The Big Hunger Read online

  Then it was wintertime again. The hill was covered with snow. Soon it was hard and bright and we cut down our sleds. After supper we were on the hill. Me and Dibber and my brother and all the guys. The tracks went past Dagmar’s house. We saw her at the window. She watched us. We hollered for her to come out like she used to when she had the record with her Flexible Flyer, but she wouldn’t come. The lights went out and the house was black. We pulled our sleds up the hill past her house and wondered what the heck.

  We coasted until late. One by one the guys all went home. Then Dibber went home, and there was only my brother and me on the hill. We decided to go down one more time. It was my brother’s turn, so he pulled the sled. The lights in Dagmar’s house were still out. When we got to the top of the hill the lights turned on again. Dagmar came out on the porch in a fur coat. Old Man Heine was with her. They walked down the steps and through the deepest snow to Reeves’s Pasture. It was very screwy. There wasn’t any path through the pasture. They waded in, bucking the deepest snow. After they reached the elm trees we couldn’t see them anymore. I knew they didn’t see us. That was why I didn’t holler hello. I couldn’t understand it. Me and my brother went to bed. I couldn’t sleep thinking about Dagmar and her old man wading through the snow toward the elm trees.

  Next day I told Dibber Lannon.

  “That’s funny,” he said.

  “Sure is,” I said.

  “Let’s go see her,” he said.

  We went that night before coasting. The Heine garage was open. We saw Dagmar’s sled with rusty runners hanging from the rafters. It was a sad thing. What a sled it used to be! The fastest sled ever seen on this hill! And there it was, rusty and old-looking.

  Then Dibber whistled, and Dagmar came out on the front porch. She asked Dibber a lot of questions, mostly about Pat and what he wrote in his letters. Dibber started bragging right away. He said they were training Pat at the monastery to be the next pope, which was a lie because you don’t go in training to become pope, they just elect you. Oh that Dibber! The horselaugh is sure on him. Dagmar stood there listening to him. She sure looked swell, with a fur coat pulled around her.

  Then Mr. Heine stuck his head out the door.

  “Dagmar!” he said. “Come in here!”

  We pulled our sleds up the hill and started coasting. We coasted until eleven. It was very cold. The guys began to go home. Me and Dibber waited on the hill. Nobody could see us from below. In a while Dagmar came out with her father. They started across the pasture, wading in the deepest snow. They didn’t go anywhere—just a big circle around the elm trees and back to the house again. After that they did it every night. Me and Dibber were up on the hill watching them. We laid on our bellies and they couldn’t see us. They didn’t do anything but walk around. They never walked in a path. It was always through fresh snow up to their hips.

  Then Dagmar went away. It was before Christmas. I heard my mother talking. She was very sore. She kept calling Dagmar a murderess. After New Year a letter came to our house for my sister. It was from Dagmar. My mother tore it into little pieces.

  “That murderess!” my mother said. “That murderess!”

  “Who did Dagmar kill?” I said.

  “You mind your own business,” she said.

  If Dagmar killed somebody he deserved it. It’s all right with me. Besides, it’s all right for Dagmar to kill somebody because she’s a Protestant and Protestants don’t have mortal sins in their church. Besides, I like Dagmar. Besides, Dagmar has swell legs. Besides, she wouldn’t kill a kitten the way Pat Lannon did. I know that.

  That Pat Lannon! And Dibber bragged. Pat Lannon was a fake. I will tell you why he was a fake. After the snow, it came spring and baseball season. One night after practice me and Dibber were going home. Dibber was bragging. He had the guts to tell me Pat was going to become pope by summer. We crossed the street. A car went past us, lickety-cutting down the street. It was the Lannon Packard. Pat Lannon was in it. Dibber hollered. He didn’t stop. He went right on down the street raising dust. Then Dibber said it couldn’t be Pat. Because Pat was at the monastery studying to be a priest. But it was Pat all right.

  When we got to the drugstore on Pine, there he was, in the Packard. The redhead who chewed gum was with him. He didn’t look like a priest to me. His collar wasn’t upside-down, and he wasn’t wearing a black suit. He looked the same as ever. Dibber ran up.

