The Way to Schenectady

by Richard Scrimger

  “You should believe in reincarnation so you can get a new life,” I said.

  Emma’s face worked a bit. I guess she wasn’t used to people fighting back. “Your hair reminds me of the sunset,” she spat. “Too bad it can’t sink below the horizon.”

  My hair again. At least she’d noticed it. “Funny. I was just thinking that your hair was like a winter’s day: short, dark, and dirty.”

  Bullies are all or nothing, like balloons. They look great when they’re complete, but once you prick them they disappear. Emma knew she couldn’t bully me, so she just stopped. She stood there staring at me, and I could see the angry spark in her eyes go out. She was still angry – but not at me anymore. It was the same with Greg, in grade three. I knocked him down, and then he got up and ran away across the school yard, hitting himself.

  I hadn’t liked that part of the confrontation with Greg, and I didn’t like it now with Emma. I’d had enough of the game. “Your personality, Emma, has all the charm of the common cold,” I said. “Unfortunately, it seems to be just as contagious.” I smiled. “I’m sorry for insulting you. Actually, your hair looks very pretty. And that’s a nice dress.”

  She didn’t say anything. I went on.

  “I’m sorry to hear about Mr. Oberdorf. I didn’t know him, but he sure sounds like a nice man. I know his brother, Martin. Have you tried these chocolate squares? They’re good.”

  She opened her mouth, but no insult came out of it. It was as if she’d forgotten how to speak nicely. She might have wanted to, but it was a foreign language.

  A man with a camera around his neck came up and whispered in Emma’s mom’s ear.

  “Okay,” she said to him. “Emma, darling, we have to go. There’s going to be a picture.”

  “It was nice to meet you,” I said. I waved again. “This time I do mean good-bye.”

  Emma followed her mother without another word. The brother hadn’t said anything the whole time. Before following his family, he leaned forward and put out his hand. Feeling a little ashamed of myself, I took it.

  Bernie was licking his fingers. “That was a mean girl,” he commented calmly.

  “Not as mean as Jane,” said Bill in admiration.

  We found Dad and Grandma with Henry. “They’re lining up the family for a group photograph,” said Henry. “Under the chandelier.”

  Emma and her brother and mom were at the end of the line. Not one of them was speaking. Myrna stood next to them. The very fat man was having trouble finding a place where he wouldn’t block someone’s line of sight. He hung on to a brownie like a life preserver.

  Henry shook his head sadly. “Poor Cousin Joe. Would you believe he was once a bodybuilder? Fifteen years ago he had a perfect physique.”

  “What happened to Cousin Joe?” asked Grandma.

  “They opened a Häagen-Dazs outlet a block over from where he lived. One night he went in and ordered a cone – macadamia nut.”

  My dad shook his head. “The old macadamia nut. A killer.”

  The photographer had everyone lined up now. He backed up a bit, twisted this way and that, and asked everyone to look at him. He didn’t ask them to say cheese – that was for weddings.

  The kid in the middle of the row was really upset. He wouldn’t look at the camera. Marie stood next to him. She was talking to him, and he was shaking his head. A shy kid, I thought.

  And then I caught a whiff of a familiar scent. Not Summer Nights.

  Mothballs.

  And Marie put her arm around the kid’s shoulder to turn him, and the photographer snapped the picture, and I opened my mouth and cried out, “Marty!”

  Not a shy kid at all. A small man overwhelmed by huge emotions. An older man, long estranged from his family, who had, it seemed, come home at last.

  18

  “Not Again!”

  Marty had been stuck behind Cousin Joe during the service, which explained why I hadn’t been able to see him. “I ran right into the big guy on the church steps,” he told us, “and he recognized me right away. Picked me up like a baby and carried me around to the side entrance. Big Joe. Imagine, I used to let him beat me at arm wrestling when he was a kid.”

  We were saying our good-byes in front of the church, under a sky that threatened but didn’t mean it yet, like your parents when you wake them up too early on Christmas morning. Marie and Myrna and Henry and Cousin Joe and a couple of other old people I didn’t know stood in a semicircle and waved at us. Marty was shaking everyone’s hands, one after the other.

  Did he look like he belonged? I couldn’t tell. Not entirely. His long-nailed fingers looked different from theirs. His clothes smelled different. His eyes seemed to go deeper inside his head than theirs did. His smile came and went. Mind you, one of the old men there had a sideways pointing chin like Marty’s, or Emma’s. An Oberdorf chin. Not often you see something as obvious as that. My friend Bridget claims to have her mom’s eyes, but I can’t see it at all. They’re bright blue, is all, just like a lot of people’s. Just like Barbie’s, I told her -but Bridget didn’t seem delighted to have a doll’s eyes.

