Cartoonist (6 page)

Alfie kept running. He took the steps in one bound, went down on his knees, got up, lunged for the screen door, pulled himself up by the knob, and entered. It was all one long awkward motion.

His mother started after him and called back to Mrs. Hunter, “I’ll send Alfie and Pap over for the chest of drawers after supper.” She paused to adjust her thong sandal. “And Bubba and Maureen will take real good care of it.”

Alfie plunged across the living room. He grabbed the ladder as a man being swept away in a flood grabs for a tree. He swayed in the current.

Pap loomed up in the kitchen doorway, filling it. He held a coffee mug in one hand, a jelly doughnut in the other. “Did you hear the news?” He paused to lick some jelly from the side of his thumb.

Alfie started up the ladder. He felt the pull of gravity for the first time in his life. His feet were lead. His pants were nailed to the floor. He would never reach the attic.

“Bubba’s coming home,” Pap said.

Alfie struggled for the next rung of the ladder. He swayed with the unseen current. He struck his head on the wall.

“Bubba
and
Maureen.”

Alfie reached up with one shaking hand. He pushed at the trap door. It was heavy. Usually it sprang open at his touch. Now it wouldn’t budge. He went up another rung of the ladder. He put his head to it. Goatlike, he began to shove the door open.

“I don’t mind him coming so much as I do her,” Pap said, sitting on the sofa. “I don’t know why Bubba had to marry a girl that pops gum all the time.” He licked his thumb again. “And she’ll leave it anywhere. One time I found a big wad of bubble gum in my tooth glass. It scared me. I thought my teeth had shriveled.”

Heaving as if he had climbed a tall mountain instead of a ladder, Alfie pulled himself into the attic. He crawled forward. He let the trap door shut behind him. The slam was like a cannon firing, the first shot of a long and difficult war.

“Alfie!”

He lay stretched out on the dusty attic floor, completely spent. Faintly he heard his mother call him as she came in the front door.

“Alfie, don’t go up in the attic. I want to talk to you. I’ve got some great news.”

“I done told him the great news,” Pap said from the sofa.

“And guess what, Pap? Mrs. Hunter’s got a chest she’s going to let me use. She just covered it with contact paper—red and orange pansies—and it’s going to really brighten up the attic. I’m getting so excited. Look at me, Pap. My hands are trembling.”

In the attic Alfie’s hands were trembling too. He got slowly to his knees.

When he had first started doing his cartoons in the attic, he had worked out a way of locking the trap door so nobody could come up and catch him unawares. Now he took the board and slipped it over the trap door and under the floorboards on either side.

“Alfie, what are you doing up there?” his mother called. “Come on down. I want to talk to you.” She said to Pap, “Is there any coffee left?” She went into the kitchen.

On his knees Alfie stared blankly at the trap door. The board was in place now. No one could open it.

He heard his mother walk back into the living room. “Alfie, do you hear me? Listen, Bubba and Maureen are coming home. They called this morning. It’s going to be like old times around here. We’re going to make a little apartment up there in the attic. Alfie?”

There was a pause while she blew on her coffee and took a loud sip: She raised her voice. “Alfie, do you hear me? Now listen, you and Pap and Alma are going to have to help me or I’m not going to be able to get everything done.”

Alfie heard the front door open and shut. He heard Alma say, “Where’s Alfie?”

“He’s up in the attic and I can’t make him hear me. Did you get the 409 cleaner?”

“Yes, Mom, but Alfie—”

“Because that attic is going to need a real scrubbing. I know it is.”

“Mom—”

“And I’ll need you to fix supper for me. I
know
you’ve got to go to work but—”

“Mom, will you listen to me for a minute?”

“Not now, Alma. Alfie, will you come down?”

“Mom, will you listen to me! Alfie is very upset about this. I just—”

“Upset about what?”

“About Bubba coming home and taking his attic.”

“His
attic? Since when has it been
his
attic? I’m the one who pays the rent.”

“Mom, the attic has been his ever since we moved in here and he’s got all his stuff up there and—”

“What stuff? I didn’t see anything but an old card table and a bunch of papers.”

