Mabel Knickerbocker - Short Story - Fiction

She wasn't paying attention. That's what happened to Mabel Knickerbocker the day she died. On the eve of her 50th birthday, she was, as usual, doing things for other people. It's how she lived her life. It's how she died, too.

By the time Timothy Knickerbocker could talk, his mother Mabel had already had five other Knickerbocker children. Each one a right mess of problems with talking back and acting out and being all around nuisances whenever Mabel needed them to behave.

Timothy, being the kind of child who was, above all things, good-natured, never understood the lengths to which his brothers and sisters went to torment poor Mabel. "You're always my good child, boy," Mabel always said to Timothy. "I've been trying to get a good child all this time. Now that I got it right, I'm done birthing babies!" And she kept her word, though no one really knows if she would have, had her husband Hank not suddenly disappeared.

Other than Hank, his "good-for-nothing drunk of a" father, Timothy shared the tight, two-bedroom home with his siblings, Theresa, Desiree, Harry, Faith and Thomas. Oh, Mabel was there, too, but no one noticed, unless they needed something.

"Shut up all you kids! I'm sick of all the racket!" That was Mabel, one fine night when Timothy was 8 years old. It was late and none of the kids would go to bed. The telephone rang and after Mabel got off, she was even angrier than before. "You're Papa is a damn fool! He drinks like a goldfish and looks like a blow fish! I am just about done dealing with him! Now all you kids get to bed. I have to go to Sonny's Bar to go drag him out, before he goes and gets himself killed!"

That must have been Sonny calling again, Timothy thought. He always called Mabel when Hank got out of hand at the bar. "This man thinks I have nothing else to do with myself but get him out of all these messes he ends up in. Damn him! I am sick of it all and I'm throwing in the towel" She yelled this in the center of the house, as if telling her six kids about their worthless father would somehow change matters.

Of course, Mabel was hardly done with Hank, as she proclaimed many, many times while Timothy was growing up. In fact, she stayed with the man right up until the day he went out for a bottle of whiskey and never came back. She waited, of course, and waited. Then, to appease her worries and amuse herself, she made up stories about his demise with a bit too much glee in her voice. The stories got more and more elaborate, as she recanted them to whoever asked about Hank in the neighborhood.

Years later, after Tim and his siblings were all out of the house, he ran into his father at a baseball game. Well...ran into is a bit generous. He saw his father, sober and cleaned-up as he had never seen him when he was a kid. Hank held a small boy on his shoulders so the kid could get a better view of the field. The boy was the spitting image...of Timothy as a kid!

Next to Hank was a woman. She looked to be about Desiree's age (which was way too young for Hank) and she was fawning over Hank and the boy. They looked so happy. A happy family out for a day at the baseball game. Timothy's body went rigid with anger. How come there had never been a day in his life when his father took him to a baseball game? How come he never took Mabel any place nice? The anger and disgust was too much for Timothy. He felt a sense of righteous indignation for Mabel. He felt sad recalling all that his mother had done to keep her kids clothed and fed after Hank left. He felt offended at what Mabel's life had become because of Hank Knickerbocker.

Tim left the game, telling his friend Gus that he was not feeling well. He never did tell Mabel what he saw that day. Just as well. It was better that she keep believing he got himself drunk and died in a ditch somewhere. Some invented memories are best left intact.

Each Knickerbocker kid had taken a different path in life. All were guided, no doubt, by the events that surrounded their formative years. None of them, Tim realized, could be blamed.

Theresa was married and divorced three times before she turned 35. She had four kids and lost custody to the oldest girl, because she drank too much. Theresa was always Daddy's Little Girl! She still lived two doors down from Mabel and still insisted on being fed three meals a day for free, along with the three kids she had custody of.

Desiree ran away to New York City with a local boy named Elijah when she was sixteen. They were, or so they proclaimed, free-spirited artists who had no need for things like a marriage
license or kids. About five years later, she came back. She had ditched Elijah for a girl named Jennifer and the two of them were happy as pigs in shit living in a tiny one-room apartment above the grocery store Mabel had gone to all her life. Mabel was both "shamed and proud" of Desiree. Yet, she never told anyone why the contradictory emotions.

Good old Harry did the honorable thing, when he got his girlfriend Lisa in trouble. They married and moved two states away. They had a daughter named, oddly enough Mabel Sue. Didn't make her Mabel's favorite, but it was cute. But Harry was a doormat. Everyone, including the lovely Lisa, knew this. She cheated on Harry relentlessly with a carefree frequency that irritated everyone, but Harry. Or at least it seemed that way. Harry is currently doing time in federal prison for trying to choke Lisa to death one Christmas day.

