Jack Adrift

by Jack Gantos

  “No,” I said, “nothing like that. Really. I’m very happy. I didn’t want to die, but I knew you couldn’t have a crush on me because you have one on the gym teacher. So I was settling for your pity.”

  She threw her arms up into the air. “No more pity!” she cried. “Stop it. Nothing could be more of a turnoff than pity.”

  “Oh,” I said. “How do you know?”

  “The gym teacher,” she said in a whisper. “He was supposed to be an NFL star and got hurt and all he wants now is pity, pity, pity. Well, I have no wish to be locked up like a pity princess in his pity palace. Yuck.”

  I smiled. That was good news.

  “So no more of this pity stuff,” she said. “Let’s just have a great relationship and a great year. Deal?”

  “Deal,” I said. I stuck out my hand and we shook. “Nice hand,” I said.

  “You’re weird,” she replied.

  Already it felt like a friendship.

  That night I wrote in my school journal about my life as I wished it would be—which I imagined was the life that Miss Noelle was already living. “I wish for the ability to always see the good things in life instead of all the bad things. This would make me happier than anything else I can think of.”

  Then, on a separate sheet of paper, I made a list of all the good, respectful things I had seen at First Flight Elementary. After that, I slept really well.

  Too well. I woke up late. I dressed quickly and was trotting along the sandy side of the road when Miss Noelle zipped by. She saw me and slammed on her brakes. “Hey, buddy,” she called out, “need a ride?”

  “Sure,” I said. I opened the car door, cleared about a million things off her front seat, and hopped in.

  “How’s the crush doing?” she asked.

  I looked over at her. Her long blond hair was wet and the wind was blowing it around. She was smiling and her eyes seemed full of the clever ideas she had been up thinking about all night. “I think the friendship part is beginning to take hold,” I said.

  “Great,” she replied. “I told you it would. Now, are you ready to read your life story as you wish it to be?”

  “Definitely,” I said.

  She parked the car and hustled off to the teacher’s workroom to copy some project material. “Meet you in class,” she hollered, like an old friend.

  But before I got to class Mrs. Nivlash pulled me aside with one of her strong hands and led me into her office. “What have you found out?” she asked. “I’m desperate to get all the dirt on everyone.”

  I may have told Miss Noelle the truth, but I was definitely going to keep telling Mrs. Nivlash what I thought she really needed to hear.

  “This is a great school,” I said. “I’ve always heard that behind every well-run school is a fantastic principal.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she groaned, and slapped her desk. A few papers fluttered off the edge. “Tell me what you know before you smell up the room with another load of bull.”

  She sounded exactly like my dad, and like him, I knew there was one thing that would wear her down. Niceness. After all, he had married my mom and she was the nicest person I knew.

  I gave her my list of all the kids who I had seen do something nice—kids who had stopped playground fights, who had helped teachers carry books, kids who had been kind to the senior-citizen volunteers, who had shared at lunch, who had helped younger kids with reading, who had picked up trash, who had taken turns—it was a long list.

  “This isn’t what I’m looking for,” she said, frowning. “I want the dirt. Not the nice stuff.”

  “But don’t you think that by pointing out the good things nice kids do, you’ll send a message through the whole school that nice kids are who you respect? And that bad kids are not what you are looking for all the time? Maybe bad kids will get the message and be like the good kids.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” she said. “But I find it more satisfying to catch the corrupt.”

  “And one final thing,” I said, “about the gum.” I pulled a piece of folded paper out of my pocket and passed it to her. I had written the gym teacher’s name on it. She opened it and read it, and looked at me with one eyebrow raised in suspicion, or maybe she had suspected him all along. “You didn’t hear it from me,” I whispered. I put the Respect Detective ID card on her desk, turned, and smiled as I headed for the door. As I walked down the hall I crammed two pieces of Dubble Bubble into my mouth, and by the time I stuck it to the gym teacher’s door I had chewed all the sugar out of it.

