The Short Stories of Jim Stallings

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"Harriet"
A selection from Tales for Commuters & Other Time Travelers

.....by Jim Stallings

"Golleee, Mom...it just ain't true. I'm not going round with that dope."

Harriet hung on the doorjamb and adjusted her hose.

"Look at you there. Dressin' like a slut. You think I was born yesterday?"

Harriet looked up. "Yeah, weren't ya?"

"Don't get smart with me, young lady. I can still smack your face. I know very well what your friends are doin'...smokin' dope and runnin' around drinkin'. You think I can't smell the booze on your breath? If your father were alive he'd straighten you out...and probably half your friends."

Harriet was used to the "little slut" speech. She'd heard it a hundred times since her fourteenth birthday. She finished smoothing the nylon along her thighs, and remembered Hank's hands there the last time. She looked up at her mother and saw a dumpy old woman playing in her sink water. Her mother might die by that double sink, her hands clutching a ragged sponge.

"And what about helping me out around here. Used to be on a Saturday morning I could count on some help and now you're out runnin' around with Jeanie and her gang...all weekend. And that's another thing, I don't believe you girls are staying at them slumber parties. I think you're seeing boys..." She turned from the sink and stared at Harriet. Her face was flushed and tears dripped over her cheeks.

"Oh Mom, don't start whoofin'. I gotta grow up for God's sake. I gotta get out and meet girls and boys. How else am I gonna grow up?"

Harriet saw her friends lying around Jeanie's house, beer bottles, cigarettes, joints, a packet of speed...and in one bedroom two girls with one boy...down the hall Harriet with Hank, sleeping late into Saturday afternoon. Then--like a fast forward movie--everyone sprang from their beds and couches and dashed around housecleaning. Jeanie's parents were due back from their weekly buying trip out-of-state... gadgets for gift shops.

"Oh Mom, don't worry about me. I'll grow up. One way or another."

******

Harriet had little to do. Her mother had arranged everything. Mom was buried in the cemetery she'd always wanted. Rest-A-While had a view of the river, next to her Dad.

Hank drove Harriet out to see the grave on Sundays for several months after the funeral. Hank was still limping from his motorcycle accident. Joyriding after the birth of their second daughter, he lost it on an exit ramp and slammed into the guard rail.

The doctors didn't know if he would ever work again. He seemed to be unable to form sentences at odd moments, and his mind wandered from one childhood memory to another...the smell of a long lost catcher's mit, the blue color of his blanket in his baby crib, the softness of a stuffed bear.

Not long after his return from the hospital Harriet had seen him crawling on all fours down the stairs. He was drooling and whimpering "Mama, Mama..." Harriet ran to the kitchen and then into the backyard. She stood by the flower garden and tried real hard to study the withered winter stalks. Behind her the backdoor creaked...she was scared to turn and look at him.

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Hank was placed in a convalescent home on the day after his twenty-eighth birthday. Nobody went to see him but Harriet and the two girls. The girls didn't remember him as he was anyway, so Harriet stopped making them go. She left them at her sister's house and drove the fifty miles every Sunday afternoon alone.

It was creepy when she came through the front door into the white reception room. Sometimes it was empty and she would wait after ringing the bell. Then a powerfully-built young man came down and escorted her to Hank's private room. Though completely bedridden Hank was looking strangely younger, even as his face dissolved in fatty tissue. He barely recognized her anymore.

"Hank...hi honey, it's Harriet. I brought you this rubber ball to grip. It's good for the muscles. Here, take it."

The hand was immobile. She picked it up and it was cold and she put the pink ball into it. His fingers felt the rubber tentatively...and then let go. The ball bounced into a corner and she started after it.

"Noooh," she heard him gurgle. His eyes swam toward her and he shook his head. She ran to him and pressed her head to his chest.

"Ohhh Hank, I miss you, you stupid idiot! I hate you for what you did...I hate you!" Harriet sat up and stared at the pathetic fleshy creature. She wanted to slap his stupid face.

"It's terrible by myself with the kids. You hear that? You skipped out, you crumb!" Harriet laughed hysterically and caught herself. She glanced toward the door to see if anyone were watching. They were still alone together.

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Harriet buried Hank next to her mother. He had the same view of the river. Her second daughter by Hank died of leukemia. She put her in the same family plot. And later a second husband, a man she actually loved more than Hank, more than anyone in her life she put there too. After he died, she laughed and told her friends "I'm just waitin' for my lucky number." It didn't take long.

She couldn't understand it but in the last stages of pneumonia she clearly saw her mother at the sink, her hands swimming in gray dishwater...a serene smile on her silly face. Through the window over the sink, her mother was admiring the elm Harriet's father planted in the small backyard just after building the house. He'd been dead so many years...

Life, Harriet speculated, afloat on a sluggish sea of sedatives, was very strange...and certainly very sad. Hitching up her miniskirt, she smoothed out the wrinkles in her hose and leaned against the doorjamb...her mom was about to say something and Hank's fingertips were tracing lazy circles on her thighs.

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