River City Blues: Part I

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River City Blues – Part I


My mom died when I was eight. We were close when she was alive, or so people tell me, but I barely remember her. I was raised by my dad, a gruff factory worker, the kind of guy who changed his own oil and thought just about anything could be fixed by hard work and exercise. He was afraid that mom’s death would turn me into one of those kids he saw on TV or hanging around Young Avenue—face painted white, hair dyed black, chains and girl’s jeans. So he raised me to be tough. It was all Grizzlies football games and cars, with dad, fishing on the weekends out in the country and chores during the week. Maybe that was why I’ve always preferred the company of women.

Since he worked all the time in the city, after mom died, dad kept me in daycare or various after-school programs until I turned twelve and he thought I was old enough to handle some independence (i.e. he didn’t want to pay as much anymore). Then he hired a woman to take care of me and the house. Her name was Ms. Sandee Lawler. She lived just outside of Memphis and made the commute into the city everyday. I called her Ms. Sandee. Ms. Sandee was probably in her forties, but, for me, being ten when I met her, anything over the age of 22 or so pretty much equaled “old” to me. Ms. Sandee was a full-figured woman who carried it well. She had smooth skin, tanned but not leathery. Her hair was brown with a hint of grey, long and smooth. I loved to look at her hair. Sometimes, she would take a nap in the afternoon, and I would go over and touch it. I know that’s weird, but I was a kid, what can I say? It reminded me of my mom’s hair.

Ms. Sandee looked to be a solid ten years younger than she was, but I didn’t realize that at the time, young and naïve as I was. All I knew was that she was amply endowed up top, and wore low enough tops that when she bent over in front of me, I saw enough to make me feel funny.

Ms. Sandee was an incurable flirt. She flirted with my father, a confirmed bachelor a couple years younger than her who dealt with her advances by hiding from her. She wore more and more revealing clothes, and he left earlier and earlier in the mornings and stayed out later and later. I didn’t mind. Whatever attentions my father refused, she gifted to me, in certain ways.

“Why don’t you smile more?” she would say. “You have such a pretty smile, I bet the girls just melt when you smile.”

I would stare at her dumbly until she shook her head and walked away. No girl had ever paid any attention to me. Mostly, the only attention I got was dad yelling at me to “do it again, and get it right this time.” The next time I saw Ms. Sandee, I’d smile as wide as I could for as long as I could. “Don’t smile THAT much, Adam, or people will think you’re slow.”

“Why don’t you dress nicer?” she would say. “You’re always wearing those dark clothes. They make you look sick. Wear something lighter to show off those pretty eyes of yours.”

I would look from my black shirts to my ragged jeans, all of which dad and I picked out at Wal-Mart, and she would shake her head. The next time we went to Wal-Mart, I’d pick out green slacks and a baby-blue shirt to impress her. By the time I got home from school, they were stained with my blood from all the kids picking fights with me and I’d been suspended for fighting back.

“You need a girl with patience,” she said. “Who won’t mind waiting for you to catch up. You’re sweet, and you do what you’re told, and you’re going to be a real looker, just like your father.”

I didn’t know what that meant; I just liked it when she paid attention to me.

As the months passed, Ms. Sandee became more and more desperate for dad’s affections. I think it was because she wasn’t used to being ignored. Whenever we went out together to run errands, go to the store, pick up laundry, whatever, I’d noticed that men looked at her, opened doors for her, struck up conversations with her. I think she probably could’ve had her pick out of dozens of men, but something about my father drove her wild.

One morning, I woke up early, around dawn, and Ms. Sandee was sitting in the kitchen. She was wearing a long coat. It was August. I was still half-asleep. I thought it was strange, because she didn’t usually get there that early. In summer, she usually came around 7:30.

“Where does your daddy go, so early in the morning?” She asked. She seemed agitated.

I shrugged. “He says it gets crowded around here if he sticks around.” It was yet another thing I hadn’t understood.

She sighed, “You want a hotdog?” she asked.

I sat, and it took a little while of watching her bending down to retrieve a pan and pending over in the open fridge for me to realize that she wasn’t wearing anything under that coat. I didn’t know why this would be, but I could think of several possible future scenarios this might lead to.

“Your hotdog’s done,” she said. “Come get it.”

“I can’t,” I said.

“Why not?”

“My leg’s asleep,” I said.

My “leg” “went to sleep” so much those days that Ms. Sandee dragged me to a doctor, against my father’s wishes. It wasn’t that he had a religious stance against doctors or anything like that; he was just cheap.

“Walk it off,” dad said.

“He’s got some kind of circulation problem,” Ms. Sandee said.

“It’s cause you’re soft on him,” dad said. “His leg never goes to sleep when he’s around me.”

The doctor couldn’t tell Ms. Sandee anything.

“You need exercise,” she said. “All you do is sit in your room or run to the bathroom all day. Let’s workout together.”

I imagined her doing jumping jacks in a tight-fitting workout uniform.

“I don’t think that will help,” I said.

We would exercise for maybe five minutes, and I’d try to sneak out to the bathroom.

“Work it off,” she said.

I had no choice. I had to keep exercising. And it actually helped. A little.

The other thing I got from Ms. Sandee as a direct result of my father spurning her advances was advice:

“Don’t just jump on a woman, or you’ll scare her. Build a relationship. Show her you’re a man, but that’s not all you are. Make her laugh, and she’ll make you moan.”

To be honest, I didn’t really know what to do with it at the time. Ms. Sandee laughed at me all the time, usually when I didn’t want her to. She didn’t seem to be close to moaning for me any time soon. Still, she kept chasing dad and he kept running away. Finally, when I was 15 or so, she sat me down and asked me a question.

“Would you say your father was very close with your mother?” she asked. “I don’t want to stir up any bad memories, for you.” she added.

I’d never really thought about it before. “I don’t remember much,” I said.

“What do you remember?”

“She was always laughing,” I said. “We used to take long family drives out of the city/ On Sundays. They held hands everywhere.” I shrugged

She nodded. “They were in love,” she said, simply. “And your father still is in love.”

She looked sad when she said it, like she might start crying. “I love you,” I said.

She laughed and grabbed me in a hug and smothered my head with kisses. “I love you too, Adam. You’re like my own son to me.”

But that’s not what I meant. I meant that I loved her, just like dad and mom, or her and dad. I don’t think she ever figured that out, which is probably for the best. But things changed, a little, after that. She wasn’t nearly so flirty with dad. He wasn’t in such a hurry to leave in the mornings, and he didn’t stay out as late at night. It was like she was finally taking her own advice about not scaring people away.

“Some people take time,” she said, “and patience.”

I knew what she meant. As long as it took, I was prepared to wait for her to feel that way about me. Or so I thought at 14.

C.L. Bledsoe

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