Houston

Houston

 By WR Brown

“Everything’s gonna be fine”. That’s Uncle John, grinning as usual, banging his way out the front door.

“He’s weird Bobby,” says Mary Ann, “why does he say that?”

“He told me that Mama and Donald are gettng married today,” I tell her.   

It’s a hot Saturday in Biloxi and the windows are open and the summer breezes just blow the heat around. Me and my neighbor Mary Ann are in my living room playing with her brother’s Switch. He told her she can’t take it outside of their house but Mary Ann’s real independent. She’s nine years old, the same as me, and they have always lived next door to us.

“We’re gonna move to Houston” I tell her for the third time today.

“Bobby, maybe they will adopt you!”  

I think she says that to scare me but I live with my mother. When Mary Ann talks she opens her mouth real big and there’s a black tooth in front that wasn’t there this morning.

“You got a rotten tooth!”

“Nah, I just put a camouflage on it.”

“Oh. Where’d you get the camo?”

“It’s the shiny foil paper from my dad’s cigarette pack.”

“Cool”

“So when are they having the wedding?”

“I don’t know for sure. Probably today or tomorrow, do you want to come? I can invite you.”

“No way! My mama said getting married was the worst thing ever happened in her whole life! I have to go home now.”

She grabs the Switch and runs out the door. That’s the third time today she done that. She is very flighty. She keeps saying stuff about being “adopted” and I don’t know exactly what it all means but I don’t like her saying it and I don’t want to get adopted. I heard mama say that Dickie Thames was adopted and that’s what’s wrong with him. He’s only eight.  He’s real fat and talks to himself all the time. I don’t want to be fat.

The house is getting busy. Mary Ann has been in and out three times and now Uncle John comes back in from across the street, carrying a giant plastic cooler that he takes in the kitchen. Then he comes again with ice and then with two cases of beer, and he tells me again that Donald and my mother are getting married today and he goes out again. I don’t think Uncle John is really anybody’s uncle but that’s what everybody calls him. But Uncle John is Donald’s father. Donald works in a big warehouse here and the company wants him to run the warehouse in Houston, probably because he looks like a weightlifter. He has taken me to watch a high school football game and says we can go to a real NFL game when we move to Houston.  Mama wants to sell insurance in Houston where there’s millions of people to sell it to. She has not yet sold any insurance but she has a half brother named Philip who sells insurance up in Jackson so he’s my half uncle and he buys a new car every two years. Mama sometimes says she’s sick and now she hasn’t got out of bed for two weeks, except to eat or go to the bathroom, so I wonder how she’s going to go sell insurance but she says she can do it on the phone.

Aunt Peggy Sue comes in carrying a big flat pink box. I follow her into the kitchen and she puts the box in the refrigerator, on top of the bottom shelf just over the crisper drawer.

“Where’s Uncle Charlie” I ask her?

“He’ll be here. Don’t touch the cake”, she glares at me and leaves.

I don’t see no cake so it’s in that box. I look in the fridge and try to lift up the lid on the giant box but it’s been scotch-taped shut. I go look in the drawer to get the knife but I hear mama’s wheelchair coming so I close the drawer and sit down at the table in the chair that’s closest to the refrigerator. Mama kicks the kitchen door open and rolls in, with her sister my aunt Alma walking right behind her. Mama don’t have her pajamas on and she is wearing a dress. Weird. She looks at me, then looks all around the kitchen. 

“Uncle John said there was beer. Alma look in the fridge. Oh, here’s a cooler on the floor under the table. Get out of the way Bobby.”

“Can I try some beer?”

“Are you fifteen yet?”

I don’t answer her. Then Aunt Peggy Sue comes back in with Uncle Charlie. Mama tells me to get two folding chairs out of the closet and open them up so I do that and then I go back and sit in my chair by the refrigerator.

There’s some loud cursing and laughing at the front door and Donald comes stumbling in through the living room and into the kitchen with Uncle John right behind him. Donald is carrying a glass vase with some roses and little white flowers coming out the top and he puts them on the kitchen table. Donald seems wobbly when he grins at Mama.“You got outta bed.” 

“Your father wants us to get married today.”

“Good! Are we getting hitched or are we not getting hitched?” His voice sounds like he’s trying to laugh or sing or something.  

“You’re getting married today son,” says Uncle John to Donald, “I’ve got the stuff here with me. So everybody just calm down and have some beer. Could we have some beer please?”

So everybody drinks more beer and there’s two bottles of Mountain Dew for me because I don’t like cola drinks but I like Mountain Dew. We are all sitting down around the table except Mama who stays in her wheelchair. Mama seems more jumpy or something than usual. She keeps looking around at each of us and smiling. I think she looks happy. That’s weird but I like it. She decides to promote her insurance.

