Daybreak

"The Little Mermaid Bingo Club"was a real shit hole, but just a little less crummy than my family's own two-bedroom shack on the corner of Martin and Valencia in the Bronx. My mother's boyfriend, Anthony Duke, owned the greasy little club. He was a fat, bald, ex-priest who got caught with his hand up a ten-year-old girl's frilly yellow dress, and was booted from fatherhood. The scandal remained a secret, even though I'd heard about it from our neighbors, 'cause he'd claimed that the girl'd told him she was 18. That must've been total bullshit, though, 'cause apparently she was about four feet tall and didn't have any tits. Still, Cindy, my mother, believed him.

Cindy'd gotten to the ninth grade, quit to have my brother Jack, and remained in a state of drunkenness from that point on. So she was dumb, real dumb. Cindy made a good match with Tony, 'cause they both pissed me off. In fact, I was pissed about a lot of things. My family for sure, and my weight, but that was another story. My life did change, however. And it all came down to one particular night, at Duke's Bingo club.

It was "Sombrero Night" at The Little Mermaid. Tony'd bought a small mountain of 89-cent Taco Bell tacos to attract more gamblers. I crammed down at least six of 'em with extra sour cream. It was a particularly sweaty night. It wasn't so much hot as it was humid, so the stink just clung to the walls, an acidic stench of overcooked beef and dried piss. I sat at the kid's table, even though I'd just turned 16, with my two younger sisters, Pam and Jan. I stuffed my cheeks until my mouth ached, while the other two yanked each other's braids and bit anyone who tried to pull 'em apart. But I didn't give a shit what they were doing. After a few minutes I stopped eating and started listening to Tony. He was spitting out bingo numbers into a low quality mic, which my mother'd gotten him as a birthday present three months before.

"B2... I13... N23... G36... O41..."

All of a sudden a high-pitched screech pierced the soft rumble and bumping sounds of Bingo balls. It wasn't until I saw the woman stand up, waver and fall, that I realized it was my mother. I waddled over to the front of the room and bent over her. Cindy was wearing her favorite outfit; I winced as the fluorescent lights reflected off her gold jacket, white pants, and matching shoes.

"I think she's dead,"said this guy with a distinctive smell of Clove cigarettes.
"Shut the fuck up man, and give her some room," I said to the funky smelling bastard, as I shoved him over to the side.

In the weird light Cindy almost seemed sober, I wanted to preserve the moment, but her stink of Night Train was adding to the club's sweaty odor, so I dispersed the thought. I picked up her bent and tattered Bingo card. It felt soft and smooth under my thumbs. I realized she'd won the blackout game. The pot'd sat at a hundred dollars, she must've tried to scream out "Bingo"and collapsed. A little while later I'd find out that she'd died, almost as soon as she'’d hit the ground, of a massive stroke.

After the ambulance'd come to collect my mother's remains, and the club'd cleared out, Tony turned to me and my sisters. "I know this is gonna be a hard time for you,"he said "and it's gonna be a hard time for me too. I just want you three to understand that I'll be there for you."

My sisters started crying, their faces scrunched up. They looked a lot like little rats -- it made me sick. And they looked a lot younger than nine and eight, but I guess they weren't really thinking about appearing mature at the time. I was still stupefied.

Then Tony took me and my sisters to the back room, to comfort us a little more. "Maybe I'll make you kids some hot coco," he said "I think it'd be good if we'd all just calmed down a bit." He held Pam and Jan's hands as he led us down a hall and into his office. I shuffled behind them, while looking down at the broken up tile floor. The night's stink'd seemed to build and solidify as we walked.

