Читать книгу Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride - Brian Sweany - Страница 22

Chapter fourteen

Dad leans against the willow tree stump in our backyard, in the middle of his post-run stretch. He’s wearing running shorts and an old Adidas tank top. A sweatshirt, a fishing pole, and a foam cup of grubs sit at his feet. He presses his hands onto the stump, arms straight, one foot forward, and one foot back, keeping his back leg straight with his heel on the ground.

Dad cut the willow down at the end of our first summer in the house. He said he was tired of tripping over its roots and having to deal with its constantly shedding limbs. But if the sun hits him just right when he’s shirtless, you can make out the faint scars on his back from when Grandma Eleanor took a switch to him as a child.

My father has the pronounced calves of a marcher-turned-runner. Mom once even said, “I married your father for his calves.” I don’t know whether it’s ironic, hereditary, or just weird, but calves are the first thing I notice in girls, too. Calves can make or break the deal for me. I don’t ask for much—a slight athletic curve about halfway down the calf, the mere suggestion of something beyond just weekend laps around the mall. Not too skinny, so waifish eating disorder types need not apply, but not too big either, especially those thick, knee-to-feet, vintage Catholic nun “cankles.”

Okay, that’s weird.

The air has a cold edge to it. Dad puts his sweatshirt back on. He’s owned this sweatshirt, hooded and navy blue with “Notre Dame” scrolled in faded orange-yellow across the chest, as long as I can remember. I had a matching sweatshirt when I was about five or six years old, back when Dad and I used to bundle up for our early morning walks on his aunt’s tobacco farm in Kentucky. At the end of our walks, we’d sometimes spend hours at a time just sitting in the barn. Black and white dairy cows would poke their heads around the barn door to say hello. Tomcats would chase mice across the straw-covered floor. There would be rows upon rows of sweet-scented tobacco leaves curing in the rafters.

I miss those childhood years; those years when in the depths of quietness the world seemed to talk to me more.

“You’re up early, son.”

“It’s a big day.” I yawn, stepping off the porch. Our lawn slopes into the water, so I walk sideways toward my father. I hold two cups of black coffee in my hands.

“Big day as in the first day of your last week as a junior?”

“No.” I hand Dad his coffee. “My first day as a senior.”

“How so?”

“It’s kind of a loophole. The seniors get the last week of school off, so the juniors get a head start—”

“At being prima donnas?”

The old man is sharper then I give him credit for. “Exactly, Pops.”

Dad finishes his calf stretches. He stands straight up and then crosses his feet. He sets down his coffee, reaches for his toes. A noticeable grunt.

The grunting is something new with him—when he stretches, when he stands up after lying down on the couch, or after a long car ride. I’ve never perceived Dad or Mom as old or even getting old. Grandparents are old, parents are just…well, parents.

“Still battling those shin splints?”

“Just a little tight. How you doing these days?”

“My shins are fine.”

“That’s not what I meant, smart aleck.”

Smart aleck? Early morning. Fishing poles. Black coffee. Grunting. Only my father and his uncompromising sense of goodness can throw out an aleck when the sheer maleness of the moment all but requires an ass.

“I figured that wasn’t what you meant. I’m doing great.”

“Really?”

The man looks unconvinced. I’ve been pretty discreet. Haven’t I? “Yeah, Dad. Couldn’t be better.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Dad picks up the fishing pole and an unopened plastic baggie of fake worms. He breaks open the bag. The sound of crinkling plastic reminds me of Uncle Mitch and his Merits. I smell smoke, even though there isn’t any.

“Something on your mind, son?”

“You hear from Uncle Mitch lately?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“He left town in kind of a hurry.”

“Just one of those things, I suppose,” Dad says. “He got a job offer on the other side of the country the same day Aunt Ophelia served him with annulment papers. Guess he just needed a clean start.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“Looks like I have to be.”

Just as when Uncle Mitch called him to say he was moving, Dad seems remorseless, cold even.

“Dad, everything all right?”

He raises his chin and takes a deep breath, almost as if he’s caught a scent. “You think you know people, and then…”

“And then what?”

Dad is silent. I can’t read his face. I don’t know if he’s searching for the words or refusing to search. He threads the fishing line into the eyehook on the end of the plastic worm.

“Dad?”

“Ahh, don’t listen to your old man.” He casts out his line. “Time to see what’s biting this morning.”

