Andrew – Seneca, Spring 1988
Easter Sunday of his senior year, Momma forces Andrew and his sisters to go to church with her. There Reverend Helmsley unleashes his theatrical utmost, infusing his rendition of Christ’s final days with all the fervor of a TV evangelist. He beseeches the congregation with outstretched hands and a flushed face as tears stream from behind his wire-rim spectacles. The man’s account seems to last nearly as long as the Passion’s actual unfolding, thinks Andrew, the emotions behind it even more scripted than the year before. The church is hot, and sweat slides down the nape of Andrew’s neck, but he ignores it as he fans himself with a collection envelope. Today he is trying to make Momma happy.
Finally of the look of anguish on Reverend Helmsley’s face gives way to a game-show-host grin. He invites the congregation to come on down and join him in Holy Communion. Andrew would like to leave, but instead, at Momma’s prompting, he pushes past his sisters to accompany her in the procession to the altar where the blood and flesh of Christ await. Symbolically, Andrew thinks as they inch forward in line. Jake’ Munroe has told him how Catholics believe in actual transubstantiation, and Andrew is
impressed his friend’s suspension of disbelief. Methodists, however, consider the rite merely metaphorical; the blood and host at Andrew’s church consist of Welch’ Grape Juice and saltine crackers. He finds this act of make-believe cannibalism just as convoluted and confusing as he found it back in Bible boot camp, when Mrs. Applebee forced him to do a report on the subject as punishment for backtalking. At snack time she had made him stand before the younger kids and explain how in 1869 Thomas Welch, the son of a Methodist minister, had been so upset by a friend’s drinking binge that he decided to apply the
Pasteurization process to grapes—creating not only a new unfermented communion beverage but also a multi-million dollar business. While Mrs. Applebee nodded approvingly, the children ignored him as they gobbled down their peanut butter crackers. So Andrew had told the children that the Keebler elves from TV were Methodists, too--which meant that every time a child bit into a saltine cracker it was like nibbling on good Lord’s toes—that’s what made Keebler crackers so “uncommonly good.” Andrew burst out laughing as a couple kids spit half-chewed crackers onto the floor. Mrs. Applebee never again assigned him a report.
“What’s so funny?” Momma whispers before kneeling at the wooden Communion rail.
Andrew only gives a shrug as he takes his place beside her. The brim of Momma’s straw hat keeps scratching his cheek, but he ignores it as he looks up into the wrinkled face of the preacher, who lays a bit of cracker upon Andrew’s tongue. Andrew chases it with a Nyquil-sized shot of grape juice that he takes from a tray held by a pimply altar boy.
Momma threads her arm through Andrew’s on the way back to their seats. She has an especially pleased look on her face as she squeezes into the pew past his sisters, and Andrew wonders if she has doubled dosed on her happy pills . Allison shifts her legs to let Andrew pass, then whispers to Elizabeth not to write in the hymnal. Momma takes another copy and places it in Andrew’s hands. The congregation rises to sing Hallelujah. Andrew mouths the words, thinking not of Jesus but of Jake Munroe again.
All winter Andrew has stood alongside him in the chilly garage Jake rents to work on the Camaro. Andrew keeps warm thanks to a tiny space heater and the sight of Jake’s body leaning under the hood. Though Andrew has no idea what the two of them are actually doing, he nevertheless takes pleasure in following his friend’s lead, handing him socket wrenches or turning on the ignition to test Jake’s latest tinkering. Sometimes Andrew feels so happy he laughs out loud. Like yesterday, when Jake referred to what’s under the Camaro’s hood as a small block V-8, it had conjured in Andrew’s head an image not of an engine but of a can of vegetable juice--the kind Allison’s started drinking lately instead of her usual pop. Jake had looked up at him and rolled his eyes, which had only made Andrew laugh all the harder.
Though the Camaro’s upholstery is still shot and its body needs a paint job, the car is running pretty smoothly now thanks to their efforts. Last week Jake overhauled the suspension with top-of-the-line shock absorbers they had to drive to Clarksburg to get. On the way back, a spring rain had come so hard and fast across the mountains that they had had to pull to the side of the road to wait out the storm. Jake told Andrew he had finally gotten an acceptance letter to Temple University in Philadelphia and was now talking with his father who lived up there about whether to stay with him or try to get into a dorm. Andrew reminded Jake that he hoped to get out of Seneca as well; what he didn’t say was that ever since he had learned of Jake’s plans he had been using his grandmother’s address to order college catalogs for Philadelphia schools himself; he had even sent an application and portfolio sketches to Temple’s Tyler School of Art. He didn’t want to say anything to Jake until he knew for sure, but maybe if they both got accepted they could get an apartment together. That scenario seemed almost too perfect for Andrew to bear; it played over and over again in a loop inside his head like a new version of the tape he had made last winter for Jake but had never grown too scared to share. Hope is like that, Andrew thinks now as the church congregation finishes their song: One moment brimming with possibility, the next nearly paralyzed by despair.
