The Roy Stories by Barry Gifford

anything after that. The child’s mind was frozen in time. Not only could he not remember anything new but also did not even recognize himself in the mirror as he grew older. Reno thought that would be the perfect way to live, with nothing terrible in your mind to haunt you forever.
    â€œWhen my sister told our mother that Reno Mott had died, she said, ‘I thought he died years ago.’ Rita said he believed he was going to hell and was afraid to burn. ‘I’m not surprised,’ my mother said. ‘He never did any good in his life.’ ‘He was always nice to me,’ said Rita. Out mother looked at her and said, ‘I don’t believe you.’ ”
    Mooney stood up, stretched his lanky frame, and said, “Be thankful, boys, you don’t have a Reno Mott messin’ with you. Guess I’ll see if I can scare up a game of one-pocket.”
    â€œI don’t really feel like playin’ any more,” said Jimmy.
    â€œNeither do I,” said Roy.
    They racked their cues, walked to the door and pulled their jackets up over their heads before going out into the rain.

 
    Christmas Is Not For Everyone
    When Roy was seventeen years old, his mother got married without telling him. He found out when he came back home to Chicago from college for Christmas. Roy was sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast the morning after he arrived and his mother was standing at the sink washing dishes when she told him that she and his little sister were going to move from Chicago to Ojibway, Illinois, on the Wisconsin border.
    â€œWhy?” he asked. “And when?”
    â€œRight after the new year,” she said. “In about ten days. I’ve already sold my half of the apartment building to Uncle Herman.”
    â€œWhat’s in Ojibway?”
    â€œThat’s where Eddie Lund lives. He has a nice house there on Sweden Road. Your sister will have her own room, at least during the months Eddie’s daughter is away at nursing school in Ohio.”
    â€œWho’s Eddie Lund?”
    â€œHis family owns a steel company in Rock City, close to Ojibway. Eddie works for Rock City Steel.”
    â€œMa, who is this guy?”
    Roy’s mother did not answer right away, then Roy realized that she was crying.
    â€œWhat’s wrong, Ma?”
    â€œI’m going to marry him, Roy. Actually, we’re already married.”
    â€œWhen did this happen?”
    She turned off the water at the sink and wiped her eyes with her apron, but did not turn around to look at Roy.
    â€œOn my birthday, the day after Thanksgiving.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell me?”
    â€œI didn’t want to bother you while you were at the university. I thought it would be better to tell you when you were home.”
    Eddie Lund was his mother’s fifth husband. Roy knew she was embarrassed by this and had been afraid to tell him she’d gotten married again, especially after promising Roy, following her divorce two years before from her fourth husband, a drug addict jazz drummer named Spanky Wankovsky, that she was finished with matrimony.
    â€œEddie’s a good guy, Roy, you’ll see. He’s coming here today, so you’ll meet him.”
    Roy’s father had been his mother’s first husband; he died when Roy was five. Each of the husbands who came after him had considered Roy a nuisance, if not a burden. None of them had any interest in assuming responsibility for him. Roy was his mother’s son, and he learned to keep his distance from her husbands. Since these men never lasted very long with his mother, Roy just waited them out, hoping, of course, that there would not be another. He soon realized, however, that the only control he had was over himself, and since the age of nine knew that he was on his own.
    The intervals between his mother’s marriages were when Roy and she got along best. Christmas, though, was always difficult because his