VINCE
July 4th, 2014
Sunday nights were reserved for dinner at my mother’s home, and as much as I tried over the years to change it, I wasn’t able to do so. Disputing my mother’s practices, procedures, or rituals was something rather simple to do, but having her agree with me was another story. Although this particular day wasn’t a Sunday, it was a holiday, and one that my mother perceived as worthy of a family meal.
And arguing with her wasn’t an option.
“Eat your fried chicken, Stephen,” my mother said.
“I’m eating it as fast as I can, Mother,” I responded.
“You’re picking. I don’t like it when you pick. Pick, pick, pick. It’s all you’ve done since you got here. Did you eat with those boys before you came?” she asked.
“No. I told you, I came straight from home. The food’s good, I just…”
She reached below the table and handed Bradley another chicken bone. “You just what? Stephen Vincent Ames, you need to forget about that woman. She’s gone, and she’s not coming back. You deserve better, and it’s been what? Two years?”
“Don’t feed him chicken bones. It’ll kill him. And it’s been a year,” I said.
Bradley, an English bulldog, was my mother’s best friend. She talked to him as if he understood every word she said, and fed him whatever he would eat. According to my mother, Bradley was my younger brother, and she even held birthday parties for him, making him wear a hat and eat birthday cake every year.
“He’s a walking garbage disposal, he’ll be fine. And don’t think changing the subject will make me forget what we were talking about. She didn’t even want kids, Stephen, it was only a matter of time. And I haven’t seen her for two years, so it’s hard for me to remember exactly when you were divorced, but she left you long before you were divorced, I can tell you that, ” she said.
I inhaled a shallow breath and cleared my throat. “I’m not thinking about her.”
I scooped up a forkful of some strange corn, bean, and vegetable salad she had prepared and carefully lifted the substance to my mouth. Fried chicken on the Fourth of July was one of her rituals, and it generally included several side dishes, many of which she now obtained off of Pinterest. Some of the new recipes were great and some were nothing short of awful. I did my best to swallow the unidentifiable spicy mixture, but it was proving to be rather difficult. As I rolled it around in my mouth and reached for my glass of water, she raised her eyebrows and sighed.
“You don’t like the corn salsa?” she asked.
“It’s salsa?” I asked as I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth in an effort to rid myself of the taste.
“Yes, what did you think it was?” she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. Hell, you’ve got a gallon of it there in that bowl, I thought it was a salad or something.”
“Salsa, Stephen. It’s corn salsa. I got if off of Pinterest. Suzette likes it, and so does Randy,” she said.
“Well, take it over to Suzette and Randy’s house,” I said.
She reached over the table and smacked the back of my knuckles with her butter knife.
“God damn it,” I howled as I pulled my hand away. “Fuck.”
I raised my hand and stared at the back of it, fully expecting to see blood. A three inch long red welt began to rise before my eyes.
“You hear that, Bradley? We’re two dollars richer,” she said as she pointed toward the top of the refrigerator with her chicken leg.
I knew better than to argue. I stood, pulled out my wallet, and walked to the refrigerator. After digging through my wallet and finding two one dollar bills, I pulled the jar from the top of the refrigerator and dropped the money inside.
“You smell like smoke. Have you been smoking?” she asked.
“No, I quit,” I said, telling the truth for the most part.
“I think you were telling quite a fib to Bradley and me earlier when we were cooking the chicken. I want you to know that, Stephen. You’re my little boy and I can see right through you. It’s what mothers do,” she said.
I continued to eat, acting as if I didn’t hear her.
She paused and pointed her half-eaten chicken leg at me. “You’ve been riding since you were six years old. You and I both know you didn’t wreck your father’s motorcycle. I want to know who beat you up. What happened?”
“I dumped it in some sand,” I said.
“Stephen Vincent. Both your eyes are stitched up, and you look like hell. What happened?” she asked.
I pointed at the jar with my fork.
