Spare Change (8 page)

Bernice Wilson was the teller on duty. Bernice had been working at the
bank for eighteen years and took pride in her ability to remember every
customer and the details of their account. But, when Susanna said she wanted to
withdraw eleven hundred dollars from her savings account, Bernice stood there
with the blankest look imaginable plastered across her face. “Excuse me?” she
finally said, and Susanna repeated the request.  Without any change of
expression, Bernice slid open her customer card file and one by one flipped
through the cards. When she got to the end of the drawer, she scrunched her
nose, and reversed direction. Going back to front she rechecked every card in
the drawer. After a good fifteen minutes, she looked up and said, “You don’t
have an account with us.” 

Susanna laughed a nervous little twitter that sounded somewhat like a
gasp, “Of course I do,” she said, “a joint account, with my husband Benjamin.”

“Oh, Benjamin Doyle’s account!”

Susanna breathed a sigh of relief.

“He closed that out, a week ago last Tuesday.”

“Impossible.”

“I waited on him myself. Mister Doyle withdrew the money and said he
didn’t see any reason for holding onto an empty account, so I closed it,” she
pushed a small card beneath the bars of the teller window. “See, right there, that’s
his signature.” The face of the card was stamped with bold black letters that
read—account closed.

“But…”  Susanna’s eyes welled with tears.

“He took the money in cash,” Bernice called out as Susanna fled through
the door.

For a long while Susanna sat in the car and cried. After all those
nights of working, every cent of her tip money was gone. There would be no New
York. No New York, no singing career. For the rest of her life there would be
nothing but soy beans and the dry dust of summer. She could picture her heart
being torn from its rightful place and shoved into a graveyard of dreams; a
place where singers were impaled on the shards of broken records and the only
sound to be heard was that of sobbing. It was one thing for Benjamin to grab
hold of her breast and pinch until a purple spot in the shape of his thumb
appeared, but it was quite another to rip away the flesh of her hopes, piece by
painful piece. After almost two hours Susanna dried her eyes and drove to the
diner.

As soon he caught sight of her face, Scooter said, “What’s
wrong?”      

By that time, her eyes had puffed to the shape and color of an overripe
tomato. “Did you mean what you said?” she asked, “…about us running off
together?” Without waiting to hear his answer, she hurled herself up against
his body and stretched her arms around his waist for as far as they could
reach.

“Course I did, Sugar,” Scooter answered. “There ain’t nothing I
wouldn’t do for you, I done told you that.”

“What if I was to ask you to take me to New York City?” Susanna pushed
her mouth into the folds of his neck and suckled them. “Would you do that?” she
asked in a breathy whisper.

“I suppose,” he answered a bit hesitantly. “You mean for a vacation?”

“Un-uh,” She slid her hand along the mound of his stomach and reached
for the bulge in his crotch. “I’m talking about forever,” she sighed, “You and
me, pleasuring each other, night after night after night.”

Scooter, a man who fought hand-to-hand combat in the war and came away
unscathed, was no match for Susanna. Once she ran her tongue along the edge of
his ear, he forgot he had a wife at home; he no longer cared about the
customers who would line up at the diner door looking for their morning coffee,
and he never gave Benjamin a thought. Susanna could do that to a man. “When?”
he asked. 

“Tomorrow morning,” she answered, edging her hand toward his crotch.
“I’ll come to work tonight, like nothing’s wrong, then tomorrow morning we’ll
drive over to Norfolk and catch the ten-thirty train. Ethan Allen can meet us
here.”

“The boy? He’s coming?”

“Well sure. You can’t expect me to leave him on the farm with
Benjamin.”   

For a fleeting moment, Scooter remembered his own son who would indeed
be left behind, but when Susanna pushed her tongue inside his mouth, the
thought was quickly forgotten.

Benjamin Doyle

I
suppose I always
knew a woman like Susanna could be trouble, but there wasn’t a damn thing I
could do to hold back from falling for her. 

