Some people think they’re underpaid, which is to say they think others make too much. Mother’d hear about some actor or baseball player in the news, shake her head and exclaim, “Nobody needs that much money!”
I’d’ve liked to’ve believed, or should I say agreed with, her. But all I could think was, How did she know?
And I thought it was a strange thing for her to say. After all, from her I learned that all that matters is whether you’re making enough to pay for what and who you have to pay for. I never knew the details of her finances—still don’t—but neither I nor—as far as I know, anyway—she missed a meal. Sometimes one or the other of us was hungry, or simply didn’t want to eat.
And I can remember a time when somehow or another she got a watermelon late in January—a particularly cold month and season, as I recall.
I don’t know how she got it or what—or if—she paid for it. But there it was. And it was one of the few things she ate from which she didn’t offer me even a bite, and it never occurred to me to ask for it.
Why didn’t I ask? Not because I didn’t care for watermelon: every year, I looked forward to that pink flesh that crumbled in my mouth without scraping my tongue or the slippery tissues above it. Just moist pieces that disintegrated before they slid down my throat.
Somehow I always felt like I was getting away with something when I ate watermelon. There was that texture; there was the coolness and the colors I’d never seen on anything else. Somehow, even in my ignorance of geography, I knew that nothing like it could come from this block.
And every year, right around the Fourth of July, we’d have it. I’d look forward to it, enjoy it. But I knew enough not to look for it in the middle of winter. No one told me: I just noticed that nobody ate it at any other time of year but those few weeks before Labor Day. Whatever mother had, there was enough for watermelon during the summer.
Since then, I’ve been what some people would consider poor. I met boys—and some girls—who sucked somebody so they could eat that day. And they didn’t have any place to stay that night, except for the bed of whoever fed and fucked them.
They weren’t making enough to live any other way; sometimes all they had were a sandwich and beer in their bellies and the stained sheets at their backs. Some people would say they were underpaid, which they confuse with being exploited.
I don’t imagine the question ever crossed their minds. One night, they needed only something to eat and drink, maybe something to smoke or snort, and some place to lie down, whether or not they get any rest. Another night, they’d need a pair of stockings or boots, a new makeup compact or something else, and they’d have to find another trick. Sometimes they didn’t have anything to eat or drink; sometimes they’d notice.
So maybe they weren’t making enough money. But were they underpaid? All anybody knows—and only sometimes do people actually know this—is what other people make, sometimes for doing the same kind of work they do, other times for doing things they can’t even imagine. Even if someone knows what you make, how could that person know what you should make?
After I left this block, I heard people say that other people in certain jobs, like teaching or social work, weren’t “paid enough.” How did they know? Sometimes they said the same thing about priests, rabbis, ministers and astrologers. How could they make such statements? Since I’ve tried so little to recall any part of my life, I’ve never needed religious people or spiritualists, and since I don’t fear ghosts, I have no need for the services such people render. I’d never have to pay for them, so they’re worth nothing to me. But I’ve known people—just-divorced suburban housewives and men who can only imagine they’ve seen this block, or something like it, in movie or on TV—who think ministers, mystics and mediums ought to live in big houses, drive cars that are almost as big and have wallets full of unlimited credit.
I’ve never tried, and don’t think I would ever try, to argue someone out of such a belief. On the other hand, I don’t think they or their kids—and certainly not their pets—shouldn’t have enough to eat. I think I learned this belief from mother. And this: Even though there weren’t that many people either of us really liked, I never—and I don’t recall that she ever—wished deprivation on anyone else. There just never seemed to be any point to that. Not even for the ones we wished dead.
But there were others, like one man—acutally, there were others like him, but I just happen to remember him right now—who thought he could starve or beat his wife, his kids and the kids on the team he coached into doing what he wanted them to do. Actually, I only saw him once or twice. But Nancy Hambramunde, his daughter, hunched over like the old women on the block even though she was my age. She never looked in my, or anyone else’s, direction. In school, she sat in an almost-fetal position, furtively, as if she’d never had and never would have the chance to rest before her teacher, her father or somebody else snapped her to attention.
We’d been in the same class, I think, for the year or two before I stopped going to school. And the teacher—Mr. Actun—called on her whenever she seemed ready to sleep or simply shut out the rest of the lesson, which she’d already learned anyway.
During the first few weeks of that term, she never answered—until one day when Mr. Actun informed her, and the rest of the class, that she’d fail the class if she didn’t answer his questions.
She lifted her head slightly, just enough for us to know she’d heard him. But she remained curled and held her hands to her stomach. From that day on, she answered—she always had the answers—as if she didn’t have to hear the question and we—and possibly someone else—would hear.
Although she always seemed to know anything she’d read, anything on which she could be quizzed, forward and backward, having Mr. Actun call on her never got easier. And he went from calling on her once during each class to twice, and more, until one day he subjected her to an impromptu cross-examination of a reading assignment (which, as I recall, I hadn’t looked at) punctuated by his shouts of “Speak Up!” and “Let the whole class see you!”
He was about to ask another question when a long, viscous tear streamed down each of her cheeks—and the bell rang. Her tears grew more liquid and her head bent almost into her when we pushed out and shuffled around her into the hallway.
I don’t recall seeing her after that day, at least not in school. I saw her around the block—I’m not sure it was after that day, or when—and I don’t think she saw me. Not that I tried to get her attention, or would’ve wanted it. But I do remember how she glanced sideways to ward off the sort of man who looked as though he’d just bellowed, “No comment!” as he barged past a TV news camera. If Nancy had always tried to stay curled, he looked as if the slightest motion or gesture could spring him like a trap.
Mr. Hambramunde drove the only Cadillac on this block—at least, the only one that didn’t come and go. And Nancy was, if not the best, certainly the most impeccably dressed girl in that school. Even when she slouched (which was almost never), she couldn’t disturb the straight lines of her starched, buttoned blouses and skirts that neither clung to, nor bellowed nor bagged, around her. And if a hair had rippled out of place, it’d’ve been as noticeable as if she’d forgotten to wear her glasses with tiny hexagonal lenses—which, of course, she never did.
After she’d left that school, I heard Mr. Hambramunde left after he and Nancy’s mother argued over the cost of private school. By that time, I’d stopped going to school. But it would be a while before I left this block.
