Ugly Behavior (23 page)

She didn’t expect anything from him, or at least that’s what she
said. He got a small social security check every month which he just signed
over to her, leaving it under the peanut butter jar in the pantry. They never
talked about it, but those checks got cashed.

He had no use for spending money. He used to drink. About fifteen
years ago he stopped, and he couldn’t have told you why. One day he just woke
up and decided he didn’t care to anymore. It might not be permanent—he
reserved the right to start up again at any time. Maybe if this living with
family thing didn’t work out. And he’d been a smoker until recently, quitting
cold turkey when he moved in with her. He actually liked the discomfort the
craving for it gave him. It kept him focused.

 
For entertainment he
read old paperbacks people threw away; he didn’t care which ones. He never
turned on the TV. Almost everything on it seemed stupid to him, including the
news. When the boy turned on the cartoons and Monte was in the living room, he
either left the room or made himself fall asleep. Falling asleep was
easy—it was the waking up that was hard.

His daughter had had a lot of boyfriends. He made himself not
think about that too much. He was no one to judge, but she had a history of
making bad choices. Maybe she learned that from him. It made life pretty hard
sometimes. And possibly dangerous. None of his business, but she had a kid to
think of.

Pete, the current boyfriend, wasn’t there much, either working
late, or out hitting the bars, doing the kind of things guys of that age and
type usually do. Guys like Pete didn’t have much going for them. Monte had been
a guy like Pete, pretty much. Monte guessed if he were healthier, he’d still be
a guy like Pete. Monte guessed it was a good thing Pete was gone so much. He
also guessed Pete was cheating on her. Something about the way Pete was when he
came in late, the way he kissed her. And the way Pete talked about how much
he’d had to do that day—just a little too eager. Monte recognized that
particular performance. Shit, he practically invented it. Most men were
terrible liars, transparent as hell. The only way a woman could buy such crap
was because she wanted to. He figured his daughter was just desperate for the
company. If she truly believed Pete’s garbage, well then, she was worse off
than Monte thought.

Monte could also see that Pete had a dangerous side. He just
didn’t know how dangerous. He watched the two of them together, even when they
probably thought he was sleeping. They had arguments, some of them bad. Hearing
his daughter cursing and shouting at her man made Monte angry, but he wasn’t
sure why. It was none of his business. And Pete sure deserved it. But she was
aggravating Pete. Things were okay for now—there was a balance going on,
but that could end any time. Monte had seen some bad things. But maybe this
would be okay.

If they got too loud, Monte would just turn up his radio.
Everybody had a messy life. She didn’t need Monte to defend her—she knew
what she was getting into. He’d never met her boy’s father, but he didn’t need
to. Monte reckoned he was the same kind of guy as Pete. One thing Monte knew
about women—they stuck with what they knew.

The boy, his grandson, was a quiet boy, and a good boy. Seven
years old. A great age, from the little Monte could remember. Monte had had a
dog when he was about that age. Monte tried not to say too much to the boy
because he was afraid he’d fuck him up. He didn’t want to tell the boy it was
all downhill from here—maybe it would turn out different for him. Monte
didn’t believe it would, but sometimes things surprised him.

“Take off those jeans and let me mend them,” she said to the boy
and the boy did as she asked without saying a word. The three of them were in
the living room, Monte pretending to read the paper but he was actually more
interested in his daughter’s and the boy’s conversation. The truth was there
was never much interesting in the paper, just people behaving badly and he knew
all he wanted to know about that.

The boy wore white Pooh underpants with red trim. His T-shirt had
a picture of a honey pot on it. It looked kind of sissy but Monte didn’t say
anything.

His daughter sewed the tear in the left knee slowly and carefully
using small stitches. Monte wondered if she’d learned that from her mother.
“It’s important that no matter how poor you are you don’t go running around
wearing torn clothes,” his daughter told the boy. “Your grandpa taught me that.
He wouldn’t let his kids run around in torn clothes, no sir.” She glanced at
Monte then and he nodded at her. She’d made the whole thing up. Monte
considered whether she could have learned that from her mother as well.

