Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Wonderland

1987; University of Iowa; Volume: 17; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.17077/0021-065x.3496

2330-0361

C. S. Godshalk,

WHEN THE ROOM WAS LIKE THIS, in the dark, with only the window letting in moonlight and the white blanket looming up pale and square, anything could be in it.Anyone.Merle could be curled up on the day bed grinding his teeth, his small knees jammed into his chest.He was.She could be rolling over on the big fold-out couch, snoring lightly, or just there.She wasn't.But in the night Paulie was never completely sure.He let this uncertainty fold over him, the dreamy possibility of his mother's presence in the room would roll up under his chin, and he would sleep.In the morning it was just himself and Merle, but it was all right because in the morning he was energetic and there were things to do fast. Juice and cereal and BugsBunny vitamins and hot milk heated in the little pot on the good burner and the pot run full of water right away so he could clean it out easily when they got back.Then rinsing and stacking the dishes in the sink and smoothing out the beds.He got Merle's jacket and hat and gave him the fifty cents.He had made her fill out the form saying they needed lunch for fifty cents and not a dollar like the other kids only a lot of the other kids had the same form.Sometimes, when he first woke up but didn't open his eyes, knowing she'd be nowhere in the room, he would panic.He'd decide then to tell them, he'd yell to them all off the backstairs of the apartment and down the halls of Our Lady of the Snows, that she had left."What kind of a mother is she!" they would cry."A Whore!A Drunk!" and he would rush into their arms, into all their arms.But it would be Peg holding him, smiling with her cigarette and that stretched pink and silver sweater, look ing nothing like anybody's mother, and a tremendous ache would fill his chest.That's when he dropped an arm off the bed and groped for his sneakers.He knew if they were there, exactly as he left them, side by side with the toes perfectly even, it would be all right and he could get up.He poured the milk out of the pot over two bowls of Cap'n Crunch while Merle's headless form stumbled out of the bathroom.Paulie reached out with his free hand and yanked at the little boy's shirt until the large grey eyes appeared, the shirt still hitched on the nose, the face of a baby robber.