Headmates #2
“I’ll get paid again Sunday,” he told her.
“I can’t wait for Sunday.”
He felt a bit of impatience then. He was already using most of his time on the weekends mowing lawns and washing cars, couldn’t she recognize that?
He felt that impatience sometimes, almost like a descending influence.
An inheritance from his father, maybe. A voice he didn’t want to own.
It came up with the kids, and sometimes with his mother, but he could usually swallow it down.
This time, he didn’t. “Why?” he demanded.
She didn’t want to tell him, but he pushed, for the first time becoming the monster they accused him of being.
A little, at least. Days and months and years later he would look back at the moment and hate himself for it.
Because she did tell him, and in a voice hoarse with embarrassment she said she didn’t have any more tampons, and when she used toilet paper it always made a mess in the bed overnight—a bed she shared with little Lola who had already asked, more than once, if she was dying.
“I’ll get it,” he told her. “The money.”
But he couldn’t get the money. His mother was doing an overnight at the hospital, and Gloria had warned him never to take money from his father.
“Not even a penny.” He knew it was because of him.
Because his father had run away when he found out Gloria was pregnant.
But this wasn’t about his mother now; it was about Rosa.
He steeled himself and called his father.
It was another thing he never did. Gloria was the one who called him.
Mostly to yell. “Do you even remember what your son looks like?” she would say after he had broken another promise to visit.
That was something Luke always found strange.
Because his father would be the one to suggest the visits, and his mother would always answer that he wasn’t welcome.
But then after Luke spent the day sitting out on the stairs waiting, Gloria would call and call, leaving virulent messages when Adrian dared ignore her.
Luke wasn’t sure if that was happening now too.
Maybe his father thought it was Gloria calling, or maybe he just wasn’t home.
It was impossible to tell with a phone call, so he went to visit.
He didn’t like going over there. Sometimes the landlord would see him and demand rent from him, or one of Adrian’s girlfriends would want to talk to him.
Sometimes they did that because they thought it was what Adrian wanted, and other times they wanted Luke to do something for them.
Like getting promises from Adrian, or getting information.
He didn’t know why they bothered. He knew even less than they did.
It was his first time showing up without an invitation.
It made him particularly nervous. Half the time his father forgot his invitations in the first place, and that was always awkward.
Adrian would be sleeping, or having guests, and sometimes he was having sex.
His father had a lot of sex, but supposedly Luke was his only child.
“He’s careful with the rest of his whores,” he’d overheard Gloria saying to Titi once. “Must have learned his lesson with me.”
Luke didn’t have money for the subway fare, so he walked.
His cousins always ducked the barrier, but someone his size couldn’t get away with that.
It was a long walk, and a cold one, so his hands weren’t working properly by the time he knocked on the door.
He knocked three times only to find out he’d wasted his anxiety.
His father wasn’t home, and there was no point in just standing there.
It wouldn’t summon his father, and even if it did, that was no guarantee his father would solve his problem.
Adrian had never helped before, why would he start now?
But Luke still stood there for several minutes more.
He told himself it was just to warm up before heading back out into the cold, but mostly it was because he didn’t want to go to the next phase of his plan.
He had to take the money from the cookie tin in the closet. He had done that before, but always with his mother’s permission. This was different. He wrote a note and stuck it in the tin, hoping he’d be able to replace the money before she noticed it was missing.
He knew the tampons Rosa used. She kept the box in the cupboard under the bathroom sink.
What he hadn’t known until then was that they were the cheapest ones in the store.
“You don’t want those,” a passing woman said as he picked up the box.
“Not unless you want your girlfriend to hate you. Here.” And she pushed a box that was twice the price into his hands.
He could see why they were better, even without looking inside.
But he had only taken five dollars from the cookie tin, and the nice tampons were $8.
79. For a second, he thought about just taking them.
Mateo did things like that sometimes, and he was good at it too.
No one had ever caught him. But Mateo was Mateo and Luke was Luke.
