by Jack Gantos
“I’m tired, anyway,” he said, after I canceled. “I’m sluggish.”
“I have a cure for that. Whenever I’m sluggish, Mom always gives me prunes and warm water. I guarantee that in no time you’ll be on the run.”
“Really?”
“Cross my heart,” I said. “You’ll be running like a fiend.”
“Okay,” he replied. “I’ll try it.”
I put down the phone and headed for the garage. I got our rods, tackle boxes, net, and gaff hook, then loaded it all into the truck. I knew the routine.
When Dad arrived we drove to the St. Lawrence Gap, a stone jetty starting from the back of the St. Lawrence Hotel. It curved out into the ocean like a hundred-foot-long question mark. We carried our gear to the tip and got set up. The ocean was calm. The swells slowly brushed along the rocks and sighed as they broke across the sand.
“The first one to catch a fish gets to send the other guy to the bar to get drinks,” Dad said.
“Okay.” It was a fair deal. That’s what I liked about fishing. It put us on equal ground. You cast out your line and the fish don’t know the difference between a man and a boy.
Dad reared back and cast his chrome triple-hooked spinner. The line spun off the reel. Plop. It landed about fifty yards away. He let it sink down and slowly reeled it in with his thumb pressed against the spool of line to feel for bites. He was going for big bottom feeders like grouper and trigger fish.
I took a different approach. I opened my tackle box and attached a bobber to my line, then got my secret weapon, a dragonfly. I put it on the hook and gently cast it out so it floated about twenty feet from the rocks. I was after surface feeders, especially red snapper, which was my favorite. Together we stood there with our rods pressed against our bellies like two guys peeing off a dock.
Suddenly my bobber went under. I counted. One, two, three. I jerked back on the rod to set the hook, and reeled it in. The fish didn’t put up much of a fight, but it was the first one caught—a bluegill about the size of my hand.
“I won,” I hollered. “I’ll take a Lemon Squash.”
“You didn’t win,” he replied. “That’s not a fish. That’s bait.”
“You didn’t say how big it had to be. You just said it had to be a fish.”
“Well, you cheated,” he said. “Anyone can catch a fish like that. I could have just stuck the net in the water and caught one of those. Now you have to get the drinks.”
“No way,” I said. “I won. You haven’t caught anything yet.”
“Don’t argue with me,” he replied. “You cheated. Besides, I’m paying. Now fetch. I’ll take a Banks in the bottle. And tell the bartender your dad wants it ice-cold.”
I threw my fish back into the water and took the money from his hand. Bully, I thought to myself. There is no winning with someone who won’t play by the rules.
By the time I returned he had seen a few of his friends and waved them over. They sat down on the rocks to shoot the breeze and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
I recast my line and drank my soda. I should have talked Shiva into running, I thought. It would be a lot more fun than watching Dad and his pals talk. And then I remembered what I told him about the prunes. I hoped he didn’t take my advice. I was sure he knew better. Everyone knew what prunes could do to you.
The next morning Betsy and I were standing at the edge of the driveway. I looked up at Dad’s window. It was still broken.
“Don’t you get tired of being treated like a kid?” I asked.
She frowned. “Nobody treats me like a kid.”
“Well, don’t you hate it when adults say things like, Do as I say, don’t do as I do.”
“I just ignore them,” she said.
“Doesn’t it bug you that you never get a vote on where to live, what to eat, where to go to school, what clothes to buy?”
“What are you whining about?” she shot back. “You are always complaining about something. You are the last person I would want making decisions around here. If it wasn’t for Dad, you’d be living in a refrigerator box and raiding garbage cans for dinner.”
I could tell whose side she was on. I missed Pete already. He usually agreed with me. A month of Betsy and Dad and I’d be a nervous wreck.
We were standing at the edge of the driveway when a car raced up the street and aimed straight for us. It was a big old American car with a huge hood ornament, and as it got closer it looked like a charging rhinoceros. Betsy stood her ground, but I jumped behind a fence post as it hit the brakes and skidded to a stop.
