The Lion Tamer (Completed)

Chapter Three - Eddie and Ma

“Man, that must really suck hard,” Tommy said, now sitting in the passenger side up front with Danny. “I mean you start the night ready to ball some chick and you finish it with nine fingers, right? Gotta suck, no?” He looked toward Danny who was leaning in close to the steering wheel, try to locate the road through the gathering snow. Danny nodded.

Leo gazed out the window and thought about Tim and his high-pitched wails and of Danny with the smile and Tommy throwing fists. He would always keep his eye on Danny, never let him get too far behind him in a dark room. That smile on his mug when they had Tim at their absolute mercy shook even him.

He looked over to Eddie and caught him with his eyes closed, the sleeping giant. He was going to have to have a talk with him again, and he would hear the “Sorry Leo. Sorry” and the same clumsy words that he always heard. He hated to do it, it made him feel bad but he knew it was necessary. John had allowed Eddie to join his crew, but had warned Leo from the very beginning, as they sat in his dimly lit back office in his house.

“Keep him in a cage, Leo. I mean it. I don’t want some shit comin’ down on me because of some idiot brother of yours.” Leo thanked him and nodded.

John stubbed out his cigarette and adjusted his glasses on his nose. He looked like a tired librarian and that was what was so deceptive about John Pronti. He had tufts of white hair that sprouted from the sides of his head and he usually wore a small straw hat with a colorful band on it. His clothes were loose fitting and his muscles had begun to drape over his frame with the years. He was slight, only about five and a half feet and he walked sometimes with a limp that he never acknowledged.

But, because John Pronti was careful, he had run the neighborhood for decades and never once saw the inside of a cell. He swore he never would either.

“Keep him in the background,” he finished before telling Leo to get the fuck out of his office.

And so Leo did. He brought his dim brother along to show the muscle and it worked. But he also had to wrangle him often times. Like tonight, a simple request to stay in the yard was forgotten and they found him staring in some windows across the street with a goddamn candy wrapper in his hand. Leo wasn’t about to say anything then in front of Tommy and Danny but he would later. And, of course, then he would hear all the “sorry’s” again.

They pulled up to their home by midnight and the snow had abated somewhat, leaving a thick white blanket across everything. Leo elbowed Eddie awake and he climbed out of the car and it righted itself now that his weight was absent. He walked to the door and waved and Leo returned it before the caddy pulled away and rounded the corner up the street.

Eddie climbed the stairs to the second floor room that he used to share with Leo when they were both kids and he sat on the bed. It creaked under his weight and he pulled off his shoes with the knotted laces. He unbuttoned his heavy coat and pulled out his comic book and tossed the coat on the floor. Then he rested his large head on the bed that his mother made that morning. He slept.

The next morning was clear and blue and Eddie woke early. He lay on the bed and dreamed of breakfast: Fruit Loops and orange juice, maybe pancakes and sausage if his mom was willing.

He smelled nothing as he climbed down the stairs, each step groaning under the fresh weight. He had hoped for the inviting aroma of eggs or bacon but soon he was greeted by the acrid scent of cigarettes, and he never liked that smell. He turned into the small living room and saw hazy light in a rectangle that was the door to the kitchen. He almost tripped as he made his way through the curtained and musty room.

He could hear the traffic report coming from the tiny radio that always sat on the dark wooden counter top near the sink. A loud man was saying something about the expressway and a truck that had crashed. Eddie hoped that no one was hurt. He saw his mother sitting at the kitchen table, looking small and sad. She flicked her cigarette into a dirty ashtray that held dozens of butts.

“Hi ma,” Eddie said and reached for the filled crystal tray. She smiled but it took effort and she breathed heavy. He walked over to the small plastic waste basket and was about to dump the contents when she spoke. Her voice rattled slightly.

“Don’t forget to pour some water in it,” she said and coughed and it sounded like something was loose in her throat. She put her hand to her chest and forced another one and now her voice cleared a bit.

Eddie nodded and went to the sink and trickled some water into it. He heard a slight hiss as the liquid hit the ashes.

“Always have to be careful, honey,” Maggie said and watched as he dumped out the slushy black soot into the plastic bin. “Are you hungry? You must be, hey? You must always be hungry, hey sweetie?”

