The Inheritance

Keep your shoes on, little brother  
keep your good coat where you can  
don't ask where we're going  
don't ask about the man  
When Mama says we're leaving  
don't stop to turn things off  
Keep your shoes on, little brother  
sleep is something we can't trust

Mama kept our coats on chairs  
in the middle of July  
said a house can change its mind  
before a child can ask it why  
There was a bag behind the boiler  
two shirts, a comb, some change  
and every time a car slowed down  
her whole face rearranged

I knew his sober footsteps  
I knew his drinking feet  
I knew which floorboard told me  
not to breathe and not to speak

Mrs. Keller brought us peaches  
when the shouting went too long  
set them down beside the doorway  
like fruit could make it gone  
Teacher asked me where the bruises  
on my knuckles came from then  
I said I slipped behind the schoolyard

She asked me twice.

I lied again.

Once we made it to the highway  
with the morning still unborn  
Mama drove in yesterday's dress  
one sleeve of it was torn  
At a diner by the state line  
she put both hands on the wheel  
then said, "He didn't mean it."

I hated her for making that real.

We turned back before the sunrise.  
I never said a word.  
My brother slept across my shoulder.

I wished I hadn't heard.

Years later I called her weak.  
Years later I called her trapped.  
Both words fit inside one kitchen.

Her coffee went cold between them.

Keep your shoes on, little brother  
keep your good coat where you can  
don't ask where we're going  
don't ask about the man  
When somebody says forever  
listen for the engine cough  
Keep your shoes on, little brother  
sleep is something we can't trust

Forty years and every bedroom  
I still leave my shoes beside the door.

We ate from the good plates Sunday  
blue flowers round the rim  
Mama said, "Sit straight for your father."

Nobody had invited him.

Potatoes sweating in the serving bowl  
peas gone gray beneath the lid  
she polished every fork and spoon  
like decent families did

He came in smelling sweet and sour  
kissed her where the powder hid  
asked me if I loved my old man.

I said what a good son did.

Nobody mentioned Tuesday evening  
or the bedroom door off-square  
Nobody mentioned Mama sleeping  
with a kitchen chair in there  
Dad said work was looking better  
said he'd found a friend downtown  
I watched his thumb go white around the glass  
when she asked him to sit down

The crack across my dinner plate  
ran from the flowers to the edge  
I worried it with my thumbnail.

He made another pledge.

Don't break the good plates  
we haven't got the money  
Don't stain the white cloth  
company might come  
Don't speak while he's angry  
don't laugh when he's funny  
Whatever happens after  
we're a family when it's done

My brother spilled his milk that night.

Dad looked at him.

I laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because I was glad  
he wasn't looking at me.

Mama slapped the table once.  
Hard.

Everybody froze.

She said, "Enough."

I loved her for three seconds.

Then she cleaned the milk.

Years later I found one plate  
wrapped in newspaper in a crate  
blue flowers, brown old crack  
still running to the edge  
I held it over a trash can.

Couldn't do it.

Couldn't keep it either.

So I left it on the curb  
with somebody else's furniture.

By morning it was gone.

Good.

Thursday through the glass  
put your hand against mine  
tell me you're behaving  
I'll tell you I'm doing fine  
Thursday through the glass  
an hour dressed up as enough  
You look like my father from here

if I don't look too hard

Thursday wore a yellow wristband  
Mama wore her Sunday blue  
I wore shoes a little too small  
because she said he'd notice shoes  
Quarters swallowed by the lockers  
pockets emptied for the guard  
painted arrows down a hallway  
coffee burned and breathing hard

He was already there and smiling  
hair cut close above the ears  
like the state had made him younger

or I had grown in half a year

He asked if I still played baseball.  
I hadn't played since spring.  
Asked if Mama fixed the Chevy.  
Asked about every useless thing.  
Then he said men make mistakes, son.  
A man must pay his due.

He never said what he had done.

Only what had happened to him.

A woman down the row was crying.  
Her baby chewed the cord.  
Some little girl kept blowing kisses  
at a man who looked bored.  
Dad said, "Take care of your mother.  
You're the man around there now."

I sat taller in the plastic chair.

God forgive me, I was proud.

On the ride home Mama smoked  
with the window cracked an inch  
said, "Don't believe his promises."

Then:

"Don't you ever hate him."

Two commandments in one car.  
Both impossible.  
Both law.

Thursday through the glass  
put your hand against mine  
tell me you're behaving  
I'll tell you I'm doing fine  
Thursday through the glass  
the buzzer says we're done

You looked like my father from there.

