Harvey Porter Does Dallas (3 page)

“What're you doing with that potted plant?” asked Mushrush.

“It'll have to serve as an ashtray for now.”

“But didn't you hear what I said about the smoking?”

“Yeah, I heard. Did you hear my answer?”

“You said you'd just finish that one and then take our no-smoking-in-the-house policy under consideration.”

“That's what I said, and I mean what I say. God, will you look at that Jennifer Lopez? What a chica!”

“What's a
chica
?” Sasha asked.

“Oh, it's just a street word for babe. What a babe! Would you just
look
at her?”

Sasha, at age twelve, was thinking,
I might actually learn to like this guy
.

Things went smoothly at the dinner table. Bailey was pleasantly surprised by Harvey's table manners. He cut his meat carefully with his knife and fork and didn't slurp his soup. He even declined seconds and gave Wilberta a compliment: “The dinner was really good, Mrs. M, but I haven't had that much to eat in a long time.”

“Well, you just remember if you want seconds at our house, you're always welcome.” Bobo was glad, of course, because it meant more seconds for him.

When Mrs. Mushrush looked at Harvey, she didn't see an ugly street thug. Instead, she saw a handsome young man with an ugly scar, sharp blue eyes, and a swarthy but clear complexion the color of coffee with cream.

She was also impressed with his dark, wavy hair as well as his straight, white teeth.

Harvey was having the same thought he'd had in the living room:
So this is how the white bread live?

She asked him, “Harvey, if it's not too personal can you tell us how you got that ugly scar?”

“Nah, I've already told that story twice today, once to your husband and another time to Bobo. Maybe sometime when it's just the two of us, I'll tell you about it.”

“No, Harvey, “said Sasha who was hanging on his every word, “Please tell us, please, please.”

Harvey shrugged. “Well okay, just once more but just for you and your mother.” He told the story again.

Wilberta Mushrush gasped. “Carlos Villanueva? And you survived a fracas with him?”

“Well, I'm here I guess. I must have.”

“Isn't that that awful gang leader who's a bad criminal?” Sasha wanted to know.

“He's the leader of a brown bread street gang. He gets arrested and put in jail a lot, but never for very long.”

“Just what we need in Dallas,” said Mushrush. “As if we don't have enough crime in the streets already. Can't the authorities export him to some far-away place like Liberia or Iraq?”

“Don't be absurd,” said his wife. “You can't just export your criminal element to downtrodden, miserable
third-world
countries.”

Harvey wondered what a third-world country was. So did Bobo, but he was working away at his third extra chunk of the pot roast.

“Harvey,” Wilberta asked, “how do you think you're related to our family?”

“I don't have the slightest idea. Just before he died, my dodger wrote down your name and address and said I was related to you. But that's all he said.”

“I'll have to ask my sister,” said Mrs. Mushrush. “Valencia might have some ideas.”

“I don't know why Val would know,” said Bailey. “She'll be in the dark just like we are.”

“Harvey, who was your dodger?” asked Sasha, who was nearly transfixed.

“He was an old white man named Harvey Porter. White people who are homeless out on the street are called force people. They lose their white bread label.”

“What's force people?” Sasha asked eagerly.

“I just told you. They are white bread who have fallen through society's cracks. I guess the street lingo means that they were once rich and important, and might be again.”

“You said your dodger's name was Harvey Porter. Why do you have the same name?” Wilberta asked.

“He was a good old guy and we were buddies a long time. I guess when he died, I just decided to take his name out of respect.”

“But what's your real name then?”

“I don't know. I never did. Whenever I was a newborn infant, my parents, whoever they were, left me in a blanket on the loading dock of a fireworks factory. I spent a lot of time in orphanages and group homes when I was real young, but they didn't know my name either. There weren't any records like birth certificates or that type of stuff.”

“A fireworks factory?” exclaimed Sasha. “That sounds pretty cool.”