She shook her head. “Hell isn’t a curse word, it’s a place. And it’s a place you’re going to end up living if you keep telling your mother fibs.”
“I dumped the bike, Mother,” I sighed.
“It doesn’t have a scratch on it,” she said, shaking her head from side to side as she spoke.
I cocked my head and stared in disbelief. “It’s covered in scratches, how would you know?”
She raised her index finger in the air and glared at me. “I rode on that bike for years. I know where every scratch is. Fine, Stephen, just fine.”
“I met a girl,” I said flatly as I picked through the pile of chicken.
“Pardon me? I would have sworn you said you met a girl,” she said.
“I did,” I said as I continued to pick through the chicken. “Did you buy a breastless chicken?”
“Here, take mine,” she said as she handed me her chicken breast. “Now, about this girl. Is she the reason you got beat up?”
“No, I met her one night when I ran out of gas. She gave me a ride to the gas station. She was really nice. It’s nothing, I was just making conversation,” I said as I bit into the chicken.
“Bradley’s starving, give him your bones,” she said as she waved her hand toward my plate.
“He shouldn’t eat chicken bones, and he weighs fifty pounds anyway. And thirty of it’s fat,” I said.
“Take it back, he’s not fat,” she said.
“You can’t take things back after you say ‘em, and he is too,” I said.
“You sure can. You say ‘I take it back.’ Now, who’s this girl? Does she want kids?” she asked.
“How the hell would I know? I told you, she gave me a ride to the gas station,” I responded.
One thing my mother always detested about Natalie was that she was outspoken regarding her lack of interest in having children, and my mother dreamed of the day she would have grandchildren. It was a subject Natalie and I discussed often and never quite agreed on.
“Is she pretty?” she asked.
I nodded my head. “Beautiful. Dark hair, like yours.”
“Does she have tattoos?” she asked.
“None that I could see,” I said.
My mother accepted the fact I had tattoos, but believed everyone else with tattoos was an obvious criminal or had spent time in prison. Women with tattoos, as far as she was concerned, were trouble.
“So are you seeing her?” she asked.
I dropped my chicken breast onto my plate. “Gas. She took me to get gas. That’s it.”
“Did you get her phone number?” she asked.
I rested my forearms on the table, glared at her, and raised both eyebrows.
“You need to get a phone, Stephen. This is ridiculous,” she said. “Everyone has a phone.”
“I had a phone and now I don’t. No worries, I know where she lives,” I said. “I could always stop by.”
“Don’t be a stalker, Stephen. It’s not nice,” she said as she reached for her glass of tea. “I saw on Bluebloods the other night what happens to stalkers.”
“Jesus…” I sighed as I reached for my chicken.
“Take her some flowers, tell her thank you, and ask her to go to dinner. That’s what a proper man would do. In the same situation, it’s what your father would have done, and you know it,” she said.
As I ate my chicken, I considered her advice. She was right. So far, I’d troubled Sienna twice with my problems, and had never really taken time to thank her properly for everything she had done for me.
“I’ll take her some flowers,” I said with a nod of my head.
“And dinner. Take her to dinner, Stephen,” my mother said as she lowered another chicken bone below the table.
Bradley took the chicken bone from her hand, waddled toward the refrigerator, and flopped down on the floor beside his bowl of food. As he gnawed on the bone and grew another few ounces fatter, and one step closer to choking to death, I shifted my eyes toward my mother.
“Fine,” I said. “And dinner.”
“You’re a good boy, Stephen. Now eat the rest of your salsa,” she said as she pointed her butter knife at my plate.
I had no intention of eating the remaining salsa, but I did think taking Sienna flowers and going to dinner was a good idea. My mother might have been difficult to bullshit, and impossible to win an argument with, but she always gave good advice. Her only concerns were, and had always been, what she believed to be in my best interest.
As I sat and ate the remaining portion of my Fourth of July meal and mentally prepared for the fireworks display we were certain to discharge in the driveway later, I knew one thing for sure.
I would always be her little boy.