The implication here is that today’s catch might be some big mystery, but both Dad and I know he has a 125 percent chance of catching a bluegill. Twenty years of hand-feeding has mollified these fish—the near-literal manifestations of fish in a barrel. And yet the bluegills thrive, overwhelming the pond, eating the hatchlings of the largemouth bass and crappie trying to hide in its deeper locales.

I start to make my way back to the house. Dad reaches out, grabs me by the arm. “Hey, you don’t want to at least wait for the first catch?”

“No thanks, Dad. Gotta go get dressed, pick up some people.”

He flicks the pole, reels in the line a couple feet. “At least wait a few minutes.”

“Where’s Grandpa?”

“Still in bed.”

“His hip?”

“His hip, his knees, his blood pressure, his cholesterol—take your pick.”

A small moment of recognition. “He’s not going down without a fight, Dad.”

Dad nods, gazes out across the water. Our house sits on the north side of the pond. The location affords us a nice view, especially now with the sun dropping lower in the sky on summer’s eve.

“Seeing your grandpa go downhill so fast is tough to watch,” he says. “I feel so powerless.”

I pat him on the shoulder. “You’re doing all that you can, Dad.”

“Am I?” he asks. “My hope and prayer for you is that you never have to see me like that, after life has beaten me down.”

“Speaking of down,” I say, pointing to the red-and-white bobber dipping below the surface. “Looks like you got one.”

Claire lives in my neighborhood, so I picked her up first. Beth was next, then Hatch. The Subie ferries us to McDonald’s to meet the rest of the seniors, or at least the ones that matter.

It’s been an interesting few weeks leading up to today. Prom was awkward at best. A complex confluence of events led me to take the Johnson County Fair Queen as my date. Not that complex—Laura had ripped my heart out of my chest cavity and thrown it in a Cuisinart, Beth had said yes to her ex-boyfriend Tyler before they broke up and didn’t have the heart to back out, and Dad’s sales manager at the dealership had a hot seventeen-year-old daughter who happened to be the Johnson County Fair Queen.

Zoe Applefeld had above-average calves, she was one hell of a dancer, and I was certain she’d have slept with me if I had asked her. What is the proper etiquette in regards to losing your virginity to daughters of your father’s employees anyway? We got drunk after prom, stayed out all night, split a plate of biscuits and gravy at Bob Evans, and I kissed her goodbye sometime around 8:00 a.m. The kiss was more innocent than I wanted it to be, just a quick peck on the lips, although I did try to pry open her teeth with my tongue. I’m a giver.

“Thanks for choosing McDonald’s this morning, May I take your order?”

I recognize the cashier’s bad bowl cut and pencil-thin mustache. His name is Chip Funke. He’s in our class. Nice guy but keeps to himself at school and plays trombone in the band. A little on the delusional side—drives go-karts on the weekends, talks about one day winning the Indy 500.

“Morning, Chip.”

“Oh, hi there, Hank.”

“You plan on going to school today?”

“I pulled a twelve-hour shift last night. Thought I’d stay and help the morning crew before I head out.”

“That’s mighty charitable of you. How’s the racing going?”

“Doing pretty well in three-quarter midgets.”

“Does that involve race cars or actual midgets that are seventy-five percent as tall as normal midgets?”

“Shut up, Hank. What do you want to eat?”

“I’m just fucking with you, Chip. Egg McMuffin and a coffee, please.”

Hatch orders two sausage biscuits and a Coke. Claire and Beth both just order coffees, their appetites curbed by the most popular of high school diet pills, cigarettes. Claire, Beth, Hatch, and I sit at our regular booth in the far corner of the restaurant. The Dwyer twins sit a couple booths away with their boyfriends.

“Tammy, Sammy.”

“Hi, Hank!” Their Prepster boyfriends don’t even raise their heads to look at us. Hatch and I call them “Steff-1” and “Steff-2,” in honor of their feathered hair, glassy eyes, expensive suits, and cotton shirts unbuttoned down to their navels that were more than a little derivative of James Spader’s character in Pretty in Pink. Steff-1, Tammy’s boyfriend, is the guy who likes to rip out spleens. Steff-2, Sammy’s boyfriend, has slept around behind Sammy’s back for almost their entire relationship.

Beth looks at all of us. “I can’t believe we’re seniors.”

Claire nods. “This year is going to be one to remember.”

“I plan on not remembering much of it.” Hatch laughs. He passes the invisible baton to me. “How about you, Fitzy?”

