by D. K. Wall
Donna shrugged nonchalantly as Jacob walked into the room.
She busied herself making a breakfast plate for their son and placed it in front of him. “You have your homework?”
“Yep.”
“Yes, what?” Nathan asked.
A puzzled look spread over the boy’s face before realization hit. “Yes, ma’am.”
She brushed her hand through Jacob’s hair as she stood beside his chair. “And is it done?”
“Yep.” With a hasty glance at his father, he added, “Yes, ma’am.”
“All of it?”
Jacob stuffed pancakes into his mouth and mumbled, “Most of it.”
Donna put on her stern mom face and studied him. “Most?”
“All but one math problem, I swear. I tried like three times, but it was super hard. I couldn’t figure it out. Luke will help me between classes.” Jacob reached for a strip of bacon and glanced sideways at his dad. “If I had a cell phone, I could have called him last night.”
The cell phone had become a daily discussion. According to Jacob, every kid at his school—every kid on the planet—had a cell phone except him. Nathan found it strange that something no kid had when he was in school was now considered a necessity.
He put on his best serious-dad face—not as good as Donna’s, but he tried. “You could have used that phone right there.” He pointed to a holdover from his own childhood, a rotary phone mounted on the wall with a long cord to the handset. The thing should’ve been in a museum, not a home, but wireless phones were too expensive, and that one worked.
Donna grinned and kissed the top of Jacob’s head. “He couldn’t have done that. Because then they couldn’t have talked about baseball and girls with us listening.”
Jacob’s face turned bright red. He dropped his eyes to his plate and shoveled more pancakes into his mouth. “I’ll get it done before math class. I promise.”
Nathan continued, “And did you hang up that towel?”
“Uh, no,” Jacob shoved more bacon in his already full mouth, “sir.”
“But you will, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t forget, Little Man.”
Donna finished cleaning the skillet in the sink. She leaned against the counter and sipped her coffee, watching her men at the breakfast table.
Nathan asked, “You aren’t eating?”
“Yogurt and coffee. Breakfast of champions.”
“Yuck,” Nathan and Jacob said in unison. They turned to look at each other, pointed, and shouted together, “Jinx!”
Donna rolled her eyes at the two of them as they laughed. “Boys. Both of you.”
Nathan grinned. “Always.”
Jacob pushed away from the table, placed his empty plate on the counter, and raced back across the small house. “Gotta brush my teeth.”
Nathan called after him, “You just sat down. How are you done already?”
“How are you so slow, old man?” Jacob yelled as he disappeared into the bathroom. “Don’t make me late.”
“Make you late? And don’t forget that towel.” He turned back to Donna. “Brush his teeth? Without being told? You are right. That kid is girl crazy.”
She grimaced and shook her head. “Which is why you will have that conversation with him this morning, right?”
Nathan groaned. “This morning? What if I did it tonight?”
“Can’t. He’s sleeping over at Luke’s tonight, and then they are going together to the baseball game tomorrow.”
“Again? He stays over there all the time. They could stay here tonight. Be cool if they did. We could toss the baseball around.”
“Cool, huh? And how many thirty-one-year-olds did you want to hang out with when you were twelve?”
“Hey, I’m the cool dad.”
“Sorry, Mr. Cool Dad, but Luke has the latest, greatest Xbox game, shooting space aliens or monsters or something. Your coolness factor can’t compete with that.”
“Ouch.” Nathan grinned as he stood and walked to the hall closet. He retrieved his jacket—dark blue with an embroidered name, just like the shirt—and work boots. He shouted toward the back of the house, “Jacob! Hurry. You’ll be late.”
His son emerged from his room with his book bag slung over his shoulder.
Nathan asked, “The towel hung up?”
Jacob stopped with an “oops” look on his face, raced back across the den into his room, grabbed the towel, hung it up roughly in the bathroom, and trotted out the door. They caught the unmistakable scent of Nathan’s cologne, liberally applied, wafting through the air behind him and exchanged glances as Donna shook her head in amusement.