  He said, “Hey, do I have to call you Father now?”

  Pat laughed.

  “No,” he said. “Call me Pat like always.”

  “Are you a priest now?” Dibber said.

  The redhead laughed.

  “Cut it!” Pat said to her. “You bitch!”

  Dibber was sure surprised. It was the first priest he ever heard say that! Real priests are very respectful. They know plenty of dirty words, but they don’t use them in plain talk.

  “I shall never be a priest,” Pat said. “It seems I was mistaken in my vocation.”

  Dibber was disgusted.

  “Aw hell sakes!” he said. “And here I been telling all the guys you’d be the next pope!”

  Pat laughed. He got out some money and handed it to Dibber. “Forget it,” he said. “Take Arturo with you, and get yourselves a milkshake.”

  We went up the street. Dibber was feeling pretty low. I didn’t say anything for a long time. But when we got to the bank I had to say something.

  “Some pope!” I said. “Horselaugh on you, Dibber!”

  “Shut your damn face!” he said.

  But I didn’t. All the way home I gave him the horselaugh. I kept calling him Pope. All over school now they call him that. They used to call him Dibber, but now all you have to do is say Pope, and Dibber looks up. He doesn’t mind though. He thinks it’s better than Dibber.

  Jakie’s Mother

  NOW IF I HAD a mother like Jakie Shaler’s I would do something. I would do something very strange. I would go right out and find another mother.

  Jakie is a swell guy to bum around with, but he does not talk very much. And his father is also a swell guy too, only we do not bum around with a guy’s father. Mr. Shaler is not mean like Mrs. Shaler. He buys Jakie footballs and baseballs and basketballs and bats and boxing gloves and sleds and tennis rackets and bows and arrows and tools. Mr. Shaler bought Jakie a gun, too. So Jakie has all the things he wants, but he does not get to bum around with us on account of his mother is the worst one going. His father is very different. His father is a swell guy.

  It is his mother who does all the lickings in that house. She will not let Jakie do hardly anything. She will not let him go out of the yard on Saturdays, and on school days he has to come straight home from school. Before his little brother Petey died, Jakie had to stay home and play with him all the time. It made Jakie sore, because Petey was too little to play with. He tried to sneak away. But the minute he sneaked through the fence Petey would start hollering for all he was worth, and Mrs. Shaler would run out of the kitchen and chase after Jakie. She would get him and take him down the basement and pound the living hell out of him. You could hear him hollering all over town. She gave it to him with a special broomstick. She hit him with all her muscle. We saw blue marks on his ass and legs. He showed them to us.

  Jakie felt bad about having such a wicked mother. She was worse than wicked: she was dirty, but Jakie did not say so. And when he was in school he hated to sit down after he got licked by her. He would sit down slow and easy. He sat down on his hands to not make it hurt so much. That shows the kind of a mother he has. That shows how much she hurt him. He could not run after he got a licking. After he got a licking he would umpire ball games, because the umpire always has it pretty easy. He would umpire games for a whole week straight.

  Mrs. Shaler made Jakie eat soap two times, and she burned his tongue with a poker one time. Jakie had to eat soap because he swore, and if you think soap is so hot, taste it. The reason he got his tongue burned with the poker was because he got caught smoking.
We were all smoking in the barn, a block away from the Shaler house. Mrs. Shaler did not catch us smoking for real, but she saw the smoke, so she knew. And it is lucky for Jakie that Mrs. Shaler did not find out the stuff we were smoking. Boy! I say it is, because it was horse manure.

  This is how Jakie’s little brother Petey died. One day he was playing in the yard, and an auto came by. Petey ran into the street. He ran square into the bumper. He was knocked down and run over and killed dead right now.

  They had the funeral on Friday. Everybody in our room went to see little Petey at the Shaler house on Thursday. Everybody had to bring a nickel for flowers, because Petey was Jakie’s brother, and Jakie was in the same room with us in school. Some of the guys did not bring their nickel. Robert Teale did not bring one.