“Well, those are his special things, Mom, and—”

“All right. He can move them into the bedroom, can’t he, Pap?”

“Not in my half.”

“Well, we’ll make space. Anyway, once he realizes Bubba’s coming home—why, he worships his brother, Alma, he always has, and he’ll have fun helping with the arrangements. He can paint the headboard for me and—”

“Mom, Alfie doesn’t even
like
Bubba, much less worship him.”

“Alma, that’s an awful thing to say.”

“It’s the truth.”

“My half of the room ain’t even got room for a postage stamp,” Pap said.

“Pap, will you shut up? And, Alma, if I wasn’t so busy, I’d give you a good talking to. Alfie has looked up to Bubba all his life.”

“Mom, Alfie does not like Bubba. That is a fact. Here’s another fact. I don’t like him either.” Alma spoke very clearly, pronouncing each word separately so she could not be misunderstood.

There was a long pause. “You still hold it against Bubba, don’t you?” his mother said finally in a low, flat voice.

“What exactly do you mean? I hold so many things against him, Mom, that I don’t know which one you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about the time that I used a tiny little bit of your precious baby-sitting money to—”

“I don’t want to hear about that, Mom.”

“—a tiny little bit of your precious money to keep your brother out of trouble. I should have thought you would have been glad to help, but I see that you still begrudge him that money.”

“Mom, I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

“It doesn’t matter at all to you,” his mother went on, “that Bubba was just having a little fun after the football game. He
won
the game for them that night, you know. It was
his
touchdown that won the game, and afterwards he deserved a little fun.”

“It wasn’t a little fun,” Pap said. “Giovanni don’t call the police for a
little
fun.”

There was a silence. Alfie rose. His knees cracked as he got to his feet. He could hear his mother set her coffee cup heavily on the TV. He heard her sigh.

“All right,” she said in a cold, hurt voice, “I will see that your precious money is paid back, Alma, every penny of it. I didn’t know that you still
begrudged
…” She made begrudging sound like the worst thing a person could do.

Alma said nothing.

“Just don’t bother me about it now and I will pay every single penny back!”

There was another, longer silence. Alfie stared down at the barricaded trap door. There was no expression on his face. He felt strange now, as if he were looking through the wood, seeing the three of them—Alma, his mother, Pap. They were as small and distant to him as figures seen from an airplane.

When his mom spoke again, her voice was trembling. “All my life, it seems like every time I need people, they all of a sudden turn against me.”

Alma sighed. “I haven’t ‘all of a sudden’ turned against you, Mom.”

“Well, you won’t help me. You’re bringing up old stories that hurt me and make me feel bad. Look how my hands are trembling.”

“I didn’t bring up anything, Mom. Anyway, I
am
helping. I went to the store, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“And I’m going to fix supper before I go to work. That’s helping.”

“I know, Alma, and I appreciate it.” His mother’s voice softened. “I knew I could count on you. You and Pap always stick by me.”

“I’m not putting in no window,” Pap said. “Last time I used a saw I was fifteen years old and I done
that.”
Alfie knew he was holding up the finger with the missing tip.

“I’ll
saw the hole, Pap,” his mom said soothingly. “All you have to do is go over to the Wilkinses and get the window. It’s been stored in the garage for five years so it’s bound to need a washing. Maybe you can borrow their hose.” She broke off and raised her voice. Alfie knew her face was turned to the ceiling. He knew her expression. “Alfie, will you come down out of that attic?”

He did not answer.

“Alfie, you come down this minute or I’m coming up after you.”

He remained silent, staring at the trap door.

“Alfie!” It was a command now. “Come down this minute!”

Slowly he turned and eased himself down onto his chair. He was trembling a little. He breathed deeply of the warm attic air and sighed.

A
LFIE WAS STILL SITTING
in the attic. His arms were stretched out across the table. His hands were flat on the worn plastic top. It was beginning to get dark.

Below, the family was in the kitchen, eating supper.

“Alfie, you hear me?” his mother had called just before they went in. “Supper’s ready. It’s on the table.”

He had not answered.

“Alma fixed it and she’s going to be real hurt if you don’t come down. What’d you fix, Alma?”

“Liver.”

“Won’t be no additives in that,” Pap mumbled.

