The Poison Tree by Henry I. Schvey Read Free Book Online Page B

head.
    â€œHamburgers?”
    â€œOf course not, it’s my First Born’s special day; my Number One son; my Hen-yee!”
    â€œThen I don’t know.” I was disappointed; I wanted that TV dinner. But I couldn’t let on.
    â€œKeep guessing!”
    â€œI don’t know, Mom.”
    She then produced a huge stainless steel platter of steak from behind her back. The steaks were thick and bloody, and marbled with fat, and I felt immediately nauseous. But I smiled anyway.
    â€œVoila! Porterhouse steak with baked potatoes and sour cream. Corn on the cob! How’s that sound? Good?”
    â€œGreat, Mom!” I lied.
    She left and went back to the kitchen, humming “You Could Be Swinging on a Star,” leaving my father and me sitting there in front of the blank TV screen. It was August, and our Christmas game with the Good Guys and Bad Guys was so far in the future it might as well have been a hundred years away.
    We sat there in silence. Finally, I said, “The Yankees won today, Dad.”
    â€œUmm.”
    â€œYeah, Mantle hit one.” Silence. Then I said what I longed to say. “Guess what, Dad? I bowled a 168 in my last game at Doc’s.”
    â€œOh.”
    Another long pause followed. My bowling exploits weren’t getting me anywhere, either.
    â€œHow was tennis?”
    â€œUmm.”
    â€œYou played with Sy?”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œDid you win?”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œI said, did you win?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œYou don’t know if you won or not?” I couldn’t imagine playing any sport or game without keeping score or knowing who won, and by exactly how much.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œCan I turn on the TV?”
    â€œI just turned it off.”
    â€œOh.”
    From the kitchen Mom’s song wafted in along with the aroma of broiling meat. “A pig is an animal, with dirt on his face…” She had a nice singing voice in those days, but here she was singing about dirty pigs with terrible manners. Loud enough so that my father could hear. As she cooked, she went on breathlessly humming bits from “You Could be Swinging on a Star.”
    â€œWhat the hell is that she’s singing?”
    â€œJust some song by Bing Crosby.”
    â€œOh.”
    She must have noticed how quiet it was, because she said from the kitchen, “Let him turn on the television, Norman. It’s his birthday.” Dad said nothing, but he took a swallow of scotch and soda, and grunted something that I figured out meant it was okay to watch.
The Honeymooners
was on, and Mom set the table. Setting the table meant she took a bunch of silverware and flung it on the table in a pile. For some reason, that was how she always set the table, throwing the silver down like that; she never realized how this made my father’s blood boil. I noticed his moustache twitch, as it always did when he was simmering and about to explode, but Mom never saw it. Neither could she hear another telltale sign; a faint whirr like a hum which he emitted when he was about to storm. Mom cheerfully called Bobby in. He said, “Hey—I thought we couldn’t watch TV!”
    â€œIt’s my Hen-yee’s birthday today,” Mom sang. She brought out individual shrimp cocktails in glistening crystal sherbet cups. These cups were wedding gifts and were almost never used.
    â€œWhere’s the cocktail sauce?” Dad asked.
    â€œThere’s lemon and there’s ketchup,” she said. “You want ketchup?”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œFor the shrimp cocktail, of course. You just said—”
    â€œI like ketchup!” chirped Bobby. No one listened or cared.
    â€œDon’t bother,” Dad said. He took a large shrimp, pulled off the tail and devoured the meat. Then he sucked the tail to make sure nothing was left. It made a slurping sound.
    â€œI’m sorry, but I’ve been out