He thought about the boy—“his grandson” was the way somebody
might say it. Somebody might ask him, “Is that your grandson?” and he’d have to
say, “Yes.” He couldn’t say why exactly, but that was a pretty big deal. It
surprised him that he could feel that way. But he couldn’t stop thinking about
the boy. He wondered if that meant he loved the boy. He didn’t like thinking
about that, it embarrassed him to think about that, but he couldn’t help
himself. It made him feel weak, but he’d been feeling weak for a very long time
now, so maybe it didn’t make any difference that he was weak. Weak was still
better than dead, most of the time.

“Dad, why don’t you tell Brian a goodnight story?”

“A goodnight story?”

“Brian, your grandpa is a great storyteller. When we were little
he told us stories every night to help us go to sleep.”

Why are you lying like this you stupid bitch? But Monte didn’t say
anything out loud. Brian walked slowly over to Monte’s chair and sat down on
the dark blue rug in front of him. The boy gazed up at him, waiting. Monte
figured the boy must have heard lots of goodnight stories before and this was
the way he’d been taught to listen to them.

Monte said to his daughter, “I don’t know any stories.”

“Sure you do, Dad. Everybody knows some stories.”

The boy, his grandson, was still waiting. Monte frowned down at
the boy, not knowing what to do. Monte started clearing his throat because
something was there, something was in there bothering him.

Then he just began talking. “A long time back, when I was just a
young man.” He stopped and spoke to the boy. “I’m not going to say ‘Once upon a
time.’ Is that okay by you?”

The boy said nothing and Monte took that for a yes. “I was older
than you, Brian. But I didn’t have a wife yet, or kids. I was a teenager, I
guess.” He glanced over at his daughter, who was watching him so seriously he
felt embarrassed and angry, so he looked away. “I never thought I’d have kids.
I never thought much of anything, past the particular day. I was never a
planner.” He stopped.

The boy appeared to be listening intently, but Monte knew he’d
already screwed up. This was no way to tell a kid’s story.

“But I had a serious problem. I guess you could say I had a giant
problem.” Monte felt himself dripping with sweat. But the kid seemed more
interested. “There was a giant in my life, tall as a house, wide as a four lane
highway. And that giant, he was always getting in my way, hassling me. He never
had a good word to say about me, or anybody else. And if you objected to
anything he said, you’d get the back of his hand, broad as an elephant’s
backside, right in your face. Some times he’d hit you so hard you’d be flying right
into—”

He paused, glanced at his daughter, who was staring at him. He
couldn’t tell if she approved or disapproved of his story—most likely she
didn’t much care for it. But she’d asked for it, hadn’t she?

“You’d be flying right into Never-Never land. Leastways, I think
that’s what they called it. Anyway, this went on for some years. Some days the
giant would be nice as pie. Apple Pie, I reckon, since that was always my
favorite. But most days he was just this big monster of a thing you’d best stay
away from. And on the worst days he would chase me around the house and when I
got mad about that he’d say I was really in for it. He’d say he had special
plans for me that I wasn’t going to like at all. Well, I had seen some examples
of his special plans, and no sir, they weren’t nice things for anybody to have
to go through.”

Monte looked at his daughter again, thinking Okay, you wanted me
to do this. See what happened? But he couldn’t tell at all what she was
thinking, which was really no surprise. He wondered if he’d gone too far, but
the boy didn’t look scared. The boy seemed very interested.

“That was when I knew I had to do something. I had to do something
to protect myself. Of course, killing is a bad thing, an evil thing. It’s
something a person should only do when they have to, to protect themselves or
the ones they…they love.”

Monte stopped, trying to think out the rest of the story. He knew
his daughter was watching him closely, but he avoided eye contact.

“But it’s okay to kill an evil giant, isn’t it? If I remember
right, that’s what Jack did in his story. Well, in my story I knew I had to do
pretty much the same thing. I was small for my age. A lot like you, Brian. I
was a tough little beggar, but I wouldn’t say I was strong. There’s a difference.
No, I wasn’t what you would call strong.