“Get in,” squeaked a little voice.
The driver was a bug-eyed maniac. He was skinny, sat on a pillow, and scratched at a bald spot on his head that looked like a rug burn. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes and had a lead foot. Betsy took the front seat and sneered at him. I climbed in the back with two boys who must have been brothers, about my age and Pete’s. They were pale, sweaty, and terrified. We took off with a lurch and peeled rubber up to the corner, where he took the right-hand turn without slowing to look. The car tilted like a canoe about to flip over. I tumbled across the seat and crunched into the two boys. They both grabbed their crotches and moaned.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. The car straightened out and we raced a taxi to the red light, where we came to a screeching stop. The three of us bounced off the back of the front seat and fell to the floor. When I pulled myself up I was thrown back as the light turned green and our driver floored it. Betsy had her shoes propped against the dashboard and her right hand gripped the overhead strap. Her left hand was pressed against the side of the maniac’s face, so he could only see with one eye. “Slow down!” she yelled.
He laughed and speeded up, then jerked his head out the window to get a better view. The engine roared as he pulled out to pass a line of slower cars and bicycles.
I glanced at the two boys.
“Okay,” the older one said to the younger. “Now’s your chance. We’re on a straight stretch.”
The speedometer needle was up to seventy-five and we were passing everything on the road. If anyone pulled out in front of us we’d be dead meat.
When I turned back toward the boys, I was shocked. They both had their pants down and were pulling plastic bags of pee off their private parts. The bags had been held on with rubber bands. The older brother, who was next to the door, threw his out the window. He then reached for his brother’s full bag. It was a delicate operation made even more difficult because the bag was so full. Before he could swing it out the window, we hit a curve at seventy and the three of us were pressed against his door with my face about an inch away from the dripping pee bag. In an instant we straightened up and he tossed the bag out the window before we took a curve on my side.
When we straightened out again, the younger one attached a fresh pee bag to his privates and yanked his pants back up. I looked at the older brother.
“He scares us so much we wet our pants,” he shouted over the blast of air which was screaming through the open windows. “This is all we can do to stop it.”
Just then the maniac hit the brakes and we went into a sideways skid down a dirt road. We came out of the fishtail and quickly pulled into a driveway. Overhead was a sign which read ARAWAK SUMMER CAMP.
We came to a stop inches from another car and scared the passengers into ducking down. The two boys hopped out. “See you later,” I said, as we spun out in a cloud of dust and flying gravel. Up the road we pulled into another driveway. PRESENTATION YOUTH COLLEGE read the sign.
As soon as we came to a stop, Betsy reached across the dashboard and pulled the keys out of the ignition. She jumped out of her side and threw them into a field of grass.
“Hey! You can’t do that,” the maniac squealed. He sounded like an angry Chihuahua.
Betsy raised her fist to his chin. “I just did it,” she growled. “So what are you going to do about it, you little runt?”
He turned and ran into the field. He dropped down onto his
knees and scratched up the ground.
“Coward,” she hollered. “It’s not nice to scare kids.”
“That goes double for me,” I yelled.
Betsy turned around and gave me the evil eye. “Oh, shut up,” she carped. “You sound tough now, but all you did was bounce around back there like a bowl of yellow Jell-O.”
She was right. I hadn’t lifted a finger to help out.
“What could I have done?” I asked.
“You should have covered his eyes with your hands.”
I imagined just how helpful that would have been. We went inside and found our class assignments, which were listed according to grades. There were half a dozen other kids about my age scattered throughout my room. They weren’t Americans, so I figured other countries were also dishing out crummy educations.
I took a seat next to the window so I could daydream. Suddenly a very stubby, thick man marched into the room.
“Rise and stand quiet,” he ordered.
We all stood.
He set his briefcase down on the desk. “My name is Mr. Cucumber,” he said as though he were angry about it. “I’ve been teaching for ten years. During that time I have expelled ten students. Do you know why?”
I did, but didn’t dare answer.
