I stood a few feet away from the black guy. Dad always talked about how black people, like queers, smelled, and I took some deep breaths to smell the black stink, but this guy must have bathed in sweet and peppery cologne. He played two men at once, fifty cents for one game!
I decided that he must be a spoiled rich boy.
He lost both of his men and passed in front of me on his way to the change machine in the corner.
“Don’t get on that game.” He looked at me over his shoulder while he fed the machine a five-dollar bill.
He was so concerned with me taking his machine that he didn’t notice the other five that fell from his pocket. Luckily for me, the five landed on his right and he turned to his left. I heard
the plunk of two more quarters into Donkey Kong as I slid the five into my pocket.
I found Mom in the dining room and showed her my good fortune.
“Where’d you get that?”
“In the arcade. It was on the floor.”
“Wasn’t no else in there?”
“Just a black kid.”
“Could that money be his?”
“When have you known a black kid to have five dollars?”
“You sound like your daddy.”
“So can I spend it?”
Mom stopped watering and looked me in the face for a few seconds. She wanted to ask me if I stole the money, and part of me wanted to tell her I did, but another part of me wanted to
tell her that if that black kid can’t pay attention to his money, then he doesn’t deserve to keep it—I beat him to the fuck.
“What you gonna spend it on?”
“In the arcade.”
“You cash it in,” she says, “for four ones and four quarters at the front desk and you spend a dollar of it.”
“Why can’t I spend all of it? It’s not our money.”
“Because then you won’t have any money, and four found dollars are better than five spent dollars.”
I didn’t see Mom’s point, but I did as she said because I was lucky she didn’t question me more about my “finding” the money. Maybe since she thought that the money might have been a black kid’s, Mom didn’t see it as stealing. Mom, like Dad, didn’t have much use for blacks; only she called them colored, not niggers like Dad.
While the hotel and its arcade were fun, I was still puzzled about Dad, how he played so nice to Mr. Bollars’s face and then talked about him behind his back. If Dad treated Mr. Bollars like that, did he do me and Mom like that too?
I waited till we were on our way home before I brought this up. “Why’d you get back with Dad?”
“What do you mean, son?”
She always called me son, never boy, so her use of the word didn’t tip me off to her disposition like it did when Dad’s used the word. “After y’all divorced and he came and lived with us in the trailer park, why’d you take him back?”
“He’s your daddy and a boy needs his daddy.”
“Even if he’s a liar?”
“Don’t ever call your daddy a liar! You hear me?” Mom cut me some eyes and for a minute I feared she would lay a backhand on me like Dad.
“But he is.”
“How do you know?”
“He lied to Mr. Bollars. He acted all friendly towards him, then talked bad about him behind his back. How do you know he doesn’t do the same to you?”
“Your daddy ain’t never been afraid to say anything in front of me, that’s how I know. With other people, your daddy does what he has to.”
“But isn’t that wrong? Shouldn’t he treat all people the same?”
“Is it wrong for him to want the best for his son?”
Mom had a point. Dad, in all his demands, did want me to be number one. That was why he didn’t want me simply to take tae kwon do, but to become a black belt as quickly as possible and set myself apart from others.
“Son, I was raised during the Depression. When I was a little girl, we didn’t have running water or electricity. We had an outhouse, but during winter nights it was so cold I didn’t want to walk out to it. Our wooden floor had splits so wide between the boards, I’d squat and pee right next to the bed, which I shared with six sisters. And I went to school barefoot in the summer and
wore an old pair of my daddy’s work-boots during the winter, and all the kids made fun of me.
Some of the better off girls gave me their old shoes. I didn’t want to take them, but they brought them by the house and gave them to Mama, and all the kids saw me at school and knew I was wearing so-and-so’s old shoes. Growing up barefoot in that old shack, all I dreamed about was having a nice house and nice clothes, and with your daddy, I got ‘em.”
This was true. Mom lived the best of all her sisters. We made rare trips to Louisiana and visited Mom’s family, and they all lived out in the woods around each other and my grandparents’ old home. None of Mom’s family had a brick house, had been east of Lafayette or west of Lake Charles. But Mom had when she traveled the country with Dad in his eighteenwheeler, and this made her better off than the rest of her family, and she knew it. And that was why they had a nickname for Mom: Miss Rich Bitch.
“But you do all the work,” I said. “All Dad does is drive to South Florida and buy new plants and birds.”
“It’s your daddy’s money that built the nursery. I’d rather work hard for y’all than another boss.”
“Do you love Dad?”
“Of course I do. And I love you. Why you think I’m willing to work so hard for you, son?”
Mom smiled and patted my knee. When she said “work” I didn’t think she simply meant the nursery. “Work” meant putting up with Dad, and that was for me so I wouldn’t have to be raised in a trailer park or go without all the things Mom did as a little girl. I wondered if Dad knew his wife was with him just for the things he provided? Or, after having four ex-wives, was that the way his world worked?
There was a van, bright silver and dark red with chrome rims and white-wall tires, in front of our gate, where Pal and Mountie were barking. The van blocked the way to the gate but it pulled to the side when Mom turned in, and out of the van came the Lopez family. Mrs. Lopez hugged Mom and kissed her on the cheek. Mom seemed a little surprised by this, and I wondered what she thought about a Puerto Rican kissing her. Mom, like me, didn’t have many visitors or friends, so I think she was pleased to have any contact with another woman near her age.
While Mrs. Lopez was friendly, Rubin hung back and stood behind his father. I didn’t acknowledge Rubin, and he didn’t make eye contact with me.
“We came by to see Señor Royal,” Mr. Lopez said.
“He went to South Florida to get more plants,” Mom said.
Mr. Lopez looked disappointed.
“Come look at what we got,” Mr. Lopez said and motioned toward the van. Now I knew why Mr. Lopez wanted to see Dad: to show off his new toy.
All smiles, Mr. Lopez first walked us around the sparkling van, showing us what he said was a custom paint job and the blinding chrome wire rims and the shiny white-wall tires. Mr. Lopez slid open the big side door, and inside was a dark red interior, the same shade as the exterior, with wall-to-wall carpet, four leather chairs, and a sofa across the back, which, said Mr. Lopez with a gleam in his eye, pulled out into a double bed.
“I wanted to take the boys to the beach in it,” Mr. Lopez said.
We lived in Pensacola, Florida, which boasted the whitest sand in the world, yet I had never been to the beach. Dad didn’t like the beach and refused to take me. Mom was always busy working, and she couldn’t swim. Any time I asked to go, Dad said it was nasty with pollution and why did I want to drive to the beach, pay to get on the island and park, when I had a clean