Tonight, I awaken to something nudging the edge of my consciousness. I lay in bed, listen hard, and try to understand what is wrong. There are voices somewhere in the apartment saying things I can’t make out. The words are angry, though, and when the front door crashes open, I jump out of bed.
“Mom!” I call through the bathroom.
“Go back to bed, David,” she shouts. “It’s all right.” But it’s not all right. There is anger in her voice.
“See! You woke them up,” she hisses. “Get out! The judge said you can’t come here.”
“The hell with that,” a man answers. “I’m not leaving until I get what’s mine.” It is Walt, I realize. It’s the first time my stepfather has been around since we left him. Suddenly, I don’t want to be in the dark. I pull the light cord and see my little brother, Wayne, sitting up in bed, rubbing his eyes.
“They aren’t yours,” Mom says. Someone stomps across the living room. “Get your hands off me!” she cries.
“Mom!” I yell as the scuffling comes closer. Just as I start through the connecting bathroom, they burst through the opposite door. Mom tries to hold him off but he pushes her through the doorway. I back out of the way as they bump past the toilet and the sink and into our room. He pins her against the wall next to our bed, panting and ranting about something he says is his. It takes a minute, but from what I finally understand from his ravings, Walt wants a handful of old postage stamps he claimed I stole from him. But they weren’t his, they were mine. His mother had given me some old envelopes she had saved from before the war. I soaked the stamps off to add them to the collection I kept in a cigar box. When she gave them to me, he told me they were worthless, which they are. Now his greedy beer-soaked brain decided they are rare and valuable and he wants them.
I pick up the cigar box full of stamps on my desk, but drop it when Mom yells, “David! Go call the police!”
I run up the stairs, the wood biting my bare feet. I push against the heavy door in the ceiling with all my might and my knees quiver under its weight. I am petrified the thick cellar door is going to fall on my head. I have to do it, have to use all the strength in my skinny arms, have to get through that door to get to the telephone. Mom cries out from below, so I swallow my fear and shove.
The door slips against my shoulder as I get it open, but I don’t let it fall. I push it up and latch it to the wall so it will stay open.
“Where are they?” Walt demands. I can’t see him, but I know he is still pushing her against the wall below.
“I don’t know,” Mom says. Her voice sounds pinched. I think he is strangling her.
I run through the dark tavern to the cash register behind the bar. I push the “No Sale” lever and grab a quarter marked with red paint out of the drawer. The only phone we have is the pay phone in the tavern. When the phone company empties it, they give the red quarters back to Grandma.
I dial the number for the police listed on the front of the phone. I give them the address and tell them Walt is trying to kill my mom. I have to repeat it twice, but they finally understand me.
“The cops are coming!” I shout. I run back to the cellar door and down the stairs. As I get to the bottom, he steps away from her.
“Now you better get out!” Mom snarls in his face.
He turns and spots my desk in the cubbyhole under the stairs. He grabs the cigar box with my sad little stamp collection. Mom smacks it out of his hands and stamps scatter everywhere. A siren sounds in the distance. Walt turns and runs. I follow him through the apartment and slam the front door behind him.
When I come back, Mom is sitting on Wayne’s bunk, rocking him against her body. There are red marks on her arms. She is laughing and crying at the same time.
“He wanted those stupid stamps,” she says.
I don’t tell her they are worthless. Wayne whimpers softly in her arms while I gather the stamps off the floor. I am ten years old and I don’t know what to say to the cops when they knock on the door.