Besides, even Mateo would have balked at the box of tampons. It was too big. Unwieldy .
Luke set the box of tampons back on the shelf and reached for the cheap ones.
Rosa wouldn’t mind. They were the ones she used anyway.
But he couldn’t close his hands around them.
Instead, he picked up the good tampons and tucked them under his arm.
He found the lady in the next aisle debating face creams. He had to try three times before any sound would come out of his throat, and he even walked away once when his courage failed, but he forced his feet to turn back around before he could turn the end of the aisle.
“I don’t have enough money for these.” He was sure he would die from the shame of it. His face was on fire, and his throat was all closed up. But he forced the next words out anyway. “But I get paid again on Sunday. If you can lend me four dollars, I’ll return it then.”
He offered up the watch on his wrist. It was one of those cheap ones that cost less than ten dollars. Not collateral in any sense of the word, but it was the only thing he had to offer. He didn’t dare look her in the face. In another moment, he was going to pass out.
But she didn’t take the watch. She took the tampons he was holding under his arm and put them in her basket.
He didn’t realize why at first. He just stood there stupidly, holding his ugly watch.
But then she said, “Come,” and all he could do was follow her.
She went right to the counter and paid for the things in the handbasket.
He was astounded at some of the items. A single energy bar that cost four dollars.
A face cream that cost forty-two. All told, her small basket of purchases was eighty-seven fifty.
Nearly a hundred dollars on just a few items. He couldn’t believe it.
She had the cashier put the tampons in a separate bag, and when they neared the exit, she pushed them into his hand. He already had his wallet out, but she wouldn’t take the money.
“No need for that,” she said.
He supposed it made sense to give it all to her at once. “I’ll bring it Sunday,” he said. “But I’ll need your address.”
“What’s her name? ”
He opened his mouth and realized he had no idea who she was talking about. “What?”
She pointed at the bag. “Your girlfriend.”
He meant to say, “I don’t have a girlfriend,” but he was conditioned to answer questions, and his mouth said, “Rosa” before he could correct her.
She smiled at him. It might have been the first time a stranger had ever smiled at him. “Tell Rosa she should eat foods high in vitamin C. That helps. Does she bleed heavily?”
“Um.”
“If she does, she should be taking iron too. And vitamin C helps with iron absorption, so she should take them together. Remember that.”
He was getting confused. “The address. I need—”
She patted his cheek. She had to reach up quite a bit to do it. She wasn’t tall. Then again, few people were. Not compared with him. “Don’t you worry about that, sweetheart. Just get home to Rosa.”
It was only as she turned to go that he finally realized what was happening. Charity. She was giving him charity.
He caught hold of her arm. He should have known better than to do that—he did know better, but in his shock, he just grabbed hold of her. She jerked a little, though at least she didn’t scream. That had happened in the summer when he’d tried to give a woman back the wallet she had dropped.
“I can get the money. I just need until Sunday.”
“But I don’t need money.”
It was the strangest thing he’d heard anyone say.
Didn’t need money? Everyone needed money, and going by her shopping habits, she needed it particularly.
Forty-two dollars for what couldn’t have been more than two ounces of cream.
He was trying not to think about how many pounds of rice that could buy.
“I can do other things. Do you have a lawn? A car? I can—”
She shook his arm free, and he could see the look on her face was changing. She was getting annoyed with him. But why? He was trying to fix it. “I can fix things. And I’m good with numbers. I do my mother’s taxes. I can—”
“Why don’t you go on home to Rosa?” she said, and it came out sounding a little like his mother when she was done talking about something. That was when he realized the final thing. She didn’t want him coming to her house.
He stepped back. He’d always thought it was his size.
It was the first thing people noticed about him—but not, he now understood, the only thing.
He looked down at himself. At the hole where his big toe had pushed at his sneaker, and his sweatshirt with the paint marks that didn’t come out in the wash and maybe other things that he couldn’t see.
Things he didn’t know because he had too little money.