-- Fiction by Sam Hamod --

Excerpts from At the Broadway Lounge, a novel
(Copyright, H. S. Hamod, 2000, used with permission of the author)
 

  At the Broadway Lounge

Sarah and Horse
Sarah and Maggie
Sarah and my old man
Sarah teaching me how to boogie

Sarah of the golden skin
Sarah of the soft lips and the big blue eyes

I was maybe 4 or 5 years old--Sarah was older to me, later I realized she was only in her late teens or early 20s--and Horse, he boyfriend, he was so tall and had the biggest smile--and they both worked for my old man in the bar at 17th and Broadway; Gary, Indiana-back when Gary rolled, Gary rolled steel from open hearths, when Gary rocked into early morning with Ivory Joe Hunter, when Gary punched out paychecks like black and white southerners had never seen in their lives, when the air raid sirens would go off every night for drills--worrying the Germans or Japs would bomb us, when the fire from the steel mills lit up the sky every night and colored it pink and gray each day, when Sarah would walk down Broadway and all the men would stop, hold their breath and stare--when Horse would take me riding on Highway 20 about 90 miles an hour, when old Griffin would put away his police badge, take few drinks at the bar then take me fishing for perch--but we'd always catch Carp and Cats--when old Smith lived down the cellar by the furnace with his gray and blue coveralls smelling like coal and sweat, always wanting to come with my dad so he could go out into Clark Woods to dig up Goldenseal and other herbs and potions so he could make his medicines, for his ladies, for his people, and Maggie, she was big and strong, but had a way and a smell like the men who chased from the time she came in until she decided who she wanted--and Ali M'Zaham, called him Ali Ceekee because he talked so much and walked like a duck, and my father, not that tall, but a man larger because he was imposing with the intensity of his look, intensity of his way, and there I was 4, maybe 5 or 6, my mother is dead so I can't resurrect the dates, and we'd go down every night, the joint was jumpin', jammed like sardines, rubbing up against and laughing with each other, music banging from the bandstand, and in the bar we had a booth where my mother would bring food for my father--he'd sit and eat, I'd drink cokes and eat Mrs. Klein's potato chips--the waitresses would come by and say " looks like little Sam" and "when you comin' to work, rather work for you than your daddy" and "you looking just like yo' daddy, watch out" and there was always Rosie, sometimes she'd come down from upstairs and sit with us-she worked for us at our hotel on 3rd and Jefferson--she was older than my folks, and she was like my mother's older sister, or maybe like her mother, because she knew my mother's mother had died when my mother was l2--so she had so much to learn in this strange place, this place so far from the farmlands, from the small town of Fort Dodge, Iowa, so far away from her father and her brothers and sisters, so far away on 2 lane roads that wound through small towns and took forever to travel, small towns with one gas station and a little restaurant and post-office-now she was here in the midst of this noise, fast bar, gray smoke of steel mills, a bar full of people all way from Chicago and Detroit and heavy cigarette din and music from another world, I know now that only Rosie understood how she felt, but always the people saw her innocence and ease with everyone, no one was foreign to her, no one was an enemy, she had no fear, she just drove the old truck, that red panel l935 Chevy each night, and I'd be with her, later Buddea came wrapped in baby blankets and Rosie would have to help her more and Sarah would come to say, "I want me one of these" and we'd hear Horse's laughter when he'd come and grab Sarah, I'd never seen so much love in anyone's eyes until I saw yours --now I know of these different kinds of love--the kind of everloving, open, without reservation type of love you feel from your mother, the demanding type you feel from your father, the protective type you feel from Rosie, the uncle type from old Smith and Griffin, my uncles Abudee and M'humed, and Horse would pick me up some time and put me over his head, but I knew he'd never drop me, I was his and Sarah's and my mother and dad's,

and my grandfather's, he who used to come visit, with his big shoulders from digging in his garden and carrying white goods in suitcases for 8 and l0 days at a time selling to farm wives, from Iowa, and in the old days when I was 2 and 3 and we lived at the old hotel in a single room, he'd take me out in the morning, we'd stop at the store and get bananas, then we'd walk down Broadway across the bridge to the Pennsy or the B & O Lines, we'd stand there, next to the huge black freight engines, or we'd go down to see the New York Central engines, sleek and silver, with big rods extending from wheel to wheel, steam hissing out of the huge barrels on the sides of the engines, the engineers leaning out with their red kerchiefs, waving to us, yelling for a banana, they always waved to us kids and we'd wave back, and we knew some of the switchers who rode in the caboose, some lived in my old man's hotel, 3rd and Jefferson--we had the hotel before we had the bar--