Sweet Faith was the only one of the girls who was like Mabel in her giving ways. But, as it turns out, Faith gave a little too much of herself. By the time that girl graduated high school, there was not a boy in her class who had not been horizontal with her in some capacity. But at least she graduated, right? College became a non-issue when Mabel told her there "wasn't a cent to eat, let alone send you to a fancy school!" So now Faith works the graveyard shift at the convenience store. She has, miraculously enough, just one kid. She named him Kite, which everyone hated! Kite stayed with his father most of the time and when he saw Faith, he called her Fate instead of Mom, or mommy or some derivative of that term.

Thomas dealt in drugs, heroin mostly. It was his only source of income, a skill he had been honing since his last year of junior high school. And that is all anyone will say about him, since he isn't part of the family anymore. Not since he was arrested again, anyhow.

And then there was Tim, who worked several jobs and saved most of his money and managed - despite some pretty awful odds - to make it all the way through school. He had a degree - a real oddity for a Knickerbocker kid - in chemical engineering. "What a great gift for Mom," he told Faith one afternoon. As per usual, Faith rolled her eyes at him.

Now, Tim was ready to interview for his first grown-up job and was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning - if ever he had experienced such a thing, which the Knickerbocker kids had never done.

Mabel had just dropped off a sleepy-headed Kite at his father's apartment early that morning. Faith had to pull a double shift, so she was doing her a favor. Mabel had taken a pot of chili to Desiree and Jennifer because it was going to be cold that night and those two had nothing but a hotplate and each other to keep warm. Then Mabel went to see Harry at the prison for her brief weekly visit. She left there and went back home to shower and change. The prison always made her feel so filthy!

She got to making dinner for Theresa and her kids, who would no doubt be there soon. Once the meal was served up, Mabel discreetly slipped out of her place. She dropped off some of the food to Greta, a neighbor who was elderly and alone. She visited with her a few moments and told her, "My boy Timothy's going to get himself a fancy job in New York! He is treating me to dinner tonight to celebrate! I'm so excited Greta, but nervous too! I sure do hope they like my boy in New York!" After that, Mabel stopped in at Rodson's and bought Timothy a lovely tie for his interview. She left Rodson's proud of her purchase. She was excited to see Timothy and excited to be going out for a nice dinner. No one ever thought of doing things like that for Mabel. Well, no one except for Timothy, that is.

She was on her way to the Haven Inn Cafe, when she realized she was whistling. "My goodness! I must be a heck of happy today! I can't even remember the last time I whistled a tune!" And just as the good Mabel Knickerbocker thought that, she stepped across Grand Street as the 151 Express bus made a turn.

"I never even saw old Mabel," said Clyde the bus driver, looking shaken and upset. The two young police officers at the scene knelt by the tired body. Mabel had put on her one nice dress - a green wool one with large black buttons down the center. She had placed a small, cute hat on her head and pinned it carefully to her dark curls. She had matched her shoes to her bag. She wore white gloves.

One of the officers noticed the once-nicely wrapped box from Rodson's ripped apart. An elegant tie was out and all bloodied on the ground. "She was gone before she hit the concrete," one of the officers declared, with the assurance only a rookie could have. People gathered. Some folks gasped because almost everyone recognized Mabel. Almost everyone shook their heads.

At her house, Theresa and her kids sat numbly in front of the television eating the dinner Mabel had cooked.

At the prison, Harry read passages from an old Bible his mother gave him, trying to redeem his soul for the ever-after.

In a town too far to hear the local news, Hank Knickerbocker's young wife told him she was expecting a second child.

In the room above the grocery store, Desiree and Jennifer smoked pot and made out, as the smell of the chili Mabel had brought for them wafted through their tiny place.

At the convenience store, Faith chewed gum and skimmed though a gossip rag seeing what the celebrities were getting themselves into and wishing she could be one of them.

In a shady part of town, in the back alley of an elementary school, Thomas took a kid for $50 providing him with a temporary high for his troubles. With the cash in his pocket, he walked away smiling.

At the Haven Inn Cafe, Timothy Knickerbocker held a lovely pink box, wrapped with a white bow on his lap. He sipped his coffee slowly. Every now and then, he peeked toward the restaurant's entrance. Every few minutes, he looked at his watch anxiously. He couldn't wait to tell his mother that he got a call from New York. They liked his introduction letter. He already got the job.

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