  Did Marty look happy? I couldn’t tell that either.

  My hand got an extra-long squeeze. So did Grandma’s. Then he turned and went back to his family semicircle. Marie and Joe made room between them.

  Thick gray clouds were ganging up on the sun as we walked to the van. Bernie was sitting on Dad’s shoulders and holding my hand. Affectionate. “Marty’s fingernails are almost as long as Auntie Vera’s,” he said.

  “I suppose they are,” I said.

  “There are seven windows on one side of the church,” he said, “and seven on the other.”

  “Really? I didn’t notice,” I said.

  “Daddy’s and my shadow is bigger than yours,” he said. But then the clouds moved in, and the sun disappeared, taking our shadows with it.

  “Not anymore,” I said.

  The van was about halfway down the block. Not a bad parking spot, an hour and a half ago. Mind you, there hadn’t been a police officer standing in front of it then. There was now.

  “Not again!” said Dad. He dashed across the street, Bernie bouncing around on his head like a badly tied bonnet. “No!” he shouted. “Stop! Wait!”

  Did the police officer look up when Dad came running over? Did she stop writing? She did not.

  “Ham!” said Grandma. “What can we do?” She was upset that Dad was getting a ticket.

  She hadn’t cared yesterday.

  I looked at Grandma – an old woman, walking slowly. An idea bit me.

  “Limp,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Limp, Grandma. And lean on Bill and me.”

  “I can walk just fine – Oh.” She got it. She put out her hand. I grabbed it.

  “What a nice girl you are, Jane,” she said in a quavery voice, “to help your frail old Grandma.”

  I smiled. “And what a nice Grandma you are.”

  “I’m glad you’re with me, Jane.”

  “And I’m glad to be with you, Grandma.”

  Funny thing, we were both pretending; and at the same time we weren’t pretending. I wonder if there’s a word for that.

  “You know,” I said, not pretending at all, “I wouldn’t mind coming to visit you sometime. When we get back home.”

  She squeezed my hand. “You know,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind you coming to visit.”

  “I’m the only girl at our place,” I said. “Usually.”

  “Me, too,” she said.

  I thought back to the man with the hole in his heart, who pulled the baby from the inferno. You know, when the doctors examined him after the rescue, they couldn’t find anything wrong with him. The hole had just closed up. A miracle, the article said. Did I believe in miracles?

  “Come on, you idiot,” I whispered to Bill. “Take Grandma’s other arm.”

  We crossed the street three abreast, and very slowly.

  “Oh, there you are, Alexander. I
came as fast as I could.”

  She sounded so nice.

  “Come along, you dear little tots,” she said to us, trying to open the door of the van. I rushed to help her. Grandma leaned against the open door and breathed deeply. “I would have come sooner, but with my bad leg, I can’t walk as fast as I used to.” Her voice was quite faint.

  “What is wrong with Grandma?” whispered Bernie.

  “Nothing,” I whispered. “Nothing at all.”

  She addressed the policewoman. “I am sorry Alexander parked here in the NO PARKING zone. It’s my fault. We were invited to the memorial service at the church, and I can’t walk as far as I used to.”

  The policewoman cleared her throat. “Well, ma’am,” she began.

  “Alexander is my son-in-law. He’s taking me to visit my other daughter in Massachusetts. I haven’t seen her in … so long.” Grandma swallowed. “And what a journey it’s been. Children disappearing, misadventures in our hotel, breakdowns by the side of the road … I don’t know how much strength I have left. Oh, Jane, dear?” She swallowed again, and turned slowly, an expression of patience and long-suffering on her face.

  “Yes, Grandma,” I said.

  “Could you help your poor crippled grandmother into the van, honey?”

  I opened the sliding door and held out my arm.

  “Here, ma’am.” The policewoman stepped in front of me and helped Grandma into the van. “Allow me.”

  “Why, thank you, young lady,” said Grandma. “Thank you very much.”

  “My privilege,” said the policewoman.

  “Ah. That’s better. You have a mother yourself, don’t you, my dear,” said Grandma.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you’re very kind to her, aren’t you?”

  The policewoman blinked. “I will be,” she said. “I will be from now on. Listen, can I show you good folks the way back to the highway?”

  “Thank you,” said Dad.

  The policewoman took a city map out of her uniform pocket and marked the route in thick black pen. Dad started to thank her through the open window, and stopped when she handed him the ticket.