“The first person to make fun of my name will repeat sixth grade … No ifs, ands, or buts. Period. You all understand?” We nodded mutely.
“Sit!” he ordered. We dropped down like sandbags.
He sat behind his desk, leaned back, and folded his hands behind his huge bald head. “Today is your last chance for a summer free from school. In my briefcase …” He tapped it with a long wooden pointer. Tap. Tap. Tap. “ … I have exams that will measure your knowledge of English, mathematics, world history, and science. If you pass all four subjects, you don’t come back until September. If you fail even one, you have me five days a week for six weeks in a row until I mash some knowledge into your empty brains.”
I could not think of one fact I knew for sure about any of those subjects. I peeked at the other students. They looked as sweaty and empty-headed as me.
Mr. Cucumber stood, removed the tests, and placed one face-down on each of our desks. “You will have an hour per section,” he explained, and checked his watch. “The first section is math. Go.”
I turned over my exam. I was sunk right away. I didn’t even get a chance to have some tiny bit of false hope. The first problem was in meters, kilometers, decimeters, grams, and liters. I skipped that problem and leafed through the entire section. It was not multiple choice. I knew right away what I’d be doing for the next six weeks. My head drooped over like a hanged man’s. I asked myself, How many meters of rope does it take to make a noose?
I did all the math I could, then quit. When the hour was up, we had a ten-minute break. I ran to find Betsy.
She was at the water fountain. When she saw me she asked, “How many grams in an ounce?”
I threw up my hands.
“Looks like I’ll have the house to myself while Mom’s away,” she said with supreme confidence.
“Hey, just wait till you get to science,” I said as snottily as I could.
“Already did it,” she sang. “I skipped ahead.”
I felt like an idiot.
At the end of the day the tests were graded before we went home. No one in my group passed.
“If you study, study, study,” said Mr. Cucumber when he called me to his desk, “you might make it.”
I felt doomed.
“One final question,” he asked before I left. “Is a cucumber a vegetable or a tuber or a berry?”
This had to be a trick question. I always thought it was a vegetable. “A tuber,” I guessed.
“It’s going to be a long summer,” he replied and grinned like a rottweiler. He did not look like a vegetarian. He was definitely a meat eater.
When I went outside, Betsy was surrounded by other girls her age. They listened to every word she said. I thought they were going to drop down and kiss her feet.
I squeezed in between her fans. “Guess what,” she said to me and flicked her hair back to look more glamorous. “I did so well I get to skip a grade. And you?”
I had to turn things around. I was going downhill fast. Dad was kicking my butt. Mr. Cucumber was a fiend. Betsy was an instant success at everything. And I was a loser. I really missed Pete. It was his job to be on the bottom of the barrel. Now the entire barrel was sitting on me. I couldn’t get any lower.
“Don’t wait for me,” Betsy said as I dropped my head in shame. “I have a different ride home.”
Great, I thought, as I walked around front. Leave me with the maniac. The way he drives, they’ll soon be hosing my face off the front grille of a tractor-trailer.
When the midget turned into the driveway he headed for me like a locomotive that had jumped track. The two boys were already bouncing around in the rear like loose packages.
I took the backseat with them and we blasted down the driveway and ran a car off the road when we made our first turn. He hit the gas and I thought of covering his eyes with my hands but didn’t.
Coward, I said to myself. Wimp. Chicken. Yellow-bellied sapsucker! Betsy is more of a man than you are.
We took a turn and nearly hit a goat. After another dozen killer turns we got to the straightaway. The boys desperately yanked down their pants and pulled off their pee bags.
“Give me that,” I said and grabbed the dripping bag out of the younger boy’s hands. I leaned forward and poured it over the maniac’s head. He sputtered and turned around. I was waiting for him with the second bag. Splash! I got him right in the face. He hit the brakes and reached for me. We skidded across the road, hit the curb, bounced up, and slammed into a chain-link fence. It stopped the car like a big steel net. The maniac screamed and hit the floor.
