Acre Under a Green Sky

The washing machine was the heartbeat of our house. I awoke very early one morning to the chug-a-chug-a-chug of the washing machine, and I was in bliss like an unborn child resting under his mother's heart. The smell of steamy wash water and laundry soap filled the house. The sun shone bright and hot through my bedroom window, and I stretched every tendon luxuriously. I turned to find that Danny was already up and about. I was alone. I sank even deeper into my bed. I need never leave it as long as that big old white barrel chugged and churned; imperceptibly inching its way across the linoleum kitchen floor on wheels of steel. Soon I would hear the squeaking crank of the wringers; those two white rollers sucking up soapy sheets and pressing them flat and hard out the other side.

I finally got out of bed, dressed, and went down to the kitchen. And there it was; that great gargoyle of white porcelain with the tiny bowed legs chugging in a kind of frustrated temper tantrum. But it was alone. My mother was nowhere in sight. I looked out onto the back yard. The clothesline was strung with sheets and pillow cases, but there was no one there. I grabbed the box of Rice Krispies and made myself breakfast.

Danny joined me from outside, and I sliced a banana for his cereal. I got our towels and trunks from the line, and together we left for the pool; leaving the empty bowls in the sink.

It was not unusual to see the bread truck parked outside our house with its brilliant advertisements on the side panels and back. My mother was standing there with a loaf of bread in each hand talking to the bread man through the open sliding door of the truck. Danny and I had barely set foot on the porch, when my mother shouted at the bread man:

"You dirty little son-of-a-bitch!

She laid into that man for filth. She attacked him with those loaves of bread –– left hand after right –– like a windmill until there were bread slices flying. All the while, shouting at him:

"Where the hell do you come off talking to me like I'm some whore!

He withdrew further into the cab of the truck, and she stepped up into the cab with him –– pummeling him all the way.

"You evil bastard! You're going to pay for saying that."

The bread man escaped through the opposite sliding door and my mother followed him down onto the street. The poor man started running down Ledge Avenue and my mother was after him.

"Go on, you coward! Run!"

But she was no match for him as a runner. He was way ahead of her when she stopped running. He stopped running then and moved over to the sidewalk; watching her the whole time. Everyone in the world was watching her, and some were cheering her on –– especially the kids.

She felt their eyes on her and looked from person to person making a full circle there in the street. Then she just stood there in the middle of Ledge Avenue with her arms outstretched like a cheerleader and shouted:

"Free bread for everyone!"

No one made a move for the truck –– not even the bread man. When my mother passed us on the porch, she said, "Get two loaves of white bread out of that truck!" She was still clutching the bread wrappers in her fists.

"And never tell your father what happened here."

We did as we were told.

When we brought the bread into the kitchen, she was pouring herself a vodka and talking to herself. She would replay the drama all that afternoon coming up with better and better lines to put the bread man in his place. By evening, she would be lapsing into her mother's cockney accent.