“You’re right. I got to talk to him about girls.” Nathan wrinkled his nose. “About not overpowering them with aftershave.”
“Great. Tips on how to impress girls from his old man.” She rolled her eyes but laughed.
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I’ll talk to him on the ride to school. Lose even more cool-dad points.”
She teased back. “You’re assuming you have any cool-dad points left.”
“Ouch. That’s low.” He smiled as he walked outside, sat down on the stoop with his cup of coffee, and pulled his boots onto his feet.
7
Mitch Thomas, Nathan’s father, had purchased the 1983 Ford F-150 pickup truck shortly after his return to Millerton from the Navy. Other than the semi he bought after being laid off from the plant, the pickup was the only vehicle he’d ever owned.
Rust patches marred the faded two-tone walnut-brown paint. The vinyl seat cushion, cracked from years of sunshine, crinkled under their weight and stuck to their bodies on humid days. The knob on the end of the gear shift was polished smooth from years of handling. Sometimes, it came off in the driver’s hands midshift.
But the old truck represented numerous childhood memories for Nathan—rides to and from school, sports practice, or errands; father-and-son conversations, sometimes inane chatter about nothing, laughing and telling fart jokes, swapping sports stories or tall tales.
And sometimes they had serious discussions. The importance of grades. The disappointment of losing a game. And, of course, the most mysterious subject in the world to a teenage boy: girls.
The first girl to confound Nathan was Marissa Whittum. Seventh-grade fall dance loomed. Nathan sat in the passenger seat, chewing his lip, wanting to ask for help but embarrassed to do so.
Mitch shifted gears, the numbers on the knob already fading. He was taking a longer-than-normal route home, giving extra needed time for his son. “What’s on your mind?”
He struggled to explain the effect Marissa Whittum had on him. Only stupid stuff fell out of his mouth every time he tried to talk to her. She sat in front of him in class, turning to ask him questions and mesmerizing him with her eyes. She flipped her hair over her ear as he breathed in the scent of her shampoo. Her mere presence aroused him and made it impossible to stand up at the end of class. He had to gather his supplies slowly as everyone left the room before he dared to rise to his feet then position his books so no one could see how much she drove him crazy.
He stammered, “How do you ask a girl to a dance?”
Mitch respected the gravity of the situation to the young boy and didn’t smile but nodded in sympathy, a weighty look on his face. “Scary, isn’t it? But it’s the same way you deal with anything that scares you. You hit it straight on. You just ask her.”
“But how do you know if she will say yes? I mean, what if she laughs? Or says no? The guys will all laugh at me.”
Mitch turned to his son with a look of warmth and comfort. “How many of your buddies have a date for the dance?”
“Hank.”
“Just Hank?”
“Yeah, he’s not scared of nothing.”
Mitch passed on grammar correction and stayed focused on the issue at hand. “Anyone else?”
“Nope.”
“Then they can’t laugh because they haven’t even been brave enough to
ask a girl. It’s easy to avoid failing if you never try, but then you can’t succeed either. So just call her. Ask. Whatever her answer, I’ve got your back. Right, Sport?”
The wall phone in the kitchen—the same one that hung on their wall today—had taunted him, daring him to pick it up and dial her number. Mitch busied himself making dinner, leaving Nathan to stretch the long cord into the privacy of the den.
He dialed the phone with shaking fingers, heard the first ring, raced back into the kitchen, and slammed the phone down on the hook. He stood, head against the wall, breathed deeply, and dialed again. As the phone rang, he prayed—harder than he had in ages—that his pubescent voice wouldn’t betray him with a squeak. He lowered his voice, tried to hide the quaking, and asked Marissa to the dance.
She said yes.
In his excitement, he started a celebratory jig, hung up the phone, and whooped in revelry, only to realize that he had forgotten to plan any details. He called back and apologized—nothing like getting the first apology done before even having a first date.
