No Place Safe Read Free Page B

when provoked, probably something she had to learn to sound tough on the streets.)
     
    I don’t remember much else of the conversation, but the police never came and the couple stopped fighting, at least for that day. I don’t recall ever hearing them fight again, but I’m certain they didn’t stop. They probably just made sure to do it more quietly from then on. After Ma went Kojak on them, I went out of my way to avoid the man and his girlfriend, not certain why I was the one embarrassed when it should have been them.
     
    *
     
    One Friday, Ma was working while I took care of Bridgette. I didn’t have to work at the hospital on Fridays, which meant Bridgette didn’t have to go to the babysitter. When I was her age, I didn’t much have a babysitter, but Ma said me being the oldest made me more responsible. Bridgette wasn’t at all responsible; she didn’t have to be because doctors had diagnosed her when she was six as being hyperactive, a condition that made her a scary combination of aggressive and reckless, and required her to take little pills that Ma or I had to cut in half or else they turned her into a zombie. She was also the baby, so Ma had fewer expectations of her.
    We were watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island .
    “You’re sitting too close to the TV,” I told Bridgette. I liked to act as if I were her boss, mostly because Ma said I was completely in charge when she was at work. Sometimes I pushed it too far, like the time I tried to spank Bridgette with a wooden spoon like Ma used to do me before parents started getting into trouble for that. Bridgette nearly kicked my ass, and would have if I didn’t outweigh her, so I never tried that again.
    “Move back from the TV.” I had to repeat myself because she was ignoring me. “You don’t move back and I won’t put any cheese on your SpaghettiOs.”
    She moved back, but only by an inch or two. I didn’t ask for anymore. I wasn’t even worried about her eyes; I just wanted to make sure she knew who was running things. I kept all kinds of threats and bribes ready for those times she wanted to give me trouble, like when I had to comb her hair after lunch. To make sure she held still, I’d tell her she couldn’t go down the street with me to play basketball later. Of course, I’d never leave her alone in the house – Ma would’ve killed me – but Bridgette hadn’t figured that out yet.
     “Remember when Ma would be home most of the time, and not always be at work?”
    She turned down the volume, maybe so I could focus on the question, but I didn’t remember such a time because Ma was always at some job. I figured Bridgette was old enough to have only four years of fully reliable memory, and Ma had been a cop for longer than that, so whatever days she was recalling, she’d made them up. But she must have taken my silence as agreement.
    “We used to watch the Carol Burnett Show in her room and crack pecans with that raggedy pair of pliers because you lost the nut cracker, and the next day she’d fuss about the shells in her bed.”
    The pliers and pecans were familiar. “I remember us watching that show. Is it still on?”
    “No, and I don’t know the last time we went to the farmers’ market for pecans. Nothing is like when I was little.”
    That was funny to me because she was still little in my book, but I didn’t laugh because she looked so serious about it. In that moment I wanted to call her Little Bit, which was my nickname for her until she was five and told me she hated that name. I’d always assumed it was better than Monkey, which everyone else called her because she could climb anything and went a long stretch where the only food she’d eat willingly was bananas. She told me she hated that name, too.
    “Next week I’ll buy some pecans from the market downtown.”
    Bridgette looked just about done with me. “Pecans aren’t in season until fall.”
    After I warmed the SpaghettiOs, I told her to go wash her hands