“I don’t care,” she slurs. “I think you’re a prick. Do you know what a prick is? You prick!” Silence. My grandfather must be speaking. He never yells.

My grandmother is drunk as usual, but tonight she is also loud.

The small television sits on a dresser with drawers crooked in their slides. The room is dark while I fix the hanger in the antenna tube, making Dr. Frankenstein’s image better and worse. The slightly shaky picture is a tradeoff for better sound. I turn up the volume and go back to bed.

“I don’t care what you think! You’re a prick, you filthy son of a bitch!”

I cover my head with a pillow, but that doesn’t work. I hop out of bed and turn up the volume. The monster groans and pounds on the door as Dr. Frankenstein locks him inside with the hanging body.  

The only person who can make my grandmother shut up is my big sister, Totsy. She’s on a date with Giuliano. I go to the front door to check for her. No cars. No kissing. Nothing. The above-ground subway across the street rumbles by. My friend and neighbor, Steve, leans out of his bedroom window. I wave at him from behind the glass of the closed door, but he doesn’t see me. I open the door and go out on the stoop.

“Steve!” I call out across the street, trying to get his attention. He waves.

“Wait there,” he calls while almost falling out the window.

 As I go inside, the hinges creak, and a sliver of light comes through the open doorway of my aunt’s room. My stomach drops. I hold my breath.

 “Who’s that?” she calls out from her room. Caught.

“I was just letting in the cat,” I say in my most soothing voice and close the door. “Why aren’t you asleep?” she says, annoyed. “You should be in bed now it’s after eleven.”

“I’m going now,” I say and make foot-shuffling sounds, staying in place.

 Delicately, I move the blind with one finger. Steve jogs across the street. His curly mop bobs as he runs. I admire his shoulders, already broad on his twelve-year-old body. Just before he reaches our steps, I stick my head out the door, finger to my lips, and motion for him to wait. Then go inside, pull down the blinds, and exhale slowly.

“What’s the matter with you?” my aunt yells. “Go to sleep; you have school tomorrow.”

 I say nothing. I open the blinds on the door and make like I’m dialing a phone. I jab my finger at Steve’s apartment, hoping he’ll understand me.

My aunt yells out, “OhferChrissakes!”

 The bedsprings squeak as she heaves out of bed. I dash to my bedroom and close the latch. Finding the phone, I put the handset to my ear while holding down the button to wait for Steve’s call. I pick it up before the first ring finishes.

“Hi,” he says. There are muffled voices in the background that sound like his little sister. “Is your sister up?”

“Yeah, she’s sick.” His voice almost breaks with upset.

 “Well, my grandmother is drunk again,” I say. We trade our sadnesses like baseball cards. “I’m watching Frankenstein.”

 “Can I come over?” he asks. I hear the desperation. I’m distressed, too, and don’t question too closely.

“Okay, but we have to wait until my aunt is back in bed.” “I’ll be on my stoop.” He hangs up.

My grandmother is still crashing around downstairs, only now I smell chicken cooking, and it’s making me hungry.

My aunt comes to my bedroom, and I quickly turn down the TV. “Who are you talking to?” she asks me through the crack in the door. I don’t get up to unhook the latch.

“No one,” I say.

“I heard something.”

“Maybe it was Mommy.”

She ignores me. “You better go to sleep, it’s eleven o’clock. I’ll tell yer grandmother,” she threatens. Even at eleven years old, I know the threat is empty. They might live in the same house, but they never talk about anything. My grandmother thinks my aunt is an idiot. Something about her “not knowing her ass from her elbow.”

“I’m going to sleep now,” I say.

She gives one more octopus eye through the door opening, not yet leaving. I silently pray she’ll go to bed. Steve is waiting.

Finally, she shuffles away. I turn the TV up, but low, so I’ll hear when she turns off her light. She stops in the bathroom first. Then I hear the click of the light switch in her room and the springs of her bed. I exhale.

My grandmother starts another round of yelling. I hold my breath, hoping she’ll not keep my aunt awake. Time goes by, and I worry that Steve will go inside. On the floor below me, I hear footsteps. My grandmother is walking between the bedroom and the basement kitchen — finally, five minutes of peace. I’m sure my aunt has fallen asleep, and maybe my grandmother has calmed down.

I open the door and slip out, trying not to step on any creaky parts of the floor. As I pass the stairway to the basement, I hear my grandmother speaking instead of screaming. “Don’t tell me to be quiet,” she slurs.

I go to the door, open it, but then stop, and wait for my aunt to speak, when she doesn’t, I stick my head out to signal for Steve. He’s already at the bottom of the stairs. I put a finger to my lips as he walks up the stairs. I notice his height as he passes me at the doorway. He’s already taller than me, and I’m five foot five. It’s an unfamiliar feeling of security I get when I look up to him, but I’m in too much of a hurry, and the feeling passes quickly.

He rushes in the door, and we stop. The springs in my aunt’s room squeak, but she says nothing. I shut the door behind us, and we tiptoe the rest of the way.

In my room, I close the latch and turn up the TV. At first, I put Steve under the covers behind me, sit in front of him and wait for my aunt. When she doesn’t arrive after a few minutes, I relax and turn towards his blanket-covered body and poke it.

“It’s okay; I think she’s asleep.”

He pops his head out. “Marion’s going to throw me out when she finds me.” He grins. 

“Don’t worry; she won’t find you.” I smile, a little giddy that we’ve gotten away with it so far. “What’s the matter with your sister?’

“She’s sick. It’s keeping us awake,” he says, his eyes averting my gaze. He’s speaking about his divorced father and him. They moved in across the street about a year ago, and we’ve been friends since. His sister seems slow to me.

