APO Scene

So? What are you going to do?

I don’t know. Leave me alone. Don’t just sit there watching me

It’s my room as much as yours. I don’t have to leave if I don’t want to

Do you have to stare at me? Can’t I have any privacy

I’m staring into space. I can’t help it if your body interferes. I bet you’re worried

How would you feel if your entire life depended on what your Uncle Jack decided? Oh god, I wish daddy were alive

He would have said “No.” He was rally strict

Not with me. I mean he was strict but he was fair. If he said “No,” he always gave you a good reason. He always talked things out…I wish I could call him somewhere now and ask him what to do. One three minute call to heaven is all I ask

Ask Mom. She talks to him every night

Who told you that?

She did. Every night before she goes to bed. She puts his picture on her pillow and talks to him. Then she pulls the blanket halfway up the picture and goes to sleep

No she does not

She does too. Last year when I had the big fever, I slept in bed with the both of them. In the middle of the night, my face fell on his picture and cut my nose

She never told me that…that’s weird

I can’t remember him much anymore. I used to remember him real good but now he disappears a little bit every day

Oh, God, he was so handsome. Always dressed so dapper, his shoes always shined. I always thought he should have been a movie star…like Gary Cooper…only very short. Mostly I remember his pockets.

His pockets?

When I was six or seven he always brought me home a little surprise. Like a Hershey or a top. He’d tell me to go get it in his coat pocked. So I’d run to the closet and put my hand in and it felt as big as a tent. I wanted to crawl in there and go to sleep. And there were all these terrific things in there, like Juicy Fruit hum or Spearmint Life Savers and bits of cellophane and crumbled pieces of tobacco and movie stubs and nickels and pennies, and rubber bands and paper clips and his grey suede gloves that he worse in the winter time

With the stitched lines down the fingers. I remember

Then I found his coat in Mom’s closet and I put my hand in the pocket. And everything was gone. It was emptied and dry cleaned and it felt cold…and that’s when I knew he was really dead. Oh God, I wish we had our own place to live. I hate being a boarder. Listen let’s make a pact…the first one who makes enough money promises not to spend any on herself, but saves it all to get a house for you and me and Mom. That means every penny we get from now on, we save for the house…we can’t but anything. No lipstick or magazines or nail polish or bubble gum. Nothing…is it a pact?

What about movies?

Movies too

Starting when?

Starting today. Starting right now

Can we start Sunday? I wanted to see The Thin Man

Who’s in it?

William Powell and Myrna Loy

Okay. Starting Sunday…I’ll go with you Saturday