She’s a woman who drives a man crazy with that body of
hers; and she can please you in ways other women ain’t even dreamt of. The
first time I laid with Susanna, I knew right then, I’d be craving her till the
day I died. Maybe I should’ve realized such a woman wouldn’t ever settle down,
but I figured once we was married and had a kid, things would change.  They
did. They got worse. 

The kid, Ethan Allen, he’s a lot like her. They figure I’m blind, but I
see them whispering secrets back and forth and I know damn good and well what
they’re up to.

Susanna keeps filling the kid’s head with a lot of bullshit about going
to New York, when the truth is nobody’s going nowhere. She’s got no talent and
I got no money. How’s that for a shit-sorry life?

No Hell Like Home

W
hen Susanna arrived back at the
house, Ethan Allen was out in the field shooting at the groundhogs who’d been
digging up what was left of the soybeans; Benjamin was in the yard, hosing a
splatter of dirt from his new tractor. “Where you been?” he asked.

“At the bank,” she answered; her voice cold and sharp as a razor.

Benjamin gave her an icy cold look but stayed with the hosing.

“I wanted to withdraw my money…”

“For what?” he asked sarcastically, “A trip to New York?”

“It
was
my
money! You had no right!”

“I got every right!” he shouted. “I’m
your husband. I say what money gets spent on! This tractor’s more important
than some jerkwater notion of you becoming a singer!”

Susanna scooped a rock from the ground and hurled it at Benjamin’s
head. He ducked and the rock cracked hard against the side of the tractor. 
“Jesus Christ!” he shouted, then came running across the yard and grabbed hold
of her hair. He all but dragged Susanna back to where the tractor was standing;
“See what you’ve done!” he shouted and shoved her nose into the dent. 

“You think I give a fuck about this tractor!” she answered defiantly.
That thing’s a worthless piece of shit far as I’m concerned!”

“Worthless? You call a tractor that cost more’n a thousand dollars,
worthless?”

“I’d call anything
you
got an interest in, worthless!”

“I had enough of your mouth,” Benjamin said; then he raised his hand
and whacked Susanna hard enough to send her sprawling across the yard.

Ethan Allen, who was walking back from the field, saw it happen. He
took off running and came at Benjamin. “No, Daddy, no!” he shouted. 

“Keep outta this!” Benjamin roared. He yanked the shotgun from the
boy’s grip and smacked him to the ground. “You dare raise a hand to me, you’ll
get worse than she got!” With a disgusted sneer he turned and strode off.   

After Susanna had gathered herself from the ground, she went to the boy
and said, “Don’t worry, we’re still going to New York City.” She told Ethan
Allen he was to stay clear of his daddy until after dark, then slip off to the
diner and meet her. “Scooter’s going with us,” she confided, “he’s gonna see to
it we got everything we want, he’s even gonna take you to see that Yankee game
you been itching to see.”

“Does Daddy know?”

“Shit no,” Susanna answered. “That’s why it’s
real
important for
you to keep clear of him—one wrong word and the cat’s out of the bag.”

Ethan Allen nodded.

“And, don’t you pack no clothes. That’s a dead giveaway.”

“I gotta bring my mitt!”

“Okay, the mitt—nothing else!”

“What about Dog?”

Susanna gave him a look of disbelief. “No Dog,” she said.

“But, Mama…”

“No buts.”

“I can’t leave Dog here with Daddy,” Ethan Allen whined, “He’ll shoot
him in the heart soon as he finds out we’re gone.”

Susanna knew such a thing was true for Benjamin always claimed the dog
was a reminder of her whoring night. “Okay,” she relented, “you can bring Dog,
but not another thing—not a toothbrush or even a stick of gum.”

“I swear,” Ethan Allen promised, making the sign of the cross over his
heart. He breezed through the kitchen, latched onto a wrapper of bologna and a
half loaf of bread, then disappeared out the back door.

