The Underdog Parade

by Michael Mihaley

  When he pushed opened the front screen door, Peter didn’t know what to expect as he looked over at Josh’s driveway: possibly horses trotting around the ark or monkeys hanging off the roof. But the entire block looked no different than any other night, except for a small light coming from the center of Josh’s ark.

  The medication vials rattled in his pockets as Peter walked across the lawn. A ladder was leaning on the side of the ark, and Peter climbed it and looked down at Josh. He was sitting on top of a case of bottled water and whittling a stick with a pocketknife. He seemed calm, content. A battery-operated camping lantern hung crookedly in the air suspended by a rope tied to the roof. Cases of canned vegetables and packaged goods sat under a plastic tarp. Peter noticed a whole case of fudge-striped cookies.

  “Perfect timing, young Peter. The only competition for space right now is from these guys.” Josh leaned over and pointed behind him with the stick. The two cats from earlier were sleeping on the floor.

  Josh looked ghostlike in the pale, fluorescent light, his teeth glowing. Peter stayed where he was on top of the ladder.

  “I’m glad I thought of the tarps. This roof will serve as little protection against a driving rain. The only thing is, it’s muggy already. It will get really hot in here if we hang all the tarps. Maybe we’ll just do one side for now.”

  Peter couldn’t stop staring at the cases of food.

  “What’s the matter, young Peter?”

  “It’s just—I can’t believe this might happen.”

  Josh stood and started unfolding a tarp. “We’ll get through it. You’re a brave man.”

  Peter stepped into the ark and accepted the edge of the tarp Josh handed him.

  “I’m twelve,” he said.

  “And a half!” Josh shot back as he jumped off the side of the boat.

  Josh had climbed down the ark and turned on the Christmas lights from the garage while dragging another ladder back with him. Peter held the tarp tightly to the roof as Josh secured it with a staple gun. When they were done, Peter was sweaty and thirsty. He grabbed a water bottle from inside the ark and drank, then regretted it immediately. He should have drunk from the garden hose rather than lower the ark’s rations.

  “It’s okay,” Josh said, reading Peter’s face. “I have plenty, plus some iodine tablets in the first aid kit.”

  Peter walked over to the side of the ark that faced his house. His body felt tired but the sense of anticipation had him wired. It was like the night before Christmas or his birthday. Flood Day.

  He took another sip of water. “Josh, what time is it?”

  “Past midnight. I’d say around one, maybe one-thirty. You thought the rain would be here by now? I was thinking the same thing.”

  Peter was looking at the empty driveway. He had no idea when the rain would finally come, but he sure thought his mother would have been home by now. As Josh moved quickly, making the final preparations, Peter formulating his own plan. When the rain comes, how will he convince Josh to not only take a little girl who thinks she is Wonder Woman and a guy in a wheelchair, but the woman who is trying to sell his house?

  Part III

  Day 68

  Peter woke to the sound of chirping birds. Disoriented, his eyes came into full focus on a small puddle of water inches from his nose. His wet shirt stuck to his shivering body. He was lying on the floor of the ark. He didn’t get that feeling of buoyancy as if they were floating.

  From the floor, he could see the roof of Josh’s house. The ark was still in the driveway.

  He rose to his knees and found the source of the puddle. The water bottle he had been drinking from last night now rested on its side, empty.

  Patches of pink spotted the light-blue sky. Peter placed the time around dawn. He stood and looked out beyond the ark. Everything—the cars, the trees, grass, the houses, driveways—was all intact and looked as dry and dull as it had for the last several weeks. All that was missing was the clean, washed look after a fresh rain, when everything looked brand new.

  “Go home, Peter,” a low voice said from behind him.

  Peter turned, trying to hide his initial startled reaction. Josh sat huddled in the bow, his back leaning against the hull and his knees drawn to his chest.

  “I must have fallen asleep,” Peter said.

  “I was planning on waking you when the rain started,” Josh said, then shook his head.

  “It never rained at all?”

  Josh didn’t answer. He appeared to have withdrawn to a remote place, far away. The cats were gone.

