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Dancing for My
   Mother

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Thomas E. Kennedy
Walter Cummins
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          Around noon one day you come home from school to make lunch. You round the corner into the kitchen, where you see Pappas sitting at the table in his blue uniform. He shifts towards you in his chair and you see that familiar fierceness in his eyes. You don’t have a chance to backpedal before his fist catches you. You go down but are not knocked out, just dazed just dazzled. You haven’t the faintest idea why he has punched you this time. Usually you can figure it out: he found dust on the radio; he found mud on your shoes and mud on the rug; he’s sick of how disgusting you smell; he’s not going to tell you again to take a bath; he’s not going to tell you again to take out the trash; he’s not going to tell you again to burn it in the incinerator and sift the ashes for cans. Usually you have an inkling of what you’ve done to piss him off, but this time not a clue. Maybe his superior officer chewed him out. Maybe he is nursing a hangover. Maybe he needs a drink or a piece of ass. Maybe you look like a Jap. It’s impossible to say. All you know is that he goes into your room this day, gets your hat, the felt fedora you wear when your mother takes you and your sister to Mass every Easter and Christmas. He cocks the hat on your head, so that the brim partially covers the swollen eye. You go back to school. Swing on the swings. Feel the air cooling your eye every time you swing forward. Teacher doesn’t ask you about your eye, but if she had you would have told her what you told your mother when she asked what had happened. You tripped and fell was the answer. It’s what Pappas told you to say.

          You are having lots of stomach troubles. Colic your mother calls it. Maybe you’re allergic to milk. She rubs your belly at night. It soothes you, calms you, puts you to sleep. But the stomachaches continue, so she takes you to the doctor to find out what is wrong. The doctor says you have a high-strung nervous disposition, which affects your stomach and probably is the reason why you can’t gain weight. It’s possible that you have an ulcer, but that’s very rare in a child your age. He tells her to give you antacids morning, noon and night. Sometimes an ice pack helps if the pain is acute. If you don’t get better the doctor might prescribe a bromide. When she asks about the bedwetting he says you probably have an immature bladder. She says you stopped peeing the bed when you were about two and a half, before starting again around the age of four. He says it sometimes happens and not to worry about it. As your bladder grows you’ll be able to hold more urine and the bedwetting will stop.

          It is about this time that some boys from The Cub Scouts come by to ask if you want to join their organization. Absolutely! Get to wear a uniform and go on camping trips and earn badges. Two of the bigger boys come to your house in their fabulous uniforms and ask your mother to sign a paper saying you have her permission. She tells them she is sorry but no: It wouldn’t work for Duffy. He still wets the bed. He couldn’t go on camping trips. The boys are embarrassed. One of them looks at you as if he has never been so puzzled. It’s as if he wants to ask you what’s wrong. What could you have told him? What do you know? You know nothing.

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