* * *
In the sun-washed parking lot after church, Momma seems too pleased with herself, having all her children around her and behaving themselves on so pretty a spring day. Apart from her mother having to start chemotherapy for a tumor on her pancreas, lately things have been going her way; last week the Board of Education hired her full-time--finally, a steady pay check, a better health plan. And today, so moved by the Holy Spirit she is, that she actually proposes they all go for a ride in the country to enjoy--something she hasn’t done with the kids since before Elizabeth was born.
Andrew tugs off his tie but keeps quiet.
“I have to be at work by two,” Allison warns as she flips the seat lever on the passenger side of Momma’s Aspen so she and Elizabeth can climb in back. Not yet six, Elizabeth is the only one whose face perks up at the idea.
“There’s plenty of time,” Momma says, pulling the seat upright again. She steps back, sweeps her arms through the air. “Look at this gorgeous Easter Sunday! How often are we all together like this?” Her gaze skirts across the car roof to light on Andrew as he opens the driver’s door. “You keep threatening to run off to college,” she tells him. “How many opportunities do I have left?” She hands her hat back to Allison and sinks into car as Andrew does the same. “Tell you all what,” she says. “We’ll drive to Mill Creek and stop at the Double-A for ice cream. Surely all your busy schedules can accommodate that.”
“Ice cream!” Elizabeth exclaims. She whacks the back of the front seat with the Barbie Momma wouldn’t let her take into church.
Andrew sighs and starts the ignition. In the parking lot, slow-moving church ladies dillydally in thick clumps of conversation, while beside them impatient husbands fish for car keys and avoid eye contact. Andrew navigates slowly through them, stifling an impulse to lead-foot the Aspen and knock everyone to Kingdom Come. He wants to tell Momma that he has plans; he wants to tell her he has priorities that supersede her wishes, but that would mean mentioning Jake, and Andrew will be damned if he’ll share anything about that boy with his family.
Momma rolls down her window and waves goodbye to the reverend as Andrew wheels out into the street. “Let’s use today to appreciate what the good Lord gave us,” Momma says. She glances at the girls in back. “Reach me my purse under the seat. I need a cigarette.”
Momma smiles pats Andrew’s trouser-covered knee while she waits. “You kids give me an hour and you can have the rest of the day to yourselves.” She takes her purse from Elizabeth and digs through it to find her lighter and a cigarette. The car passes empty shops with yellowed newspaper covering their windows, more and more of downtown’s businesses having migrated to the plaza at the far end of town. Elizabeth leans forward and stops chewing on the feet of her Barbie long enough to complain that her dress is too short and the car seat burns her legs. “Sit back down,” Momma snaps. “Take that doll out of your mouth or no ice cream.”
Elizabeth does as she is told. None of them want to make Momma mad; if there’s anything Andrew is sure of, it’s certainly that. But for God’s sake, don’t hold not getting ice cream over the poor kid’s head, Andrew thinks. She’s already woken up to no Easter eggs, no chocolate bunnies or marshmallow chicks— Momma being too busy taking care of Grandma Rose lately, and neither Allison nor himself have
sufficiently helped “pull the slack”—a fact Momma’s mentioned more than once. Yet despite their
Past the statue of the Iron Indian, town’s symmetrical blocks give way to the curl of a country road. The cool rush of air from the car window feels good on Andrew’s face. From both sides of the road trees spring up, already leafed out enough to filter the sun. Every bend in the road seems to hold a small ranch house or trailer home, yards cut out from the rising woods behind. A couple have small trees out front strung with plastic Easter eggs. Once in a while, Cheat River peaks through, teasing Andrew with its presence. Andrew glances in the rearview mirror to catch sight of Allison, eyes closed and head back, her long hair dancing in the wind. Andrew can’t remember the last time he’s really talked to her. Beside him, Momma leans her head out the window, breathes deep between drags on her cigarette. The rinse she’s started using to hide her gray is a shade too orange, and the way she has hair cut short now and lacquered in hairspray makes it quiver in the breeze.
“See?” she says, breaking the stillness. “It doesn’t hurt us to go to church once in a while. The good Lord appreciates it and so do I.”
“You can’t beat that,” Andrew says, and instantly regrets it.
Momma ignores the remark, turns to Elizabeth and asks, “Have you decided what kind of ice cream you’re going to get?”
“Mayyy-beee,” sings Elizabeth. “I want two kinds.”
