by Jim Kokoris
“Can I go over there?” I asked, pointing toward the line of fifth graders forming near the door.
“Yes, that’s fine.”
I took my place behind Charlie, who allowed himself one brief glance at Maurice before resuming his usual position of staring straight ahead at the front door.
As soon as we got into class, Mrs. Plank, the principal, came in our room, rapped her knuckles on Miss Grace’s desk and said she had something to announce.
“For the next few weeks, Teddy and Tommy Pappas will be escorted to and from school by a private detective, so no one should be alarmed if they see Tommy and Teddy with a large black man.”
Everyone in class already knew this, as did pretty much everyone in Wilton.
“Does anyone have any questions?”
“Will that man protect me if I get kidnapped?”
“No one wants to kidnap you, Johnny,” Mrs. Plank said. Then I thought I heard her say, “Believe me,” very softly, but I wasn’t sure.
“Does he have a gun?” Johnny asked.
The question startled Mrs. Plank. “That’s not important,” she said, but I could tell that it suddenly was.
For my part, I enjoyed the attention that Maurice was generating on my behalf. I didn’t believe I was in any danger and saw his presence more in terms of status than safety. Maurice was finally evidence that we had won the lottery and while he was no substitute for the new cafeteria or swimming pool I had promised my classmates, he was a start. The drink-serving robot no longer seemed so far off.
Near the end of the day, Miss Grace walked over to my desk, bent down, and whispered.
“You have a lot on your mind, don’t you?”
At that exact moment, I had been reflecting about asking Charlie to make another picture of Miss Grace with a new photo I had found of her smiling.
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
“Well, we won’t let anything ever happen to you or your brother here at St. Pius,” she said. “Ever.”
I nodded. She smelled particularly fresh that day, like lemon and flowers and honey. I took a deep breath, and floated on her scent.
“That man your father hired sounds like a good idea.” She stood up and nodded her head slowly, looking at me in an intense way that I had never seen before. I swallowed hard. For a moment, I thought she might try to kidnap me.
“You’ve been through so much,” she finally said. Her eyes started to redden and in them I saw the first inklings of a sad haiku.
“But not as much as Ergu,” I said.
She wiped the bottom of her eyes with a finger. “I have something for you. I know you’ve been waiting for this for a long time.” She handed me an envelope with several foreign postmarks on it. I immediately knew it was from Ergu, my Christian pen pal.
“I thought I’d let you open it yourself,” she said. Then she touched me on the back of the head and walked back to her desk.
I opened the letter and was surprised to see that it was typewritten. I had been led to believe that most things in Ergu’s village were made of mud, twigs or stone. I read slowly.
Dear Mr. Tedde:
With happy heart We receive your letters and good news of your fortune. We are very poor here in Gabon. And do not eat much meat or milk. There is sickness as well. That is killing and hurting things greatly. It is sad.
We hope that You can please send money for medicine, food and tools for plowing. It is growing time now and we must plant.
I have nine brothers and six sisters. Our residence is small and has no television at all but two.
If you please, wire us some money, can it be $50,000? Send it to the number below, Switzerland. We will buy medicine and seeds and an ox.
I never been to USA but no it is a nice, strong Place where people are healthy and enjoy much success. I send you picture of my prideful family if you can send me money.
I love you. And God too.
E. Moosurlctd
Can it be more than $50,000? Please, thank you?
The letter confused me and ran somewhat contrary to my image of Ergu and his humble life. I thought it a bit forward to be asking for $50,000 which seemed like quite a bit of money. But before I could question Miss Grace, the bell rang so I folded it up and put it in my pocket.
ON THE WAY HOME from school, Maurice asked about my mother. “I understand that she died,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “When I was ten.”
We walked for a while in silence. An old yellow bus from the public school drove by, creaking and groaning as it stopped at the corner, then started up again. I put my hands in the pockets of my windbreaker. I really didn’t want to talk about my mother at that moment. I wanted to think about the strange letter from Ergu. I knew something wasn’t right and wanted to sort through things and come to some conclusions.
