Okay for Now

by Gary D. Schmidt

  I won't tell you the sound that Mr. Barber made. It was something like the shriek an insane woman who has been locked in an attic for a great many years would make.

  ***

  My father hadn't said a word to me—or much to anyone—since I'd seen Ernie Eco wearing Joe Pepitone's jacket. He wouldn't even look at me during supper. Which was fine, just fine. My mother covered the silence with talk about orchids, and Lucas couldn't stop talking about his job if someone had threatened to bloody, bloody murder him if he said another word. "They call me Coach Swieteck," he said. "Can you believe that? Coach Swieteck."

  "Even if you can't shoot a free throw worth diddly?" said Christopher.

  "Seventy-five percent from the free-throw line," Coach Swieteck said, which is a stat that he was probably stretching really far. I mean, really far.

  "That's something you dreamed, you mean," said Christopher.

  "Chris, why don't you open your mouth, look up to the ceiling, and we'll see how many of these carrots I can make from here?"

  "Lucas," said my mother.

  "It's all right," said Christopher. "I'm not going to do it. He'd probably get them all in, just for spite. Isn't that right, Coach?"

  "Absolutely. "

  My mother started laughing. You know how good it is to see my mother laugh?

  My father left the table.

  My mother stopped laughing.

  Lucas began eating his carrots.

  Christopher held his fork still over his plate.

  "Isn't the orchid delicate in this light?" said my mother.

  June.

  A week before Christopher's hearing—which the Town of Marysville was taking its time setting up, probably to make him sweat—my father stopped eating supper with us. He'd fill a plate in the kitchen before we started and then go into the bedroom. He didn't come out afterward. So what? So what? No one cared. Except maybe my mother.

  None of us talked about the hearing. None of us talked about what might happen. None of us used the word jail. Would you?

  Except at the hospital. At the hospital, I could talk about it.

  "You know that your brother didn't break into the stores, right?" said Lil.

  I nodded.

  "You're sure?"

  "I'm sure."

  Lil looked at me kind of slantwise. "Then he didn't do it, and everything will be okay."

  "Thank you, Judge Spicer."

  "You're very welcome. So get out of your funk before I throw my bedpan at your head." Lil.

  But back at home, none of us talked about it.

  And meanwhile, I saw my father less and less. And whenever I did see him, he was sort of ... unstable. It's hard to say how exactly he looked like this. Maybe because of the way he stood, with his hands in his pockets, his eyes looking anywhere but at you, and bent over, like he was hurting.

  Until the day before the hearing, when he came home from work late. He opened the door—I was helping Lucas with his weights in the living room—and he came in.

  He was carrying Joe Pepitone's jacket.

  It looked about as heavy as Lucas's weights.

  My mother came out from the kitchen.

  My father handed Joe Pepitone's jacket to me, his eyes looking away.

  Then he went into the bedroom.

  My mother followed him.

  When they came out, they went into the kitchen and they put food on the table together, my father looking so out of place carrying a bowl of mashed potatoes. Then my mother sat down in her chair, and he sat down in his. And when my mother didn't speak, Lucas started to talk about this new drill he had come up with for dribbling around cones and then going to a lay-up. And my mother and father and all of us filled our plates with mashed potatoes and green beans and a pork chop each, and Lucas and Christopher and me, we started to eat. But my father sat in front of his full plate, and my mother sat in front of hers, and they didn't eat. Not a bite. And Lucas talking about dribbling, and my mother and father looking at their full plates.

  The whole meal, they never said a word.

  Everything was quiet—except for Lucas.

  Then someone knocked at the door.

  My father looked at my mother. And my mother looked at my father.

  "Could you answer that, Chris?" said my mother. And when Christopher got up to answer the door, my mother stood and walked over to his seat, sat down, and took my father's hand.

  Christopher came back in. Behind him, Mr. Daugherty. In uniform.

  "Evening, folks," he said. "Sorry to bother you at dinner."