I don't want to go into what happened then, but a little while afterwards my older brother Jack busted in to Tony's office, surprising Tony, who staggered against one of the cement walls, with his pants down, literally. Jack'd gotten cracked out of his mind, as soon as he'd heard Cindy'd died, and decided he'd rob Tony's bingo club, just as Tony was about to show us his "sympathy." Jack swept up a brown metal folding chair and in one quick move brought it down on Tony's back with a hard, clear, smack. Tony'd lost consciousness at that point. I went over to his crumpled up body and kicked him in the nuts a few times, then spit in his face. The bastard wouldn't touch me again. When Tony awoke in Saint Mary Hospita's ICU he was paralyzed from the waist down.

My brother swiped the dollars on Tony's desk, said something about "Headin' up to Manhattan." And I haven't seen him since. I heard, though, that he's been in and out of jail, and is presently serving a two to three year sentence at the State Penn for attempting to rob a 7-11 in Jersey.

So that's how my life got switched up, at least to begin with. And why I, Penny Smith, got put in a temp foster home with Pam and Jan and met my first real friend, Elizabeth Sullivan.

My teeth rattled as I tried to wrap the thin blanket around my shoulders. Pam and Jan had fallen asleep in the twin-sized bed right next to mine. My stomach turned, and I felt a hot liquid crawl up from my stomach, leaving a sour taste in my mouth. It was about four in the morning, police'd been questioning us since I'd called the ambulance to come pick up Tony, and then they'd taken us here around one. The Bradley Foundation Youth Home for Girls struck me as more of a pen -- like for pigs -- than a home, but still it was better than our old shack on Martin and Valencia. There were about 30 other girls at the foster home, and they were all tossing and moaning uncomfortably in the same long room. I wasn’t able to sleep, but I was exhausted, and so hungry my head'd started to hurt. Maybe I'd loose weight by morning, and that'd be a good thing. I lifted my heavy legs off the bed and jammed my feet into some worn down pink slippers the social workers had given me. The floorboards creaked with an annoying whine as I walked out of the room.

Suddenly, from behind me, I heard someone whisper loudly, "What are you doing up? Get back to bed, or I'll kick your fat ass."

My heart flipped and belly flopped, in shock, expecting, as I turned around, to see one of the dick head social workers with a frown pasted up across his or her face. Instead I spun around and came face to face with another chick, about my age. She had long black hair that reached down to her back and soft crème colored skin that glowed in the moonlight-- a regular Pocahontas. She was fucking gorgeous, and I fucking hated her because of it.

The chick shifted her body weight, thrusting out a hip, in a bitch like manner, that reminded me of my mother, and said, "So, are you gonna rat on me or are you gonna come with me?"
"Who the fuck do you think you are talking to me like that?"
"Elizabeth Sullivan... and who are you?" she said with a sarcastic tone, turning her nose upward so I could see her nostrils.
"Fuck you," I said, "why the fuck did you scare me like that, and where the hell do you think you're goin'?"
"I didn't mean ta scare ya, and I'm goin'out." She said, very simply, as though I should've known, even though she was still in her pajamas.
"You mean you're gonna just walk outta here, even though you're still in your freakin' pajamas?"
"Yeah, so you comin'?"

Stepping back a second, I took a look at the situation. I really had nothing better to do with myself. I looked past the doorway to my sisters in their bed and realized they were gonna be just fine together. I'd come back for them, and I'm sure they'd know it, and they'd be fine about that. So I turned my cheek to them, and with a little shrug of my shoulders, and a quick nod to Elizabeth Sullivan, I led the way down and out the Bradley Foundation Youth Home for Girls.

I guess we must've looked pretty odd walking down Barnard Street: a fat chic with pink slippers and a Pocahontas, both wearing pajamas, but still, it was late. Nobody really seemed to care, just gave us funny looks. My old shack was about a two-mile walk, and I decided that that's where we'd hole up for a while, since I figured it was still vacant. On our way Elizabeth and I got acquainted. She, like me, 'd gone to D.U.T., Douglas Uran Tower's Public School, but we'd never met each other, which wasn't surprising since there were like 2,000 kids in our class. She had a sister, Melissa, even though she didn't know what'd happen to her, but was planning on finding out. Her mother'd committed suicide about five months ago. She'd poured herself a glass of Drano and drank it all down. Elizabeth'd found her. She'd called the cops; they snatched her away, and tore her from her sister. It was a sad story.