“My mother died last year too,” Maurice said. “When I was forty-eight. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you miss them all the same.”
I didn’t say anything as we crossed the street. The leaves on the trees were in full color now and soon would be falling in bunches. My mother used to rake the leaves and I wondered who would do it now.
“All this walking is going to keep me in good shape,” Maurice said as we turned down our block. “This is my third trip back and forth. I picked your brother up at noon and walked him home.”
“He only goes half days,” I said.
“He’s a funny little man. He makes me laugh.”
“Tommy makes you laugh? What was he wearing?” My first thought was that Tommy had been walking around the neighborhood in high heels and Aunt Bess’s bra.
“What’s that now?”
“Nothing.”
“He told me that he really misses his mother,” Maurice said.
“Tommy told you?” I was surprised. I had more or less forgotten that Tommy could speak.
“He’s a nice little boy,” Maurice said as we made our way up our walk. “A very nice little boy.”
My father was waiting for us on the front porch. Since it was a cool day, he was wearing his brown sweater with the pointed hood that made him look like an aging dwarf. It was an odd-fitting sweater that had some connection to his college days at Harvard. My mother had tried to throw it out many times, but my father had always managed to rescue it from the garbage or the Goodwill.
“Well,” he said, bowing his pointed head as we approached. “And how was everything today?”
“Fine, Mr. Pappas. A little cold though.”
“Cold? Oh, yes. But other than that?”
“Fine,” Maurice said. “Fine.”
My father looked relieved, then squinted his eyes as he scanned the street. “Nothing unusual?” he asked.
Maurice shook his head.
“Good then. Well.” My father rubbed his hands together. “Aunt Bess, our aunt, has made an early dinner and we were hoping you could join us, Mr. Jackson.” I was surprised by my father’s invitation but Maurice merely said, “Why, thank you,” and walked up the front steps.
While Maurice sat in the living room with my father, I went into the kitchen. Aunt Bess was quickly making her way around the cramped room, cutting vegetables and stirring steaming pots. The kitchen was hot and damp and smelled like thick soup.
“I don’t have enough food,” she whispered to Uncle Frank as he poured himself a glass of wine at the kitchen counter. “And I don’t know what he likes.”
“Well, don’t insult him and try to make ribs or anything,” Uncle Frank said.
“Ribs?” my aunt said, confused. “I’m making chicken. Is he expecting ribs?”
Dinner was an awkward affair. Maurice said very little and Uncle Frank, who usually did most of the talking when we ate, got a phone call and disappeared into my father’s study, leaving us without his booming voice to fill the room. My father ate nervously, clearing his throat and cutting his chicken into small, then smaller, and finally tiny pieces that he had trouble picking up with his fork.
“Mr. Jackson,” he said after some time. “I know you said that you were from Tennessee. Where in Tennessee, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Chattanooga,” Maurice said.
“Ah, yes, Lookout Mountain,” my father said.
Maurice looked up from his plate. “Excuse me?”
“Lookout Mountain. A great battle was fought there near Chattanooga. In the Civil War.”
Maurice digested this information, as well as some baked potato. Finally he said, “I fought in the Vietnam War.”
My father nodded his head. “Ah, yes, of course. A very interesting conflict.”
“Conflict?” Maurice asked quietly.
“Yes. Technically, it wasn’t a war. But—” my father stopped. Maurice was looking at him in a sad but stern way. “That’s just technically, of course,” my father continued. “I’m sure that it was very much a war to everyone who fought in it. Anyway, yes.”
We fell back into an uncomfortable silence, the sound of our forks and spoons against our plates small and loud. Upstairs, we could hear Uncle Frank’s muffled voice.
“So,” my father said. “Mr. Jackson, do you have family in Chicago, may I ask, or are they still in Chattanooga?”
Maurice looked up again from his plate. “I have a sister in St. Louis. That’s about all.”