  He seemed huge in the house. Or maybe it was his uniform that seemed huge. If he sat down in one of our kitchen chairs, he would probably have broken it into pieces, he was that huge.

  "Hello," said my mother, and stood up.

  "Hello, Mrs. Swieteck," said Mr. Daugherty, and he nodded his head. He looked at me. "The kids all say hello, Doug."

  "Tell them I said hi," I said.

  "I'll do that." He turned to Lucas. "I heard about the job, Coach."

  Can you guess what Lucas looked like when huge Mr. Daugherty called him Coach?

  Then Mr. Daugherty looked at my father, and nodded. "Mr. Swieteck," he said.

  My father nodded back. Looking at my mother. Never taking his eyes off my mother.

  Can you tell that not a single one of us knew what to say?

  My mother coughed a little bit. "Would you like a pork chop?" she asked.

  Can you tell that my mother really did not know what to say?

  "They look good, but I'd better not," said Mr. Daugherty. "I'm late for supper as it is, and you know what the missus will say if I can't eat a bite of what she's been cooking." He cleared his throat. Twice. "Christopher..." he said.

  "The hearing isn't till tomorrow," said Lucas. "You shouldn't—"

  "There isn't going to be any hearing," said Mr. Daugherty.

  There is no noise in space. Did you know that? If one of the Apollo 11 astronauts decides to go for a walk around the space capsule, he won't hear a thing. There's no sound at all—sort of like in our house for about the next minute.

  Then my father stood up. "Chris," he said, and stopped. Tried again. "Chris..."

  "We got an anonymous tip," said Mr. Daugherty. "We found all the stuff from the hardware store. Everything. And the guy confessed. To that, and to the break-in at Spicer's Deli last fall."

  My mother got up and stood close to my father.

  "The Marysville Police Department would like to apologize to you, Christopher," said Mr. Daugherty.

  "Chris..." said my father.

  "The tip was anonymous, and as far as the investigating officer—who is me—is concerned, the case is closed. There won't be any more charges."

  My mother took my father's hand again.

  "And I'm sure," said Mr. Daugherty, "I'm really very, very sure that the person who phoned in the tip knows now that getting involved with something like this could wreck a whole lot of people's lives—not only his."

  "I'm sure he does," said my mother. She went behind my father and put her arms around his chest. My father reached up and held on to her hands.

  "And I'm sure he has a terrific family and he never meant to hurt them. I'm sure he knows now that they're all he really needs."

  "He knows that too," said my father.

  Mr. Daugherty nodded. "I'm sorry again, Christopher. If there's ever anything I can do for you..."

  "Thanks," said Christopher.

  "See you Saturday, Doug."

  "See you then."

  He turned and was gone. And you know what? The house was bigger. I'm not lying. It was like he left his hugeness behind him, and we had more room.

  And you know what else? It wasn't The Dump anymore. It seemed ... I don't know. Maybe I'm just a chump.

  We all sat back down. We all looked at our cold mashed potatoes and cold pork chops. And we were all hungry. We started digging in like we hadn't eaten for a week. Christopher especially—and you can probably
figure out why. Everyone eating and laughing at how fast we were eating and eating even faster, mashed potatoes flying, Lucas belching, and Christopher belching, and me belching, and my father belching.

  My father, who sat back in his chair when there was no more food on the table, who looked around at us, and who said, "Isn't that orchid the most beautiful sight you ever saw?"

  I looked at my mother.

  That smile.

  That June smile.

  And then my father looked across at my mother. "I mean," he said, "the second most beautiful sight you ever saw."

  ***

  The next morning, Principal Peattie was waiting for me when I came into Washington Irving Junior High School. He told me to come by his office after Mr. Barber's class—Mr. McElroy already knew I'd be late for world history. "And you'd better not try to get out of this," he said.

  He was smiling when he said it.

  When I got to his office, I didn't have to wait a half hour, like usual. His door was propped open and he was standing beside it, waiting for me. Guess what was off his wall and leaning up against his desk. Just guess.