  Peter wanted to say something. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief as though a tough choice had been made for him, and he was happy with the result. He thought Josh might have felt relief too, but he didn’t look comforted in any way. It could have been exhaustion, but then Josh’s eyes sharpened as though he’d returned from wherever he’d been and was mad that Peter was still standing there.

  “The last thing I need is your mother freaking out and calling the cops. Go!”

  Josh had never used a harsh tone with Peter, and Peter left awkwardly without saying goodbye, more hurt than insulted, surprised but not all that much. Deep down he’d wondered why Josh was so friendly and open to his companionship in the first place. Why should he be different from anyone else? Peter almost tripped out of the boat, trying to get out as fast as he could.

  His mother’s car was back in the driveway, and he found her sleeping fully clothed on top of her made bed. At least he wouldn’t get in trouble for staying out all night. He went quietly to his room with the knowledge that she’d come home in the middle of the night and hadn’t even checked on him. That hurt almost more than getting in trouble.

  He peeled his clothes off and went to bed.

  The Sound of a Black Dot

  CJ sat at the edge of the kitchen table, her legs dangling above the faux-wood floor and moving to the speed of a dance song coming from Herb’s portable radio above the sink. She tapped the air to the beat with the same spoon she was using to feed her uncle cereal, completely unaware of the milk spitting from the utensil. Herb turned his head to shield his face.

  “I like this song, Uncle Herb. Do you?”

  Uncle Herb shook his head in agreement. Actually, the song sounded like a cat dying, but Herb felt refreshed this morning. He slept great, completely uninterrupted until morning—a rarity.

  That was more than he could say for everyone else in the house. They all looked like the walking dead this morning. They had their secret mission, “Project No Camp,” working to a tee. CJ told Herb she hid behind a shrub at the school, until Peter appeared on his bike to take her home. Herb was slightly uncomfortable with the whole plan, but he chose to pick his battles.

  Peter went straight to bed after walking in the door. Herb was disappointed. He couldn’t help thinking of Josh next door, and how he was handling the nonflood. Maybe Josh had taken it as a false alarm. Herb would have to wait for a report when Peter woke.

  “Train, airplane, or car?” CJ asked.

  He answered train.

  To Herb, being fed by his niece was like a hidden pleasure in life. Over the years, hundreds of hands had fed him, but none like his niece’s, with every loaded spoonful traveling via various modes of transportation. Maybe his parents had done something similar with him when he was young, but he couldn’t recall, and he was pretty sure he didn’t appreciate it like he did now. Herb smiled as the spoon chugged through the air to the sound of cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-CHOO-CHOO.

  A loud thump came from down the hall, stopping the train in its tracks. Herb and CJ turned their heads in unison.

  CJ called, “We’re in the kitchen, Peter.” She turned back to Herb. “Plane or car this time?”

  But Herb was staring past CJ, past the kitchen entrance and down the hallway leading to the bedrooms. He heard a tapping noise—not drips, but a constant rhythm of light knocks. He couldn’t place the abnormal sound.

  “Pita?”

  Her
b nodded to CJ, but she had already hopped off the table to follow the sound. Uncle Herb guided his wheelchair around the kitchen table and into the living room by the time CJ yelled his name.

  No, Herb thought.

  He reached the straightaway of the hallway and tried to gun his chair, but his gnarled fingers slipped over the knob. He kept the chair moving forward with his forearm.

  Peter lay sprawled on the floor of his room, his head buried under the frame of the bed. Only his pale, gray pajamas showed. The knocking noise was Peter’s head banging against one of the bed’s wooden legs. A trail of blood ran down Peter’s neck.

  Call for help, Uncle Herb told his niece.

  CJ had backed herself in the corner of the room, frozen. She held her half-closed hands in front of her face like a boxer. She didn’t move.

  “Hee-Hay!”

  CJ looked at Uncle Herb strangely. He felt a pool of saliva forming in the corner of his mouth. He tried to muster a soothing tone as he told her again to call for help.

