UFO, I told a local reporter. I wasn't thinking about money. I was just trying to tell people what happened. I shut up about it shortly thereafter, tired of being a laughingstock – especially after I lost my job at the bank. They wouldn't hire me back, even after those government men came, telling me that I did see something that night. Experimental aircraft. Classified.
Mitch was suspicious of those men from the get-go. If my experience was really nothing, why did they want to know everything I saw? Everything I heard? Mitch said he'd never seen government agents like that, and doubted that they really were from Washington. Said he didn't like the way they looked. Or maybe he just didn't like the way they looked at me. Mitch was angry that I hadn't called him the split second the agents showed up. Angry that I spent hours alone with them before Mitch got home from work. We fought about it all the time. Then, a few weeks later, I found out I was pregnant. Mitch was so happy to finally be having a child that he forgot all about the government men.
But I never forgot.
Mitch looks at his watch. "I got to get home before four o'clock."
"Why?"
"That's five o'clock in Florida, where the Enquirer is. My boss wouldn't let me call long-distance from work, and I doubt Nico will, either."
"Take Jessie with you," I say. "I'll be home at six-fifteen."
Mitch cuts his eyes to Jessie and back to me. "Do you think that's a good idea?"
For his father to take him home instead of hanging out in a diner? "Yes, I do." I understand Mitch's disappointment in Jessie. Other dads get hugs and stories about school and little league trophies to put on the mantle. Most of the time, all that Mitch gets from Jessie is a blank stare. That's all I get, either. Still, Mitch acts like Jessie's condition is completely my responsibility. Or my fault.
"Hi, Mama," Jessie says, still looking at his scrapbook.
I reach over and lift his chin. The bleeding has stopped, and his nose isn't swelling. "Dad's going to take you home, okay?"
"It's Friday."
"Right." We stop by the library every Friday after work. The librarian gives him old magazines. "Dad will take you."
Mitch looks pointedly at his watch. "I don't know about that, Bev. Can't he miss a week? The magazines will still be there."
"No." Jessie continues to stare at his scrapbook, open to a page cut from Time. It's a picture of Mars, accompanied by a page of text. Jessie's magazines mean so much to him. I doubt he can even read, he just seems to cut things out and paste them in his scrapbook based on the photographs.
"I'm doing this for him," Mitch insists. "So we can have more money to help him."
"Right," I say. "Go."
Mitch leaps from the booth and hustles out the door. This isn't about more money for Jessie. This is about Mitch thinking that being the portrait photographer at K-mart – "taking pictures of brats all day " – is beneath him.
I look across the booth at my son: my beautiful, distant son. Jessie finally looks up from his book. His eyes focus on me, and I almost think he's going to smile, but the moment passes, and Jessie turns the page to a story about bees.
I think I am more surprised than Mitch when The National Enquirer doubles the Weekly World News' offer. Five hundred dollars for Mitch's photos and story. They send a reporter out to the house, a terribly earnest young man, who takes photos of Mitch, the house, the yard, the barn. He interviews Mitch for two hours, writing down all his answers as if they are the truth.
It takes The National Enquirer three months to publish Mitch's story. It only takes the agents three days to show up at our house. It's the night of Jessie's eighteenth birthday, and I'm washing the supper dishes. I'm up to my wrists in Palmolive and staring out the kitchen window when a black car pulls up to our house. I can't see the driver through the tinted windows. I don't have to. Two men, dressed in severe black suits and white shirts, exit the car. The taller of the two clutches a copy of the Enquirer, open to the damning article. The article where Mitch brags about his wife's close encounter eighteen years ago, and his now. The article with the picture I refused to pose for that shows Mitch and Jessie standing next to the barn.
Eighteen years flash backward in my mind. The car looks the same, the agents look the same, even the time of day is the same. I dry my hands, rush to the door and open it to find myself staring into the bottomless brown eyes of Agent Barlow. I pat my hair into place, deeply aware of my old t-shirt and the crumbs on the floor. I know without looking that Agent Pierce is standing behind Barlow. Barlow removes his hat – who wears hats anymore? – and smiles down at me. He hasn't aged a second in nearly two decades. "Hello, Beverly."
"My – my husband. He's out back. I'll – "
"We'll find him." Barlow waves away my protests and steps down from the front porch, circling the house to the detached garage. I rush to Jessie's bedroom so I can look out the back window.