that's where I met Rosie, Nellie who did the cleaning, Mexican John, old Bushy, Nick of the apple cider, Wagner, who I used to think was the famous Honus Wagner who had gone to drink and was living in our hotel, Schenley who used to get drunk every night, sit on the steps of my dad's hotel and swim the Atlantic to get to England and the war, Sam Grimmit who'd argue with you from afternoon until the next morning that a Ford was better than a Chevy and he knew that from all the years of moonshine running in Tennessee, John who'd been to Hollwood and had a photo with his face like John Barrymore standing beside a Greek column shooting a bow and arrow, and William who'd been rich, a shriner/mason, lost his money,lost his wife and left his suitcases in storage at The Ambassador East and ended up living in a single room at our hotel, a man who kept the Masonic Bible in his zipped suitcase, a beautiful Bancroft bamboo tennis racquet he gave me for taking him to Chicago and waiting for him while he wore his sportcoat and nice slacks in to get his stuff from storage and to talk with the hotel people he knew, he had lost his suite or apartment at the hotel--I never understood it all, but I felt sad and told him to keep the tennis racquet, that he'd play again, he said he wouldn't, said he wished he could, said a lot of things, I can't remember them all, but I knew they were full of regrets and sorrow about his wife and his life and his drinking, but he wanted me to have the racquet because he saw the cheap racquet I had and that I couldn't play a decent game with it-and he even gave me the silk zipper cover that came with it, the type of cover they made for only the very expensive racquets in those days.

Later, after he'd left, after he had some terrible arguments with my father over food and bills, I always felt bad because my father was so hard on him, my father kept his brown leather suitcase, the one with the canvas zipper cover, it must have been worth a lot of money, and in it he had his Masonic Bible and his ex-wife's black lamb's wool coat--my father gave me the suitcase, but I kept it closed, hoping I would see William somewhere someday and give him back his suitcase and his memories--I kept that suitcase with me for years, and whenever I looked at it, I died a little remembering William who'd been an educated man, an SAE in college, a Mason, until finally one day, on Steve Dobyns birthday, when Ray Carver, his wife marianne and I met in Iowa City,...

you know Ray Carver who became famous as a writer, he and I were instant friends, and Marianne who loved him through nightmares, drunken fits and depressions, who loved him enough to help him get through to the other side, so that day we met in the Hamburger Inn No. 2, he'd stopped drinking and had just come back from a big literary festival in London. I asked these 3 people if I could sit with them--they said, sure, come on in, there's room. So I sat down and we began talking, when we introduced ourselves, I said I knew his name, he said, "yeah, and I like your poems." I was surprised. He said he'd nominated 2 of my poems for Ploughshares, "After the Funeral of Assam Hamady" and "Lines To My Father"--but that they didn't take them. I never knew of it I told him. But I was happy he'd come across my stuff, because by that time I'd published poetry in a lot of strange and sometimes well-known places--so I never knew who ever saw what of mine. Our meeting was like something ordained, I went to this old restaurant because I was feeling down, having left Arizona after losing my wife, and they just lifted me up as we hung out--we did this for a few days, we went out to eat, we walked on the Iowa campus, we talked all day along the river--I told him of the suitcase, I was always giving a way stories because I had so many-but I was a poet and didn't write stories anymore like when I was younger and wrote "You Oughta Know My Aunt" and "The Coke Machine" and "Boris and God"-I told him of William and the suitcase-and Ray wanted to see it. So we went to my old house, I was renting it out to some other people but kept my stuff in the basement-we unzipped it and it was musty inside and the black lamb's wool coat was still there with some jewelry I'd forgotten about and some make-up and some other stuff that I couldn't look at because I could feel the tears coming up and the memories rushing into my throat-so I asked Ray if he wanted the suitcase, and he said yes--and so I gave it to him and Marianne. He and Dobyns asked me if I really wanted to give it away because it was such a fine quality suitcase, hard to find something of that quality, I said no, take it Ray, and inside I was remembering the spoiled chicken my father tried to get William to take without refund and I remembered how he'd yell and mock my father in his pain and they'd argue and engage in a terrible warfare full of pain and anger and I remembered hearing him cry as we drove home from Chicago as he tried to talk and I was too young to know what to say, I felt it but I couldn't talk, because sometimes you know the pain is so deep in someone that you feel it so much that you are speechless that you know there is nothing you can say even though you want to find something to help, you want to be able to tell them that you feel their pain and that you want to take it away ­ and they want you to take it away, but their pain is their life, a memory of someone they so loved, and someone who so loved them that they endure the pain because it is that pain, their other reality returns, their loved one returns, they feel them, they smell them, they see them as clearly as I see Sarah now, as she was as a young waitress with Horse at the Broadway Lounge, as clearly as I remember your eyes in Montreal, when we sat in the half-twilight of the evening, in the Hotel Du Parc, I remember how large your eyes were without make-up, how soft your eyes as we talked about how much it meant to you if we made love, a kind of innocence we both had, and I can never forget the touch of your skin as we held one another the way we save one another in this world of happiness and enduring grief

