Little Bird of Heaven (33 page)

That night at supper Zoe saw the swollen hand and asked what the hell had happened to him but quickly Krull pulled away his hurt-boy-face set in opposition to her like a clenched fist, didn’t want his mother to touch him, not ever again.

A
UGUST
1981

S
IX YEARS AT MINIMUM WAGE
, treated like shit by prune-faced old Adele Honeystone who rarely had a smile for her just plain jealous of Zoe’s popularity with customers especially men, abruptly Zoe quit. Busiest time of a Sunday afternoon in summer, Zoe quit. Adele was saying in this simpering voice like there’s a poker up her bony rear
Zoe please could you sponge the counter here it’s so sticky!—use the clean sponge please not the old dirty one THANK YOU
and Zoe stood very still not daring to speak nor even to move and then slowly detached the God-damned fucking hairnet from her hair wadded it into a ball and tossed it into the trash.

“No, ma’am. I don’t think so.”

“What?”

“I said no, ma’am. I don’t think so. I quit.”

Oh this was a long time coming! Months and even years of hiding her resentment behind sweet-Zoe smiles, needing the extra cash, Delray refused to help finance anything to do with what he called her
music career
like it was a joke and not Zoe’s oldest dream from when she’d been a girl.
Music career
was something Zoe would have to find money for herself and so God damn she’d swallowed her pride and her fury having to endure being criticized by snotty Mrs. Honeystone for scooping too much ice cream for customers, heaping too many nuts and too much Reddi-wip onto sundaes, most of all what Mrs. Honeystone called
carrying-on—
laughing like a banshee
—meaning flirting with the (male, admiring) customers and generally having a good time.

So, every nerve twitching in her body, Zoe quit.

“Zoe,
what? What
did you say?”—the astonished old woman was staring at Zoe through thick-lensed bifocals like some docile pet had kicked up at her, or nipped her—following Zoe around the counter and in the direction of the door as customers looked on alert and smiling, bemused—“Zoe, you can’t
just quit!
Not
like this!
Don’t be silly, Zoe, put your hairnet
back on,
you can’t
just quit
in the middle of—”

“Ma’am, I said I quit. Get someone else to put up with your old-biddy shit, ma’am. Zoe has had it.”

Ma’am. Old-biddy shit. Zoe has had it.
These words uttered in Zoe Kruller’s sweetest girl-singer voice would pass into local Sparta legend, by sundown of that very Sunday.

In the wake of Zoe Kruller walking out of the dairy like a stage actress tossing down her hairnet, untying her apron and laying it on a counter there teemed rumors like rushing water in a gutter: Zoe had in fact been
behaving strangely
for months not just at Honeystone’s but elsewhere. Wouldn’t be surprised if Zoe had been
embezzling
from Honeystone’s or at any rate pocketing money instead of ringing it up in the cash register or possibly stealing outright though no one could claim to have seen her. Anyway it was known—in some circles it seemed to be known—that Zoe was
slipping around
with some man not her husband except which man?—the guitarist for that hillbilly band was too young for her but knowing Zoe it might’ve been him, or the old-guy fiddler you could see gazing at her with such love right on the bandstand, had to be embarrassing for the old guy’s family. And there were men, a half-dozen, a dozen, who patronized Honeystone’s frequently but only on weekends when Zoe Kruller worked, and making sure, when they did, that Zoe and not another clerk waited on them. Zoe’s quick sharp laugh sounded like
uppers, speed
—amphetamines—a kind of epidemic in Sparta of women and girls addicted to diet pills—cheerleaders at the high school, nurses
at Sparta General, housewives, even grandmas.
Speed
was most popular with working women in their thirties hoping to maintain some edge of glamour and vivacity.

It made a woman sexy, too. Sexed-up:
hot.

Nastiest rumors had to do with Delray: he was the one who’d forced Zoe to quit her job out of jealousy, resenting the men Zoe was meeting at Honeystone’s. Yet more, Delray resented Zoe singing with that country-music band. Delray was an ex-con, ex-biker, wife-beater. It was known he was one-quarter or maybe one-half Indian. You could see the Seneca features clearly in his face and in that hair. Why he went crazy if he had a few drinks. Why he had such a fiery temper. He’d blackened his wife’s eyes, why she wore dark glasses sometimes. Bruised her wrists, why she wore so many tinkling little bracelets. Half-strangled her, why her voice was so throaty-sounding. Widely it was known that Delray was a heavy drinker, drug-user,
man-handler
of his wife to keep her in line.

Why did I quit ’cause I am ready for a change that’s why.