We bounced off the seat. “Come on, boys,” I said. “Follow me.” We crawled out the window as a crowd gathered. I flagged down a cab. “Get in,” I said. They did, and we got stuck in traffic and inched our way down the road along with the other cars, donkeys, goats, and bicycles. The boys just stared at me as if I were the maniac. Ingrates, I thought to myself.
When the taxi dropped me off in front of the house, I paid the driver with money Mom had left me, then swaggered up the front steps like a big man. Don’t mess with me! I growled and pounded my chest. I’ll pour pee on your head.
It was Sunday. With Mom gone, Dad worked seven days a week. This morning, he was running late and was trotting around his truck. A pipe was sticking out of the overhead rack. It was head-high and just a little bit longer than the truck bed. Each time Dad ran around the truck, getting tools, moving equipment, checking supplies, he ducked under the pipe. He did it without looking, as if it was something he had practiced.
I stood in the kitchen window eating toast and beamed telepathic thoughts at him. As he headed for the pipe, I thought, Duck. He ducked. As he came back around, I thought, Duck. He ducked. Suddenly he snapped his fingers and doubled back to get something he remembered. Don’t duck, I thought.
Bonk! He hit the pipe and his feet went straight out beneath him and he landed flat on his back. I ran down the stairs and knelt over him. I slapped his cheeks back and forth. Not so hard, I warned myself, he might come to in a bad mood. He was breathing but he was out cold. A huge lump popped up on his forehead like in a cartoon. I ran into the house to get some ice. When I came out, he was sitting up with his chin on his knees. He saw me and grinned.
“Wow,” he whistled and shook it off. “That was some sucker punch you hit me with.”
“That wasn’t me,” I said, but I felt guilty for thinking, Don’t duck.
“No kidding,” he replied and hopped up onto his feet, then wiped the dirt off his pants. “You’d have to hit me a hell of a lot harder than that to get rid of your old man.”
He examined himself in the side mirror and combed his hair. He removed his handkerchief and wiped a smudge off hi
s lump.
“See you later,” he said, ducking under the pipe and opening the driver’s side door. “Don’t forget to give BoBo II a flea bath. He smells.”
He pulled away and I strolled around to the front yard. BoBo II wasn’t under the shade tree. “BoBo the Second!” I yelled down the street.
I heard him barking over by Hal Hunt’s garage. I walked over there. Hal had BoBo II trapped in a corner and was throwing bullets at him. He had a box of shells in his hand, and every time he threw one, he jumped up into the air as if the bullet were going to fire and he could skip over it. “Dumb smelly dog,” Hal shouted and threw another bullet. BoBo II looked puzzled. He needed a nap. He was only good for about an hour of energy each day, and his time had expired.
“Hey, what are you doing?” I hollered.
He whipped around and raised his arm over his head. “Watch it, Henry,” he growled. “I’ve got a bullet in my hand.”
“You watch it,” I growled back. “With the power of my mind, I can make that bullet explode between your fingers.” I squinted and touched my fingertips to my forehead. I stared at the bullet and concentrated.
Hal looked at me. I could tell that he wasn’t certain if I was bluffing. I wasn’t sure either. But I had just knocked Dad cold, so I figured I could set off a bullet. I narrowed my eyes and concentrated so hard I moaned. My muscles knotted up and I began to tremble.
Suddenly he twisted away from my paralyzing mental grip and threw the bullet into the bushes. “You must be a devil,” he cried out and stared into his hand.
“Don’t mess with me,” I said, lowering my hands. “I know where you live and my power is strong enough to cross the street. I can just look at your house and make pictures fall off the walls.” Then I turned to BoBo II. “Come on, smelly,” I said. He followed dutifully.
When Dad came home, Betsy and I sat down to dinner. Marlene served fried chicken, white rice, and spinach. When she left the room, Dad said, “This food is too bland.” He got up and went into the kitchen and returned with a bowl of tiny red peppers. “This will fix it up,” he said. He put a pepper on his plate and passed me the bowl. “Try one.”
