Chapter 29

Yawning, Jerry scratched his bare belly as he poured water into the coffee maker. Once the pot was empty, he slipped it onto the heater pad and turned on the brewer. Turning away, he wandered over to the cabinet where he had his breakfast foods and looked it over trying to decide what to cook. He grabbed the pancake mix.

The coffee was finished by the time that he had finished preparing the batter. He poured a cup of coffee and sat at the table drinking it. Bill wandered out of his bedroom and poured a cup for himself. Sitting at the table, he yawned and then said, “Good morning.”

“Morning,” replied Jerry.

The pair of them sat enjoying the first cup of coffee of the morning. Jerry finished his and said, “Time to get started on the pancakes.”

Bill yawned before getting up and going over to the cabinet to get the plates. A companionable silence settled on the room, as the two of them went through the process of preparing breakfast. Jerry made the pancakes while Bill set the table. Glancing over at the table, Jerry said, “There’s three of us now.”

“Shit, I forgot,” grumbled Bill as he got another table setting.

“Well, it looks like we have someone that can help with the dishes from now on,” commented Jerry with a smile. Now that there were three of them in the house, the work could be distributed a little better.

“Right, when pigs fly,” replied Bill. He knew the princess wasn’t going to do a thing around the house.

“No deadwood allowed in this house,” replied Jerry as he stirred the batter.

Looking like a picture out of a fashion magazine, Melissa breezed into the kitchen wearing a pair of pink silk pajamas and a matching silk robe. She froze on seeing her father and Bill, taking in their attire.

She shouted, “Gross.”

Jerry turned to look at her trying to figure out what had disturbed her. It was hard not to notice the outfit she was wearing. It probably cost as much as his entire wardrobe.

He asked, “What?”

“You guys are in your boxers! That’s disgusting,” commented the girl.

Bill put a hand on the waist of his boxers and replied, “I can take them off if that would make you feel better.”

“Oh, God! You are sick!” commented Melissa as she frowned at her brother with an expression of disgust on her face.

Jerry and Bill laughed at her reaction. The big man turned back to the pancakes that were finished cooking on the frying pan and piled them on a plate. He poured more batter on the frying pan and, once finished with that, turned to face Melissa. He said, “This is my house and it is run according to my rules.”

“And if I choose not to live by your rules?”

“I don’t know, but I can tell you that you won’t like it,” commented the big man. He didn’t know what he would do, but he was sure that Sharon could provide lots of ideas.

Melissa said, “You are just going to have to learn how to treat a lady.”

“Grow up, Mel. There’s no one to impress, here,” replied Bill.

“There’s coffee in the coffee pot,” offered Jerry hoping that once she got some coffee into her that she would be a little less edgy. A stray thought flitted through his mind that she was going to have to learn how to act like a lady before she would get treated like a lady.

She noticed Bill taking a sip of his coffee and frowned. Putting her hand on her hip, she declared, “He’s too young to be drinking coffee.”

“Why? It’s got the same amount of caffeine as a soft drink and none of the sugar,” countered Jerry.

Bill smiled and took another sip of his coffee as he watched his sister struggle to come up with something to counter the argument. A half dozen expressions crossed her face before she gave up and went over to the coffeepot. Taking one of the cups from beside the pot, she filled it with coffee. Once her cup was filled, she asked, “Where’s the cream?”

“Milk is in the fridge,” answered Jerry as he added more pancakes onto the pile already on the plate.

“Milk? Are you kidding?” She turned to look at her father, unable to believe the kind of conditions under which he expected her to live. Her room was the size of the closet she had at her grandmother’s house. The house was decrepit and unfit for human occupation. The neighborhood was dangerous.

Bill gave his father a look that conveyed exactly what he thought of his sister. Looking at her, he waved his arms like the robot in Lost in Space as he said, “Warning! Warning! Princess in the room.”

“Oh, shut up,” retorted Melissa. She took a sip of her coffee and frowned as she realized it wasn’t the gourmet coffee that her grandmother served.