Her mother turned on her. “There's nothing cool about it, Sasha. It was cruel and senseless. His parents should have been horsewhipped.” She turned to Harvey to ask, “Were you born in Dallas?”

“No, but I do have a little knowledge about that. I was born in Nacogdoches. I don't have any memory of it, but the nuns at an orphanage in Fort Worth told me where I was born. They just didn't know what my name was.”

“It's horrible, Harvey, what a terrible, empty way to grow up.”

Bailey was thinking,
it is terrible if any of it is true
.

“How did you make your way out on the street?” asked the fascinated Sasha.

“Wits and weapons, little girl. Just like anyone else.”

Sasha did not appreciate being called
little girl
one bit. But still she asked, “Weapons? What weapons?”

“Ah, that's a story for another day. All we're doing here is talking about me. Why don't we change the subject?”

“But your life is so fascinating.”

“That would be one word for it.”

Mrs. Mushrush remembered trips to Nacogdoches with her sister. “Valencia and I love visiting the Sterne-Hoya home. The antiques there are just fabulous.”

“I've never heard of the Sterne-Hoya home,” declared Harvey. “As a matter of fact, I've never been to Nacogdoches. I don't know squat about it. Don't forget I only lived there when I was a baby and a preschooler.”

Mrs. Mushrush stood up immediately and began collecting the empty plates. “I simply must call Valencia tonight. We haven't been to Nacogdoches for at least a year. Maybe she'll have some ideas about how Harvey is related to us.”

Oh that's just great
, thought Mushrush.
Now my wife and her sister are going to go from town to town playing detective. Like you could stumble on any relevant information with that strategy
. But all he said (not meaning one word of it) was, “Maybe Val will have some thoughts on the family tree. It couldn't hurt to ask.”

He did not add,
my first call will be to the police
.

4. SCRAPBOOKS AND SISTERS

For the first two days or so, Harvey lazed around the house looking at Bobo's other
Playboy
copies, smoking where he wasn't supposed to, and even from time to time, looking through old family scrapbooks Mrs. Mushrush had found in the attic.

He didn't know if he was looking for himself or somebody else, but he turned the pages slowly. At noon, when Mrs. Mushrush left the house, he always said politely, “Have a nice day at the factory. Mrs. M.”

When Mushrush himself arrived at home and sniffed the air, he fumed. “Harvey, have you been smoking in here again while we're away?”

“Oh no sir,” Harvey lied. “These Jehova's Witnesses and Mormons keep coming to the door all the time, trying to sucker me into buying their religious booklets and literature. They tend to be heavy smokers. I try to tell them the house rules but they don't seem to take me seriously.”

“Y'ever buy any of their stuff?”

“Hell no.”

“What did you say?”

“I said hell no.”

“You need to watch your mouth, young man. I don't want Bobo, and certainly not Sasha, listening to such vulgar speech.”

“Right you are, Mr. M.”

The first time Officer Stroink came to the house, it was early in the evening, so Mushrush's wife was already home. “Damn the luck!” he muttered.

“What's that, dear?”

“Nothing—never mind.”

Mrs. Mushrush invited Officer Stroink inside. “What seems to be the problem?” he asked.

“What problem?”

“Well, your husband called us. Something about an unwelcome visitor. Wanted to know if we could take him out.”

Wilberta turned on her husband: “You called the police about Harvey? Without even consulting me? How dare you?!”

“I think he's an impostor.”

“Oh nonsense. We have no way of knowing that yet.”

“Who is this guy?” asked Stroink.

“He's just this big teenager who showed up on the porch the other day, claiming he was a relative. A street guy, basically. He looks like a street gang member. His name is Harvey Porter, because that was the name of his dodger, who died recently.”

“So that's not his real name?”

“He doesn't know his real name,” Wilberta replied. “He was left as a foundling on the loading dock of a fireworks factory in Nacogdoches.”

“Or that's what he claims,” her husband interjected. “I don't believe much of anything that comes out of his mouth is true.”