I looked like your son.

Mother said the door was weather  
swollen crooked in the rain  
said the lamp fell off the table  
said the red mark was a stain  
said the hole beside the staircase  
had been there since '68

Funny how the house got clumsy  
every night he came home late

Mother said it was weather  
so I learned to call storms rain  
called terror "bad temper"  
called silence "keeping sane"  
called blood "a little accident"  
called leaving "coming back"

Mother said it was weather.

Weather didn't do that.

Teacher kept me after spelling.  
Said, "You know you can tell me things."  
I watched sunlight cross the chalkboard.  
Heard the empty playground swings.

There were words behind my teeth.

I swallowed every one.

At nine you know who feeds you.

At nine you know who owns the gun.

So I said Dad worked the night shift.  
Said my mother fell downstairs.  
She touched my shoulder.

I pulled away.

Then thanked her for her prayers.

Don't make my mother holy.  
Don't make her only weak.  
Some nights she stood between us.  
Some nights she told me not to speak.  
Once she packed our clothes by midnight.  
Twice she unpacked before dawn.

Once she hit me when I cursed him.

Then cried after I was gone.

I have loved her.  
I have blamed her.  
I have lied about them both.

By Sunday we called it family.

By Monday, nobody spoke.

And him?

No weather.

No bad luck.

No bottle made his choices.

He had hands.

He had doors.

He kept coming back through both.

Mother said it was weather  
but I know the weather now  
Rain don't whisper, "Don't you tell them."  
Thunder doesn't make a vow.  
Clouds don't beg you for forgiveness  
then come home and do it twice.

Mother said it was weather.

I was nine.

She was scared.

He knew exactly what he did.

There's a dollar in the Bible  
there's a promise in the red  
there's a man who says God sees us  
there's a chair against the bed  
There's a heaven for the faithful  
there's a county line for men  
There's a dollar in the Bible

just in case God don't come through again

There was a dollar in the Bible  
between Matthew five and six  
Mama kept it flat and hidden  
for emergencies and tricks  
If the milkman wouldn't carry us  
if the meter man came by  
if somebody needed cough syrup  
or somebody needed a lie

It smelled of dust and tobacco.  
The red letters promised rest.

Mama trusted Jesus plenty.

She trusted cash the best.

Church ladies brought us casseroles  
when Daddy went away  
Pastor knew a lawyer  
who'd take thirty bucks someday  
Mama sang about salvation  
with powder on her cheek  
I watched everybody praise a God  
who seemed busy every week

When they passed the silver offering plate  
Mama looked at me and smiled.

I dropped in somebody else's dime.

Stole it from their kid outside.

When Dad went back to county  
Mama opened Matthew wide  
spent the dollar on some gasoline  
and drove us east that night  
Twenty miles before the Chevy coughed.  
Twenty-one before it died.

A deacon stopped and helped us.

Mama told him where we lived.

I never forgave him for being kind.

Years later in a motel drawer  
I found that same old Gideon book  
opened where she used to hide it  
without meaning to look  
Nothing there between the pages.

Still I checked a second time.

I needed money for a bottle.

God was broke.

So was I.

There's a dollar in the Bible  
there's a promise in the red  
there's a man who says God sees us  
there's a stranger in my bed  
There's a heaven for the faithful  
there's a morning after sin

There's no dollar in the Bible.

I checked again.

Eddie stole it from his brother.  
I stole courage from the glass.  
Fifteen, behind the feed store,  
throwing stones at trucks that passed  
He said, "Don't drink it like a preacher."  
I said, "I've had this stuff before."

That was a lie.

But lies came easy  
when you'd practiced them indoors.

First swallow burned like medicine.  
Second one turned something down.

By the third I couldn't hear  
my father's truck anywhere in town.

Borrowed whiskey, borrowed night  
borrowed courage, borrowed light  
For an hour I wasn't listening  
for a key turn in a door  
Borrowed whiskey, burn me clean  
make me anything but me

I didn't know I loved the silence.

I just knew I wanted more.

We laughed until our ribs hurt  
at a joke I can't recall  
Eddie sang some country song  
and I knew enough to bawl  
For once a bottle on a table  
didn't mean somebody bled  
It meant warm hands, dirty stories,  
nothing waiting overhead

I remember thinking:

So this is what he likes.

I woke behind the lumber yard  
gravel printed in my cheek  
one shoe gone, mouth full of pennies,  
couldn't stand up straight to pee  
Eddie said I cried about my father.

I shoved him into the wall.