The night of the dance, Mitch drove to her house in that old pickup, Nathan quaking with nerves, and coached his son on how to behave. He escorted her down the sidewalk and helped her into the truck. They rode together in the front seat, Mitch quietly shifting gears and trying his best to be unobtrusive.
They danced. They chatted. They sat on the bleachers between songs. She kissed him—his first kiss, a kiss that fueled his late-night fantasies, already running wild based on ill-informed locker-room tales from older, supposedly more experienced boys.
Rumbling to school in the truck the next Monday, Nathan felt more confident in asking, “Where do I take her for a second date?”
Mitch pondered the question seriously and answered with authority. “A movie, but let her pick it. Something she wants to see. And no matter what she picks, agree.”
That Saturday afternoon, Mitch dropped them off in front of the theater with a promise to return and pick them up in two hours. He claimed to have shopping to do though Nathan had rarely seen him shop for anything other than groceries or hardware. But when the movie ended, Mitch was sitting in the pickup truck in the parking lot. On the ride home, Marissa held Nathan’s hand.
When they dropped her off in front of her house, Mitch elbowed Nathan and whispered in his ear, “Walk her to the door.”
She kissed him under the glowing porch light. Nathan glanced nervously at his father but was surprised to see he was studying something across the street, not looking at them at all.
At lunch on Friday, Marissa caught Nathan going into the cafeteria and pulled him aside. Thinking only of another kiss, he was stunned when she announced she wanted to break up. Another boy had asked her out. Hank.
Two weeks and two dates was a long romance in the seventh grade, and the breakup crushed him. After school, he crawled into the truck and broke into tears as soon as he shut the door. He bawled like a baby all the way home. Mitch said little as he kept an arm wrapped around his son, helping him through his first heartbreak.
As promised, his dad had his back through it all. Nathan could never forget sitting in the truck, the warmth of his father’s embrace, feeling safe despite the heartache. He didn’t even object when Mitch gently touched the black eye from the fistfight with Hank—the first but not the last the two friends would have over a girl.
One evening several months later, when they pulled in the driveway, Mitch shut off the engine and turned to his son. He explained about having been laid off from the plant, but Nathan wasn’t to worry, for he was going to drive a semi and deliver freight. He would be gone for days at a time and have to leave Nathan behind, but Ronnie had already agreed that he could sleep there whenever his dad was on the road. In the cocoon of the pickup, that sounded like an adventure, just sleepovers at his best friend’s house a few doors down.
Several years later, on a crisp fall night, a highway patrolman knocked on Ronnie’s door and asked for Nathan. He sat, hat in hand, and delivered the life-altering news of Mitch’s death.
Late that night, Nathan slipped out the bedroom window once everyone else had fallen asleep. Tears flowed as he walked down the street to his own house, which sat empty and dark. He climbed inside the truck, parked out front, and stretched out on the bench seat, comforted by the smell of his father’s aftershave and sweat. Through his sobs, he felt the arm wrapped around his shoulder, assuring him he wasn’t alone in the world, comfort enough to drift off to sleep.
A gentle rapping of knuckles on the glass woke him as the sun peeked over the horizon. He sat up, wiped his tear-stained eyes, and opened the door so Ronnie could slide onto the bench seat. They talked for hours as dawn turned to day. How alone Ronnie had felt when his wife had succumbed to cancer. How scary dealing with social services would be. How badly Nathan did not want to leave Millerton for some orphanage or foster home.
The sun was hanging in the middle of the sky before Ronnie cranked the truck, drove it back to his own house, and parked it in the driveway. He handed Nathan the keys, looked him in the eye, and said he could park his truck there for as long as he needed.
His truck. No longer his dad’s truck. His.
His friends sat waiting for him on the covered porch: Charlie, Danny, Hank. Ronnie made lunch for them as they huddled with their grieving friend.
Even all these years later, when the world confounded him, he sat in the pickup truck and asked for fatherly advice—how to treat his wife; how to raise his son; how to keep this blasted truck running; how to make his paycheck cover all their bills; how to stay loyal to Ronnie for taking him in when he had nowhere to turn.