“It’s something real good, Alfie, something you like,” his mother lied.

She had paused and then she had started thumping on the trap door with the handle of a broom. It was something she used to do in anger when they were living in an apartment and the Nolans made too much noise upstairs. Alfie remembered how angry her face had looked when she did it.

She had given him three more loud thumps with the broom handle and then, abruptly, had given up. “You try, Pap,” she said.

“Try what?” He sounded startled.

“Getting him down.”

“Well, how am I going to get him down if you can’t? You’re his
mother
.”

“You can force the door open, can’t you? You do that and
I’ll
get him down.”

“He’s got that door fastened somehow,” Pap said in a worried voice. “I went up and pushed on it. Alma saw me. I didn’t want to push too hard lest he was standing on it. I didn’t want to topple him.”

“Pap, get up there and force that door open. I don’t care if you topple him from here to China. This has gone on long enough.”

“Forcing a door ain’t like it is in the movies,” Pap warned. “Doors don’t just spring open with one kick. I had to force a door in a New Orleans hotel one time and I know. Me and two men worked on that door the best part of fifteen minutes. Never did get it open. The bellhop finally had to go in through the transom. And that was a regular door in a
wall.
How am I going to force a door that’s in the
ceiling
?”

“With your hard head!” Abruptly her tone changed. “Oh, I don’t care what you force it with, Pap. Just get it open, please.”

“Give him a count of three,” Pap begged, playing for time. He had always believed, Alfie knew, that if you waited long enough, everything would turn out all right by itself. “Don’t be too hasty” was his lifelong motto.

Alfie glanced over at the barricaded door. He could imagine Pap standing at the bottom of the ladder, his worn face turned up to the task ahead.

In a strained voice Pap said, “Alfie, this is Pap speaking. Your ma’s going to give you a count of three, and if you come down, why, then everything’ll be all right. We’ll go in the kitchen like nothing happened and enjoy whatever it is Alma’s cooked and not a word will be said about the attic or any locked doors. We’ll—”

“Quit stalling,” his mother said impatiently.

“Your ma’s going to count now, Alfie. She’ll give you till three, and if you don’t come down, well, then she’s going to make me force the door open. I don’t want to. I’m seventy-eight years old, but she’s going to make me. All right, Alfie, your ma’s going to count. Go ahead, Lily, he’s ready.”

“One …” his mother began.

Alfie could imagine the two of them standing together at the foot of the ladder, both faces turned upward. In his mind they were as unimportant as ants.

Pap burst out with, “She’s counting, Alfie.”

“Two …”

Alfie turned his head. He stared at the end of the attic where the window would be if he let them come up and install it. The last of the afternoon sun slanted between the boards.

“Three!” There was a silence, and then his mother snapped, “I knew it wouldn’t work. Now get up there and open that door.”

“Alfie,” Pap called, “she’s making me come up the ladder, me who don’t even like to get up on a chair to change a light bulb. Come on down, Alfie. For Pap.”

There was a creaking noise below as Pap took the first rung of the ladder. “I’m coming,” he said wearily. It sounded as sad as the beginning of an old spiritual. “I’m nothing but an old tired elephant anyway who’s no more use to—”

“Pap,
please
don’t start on the old-tired-elephant routine.” His mother was all but screaming with frustration and anger. “I simply cannot stand it. Just get up there and get that door open!”

“Well, I can’t go but one rung at a time. You want the door forced open so bad,
you
come up and do it. I’m seventy-eight years old.”

“All right, Pap, just get him down at your leisure,” his mother said in a voice of forced calm. “Take all evening going up the ladder if you want. I’ll serve you supper on the ladder. I’ll bring your pipe and slippers to the ladder. Only
get him down
!”

Pap reached up with one hand and knocked at the trap door. “Alfie, you up there?”

“Pap, we
know
he’s up there,” his mom said. She was still trying to be patient. “We saw him go up there. If I wanted someone to knock politely at the door, I’d have sent for Amy Vanderbilt. Alma, get the crowbar. It’s under the sink.”

“I’m not having any part of this,” Alma said in a quiet voice.

“Well, get out of my way then,” his mother said.