Читать книгу The Underdog Parade - Michael Mihaley - Страница 15

Day 61

Peter woke to CJ’s big toe greeting him and the heel of her left foot resting on his cheek. They had slept the entire night on Peter’s carpet. The early light of day peeked through the shades. Peter pushed CJ’s foot away, and CJ groaned in protest before turning on her side.

Peter sat at his desk as he did at the start of every morning and removed the colored pencils from the top drawer. On his desk calendar, he drew an orange circle and blue circle on yesterday’s date: another day without a drop of rain or his father being home. He counted back twenty days with his finger; his father had been away on business for thirteen of them.

The mean-spirited buzz of his mother’s alarm clock intruded on the quiet morning. Peter heard his mother’s slaps at the clock followed by the shuffling of her slippers against the floor. Seconds later, Abby appeared in front of Peter’s door.

“Morning. What happened here? Was she having nightmares?” Abby said, nodding in the direction of CJ on the floor.

Peter shrugged. He didn’t know how to label last night. He had fought the urge to look behind his shades even after he woke; if Josh was still there, that would really spook him.

Abby yawned and rubbed her eyes. “I need some coffee, and then I need you to help me toilet Uncle Herb.”

“Is Dad coming home today?”

“Tomorrow, I think,” she said, and disappeared down the hallway.

Peter followed and joined his mother at the kitchen table, armed with a box of Cheerios and a half-gallon of milk. He ate in silence as she sipped from a mug of coffee and stared into space.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m getting pretty sick of sunshine,” she said.

“Are you staying home with us today?”

“Peter, I just started working. I don’t think it would be wise to take a day off so soon.”

Peter didn’t answer. This sounded like more than a part-time job.

She added, “You guys are doing okay with Uncle Herb, right?”

Peter smiled and nodded. He stood and walked to the counter, dumping his half-eaten bowl of cereal in the sink. He was reaching for his medication on the shelf when CJ appeared, dressed in full Wonder Woman attire with the lasso uncurled and dragging behind her. Even the indestructible bracelets were on her wrist this morning.

Abby watched her, smiling. “Are we going to save the world today, Wonder Woman?”

Peter knew the reason for full armor. Wonder Woman was in self-preservation mode against neighbors who go boom in the night.

Abby didn’t sense the anxiety in her children, the quiet looks shared between the two, the glances out the windows. She was thinking about her day ahead, hoping for a call from a contact she’d made during the first day of her job, a young family looking for a home. Despite being a novice in real estate, Abby was confident she could sell to a young family. She knew the talking points: good school district, low crime, a neighborhood with a lot of parks and fun things to do in the surrounding area. She was experienced with young families herself—a pro, actually—and she felt certain she could thaw that realtor-client relationship into something personal. She’d make them feel like she was one of them and they could trust her. That’s what a good salesperson does, right? She looked at the clock.

“Let’s go wake Uncle Herb, Peter. I need to leave in twenty minutes.”

Walking down the hallway, Peter felt an unexpected and sharp longing for a house with stairs. In his old house, a flight of stairs ran up the center of the house. He remembered when his mother was pregnant with CJ. She’d have horrible back pains and often sat on the lower steps, because the stiff, upright position softened the throbbing. Peter recalled sitting next to his mother often, and she’d caress his head for what seemed like hours as they talked about the new baby or sat in a content silence. This was before Willow Creek Landing, before his father started his own business, before it stopped raining. Peter missed those stairs. The new house had a hospital wing feel, each bedroom branching off from a main corridor.

Uncle Herb’s room was the first branch down the hallway, closest to the living room. He’d been awake for a while now, and he thanked God when he heard voices growing stronger and heading toward him. Help couldn’t arrive soon enough. His bladder was about to burst, and that meant a bath his sister probably didn’t have the time or energy to give, plus an extra load of laundry. He was doing his part now by thinking about anything that didn’t involve water. “P-e-e-e,” he said, as loud as he could while maintaining bodily control, when he felt like he couldn’t go a second longer.

Abby and Peter broke into a jog. “Oh, shoot, sorry, Herb. Hurry up, Peter. Help me get him in his chair.”

Herb was thankful that Peter was experienced with lifting and moving him. Within seconds, they were in the bathroom propping Herb on the toilet.

“Boy, you really had to go bad, Uncle Herb. It sounds like a waterfall,” CJ said. She was tying her lasso to the bathroom’s doorknob. Herb smiled at her from above Peter’s forearm. CJ waved, and the door slammed shut with a tug of the lasso.

Happy that he hadn’t created more work for his sister before she left for work, Herb smiled as Peter dressed him.