Angry, Wilberta turned on her husband again. “You don't know that. Neither do I. For that matter, neither does Harvey. We're going to have to call relatives and study the family tree to know for sure.”

Officer Stroink sighed and put his notebook away. He had better things to do than listen to these people argue about a surprise visitor. He turned to leave, telling the two of them there wasn't much the police could do, not unless Harvey committed a crime or something.

Mrs. Mushrush told him, “If my husband calls the police again about this, I want you to ignore him. Pay no attention. You understand me?”

“Sure,” said Stroink. “We're always happy to ignore people who call us. Don't you worry about that.”

For supper, Mrs. Mushrush banged around the pots and pans and turned out a large kettle of baked beans with hot dogs cut up in the mix. Harvey thought it tasted great, but the Mushrush family moaned and complained. Bailey said sarcastically, “You call this an appropriate meal for a man who's spent the whole day in the office, then fighting traffic on the freeway?”

“Just shut up and eat. You called the cops without even consulting me.”

Bobo and Sasha giggled. They'd never heard their mother tell their father to shut up.

Two days quickly turned into two weeks. Harvey registered for East Side High School, where, if accepted, he would be a classmate of Bobo's. He was accepted, but the counseling staff told him he was really on the 9th grade level when it came to English and math. They assigned him classes for low-level sophomores. Harvey didn't mind. He hated school anyway, so what difference did it make?

Wilberta and her sister Valencia went antiquing in Nacogdoches, then stopped at the city's only fireworks factory. It was an old brick warehouse-looking building with plenty of broken windows and a smokestack belching black contaminants into the sky at a heavy volume.

They picked their way carefully through the filthy, noisy factory part until they found the main office. They closed the door behind them and felt relief; the office was air conditioned and there were chairs for sitting. A bald man with a green visor on his forehead asked him if they could help. He told them his name was Morton Thornwhistle.

“Well, we hope you can help us,” answered Wilberta. “How long have you worked here?”

“That's a little personal, don't you think?” said Thornwhistle with his Adam's apple bobbing. I don't even know who you people are.”

“I'm sorry,” said Wilberta, glancing at her sister. “My name is Wilberta Mushrush and this is my sister, Valencia.”

“Am I in any trouble?” Thornwhistle asked nervously.

“I can't imagine what for,” said Valencia. “You're certainly not in any trouble with us; we've only just met you.”

“Because you could be cops.”

“I can assure you we're not cops,” Valencia said softly and with a smile on her face.

“Because you never know nowadays. Undercover cops can look like anything nowadays. Tramps on the street, gang members, even nice looking ladies like yourselves.”

Wilberta couldn't help wondering why Morton Thornwhistle would be worried about cops.

“Okay, I've worked here about twenty years,” he said. “Does that satisfy you?”

“Well it might,” said the sisters. “Can you remember a baby left in a blanket on your loading dock?”

“And you're sure you're not cops?”

“We're sure; trust us.”

“Well, actually there was a baby boy left out there about sixteen or seventeen years ago. I can't remember the actual year. He didn't have a name pinned on him or anything, so we had no clues.”

“What did you do with him?”

“We did what any righteous civic-minded people would do: We turned him over to family welfare.”

Aha!
thought Mrs. Mushrush.
So Harvey was telling the truth about all of this! I'll have another talk with my husband. Maybe this news would give him more of an open mind about Harvey
.

As the two sisters turned to leave, they thanked Thornwhistle, but he couldn't resist once more: “Just make sure you're not cops and I never did nothin' wrong.”

By this time Wilberta and Valencia couldn't help laughing.

Wilberta made her report to Mushrush, but he wasn't buying. “All this proves is he
might
have told the truth about
something
. He might have heard the story from somebody else, then took it as his own.”

“Aren't you curious at all to find out if he really is one of our relatives?”

“No,” said Bailey. He turned in bed so his backside was facing his wife. “I'd be a lot more interested after he was taken out of our house by the authorities, and put somewhere appropriate like the juvenile detention center.”