Jessie has my best suitcase open on his bed. He's filling it with underwear, socks, and shirts from his dresser drawers.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"Packing," Jessie says. "Don't worry, Mama. It will be all right."
"What will be all right? Where do you think you're going?"
"With them." Jessie gestures to the window.
I pull the curtain aside and open the window. In the back yard, the agents have Mitch backed up to the garage door, holding up the tabloid and asking about the photo. Mitch stands with arms crossed, looking defiant. It's not true! I want to shout. He made it all up! But what would that accomplish?
"I don't have to show you my darkroom," Mitch is saying. "Give me a search warrant and I'll show it to you."
"That won't be necessary," Barlow says. He is standing with his back to me, facing Mitch, and shows him something I can't see. Mitch pales and stumbles, then runs into the garage and shuts the door. What did Barlow show him? A photo of us? A laser gun? A tentacle?
Barlow pauses for a moment, and looks right at me through the window. His face, shadowed by twilight, is a memory. I've seen that face every day for eighteen years.
I move to the middle of the room, and start unpacking Jessie's suitcase. The only reaction this gets from Jessie is a resolute certainty to put back everything I've taken out. I unpack faster, throwing socks and underwear into their drawers. Jessie doesn't even sigh, just follows behind, undoing my work more slowly, but more thoroughly than I've undone his. Finally, I pick up the suitcase and dump its contents onto the floor, walking through them, kicking shirts and sweaters into the corners of the room.
Jessie waits for me to finish, then retrieves a single t-shirt. He folds it neatly, rights the suitcase, and puts the shirt inside.
I back to the wall, bend my knees, and slump to the floor. I'm sobbing now, knowing I am powerless to stop him. Jessie is eighteen years old. An adult. He will go with Barlow and Pierce, go wherever his kind goes.
And I'll never see him again.
"You were a miracle, you know," I say. "Mitch and I tried for eight years to have children." I pause to wipe my eyes with the hem of my t-shirt. "Barlow was a stranger. Barlow was leaving town. It was perfect." I look at Jessie's back, as he pauses to retrieve a shoe from under the bed. "You were going to be perfect."
Jessie finds the shoe, straightens, and looks at me. Really looks at me. For the first time, I see true awareness in his face – the honest, adoring gaze of my son. A gaze that should have been mine all along. "I am perfect, Mama."
I stand up and cross the room, folding myself into his arms. He is taller than me now. Jessie holds me until I stop crying. When my sobs have deteriorated to mere sniffles, I grab a tissue from the nightstand and wipe my eyes.
Then I help him pack.
Through the open window, I hear a car start. At first I think that Barlow and Pierce are leaving, but a second later, I see Mitch's car barrel down the driveway, turning left at the bottom of the drive, toward town. I have no idea where he's going. Leaving me forever? Off to raise a bevy of townsfolk with pitchforks and axes to drive out the alien menace?
In the driveway, Barlow and Pierce watch Mitch leave, then walk calmly to the house. Jessie meets them on the front porch, his suitcase in one hand and his scrapbook in the other. He seems to know what to bring, although I can't imagine how. I step between Barlow and Jessie. It seems so unfair to give him to me for eighteen years and then take him away, but I made my choices, unwise as they may have been. I wonder if Barlow has a choice now. "Take me with you," I say.
Barlow shakes his head, regarding me with more tenderness than I thought possible from him. "I can't, Beverly. I'd like to, but I can't."
Fresh tears catch in my throat. I close my eyes and inhale heavily. Knowing what the answer would be doesn't make it any easier to hear.
Jessie puts one hand on my shoulder. "It will be all right, Mama." It's the second time he's said that, and I wonder if it's true, or if he was somehow told it was the correct thing to say.
Night is coming on, the sun already gone behind the hills. Soon, the stars will be out. I will stand on this porch tonight, and every night, looking at them. Thinking of Jessie. Wondering which star is his.
Jessie walks past me and strides confidently to the car, getting inside as if it's his rightful place. I watch him go, so grown up, more like Barlow than like Mitch. Or me. He is no longer a boy. He's a man.
And men like that will break your heart.
©Margaret Yang
Margaret Yang is a writer and parent who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. More information and links to her published stories can be found at http://yangandcampion.googlepages.com.