  Little Petey was in a white coffin. He had on a new suit. He smelled too sweet, and he did not look natural. He was so white in the face he looked like he was wearing a wig. They had the shades down, and candles were lit in the room, which made it scary.

  We knelt down and said the rosary. Some of the girls were crying already. It was hard to keep from crying. After a while, the only one who was not crying was Robert Teale. Oh, that Robert Teale is a tough guy. He is the kind of a guy who will not cry at anything.

  Mrs. Shaler came into the room. She had a black dress on, and her eyes were very red. She hollered and made a run for the coffin and put her arms around it and put her head on Petey’s chest and mussed up his hair and cried and screamed to our Lord not to take Petey from her.

  “Take me, God! Don’t take this baby of mine. Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh.” She went like that.

  And it was sad. It was the saddest thing you ever saw. We felt so sorry for Mrs. Shaler. You know how she felt, being Petey’s mother. I was wishing God did take her instead of Petey.

  Some of the girls cried so hard that they started to beat it. Everybody cried but Robert Teale. You have to go some to make that guy cry. He is tough. But the girls should have stayed in the room, because they missed something. They missed the best part.

  That was when Mrs. Shaler started to talk to Petey like he was not dead, but sleeping. She knelt on the floor and pulled Jakie down with her. She put her arms around fakie’s neck and pretty near choked him to death. You could see Jakie’s face get red and then purple.

  She cried, “Oh, my little Petey! Your mother hasn’t been a good mother to you. Oh, come back, little son!”

  Everybody but Robert Teale was crying. I was crying, even. The girls kept going out with their handkerchiefs in front of their noses. Petey’s hair was all mussed up like he just woke up in bed in the morning. He did not wake up for real, though. He was dead in the coffin. He just looked like he woke up.

  Mrs. Shaler started to scream. Every time she did, it made me sick in my stomach. I was more scared now. I was more scared now than sad.

  “Oh God, bring him back!”

  Jakie could hardly talk on account of crying so much.

  He said, “Don’t talk like that, Mother.” I guess he felt cheap in front of us.

  Mrs. Shaler screamed, “Regrets! Regrets! Regrets!”

  She grabbed Jakie. She almost knocked him off his knees.

  She said, “Oh Jakie, I promise you here before Petey, here before all your wonderful little friends, that I will be a good mother from now on. I promise you, Jakie. I promise.”

  Jakie said, “You already are a good mother, Mother. You are a swell mother, Mother. Honest you are.

  Mr. Shaler came in. He picked up Mrs. Shaler and took her to the bedroom. Jakie went in when his father called him. After a little while Mr. Shaler came out and combed Petey’s hair. He did not say anything. Then he went out again. Us guys and girls were all alone with the coffin. It was scary. We were kneeling down. We could barely see Petey’s face and hands. Some of the girls wanted to go home, but they did not get up. It got hard on the knees, kneeling on the floor so long. One of the guys wanted to know what to do next.

  Robert Teale got up. He started to go out. He sure has nerve. He went over to the coffin and bent down real close to Petey’s face, and looked right at it.

  Then he said, “Well, the rest of you can do what you want. I ain’t going to stay here. I’m going home. Here I go.” And he went out. Then everybody got real scared. We ran out of the house. It felt good to get outside. Everybody went home.

  I kept on thinking about Mrs. Shaler. I was glad she promised to be good to Jakie from now on. That meant that Jakie could bum around with us if he wanted to, and we could use his footballs and baseballs and basketballs and bats and boxing gloves and sleds and tennis rackets and bows and arrows and tools. We could use his gun, too.

  They had the funeral the next day. We thought we would get out of school to go to it, but heck no. This is a rotten school. The only one who got to go was Jakie. And the only reason he got to go is on account of Petey was his brother. This is a rotten school. My mother went to the funeral. She said the church was full of people.

  She said, “I never saw so many pretty flowers. The Elks Club sent a great basket.” I am glad the Elks did, because my father is an Elk.

  My mother said, “Oh, I felt so sorry for that little boy Jakie. He knocked the candlestick over on the coffin when he passed by. He was so frightened. He felt so bad about it.”