Fuck you all of you looking at me like that, I deserve some happiness or at least the chance of it. That’s why.

“Pursuit of happiness”—that’s in the U.S. Constitution!

“All men are created equal”—that means women, too!

Not getting any younger, that’s a fact. None of us are.

If I’m going to be on my feet smiling at customers might’s well be a cocktail waitress. There’s tips!

I’ll get my chance one day. I know this.

I am not a superstitious person. Or a religious person. But I believe.

You must have faith in your destiny. You must not doubt.

At Checkers there’s a different clientele. More money, and classier, than the rest of the Strip. The owner has promised me, some Friday nights I can sing. A lot can happen.

How’s my husband feel about his wife working out at the Strip?—ask him.

And ask him why. Why’s she there. Ask him. See what Delray says.

H
E WAS TWELVE
. Grown to a height of five feet six and a half inches and weighing 117 pounds sinewy-muscled and edgy-quick and looking older than twelve. And feeling older.

Wouldn’t talk about his mother. What was happening between her and his dad. Stayed away from the house, when they quarreled. Slept outside in the old barn, in all his clothes and in his shoes.

Sure he’d seen this coming. When Zoe ran out to climb into the cream-colored van with
B
LACK
R
IVER
B
REAKDOWN
on its sides. Carrying her suitcase, and Delray hadn’t been home.

Since the landfill, he knew the name of the man who drove the Chevy pickup: Ed Diehl.

Maybe he’d seen Zoe with Ed Diehl another time, too. He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure. But he was sure he’d seen Diehl at his father’s garage getting gas.

One day on his rat-colored bike he showed up at Honeystone’s. No reason. Much of what he did had no evident reason. Once he’d picked up a skinned-looking little bird that had fallen out of a nest, and the parent-birds—robins—squawking and fluttering overhead—and he’d had a choice of crushing the little bird between his fingers or climbing up on a pile of lumber to put the bird back in the nest and for no clear reason he returned the bird to the nest as the parent-birds swooped and squawked dangerously close to his head but another time, no more reason, he’d kicked a turtle off a roadway, down an embankment and maybe its shell cracked on a rock, he hadn’t gone to investigate.

He’d have liked to have Richie Shinegal’s air-pistol. Better yet, a twenty-two rifle. Not sure why. Not yet.

At Honeystone’s he leaned the rat-colored bike against an outside wall and pushed the screen door in inhaling the milky smells, chocolate, sugary baked goods like an old lost dream of child-comfort. Though Zoe had worked at the dairy for several years Aaron had not been there in a while, he’d grown self-conscious seeing his attractive young mother in
the white uniform behind the counter, how pretty she was, how fluttery and girlish and glamorous, how people looked at her, how men looked at her. When she’d seen Aaron come in immediately she would wink and smile at him calling out
Hey there sweetie! C’mere.
Now Zoe was gone from Honeystone’s. Now there was not any reason for Aaron Kruller to push his way inside out of the shimmering heat of late summer. Behind the counter a cat-faced girl stared at him in surprise. Others looked at him, too. Halfway across the floor to the counter where Zoe used to work when an old-woman nasal voice sounded sharply: “Aaron Kruller! You are not wanted here. Please leave.”

Behind one of the refrigerated display cases Mrs. Honeystone stood purse-lipped and tremulous. Krull’s mouth twitched. Not a boy’s uneasy smile—not Aaron Kruller’s uneasy smile—but a rude grimace baring teeth. Adele Honeystone had known Aaron since he’d been a young child—she had known Zoe Kruller for fifteen years, or more—but this did not seem to be Aaron Kruller. This was not a young boy but an adolescent male of an age no one might guess, taller than she and wearing a soiled black T-shirt and grease-stained work pants and in imitation of an adult biker he wore a black leather band on his left wrist. You would think that this was a wrist watch but it was just a black leather band. His eyes were deep-set beneath heavy eyebrows and glimmered with a kind of boy-mockery that unnerved the old woman. Hysterical Mrs. Honeystone would afterward claim to have glimpsed the handle of a knife—or some other weapon, like a hammer—protruding from one of the Kruller boy’s trouser pockets for clearly he’d come to commit a robbery and to terrorize and so the white-haired old woman began to scream, “Stop him! He’s a thief! Call the police!” Krull was taken by surprise. Even Krull, who had not expected this. Like an asshole he’d entered into the presence of his mother’s enemy naively with no plan. Fear and loathing for him glinted in the old woman’s glasses as daringly she advanced upon him, seeing that he was backing away, wildly she swung something at his head, might’ve been a baking tray she’d snatched up behind the counter, shedding brownie-fragments of which some would be caught in Krull’s
clothes—Help! Thief! Vandal! He’s Zoe Kruller’s son! She’s sent him here!
Call the police!”