“Hey, none of that stuff in this household. You’ll act in a respectful manner towards each other,” interrupted Jerry. He looked at both kids to make sure that he had their attention and then went back to pouring the last of the batter onto the frying pan.

“So what do you do around here?” asked Melissa.

“Mondays are dad’s day off. We have a hot breakfast, work on the car in the morning, and then spend the afternoon doing something together,” answered Bill. He wondered if the program was going to change much with Melissa moving into the house.

In a voice that suggested how lame she thought their day would be, she said, “I hope the rest of the week isn’t that exciting.”

Bill let her sarcasm slide off his back as he replied, “Well, Thursdays are kind of busy.”

Jerry came over to the table carrying the plate full of pancakes and set it down on the table. Stepping back, he said, “Breakfast is ready.”

He sat at the table and started to load up his plate. Bill followed suit, piling three of the pancakes on his plate. The males of the household were busy putting margarine and syrup on their flapjacks before Melissa had even sat at the table. She stood in place staring at the two of them for a full minute.

Finally, she asked, “Aren’t you going to wait for me to sit at the table?”

“Why?” asked Jerry as he cut off a piece of the pancake with the edge of his fork.

“Haven’t you ever heard of a thing called manners?” asked Melissa. Men were supposed to stand around the table until the woman seated herself.

Bill looked up at his sister and shook his head as he recalled how things had been when he lived with his mother. He wasn’t allowed to eat until they both showed up at the table. Usually that meant the food was cold by the time his sister seated herself at the table.

He answered, “Lighten up. This is breakfast, and I’m going to eat it before it gets cold.”

Melissa flounced into her chair and pouted at their treatment of her. This was intolerable. She said, “Pass the pancakes.”

“They’re right in front of you,” observed Bill as he pushed the margarine in her direction. He watched his father push the maple syrup in her direction as well.

“Oh! All right!” she exclaimed as she pulled the plate closer. She raised an eyebrow on seeing the margarine and the fake syrup, but didn’t bother to comment. It followed that if they didn’t have cream for coffee, they wouldn’t use real butter and maple syrup.

Jerry got up and fetched the coffeepot. Returning to the table, he refilled his cup, topped off Bill’s cup in response to a nod from the boy, and gestured to Melissa to see if she wanted more. She ignored him as she would a servant. He returned the pot to the brewer and then went back to the table. Sitting down, he took a sip of his coffee before turning his attention to the pancakes.

When Jerry finished his stack of pancakes, he sat back and watched the kids eating. Bill was attacking his food with his normal healthy appetite. Melissa was picking at the pancakes as though she expected to find bugs in them. After taking a sip of his coffee, he asked, “What would you guys like to do this afternoon?”

“How about a movie?” asked Bill.

“Shopping,” answered Melissa.

Bill looked over at his sister and replied, “Wednesday we do the grocery shopping.”

“I wasn’t talking about groceries,” replied Melissa.

Jerry said, “That reminds me. Now that you’re living here, I guess I’m responsible for setting your allowance. How does twenty a week sound?”

Melissa stared at Jerry as if he had grown horns. She was in absolute shock at the paltry amount of money he had suggested. In a very serious voice, she said, “Add a zero to that and you’ll be close to the allowance I’ve been getting since I was twelve.”

Shocked at her attempt to fool his father into giving her a larger allowance, Bill looked at Melissa and said, “Mom was only giving us five dollars a week.”

“That was your allowance. My allowance was a hundred and fifty.”

“That’s not fair,” charged Bill as his eyes turned wet. Even though he knew that his mother had treated him horribly, it still shocked him to learn just how inequitable his treatment had been.

“You’re a boy and if you needed more, then you should have gone out and earned it. I’m a girl, and different rules apply,” retorted Melissa.

Jerry had listened to the exchange speechless. He believed her when she said what her allowance had been. There was no way that he was going to give her more money than he took for the week.