“I haven’t said anything to y’all about the insurance that I am going to sell. There is whole life and term life and some other life’s that I don’t know yet. And there’s H&A too and that’s health and accident. When I get the information I will share it with everyone.”

Uncle Charlie stops her. “Louise, you have to take a test and get licensed and find a company to work for, you will be in the state of Texas and you have to get a license there in Houston. You don’t even know what all those insurances are.”  

Uncle Charlie likes to tell people what to do. Mama ignores him.

After a couple more beers, Uncle John stands up.

“Let’s get this show on the road, folks. Donald, stand up here in front of me. Louise, you stand up here too with Donald.”

“I’m too sick to be standing up and going through a ceremony,” says Mama.

“We know you’re not sick, Louise, just stand up there with your husband.”

“I am sick. Doctor Mehta says I should just take the prescription and stay in bed all the time.”

Mama stands up next to Donald. Uncle John starts off “If anybody here knows why these two people shouldn’t get married, say it now or shut up about it.”

“You ain’t a preacher, John, you can’t marry ‘em,” says uncle Charlie.

“I’m Donalds father and they’re both single so yes I can marry them.”

“You’re crazy, that’s not how it works” says Uncle Charlie.

“Sit down Charlie” says aunt Peggy Sue, “I’m taking pictures.” She has her phone in her hand and makes a show out of holding it in different positions and bending her head one way or another when she’s aiming it.

Everybody chimes in telling Uncle Charlie to sit down so Peggy Sue can get good pictures. 

Uncle John pulls two clean looking pieces of paper from out the back pocket of his jeans and begins to read….

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here”…blah blah blah…….

He reads this bit and a little more, then he asks this one if they will take that one for something and he asks that one if they will take this one and they both say yes so he tells them they are married and he hopes their vows will be “henceforth honored”.  

Everybody is clapping and happy to see Mama and Donald get married. Aunt Alma takes the cake out of the fridge and cuts big pieces and puts them on some new paper plates. Donald wants to know what it says on top of the cake and aunt Alma tells him it says love and joy and best wishes for the newlyweds.

We all go into the living room and sit down on chairs and the couch except Mama stays in her wheelchair. I dig into my cake and wonder what will happen since they are married. Am I like Pinocchio now, a real boy?

There is a knock on the door and it’s Mary Ann and she edges into the living room and looks around at everyone and looks at my plate and kind of freezes until Aunt Alma speaks.

“Girl would you like a piece of that cake?”

“Yes ma’am please”.

“Bobby go get her a slice of cake.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

I get up and Mary Ann goes with me into the kitchen and we don’t say nothing to each other until I take the cake box out onto the table and lift up one end of the top so I can get at the cake to cut a slice off.

“What’s the writing on the cake,” Mary Ann asks?

“I can’t tell because those big slices were cut out.”  

I take off the box top and turn the cake around so she can read it.

“It says ‘years of service’” she reads.

“Yeah, I don’t know why it says that.”

“Did they get married?”

“Yeah and we’re gonna move to Houston.”

Mary Ann screws up her face like something’s wrong with her or something and she yells at me: “Bobby, are they gonna adopt you?”

“Shut up about that! Mama is my real mother and she said she don’t have to adopt me.” 

“You ain’t got a real daddy. If you’re in Texas and they don’t adopt you then you’re an illegal alien. Y’all better not go to Houston!” 

“You shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about! They are married now and I have a real daddy. You should go home now, this is a private wedding and you wasn’t even here for the ceremony.”

She puts another piece of cake on a paper plate and runs with two pieces through the living room and out the front door. I put the box of cake back in the fridge, and Donald comes into the kitchen.

“Bobby, do I look okay?”

“Well yeah Donald, why?”

“Maybe I had to much to drink. I guess I’m okay. Hey, I heard that girl telling you that you better get adopted and I want you to know that was just bullshit. You’re probably her best buddy and you gonna move to Houston and she don’t know what to do. But we’re all gonna be happy in Houston. You got that?”

“Uh huh,” I nod my head.

“She don’t know what she’s talking about because the only people who get adopted are people who don’t have any parents. You’ve got your mom and now you’ve got me to be your dad. We will be good to you and we will take care of you. That girl will miss you and you will probably miss her too but you can send her a postcard or something when we’re in Houston, Okay?

“Yeah,” I say and he goes back into the living room.

Funny. I feel happy but I feel shaky and my face is getting wet so I wipe it with the bottom of my T-shirt. I go back in the living room to finish eating my piece of Mama and Daddy’s wedding cake. 

Everything’s gonna be fine.