He looked at me the way I'd seen  
Mama look at Dad.

That sobered me.

For maybe half a minute.

Then I asked him where the bottle was.

People like to say the first drink  
starts the fall.

Mine felt like flying.

Borrowed whiskey, borrowed night  
borrowed courage, borrowed light  
For an hour I wasn't listening  
for a key turn in a door  
Borrowed whiskey, burn me clean  
make me anything but me

I didn't know I loved the silence.

I just knew I wanted more.

Eddie stole it from his brother.

Next Friday  
I knew where his brother kept it.

The house knew first.

Before the neighbors.  
Before the school.  
Before the cops learned our address  
and stopped asking which one was who.

The hallway knew his shoulder.  
The plaster knew her head.  
The kitchen chair knew exactly  
how a decent evening ends.

The stairs could tell by midnight  
which foot was coming down.

The house knew first.

The house kept quiet.

So did everybody in town.

That house knew first  
and that house never talked  
just stood there taking punches  
with its windows painted shut  
That house knew first  
every promise, every curse

If walls could testify

we'd have needed a bigger church

There was a dent beside the pantry.  
Wallpaper peeled above the sink.  
A belt lived on the chair-back.  
A glass waited for a drink.  
Mama whispering, "Not tonight."  
Him saying, "Who the hell are you?"

I kept eating.

The peas were cold.

I used to hate the house for standing  
when county cars were gone  
for letting morning through the curtains  
like nothing carried on  
Then I got tall enough for anger.  
Put my fist through bedroom wall.

Mama screamed, "You're just like him."

I turned and said:

"Then whose fault is that?"

She went quiet.

I wanted to take it back.

I didn't.

Blood ran down across my wrist.  
Plaster dust stuck to my hand.  
My brother watched me from the doorway.

I told him, "What're you looking at?"

There he was.

Small.

Shoes on.

Ready.

That house knew first  
and that house never talked  
just stood there taking punches  
with its windows painted shut  
That house knew first  
every promise, every curse

By then my brother knew it too.

Shoes on.

Waiting by the door.

Leave the kitchen light  
leave the kitchen light  
I don't know where I'm sleeping  
but I know I can't tonight  
If I turn back at the corner  
if I lose my nerve in flight  
don't come running

don't forgive me

just leave the kitchen light

I packed two shirts in a paper sack  
the good one and the gray  
took forty-three dollars from the coffee tin  
and left before the day  
Mama stood beside the icebox  
bare feet on yellow floor  
She didn't ask me where I was going.

We'd both heard that lie before.

She said, "Call when you get somewhere."

I said, "I always do."

Neither one believed me.

Love has manners when it's through.

My brother slept behind the thin wall  
still small enough to dream  
I almost woke him just to tell him  
not to turn out like me  
Instead I left my old coat hanging  
where he'd find it after school  
six dollars in the pocket  
and the knife I thought looked cool

He'd asked me for that knife for months.

I knew Mama hated it.

Part of me hoped Dad would notice  
something missing when he got home.

At the station men were drinking  
coffee black enough to shine  
one old soldier called me "son."

I nearly told him not to.

Then didn't.

The bus came coughing blue smoke.  
I bought west as far as cash could buy.  
My father's voice said men don't run.

Mama's said survive.

The driver tore my ticket.

I climbed aboard.

When the town fell behind me  
I waited for relief.

What came was quiet.

Quiet isn't peace.

Sometimes quiet is a room  
after somebody leaves.

Sometimes quiet is a boy  
finding out that he can breathe.

Leave the kitchen light  
leave the kitchen light  
for the fools who swear they're leaving  
and come crawling back by night  
For the mothers at the window  
for the sons too proud to write  
for every house that taught us darkness

leave the kitchen light

Leave the kitchen light  
leave the kitchen light  
I got miles enough behind me  
I can almost call it right  
If I turn into my father  
if I drink away my life  
let there still be one small window

with a little human light

Forty years from that bus station  
I can still see Mama there  
one hand resting on the counter  
gray beginning in her hair  
I used to think she should have stopped me.  
Then I thought she should have come.

Now I don't know what I think.

Some nights I don't try.

A boy stepped into the morning.  
The house disappeared from view.

But houses are patient creatures.

They know how to travel inside you.

Leave the kitchen light  
leave the kitchen light  
not because I'm coming home now  
not because we made it right  
Leave it burning for the children  
who mistake escape for flight  
Leave it burning for the frightened

Leave it burning out of spite

Leave the kitchen light.

Mama,

I got somewhere.

I just never called.