My father looked at me and Tommy. “No children, then?”
“No, I never married,” Maurice said.
“Interesting,” my father said.
Maurice swallowed. “Why is that interesting?” he asked.
My father, who was sipping his water, started coughing. He was embarrassed by the question. “Well, it’s just. . .” He stopped there. “I don’t know why I said interesting. Actually, it’s really. . . not really interesting, it’s just. . .” He paused again and took a deep breath. “It was a poor word choice,” he finally said. “Yes.”
We all watched my father drink his glass of water with his eyes closed.
“I’m on this voyage alone,” Maurice said after some time.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry?” my father asked.
“I’m traveling through this life alone,” Maurice said. “Some people are meant to be married and some people aren’t. Some people are meant to be rich and some people poor. Some people happy, some sad. It’s the balance of life.”
I expected my father to start clearing his throat or drink more water in response to this strange comment, but instead he stopped cutting his chicken and looked over at Maurice. Then he nodded his head, once, as if he understood something I did not.
After Maurice left, Aunt Bess started speaking rapidly to my father in Greek so I couldn’t understand.
“I don’t understand you,” my father finally said as he helped clear the table. “I don’t know the language anymore. Please speak English.”
“I don’t think we need him here,” she said. “I don’t trust him. He might be a kidnapper himself.”
“I assure you, he’s not a kidnapper,” he said, stacking some plates on top of each other.
Aunt Bess piled some silverware onto a serving platter. “He has an evil air about him.” Then she turned and grabbed my father’s arm and looked at him earnestly. “I had a dream last night,” she said.
“A dream.” My father repeated this slowly.
“Of dark clouds. They were mewing fast. Toward us.”
My father looked down at her hand as she clutched his arm. Then he looked over at me, embarrassed. “Well, they said it might rain tomorrow.”
“That’s not what the dream was about,” she said.
“Well,” my father said as he gently broke free of her grasp and picked up the plates. “I thought dinner went well enough.”
“He’s evil,” Aunt Bess said again, walking back into the kitchen. “Nothing good will come of him being with us.”
THAT NIGHT, I LAY in bed and revised my List of Things. I had studied a map earlier in the day at school and concluded Montana’s distance from Wilton presented a logistical problem. My father was a terrible driver and I had little confidence in his ability to transport us safely to our ranch for summer vacations. The Dakotas seemed particularly ominous on the map and I imagined a number of catastrophes resulting from such a trip, all of them ending with my father, Tommy, and I wandering the Badlands, starving to death after our Ergu-ish attempts to locate edible roots failed.
A plane was then necessary. My father had a fear of flying and I believed a sturdy and reliable Cessna would help overcome this fear. I had recently seen a picture of just such a plane in the copy of Luxury Living! Uncle Frank had left on the scale in the bathroom. The plane would have leather seats, similar to Uncle Frank’s rented Lexus, each with a television set, small drink dispenser, and computer terminal. Each seat would also vibrate, offering a relaxing but invigorating massage. According to Luxury Living! such seats were available for $3,600 each, plus installation.
I fell asleep with my list in my hand but woke a few hours later to the sound of Uncle Frank. His voice sounded so clear and near that at first I thought he was in my room, and when I sat up in bed I instinctively asked, “What?” After a few moments, however, I realized that he was downstairs in the living room talking to my father. Actually, he was shouting.
“Don’t you think I know I’m a cliché?” he yelled. “Don’t you think if you saw my life in a movie everyone would think my character was a stereotype? I’ve made fourteen movies in thirty years, and twelve of them had the word ‘blood’ in the title. I’ve had three wives. How do you think that makes me feel? I’m a cliche. I know this. But I’m also flesh and blood. Flesh and blood. I make mistakes because I’m out there living a life, Theo, living a life. I didn’t give up like you.”
Though I could hear my father’s voice, I couldn’t make out the exact words. I crept out of bed and went halfway down the stairs.
“My God, Frank, exactly how much do you owe them?”