“Umm…” I can’t think of anything to say, which of course means I’m about to say everything. Even better, I’ll probably phrase it as a question, as if to mitigate the moment with uncertainty.

“Laura and I are back together?” The sound of a cash register…

Thanks for choosing McDonald’s this morning. May I take your order…

The cash register again…

Your order number is fifty-seven…

“What?” Hatch slams his hands on the table. “You’ve gotta be fist fucking me.”

Claire shakes her head. “Unbelievable.”

“Seriously, Fitzy.” Hatch grabs my shoulder, squeezing. “You better be yanking my chain, or else you can just go suck a fat baby’s dick.”

I try to ignore Hatch’s metaphor onslaught. I stare at Beth. She hasn’t said anything.

Number fifty-five…

I look at the receipt in my hand. “That’s us.” My eyes do a quick back-and-forth glance from Beth to the cash register. She picks up on the hint, stands up, and walks with me.

“Well?” I say to Beth.

“Well, what?”

“You okay?”

“W-when did this…” She stutters, her first hint of recognition.

“It didn’t all of a sudden happen. Laura sent me a letter a few weeks ago. We talked. And it just sort of went from there.”

I leave out the details of course. About our stolen smiles and “accidental” bumps in the hallways that each became a new promise to one another. About every forbidden late night rendezvous that by day could turn me into a social pariah. About every after-hours phone call made after Mom fell asleep so she wouldn’t know I was again talking to the girl who reduced her little boy to a pool of liquid charcoal and self-pity. About my desperate attempt to erase the pain, rationalizing that love and anguish just went hand-in-hand.

“Did you see her before or after that night we—”

“After, definitely after.” I grab the tray off the counter.

“You sure?” Beth’s eyes narrow, testing me, trying to catch me in a lie. I’m not lying, but she overestimates her ability to tell one way or the other. I’m a very good liar.

I throw a handful of ketchup packets onto my tray. Beth follows with some creamers and sugars. I sense some disbelief.

“Beth, I think you know me well enough by now. I swear to you, I thought Laura and I were done. I got the first letter from Laura, the one that said she wanted me back, right after you and I hooked up.”

“That same night?”

“Yes, I’m talking minutes after we dropped you and Claire off at your house.”

“Jesus, Hank, that was like six weeks ago. Have you two been back together ever since?”

“More or less.”

“Is that why you’ve been so weird lately? Why you haven’t been returning my calls?”

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

“I-I don’t know.” My turn to stutter. “You know, you and I, w-we…”

“You and I weren’t ever a couple, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

We sit back down at the table. I ready my concession speech. “Guys, don’t think for a second anything’s going to change this summer. We’re still going to have a blast.” My tone conveys the opposite of my original intent, like I’m trying to convince myself more than anybody else. But they play along. That’s what friends do.

Claire reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “You bet we’re going to have some fun.”

Hatch slaps me on the back. “Even if I have to drag your whipped ass out of the house to do it.”

Again, Beth is quiet. She’s tying a discarded straw wrapper in multiple knots. She looks past us, out the window.

I catch myself staring at her for the second time this morning. As good as Beth looks in a gymnastics leotard, never mind her bikini, her usual wardrobe reads like someone in a witness protection program, like those National Enquirer photos of movie actresses who go out in public in old sweat suits, baseball caps, and sunglasses. Most of the time, at least when she’s sober, Beth doesn’t want to be noticed. Like this morning, a blue jean miniskirt that’s more maxi than mini, and an unflattering long-sleeved rugby shirt untucked and draped halfway to the end of her skirt.

But there’s something about Beth—if not a confidence, a boldness to her. She never asks to be taken too seriously. She has a hellion side to her personality. About seventy-two ounces of barley and hops separate the girl who drove your grandfather to Sunday night bingo from the girl who’ll give you a hand job in the backseat of your car. She’s a refreshing change from Laura, who tends to grow detached and sullen in direct proportion to the number of drinks she consumes. With Laura, there’s just so much emotion—too much emotion—tied up in even the smallest of affections. In a lot of meaningful ways, Beth is the antidote to Laura.

Whoa. Did I just think that?

“Hank?”

I’m busted. How long have I been staring at her? “Yeah, Beth?”

She discards the straw wrapper and grabs a napkin. She reaches up to my face and wipes a piece of egg off the corner of my mouth. She smiles. “Something on your mind?”

“Nope.” I shake my head. “Nothing at all.” I’m a very good liar.