* * * *

CHAPTER 2

I see Sarah walking now, she has on a light, almost shiny blue dress, her skin is still golden, her hair as brown and silken as when I was a boy--and the same big blue eyes--
Suddenly
I'm 5 years old again instead of 22, I've come back to re-open The Broadway Lounge, 17th and Broadway, and she returns, almost like an apparition coming through the door, the bright sunlight behind her. She glides in, sits softly in the booth across from me, she knows I'm here, tells me I look just like my father when he was young-and I'm in love with her all over again, but this time, I can't believe it's all happening, by now, Horse has been dead for a long time, killed in a bad accident on Industrial Highway and Sarah cried for years, but she's here now and we talk about her life, my life, and why I came back to the bar after college and law school, about teaching me to dance, about Horse, about Rosie and I want to talk with her more, but she has to go, just as in time my mother had to go, as I let you go, I ask her for her number so I can call her, so we can invite her to the house-to see her again, but she says she'll come back, she won't give me the number --and I never saw her again,
But this morning, she kept saying inside my ear, and before I went to sleep, Sarah,
Sarah,
you start the story with Sarah
you start the story with me,
you see me coming walking into your bar
it's been l8 years
and yet it's been no time at all
Sarah
I come walking in and you know I look good I took time with my make-up
I put on this beautiful silky sky blue dress with the tight waist
And I wanted to see you because you were our son too
You never knew that when you were young but I did
I remember picking you up when you were so young
And I wanted to see you
People told me you were back at the bar, this old bar your daddy had to leave because he shot that guy back in the 40s, we all knew it was self-defense--I never saw you after that
But I wanted to see you to see what happened, to know that you were all right, but I don't want you stay in this bar too long, I don't want to see you gettin'killed
I loved Horse and you knew that, I could see it in your eyes and way you used to hug him when you'd ride on his shoulders, you holding on to his neck horsey-back style,
So I wanted to put on one of my nicest dresses, because life hasn't been the same, and I'm living with another man and he's nice, but it's not the same as it was in the 40s when life was like music and the money was flowing and each day was alive and your daddy kept everything under control, where he took care of everybody so that nobody ever bothered us and nobody got messed with, and if we got in a jam, he always had the money to help us out and he wouldn't allow no dope in the place-so I wanted to see you-and you do look like your daddy--you even have that same walk, and you got that same devil in your eyes--and I want to hug you, but we'll talk, I want to talk some morel, I'd like to see you again, but but but it hurts a lot too--- I want to see your daddy to and your beautiful mother-but I have to go, I have to go
Sarah never called or stopped in again-no one knew where she lived-no one knew much about her-she'd left the life of l7th and Broadway-but early this morning and late last night, after so many years, she kept saying, "start with me, start with Sarah, start with Sarah"and so I have.

CHAPTER 3

As to Ray Carver, that's another whole long story--but I kept in touch with Ray for a long time--he kept the suitcase-sadly, later, he and Marianne broke up--but I didn't know that until someone told me--then when I saw him in Princeton in the 70s, he'd gone completely dry and he was very quiet, he was talkative they he used to be, it was as if I was seeing a ghost--he was promoting his new wife and her poetry, I can't remember her name, but he wasn't the guy I saw that time in Iowa City, with his black and white "World Poetry" t-shirt, his slight belly, not the guy with the brown hair and the effusive smile and open hugs for Marianne--now he was a gray faced man, older, with a gaunt look--and by now he was famous-he'd won a Pulitzer Prize and he'd published WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT LOVE and other books, stories and poems, he didn't remember what happened to the suitcase, but he remembered I gave it to him--but now he was in her world--he had become lost and distanced from his blood, from his breath, from the happiness we had in the early 70s when he'd told me, 'when he had his breath, " Hell, I know your poems--I know that poem about your father being shot, and the one about your grandfather praying on the side of the highway, hell, I nominated them for a Pushcart Prize-but shit, those dumb fuckers don't' k now an original voice, a real poem when they see it-those poems are real, they're great-some of the best I've ever read!"