T
hroughout the afternoon, as the
sound of dishes breaking and pots clattering against the wall echoed through
the trees, Ethan hunkered down in the fort; the fielder’s mitt in his lap and
Dog by his side. He listened to a barrage of angry words fly back and forth; it
was the same as always, he’d heard it a thousand times before. After a while,
they’d tire of the name calling and go off to the bedroom together; then it
would quiet down. On this day however, such a thing never happened. The voices
continued to grow louder and angrier; which is why Ethan Allen took to keeping
his eye on the house. After a particularly violent exchange of words, Susanna
ran from the house with a valise tucked under her arm—her audition dresses were
the only thing she couldn’t stand to leave behind.  

Benjamin followed her out shouting, “Get your ass back in this
house!”     

“Like hell I will!” she answered. “I had enough of you and your
bullshit! I’m going to New York and nothing on earth can stop me!” She tossed
the valise into the back of the car but before she could slide behind the
wheel, Benjamin’s fist came up beneath her chin with such force that it lifted
her from her feet. When Susanna dropped to the ground, there was a loud
cracking of bone and she made no effort to move.

Benjamin stood looking down at her for what seemed to be the longest
time; then he said, “Okay, enough pretending, now get up!” He nudged her with
the toe of his shoe, but still she did not move.

Peering through the lower limb of a Douglas fir, Ethan Allen whispered,
“Come on, Mama, please get up.”  

Twice more Benjamin poked her with his foot; then he shouted, “Okay,
bitch, stay there, see if I care!” and stomped back into the house.  Moments
later he came back with a folded towel, and tucked it beneath her head. “I’m
sorry,” he mumbled tearfully, “I didn’t mean to do this.” He lifted Susanna
into his arms, and carried her inside, promising over and over again that such
a thing would never happen again. 

Afterwards, there was no more arguing to be heard. Ethan Allen,
figuring Susanna would be awhile smoothing things over with Benjamin, went back
to the fort to wait. Dog, having eaten most of the bologna, rolled over onto
his side. Ethan Allen, caught up in his thoughts of going to New York, didn’t
feel much like sleeping so he turned on the radio and listened as the Orioles
battled the Boston Red Sox. When Brooks Robinson drove home two runs with a
double in the top of the ninth, the Orioles got hold of the lead. ‘
Looks
like our birds are just three outs from getting a big win here at Fenway,’
Chuck Thompson said, but Ethan paid little attention.

Ordinarily, in such a situation the boy’s ear would have been pinned to
the radio, but on this particular day he was listening for something else. He
was waiting to hear the sound of his mama slamming out the door and tearing off
down the drive, but so far there hadn’t been anything other than a
deep-throated sobbing that every so often stopped and started.

 In the bottom of the ninth Zuverink struck out Jensen, then Klaus, and
the win seemed a sure thing; so Ethan Allen left the game and slipped out of
the fort. He crept through the stand of trees and inched closer to the house,
wondering if maybe he’d missed the sound of Susanna leaving. But no, her car
was still parked in the driveway with the front door hanging open. “Shit fire,
Mama,” he mumbled, “get a move on.” It was one thing to be late for work on any
other night, but not
this
night! If Benjamin had stomped off to the barn
as he usually did, Ethan could have gone inside and told Susanna, who at times
was damned irresponsible, to get hurrying—but, Benjamin was still inside the
house.    

Ethan moved closer and crouched behind the stump of an oak tree; he
tilted his ear every which way, but still could not catch wind of what was
happening. Susanna had told him to stay clear of Benjamin, but it was late in
the afternoon, a time when she ought to be playing the radio and snapping on
some lamps and the house was still dark with no sign of anyone moving about. He
circled around the far end of the barn and came up on the side of the house
where he’d be able to see into her bedroom.  Stretching his neck, Ethan saw his
mama lying on the bed, still wearing the same shorts and halter she had on
earlier, not even starting to ready herself for work. “Shit fire!” he grumbled,
figuring this to be another of those situations when she’d promise to do
something and then forget about it. He stood and turned to walk away; then he
spotted Benjamin sitting at the foot of the bed, hunched over and slobbering a
string of words about how he was sorrier than he’d ever been in his whole
entire life.