  She ran out of the room, and Herb cursed his lack of clear instructions when he heard her shouting, “Josh!”

  He should have been more specific.

  Herb’s own body started shaking. This was his nightmare: a set of circumstances you always push into the back of your mind in fear that by letting them come to the forefront, they just might materialize.

  Herb tried to clear his head. There was a phone in Abby’s room. He had given up on dialing phones years ago out of frustration. If he could somehow miraculously dial 911 without frustrating attempts like 914, 92, and 912, would emergency services even understand him?

  The other problem was manipulating his wheelchair out of Peter’s room. Herb had pulled in too far out of panic, and with Peter’s legs sticking out into the middle of the small room, a 360 turn would take a dozen minor pivots.

  Herb’s hand shook as he attempted a blind reverse. He hit the door frame with a bang, snapping his head back.

  Slow down, he told himself. He moved forward and tried again. The sound of Peter’s head hitting the post made it impossible to concentrate. In his mind, Herb tried to line the wheelchair even with the doorway at his back. He hit the steering knob and again slammed into the doorframe, this time breaking off a piece of molding. On his third attempt, he hit the other wall, spinning his chair around but not enough for him to make it out the door.

  Uncle Herb cursed aloud for the first time that he could remember.

  He cursed again, his head tilted, face aimed at the ceiling. He cursed his sister. He cursed her husband. He cursed the world until spittle fell onto his lap like rain. How long has it been since the first loud thump? Two minutes? Five minutes? The elastic V-neck of Peter’s pajamas had turned a deep wet maroon.

  Herb gave up on leaving the room. He inched his chair as close as he could to Peter’s legs. He closed his eyes and spoke to himself. Lean, Herb. Fall, useless body. He squeezed his eyes tighter. Will yourself. Herb pushed his brain to push his body. He was a reticent cliff diver, a fearful parachutist standing at the edge of the airplane. Fall, damn it. Fall!

  Herb landed face-first inches from Peter’s chest, and his glasses pulled and stretched away from his ears. The room turned mosaic, as though he was looking through Saran Wrap. His left arm, the better arm, was stuck under his belly and bearing his weight, stopping him from receiving a full breath of air. Peter’s face was mapped with blood—a gash on his nose and his forehead from the best Herb could tell. His eyes were pure white, the pupils rolling around somewhere in his head. With his right arm, Herb took aim. He tried to lift his chin for a better view, feeling like a floundering seal. He threw his arm and missed badly, his hand slapping the floor on the other side of the bed leg. His next attempt hit high on the bottom of the mattress, and Herb let his hand drip slowly down until it was safely wedged between Peter’s head and the wooden leg. The thudding stopped. Peter’s head tapped at Herb’s hand, and the sound was strange to him, like a polite clap.

  “O-hay, Pita. O-hay,” Herb said, softly.

  Herb looked at his hand and pleaded with it not to move, to not slide into Peter’s mouth. When the strength in his neck gave out, his face hit the floor sending his glasses sprawling, and he closed his eyes, thankful for a small circulation of air coming into his mouth and nose.

  Peter’s tremors started to gradually decrease until nothing was left but the gentle rising of Peter’s stomach. Herb heard CJ’s footsteps, accompanied by a heavier pair.

  “What the—” Josh whispered, upon entering the room.

  “Uncle Herb?” CJ said, her voice an octave higher than normal.

  Josh lifted Herb into his wheelchair and dragged Peter slowly into the middle of the room. He found Herb’s glasses on the floor and placed them on Herb’s face, but the frame was bent, and they dangled crookedly off his nose.

  “Hank-ew,” Herb barely managed. He needed to get his own breathing back under control.

  Josh stood over Peter’s limp body, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, young Peter,” he said.

  He stepped over Peter and walked out of the bedroom.

  Shortly after, CJ answered the door to Mr. James and Mr. Terry.