I was totally amazed, here was a writer whose name I'd known, he'd read at the famous London Festival of the Arts with Ginsberg, Corso, Baraka and others, and here, he was telling me that I was doing something unusual and very good--I loved it--and later we went out to celebrate his birthday-and so it was a hell of a time--but I always wondered what happened to that suitcase--if it haunted him like it haunted me--it was something I kept with me for years, in the basement--I wanted to get rid of it for years, but I couldn't throw it away, I couldn't just give it away to anyone-but when I met Ray, I knew he should have it--and he wanted it, and later, when I was teaching his story, "What we talk about when we talk about love"
I understood what he was, why he was the way he was, and why he understood the suitcase and why he wanted it-I didn't know at the time, not until after I'd given him the suitcase, that he was a recovering alcoholic, that he'd almost died from alcohol, and that Marianne stayed on him like white on rice so he wouldn't drink-and so William's story and the suitcase must have touched, must have talked to Ray and I knew about drunk because I saw so many men in the hotel and the bar get drunk on a Friday night and stay drunk through the entire weekend, and I knew William threw it all away because of alcohol.
But it was strange to see Ray in this way, so quiet and so non-talkative. We tried to talk but it wasn't there I read more of his fiction and knew it was his life and those lives he'd known, and when I read Aquamarine, I realized what a fine poet he was, better than the wife he was promoting in Princeton--but we all make our choices, and only Ray understood where he was--but at times, I understand a little more, sorrowful at the mistakes I've made, and some of the cheer and energy is gone even from my voice.
I remember I told Ray about Schenley swimming the Atlantic, the old Polski's and Russki's who'd drink their "flashka" half-pints and get drunk all weekend, telling stories of home in Poland, Russia, Mexico, Tennessee or Alabama, how they worked in steel mills in Poland, or picked cotton or sharecropping in Alabama, going broke each year until they came to Gary to make steel, sending money home -- the hillbillies would work until planting or harvest time, then they'd go home to help out, then each winter, they'd come back to the steel mills-and my father would be there in charge of the whole circus of lives-sometimes now, I think it was like a Fellini movie with the air raid sirens blaring, the searchlights going across the black sky that had no German planes, Schenley swimming on the wooden steps until 2 or 3 a.m. when he'd fall asleep and my father would take him to his room, at other times my dad would yell at people for no reason and when I'd take up their side, he'd yell at me--my dad was that way, sometimes I've been the same it seems when I look back on my life, he'd cuss a someone, then pick up the drunk, take him to his room, roll him onto the bed and say a Muslim prayer for him and let him sleep it off--like the rest of us, like Ray and the other writer's I've known, a bunch of inconsistencies--it was good that I read Emerson and Whitman because they kept saying what my uncles always told me, "don't expect me to be consistent" " shit man, just do what you're going to do, don't worry about what somebody else thinks, that's their business, not yours-and if they don't like it, or you don't like it, go on down the road."

And so we come to understand later in our life, that even those most dear to us are not logical or consistent people-they were just like us-just going down the road, making decisions and doing the best they could, like the "NIGHTRIDER" used to say, back when I ws going down to read my poems and a paper at conference honoring my old friend Jim McPherson in Savannah, Georgia back in the 70s, I heard him one night at about 1 am, Afro brother, kept saying, "I'm doin' the best I can wif what I got" and he was and they were
and I am

CHAPTER 4

I have always lived among people who were full of contradictions--at least they were contradictions on the surface to outsiders. Take for example my father-here was a man who was larger in life than most men aspire to be-a man who spoke only colloquial Arabic, who spoke no English when he came to the U.S. when he was l4, in l914, a boy who sold his shepard rifle to illegally enter Ellis Island with his aunt Zinab who declared him as her son.