“What’s so funny, Uncle Herb?”

“Ew.” You.

Peter led Uncle Herb’s crooked arm through the shirt hole.

“Uncle Herb, something really strange happened last night.”

Herb was all ears.

“CJ woke me up in the middle of the night. She heard someone outside. It was Josh. I think he was praying.”

“Ut wong it hat?” Uncle Herb said, smiling. He tried to poke Peter in the ribs with his free hand but missed. Peter laughed and pulled Herb’s other arm through his shirt and over his back.

“There’s nothing wrong with praying. You know what I mean. It’s just that he was doing it outside in the middle of the night, and it was also the way he was praying, like he was scared or in trouble and needed help.”

“Hats hi e-ray.” That’s why we pray.

Peter stepped back and appraised the ensemble he’d picked out for his uncle. Satisfied, he nodded and glimpsed himself in the mirror before heading toward the kitchen with his uncle in tow.

“I know. It was just, just strange, I guess.”

* * *

After breakfast, Peter, CJ, and Uncle Herb sat on the brick patio in the backyard. Uncle Herb read from the Bible in his lap as CJ colored in the chair next to him, stopping every so often to turn the page when Uncle Herb asked. Peter was in a lawn chair a short distance away, working his way through The Three Musketeers. Last year Peter’s teacher told him that he was reading above grade level and gave him a recommended reading list for summer. He thought an adventure book with sword duels sounded interesting even though it was a really old story. He was near the beginning of the book: d’Artagnan had just left home with hopes of becoming a Musketeer of the Guard and stopped at an inn, where a well-dressed man ridiculed him for the odd color of his horse.

Peter dropped the book to his side. He looked beyond the white, vinyl fence that separated the backyard from the golf course. The three grass hills of hole four had turned a shade of yellow from the lack of water, giving the golf course a desert-like quality. The heat didn’t stop the constant parade of golfers from playing through.

Peter looked further down the golf course and could see the furthest home on Colonial Drive. There were two types of homes, which the residents labeled the ranches and the manches (short for mansions, the Colonials and Victorian styles), but they all shared similar landscaping down to the brick patios in back. Only three shades of paint were available for the exterior of the home, and they were all muted colors, ones you could find if you picked up a handful of sand at the beach. This had something to do with providing no distraction for the golfers. It was all about the golf. These fine details made the neighborhood look fake, like a town surrounding a toy train set. Everything was too symmetrical for a real town. There were four roads in the community, but actually only two long perpendicular lines. At the center where the lines met stood the pavilion.

Chipper’s presence in the Creek further isolated Peter from the real world. Chipper’s dad was on the board of directors at Willow Creek Landing, and his name and picture were plastered throughout the neighborhood and the community newsletter, The Creek. He was some super-successful businessman who overtook small and weak companies, then tore them apart, somewhat similar to what his son did in school.

A whistling hiss sliced through the air, then stopped with a solid thud as a golf ball bounced off the vinyl siding of the house and rolled to a stop not three feet from Peter.

“I got it,” CJ said, jumping out of her chair.

Number nine on the “Sucks Rocks” list: incoming golf balls. You were never completely safe in a golf course community, especially outside, but that was also true inside near windows that faced the golf course. CJ, on the other hand, loved when some hack sent a ball into the yard. Her father gave her a quarter for every ball she collected.

Two men in a golf cart pulled up to their back fence. CJ dropped the ball discreetly in the cupholder of Uncle Herb’s wheelchair.

A pot-bellied man wearing a collared sports shirt and sunglasses on top of his salt-and-pepper hair stepped out of the driver’s side of the cart. A much older and shriveled man in plaid pants remained seated, a thick cigar sticking out from the center of his mouth like a lever. The driver leaned on the fence, and his eyes searched the ground of their backyard. He didn’t acknowledge the man in the wheelchair or the two children sitting in the yard until he grew impatient with his search.

“You guys see a golf ball come through here?”

CJ looked at Uncle Herb and then turned toward the golfer. “No,” she said.

“Let’s go, Dean. The other foursome is up at the tee already,” said the shriveled man with the plaid pants from the golf cart. The sweet-smelling cigar smoke drifted into the yard.

The man named Dean dismissed his partner with an abrupt wave. “They can wait. That was my St. Andrew’s commemorative ball. I could swear it was this house here. You guys didn’t see anything?”

Peter sensed an accusatory tone. He stared at the grass in front of him.

“Nope,” CJ said.

“They’re hitting up on us, Dean,” plaid pants said.

The man named Dean stared at CJ the same way childless people looked upon a kid having a meltdown in a store, though CJ was completely calm.

