Momma's Boy

Nancy Sweetland has been writing for over 30 years, publishing over 50 stories for adults and 30 for children, as well as five children's picture books. She is currently marketing two adult mysteries, The Virgin Murders and The Spa Murders, and a series for children, The Alphabet Snoops.

what’s this? -- behind me, leaning against the pillows, a saxophone. I don’t play the saxophone.

Yesterday - was it yesterday or a week ago? I mowed Momma’s lawn. Carefully, like she wants. That’s the last thing I remember.

Where’s my wallet? That will tell me who I am. On the dresser. Yes!

Albert Jurah. Born 5-6-44. Makes me 54-55. If you say so, driver’s license. The picture matches the face I see in the mirror, only shaven. Not bad looking. Ordinary.

Then it hits me, slamming my heart like a bullet into my breastbone. Sheila is dead.

I drop my head into my hands. Sheila is dead...is dead. It becomes a mantra, a connection to a reality I don’t want to face. Sheila is dead because of me. Because of Momma.

This cannot be reality. Me, Albert Jurah, here. A dingy room, a threadbare zig-zag cotton bedspread and a beat-up saxophone. God, how Sheila loved a sax wailing the blues like a siren calling sailors onto the rocks. Sheila.

    Now there’s a memory! Albert, you’re so stupid! How many hundreds of times have I heard that! Yes, Momma, that’s your mantra. God, if there is one, shouldn’t let people like you have defenseless children to degrade. Confuse. Terrify.

    Yes, terrify. I shudder, seeing your squinty eyes, your pursed mouth hissing ‘stupid!’ at me. Making me do something awful, making me cry. And then grabbing me, stuffing me into your doughy breasts, suffocating me, telling me, ‘you did wrong.

    But it’s all right now, Albert, I’ll make it all right, you’ll see.’

    I pull my head from my hands and look again into the mirror that reflects where I am. One dusty window. Thin, colorless, filmy-with-age curtains, half drawn against the too-bright morning. Behind me the ancient wooden headboard sprouts six --count them, six –- candle saucers in a pyramidal configuration. Put a goblet of water on each one and if Jesus was here he could turn them all into wine and whoever was in the bed could have a wonderful time. Each glass drunk in sequence until the last...Sheila loved wine.

    But Momma said Sheila was bad, said I had to do what I did.

    I bought that saxophone from a thin, bad-toothed middle-aged man in the square. He played pretty well in spite of having lost the tip of his left index finger. ‘See, I cover the hole with the rest,’ he said, proud, waving the stump at me. I gave him fifty dollars and he gave me the sax. ‘For twenty-five I can get another,’ he said. ‘You could do the same.’

    But it was this one I wanted. Now here it is, leaning seductively against the bed pillow like a hooker waiting for instructions.

    My head is clearing now and it hurts as though a crushing vise is being screwed into both temples. This is more than the drink. Surely, I have a tumor squeezing my brain. Perhaps I always had it, that’s why I’m so stupid, Albert. It’s not my fault, never was. See, Momma, you didn’t know. It was never me who did those things,

    I remember all the blood on Sheila’s head, the sudden silence, like the stillness when you walk into a field of chirping crickets and they stop.

    What will happen now?

    A knock on the door and they’ll burst in, badges glinting, guns unholstered as though I’m a dangerous, rabid dog. Hands behind your back they’ll say, read me my rights.

    I don’t have rights, only wrongs. Ask Momma.

    They’ll put me away somewhere, store me in a box like frozen shrimp on the supermarket shelf, until they decide what to do with me.

    What’s that?

    There! The knock on the door! My heart begins to pound. There is not enough air in this room to let me breathe. I stare into the mirror at what they will see -- me, Albert Jurah, and a saxophone I can’t play.

    The door bursts open.

    "Sheila! You’re alive!" I fall back, sobbing thankfully. I didn’t do wrong, in spite of Momma. "I’m so sorry! It will be all right," I say, but the knife in her hand says different.

    "Look!" I say, pointing behind me. "I bought you a saxophone!"

    Sheila stops, confused. "You did? Why?"

    "I thought you’d like it."

    She snorts. "You tried to kill me. You left me for dead. Now it’s my turn." She stands over me, black eyes flashing. She is so beautiful. Why did Momma say she had to die?

    Sheila steps toward me, her face contorted, her deadly arm raised. She is shrieking, sobbing.

    Suddenly her eyes go vacant. She falls forward, right over me, knocking me back on the zig-zag spread. Her knife stabs the mattress so close to my head I feel the cold blade against my ear.

    And another voice says, "You didn’t do it right, you never do, Albert you’re so stupid. But come to Momma, it’s all right now. I’ll make it all right, you’ll see. I always do."