  That afternoon we were reading limericks when Mrs. Nivlash’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “I want to say how proud of everyone I am for behaving so respectfully this week …” Then she went on to praise the behavior of the kids who were nice, who were thoughtful, helpful, well mannered, polite, brave, honest, caring, and kind to others. And as she called out the names of the good kids, I looked around the classroom. I could tell that everyone was wishing their names would be called.

  Lucky Buddha

  One day after a few weeks of building new officers’ quarters for the Navy brass, Dad came home disgusted. Mom was grocery shopping with Pete and Betsy. When she was around he’d watch his tongue and house manners. But when she was out of the house Dad felt unleashed to say and do anything he wanted. He could curse, belch, and put his feet up on the coffee table with his sandy work boots still on. He could spit in the sink, pee without lifting the toilet seat, and wipe his hands on the back of his pants. And now that he had overheated and blown his fuse, I was the only one at home to hear him out.

  “You know,” he started up, flipping his dirty bucket cap toward the arm of the couch. He missed. It hit the floor and slid into the corner where it looked like a dog bowl. “The last time I was in the Navy I was a kid and it was a lot easier to take orders from the upper ranks. But I’m older now and my so-called superior officers are not looking so superior. They may outrank me, but they can’t outthink me.”

  I didn’t argue with him when he was down in the dumps. Instead, I took a page out of Mom’s book and said, “I’m sure you are a lot smarter than the ranking officers. They must be pretty dumb not to listen to you.” This was exactly what she would say. In spite of what she might think, Mom always knew what he wanted to hear.

  He yanked open the refrigerator and pulled out a can of beer. He popped it with an opener and a hissing geyser of suds shot up. Dad jumped back as if a snake had bitten him, then he leaned over the sink and blew the foam into the drain. “I wish Pete would stop shaking up the beer,” he barked. “That kid is turning into a menace.” He gave me a look as if I had taught Pete how to be a pain in his neck.

  Then his shoulders slumped and he got down on himself. “Maybe I’m not as smart as I think I am,” he muttered, and slurped up some of the foam. “You know why we are in this mess?” he asked.

  I didn’t think we were in a mess. I thought we were doing well. My new school was great. We lived in a camouflaged house trailer next to a swamp, our neighbors were fun, and just across the street was the beach. I loved it all, but I kept my mouth shut. It might have been a trick question.

  “Bad luck!” he said, answering for me. “Listen to this. Here’s how we went broke back home and why I had to rejoin this rub a dub dub outfit. I worked for a friend who said he wouldn’t let me down, and then he did. I built his bakery—advanced him all the materials and labor—and in the end he refused to pay. He stiffed me. Stabbed me in the back. When the bills came I couldn’t pay the suppliers and we had to go bankrupt.”

  “Can’t you sue him?” I asked.

  “We only made the deal on a handshake,” he said glumly. “Just my luck I got ruined by a friend, someone I trusted. See what I mean?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “like it’s just my bad luck that Betsy is my sister.”

  “Hey,” he said sharply, and pointed at me, “don’t knock your sister. She’s smarter than you’ll ever be.”

  I made a mental note to
shake up some more of his beer and blame it on Pete.

  “I need to turn this mess around,” he said. “I lost all my money. I’m losing my patience with the Navy, and my mind is next. After that, there won’t be much left of your old man. Seems like it all boils down to luck,” Dad said. “I work hard. I do my best. I keep my nose clean, and still I can’t get ahead. And I look over at the next guy who does nothing and has a roll of cash in his pocket big enough to choke a horse. Luck!” he said, as if he could grab it by the shoulders and give it a shake. “It’s about time you roll my way for a change.”

  “Do you lose sleep over this?” I asked, imitating a psychologist I had seen on TV responding to a patient’s complaint that he kept seeing little green gnomes in his rearview mirror.

  “The Navy is what I’m losing sleep over,” he said. “They’re driving me nuts because they figure it is their job to mold me into some kind of mindless swabbie. But it’s too late for me. I’ve already reached the Popeye stage of my life.”

  “What stage is that?” I asked.