He said, “This is an equal opportunity household. Everyone gets the same pay for the same work. Right now, the going rate is twenty a week.”

Bill smiled as Melissa stared at her father in shock. She asked, “Are you serious?”

“Very,” replied Jerry, as he looked her in the eye to let her know just how serious he was about the matter. There was no way she was getting an allowance bigger than that.

She stood up to face Jerry; her arms hung down by her sides with her hands clenched into fists. Her face was livid with raw hatred for Jerry. Picking up her breakfast plate, she threw it at him and stormed out of the room. The plate caromed off Jerry’s face, hitting him edge on, to land on the floor where it shattered into three large pieces and several smaller ones. Jerry stood up in surprise and winced when he heard her bedroom door slam.

Bill stood and asked, “Are you okay, dad?”

Rubbing his cheekbone to ease the throbbing, Jerry answered, “I’m fine. The plate hit my cheekbone.”

“Dad, she’s dangerous,” said Bill remembering how she had treated him in the past. The fact was that she terrified him and he didn’t want to be left in the house alone with her.

Jerry looked down at the floor taking in the broken plate. When Bill went to pick it up, he said, “Leave it there. She won’t eat until she cleans up the mess she made.”

“You’re asking for trouble,” said Bill with a worried look on his face.

“I won’t be held hostage by a woman ever again,” stated Jerry with grim determination. His face softened as he looked over at Bill and added, “I’ll talk to Henry about taking you in for a few days while Melissa and I come to an understanding. I don’t think you should be left alone with her.”

“I agree one hundred percent on not being alone with her. Can’t you put her in a home or something?” asked Bill staring in the direction of her bedroom door.

“No, I can’t do that,” replied Jerry. He didn’t know what the law was about situations in which children assaulted their parents, but he doubted that it worked in the favor of the parents.

After lunch, the pair left the house after trying to get Melissa to clean up the mess she had made in the kitchen. She had refused even after Jerry threatened to leave her in house while they went to the movies. The discussion had been difficult as she wouldn’t open her bedroom door and Jerry respected her privacy by not charging into her room. The frequent sounds of things hitting the door made Jerry glad that it was closed.

Jerry returned from spending the afternoon at the movies with Bill and his friends. When Woody learned that Melissa had moved in with them, he offered to let Bill spend the night at his house for a couple of nights. Woody’s parents didn’t have a problem with that, so Jerry had left Bill with Woody. He was confident that the boy was in good hands and far safer than he would have been at home.

Jerry stepped into the house and looked in the kitchen. The broken plate and the remains of her pancakes were still on the floor. Melissa appeared to be in her room, but he wasn’t going to open the door to find out for sure. He didn’t have to knock, the door flew open as she threw herself at him waving a kitchen knife. It was dumb luck that the knife struck his cast. It was a terrifying minute before he was able to grab the weapon and wrestle it away from her. She continued to attack him.

Throwing her across the room, he shouted, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

She stood up and took a deep breath as she faced him from across the room. Angry, she shouted, “I thought you were one of the niggers come to rape me!”

“What?” He asked his question in an attempt to understand what she was saying.

“A nigger came to the door this morning and asked for Bill. Now that they know a white woman is in the neighborhood, they’re gonna rape me. All those niggers want is to rape white girls,” she shouted. She had spent the entire day huddled in her room clutching the knife convinced that a horde of angry blacks was coming to rape her.

“Jesus, you’re just like your mother,” swore Jerry in disgust.

“Don’t try to make me feel better,” she countered, not realizing that his comment wasn’t a compliment. She spat, “You brought me here just so that you could torture me.”

Staring at the floor, Jerry was at a loss concerning what he could do with her. If she had attacked any of the kids in the neighborhood, they’d have killed her. He had no doubts about that.

He asked, “What did you tell Abe?”

“Who’s Abe?”

“The young man that asked for Bill,” answered Jerry afraid of what he was going to learn.