There were few customers in Honeystone’s at this time. Several stood in line waiting to be served, other were seated at the wrought-iron tables. These were mothers with young children. None would see the weapon in the boy’s pocket still less in his hand as Mrs. Honeystone would one day claim but they were quick to take up the alarm, frightened and clutching at their children as white-haired Mrs. Honeystone swung the baking pan at the boy’s head as if to drive him to the door and in a sudden fury the boy punched blindly at the old woman, struck her on the hip causing her to lose her balance and totter as with a face contorted as a snarling animal’s he crouched low to deliver a second punch, would’ve been a wicked sucker-punch except suddenly a warning thought came to him he’d better not, better get the hell out of this place, running outside to the rat-colored bike awaiting him as inside Honeystone’s female screams lifted shrill as the shrieks of terrorized birds.

Never did! Never said that I would kill her.

Didn’t mean to hit her, the old bitch hit me first.

Never had a knife. Nobody saw a knife!

…telling lies about my mother. Guess that was why.

They came for him at the address on the arrest warrant: 1138 Quarry Road. In two police cruisers racing up the bumpy dirt drive to the peach-colored house amid cornfields. Advanced upon him with drawn pistols as if he were an adult known to be armed and dangerous. Spoke harshly to him and when naively he resisted—lifting his arms against them, turning as if to run away—he was thrown by three arresting officers to the floor (the linoleum floor of the kitchen, which Zoe did not keep quite so clean as sparkling-shiny linoleum floors in TV ads)—his pockets were turned inside-out, searched for weapons—wrists cuffed behind his back in an expert way to make him whimper in pain. Hauled then to his feet—two young flush-faced cops gripped his upper arms, tight—forcibly walked outside to the first cruiser nearly fainting with pain. Delray wasn’t home
nor was Delray at Kruller’s Auto Repair out at the road and where Zoe was, Aaron stammered he did not know.

What he’d vowed was
not to cry.
God damn he
would not cry.

At Sparta police headquarters he was booked on charges of
criminal physical assault, attempted robbery, threatening human life and property.
The complainant was
Mrs. Adele Honeystone.
The name on the arrest warrant was
Aron Kruller.

At the time of the arrest, Aaron was twelve years, eleven months and six days old. Having been
kept back
he was in sixth grade at Harpwell Elementary.

It was hours later Zoe answered the phone at home, was summoned to police headquarters and arrived shaken and frightened and furious and her son was released in her custody after several further hours’ consultation involving the arresting police officers and a representative from Herkimer County Juvenile Court. Stammering and red-faced as if guilty—for sure, he was looking guilty—he repeated he’d gone to the dairy for no reason he’d just bicycled out to the dairy, gone inside for just the hell of it not intending to rob anyone, not intending to “vandalize” or “threaten” anyone, the old woman had begun screaming at him immediately like a crazy person,
he had not done a thing to provoke her.

Maybe he’d hit her, yes maybe with his fist he’d hit her to make her back off while she was hitting him with something like a platter, on his head and shoulders. To
defend himself
he’d hit the old woman but just once, he swore. And not hard.

Driving home in the late afternoon Zoe stopped at a liquor store for a six-pack of beer and in the parking lot began to drink to soothe her shattered nerves. Telling Aaron who was rubbing his wrists and arms already darkening with bruises, “Oh, take one—take a beer. I know you kids drink. God damn you.” He’d been trying to explain to her why he’d gone to the dairy in the first place—this was the crucial question, Zoe kept asking—where he should’ve known, for Christ’s sake he wasn’t an idiot, or an asshole, should’ve known the Honeystones wouldn’t want
him, and no explanation he could give made any sense even to Aaron himself until at last he gave up and Zoe said: “Why you did it, Aaron, was for me. For your mother. But it was a wrong thing to do, see? It was a reckless and mistaken thing to do. Even if you’d come after the dairy was closed, like to “vandalize’—‘set fire’—it was a wrong thing to do. Not because the Honeystones don’t deserve it but because you’d get caught. For sure, you’re get caught. So fuck them, we’ll get you off these charges. These are chicken-shit charges, that old bitch can’t prove any of it. Let her try! Let all of them try slandering me, telling their nasty lies about me, I don’t give a damn for them anymore. This is just my old life here in Sparta, see?—I’ll be laughing at this, some day. And you too, sweetie. You just wait.”