  He grinned at me, then tapped on the side of his head. “I yam what I yam!” he said, and followed with that “ga-ga-ga-ga” Popeye chuckle.

  “What’s that mean?” I asked.

  “It means,” said Dad, “like Popeye I am a fully formed adult and am what I am. I’m not going to change anymore, so I don’t need to worry about being right or wrong all the time. Besides, being right or wrong has nothing to do with getting ahead in life. Luck is what a man needs to succeed, and now that I’ve reached the Popeye stage of life I’m ready to receive my share of luck.”

  He was losing me. I never thought Popeye was that lucky. Olive Oyl was always flirting with Brutus, and Sweet Pea was nothing more than a disaster magnet who gave Popeye heart attacks from trying to keep him out of harm’s way. I got Dad another beer, then retreated to my room before he opened it.

  When Mom came home from the store with Pete and Betsy, she put away some groceries then suddenly slipped through my doorway and shut the door behind her. I was busy feeding my tadpoles. I had caught about a hundred of them in the swamp and kept them lined up under my window in a row of glass jars I had picked out of the trash.

  “I have to hide something,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “Your dad’s birthday gift.”

  “What’d you get him?”

  “A surf-casting rod like he’s been wanting,” she said, smiling because she knew she had gotten him the perfect gift. She also knew that more than wanting one, he needed one. Every evening around sunset he’d gaze through the front screened door at the men on the beach with their twelve-foot-long rods. They’d lean way back and with both hands cast off overhead as if swatting a piñata, and I could see the glint of light off their silver spinners and almost hear the singing mosquito whine of the line as it unwound.

  “Did you see that one!” Dad would say excitedly. “I bet he launched that tackle a hundred yards. Boy, that was some cast.” At other times he’d call one of us over to watch as a guy reeled in a thick gray fish. “A shark,” he said knowingly. “Better to cut the line and lose the hook in its mouth than try to get it out. A shark will play possum on you. Just when you think it’s dead and reach down to remove the hook, it’ll take off your hand.” I stuck mine in my pockets.

  Some nights he took a beer and we walked across the street. Up and down the beach I could hear the fishermen warning the strollers, “Casting out!” followed by the swish of the rod slicing through the air and the whine of the line heading out to sea.

  “Don’t ever stand behind one of those guys when he’s casting,” Dad warned me. “If the hook catches you, it will sink clean to your bones—or worse.”

  I imagined a hook catching me in the nose and ripping it off. I’d have to wear a black patch across my gaping nose cavity like a pirate’s eye patch. On a good note, my pink nose would turn out to be the perfect bait to catch a prize-winning trophy fish.

  “Well, where is the rod?” I asked Mom. It couldn’t possibly fit in my tiny room.

  “I left it next door at Julian’s house,” she said. “They slipped it through a crack in their foundation for safekeeping.”

  “Let’s just keep it there,” I said. “It won’t fit in any room over here.”

  She frowned. I knew what she was thinking. She didn’t want Julian’s dad to use it first. We all lived so close together that sometimes things got shared as if we were all one big family. One morning Dad woke up and thought the car had been stolen but it was only Julian’s dad who had seen the keys in the ignition and had taken it. He belonged to a band called the Sea Beats and needed to haul his drum set to a dance club. At other times he’d start up our grill and cook hamburgers and hot dogs and never say thanks or offer us some. When he came to visit he always entered the house and took a few steps toward the refrigerator before hollering, “Hello? Anybody home?” I’m sure he hoped we were away so he could help himself.

  “Don’t worry,” I said to Mom. “I’ll keep an eye on the hiding place. Besides, Dad’s birthday is Saturday so it won’t be there long.”

  She reluctantly agreed. “And I want a theme for this birthday. I want you kids to get him anything related to fishing. You know, tackle and stuff. You probably know more than I do. I’ve never fished in my life.”

  I hadn’t done much fishing either. But I knew there was a bait-and-tackle shop in Nags Head and I was sure they could sell me something that would help cheer him up.