“Dean! C’mon, you can drop a ball where I am.”

“All right, all right.” Dean jogged back to the cart. He shot a quick hard look at CJ one more time before speeding off.

When the sound of the golf cart hushed, CJ pulled the ball from the cup holder and inspected the St. Andrew’s insignia. “Maybe Dad will give me a dollar for this one,” she said, tossing the ball in the air and cupping her two hands to catch it. She bolted inside to add the new treasure to her collection.

“Her mouth is going to get her in real trouble someday,” Peter said.

Uncle Herb looked at Peter but said nothing.

“They knew she was lying, Uncle Herb. She shouldn’t have done it. What would happen if he jumped over the fence and started looking for the ball? He could have seen it in the cup holder.”

Peter crossed his arms and waited for a reply, but Uncle Herb just smiled at him.

A thunderous rumbling came from the front of the house as a flatbed truck plodded down the street carrying stacks of lumber. The truck’s hydraulic brakes screeched to a stop in front of Josh’s house.

“Can I take a look, Uncle Herb?”

Uncle Herb nodded, yes.

Peter watched as the truck driver, a stubby guy in a baseball hat and T-shirt with wet stains under the arms, stepped down from the truck and pulled leather gloves from the back pocket of his dirty jeans. He squinted in the direction of the sun, then at Josh’s front door. A shirtless Josh appeared in jeans with similar grime as the driver’s. Josh pushed his hair back and tied a bandanna to his head.

“Where do you want it?” Peter heard the trucker ask.

“I’ll be working here on the driveway, makes sense to keep the wood close. Let’s drop it all on the front here, the neighbors will go ballistic. Have you ever seen such manicured lawns?”

The trucker nodded and wiped his brow with his forearm. Peter found himself making his way to the front yard, hugging the perimeter of his house. Josh and the truck driver unloaded long planks of wood from the back of the truck, two or three at a time. They worked in silence, and Peter studied them as he moved closer, not stopping until he reached the giant pine tree. He squatted and peered from behind it, nibbling at a fingernail as he watched.

The trucker broke the silence by asking Josh what in high heaven he was building with all this wood. Josh found this to be the most hysterical question for reasons beyond Peter and, by the confused look on his face, beyond the trucker. The trucker stepped back and stared as Josh’s body quivered, then erupted again in laughter. This went on for a couple of minutes. The trucker distanced himself from Josh. When they continued unloading, the trucker worked with newfound energy.

Peter waited, but Josh never did answer the question.

After the truck was empty and the front lawn layered with stacks of wood, Josh had to chase after the trucker to tip him, and the trucker accepted the crumpled bills at a trot, heading quickly back to the truck’s cab.

Peter slid further behind the tree and sat down, his back against the bark. With the trucker gone, there was no longer safety in numbers. It was the middle of the day, but the nighttime-roaming, prayer-chanting Josh was not far from the front of Peter’s mind. However, Peter couldn’t get himself to leave; he was drawn to Josh, an invisible pulling, but maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. The trucker sure sensed something and couldn’t leave fast enough.

Peter heard the sound of a twig snap and looked up to see Josh standing above him. The sun behind him shaded his face.

Peter scurried to his feet, his height barely reaching Josh’s chest. “Oh, hi.”

Josh looked around Peter’s yard. Peter maneuvered his body to see the expression on Josh’s face. There was none.

“Where’s your mother?” he asked.

Peter fought the initial and strong urge to lie. He figured Josh already knew the answer; the empty driveway gave it away. “She’s at work, but my uncle’s in the backyard with my sister.” He rushed the end part of the sentence.

Josh nodded, and Peter squinted up at him. Peter didn’t know why he always thought of wild animals when he saw Josh, but standing in front of him now was like crossing paths with a bear in the woods—should he make a lot of noise to show a lack of fear, or play dead?

“I forgot your name,” Josh said, not apologizing but merely stating a fact.

“Peter.”

Josh nodded again. “How old are you again, Peter?”

“Twelve and a half.”

Josh scratched the side of his face. “Wow. I wouldn’t have pegged you for a day over twelve, but a whole half.”

Peter felt his face redden. “How old are you?”

Josh leaned down toward him and whispered, “Twenty-three and three quarters.”

Peter had known older people, his parents for one, but out of uncertainty toward the person he was speaking to, he acted impressed.

A man in designer sunglasses and a black, sleeveless vest sped down the street in a golf cart. Many residents traveled this way, even if they weren’t off to a round of golf.

