Song of Fools

I was responsible for Jamie.  Mama had told me this years ago when he was just a baby.  I was five years older than he, so I didn’t remember much about him as a baby, but I learned how to change his diaper and how to feed him.  It was exciting to watch him grow from a helpless infant who couldn’t turn over into someone who wanted to get into everything.  I had to watch him all the time.  Mrs. Minetti, our neighbor, watched him when I was in school, but Mama had told me that Jamie was my responsibility, and I had accepted that.

            Our mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw.  As she dressed up to go to work in the evening, I watched her and admired her.  She was tall and slim with beautiful blonde hair which I loved to help her brush.  She put on lipstick and powder and then perfume.  That perfume was the most seductive perfume I have ever smelled.  Once, years later, after Mama was gone, I walked into a drugstore and smelled her perfume.  The smell stopped me right there and left me standing like a hog that has been dazed by a maul; for a moment the aroma washed over me like a gush of nostalgic water from the past, and I was transported back, back in time to when I was just a boy, watching his lovely mother readying herself to go out.  Before she went out, she hugged and kissed me.  After she had gone, I could still smell her essence as the whole room was filled with it, and I tried to grasp it to me as if it were her actual being.

            I didn’t know where she went in the evening or what she did.  By that time I was seven or eight, and Jamie was two or three, so I knew how to take care of him when Mama was gone.  This was important during the day, too, as Mama usually didn’t get up before noon.  She worked late, she said, and she had to have her sleep.  So I got Jamie dressed and left him with Mrs. Minetti. 

            Mrs. Minetti was almost completely opposite from Mama.  She was short and heavyset, maybe because she liked to eat.  She always had food ready to share with anyone who came to her house.  Fortunately, that included Jamie and me.  Her husband drove a truck to deliver freight, and he looked much like his wife:  short and stocky.

            I saw early on that Mrs. Minetti didn’t like Mama.  This I didn’t understand as Mrs. Minetti was a good person who cared for people and looked after them.  She was one of the people in our neighborhood who made certain the older boys weren’t misbehaving.  She watched out her kitchen window to make sure nobody was doing anything on our street that they shouldn’t.  Kids who didn’t go to school knew better than to appear on our street as Mrs. Minetti might grab them and walk them to the school herself. 

            Mrs. Minetti could be stern and disapproving if she didn’t like what you were doing, but I saw that she was quite loving also, especially with the little kids.  She looked after Jamie as if he were one of her own children, and she even watched out for me, in a way.  Some evenings Jamie and I sat with her in her kitchen while she cooked or washed dishes.  I did my homework sitting at her table, and she respected that as she never interrupted me or even distracted me.  But she was very attentive to Jamie, offering him special treats as if to make up to him for the world not being such a nice place. 

            Most evenings after Mama had gone to work, I read to Jamie or we listened to the radio before we went to bed.  Since we slept in the same bed, we just naturally grew together. 

Some evenings we spent with Mrs. Minetti.  When it was time for bed, she walked us to our house and put us to bed.  At the time this felt odd to me as Mrs. Minetti wasn’t our mother but since Mama wasn’t available I accepted it.  She kissed Jamie when she tucked him in, but I didn’t want her to kiss me.

Once in a while I’d wake up in the night to hear voices.  Occasionally I wandered out to find Mama with a man who had come home with her.  She would hug and kiss me before telling me to go back to bed.  She said she was just talking with her friend.