He sat down at the table and adjusted himself on the chair and smiled at her. His mother was quite beautiful to him, plump and usually smiling. Her hair was white, though, and Eddie couldn’t remember when that happened and it scratched at the inside of his head often. Her green eyes were still warm but they seemed to have nestled into the wrinkles and folds of her face as if they were readying for hibernation.

As he tried to rub the sleep from his eyes, she went to the refrigerator and pulled out a portion of sausage still wrapped up in white butcher paper. Soon, the sweet smells of cooking meat and warming bread overcame the cigarette haze. Maggie asked Eddie to check the front stoop for the paper and he obliged, coming back soon with the morning edition of the Bulletin. He immediately discovered the comics and began reading them while Maggie sat across the old and worn table sipping coffee, lighting another Marlboro and reading the headlines.

After breakfast, which consisted of large links of sausage (which Maggie claimed was a gift from Tony the butcher up the street), a handful of brown eggs, some toast with apple butter (the last of it) and some orange juice (also the last of it), she asked Eddie about his brother.

“Did you see him last night?” she asked and he nodded, still with his head bent down over Nancy and the Wizard of Id and the last bite of toast in his greasy fingers. His black hair hung down and made him look shaggier than usual to her.

“You came home late last night. I heard you come in, I was up.” She looked out the window and saw that the sky had returned blue after the three days of threatening gray. Snow had been predicted all week and they had really only got a dusting at best until last night. It was nice, though, to have a blue sky again. The blank slate of gray made her feel like a bug trapped under a glass. When she saw blue up there it made things clearer and more hopeful. She would have died living in Seattle or somewhere where all it did was bleed water from the sky.

I’d a gone nuts, she thought and looked back at her son.

Eddie still read the comics and it was slow going for him. She watched him as his large eyes poured over the words like molasses from a jar. She knew the words were slow in registering in his mind and that often he was simply making up his own story from the pictures he saw but most of the time he was pretty close.

The doctors told me that he’d be like this for the rest of his life. A child, mentally. Probably never get above a second grade education.

She took her one hand and cupped it under his chin and gently turned his face toward her. He finally looked up at her and his eyes seemed to swim in his head for a moment. He occasionally got that 1000-yard stare, as Leo would call it sometimes, and it took a minute for them to return from wherever they had taken him. He blinked and smiled.

“Did Leo give you any money last night?” she asked and reached for her dented pack of cigarettes. She lit one and blew the cool-looking smoke from the side of her mouth.

“No, mama,” Eddie answered and shook his head. She still hadn’t gotten used to someone the size of her son and being almost thirty now calling her mama. It still sent a slight shiver down her spine and she didn’t know exactly why. It always arrived unannounced and left her with a tinge of guilt.

She nodded and kissed the tip of her finger and put it to his lips and he smiled.

Eddie tried his best to help her clean up the kitchen and then they went out for a walk, down the street to the market.

Outside it was very cool and she nestled up against him as they walked, pulling her scarf around her neck and raising her collar. They passed familiar faces, each wrapped in their own muffler and hat or hood. Eddie wore his Notre Dame knitted hat and it stretched to cover his large skull, not even coming down far enough to protect his ears from the wind.

They passed through the block-sized park and its skeletal gray trees. Squirrels hopped across their path and scrambled up to the higher branches as they approached. Eddie lumbered over to one of the trees and as he neared, the gray-white squirrel darted to the other side of the tree. He walked to the other side and the squirrel again kept the trunk between them, which made Eddie smile and laugh. Maggie watched this for a few minutes with her arms gathered for warmth before calling him over and continuing on.

She loved doing her errands with Eddie. There was, in him, a sort of relaxing simplicity when they took their walk, especially when they made their way through the park. Sometimes he would run into a thick gathering of pigeons and wave his arms until they became a broken cloud in the sky and then he would watch them as they circled the park and landed again. It was hard to separate those simpler emotions when the intrusive thoughts emerged.

How would he ever take care of himself? Will Leo look out for him? He always did, but things change and when I’m gone, who knows?

The doubts came like nightly spirits to her. As swiftly as her smiles arrived at his innocence, the doubts rose to extinguish them. She had heard other mothers asking “why do they have to grow up?”

Eddie Lumskin never really grew up. And he never really would.

She squeezed his hand tightly as they walked down the street when they had finished their errands he carried the heavy bags back in his thick arms, still smiling at the rough looking pigeons and the squirrels.