roll out the barrel
by Jacqueline Doyle
My little brothers and I were eating cereal in front of the TV, watching the Lawrence Welk Show. This was a long time ago. Hardly anyone remembers the soap bubbles and how he always said “Wunnerful, wunnerful” and that guy with the sequined accordion now.
He was playing a polka. Round and round the music went. He was smiling and bouncing up and down, nice and easy, fingers rippling up and down the keyboard, the accordion going in and out, in and out, and a couple was dancing, twirling in circles and laughing, once in a while stopping to stamp their feet. The lady was wearing this swirly white skirt and you could see her colored underwear when it flew up. “Ooh,” Tony said, “I see London, I see France, I see someone’s underpants.” I told him they weren’t really underpants. They wouldn’t show that on TV.
Our father was alone in the kitchen, drinking Schlitz. Mom had just taken a bath upstairs and you could smell nail polish and nail polish remover and the Jean Naté bath splash she liked. She was singing along with the polka over the noise of the hair dryer and everything seemed okay. “Roll out the barrel,” she sang, “we’ll have a barrel of fun.”
All of a sudden the lights went out, the hair dryer and music went silent.
“God damn it,” Dad bellowed. John and Tony and I huddled closer together on the floor in front of the sofa.
We heard his chair scrape on the linoleum, heard a couple of empty beer bottles tip over on the kitchen table, roll back and forth on the floor as he lumbered to his feet.
“Shit,” John whispered. I was the oldest and kind of in charge, but I didn't tell him to watch his language, because that's what I was thinking. “Shit.”
The house was really dark. I was hoping that Dad wouldn't make it up to the bathroom. Or that maybe he was headed for the cellar instead and would just change the fuse, like a regular person. But Dad wasn't a regular person when he was pissed, which was most of the time. Mom wasn't a regular person when she was pissed off at Dad, which was most of the time.
“Damn it to hell, if I've told you once, I've told you a million times.” We could hear him groping to find the open kitchen door, swearing as he stomped through the dining room toward the stairs. We could see his dark figure in the hallway.
“I’m lighting a candle,” Mom yelled from upstairs.
And just like that we heard a whumpf. We heard Mom running water and some kind of thumping and then she screamed “Fire!” and came racing, half-tumbling down the stairs. “Kids. Get out! Now!” We all dived for the front door. Mom grabbed my arm and pulled so hard it felt like it was coming out of the socket, I held onto Tony and John, we were outside quick.
It was a long time before we heard sirens blaring and the fire engines showed up, those flashing lights making the whole neighborhood red. We stood with the neighbors across the way watching the house burn. I don't know where Dad was. Not with us, anyway. Not then, not later. Mom was always mad about child support. She said he’d moved to Arizona, but he didn’t even send a postcard.
It was supposedly a more innocent time for most of America, those years. I mean just about no one remembers Lawrence Welk any more but those who do feel a twinge of nostalgia. What I mostly remember is all the fighting and swearing, Dad breaking bottles and punching Mom, Mom throwing stuff and punching Dad, nosy neighbors on their porches, the police pounding on the front door. Like a polka, round and round and round. But there was some good stuff before the fire too. Mom and Dad dancing in the kitchen, making goo-goo eyes and saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Mom singing along with the radio, Dad playing catch with us once in the backyard, them letting us stay up past our bedtimes and put chocolate milk in our cereal. Me and John and Tony whispering in the dark when we were supposed to be asleep.
I guess you could say things fell apart after the fire, what with missing Dad and getting into trouble at school, then John in juvie. Mom’s boyfriends were all deadbeats, and she started drinking almost as bad as Dad did. Lately I’ve been thinking about that dumb show and those soap bubbles and “Wunnerful, wunnerful,” and damn if it wasn’t kind of wonderful, five of us under one roof, even with the fuses blowing all the time.
Jacqueline Doyle’s chapbook The Missing Girl is available from Black Lawrence Press. Her flash has appeared in matchbook, Wigleaf, Pithead Chapel, CRAFT, and Little Fiction/Big Truths. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and can be found online at www.jacquelinedoyle.com and on twitter @doylejacq.