Riding In Cars With Boys by Beverly Donofrio Read Free Book Online

cousin Jeannie’s store, and every time I went there, she threw a box of goodies in my bag, like Ring Dings or Drake’s Coffee Cakes or a gallon of ice cream.
    “No,” I said.
    She opened the refrigerator and lifted the quart of milk. “You need more milk.” She opened the freezer. “That was the last can of juice? I’ll pick some up.”
    She washed the cups and left.
    I turned on the TV and watched my soaps with Bam Bam; then at around five I told the Bammer to go home for dinner. I opened up a can of sloppy joe mix, put two hamburger buns on each of our plates, and warmed some Green Giant corn. Sometimes Ray and I sat in front of the TV and ate off snack trays, but tonight I thought we’d sit on the back stoop, where it was cooler.
    When Ray hadn’t shown up by five-thirty, I sat on the stoop with my plate balanced on my knees and tried not to get too worried. The first few times Ray was late I let my imagination run away, picturing him in his car wrapped around a tree or swallowed by a machine at work or simply driving and driving away from me and out of sight. But this time I figured he was probably just getting shitfaced as usual in a bar with some guy from work I’d never met.
    After I finished dinner, I switched to the front stoop to watch for Ray’s car. I hoped Bam Bam and Berta and Betty, his two beautiful five- and six-year-old sisters, would show. Berta and Betty had bright red hair and startling blue eyes, but they were always filthy dirty and ragged just like their little brother. I almost felt as sorry for Berta and Betty as I did for Bam Bam, because sometimes I’d look out at night and there the two of them would be—their curly heads in the dark—walking in the gutter, Berta in front, Betty in back, just walking up and down the street looking at their feet.
    They came running from their yard when they saw me. Bam Bam sat up close as I directed Berta and Betty in acrobatics. They did cartwheels around the rim of my yard, then crisscrossed each other in a big X, doing back flips. They did the routine over and over until they got the timing right and wound up in front of me at exactly the same moment. Then I taught them to curtsy, their arms curved like the necks of swans. I swear, the two of them would’ve made it to the Olympics if their aunt would only push them.
    It was just getting dark when Berta and Betty’s aunt stood on her back stoop and called, “Beeertaaa, Beeetteeey.” If she looked my way, she would’ve seen them, but she didn’t. Just stood on her stoop, round like an apple, with her hands cupped to her mouth, then went back in the house. Berta and Betty stopped dead in their tracks. The screen door slammed like a gunshot. They took off and didn’t look back. They never said goodbye.
    I heard Bam Bam rustling under the bush and making that whiny noise he did. I’d lost track of him, and now his knees were caked with dirt and there was snot dried on his face. “Crying out loud, Bam Bam,” I said. “Doesn’t your aunt ever wash you?” He smiled a slit smile and wagged his head back and forth real fast. “Want me to wash your face for you, Bammerang?” He kept shaking his head back and forth. I took a rag and loaded it with suds then washed his face like I was polishing a car. He squirmed around and squealed. It’s not that I was a nut for cleanliness. That was my mother. I think it was more that Bam Bam was the type of kid people naturally liked to torture—like the neighborhood psychopath, Andrew, who could chase Bam Bam with a willow whip for hours.
    Bam Bam pointed at the refrigerator, turned his palms up next to his shoulders, then shrugged them to his ears. He had some cute ways about him. You know how they say retarded people are closer to God? I believed that about Bam Bam. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body, and his life was pretty grim. I think his aunt wished he’d just disappear, get kidnapped or run over by a truck or something. You never heard her