  “I think a birthday bash is just what Dad needs,” I said, recalling my earlier conversation with him. “I think he’s depressed.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “Anytime someone tells him what to do he goes into a decline. But he’ll pull out of it and the fishing rod will give him a way to blow off some steam.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, hoping she was right. Lately he was wound too tight, and that Popeye thing was weird.

  On Saturday we had the birthday party and Dad was in a great mood. Mom gave him the surf-casting rod and he about walked on the ceiling. Betsy gave him some silver spinners with triple clusters of glistening hooks. When I saw how menacing they were, I cupped my hand over my nose and took a few steps back. Pete got him a small cooler where he could keep a few cold beers. Once all the oohing and aahing died down, I pulled out my gift. “This is the icing on the cake,” I said, and handed it to him. “The universal missing piece.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about,” he said, as he opened the shoe box I had it wrapped in. He removed the Lucky Buddha. It was carved out of wood and looked like a very fat, very happy Chinese man with his arms raised over his head. The dark wood glowed with something like red shoe polish all over, except for his stomach, where, from constant rubbing, it was down to the raw wood.

  “You rub his belly,” I said excitedly, “and it will bring you luck.”

  I was going to get him some fishing tackle but next door to the bait shop was a used furniture and “whatnot” shop. I went in just to look around. I had nothing in mind. Then I saw a lucky horseshoe over the doorway and that reminded me of what Dad really wanted—good luck. The lady wouldn’t sell me the horseshoe, but she had something else “even better,” she said. That’s when she showed me the Buddha. “It’s very old and very wise,” she informed me in a hushed tone. “The ancients rubbed his belly for luck.” I was impressed.

  “How’d you come by it?” I asked.

  “Unclaimed luggage auction at the customs wharf,” she said. “I was lucky.”

  She sure was. It cost three dollars and I bought it. I also gave him a can of Popeye-brand spinach I found at the grocery store.

  Dad set the spinach aside and Mom gave me a screwy look as Dad tried his best to look pleased with the Buddha. “I know you wanted a fishing theme,” I said to her, “but really, this is better. I mean, what’s a fisherman without some luck?”

  Dad reached out and rubbed the statue’s belly. “O Buddha,” he said in a prayerful voi
ce. “God of good fortune, bring on the luck!”

  “Jack senior!” Mom said in a mock scolding voice. “Don’t be sacrilegious, especially since you haven’t been in a church all year.”

  This only got Dad going even more. He set the Buddha on the dining room table and knelt down on one knee. “O glorious and all-powerful Buddha,” he implored like old man Moses on the mountain, “look down on this poor birthday sailor and shower him with good fishing. For this, I beg.” He humbly lowered his head.

  We all laughed as if Dad’s act were a big joke. But deep inside I knew the Buddha was no joke. He was listening. And he would deliver.

  It wasn’t long before we had eaten our tuna melts and demolished the marlin-shaped cake. Once the paper plates and cups were tossed in the trash and the plastic forks washed, we all crossed the road and climbed over the dunes to watch Dad test out his fishing gear. We stood off to one side as he rigged the pole and got ready to cast. “One second!” I yelled. I had brought the Buddha. “Rub the belly,” I said, and held him out. Dad looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching. We were alone. He quickly rubbed the belly, then swung his rod all the way back over his shoulder and shouted, “Casting out!” and let it fly. The silver spinner arced into the air and the reel buzzed as the line unspooled. Finally we saw it hit with a splash. Dad grinned. “I love this!” he sang and did a little dance in the sand. “Love it!” Mom ventured over to his side and he gave her a hug and kiss.

  “See,” I said to Betsy, “the Buddha is working already.”

  “Are you a moron?” she asked. “They’re married. Of course they hug and kiss. Buddha has nothing to do with anything. Dad might as well have rubbed his beer can.”

  But I was certain the Buddha was silently working his magic. I believed in his power. And I was right.

  That evening Julian’s dad had gotten the other Seabees together for a birthday poker game. “Just nickel-and-dime stuff,” Dad had promised after stepping into the kitchen for a cold one. Before Dad left for the game I held up the Buddha. “Rub the belly,” I said.