I couldn’t hear what Uncle Frank said.
“And they’ve threatened you?” I heard my father ask.
“I needed the money. I owed everyone. Other people have borrowed from them. I didn’t know they were so dangerous. I never would have done this if I did. I had to pay off so many people, I had no choice.”
“Do you think they’re following you? Or following the boys?”
“I don’t know.”
“This could explain things.”
“That’s why I’m telling you this now. I was going to pay them from what I made from this last movie, but distribution fell through. I’ve been on the phone all day.”
There was a silence and then I thought I heard my father say, “Dear God, Frankie, dear God.”
A FEW DAYS LATER, my father announced at breakfast that he had been asked by the St. Pius Mothers’ Club to contribute to the new furnace fund.
“Apparently, the existing furnace is more than sixty years old,” he said as he examined a piece of toast before taking a small bite.
“They asked you for the money?” Aunt Bess asked as she poured some orange juice into a pitcher. Aunt Bess never poured things directly out of bottles into glasses. Instead, she was forever pouring water, milk, and juice into other containers, then pouring them again into glasses, a habit that could turn a simple request for a drink into a very time-consuming affair.
“That’s some nerve. You’re not going to buy them one, are you?”
“Well, I asked for more information,” my father said, smiling tightly as he reached for his juice. “To be polite.”
“Why don’t you just give them ours and buy us a new one then?” Aunt Bess asked.
My father grimaced. “I don’t think that would be appropriate.”
“It seems like a crazy thing to buy,” Aunt Bess said as she moved slowly over to the refrigerator. “Why don’t you buy a new car, Theo?”
My father looked down at his glass.
“What about that old man’s house?” Aunt Bess asked. “Are you going t
o buy that? It’s the nicest one on the block and you need the space. He’s been calling. He wants to talk to you about it.”
“No,” my father said. “I have no plans to purchase Mr. Tuthill’s house.”
“Are you ever going to buy anything?” Aunt Bess asked, her voice suddenly rising. “You won all that money. All that money. You have to do something with it. It’s not right, Theo. It’s not . . . normal,” she sighed. Then she said something in Greek and turned to face him. “Use the money, Theo. Maybe the money can make you happy Maybe the money can help you find peace.”
My father sat there, stunned, holding his small orange juice glass. I knew from the look on his face that he was disappearing and that the conversation between him and Aunt Bess was over. I put on my windbreaker and walked outside and waited on the front porch for Maurice.
As soon as I got to school, I was summoned to see Mrs. Plank. I had never been to her office before and naturally was apprehensive. I imagined it to be a large, dark, and dusty place with obsolete machines like a telegraph or a sun dial in the corners. I assumed it would smell like formaldehyde or stale bread.
When I got to her office, I found her sitting behind her desk, talking on the phone. She waved for me to sit down in an old wooden chair.
My picture of her office had been fairly accurate. It was larger than I thought though, almost the size of our classroom, and had a low ceiling with an old fan that had just one blade. Against the wall, neatly arranged in a row, were several other wooden chairs. A brown couch sat in the corner next to a dusty bookcase that contained, I was sure, centuries-old books hand-copied by monks. It was the area behind her desk that drew and held my attention, though, for hanging there was a picture of Jesus Christ with very short hair.
I stared at the picture. It fascinated me in a morbid way. Jesus had a forgotten, lost, and searching expression on his face. His eyebrows rode up pensively on his forehead and his eyes were small, vacant Cheerios. If the words, “Jesus Christ, Our Lord,” hadn’t been inscribed on the bottom, I would have taken him for being anyone other than who he was.
“Pretty ugly, isn’t it?” Mrs. Plank said in her matter-of-fact way when she hung up the phone. “A nun in Mexico, Sister Maria, painted it and sent it to me. I went to school with her.” She turned and looked at the picture, shaking her head. “I had it at home for a while. I can’t bring myself to throw it out. I’m going to have to do something with it though. It’s upsetting people.”
