Free Ferris Beach by Jill McCorkle Page B

county, her last breath choked and broken by a man’s sock twisted around her neck. There are some children who cannot dress or feed themselves; there are people who have no homes and wrap their legs in Saran Wrap to keep warm. There was no end to the heartache and sadness of the world, and again I wanted to drag up Angela, young girl without a mother, shunned by her only living relatives.
    “Well, let’s make her feel real good,” my father said and stepped into the kitchen. “Let me go get the paper and we’ll read the police report aloud to one another. Even better, let’s watch the local news.” I stepped away from my mother, hand on my face, and watched her spine go more and more rigid with every word he said. There had been something going on anyway, something to do with one of his trips to Ferris Beach, something about him loaning
her
money
again,
and this was the outlet they had been looking for, a channel for this anger that hung in the air like fog. If I asked
why
or
what
s
wrong,
they pretended not to hear, immediately becoming civil to one another and discussing their days as if they were Ward and June Cleaver.
    “And after dinner how about this?” He clinked the ice cubes around and around in his glass. “Let’s ride down to the hospital emergency room and sit there in the lobby for awhile, you know.” He chuckled and pinched her hip softly, but she pulled away, dishtowel raised as if she meant to swat his face. “Yeah, let’s see the sights.” I laughed with him, relieved momentarily by his playful pinch of her hip. Things could go either way; we were straddling the wire, there in the kitchen, where my mother’s cornucopia spilled colorful fruit and vegetables onto the table. In less than a week we would be sitting there, the three of us plus those without relatives like Mrs. Poole, naming what we were thankful for. I would be thankful if the conversation at hand just passed overhead like a cloud, but I knew it would only take a few more exchanges before she would go silent and he would return to hisstudy and leather recliner, which she had ordered for a birthday surprise and he had thanked her by absentmindedly sticking the tip of his cartridge pen in and out of the arm. He would play his scratched-up old Al Jolson and Judy Garland albums that bumped and gristled under the hard prehistoric needle of the ancient hi-fi. He would play their Swanees back to back as if it were a contest or that he HAD to decide which version he preferred. It became difficult not to fall into the rhythm if I was walking or washing dishes or just swinging my leg. Sometimes “Swanee” lingered in my head as I tried to sleep, gradually fading like the gray glow around a TV turned off in a dark room. I couldn’t help but wonder why he loved that song so, what in the world he thought about as it played over and over.
    A birthmark.
I was at an age when, instead of getting easier, it was getting harder to deal with. It was my weak spot, like a bruise, and it seemed people knew that was the place to seek. Misty and I had been on a church retreat just the weekend before and had had a horrible time. I don’t know why we went to begin with except maybe for lack of something better to do. It was at Lake Merriman, and we hadn’t even gotten to walk along and throw rocks in the water because of all the activities, like making big felt banners that said PAX or had big white doves carrying olive branches, or thinking of rock songs that could be sung in the sanctuary with the accompaniment of an electric guitar; it was a time when controversy was in and so the more old people like Mrs. Poole you could distress during a service, the better.
Jesus Christ Superstar
wasn’t good enough; these people were set on writing their own opera that weekend. The climax came when Jesus went up to the Woman at the Well and sang “Hello, I Love You”; somehow it didn’t seem to be what either Jesus or Jim Morrison had intended.
    “Agape” I