“Listen, Peter. I have four really long pieces of wood that I need to move from my lawn to my driveway. I should have had the trucker help, but I wasn’t thinking. He seemed in a rush anyway. I don’t think it’s a job for anyone under twelve, but maybe a really strong twelve and half—”

“I can do it.” The words rushed out from somewhere inside Peter, not his brain.

“Maybe we should wait until your mother comes home so we can ask her if it’s okay. I don’t want—”

“It’s okay, really.”

Josh puffed out his right cheek, then his left as if he was debating against himself. A slow shrug of his shoulders signaled he’d come to some sort of verdict. “Heck, I’ve always found it easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission anyway. Let’s go.”

Peter followed closely behind Josh, his two steps equaling one of Josh’s. The wood planks in question were indeed a two-person job, the length of two diving boards and as thick as Peter’s fist. They spanned most of Josh’s front lawn. Josh instructed Peter to bend down and lift with his legs for more strength and less strain on the back. Peter felt his arms quivering as they carried the first board. He studied Josh’s arms, searching for a sign of struggle, but saw only the blue veins streaking through his locked arms.

Peter’s father used the gym in the pavilion when he was home. Peter had started to notice changes in his Dad’s body. It was impossible not to, really. Peter and CJ had caught him several times admiring his shirtless body in the mirror. Sometimes he’d flex and make them grab his arm or punch his stomach. There was something different in Josh’s lean yet perfectly curved muscles, something genuine—not store-bought.

After they placed the first plank on the driveway, Peter held his one arm to stop it from shaking and asked, “Josh, how will cars get in and out of the driveway?”

“What cars? I don’t own one.”

“What about when your parents visit?”

Josh looked at Peter as though he was an old clock and his face could be easily opened to display the inner workings. A slight smile appeared on Josh’s face. “Visit? So, you know about my parents? I figured everyone must. This place is like a small town. A small, fenced-in town.” Josh laughed. “Sounds like I could be describing a prison.”

Peter had no intention of explaining to Josh the visits from his mother. They walked across the lawn to the next plank. Peter made sure to lift with his legs.

“Good,” Josh said. They walked several paces, Josh moving backward and facing Peter. “So, I guess you know about the race then too.”

Peter nodded. “I was there. I saw it.”

Josh didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed. He smiled, “Don’t hold it against me. Sometimes I act before I think. I guess you could say I was inspired.”

Peter would never hold that against Josh. If Peter acted on just a small portion of his thoughts, especially when he tried to rally himself to oppose Chipper, his life would be a lot better.

“I’m only here for a short time. Until my parents sell the house, or something else,” Josh said, pausing.

“What do you mean, ‘something else?’” Peter asked.

Josh wiped the sweat from his face and looked toward the sky. “That’s a conversation for another day,” he said, and from his tone, Peter knew Josh was done talking.

They dropped the second plank and slid it across the driveway until it touched the other plank. From the dead-end direction of Ranch Street, the golf cart from a couple minutes earlier puttered toward them, now carrying two men. Josh lifted his arm over his head to stretch his shoulder. The cart slowed as it passed, the passenger leaning his head across the lap of the driver to get a better view. He looked like a carbon copy of the driver with his sunglasses, khaki shorts, and sleeveless vest. The driver rested his arm on the steering wheel as he drove. The Plexiglas windshield was folded over, and his hand dangled in the open air.

The expression on Josh’s face changed. He dropped his hands to his side and returned the golfers’ stares with a hard, vacant look. Suddenly, the simple conversation and Josh’s small grins seemed miles away, and again Peter saw the wild animal in his neighbor.

“Do you know them?” Peter asked.

Josh’s eyes followed the slow-moving golf cart. When the golfers were gone, Josh just smiled at Peter without answering.

Most of the interactions Peter had with the golfers and residents of Willow Creek Landing were similar to the exchange with the guy who’d lost his ball. They either ignored Peter or treated him like he worked for them.

CJ appeared in the side yard between their houses, swinging the lasso over her head. She let the loop fly, barely missing the shrub she aimed to rope in.

Josh watched, the dark cloud that had enveloped him now evaporated. “She’s pretty good with that thing.”

“She thinks she’s a superhero.”

CJ tried to rope the shrub again, casting glances at her audience as she wheeled the lasso over her head. She let go and the loop landed over the top of the shrub.

“Gotcha,” she shouted. CJ pulled from her end and the shrub bowed.

“You better be careful before the shrub gets mad and catapults you across the street,” Josh shouted.

CJ stopped applying pressure on the rope. She had no idea what catapult meant, but it didn’t sound good.