And Zinab was another whole story, I wrote about her in "You Oughta Know My Aunt" because she called the Greyhound Bus the GreenhornBust and other things that immigrants used to do with the English language-but later, when I would ask my father what Zinab did in Detroit, how she could afford such expensive presents from Hudson's fancy department store, he'd keep saying "she's a barber, don't bother me"--and she was a barber, because everytime she came to visit us, she'd bring her clippers, comb and scissors and cut my hair. Finally, one day, when I was older, and we were talking at the bar, he finally told me. She was the one who helped him set up the bootlegging contacts in the harbors of Detroit during WWII that allowed him to get the Canadian Whisky that made his bar so famous for hundreds of miles around, he told me, "She used to be the barber for the Mafia in Detroit-they trusted her to shave them, they knew she wouldn't cut their throats the way some men might" and so it was, this woman I knew only as loving and funny, who loved to mess with the English language, was wise and shrewd and knew how to take risks and how to make them work-and my father was the same-he was his aunt's son more than he was he son of his birthmother. My dad had that tenacity she had, he took risks, he was so religious he helped build a large mosque in Gary, Indiana and helped steer Nation of Islam followers into Islam, and even used to go to Elijah Muhammad's temples in Chicago and tell Elijah how to make Islamic prayers.

But he was also a man who lost his temper in a moment when you disagreed with him-and he was cruel at times to my mother, he'd beat her when I was young because that's what he'd learned in his youth-no one knows why the Arabs have done this for centuries, but it is needless and stupid I remember when I was 2 or 3, trying to stop him from hitting my mother, he'd whack me across the floor and tell me to shut up and stay out of it, but I'd come back for more-it seems we fought from then on-he had his way, and I had mine But I remember also, when things really got bad, my grandfather, my mother's father, Abbass, would come in from Iowa, then my father, who feared no man, was afraid, then he became docile-he knew my grandfather, the bull elephant was there and that he had no chance against this man he respected and feared-so we would have peace for a while, until my grandfather left-then it would start up again in a few months.
How many religious men are this way, sweetness and light to the outside world, but rough and often cruel in their own homes? Aren't these the contradictions we see and live with-we all have to sort these things out--- where are the television families we saw, where are the families like the old movies, MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS?
We live through it, but it stains our memories and we juggle these adversaries then go on to other things finally, saying, "that's how they were-they were what they were, they were what they knew, and they imitated what they thought they heard or saw-
But we are fortunate to have seen them so that we can overcome some of those deficits--
But have no fear-we all have our own shortcomings that others see but that we often don't understand or recognize until it may be too late.

CHAPTER 5

My mother's spirit came today, it's l997--I was riding quietly along the Pacific, just outside Paseo Del Norte in Carlsbad, and she began, " Hamode, you have to keep writing this book-so his book continues." She was telling me, "People are just people-you know, they're all alike-it doesn't matter what color they are ­ look at Rosie, if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have survived-I wouldn't have understood all that stuff--I was just a young girl when I got married, I didn't know anything, and your dad was crazy-I didn't understand him-we didn't live that way, my father would never hit my mother, he would yell at her and at us, but he'd never lift his fist at us-but Rosie knew more than I did-she didn't have any education-you know, but she knew more than most people-and you know, I never cared if she was black-you know we had people working for us, white people, black people-it didn't' matter-what really mattered is who they were-what they were like-and I was young when I married your dad--I wish I'd known then what I know now--I wouldn't have married him, no matter what my dad said-but you know, in those days, you did what your father said-and he told me I had to marry your dad.

In those days we didn't have much money, and I didn't know anything. Your dad heard about us when he used to go to Sioux Falls, South Dakota pheasant hunting. Old Aleck, that old devil, he knew the old man, your granpa-so he told your dad about our family. I wish he'd married someone else-but after Adebha left, I was the oldest and I guess he wanted to be sure I got married to a Muslim--so when your dad came I guess they agreed. I didn't really understand it. His brother Hussin came and he wanted to marry Alia-so I guess the old man figured out it would be o.k. since they were both half-brothers of Aleck--I don't know all of it--I wish I'd asked me my dad more of what happened then, or even later-sometimes I'd be crying after your dad beat me up-I'd wished to God I'd never married him and never lived in that damn Gary--I hated that town. But sometime, with Rosie and later with Mary Dolato, I'd laugh about things and I'd forget your dad--and we used to have fun at night when I'd bring the food down for your dad at the tavern--we'd sit there and talk-and he seemed happy--I think he liked that life--all those people drinking and making noise-l-ater I got to know Mrs. Davis and I really liked Sarah-she had a boyfriend, maybe I was her husband--I don't know if they ever got married-Horse--but when he used to grab you and throw you over his head--you guys had the most fun