  Jakie was at school on Monday. Nobody asked him about knocking over the candlestick. Everybody already knew it. The mothers of most of the guys went to the funeral, and they told them. We treated Jakie real nice, on account of the funeral was just a couple of days ago.

  We chose up sides for the game later, and the other side chose Jakie. But Jakie would not play.

  He said, “I can’t play, but I’ll umpire for you.”

  Robert Teale said, “Holy Christ! What kind of a mother you got, anyhow? Didn’t she promise she wouldn’t give you any more lickings? I call that a heck of a dirty trick.”

  Jakie did not talk very loud. We could barely hear him.

  He said, “You guys don’t know what I did. You weren’t at the funeral, so you don’t know.”

  Robert Teals said, “Oh yes I do. I know what you did. That ain’t nothing awful. You never did it on purpose. You know, you got a hell of a mother.”

  Jakie started to cry. He did not cry out loud. He did not cry because he had a heck of a mother. He was crying because his little brother Petey was dead. You could tell.

  The Still Small Voices

  YOUR BROTHER shook you by the hair until you were awake. It was about two o’clock in the morning.

  He whispered, “Wake up. Mama and Papa’s started in again.”

  In the next room you heard the voices of the two. The door was open, but there was no light. The whole house was dark. The bitterness in the voices was the same as on the other nights. The fire in the voice of your father made you and your brother reach for the skins of one another as you lay listening to the inscrutable words of the two, sometimes inaudible English words, but mostly Italian you had never heard.

  Your brother Pete, who lay beside you, who was ten, said, “This is a hell of a house.”

  In the next room your father said, “I’m through, that’s all. I’m through.”

  Your mother said, “And what about the kids?”

  Your father said, “Take them and get the hell out.”

  Your sister in the room beyond theirs began to cry. She called out to you in the darkness of the old house, and you answered, “What?” And your mother and father became quiet so that they could hear what your sister was wanting, and she called out again, her voice weaving through the doors to where you lay, “Go see why Mama and Papa are fighting, Jimmie. Please go see. I’m scared.”

  And your youngest brother Tommy, who slept in the bed with your sister, shouted to you who were twelve and the oldest, “I ain’t scared, Jimmie. She’s eight too, and I’m only six.”

  Your father roared, his voice vibrating the whole house, “if you kids don’t shut up, I’ll give you somet
hing to be scared about.”

  The brother who slept beside you said, “Tommy is sure a nervy little guy.”

  Your mother said to your father, “Now you woke up everybody.”

  Your father said, “Let ’em wake up. See if I give a damn.”

  Your room was between that of your mother and father and that of your grandmother, and now you heard your grandmother rising from her bed. She would come to your room as she always did when your mother and father quarreled in the night. With every step she took, she moaned a strange “oh oh oh.”

  The brother beside you said, “Now here comes Grandma to butt in.”

  The door creaked, and your little grandmother was standing beside the bed, her very dry hand pawing the pillow in search of your head.

  She whispered, and she was always crying on nights like this, “Go see, Jimmie, go see. You must make them stop. Your father will kill her.”

  Braggadocio, you said loud enough for your father to hear, “Aw, Papa’s all right.”

  The house was quiet except for the “oh oh oh” from your grandmother’s old bosom.

  You said, “See? There ain’t no more fighting.”

  Your father heard. There was the known sound of whining bedsprings, and your father sat up in bed and sputtered rapid angry words at your grandmother. It was that Italian of which you knew nothing. You did not catch a single ascertained word. Your grandmother went slowly on tiptoe back to her room, and her door closed, and the springs in her bed creaked.

  Your mother said to your father, “That was a fine thing to say to your own mother.”

  From the room beyond, your sister said, “Mama, Mama, please don’t start again.”

  Your little brother Tommy said to your sister, “Scaredy cat.”

  The brother beside you said in a whisper, “What did Papa say to Grandma?”

  You said, “I don’t know. Go to sleep.”

  The walls around the room were of lath and cracked plaster, and you could hear your grandmother in her bed. The strange “oh oh ohs” were round sobs that shook the bed now.