Family Blessings by Lavyrle Spencer Read Free Book Online Page B

black and slimy, and bunches of broccoli that looked fine to Chris. Trouble was, he hated broccoli. They came to oranges-- soft in spots but far from moldy.
    "Hey, these look good yet," Chris had said.
    "Not good enough to sell."
    "Mind if I eat one?"
    "Don't mind at all. Here, have two. Have three." Chris caught the three oranges as the man tossed them his way.
    That day he took home oranges, wilted carrots and something called spaghetti squash, which tasted like fodder when he peeled and cooked it. His little sister, Jeannie, complained, "But I don't like it!"
    "Eat it!" he'd ordered. "It's good for you and it's another nine days before the old man gets his welfare check."
    But they both knew the old man and old lady had to buy their booze first. They bought most of it in a dive the kids referred to as "The Hole," a block from the apartment, down one level from the street, a dank, smoky basement bar where the old man went as soon as he got up in the morning, and where the old lady joined him straight from work. She was a fry cook in a truck stop out on Highway 10, gone from the apartment before the kids woke up in the morning, most nights stumbling home after they'd gone to bed.
    Both the old man and old lady were at The Hole the day Christopher came home with the knot in his gut about the black slacks. He boiled Jeannie some macaroni and mixed it with Campbell's tomato soup and after she went to bed, he waited up for his parents.
    They came in around midnight, arguing as usual. When they stumbled in, stinking like a barroom floor, the old man wavered in his tracks and spoke with slack lips anchoring a smoking cigarette.
    "What the hell you still doing up?"
    "I gotta talk to you."
    "At midnight, for Chrissake! Punk like you oughta be in bed."
    "I would be if you'd have gotten home at a decent hour!"
    "You're some smart-ass kid, you know that! Don't tell me when to come home and when not to! I still wear the pants in this family!"
    He sure did. They were filthy and smelled bad, like all the rest of him, and hung like a hammock below his protruding beer belly.
    "I need some money for a pair of slacks."
    "You got jeans."
    "Black ones."
    "Black ones!" he exploded. "What the hell you need black ones for!
    "For a band uniform. We're marching in a parade and everyone needs to wear white shirts and black slacks."
    "A parade! Jesus Christ, they think I got money to fork over every time a parade comes to town! Tell your band director to come over here and tell me to my face that I got to foot the bill for any goddamn band uniform! I'll tell him a thing or two!"
    His mother spoke up. "Shh, Ed, shut up for God's sakes! You're gonna wake up Jeannie!"
    "Don't tell me to shut up, Mavis! This is my goddamn house! I can yell as loud as I want to in it!"
    "Dad, I need the money."
    "Well, I haven't got it!"
    "You had enough to get drunk tonight. Both you and Ma."
    "You just watch your mouth, sonny!"
    "It's the truth."
    "There's nothin' wrong with a man having a little drink or two, and I don't need any smart-ass kid like you tellin' me when I've had enough!"
    "Ed, don't start in on him."
    "You always stick up for him, goddamn it! Smart-ass kid's got no respect for his elders, that's what. Anytime a smart-ass kid tells his own father--" He belched unexpectedly, his slack lips flapping, the bags under his eyes nearly doing the same.
    "I'll be the only one without black slacks."
    "Well, that's just too bad, ain't it! Goddamn government bleeds a man for taxes to build schools, then they come beggin' for more!
    You can wear the jeans you got on, and if that ain't good enough for em, screw em."
    "Dad, please . . . everyone's wearing maroon-and-black capes and my blue jeans will look--" "Capes!" Ed's head jutted forward.
    "Capes!Jesus Christ, what're they turning out over there, a bunch of sissies! Capes!" He bellowed with laughter, the buttons over his belly straining as he bent back. With a jeering stare at his son, he straightened, pulled the