  But the first thing that Principal Peattie said was "I'm sorry. I was wrong. I was wrong about a great many things, and I'm sorry." He held out his hand. I took it, and we shook. Then he pointed to the Brown Pelican. "That's yours now," he said.

  I nodded.

  "I always thought he looked sort of..."

  "Noble," I said.

  "That's not the word I was thinking of, but now that you say it..." He considered the Brown Pelican. "Maybe so."

  "Definitely noble," I said.

  "If you want, I'll drive it over to the library," he said.

  "I'd like to take it myself," I said.

  He nodded. He studied the Brown Pelican for a long moment. "You know, Mr. Swieteck," he said, "I haven't told this to many students, but I'll tell it to you. I think that you're going to go wherever you want to go."

  That pelican. As sturdy as if all he had to do was watch the world.

  "Thanks," I said.

  "Now you'd better get on to Mr. McElroy's class. The bird will be waiting right here for you."

  I turned toward the door.

  "And Mr. Swieteck," Principal Peattie said.

  I looked back.

  "Thank you for what you did for Coach Reed."

  "I don't know—"

  "Principal Peattie thanks you," he said. "Now get on."

  I got on.

  Do you know what it feels like, leaving the principal's office knowing you're going to put a piece of something back, and the principal just said thanks?

  Do you know what it feels like when the principal has just told you that you're going to go wherever you want to go?

  Do you know what it feels like when you think you know just where you want to go and maybe you're already there?

  It feels like you're on Apollo 11, and the moon is in your sights.

  That's what it feels like.

  ***

  I brought the Brown Pelican to the library after the Saturday deliveries. I was a little late because Mrs. Mason had loaded me down with three hostas and five tall ferns "for your mother's perennial garden." When I told her she didn't have one, she said, "Oh, she will, dearie—it's June.

  Mr. Loeffler had the same idea. He loaded me down with three pots of sweet marjoram, which he said everyone needs in his or her garden.

  Even Mrs. Daugherty figured that my mother needed a perennial garden. She had dug up a bridal wreath as tall as Ben and wrapped it in burlap.

  And Mrs. Windermere. She had heard too, I guess. Five yellow rosebushes.

  You know how long it takes to wheel all that stuff back home?

  You know how happy my mother was?

  I'm not lying, she had the hostas, the ferns, and the sweet marjoram planted before I got back with the bridal wreath, and the bridal wreath planted before I got back with the roses.

  So I was late to the library.

  But Mr. Powell didn't care. Somehow he knew about the Brown Pelican. He had Birds of America open to the right place. We put it in together.

  "Just one more," Mr. Powell said.

  But I knew we'd never get it. An anonymous collector from overseas.

  I shook my head. "The book will always be missing one bird," I said.

  Mr. Powell shook his head. "Not exactly," he said.

  "How not exactly?" I said.

  That Saturday afternoon, I finished my Arctic Tern. He was beautiful. He was diving into the water because there was so much for him to find. The waves rolled all around him and were already starting to break, but he was going to be fine. He had so much to do. He had so much to see. He was going to go wherever he wanted to go. And he wasn't alone, you know. If you could see the picture like I saw it, there was a whole flock of Arctic terns all around him, all flying above the waves. And I'm not lying, they were a sight.

  And after I finished, Mr. Powell opened Birds of America again. He laid my painting in at the place where Audubon's tern was missing. "Nothing is ever perfect," he said. "But this comes pretty close."

  On the last day of school, Mr. Barber collected his Geography: The Story of the Worlds. He paused for a moment when I handed him mine. It was stained a dark brown. It still smelled of coffee. I think Mr. Barber wanted to cry.

  On the last day in world history, Mr. McElroy asked us to pass in our final map, which we could make of any place we wanted in the whole world. Do you know what my map was of ? Marysville.