“What’s Uncle Herb doing?” Peter said, hoping his sister would get the hint and leave. Peter knew she wanted them to welcome her over. Usually, CJ wouldn’t wait for such formalities, forcing her presence wherever Peter might be, but Peter knew she wasn’t completely sold on Josh yet. Neither was Peter.

“He’s napping,” CJ replied.

Peter sighed. Where was it written that big brothers had to include little sisters in everything they did? Peter made a mental note to himself that once school starts he would poll his classmates and take the results back to his mother.

As if on cue, his mother’s car pulled into the driveway at the usual high speed.

“Mom’s home, Peter!” CJ said.

Peter didn’t want to leave. He was enjoying helping Josh, one of the few people he had spoken to this summer who wasn’t related.

Peter noticed his mother looking at him as she put the car in park and removed the keys from the ignition. She stepped out and waved. Dressed in a gray business suit and with her hair pulled back into a knob, Peter thought she looked very pretty. Recently, Peter had rarely seen her with makeup or jewelry. He remembered how his father made her very angry once when he’d told her the pink sweatpants she wore every day “would walk on their own soon.” Her response was something like If you had my life, you’d do the same. His father, as usual, made a joke, further infuriating his mother. He’d love to wear pink sweatpants, he said.

Abby stopped next to CJ in the middle of the strip of grass that separated the two houses. She rubbed the back of her head.

“Hi, Joshua. I’m Abby. We met briefly when we first moved in last summer. You left for college shortly after,” she said.

“Josh,” he said, and bent down to pick a twig that stuck out of his sandal like a flag.

Peter sensed uneasiness in his mother. She waved Peter over and he obeyed, wondering if she had a problem at work. When he reached her, he whispered, “How did it go today?”

“Good. I think I have my first client.” She looked at Josh. “I recently started working again. As a realtor.”

Josh nodded. “Congratulations.” He twisted the cap off a water bottle. “I asked Peter if he could help me for a minute. I hope you don’t mind.”

Peter noticed the pause before his mother answered.

“Of course not. What are you building? A third floor or a ladder to poke the clouds for rain?” she said and laughed. The laugh didn’t sound right to Peter. It was the same fake laugh she used with Josh’s mother.

“Just a project,” Josh said with a shrug.

Abby nodded, though visibly not satisfied with the answer. “I’m really sorry to hear about your parents. Is there anything we could do to help?”

Josh shrugged again.

Abby shifted her weight from one leg to the other. “Yeah, well . . . if you can think of anything. What do you say we go check on Uncle Herb, guys?”

CJ took off. Peter half-waved to Josh as he left, avoiding eye contact mainly because he felt Josh’s eyes on him. Inside, Peter ran to the kitchen window facing Josh’s house and watched as Josh pointed at the bundles of wood, counting.

From behind, Peter heard Uncle Herb’s wheelchair buzz into the house from the backyard and his mother saying, “I’m so sorry, Herb.”

“Me too, Uncle Herb,” CJ added.

Peter turned to the French doors in the kitchen that led to the back patio. Uncle Herb was there smiling, half of his face and hairless head completely sunburned, while the other half, his normal shade. He fell asleep on the back porch only partly protected from the sun. He looked like a fishing bob.

Abby left the kitchen and returned with a jar of moisturizer and dropped the container in CJ’s lap. She held a small mirror in front of Uncle Herb’s face. He laughed at his reflection.

She patted Herb’s arm, then asked, “Did anyone call?”

The answer came in chorus: No, nope, and no-o-o.

By the way she paused before grabbing the cordless phone and marching out of the kitchen, Peter knew anyone meant his father.

CJ dragged a stool over to Uncle Herb and climbed to the top. Standing on the circular seat, she opened the moisturizer jar and starting rubbing cream on her uncle’s head.

“The burn might not have been so bad if you had more hair, Uncle Herb,” Peter said. Uncle Herb had only a few strands, each combed over to the side.

“Anks, Pita.”

For every glob of moisturizer that managed to reach Uncle Herb’s head, twice as much fell on the floor or on some part of CJ. With the back of one hand, she wiped at a smudge on her cheek, only to smear it down to her earlobe. She asked, “What is Josh building?”

“I don’t know,” Peter said.

“Did you ask him?”

“No,” Peter said, defensively. “You should have seen what happened when the truck driver asked.”

CJ wiped her hands on her shirt. “Josh is weird,” she said. She jumped down from the top of the stool, landing on her feet, then fell on her knees. She placed her hand on Uncle Herb’s leg. “All done, Uncle Herb.”

Uncle Herb pushed the joystick of his wheelchair and it jerked forward, almost hitting CJ.

They all found this to be the funniest thing in the world.