Liz Dolan
The Photograph
Kathleen loved going anywhere with her mother, except to the fourth-floor walkup where the Sheridans lived, because there were no kids her age to play with there, and because Mrs. Sheridan’s grown up daughter always lay covered by an army surplus wool blanket on the worn tweed couch. "Why do we have to go to the Sheridans, Momma?"
"Because Mrs. Sheridan needs a bit of company now and then, child."
"Why doesn’t her daughter ever talk to me?"
"Because she is sick; she cannot speak. I’ve explained it all to you before, Kathleen."
Kathleen’s mother had told her that Mary Eileen had been struck by lightning. But if she had been struck by lightning so hard that she never moved, Kathleen wondered how the Sheridan’s got her up to the fourth floor apartment.
When Kathleen’s mother and Mrs. Sheridan sipped their hot tea from the gold rimmed white cups at the enamel table chipped by the carelessness of too many children, Kathleen would drink her Mission orange soda and ask Mary Eileen if she wanted some. Crunching on her Social Tea Biscuit, Kathleen would stand as close to Mary Eileen as she dared and pinch her arm to see if she would cry. But Mary Eileen never flinched, nor did her blue eyes blink. "Mary Eileen, I am going to pinch you even harder if you do not talk to me; it is very, very rude not to talk to your guest." Kathleen pinched even harder, but Mary Eileen’s face remained frozen.
"I think you are faking, Mary Eileen; I think you do not want to go to school or to church or to help wash the dishes. But you cannot fool me, Mary Eileen."
Because Mary Eileen was the only member of her family to have auburn hair, Kathleen thought she didn’t really belong to the Sheridan family. She thought Mary Eileen probably had been there lying on the couch in the fourth floor walkup forever. Kathleen thought Mary Eileen wasn’t Mrs. Sheridan’s daughter after all; she thought Mary Eileen had been there when the Sheridan’s moved in and she would be there when the Sheridan’s moved out.
For days after she had flown down the slate stairs of the fourth floor walkup, Kathleen wondered about Mary Eileen almost as much as she wondered about her dead brother, whom Kathleen could not really remember, for she was only two when he died. She had seen only one picture of him, the black and white photo that must have been taken shortly before he was killed. In it he is standing between his two older sisters and his mother and father, sitting in Adirondack chairs on a lush lawn. Butchie must have been about five years old; he was skinny with knobby knees half hidden by blue shorts, sun-bleached blonde hair, his right hand on his hip, and his left hand resting on his father’s sturdy shoulder.
Kathleen would watch her mother stare at the photograph, and she wanted to ask her about him. Could he run fast? Could he play scullies, flys are up, or curb ball? She wanted to ask her mother, but something always stopped her. She wanted to ask her mother why they called him Butchie, when his real name was Edward, after his father; she wanted to ask her mother how Butchie had died, but every time Kathleen tried, salt tears stung her eyes, and her mouth dried up like cotton. She was afraid to ask her mother, and she did not know why.
Besides, Kathleen could always ask the kids in her building about Butchie, because they knew everything about everything. When she pitched pennies in front of Condemi’s shoe repair shop with them, the kids spoke about Butchie as though he was going to pitch the next copper.
"Butchie ran out on 138th Street to get the spaldeen and a truck came barreling down and ran over him. My mother was looking out the window; she told me," said Margie Golden, who lived on the third floor of Kathleen’s apartment building.
"Baloney," said Ronald Schneider, whose penny hit the wall and bounced back. "You just made that up, Margie; I was with Butchie that day. We was running down the block, and as we turned on to St. Ann’s Avenue, a vegetable truck backed into the street. It knocked Butchie down and crushed his head like a tomato. Squish!" Kathleen hated how Ronald said "Squish," so she pitched the last penny and beat them all.
Kathleen was glad to beat Ronald, because she knew he was showing off when he told Butchie’s story, and he told the story every chance he got. Lately, she was beginning to believe Ronald, because every time her father saw her playing with him he would say, "Go upstairs and help your mother!" Kathleen used to think her father was being an old grouch, but lately she thought her father was angry with Ronald because he blamed him for Butchie’s death. Ronald was two years older than Butchie, and he knew Butchie wasn’t supposed to leave the front of their building.
After Kathleen’s mother went to work, Kathleen would search through the Alexander’s box crammed with family photos. "How come there’s only one picture of Butchie in this whole house?" Kathleen asked her oldest sister.
"Because I threw all the others out; I thought Momma would be happier without them."
"Didn’t Momma get mad at you?"
"No, she never said a word."
Sometimes Kathleen thought Butchie was a neighborhood myth, like the story of the little girl chopped up by the janitor of 537, who then buried her body in the basement. Even though Kathleen knew the story was made up to keep girls like her from exploring the local cellars, she hugged the curb whenever she passed 537.
At other times Kathleen thought Butchie had never been part of her family at all, just as Mary Eileen was not a part of the Sheridan family. Kathleen did not like Butchie anyway, because he made her mother cry, and since he had been the only boy, he was probably spoiled.
Kathleen decided she was not going to think or ask questions about Butchie anymore; and if the know-it-all kids in her building started to talk about Butchie, she would tell them to shut up. Or, since they were bigger than she, she might pretend she was deaf because she was struck by lightning like Mary Eileen. And if she got the chance when no one in her family was around, she was going to burn that black and white photograph; the one where he is standing between his two older sisters and his smiling mother and father, sitting in the Adirondack chairs in the thick, lush grass.
©2004 by Liz Dolan