  On the last day in English, we finished selections from Travels with Charley and I turned in my Travelogue assignment. Do you know what I did my Travelogue assignment on? Let's just say it started at Cape Kennedy and headed up into the sky. And by the way, if I ever do meet Percy Bysshe Shelley, I'm still going to punch him right in the face.

  On the last day in Advanced Algebra, Mrs. Verne told us that we had made great progress and that we were far in advance of most eighth-grade mathematicians in the state of New York. If we kept up our studies, we would all find next year's algebra Regents exams to be well within our abilities, and we would fare quite well against all the other algebra students in the great State of New York.

  Terrific.

  On the last day of physical science, we watched a filmstrip about the Project Mercury space missions—six manned flights from 1961 to 1963—and about the Project Gemini space missions after them—ten manned flights from 1965 to 1966. There was a ping before every frame, which was enough to make you wish we had never gone into space at all. But when it was finally over, Mr. Ferris turned on the lights and said, "Everything you have just seen is changing. With the flight of Apollo 11, scientific discovery is about to make a giant leap, and those leaps are going to come faster and faster." He held up his slide rule. "Someday, people will be buying these in antique shops, and they'll have tiny computers that they carry around with them"—which I think he probably meant as a joke, except he didn't laugh.

  On the last day of PE, Coach Swieteck made us run the mile and he gave everyone heck if they couldn't do it in under seven minutes and forty-three seconds. He told us that we'd better be running over the summer because they didn't fool around in high school PE. No sirree, buster.

  "How about you, Coach?" Otis Bottom hollered.

  Coach Swieteck wheeled around. "If you guys can't cross the line in under six minutes, you won't be able to touch me."

  "Is that a bet?"

  "Mr. Bottom, that is a bet."

  Now you know what Lucas will be doing all summer.

  There was only one more thing that needed to happen for June to be perfect—and it did. For a little while. The last week of the month, when everything was warm and green, when there were hawks gliding on the high breezes, Lil came home. On the first Saturday back, we went to the library together and I showed her the Arctic Tern in John James Audubon's Birds of America. She looked at it and started to cry.

  I told you what art can do to some people.

&nb
sp; June.

  But Lil was only home for a couple of weeks, and then she went to Middletown Community Hospital. I think she kept her eyes closed the whole way there.

  Mr. Spicer took me to see her the morning that Apollo 11 blasted off.

  You remember how Mr. Daugherty seemed so big in our house? You remember that? Lil's room was filled with huge machines, and they made the room tiny. There were pictures of birds on the walls, not even close to good. There were two windows, but they were small and so high up that you could only see the sky, and you could only see the sky if you angled your head just right.

  More tubes. Stuff dripping into the tubes. Into Lil.

  Lil with a kerchief on when I came in, which she pressed down, dragging her tubes up with her arms, pressing down the kerchief so that I couldn't see that she had no hair. Crying.

  I turned the television on and then lay down on the bed beside her—which took a lot of figuring out. And we watched Apollo 11 blast off to the moon. It was something. First, this flash of light leaps out everywhere, all this fire behind it. And then big clouds of smoke right behind the fire, and then slowly, like it is barely moving at all, this huge tower of a rocket starts to go up, and you can't believe it's really going up, but it is. And then it starts to tilt a little bit, and then it heads up with the fire beneath it, and up, and suddenly it's hurtling through the blue, flying faster than Audubon could ever imagine. And then it gets smaller, and smaller, and you hear people at Mission Control clapping, laughing—and you want to clap and laugh too.

  Which Lil and I did together.

  "It was beautiful," she said.

  I looked at her. "Beautiful," I said.

  We watched as the flickering light of the fire beneath the Saturn rocket—and I could tell you about the thermodynamics of the fuel if you want to know—we watched as the rocket moved farther and farther up into the sky, heading to the moon. To the moon!

  To the moon!

  I held Lil's hand.

  It was trembling a little. The needle.

  And when I looked at her, I could tell she was thinking of stats, even though they don't mean a thing.