“But you don’t have to be strong to kill a giant, Brian. You don’t
even have to be big. You just have to be. Persistent, that’s the word for what
you have to be. That means you have to keep trying. You keep at it and you keep
at it until finally that job is done.

“So I was persistent, Brian. That giant drank a lot. I think a lot
of giants drink a lot. Giants just have giant appetites, I guess. And one night
that giant drank so much he fell fast asleep. And then I saw my chance. I went
into the kitchen. I was still in my pajamas. I went into the kitchen and I
opened the drawer and I found a giant knife. A giant knife for a giant.” Monte
tried to laugh but it sounded fake. It sounded high and strangled and not like
his regular laugh at all. “And I took that giant knife and I carried it into
the giant’s bedroom. The giant snored like most giants, so loud it made the
walls and floors and my own chest shake. It even made my hands shake.

“Then I climbed up on the giant’s bed with the knife and I just
kept at it. I kept at it and I kept at it until that giant was dead. End of
story.”

Monte glanced down at the boy and saw that he was asleep on the
floor. And he didn’t look worried. If anything it appeared he had a little smile
on his face. Monte’s daughter went over and picked up the boy and carried him
into his bedroom.

When his daughter got back she said, “That was quite a story,
Dad.”

“I think you must have heard some of that story before. Maybe from
your mother.”

“Maybe,” she replied. “Why did you tell him that story, anyway?”
She averted her gaze.

Can’t look me in the eye, Monte thought. “Don’t do that, honey,”
he said.

She appeared surprised. Monte tried to remember if he’d ever
called her “honey” before. He didn’t think so. He figured that’s what surprised
her.

“What are you talking about?”

“I think you know that’s my only story, the only one I have to
tell. I think you knew it was my only story when you asked me to tell him one.
I think the question should be why you wanted me to tell him that story.”

Pete got home during the middle of the night. Monte didn’t know
what time—he had no watch or clock of any kind. He just woke up to a
bunch of stomping, and cursing, and things getting knocked around, breaking.

He had to use the bathroom badly, but he didn’t want to walk out
there in the middle of all that. It wasn’t like he could do it quickly and
sneak back into bed. Everything took him a long time to do. He just hoped he
wouldn’t pee the bed again, or soak these old man pajamas that did a pretty
good job of keeping him warm. The last time his daughter didn’t say a
word—just took the wet sheets out of his hands and went to wash them. It
shamed him something terrible, but she could have made it worse and didn’t.

 
But the yelling and
the throwing went on another half-hour or more, and Monte was fit to burst. His
daughter was crying and he could ignore that, or almost, but he couldn’t ignore
his bladder. He crawled out of bed as quick as he could, but already he could feel
himself leaking a little. So he redoubled his efforts to hold it in, shuffling
down the hall toward the bathroom all bent over like he was a hundred years
old.

Monte didn’t intend to look at anything, just make a bee-line for
that bathroom, that is, if the bee was old and arthritic and the slowest bee
that still lived. But he was a little confused by the hall, and the shadows,
and all the noise. So he found himself peeking into doorways as he passed,
trying to remember where the bathroom was, and that’s when he saw Pete standing
in the living room, his daughter lying on the floor with her mouth bleeding,
and little Brian standing on the other side of the room, wedged into the
corner, crying, a big red mark tearing down one side of his face.

“Well, if it
ain’t
the man of leisure!”
Pete called drunkenly. “You best get on with what you were doing, old man!”

Monte’s groin buzzed with the pain. But he stopped, thinking about
it. Was he just going to go on down to the bathroom and pee? And then what?
What could he say when he got back? Or would he just hide out in the bathroom
until it was all over? Hell of a thing. He gazed at Brian, who had his hands up
over his face now, but still watching with one shocked white eye. Right then
the only sound in the room was his daughter’s torn breathing.