  “Oh,” said Dad.

  “Parking in a marked NO PARKING zone. Fifty-four dollars.”

  “Hey,” said Grandma.

  The policewoman shrugged. “Doing my job,” she said.

  “Very conscientious,” said Dad.

  “Have a nice day now,” said the policewoman.

  “I hope your mother’s proud of you!” muttered Grandma.

  19

  Whatever Moxie Was

  I was in the backseat with the map on my knee, folded to exactly the right place. Grandma was beside me; she said she enjoyed seeing the countryside from back there. I wondered if, maybe, she missed her companion of this morning; certainly the lingering scent of moth and Marty clung tenderly to our upholstery. Anyway, Bill was in the front seat beside Dad, asking if we were there yet every few minutes and, in between times, reliving his sojourn in the Land of the Dead Oberdorfs, as he called Schenectady. Bernie was in the middle seat, asleep.

  At the state line Dad followed the left-hand lane, which meant that the passenger-side window was next to the automated money collector. He gave some change to Bill and told him to deposit it.

  “Wilco!” Bill had to lean out the window and reach up to drop the money in the slot. The machine whirred and clicked, and then a mechanical voice said, “Thank you. Please deposit an additional seventy-five cents.”

  Bill’s eyes lit up like the buttons on the machine. “A talking tollbooth!” he whispered, and then, in a louder voice, “Certainly, Mr. Collector. Please stand by.”

  Dad was fumbling in his pocket for some more change. “Here you go,” he said.

  “This is Captain Billy Stardust, requesting permission to enter your territory!” Bill dropped the assortment of change into the slot. The machine whirred and clicked as before. Then the same mechanical voice said, “Thank you. Please deposit an additional seventy-five cents.”

  Dad had no more change. Grandma pulled out her purse and found three quarters. “Here, William,” she said, handing the money forward.

  He reached out the window. “We come in peace,” he said slowly. “We wish no harm to you or any of your citizens.” He dropped the money in, coin by coin.

  “Please deposit another seventy-five cents.”

  “The United States is the richest country in the world,” I said to Grandma.

  “And now we know how it got that way,” she replied.

  “I wonder what would happen if we just went ahead?” I said.

  There was no arm across the front of the van, like at a train crossing. Nothing to stop us from driving right past the booth, except the power of the polite mechanical voice. Dad put the car in gear. “Sorry,” said Bill to the machine as we pulled ahead, “but we’re out of money.”

  “Welcome to Massachusetts,” said the machine. “Please enjoy your stay.”

  A storm cloud was sailing beside us like a consort battleship when I checked my watch one last time – five ten. We’d be there in a few minutes. I was probably too late for a bath, but Mom and I would get to the restaurant and the show on time.

  The land rolled gently, fields on one side of the highway, and grass and white fence rails on the other. Up ahead, a dark and motionless figure caught my eye. Crooked, solitary, dressed in rags, he stood in the field of corn. One hand was raised. Was he asking us to stop? We didn’t stop.

  A crow flew out of the cornfield and landed clumsily on top of the figure’s head. I could see what it was now – a scarecrow. We drove by in silence.

  Bernie woke up, yawning. “Are we there yet?” he asked.

  “Soon,” said Dad.

  The highway wound its way up a hillside. Thunder rolled on the right. The sky was filled with gloomy menace. And then, from the middle of the dark cloud ahead, a ray of sunlight stabbed downward. We reached the top of the hill. For a second, the van was filled with golden light. A miracle.

  “Wow,” I said.

  Grandma smiled at me. “For a moment there the whole van was the same color as your hair, Jane.”

  Was she making fun of me? Evidently not.

  “It looks great,” she said. “Your hair, I mean. It’s a lot like you. Full of moxie.”

  Whatever moxie was. “It’s supposed to be chestnut,” I said. “But I’m thinking that, maybe, it’s not exactly right for me. My friend Bridget kept the purple dye -maybe we’ll try that when I get home. That one’s called Funky Twilight.”

  Now Grandma laughed. Not mean laughter. She actually sounded amused. “I want to see it,” she said. “I want to see you and your … funky twilight hair!” Her face fell apart as she laughed, wrinkles flying all over the place. “Whew,” she said, getting her breath back.

  “Gesundheit,” said Bernie, proudly.

  A raindrop hit the windshield and trickled down. Then two more. Then a lot.

  “Are we there yet?” asked Bill.

  “As a matter of fact,” said Dad, turning down a familiar driveway, “we are.”