The answers would come to him as if Mitch were sitting right there, arm draped over a little boy’s shoulders, teaching him lessons between days of long absences delivering freight around the country—teaching him how to be a man.
Not just a truck. A sacred father-son space.
Nathan silently prayed for his dad’s strength as he opened the driver’s door, pushed aside his son’s overstuffed book bag, and settled onto the bench seat of the pickup truck. A sneeze threatened to explode as the crushing scent of aftershave emanating from his son tickled his sinuses. With a twist of the crank in the door, he rolled down the window and pretended to enjoy the spring breeze despite the drizzling rain.
The key went into the ignition, a silent prayer was uttered, and the truck sputtered and choked but sprang to life, never a certainty despite Nathan’s vigilance in maintaining the engine.
He licked his lips as he peeked out of the corner of his eye at Jacob. The boy was staring obliviously out the window, just as Nathan had years before, trying to avoid awkward conversations. His dad never seemed nervous starting these discussions. He sure seemed calm and in control, but maybe that had all been an illusion.
Come on, Dad, give me the strength to talk to him as clearly as you talked to me. But uh, Dad, could you let me be a little more effective? After all, Jacob exists because I got Donna pregnant in high school.
Nathan took a sip of his coffee, balanced the cup on his knees, and shifted gears. He cleared his throat and asked, “Jacob, can we talk a minute?”
The boy looked up warily. “About what? I’m not in trouble, am I?”
“No, of course not.” Nathan paused, studying his son. “Unless there’s something you’ve done I should know about.”
Jacob vigorously shook his head, a little too strong of a denial, but then wasn’t the time to get distracted.
Nathan focused on his task. “I want to talk about girls.”
“Ah, Dad.” Jacob’s face turned beet red as he jerked his head back toward the window. His left hand twisted the book-bag strap into knots.
“I saw you talking to Missy and Cora last Saturday. They’re cute.”
“Dad! You’re being stalker gross.”
“No, I don’t mean to me. I meant… you know what I meant.” Flustered, Nathan gripped the steering wheel until his fingers turned white. He breathe
d deeply and tried again. “I want, you know, well, girls will like you, and you will like them, and that’s cool and everything, and well, I want…”
Award-winning dad conversation. Donna was right. I have zero cool-dad points.
“Look, I want you to be careful and, you know…”
“Dad. We’ve had this talk, remember? I do. Besides, I learned all about rubbers and stuff in school.”
Shocked, Nathan pivoted and stared at the back of his son’s head. “You did? Have you, uh, you know, done anything?”
“God, no! I kissed Missy one day, which was weird and all, and she told everyone, which was weirder, but that’s it.”
Nathan struggled between wanting to laugh at his son’s stricken face and wanting to gasp because his son had kissed a girl. “You kissed Missy?”
“Yeah.” Jacob shrank down in his seat and crossed his arms. “I don’t wanna talk about this.”
Nathan sucked in a lungful of air, held it, and slowly exhaled. He willed his fingers to loosen on the steering wheel and flexed them. “Look, Jacob, a little secret, okay? It’s as weird for me to talk about this as it is for you. I know. I get it. But sometimes, the weird things… they’re also the important things. So as hard and weird as it is, we gotta do it anyway. Deal?”
Jacob looked at his dad for a moment, studying his face. Ever so slightly, he nodded agreement.
“Good.” Nathan breathed deeply. “Look, I made a lot of mistakes with girls. Somehow, I ended up getting it right with your mother because she’s awesome, you know?”
Jacob nodded.
“But even there, well, we should have waited longer.”
“For sex, you mean. Because you had me.”
“Yeah, for sex. Because we had you earlier than we should have. Don’t get me wrong, Champ. Having you is the greatest thing ever. I mean it. But we would have been able to give you so much more if we had waited a few years. Maybe we both would have gone to college and had jobs with more money. And then we could have given you all of the cool things like the latest Xbox games.”
“Xbox is okay, but baseball is cooler.”