Remember when Sarah and Maggie used to teach me how to dance-the old man called Horse, "bugs" because he jitterbugged so well-Horse taught me how to dance too, remember

Yeah, I remember, Sarah was pretty and she was nice-she was always dressed up, almost like a movie star-and Horse--they used to have a good time--I remember her and Maggie and you'd be trying to dance--they kept you going-me and Rosie used to sit there and laugh--you ran around all night and everybody called you Little Sam--but I'm happy you didn't' turn out like your old man--I still don't understand him--even now that he's dead--it's a shame he got shot--but why'd he hit me--why'd he accuse me of things --I'd never even look at another man and he'd go crazy and accuse me of all kinds of rotten things--I think he was just guilty because that's the way HE was--he thought I didn't' know--but I always thought he did some of those crazy things he accused me of. When I got older and watched some of those television shows--I'd hear those psychologists talking--and they'd talk about people doing what you dad did and say it was because they were guilty of what they accused you of doing, or what they wanted to do, or what they were doing--I didn't care, just so he let me alone.
I remember that time when Richard and his wife called up from down south--they said they had a baby looked just like your dad--he denied it--but I believed it. But he told Richard if he ever came back to Gary and accused him of it, he'd kill him--and knowing your old man, he probably would have--he didn't' care-as far as we he was concerned, he was above the law-you now how he was. But he got fixed-someone shot him--it was a shame he had to die that way--no one deserves to die that way--I think I know now who did it, Jamila told me she agrees with me it was his lousy cousin Hussein you know your old man's family, they're all greedy and none of them trusts the other-always fighting about something-just like when your dad got killed--the next thing you know--those people in the old country, in Lebanon, those people he used to cry about--those people who he sent all our money to because they were always so "poor" remember--then when he went over there in l963 he had a nervous breakdown because he saw they were living like kings and queens and didn't work at all-all on our money-then when he got shot-they sued us, saying that He Owed Them Money!! Jesus.
I used to see him crying at night after he came back. I wasn't sure, but he did something wrong over there-maybe he was supposed to marry someone else. I told him, "go ahead" maybe you'll be happy--I know his mother never liked me, remember when she came here and would always be cussing at us in Arabic-that old witch-when she came here--I wasn't good enough for her--she wanted him to marry someone from his village--some relative--I wish to God he had-I'd been better off-we all would've--well, not much we can do about it now--since I'm in my grave, we're all in our graves just about-but I hope you learn something from all this
Sometimes, I just want to cry-I remember when I was a little girl and the circus would come to that big field right across the road from our house-we'd see'm setting up the tents and see the elephants and the horses practicing-we'd go see'm-I remember we'd sneak in-- Maheba, M'humed and us, sometimes they'd chase us-but after a while they knew who we were and my dad would give them water and sometimes give them sandwiches--so they'd let us kids in--we didn't know how lucky we were. I remember when my poor mother died, sometimes I think of her and I want to cry--just like you, sometimes you think about how I died and you remember me and you cry --that's what I used to do--you know, it's hard sometimes--but she was young, her name was Mas'adee--she was so pretty--she had dropsy, her blood was full of water, she couldn't move around-I'd take her food and she'd try--but she had too many kids--but after 4 boys, I quit hoping for a girl--but we used to have Delane--remember when she used to live with us--after my sister Alia had her nervous breakdown--she came and wanted to stay with us--she was just like your sister-then your dad said Hussin wanted her to come home to live with him and Aleck and Vivian in Sioux Falls--I told him Hussin would never send her back-but your dad promised-we had a big fight, I knew if she went back, they'd never send her back--but your dad, I told him I knew he was lying--I knew he was lying all the time--I told him to his face, I didn't care--he couldn't scare me anymore--I was sick of his lying and poor Alia--Hussin drove her crazy--he used to hit her and scream at her and she'd come to the hotel crying after Hussin beat her up--your old man said he'd tell his brother to stop--but it didn't do any good--but Junior, he didn't do like you--he didn't try to stop his dad, he was too afraid and his old man was mean-but after Alia went to the hospital out there in Yankton--you know out there by Sioux Falls--Delayne came to live with us--it was nice to have her and she was happy to be with us--she used to have fun playing with you kids--sometimes she'd tell me how much she missed hermother but I used to tell her mother would get well and she could stay with her mom then--but your dad, that lying dog, he knew the truth, he knew that when he shipped her back to Hussin that it wasn't just for a month like he said, that she'd never be allowed to come back--I knew it was her father-but he was mean and Vivian was mean to her, she was an old rip, and Aleck was a crook--I remember when I was getting her clothes packed she kept crying telling your dad she didn't want to go back with her dad, she wanted to stay with us-but your old man was upset, but he knew in his heart he was wrong and that Hussin was lying and that we'd never see Delayne again-I kept crying for 2 weeks, I couldn't stop because I knew the truth--but I couldn't stop your old man--he did what he wanted to ­- he never cared about anyone but himself and his half-brothers and those rotten people in the old country--but I don't want to talk about this anymore--it makes me cry and it makes you cry and it won't do us any good now anyway--
What I'd rather talk about is the fun we used to have in that old red Chevy truck when Maheba or Jamila would come and we'd go to the beach with all you kids in the back end of the truck--you guys would be yelling and singing and we'd be rolling along--we used to have fun at the beach but you kids would never want to come home-you got in the water and you never wanted to get out-- that was fun. I used to like it when we went to Iowa-we used to see Adebha and Maheba and Skinee--but Mahebee was always so loud--William was quiet and he never yelled--I always wondered why she yelled so much--boy she was lucky she wasn't married to your old man-but I guess having Elizabeth helped upset her--I don't remember if she used to yell as much before that happened to poor little Lizzie--you know that time what's her name dropped Lizzie on the cement floor by accident--that paralyzed her--from then on she never developed--she fell on her head--God help us--