“Well, whittle it down to one, you little con artist,” Momma laughs as she faces front again. They round a hill and the Double-A Gas & Grocery juts into view, the store’s squat, whitewashed cinderblocks glaring in the abrupt sun. Andrew pulls into the roadside lot, steering past gas pumps to a spot over by the orange-roofed store that sells junk food, fishing bait, batteries and beer. He hasn’t even turned off the engine before Momma and Elizabeth are spilling out of the car. Andrew stays behind, unlatching the driver’s seat to free Allison. She doesn’t look at him as she grips the car frame and hauls herself out. She’s tired, thinks Andrew, or mad. Maybe both. Allison stands, pulls down the waist of her too-tight flowered sundress. Andrew hates how much weight his sister’s put on these last couple years.
“You okay?” he asks.
Allison lifts a fallen dress strap to her shoulder. “Just peachy.”
Allison steps past him. Maybe she wants to slip free of these mountains as much as he does, Andrew thinks. A bumblebee lazes above a row of potted Easter lilies set out for sale on a wooden bench beside the door. “You still carry your bee medicine?” Andrew calls out. If Allison notices the bee, she makes no sign of it.
“In my purse,” she says without turning. “Always.”
A chime above the screen door rings as Andrew follows Allison inside. Low shelves are stacked full of potato chips, beef jerky and orange peanut butter crackers. Beyond them lies the register and the refrigerated ice cream case. Elizabeth presses her face against its glass, while above, Momma twists from
side to side, looking for assistance. A toilet flushes somewhere in back, and a moment later a round blond figure steps from a door behind the far end of the counter.
“Helena!” Momma cries.
“Katie McKenna,” smiles Helena, putting her wrinkled issue of Woman’s Day back in the display rack by the register before leaning as far over the counter as her belly, at least eight months pregnant, will allow. She gives Momma a hug.
Helena is the niece of Grandma Rose, first cousin to Momma, second cousin to Andrew--or something like that, Andrew knows. She’s the youngest of Great-Aunt Inez’s five kids by several years, a “happy accident” Inez always says. A mistake, Andrew always thinks. Two years ahead of him all through high school, Helena’s never ever treated Andrew with anything other than disdain, too busy running around with a fast crowd in her blue mascara and tight Calvin Kleins. Once, one of Helena’s old boyfriends called Andrew a fag, and all his cousin did was laugh. So Andrew was secretly pleased at the start of Helena’s senior year when she got knocked up. Another baby by a different father followed a year later, and by the look of things now, she must still be trying to milk the federal WIC program for every last penny she can.
“I didn’t know you worked here,” Momma says.
“I’m just filling in for a friend. With another mouth on the way, I can use the extra cash.” “When’s this new one due?” Momma asks. “Last time I ran into your mother at the grocery store she never told me about this.”
“Mom’s got so many grandchildren by all her kids that I doubt she can keep up with the names of mine.”
You sure it isn’t because you breed faster than a bunny rabbit? Andrew wants to ask. Instead he gives Helena a curt nod hello, then steps over to join Elizabeth, who is fogging the glass of the ice cream display with her breath.
“I got another month to go,” Helena says. “Pete’s hoping for a boy this time, but I don’t know if I’m carrying low enough for one.” She sighs, rubs her hand across her stomach. She cranes across the counter toward Elizabeth. “Hey there, pretty miss.” She reaches to pat Andrew’s sister’s head.
“You remember your cousin Helena, don’t you?” Momma asks Elizabeth, who looks up with only the briefest of smiles before returning to the ice cream.
Helena’s eyes skirt over to Andrew, and she arches a brow at him in her usual haughty way. “I heard you’re not even graduated yet and already taking college classes over in Elkins. Guess you’re getting to be a big shot, ain’t ya?”
Andrew clears his throat. “Just taking them part-time, is all. They cut us a deal on tuition if our grades are good. I’m saving up, gonna transfer somewhere better come fall.”
She leans her weight heavily against Andrew, looks up, smiling too hard. “Even though he’s still just my little boy.”
Andrew feels his face flush. “Better make your mind up,” he tells her. “I can’t be both.”
Momma laughs, as if he’s only joking. Andrew pulls away, slinking past Elizabeth to lean against the far end of the ice cream display. His fingernails dig into his palms.
“How’s Aunt Rose?” Helena asks Momma.
“As well as can be expected,” Momma sighs. “She’s not seeing too good since her cataract surgery, and this new cancer diagnosis has thrown her for a wallop. But the doctor’s got her on a round of chemo, and after that he’s doing more tests. We think she’ll beat it. But It’s rough, I tell you. Still mother is a trooper and doesn’t complain one iota. Isn’t that so, Andrew?”
“Sure,” he tells her.
Helena eases her body over to behind the ice cream display. “What can I get everybody?” she wants to know. Andrew catches Helena giving his Elizabeth a look for the greasy handprints left on the glass.
“Yes, I promised these kids ice cream,” Momma says. “I better make good before they declare mutiny.”
“Ice cream!” Helena says as she reaches for a wafer cone. You sure do spoil them.”