He comes out from under the covers and sits on the bed next to me. Villagers watch as Frankenstein’s monster carries the body of a small girl through the village.

“Who’s cooking?” he asks.

“My grandmother,” I say, suddenly embarrassed not because she’s drunk, but because she’s cooking in the middle of the night. Steve knows how much my grandmother’s drinking drives me crazy, but it is just a fact of my life. Cooking in the middle of the night seems more outrageous.

“It’s making me hungry,” he says. “My mother is a better cook than my father.”

“How is it living with your dad?” I ask because that always feels strange to me. Doesn’t every kid live with their mother?

He looks at his sneakers. “You get used to it.” He shrugs his shoulders. I’m about to ask him about his mother’s home, and then I hear the light click on in my aunt’s room.

“She’s up!” I say in a frantic whisper. “Quick, under the bed.” I point to a floor covered with shoes, clothes, and books. He tries to push his body under the bed, but there’s too much in the way. I throw things into the corner and push him under with my foot. My aunt’s footsteps in the hallway get closer.

I jump out of the room and pull the door closed behind me.

“I heard something in your room,” she says, eyeing me closely. “It sounded like voices.” “Voices! Well, I had the TV on for a while.”

“What’s going on?” she asks me.

“Nothing,” I say.

“I know something is going on.” She wags a finger at me.

 “I’m going downstairs. Maybe you heard Mommy? She’s been at it all night.” I walk towards the stairs, drawing her attention to me and away from the room.

She narrows her eyes and shakes her head, turning around slowly. I’m committed now, so I continue to my drunken grandmother. I really don’t want Steve to go. I need to distract my aunt until she forgets. My plan is to get a piece of chicken and return.

I’m thinking of all the reasons to be afraid of my grandmother’s reaction. It’s a school night, I shouldn’t be up this late, I’m eleven; but she’s drunk, and rules don’t apply, most of the time but not always. I hold my breath and open the door at the bottom of the staircase. The bedroom has a light on, but I hear movement in the kitchen, and see a shadow moving behind the translucent glass of the cellar door. The darkened figure looks small and troll-like.

I hope Steve appreciates what I’m about to do. Before I enter, I mess up my hair and close my eyes halfway.

I push open the door. My grandmother is wearing nothing but a pair of blue suede clogs while holding a spatula like a flyswatter. She’s looking straight at me. She purses her lips as though she is going to slur something. The image of her heavy-lidded eyes is seared into my mind, and I beg myself not to look anywhere else on her body. Her pendulous breasts have already made an impression. I turn and run out, not taking another breath until I reach the bedroom where Steve waits.

Horrified, I close the bedroom door and lean against it like someone is going to burst in after me.

“Oh my God,” I say to Steve, still unseen under the bed. “she’s totally naked!” He pushes stuff out of his way to crawl from under the bed. “Who.”

 “My grandmother!” I say, flapping my hands.

I hear my aunt’s footsteps. She’s closer, sneaking up on me. I wave my arms wildly for Steve to dash under the bed again.

“Is there someone in there with you?” One eye and her nostrils poke through the door. I haven’t had time to compose myself from the last shock. I’m still out of breath.

“What are you talking about? Who would be up this late?” I say, not unlocking the door. “I heard someone in here, goddammit!” She is serious. I check that Steve is invisible/hidden and unlock the door, opening it a little as a gesture of good faith.

“See?” I sweep my arm around the room. “There is no one in here.”

She clicks her tongue. “I know what I heard. If you’re lying to me…” and she waddles away. If she catches Steve, she’ll send him home, and she’ll tell his father, my mother, and my grandmother that I had a boy under the bed. I’ll get grounded for a month. Just having come off being grounded for a few weeks for smoking cigarettes, there’s no way I wanted any more of that.

Steve comes out from under the bed.

 “You’re going to have to go home. She’s not going to give up.” I am resigned. “Are you home tomorrow?”

“Nawwww. We’re at my mom’s house,” he says.

 Steve comes and goes from his mother’s to his father’s house. I can’t keep track of him; I don’t know how he does it. But when he’s here, he’ll come over to hang out, play board games, ride bikes or more often than not looking for dinner. So it makes me sad when he’s not around, and it seems like he’s not around a lot. I miss him.

We stand by the door, listening for the now familiar tock of the light switch. His body pressed against mine, and when he exhales, it tickles the top of my head. I turn to say something, but before I can speak, he wraps his arms around me. It was clumsy; my head knocks into his chin. I steady myself and lean into his chest. But instead of feeling like I have a fellow traveler, I want to escape; my grandmother, my aunt, everyone. And I want to kiss him like in the movies when they finally get together just before the end and kiss like they are never going to come apart. But I don’t lift my head to kiss him because if he rejects me, I’ll die right there. And I take the comfort that his arms offer, remembering that when he leaves, I’ll be alone again. Before I cry, I push away and turn to the crack in the door. The sound of the light switch signals our escape window, and we leave the room to begin the long tiptoe out.

Tempting my aunt to pop out of her bedroom, I linger until he disappears behind the front door. The floor creaks as I return to my room, but no one responds. On the screen, Frankenstein’s monster writhes silently pinned under a fallen beam until it fades to the demolished building. Too tired to turn up the sound or turn off the television, I roll over. Will I ever feel what it’s like to kiss him? My grandmother, once again, stomps below me. Will he love me if I turn into her? Crazy, drunk and naked, frying chicken in the middle of the night. I shudder and push the thought out of my mind as I fall asleep, counting the places to hide him in the bedroom.