But anyway, you know, I've wondered sometimes if those cigarettes the people used to smoke down the hotel and in the tavern-if all those cigarettes Adebha used to smoke-if that helped me to get the cancer I had-I kind of think so-but you know, then, we didn't know about that stuff and how bad it was.
 

About you know, Hamode, about your dad--it wasn't all his fault--you know how mean his mother was--he didn't know any better. I guess in the old country they hit their wives--at least that's what he thought you were supposed to do--but back in those days--you know back in the 30s and 40s and during the war--a lot of those guys used to hit their wives--remember John Stahl's dad, he'd hit John and Eugene with a hammer--he was crazy--they couldn't behave like the Forbrichs and the Newmans--they never hit their wives--I liked the Forbrichs--remember how nice they were--he used to bring you records--remember all those records he used to give you, those little 45s--I wonder whatever happened them?
I lost track of them--she used to write but you know, when people move-after a while, they forget you-I guess they get busy--we all get busy--like we're crazy--you know Hamode, sometimes I think we're all crazy--God help us--but I don't think I should talk bad about your dad, God will punish me-but he was funny--he'd be nice one and yelling at you the next--remember how he used to do with the kids--scream and yell all the time--I wonder why he quit going hunting--he used to llike that when he was young--hunting pheasants and ducks with that old shotgun he kept upstairs in the closet of his room. Remember old Jack, that German Police Dog that almost tore your leg off--those police dogs are mean--your dad had to shoot him--boy you really screamed when he bit you--we thought he tore your ankle off--he never did anything like that before--you musta' scared'm--but Wolfie--I liked our dog old Wolfie--and he was smart--he learned how to knock on the kitchen door when I'd put him in the basement--and then he learned how to open the screen door with his paws. I remember the first time he knocked on the door from the basement, it scared me to death, I thought, who's that, who's in the house--he was smart--he was a "human dog" he even loved to eat stuffed grapeleaves--he ate what we ate-he lived a long time-Oscar really got upset when he died--your brother Oscar cried and cried--I did too--he was just like a person, Wolfie--remember when you used to bring David over and he'd pull David on the leash and you'd have to chase them because Wolfie was too strong little David would come in and say, "Where's Wolfie-where's Wolfie?" and remember I used to take him and Laura to the Big Wheel in Valpo--that was their favorite restaurant--they'd say, " Let's go to the Big Wheel" and off we'd go-and I remember when we saw GOLDFINGER--they wouldn't quit singing GoldFinger--then on the way home in the car, they'd keep singing GoldFinger GoldFinger he's the man with the golden gun--and I don't' remember the rest of it--but it was fun. Hamode, I'm tired now and you'd better get some sleep-- it's getting late ­ you can't stay up all night--not like you used to--we all get old--I'm tired and I want to go to sleep--but you know--I just want to keep talking--it's been so long since we had time to talk like this--don't cry-I know-- I know.