  The Cavalry

  Peter sat with his eyes closed and legs up on the couch, holding an ice pack over his bandaged forehead and sipping from a glass of iced tea. His head felt like it was ready to explode. He lowered the ice pack and scanned the room, squinting from the bright sunlight that beamed in through the windows. The sun had returned in its full glory. Uncle Herb was sitting at the screen door watching CJ in the front yard.

  “Where’s Josh?” Peter wanted to know.

  Mr. James, on his phone as he paced between the kitchen and the living room, looked up at the sound of Peter’s voice. He motioned to someone in the kitchen, and seconds later Mr. Terry appeared before Peter and sat down next to him. He inspected the Band-Aids on Peter’s nose and forehead.

  “How is the iced tea?”

  “Really good.”

  “Do you taste the mint?”

  “Yes,” Peter lied. Mr. Terry was very proud of his homemade iced tea.

  “Josh had to go,” Mr. Terry said. He patted Peter on the knee. “I think you gave him a good scare.”

  Mr. James walked into the room. An air of purpose followed him. “You’re looking better already, Peter. I left messages for your mom on her phone and at the real estate agency. I told her everything is okay, but she should call us right away.”

  “Thanks,” Peter said, also grateful that Mr. James didn’t ask if his mother had called the doctor he’d recommended. Peter didn’t think she had.

  Mr. James walked over to where Uncle Herb was parked. “Are you okay, Herb?” Mr. James asked.

  Uncle Herb just nodded, not taking his eyes off the screen. He looked over at Peter and smiled, then nudged the front screen door open and disappeared.

  No one had told Peter about his uncle’s heroics, only that CJ had run to get help from Josh. He’d regained total consciousness on the couch. Peter thought his uncle looked wiped out.

  A soft breeze swept by Peter. It was late afternoon, and the heat wasn’t stifling. “I’d like to go for a walk,” he said.

  Mr. James looked at him, unsure. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I don’t taste blood anymore.” Peter had bitten his tongue and the inside of his mouth during the seizure.

  “I think a walk sounds like a great idea. I’m sure Josh can use a walk too,” Mr. Terry said, but then looked at Mr. James. “But maybe we should wait until Peter’s mother calls.”

  Mr. James thought about this and then answered coolly, “I left my number.”

  Mr. Terry looked at Peter and raised his eyebrows. “I love it when he gets like this.”

  They started getting ready. “You know, Peter, it’s really good you didn’t swallow your tongue. You know what happens then?”

  “What?”

  “You start talking out your butt like me,” Mr. Terry said. He c
lapped his hands together and laughed, despite Mr. James’ look of disapproval.

  Outside, Uncle Herb waited to approach CJ. He slowly drove over the walkway onto the lawn. He stopped behind her and asked if she was okay.

  She didn’t answer right away. She was picking at the dead grass. CJ turned and looked up at Uncle Herb. “Peter was the Wicked Witch, Uncle Herb.”

  Herb nodded, wondering where she was going with this. He wanted his niece to speak freely.

  “He was the Wicked Witch. The witch who had the house fall on her head. Only her legs showed, and that’s what Peter looked like. I could only see his legs coming from the bed.”

  She looked at Uncle Herb and the anguish in her face made him yearn to wrap her in his arms. The Wizard of Oz.

  “That scared me, Uncle Herb.”

  He nodded this time because he understood. He could relate. “Mmeee-ew, hee-hay. Meee-ew.”

  Me too.

  Golfin Sighting

  Peter joined Mr. James in the street. He noticed for the first time that the ark tilted in the direction of Josh’s house, as though the two structures were whispering to one another. Mr. Terry was standing on Josh’s stoop, talking to Josh through the screen door.

  “It looks like it’s taking some persuasion to get Josh out of the house,” Mr. James said.

  “Why?” Peter asked.

  Mr. James sighed. “Well, I guess when you work so hard and believe so deeply in something, there’s bound to be disappointment along the way.”

  “You mean the ark?”

  “I think the ark is a part of it, Peter. But there is a bigger picture. The ark was just part of his escape plan.”

  Peter looked down. “I don’t understand. But now he doesn’t need an escape plan.”