When we got to the house we broke through the police seal on the door, and made our way in. "This place is a real shit hole." Elizabeth said.

I smiled and waddled over to the couch, plopped down, rolling my eyes to the back of my head. Nothing had changed. The place still stunk of beer and rat poison, but still it felt good to be home. Elizabeth went into the kitchen, looked through a couple cupboards, and found an old box of Lucky Charms. She walked over to the kitchen counter, which was lined with some family pictures in cheesy gold frames, eyed me on the couch, and started smacking away. I sat up, grabbed an old bowl crusted with mac and cheese that'd been lying next to me, and skipped over to pour myself some cereal.

Just as I approached the counter Elizabeth dropped the box of cereal, looked at me, picked up one of the pictures on the counter, looked at me again, and said, "Holy Mother Mary of God. Don't fucking tell me you're related to Father Anthony Duke." Her eyes went wide, and as she said this the skin on her face seemed to pull back, making her look like a skeleton.

"He was my mother's boyfriend, till she croaked," I told her, kinda scared by her expression.
"This fucking bastard molested my fucking sister," she sputtered.

At this point Elizabeth started to cry, and so I took her into my arms. I looked at her sobbing on me, looked at Tony's picture, looked at her again, and realized something very quickly. The little ten-year-old, with the yellow frilly dress, must've been Melissa Sullivan.

The sun was starting to come up. An orange light, bright and beautiful, started seeping into the house, warming the kitchen, even though both Elizabeth and I were shivering. I got control of myself after a second, though, and backed away from her. I leaned up against the counter across the kitchen and crossed my arms. Then, I told her what'd the bastard tried to pull earlier on that night. When I'd finished she'd stopped her whimpering, and actually started up a little smile.

"Why are you smiling about this?" I asked her "It isn't fucking funny you know -- I coulda ended up very mentally screwed up here."

At this Elizabeth started laughing pretty hard. I didn't expect her reaction, so I got even angrier. She must've seen my expression, cause suddenly she got pissed, came at me, grabbed my shoulders, and dug in her nails.

"First of all, you ignorant fat shit," she spit out at me, "you're not ten years old, and the priest never came into you or your sisters. He never got a chance to get to you, or them... like he did ta her... She was just a kid, for Christ's sakes." Elizabeth was hysterical and trembling bad as she said this. "He took her into his office after a communion lesson... take off... dress -- so that he... touch... stroke her. The fucking bastard... cock sucker... I love my sister, how could he hurt such an innocent little thing... would do that to a kid, it's just not right... not fucking right."

Elizabeth's face'd turned bright red. She was starting to hurt me, but I swallowed hard and pushed the pain down. I shoved her away from me, ready to fight her if she came at me again, and cried out, "I HATE HIM TOO, YOU MOTHER FUCKER."

At this Elizabeth sunk to the floor and broke down. I stood there a moment, breathing hard, my eyes fixed on her, just watching her. Then, relaxing my arms a bit, I looked up. My eye caught the picture of Tony Elizabeth'd been lookin'at. All of a sudden, it was as if I'd entered some kind of weird trance.

I ran over to the counter, and slammed my fat hand right into the frame. The broken glass cut my fingers and sliced my palms, but I didn't care. The sun'd come up, and the humidity, once again started chokin' me up. I started to cry. I bawled like a baby. I cried because I hated my mother, and I was happy she was dead. I cried because I hated Tony, and I was happy he was crippled. I walked over to Elizabeth and took her into my arms again. This time I held her and we cried together, for a long time. The sun's rays filtered in through the window's bars, warming the room. The night'd led to a new life, and a new day... I smiled through the tears... figure that.